These matches confirmed what I already knew about KOF98UM: - Krauser is _far_ from dominant. - The balance is _much_ better than in KOF98. KOF98UM, LB2 & MOTW are the finest competitive fighters ever made. All three have fantastic presentations, aren't too technical, and demonstrate true diversity with regard to playstyle (take that, 3rd Strike).
@forestsavior
9 жыл бұрын
Joseph Kerr To be honest, as a fan of both 98 vanilla and UM, I think the balance in 98UM is better on the whole. 98 vanilla is a very basic, normal-intensive game. This is not necessarily a bad thing (I like these kinds of games), but since the core of 98 vanilla is so heavily rooted in poking and zoning with normals, some characters are REALLY created more equal than others in vanilla. Generally in order to be a good character in 98, you have to have at least two of the three following elements: - Really long-ranged and/or fast normals to dominate neutral with - Instant command grab, with which you both beat normal guard and punish badly spaced/timed jump pokes. If not, unbreakable normal grab (Joe knee bash, Chang garrote, Goro chokeout, Heavy D's gut punches, hell, even Lucky's knees) can be a runner-up. Limited defensive use compared to an instant grab, but a good offensive tool. - Good and/or easy low hit-confirm, to beat alternate guard and force a hard choice between repeated tick grabs/naked grabs and taking almost as much (or MORE, what up O. Chris) from getting c.B'ed out of your silly wiggling So the top tier in 98 tends to be fairly homogenous -- mostly the better grapplers in the game (poor Shermie should have traded her crappy spin kick for an instant Spiral or something), with a handful of non-grapplers with great normals and low hit-confirms (Kyo, Chris, Iori), plus one kinda-weird example with Chizuru. (Her normals are good but not fantastic, but she makes up for that with really good rush punch zoning and the incredible utility of her seal super, plus clone super setups.) And then you have Iori who has all THREE of the above elements and is basically the best character in the game. 98Um does a couple silly things like buff the Extra gauge to the point where it's the new "preferred" gauge like Advanced was in vanilla (QMax + easy charging + red life supers), but it has enough positive side effects on character balance that I don't think this is an awful thing to accept. The top tier nerfs all make sense and don't lobotomize anybody a la 2I->3S Sean. The worst characters from vanilla (Rugal, Lucky, Brian motherfuckin' Battler) get buffed almost beyond recognition. (Top-tier Brian Battler...I can't believe those words left my Internet mouth.) The new characters are all really fun (EX Mai quite possibly the best Mai ever -- EVERY version of Mai should have Gen'ei Shiranui), and even the new top tier they introduce are far from unbeatable (Krauser, as you observed...same deal with the Geeses, I forget who else was good in pre-Final 98UM besides Iori). There's clear personal-preference choice in many cases between dash and run, too, even though you can't do air command normals out of forward dash anymore. The walk speed buff can be immense with characters like Krauser who already zone so well. You see a LOT more characters or all different types represented in high-level 98UM play (particularly Final Edition) than you do in vanilla. But I enjoy both games and I don't wanna dump on vanilla too hard. I just find it kinda silly that some people would want to present 98 vanilla as objectively the better competitive game.
@forestsavior
9 жыл бұрын
Joseph Kerr You're also right about 98 and 98UM not being terribly technical. One of the biggest misconceptions about those games is that you need to be an execution god in order to play them even at mid-level. Anyone who's ever played vanilla Daimon for more than 5 minutes will quickly see that's not the case, lol. Specifically, in order to do well in competitive 98/98 UM, you need to worry far less about doing super-hard hit-confirms a la Daimon c.A df+C xx super, and way more about just learning how to poke and zone properly with normals, as well as basic conditioning to beat regular guard and alternate guard. If your character has dirty setups like O. Yashiro throw resets or the Chrises, you learn those too. For combos, you need some kinda basic hit-confirm from c.B (unless you picked, like, Ralf and can only get c.B > backbreaker, in which case I guess you just learn that) and a power-punish combo from jump-ins or close fierces on really big misses (which hopefully you should get good enough to create with good use of roll/dodge, safe jumps, empty hop, etc). So long as you can get and hold the life lead/good positioning without losing a ton of damage from botched confirms, your combos don't all have to be classics. And with many characters, you don't even need to combo into super that much, particularly not in vanilla, where with few exceptions, your meter is generally better saved towards guard cancel CD/roll to get out of bad situations since damage is so high already and big openings can be really hard to create (due to aforementioned strong normal zoning). If your character has a good anti-air super like Iori or Takuma, you might use meter there, but most of your combos probably ought to be meterless unless your combo would kill (or you picked Chizuru and you want to use seal super to take wakeup DPs/supers off the table, or you want to fish for damage with a clone super setup). The only kinda hard things about 98 execution that you actually need at a basic level to survive vs good players are (a) wakeup roll, which you can't mash, you gotta time it, and (b) just special-cancelling things really fast. Go into training mode and practice stuff like close C xx hcb,f+button grabs until they become second-nature.
@josephkerr7820
9 жыл бұрын
forestsavior I still prefer Advanced Mode myself, but that might change as I play the game more. I used to play KOF all the time but now I barely have time anymore.
@josephkerr7820
9 жыл бұрын
forestsavior What do you think about 2k2UM? I sort of lost interest in the KOF series after 98 so I can't say I've spent much time with 2k2UM but it did seem needlessly technical. If you've played it you might have a different opinion. What are your thoughts?
@forestsavior
9 жыл бұрын
The awkward interface of old MAX mode activate > dash up normal links has been in since original 2k2, so only comment on that is that I don't like it. To be honest, besides how awkward it is to cleanly combo in such a way, I don't have GIGANTIC problems with 2k2-style MAX combos. I actually kinda like that doing MAX cancels depletes the gauge a lot faster than HD combos in KOF XIII, which has much easier execution, but the combos can get ridiculously long. (I don't have many other complaints about 13, though. I liked the HD cancel mechanic and the dynamic of using one resource [Drive or regular meter] to build another in combos.) I haven't played either vanilla or 2k2UM particularly seriously, so my personal preference is that I don't like the feel of jump-ins in 2k2UM, but I can't really speak with authority to the balance of that game. I watch match videos from a-cho and the like occasionally, but I don't follow that game nearly as closely as I do 98/98UM. Some of the top tier in the game do seem kinda cheesy, though. (King and Kasumi have some pretty dumb frame data from what I remember...it's been a while since I tested, but I think 2k2UM Kasumi's c.D was actually PLUS on block?)
wow! could some one tells my the Red Team player's name please? (characters: Yamazaki, Heavy D and Daimon). I love his play and he is so skillful, gosh ! i think he is the best overall even though he lost in the final game! I need the name to find out more videos of him, thanks!
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