| paleface [sys=PS4; cat=Fighting; reg=NA] |
| | | Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for PS4 went on sale for $9.99 on the US PS Store yesterday, so here we are. : D
My recording got glitched when I paused briefly after about an hour to look up a FAQ--since the game has no digital manual or tutorial--so this is just the first hour of my poking through some of the options and modes, and looking at all the pretty character models and colors.
I hadn't planned to initially but I *did* stay up and actually played some Arcade matches for another half hour or so, and that part didn't make it into the recording--of course it was just completely n00bish flailing around in random teams, so I suppose you didn't miss much. I did at least learn--from a FAQ--how to tag in characters (hold Assist button down for a second or two) and do the "X-Factor" (press all four attack buttons), although I'm still slightly unclear on what benefits X-Factor gives you--move cancelling and maybe a speed boost?
So I'm gonna *hopefully* actually record some gameplay tomorrow. So far game has made not hate playing Frank West and Deadpool, which quite surprised me....so that bodes well. ; )
I'm not yet sold on the visual style, which is a high-contrast and kinda hard to take in a lot of the time, or on most of the non-Arcade single-player modes; except that you *can* run a simulated VS CPU in Training mode--not yet sure if the difficulty there holds up (you can crank it up to Very Hard, it's just that a lot of the time the difficulty in Training/Practice modes acts like the difficulty in just the 1st match of an Arcade mode, ie easier than normal).
And the controls are a bit different from the other MvC games: three attack buttons, Light, Medium, and Heavy, which can be punch or kick, a fourth, "Special" button, which eh can also just be like a stronger attack button, or just do a *different* special move depending on the motion: for instance, with Ryu, LMH do fireballs with qcf, but S does an instant explodey ball thing. And then there are two Assist buttons, like MvC2, but to swap characters, as I mentioned earlier, you have to HOLD one of them for a second or two, which feels weird.
I do love the alternate costumes for some of the characters, like a MODAM skin ("Mental Organism Designed for Aggressive Maneuvers"--good acronym, not a great name :p) for MODOK ("Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing")--oh and an Elvis skin for him, too ^)^ (34'43), Storm's punk outfit (36'23), Cap's original shield (30'04), Hagar's leopard pants (22'58), Morrigan's classic win pose street clothes (13'46), and SF1 Ryu (12'46).
I really wish you could see thumbnails of them on the character select screen, instead of just numbers and colored character frame borders, which aren't much help--and you can't even see those numbers in the Gallery character viewer to match them up!
It is neat though that there's a bio for each character, plus a note telling you--for the Capcom characters--the game in which they first appeared, which I needed for some of them. : P
The ability to switch to the Japanese voices for the characters is a lifesaver for most of them, too; even though I can't understand them--or maybe because)--those actors are just much more pleasant to listen to, by and large. |
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Some things I learned since recording yesterday or today's episode:
- You can see your selected costume on the character portrait immediately *after* selecting the costume. ... A little weird but at least you can then hit Circle to back up and try a different one if you got the wrong look.
- There *is* a software manual--it's under Gallery: Bonus Content. The built-in gallery viewer is awkward for reading but at least with some zooming and scrolling you can get through the thing. Doesn't cover Heroes & Heralds, but that mode has its own read-through tutorial.
- What do the "Player Points" you earn by playing the game (even in Training mode) do? Two things, from what I've now read: they unlock titles (:p), and, at 30,000 PP (you can see the total in the upper-right corner of the first page of your "License Card": hit R1 on main menu--I'm currently at 7852 :P) they unlock Galactus Arcade mode. I don't know exactly what that is since I don't want to spoil it for myself, although it sure sounds like you just play through as Galactus, which would be pretty darn ridiculous. ; )
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(Hm at 1'19"39 for instance the health meter doesn't show for the "Heralds" of Galactus, but at 1'21"45, after the continue, it does. Wha? Oh, just before that first time stamp I reduced their health to zero. But they still went on for a while. Uhhh? Do they actually have separate meters but don't die until both are depleted, and you can only see one at a time?)
Fun game! Didn't expect to get so far on the third play-through (I did a few weak attempts yesterday), so yay! ^_^ Random team select kept giving me Spencer, whom I dislike playing in Infinite (he's also more of a boor in Infinite), but...he's actually decent fun to play here! Maybe I need to re-evaluate Infinite. = o ; ) Anyway fun times, and getting so far made me feel less insecure about my n00bishness at the game. ; ) Actually, I manage to do way better at air combos in this game than in Infinite--but I still gotta learn (well, a lot, but also) to do the S+direction thing to get team air combos, at least according to the manual. |
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I think I'm gonna stick to MvC2 (entry 1383) for my Marvel fixes. Thinking over this session with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on PS4 afterwards, it occurred to me that things like the added "Special" button launcher and semi-auto air combos, ground combos, and X Factor combo booster purposefully turned every member of the cast this time around--and with further tweaks in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite (see entry 1396), the next game--into a generic combo machine; in 2, on the other hand, combo ability seems to vary quite a bit, and combos feel more organic and creative.
Similar global mechanic additions for lengthening combos have happened with most of the major fighting franchises--and are a big reason why I am not playing the most recent versions of most of them.
There's cool stuff in this game--the character colors and alt costumes especially--but the actual fighting system... Yeah, I'll stick with 2.
0:00 - start
1:36 - Auto Super Jump rant #1
4:45 - Arcade mode w/...Viewtiful Joe, Chris Redfield, Nova
18:57 - Hulk, Iron Fist, Wolverine (1cc)
37:14 - Iron Fist ending
37:56 - credits
44:16 - Auto Super Jump rant #2
46:08 - Hawkeye, Thor, Super-Skrull (1cc)
1:06:19 - Super-Skrull ending
1:07:52 - Ghost Rider, She-Hulk, Wesker
1:25:32 - wrap-up & what's next!
Was surprised that Auto Super Jump = On in "Operation Mode" settings doesn't actually make you jump after a "Special" attack button launcher move connects, you still have to press up to jump and follow the skyrocketing opponent. I *think* in Infinite the option, which is still there, *does* make you actually jump--but why keep a fix and its kludgy mechanic, anyway?
Aside from Chris' horror-show psycho-killer face, he wasn't actually that bad. Hulk bashed good, and Iron Fist seemed almost overpowered with his fast punches. Hawkeye could rip the AI pretty good just shooting arrows, Super-Skrull's multi-punch move was cool, but not sure what else; Ghost Rider seemed a lot different than in Infinite, Wolverine, Nova, and Thor didn't leave much of an impression, gameplay-wise, and Viewtiful Joe and She-Hulk were definitely weak links for me; She-Hulk in particular has moves that seem really awkward.
^ I'm leaving those notes in case I ever decide to come back to the game; until then, though, make mine MvC2! |
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Okay well hopefully next time won't require as much dying & crying vs Galactus. : P I forgot you gotta bushwhack him with X-Factored super spam before he just decides to kill you with a death ray or whatever.
Think I came up with a better arcade stick button layout for myself, at least. I'd had a slightly jumbled MvC2-style one; googled it up and at least according to a GFAQs discussion, the default button layout is
LMH
S12
and the common MvC2-style one is
LH1
MS2
(I'd had H and M swapped for some reason : P). I can't seem to hang with S in the lower left or the two Assist buttons in the lower right like the default; was worried the darn Special button being wedged in awkwardly around the three sort of arbitrarily arranged attack buttons would be confusing, but somehow it wasn't, just kind of became another attack button.
Oh but the Assist buttons weren't quite working for me: for some reason, the top one corresponded to the character shown at the BOTTOM of the health meters in the game, and the bottom one corresponded to the TOP character. WHAT. Why would that be that way. Well so I swapped 'em
LH2
MS1
which looks dumb but hey I didn't put 'em backwards on the darn UI; anyway this arrangement finally seems to work for me.
Also note to self since I had to go look this up again and hardly anyone actually bothers explaining it: unlike MvC2 where you hit a button combination to switch characters, or Infinite where it's a toggle button, here in 3 you gotta hold down an Assist button for a second to make the swap. Yeah it's really frustrating when say you're trying to swap out vs combo, sorta hit-laggy jerks around Galactus and you'd swear you held the darn button long enough but your team member sits there and gets annihilated instead of swapping out. ; P
Characters in general just get wiped out really fast in this one. |
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A FAQ describes Dormammu's level 3 hyper combo, "Dark Dimension," as "Encases opponent into a dark ball and explodes." Maybe Galactus is too big to encase? Anyway, what a dud at a critical moment! : P
Fortunately, I had two super charges left, and earned another one: the first two took him down to exactly a single pixel of health. : P The third: did nothing?!? Neither did two follow-up punches? And he finally died on the third (or fourth). HM. ; P
Anyway, after struggling mightily vs Galactus last time, the strategy I found after looking it up definitely worked: just save up your supers and X-Factor, he'll kill your first two characters with his BS unblockable nonsense, then you activate X-Factor and unload supers on him. It ended up wayyyy tighter than it should have been there, with FOUR super charges apparently doing nothing, but anyway it worked. : PPP
No move list available when you pick unlocked Galactus with L1+X on Arcade mode; pressing both his Assist buttons does a beam attack; guess maybe I'll look up his other moves. Not sure it'll really matter, he seems ridiculously overpowered. Might be tough vs CPU Galactus, I suppose. ACtually wait no, that fight probably won't happen, since your Galactus stays on the right side of the screen, where CPU Galactus would be. Wonder what the final fight will be then.
Haggar, She-Hulk, and even Dormammu turned out to be pretty fun, although I seemed to be pretty terrible with their assists, and couldn't land She-Hulk's second super for the life of me. Dormammu's two regular supers are pretty good. Shuma Gorath sure had me Gor-ing for a while there though. |
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"Galactus Mode" unlocks once you've accumulated 30,000 "Player Points" from playing various modes in the game; at that point, over the main menu, a pop-up message appears telling you that Galactus Mode has unlocked; and the scrolling bar at the bottom gets updated to show that pressing L1 + X will start Galactus Mode.
Morrigan went HAM and actually almost got me while I kept trying eh whichever was the single-hit kill move of his that was incredibly slow to wind up--she could knock me out of it! So then I just settled for I think left or was it right + attack button and punched them all to death really fast when she had me on the verge of galactic catastrophe. 'ppp'
Still can't seem to get excited about Heroes & Heralds mode, I just want some decent fights, not whatever this goofed up easy difficulty junk is. Maybe it gets real hard or something eventually but I don't really want that, either. Maybe some day I'll get desperate for that and have to see, I dunno. |
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| | | Keep forgetting X-Factor activation input (all four attack buttons!!).
Random select does randomize the colors and the assist types, which is nice.
Dr. Doom's three-bar qcf super is sorta short range, and gives no indication of its range or what it's trying to do if it whiffs. BAd. : P (Decent damage if it hits--but is that supposed to be Doom's time machine? I like the comic version where it's just a 2D glowing yellow square.) (Hm come to think of it I whiffed it on Galactus, not sure it would be able to hit him due to how it usually animates the victim being trapped in a little tube for a while--like Dormammu's level 3 whiffed on the big G.)
Forgot Hawkeye is kind of teamed up with Ant Man, the guy too small to be a full character himself! |
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Trying to play through Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on PS4 as the random team of Magneto, Captain America (I hilariously typoed that as "Captain American"), and oh what's his nuts guy with the big head uh oh right, Viewtiful Joe!
Although then after a few continues vs Galactus 'cause I forgot you have to take him out fast before he just decides to kill you instantly, the game did that thing where it forgets my team. ; { Hmmm AH I think because I was hammering on the Option button in frustration because I wanted to Continue faster, but as soon as the game considers it's on the Character Select screen, Option switches to replacing the current team with your "Reserve Unit." : PP
Anyway I re-did the team manually once, then the next time I missed that totally somehow and it just gave me Cap, Hulk, and Iron Man. Who I did better with anyway so oh well.
Difficulty felt all over the place here: mostly it was way too easy and I could just zap everyone with Magneto's beam, then the last regular match was suddenly really hard and the AI was blocking and comboing everything; and sometimes Galactus' heralds seemed to just air juggle and pound me, and sometimes they didn't? I dunno, I find that Herald fight really confusing anyway.
I'd been thinking I'd give the Vs. series a bit of a rest because I'm just not good at the combo-heavy gameplay, but I kept getting the urge to play 3 again, I suppose maybe 'cause I just haven't played it much and it's got all these goofy characters with kinda nice graphics. But I'd forgotten about the annoying aspects of the CPU play so maybe I've got this out of my system for a while now. : P |
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