LockedAndClush

If you look at how characters are placed on the new selection screen and the AC one, you'll see that they are all opposite the same ones (Ky/Sol, Johnny/May, Millia/Zato etc.), and on the opposite end of Faust there's a "random but probably will be a character" slot.

Technically if you have meter and gold IK mode available, if you reject you have more than enough time to get into IK mode and hit. Only thing is that it's rejectable back. It's a free win if they don't have meter tho.

You can currently reject Instant Kills, I don't think they'd change that. Actually I like the idea posted before of a hit after rejecting being a mortal counter.

Probably will work like Gold IK activation - if you Blitz reject when enemy is low on health you activate IK mode or what? Liking the new character select design. There's space for two more characters, quite obviously.

I'm all for further worldbuilding using playable characters, and that's what Jack-O' is so far. Adding just old characters would be somewhat of an easy way out. Even from a business standpoint, I'd imagine Arc prefers to just keep them in the back of their pockets to be able to tell in future updates "Yeah, this is a new update with this crazy new character you might like or not... but hey, here's X, you all missed them, right? Buy our stuff." Maybe they should have revealed Jack-O' first and Johnny second?

Looks fine. I can't get over how we all thought this thing in her hand was a glove or something... I'm curious of these button marked things on the bottom right screenshot. Probably her unique gameplay mechanic will have something to do with controlling the screen (Rachel much?).

The lack of balance changes seems good, I guess they'll just have to tweak Johnny and Jack-o' a little while after release. I'm hoping that the new name is just a marketing trick to make the game appear fresher than it'll actually be and it will just be a DLC on consoles after max 3 months or something.

Damn, that sounds so... underwhelming.

So I had this random thought about our mysterious newcomer this morning... [collapse=] [/collapse] Notice the round object in the background (like the "ball" at the bottom of the art), the speaker-like thing to the right (kinda reminds me of this "halo" over her head, albeit it's not flat, but hey, we're all wildly speculating here), the hair fits, the only thing that would shoot this theory down totally would be this "sock puppet" like thing on the hands, not to be found here. Or perhaps it's just Daisuke effin' with us, IIRC he often creates designs that appear on official releases, but were never in the games in any way.

Are you suggesting Johnny has Anji on vinyl or... what? If Johnny has anything to do with vinyl, I'm gonna have a lot to with Johnny. I went so hype when I found out Sol has a portable turntable and an LP pressing of Sheer Heart Attack, like a kid.

Looking at story mode models, there's not much of this "imperfect bones moving" that was mentioned in the artstyle talk. Story mode models are, for the most part, static. Even when action happens, it's noticeably less dynamic than actual gameplay (it actually looks 3D for the most part). I guess that they have to rework the rig for Johnny to include more movable points, to create this "real 2D sprite" feel. Also, considering all animations are 100% handmade key frames, this is a lot of work even if the model would be ready. I'm glad 1.1 stays (for the most part). It gets my hopes up for Johnny and the new character potentially being just a DLC addon released quite soon after arcades. Better not get to excited though...

Here's hoping it's: - available soon - reasonably priced DLC - also on PS3

Dustloop gettin' active when it's time to speculate cuz they can't get good when the game is out. *obligatory internet irony indicator*

I'm speaking more relative to the 1.1 arcade and 1.05 console release. I like when games have time to mature their meta before they get balanced. At this point I feel like 2-4 more months (before even loktesting something new) for 1.1 would make the follow-up feel more justified and, perhaps more importantly, would allow ASW to balance it better.

That's probably going to be a whole new version. Balance changes, new mechanics (potentially?) and all that included. I'm really hoping the go the Continuum Shift II route with this, but that was many years ago and they haven't done anything like that since...

I kinda feel it's a little too soon for that, but whatever, it's their game. That's the life of an ASW fan and we all knew what we SIGNed up for (get it... get it... yeah, bad puns). It's pretty much a guaranteed full release at this point. If so, I hope they add at least four characters (ha... looking at CPEX these two might be all we get). In the end, the only thing I'm really worried about is that this one might not end up on PS3 like SIGN did.

It's ridiculous how they used the single most outdated trailer there is (with visuals and even mechanics that are not in the game!) and didn't even bother to remove "in development" at the end... half-assed much? Also, this late and for this price, the release should at least include Elphelt and Leo for free (like, permanently, not a time limited deal), if not all DLC. I really wish all the best to Arc's EU release schedule and all, but I already bought Xrd and plenty of DLC when it first came out - an expensive digital-only release of a half-year old game is not the way to go.

Any character that utilizes projectiles (or projectile property moves like Eddie and things like that) for pressure and okizeme has to consider the rejection possibility now. I rarely see projectile rejections done on me, but I had some good times using them against opponents (even more so now that reversal BS is much easier). It certainly makes thinking about approaches by YRC'ing a slow projectile (Gunflame, CSE etc.) a little more important, I always get free rejections on people just running into me with this stuff on top of them. I only thought about it yesterday, but I'm curious what happens when Faust's items are BS'ed. Would he get rejected for BSing a bomb or hammer if he's close enough? This could lead to some hilarious moments.

The game is localized, so they have nothing to screw up, really. Not that it's impossible because of that... If they release a cool collectors edition of Xrd in Europe, I might buy. Otherwise, I see no reason, and I think most people who already own the JP /US release will feel the same.

You must include a microdash after falling j.D and before j.K for this to work. You don't need to run for long, it'll be enough if you just input 669 very quickly.

The combos in the fist post are most likely not yet updated for 1.1 changes, and with Fafnir and 6HS damage increased, some numbers would likely change. Most high damage corner combos I saw since 1.1 released involve either Fafnir > Bandit Bringer (on the characters it works on) or Fafnir > c.S > 6P > GF. I don't have the numbers though, I barely played since 1.05 dropped. On a side note, did something change about I-No and Millia's hurbox? I saw people landing dustloop into Fafnir on them far more frequently lately.

Good point, I might just be going back to neutral by accident. I'll have to be more careful with this.

What you described is analysis and conditioning. It has nothing to do with how difficult reversals affect a game plan, by principal. Am I the only one that sometimes gets a "delayed IAD" when trying to forward jump cancel a ground normal and then grab a Burst (ex. with Sol: Wild Throw (623K) > 2HS > jc forward (9) > throw (6+j.HS), but instead of throwing a Burst or doing a j.HS if they don't Burst I just get an air dash) since the update? It drives me nuts, because I lose a knockdown or get Bursted for it all the time. Before the patch, this was not a problem. I should delay pressing 6, I guess.

Come on, we're playing fighting games here, are you really going to NOT assume your opponents have every option at their disposal mastered and play around that? It should be totally opposite, just because you get away with dumb, unsafe crap doesn't mean it's a good way to play. Reversals should be demanding, and the way they are now is just fine, maybe a little too easy for offline, but great for online.

I'm kind of on board with you here, playing SFIV after a few hundreds of hours of Xrd made me feel like an execution god (except 1-frame link bullshit of course). Things look a lot sloppier now, although far from SFIV levels. That's about as lenient as I think fighting games should be, maybe a little too much (supers are a breeze now).