Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st] Review

Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st] Review

“Arc System Darkest game”

This is the year of Arc System. They released their highly anticipated game Dragon Ball Fighterz and its doing well. Now Arc System has released another anticipated game and that’s Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st].

Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st] is the third and final version of the Under Night games. Exe: Late [st] adds some re-balances and adds four new characters (two exclusive for the PS4.) This version also adds Chronicles Mode, which is basically the story of the game that shows every character’s prologue.

The story is interesting and it can be a bit confusing especially if you’re a newcomer. The story takes place in Japan. A phenomenon called the Hollow Night takes place once a month every several centuries. During the Hollow Night shadow like creatures called Voids lurk the night looking for power known as Existence or also called EXES in humans (your super meter.) Normal humans can’t see Voids but those that can are targeted and once bitten humans will either lose their sanity or wake up with a power called In-Birth.

There are couple of groups involved with the Hollow Night. One is the Night Blade that insist of people hunting down Voids and protecting humanity. The main protagonist of the game Hyde is currently part of this group alongside Linne. Another group is Licht Kreis. Just like the Night Blade they protect humanity from Voids too but they are more law kind of like the police. The last group is Amnesia. The bad guys of the game that want to free the Hollow Night.

Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st] is a fast paced 2D fighting game. It shares some similarities from BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. You have your fighters health and super meter and you have your light, medium and hard attack, but what makes this game different from BlazBlue and Guilty Gear is the GRD Gauge, EXES button and the TS Gauge Cycle.

The GRD Gauge is at the bottom of the screen next to your super gauge or EXES  gauge and the TS Gauge is the circle behind the GRD Gauge. Players can go to a awanked state with the GRD Gauge. Awakened increases your attack but in order to be awakened your GRD Gauge must be greater than your opponents when the TS Gauge fills up. The TS Gauge fills up automatically. It’s like a game of tug of war. You can fill your GRD by hitting your opponent, walking forward, blocking attacks and more. You can use concentration to fill the GRD gauge. Just hold down the D button and you’ll charge up your GRD and decreases your opponent’s GRD and also decreases some of your EXES Gauge but be careful because Concentration leaves you vulnerable for your opponent to attack you.   

The GRD can be used for all sorts of things. You can use Force Function which is character specific move that uses one GRD Block. Players can also use Chain Shift when the player is in awakened mode. Chain shift takes the players GRD Gauge and transfers it to their EXES Gauge so it's a nice way to build up their meter but the player will not be in their awakened form anymore.

Players can also enter Veil Off. Players can go into Veil Off when they have at least half meter. Players can use any move that requires EXES. It's highly recommended to do this when you have full meter because you'll be able to connect three EXES super moves.

There are a couple of modes in this game. You have arcade, Training, Time Attack, Survival and many others. Online is pretty decent, you have your ranked and player matches but it's pretty difficult to find an opponent. The tutorial is pretty good. It explains the game pretty well. You can also access pretty cool artwork in the gallery.

In the end Under Night Exe: Late [st] is a fun game. I really like the characters and their personalities. I’m a fan of the protagonist Hyde alongside his partner Linne. Carmine is a crazy guy but still cool and Seth and Gordeau are just badasses. The music is incredible as well. I can’t stop listening to it. My one gripe with the game is Chronicles Mode. It's only characters talking and no fights but that’s what you expect from an Arc System game. I would prefer this game to fans of Arc System games. It’s an easy game to play but can be pretty difficult to master. I’m also excited to see what characters from this game will make the BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle roster. Entertainment Fiends gives Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [st] an 8 out of 10.

Three new characters revealed for BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle

Three new characters revealed for BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle

Robert Lewis Knuckles

“Roster Keeps Growing”

Arc System Works just had their livestream talking about their upcoming game BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. Now it was in Japanese so you couldn’t understand them unless you speak that language. The biggest thing to take away from that trailer were the three new characters.

As to no surprise we get Yukiko Amagi from Persona 4. We got the news that a Persona character would be relieved and it was pretty easy to guess it would be Yukiko since she was the last person from the investigation team to be revealed I wrote that in my latest article and I also said expect to see more characters announced and we got two more.

The Man Eater Badass Ass Azrael from BlazBlue was revealed. I’m not surprised to see Azrael. I actually predicted that he would be in the game in my video. He’s become popular and it's cool to see another villain in the game because we only have him and Hazama.

Gordeau from Under Night In-Birth makes an appearance. Now I haven't played Under Night In-Birth but I had a feeling he would be in Tag Battle. Gordeau looks like a cool laid back character and I’m excited to play as him.

Now we didn’t get anything else but at the end of the trailer it said next character reveal is ? So we don’t know when the next reveal is but we can take a guess that we’ll see something from the Playstation Experience next month and also at the end of the trailer a character said “Eh? You guys are… also into this?” We can only make guesses as to who are the next characters but one thing for sure is that the next character will be a RWBY character. We didn’t get that in this reveal. We always get three characters per reveal trailer. I’m 90% sure that Blake from RWBY will be next character revealed unless Arc System throws a curveball but I doubt they will.

We also got small gameplay from Noel, Chie, Waldstein and Weiss. Now Noel and Chie look like they play the same from their games. It was cool seeing them combo with their assist partner. Now I can’t say anything about Waldstein mainly due to the fact I haven’t played Under Night yet. Now Weiss is an interesting one. It seems like the biggest tool to use are her glyphs. Some of her glyphs are used to summon ice crystals from different positions but she can also use her glyphs to bounce off and attack directly. Glyphs will definitely be used for a lot of mix-ups. It’s no surprise that I’m excited to use the RWBY characters the most because they are brand new coming into the fighting game world. I have faith that Arc System will have RWBY characters fight similar to how they are in the show.

Be sure to see what characters will be revealed next month. BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle comes in 2018 for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

Check out the trailer here.

All rights for the picture and the trailer go to Arc System Works.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle Persona 4 Character Reveal Coming Fri. Nov. 17th

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle Persona Character Reveal Coming Fri. Nov. 17th

Robert Lewis Knuckles

“Easy Guess”

Well we’re towards the end of Nov. and Thanksgiving is right around the corner and we have plenty of things to be thankful for and that's a new character reveal for the Arc System’s upcoming game BlazBlue Cross Battle. Arc System just recently announced that they will be streaming this Friday Nov. 17th and they will be revealing a Persona character and I think it's easy to predict that it will be Yukiko Amagi.

I think it's no question that we all knew that the investigation team will be in this game. We already have Yu Narukami, Yosuke Hanamura, Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi would be the next character to be revealed. Now Arc System could throw a curveball and might reveal a different character like Teddy or Naoto or Kanji but the biggest curveball would be Rise Kujikawa. The reason why is that Rise was in Persona 4 Ultimax as a playable character and Cross Tag Battle features Blazblue, Persona 4 Arena, Under-Night and RWBY.

Now Arc System only said a Persona character would be revealed but definitely be on the lookout for more characters to be revealed this Friday. I really can’t see them just revealing one character for a big game. It's hard to guess which Under-Night character is going to be revealed. For BlazBlue you can make a guess that characters such as Makoto, Hakumen or Litchi Faye Ling will make an appearance in this game since they are popular characters in the series. Now for Under-Night characters it's hard to guess which character will be revealed next due to the fact that Under-Night isn’t as popular here in the United States so it can be any anybody and I believe one version of the game came out and the next games were updates.

I’m hoping to also see a RWBY character revealed as well and I think the next character will be Blake. It would be no surprise due to the fact of how they were revealed before the RWBY show was aired with Ruby being the first, Weiss being the second, Blake being the third and Yang being the fourth and plus you look at the RWBY title each letter represents the girls names. R for Ruby, W for Weiss, B for Blake and Y for Yang. Now outside those four main characters it's hard to guess what other characters will be revealed just like Under-Night.

We might get more than just a character reveal we might get some new modes talking about a story or some online modes and we might also get a release date. We all know that it's coming out 2018 but I don’t think it will come out around the same time Dragon Ball Fighterz  because I believe Arc System wants Dragon Ball Fighterz to have its moment then maybe a few months later we’ll get BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.

Be sure to check out Arc System Works character reveal stream this Friday Nov. 17th at 6 am.

Will Dragonball Fighterz DLC Ruin the Game’s Sales?

Will Dragonball Fighterz DLC Ruin the Game’s Sales?

Robert Knuckles

Worth Buying Anymore?

At this year’s E3 anime fans and fighting game fans were very excited for Dragon Ball Fighterz. It bought the swag of Guilty Gear and Marvel vs Capcom 2 but the recent news of their season pass has gotten a mix reaction and it brings the question will the season pass ruin the game’s sales or maybe even the hype?

For those who don’t know Dragonball Fighterz is the latest fighting made by Atlus. Dragonball Fighterz has many different versions. There’s the standard edition that's $59.99. You have Ultimate Edition that's around $109 and you have the most expensive edition and that's the Collector's Edition that’s $139.99. The Collector's Edition comes with the game, a Goku statue, a steelbook and a collectible box.

Just last week it was announced that Dragon Ball Fighterz will have a season pass that cost $34.99. This comes with eight DLC characters that are coming out post launch. Now we’ve a huge mix reaction. One of the reason why gamers are mad is that the Collectors Edition which is the most expensive version doesn’t come with the season. Now it never said in the Collector's Edition description that it will contain the season pass but normally when you buy the most expensive version of a game contains all DLC characters but this one doesn’t. It makes buying the Collector's Edition kind of useless to buy but the Ultimate Edition does include the game, an anime music pack and the season pass.

Another reason why gamers are mixed is because Bandi already announced DLC characters before the game was even released. Gamers feel as though they are getting ripped off because they are paying more buying the game then the season pass when possibly the DLC characters can already be in the game at release.

I’m not going to lie when I heard about the season pass it actually pulled me back from buying this game. I mean $34.99 for eight DLC might be expensive for some people and we also don’t know who the DLC characters are. For all you know you pay for the season pass and you might not even like all DLC characters.

This latest news might hurt the sales for this game. I mean sure Dragonball Fighterz will be at tournaments and it will be supported but game developers really care about their sales. Let’s not pretend they don’t. It’s also good to see gamers standing up and not allowing this. They want to put their money into good use. Now I’m sure Dragonball Fighterz will be a fun game but all this different versions and the season pass has really put gamers on hold from buying this game. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the future. Dragonball Fighterz comes out Jan. 26th 2017.

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite Review

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite Review

Robert Lewis Knuckles III

“Back to its Roots”

One of the biggest crossover games returns on the new generation consoles with Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. It’s been six years since Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 was released and it's had its great moments but lately its been slowly losing the hype so does Marvel vs Capcom Infinite bring the fun and excitement back to the world? Well we’re about to find out.

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite brings together characters from the Marvel and Capcom universe for insane tag team action. This is the fourth installment in the Marvel vs Capcom series but instead of calling it Marvel vs Capcom 4 Capcom called it Infinite to promote the upcoming Marvel movie Avengers Infinity War that’s coming out in May 2018.

The gameplay in Marvel vs Capcom Infinite has Capcom going back to its roots. Instead of 3 on 3 tag team battles it's now 2 on 2 battles. Now I would prefer 3 on 3 but with the new features it fits so much better. The button layout has changed and went back to Marvel vs Capcom 2 layout with Light Punch, Hard Punch, Light Kick and Hard Kick. Which I’m very happy with. I was never a fan of the attack buttons in Marvel 3. One of the biggest features with Infinite is that there are no more assist and you also have the ability to tag in your partner anytime you want. Capcom want players to be more involved in their fights meaning that Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 3 featured and during the battles players would call on their assist to help them battle at times players would have their assist do all the work and in Infinite players won’t be able to hide behind their assist. The ability to tag in your teammate anytime you want without using meter is a very unique feature. It makes players be creative with their combos and it's a little bit more safe to tag in your parner. For example Ryu can his Shinku-Hadoken and if the opponent blocks the tag in his partner so he can safely get out and try to perform a cross up overhead but be careful when using the tag in feature because happy birthdays still exist. Happy Birthdays are when both teammates are caught in a combo.

One feature that was missing in Marvel 3 was the ability to break a combo because almost every character dies in one combo from the start of the combo. Infinite features the counter switch. When you are getting hit and if you have at least 2 bars of super meter you can perform the counter switch that brings your partner to break the combo but be careful you can get caught in that same combo that your partner is getting hit or your opponent's partner can come in with the active to try to stop you from the breaking the combo.

The gem system from Marvel Super Heroes return in Infinite but they are used a bit differently. When players select their characters they can pick one out of the six stones; Power, Mind, Space, Time, Reality and my favorite Soul. Each having their own ability. The Infinity surge can be used at anytime without their gem meter having to be filled. The Soul Stone Infinity Surge can drain their opponents health and the Space Infinity Surge can draw their opponents closer. Now when the players gem meter reaches the halfway point they can use the Infinity Storm where turns into the color of their stone for a huge ability. The Soul Stone Infinity revives their fallen teammate and the player can control both characters very similar to Marvel vs Capcom’s crossover ability. The Infinity Storm are kind of like a comeback mechanic but it's no where close to X-Factor.

Now what has made Marvel vs Capcom Infinite so unique was the roster and I have to say right away that this is a weak roster. The roster is only 30 characters which is very small compared to the last Marvel games but the biggest issue that fans will notice and that there’s no X-Men. The X-Men characters started this series with X-Men children of The Atom. Wolverine has been in every Marvel game made by Capcom and to see Wolverine, Storm and Magneto not in this game is very weird. On the Capcom side fan favorite X from Megaman X makes his fighting game debut. People were upset that Mega Man wasn’t in Marvel vs Capcom 3 and to see X make his debut is awesome to see. We also see the demon Jedah from the Darkstalkers series make his way into 3D. X and Jedah are the only new characters on the Capcom side and everyone else are returning characters from Ultimate.  The Marvel side consist of characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe so of course you’ll see Captain America, Iron-Man and Rocket Raccoon. They are joined by new characters Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. She’s one of my main characters to use and she’s a lot of fun. The evil robot Ultron makes his fighting game debut and he plays a major part of the story.

A feature that many fans wanted in Marvel 3 was a story and we finally get that in Infinite. Ultron from the Marvel Universe and Sigma from the Megaman X series have joined together using the Space and Reality Stone and become Ultron Sigma bringing both universes together to destroy biological life. This brings the heroes from both universes together to stop Ultron Sigma. Now a lot of the fights in story mode have the players fight against robots that don’t have a lot of health so you really don’t many epic fights. The cutscenes in the story are really nothing to talk about. I mean you see some chemistry between some characters but everything else are just oh my goodness. The presentation is just bad. Characters like Dante and Morrigan look really bad and some characters don’t have necks which look very awkward. Story feels like there wasn’t any heart towards it and it also felt like the story went fast as well meaning that the heroes already knew each other. There wasn’t any scene that showed them introducing them to each other. Once you finish story mode you won’t play it again.

Online returns in Marvel Infinite and surprisingly it's pretty good. Most of the time when Capcom release their fighting games there's always early bugs with the online mode. You have the ranked match, casual match, online lobbies and the new beginner league where new players play against other new characters similar to their rank so they won’t have to face anyone at a very high rank.

In the end Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is a fun game. I really love the gameplay with the ability to tag in your partner anytime you want and it really have the study the chemistry between your team you have to find out when is it a good time to tag in your partner to extend the combo. I really had to study every combo opportunity. It makes it kind of difficult but that's what you want in a fighting game but if you’re a new player don’t worry Capcom has a made simple mode for new players to perform a combo by pressing one button but if you really want to have the full experience with the game that off simple mode and you’ll perform longer damaging combos. I honestly think that Marvel Infinite might be the least cheapest game of the versus series. Players can’t hide behind their assist are forced to fight.

Now with all that said about the gameplay I feel as though Capcom took a step back. The roster is very small with majority of it being returning characters and a few new characters. Not having any X-Men characters is huge loss. You can’t have a Marvel game without the mutants. Story mode is okay it really isn’t much to talk about. Online is good but a big thing that Capcom failed to do is have a couple of offline modes. Marvel was criticized heavily barely having any modes offline. In Infinite you only have Story, Arcade mode which has no character endings and you have Mission Mode that has players play the tutorial and complete combos for their favorite character. There are people that don’t like playing online and want to play offline but they don’t many options. It just seems like Capcom hasn’t learned from their past mistakes which is why I give this game a 7.5 out of 10.

Marvel vs Capcom History: Marvel vs Capcom 2 New Age of Heroes

Marvel vs Capcom History: Marvel vs Capcom 2 New Age of Heroes

Robert Lewis Knuckles III

“Take you for a Ride”

This time Capcom took us for a major ride with Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Marvel vs Capcom 2 was released in arcades in 2000 and a number of systems. It was released for the Dreamcast and later released on Playstation 2, Xbox and later ported to the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Capcom went really went huge with this game. The character roster is huge featuring 56 characters. It brings back everyone from all the versus game including X-Men Children of The Atom. Spinal, Silver Samurai, Psylocke, Sentinel and more return and have new moves. Now majority of characters from the Marvel side are reused character sprites. The only new character sprites from the Marvel side are Cable from the X-Men who has tons of weapons and Marrow another character from the X-Men. Now for some odd reason Capcom added another Wolverine that has bone claws. I never understood that.

Now the Capcom side I would say is a lot more interesting than the Capcom side due to the fact that there are more new character sprites. It was really cool to see Jill from the Resident Evil series turn into a 2D fighter. She has the ability to call out zombies, dogs, crows and even has a hyper combo to call out the Tyrant. It was also cool seeing Hayato from the 3D fighting game Plasma sword and turn into 2D fighter was really cool to see. Capcom also made two original characters for this game Ruby Heart who’s a treasure hunter and plays as one of the leading characters alongside Cable. Amingo a Mexican Cactus is another new Capcom original character who’s a lot of fun to use. Street Fighter favorite Guile makes his versus series game debut and he plays completely different from his Street Fighter gameplay and he’s actually one of my favorite characters to use in this game.

What really surprised with Marvel vs Capcom 2 is the fact that it's three on three tag team battles. Also when players pick a character they can choose their assist type. It can be a projectile, anti-air, expansion type or more. Players have to choose wisely though because some assist work a lot better than others. Just like in Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter characters can come in for an assist whether it's to surprise the opponent or set up their opponent for combo opportunities. Now players do have to be careful when calling their partner for an assist because they can get caught in a combo and there’s a new feature called snapback an attack that when it hits it forcibly bring in your opponent's partner and it completely gets rid of the red health and your character won’t be able to regain their health back  and it can sometimes kill them.

The gameplay in Marvel vs Capcom 2 is a six button layout like the previous games but two of those buttons are the assist and the rest of the buttons are light punch, hard punch, light kick and hard kick. The gameplay is also a lot faster than the previous games and making it more crazy are the assist. They come in super fast and a lot of players like to use it for protection.

The super meter upgraded as well in this game is the super meter. Players can build their meter up to five gauges. There’s the new feature called the delayed Hyper Combo. A player can perform a Hyper Combo and can bring in their next partner to perform their hyper combo and can later bring in their last partner to perform their Hyper Combo. This of course can only be used if you have at least three gauges of Super Meter. The player can also use variable combinations that brings in the entire team to perform their Hyper Combo all at the same time and it's probably one of the coolest things to see especially when finishing off your opponent.

The boss in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is named Abyss. He has three forms each are annoying but are less annoying than the last bosses.

In the end Marvel vs Capcom 2 is arguably my favorite fighting game ever. I love the huge roster now people can make the argument that the two Wolverines and Iron Man and War Machine were kind of pointless but during that those times we were happy and surprised to see 56 characters. The three on three battles were crazy hectic and the soundtrack is pretty good. It has a smooth jazz theme to it that surprisingly fits. This game is a lot of fun and I definitely prefer this game to anyone that loves fighting games. One of the only grips I have are the God  characters; Magneto, Storm, Cable, Sentinel and others. They are extremely cheap and annoying but that doesn’t stop me from loving this game. Many people arguably say that this is the best fighting game ever during that time and it's hard to disagree.

Marvel vs Capcom History: Marvel vs Capcom 3 Fate of Two Worlds/Ultimate

Marvel vs Capcom History: Marvel vs Capcom 3 Fate of Two Worlds/Ultimate

Robert Lewis Knuckles III

“Big Return”

This might’ve been a huge surprise from Capcom at E3 2010 when they announced Marvel vs Capcom 3 coming out in Feb. 2011. It's been a decade since the last Marvel vs Capcom game and honestly I didn’t think we would get another one but looking back at the return of Street Fighter IV and success of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 I shouldn’t be surprised that Marvel vs Capcom 3 was coming.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 enters the 3D world but still plays like a 2D fighting game. Now the roster in this game is very different and what I mean by is that there aren’t many classic Capcom characters. You still have your favorites Ryu, Chun-Li and Morrigan. They are joined by new characters Chris and Wesker from the Resident Evil series, Dante and Trish from the Devil May Cry and a couple of more characters.

Now the Marvel side has classic characters such as Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-Man and others are joined by new characters the merc with a mouth Deadpool, Hulk’s cousin She-Hulk makes her fighting game debut and more new characters join the fight.

You do have many returning characters but a lot of them don’t play the same as their 2D counterpart which shouldn’t be a surprised because this a brand new game. Ryu can shoot his Shinku Hadoken upwards or when performing in the air can shoot it downward. Captain America's shield throws like a boomerang and hit the opponent from both sides. Now the roster got a mix reaction. The roster is a total of 38 characters including the DLC characters. Many people believed that this roster is small because Marvel vs Capcom 2 featured a total of 56 characters. Not only is the roster small but they are missing a very important character and that's the blue bomber Megaman. I mean it's cool to have Zero but you can't have a Capcom game without the blue mascot.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 still features the same three on three tag battles and has almost every feature from Marvel vs Capcom 2. The button layout is different  in this game. Instead of a punch and kick button they have light attack, medium attack, hard attack and special button (which is basically an air launcher). This button layout was used before in Capcom’s other vs title Tatsunoko vs Capcom This kind of made combos easier especially for new players. Another new feature was the air exchange when players put their opponent in an air combo they can tag in their partner to continue the combo. This can be used three times but your opponent can counter the combo if they guess the same direction pad button you press so be careful.

The biggest new feature that had mixed reviews is X-Factor. X-Factor was a comeback mechanic that gave your character increased power, speed and increases your health. There are three levels of X-Factor depending on the amount of active members on your team. The more teammates you lose the longer X-Factor last. Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of X-Factor and I understand that Capcom wanted a feature to help give players a chance but this makes comebacks way beyond easy. Like level three X-Factor Wesker…

Marvel vs Capcom 3 added online and it's pretty rough. Online was especially rough during the first few days it was released. Online lobbies didn’t have spectator mode so you had to watch game cards battle it out instead.

In the end Marvel vs Capcom 3 is an okay game. It had a lot of hype from the trailers and gameplay but it just failed to deliver. I mean sure the numbers of sales were great due to the fact that we're getting another Marvel vs Capcom game. The arcade endings were bad and they had nothing to do with the trailer. Online was rough, the roster wasn’t the best and gameplay felt really easy, really broken and a lot characters can die in one combo especially during X-Factor.

Later that same year in 2011 Capcom released the updated game Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. This new game added 12 new characters to the roster with all returning being patched. Some turned out better while some turned out worse. Ultimate added Spectator mode which should’ve been in the last game. Other than that Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 should’ve been the game that Capcom should’ve released first. Its honestly the same game with new characters. X-Factor was patched to become weaker but it's still a cheap comeback mechanic. If you play this game beware of Dark Phoenix…….