The Mugen Fighters Guild - Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews (latest: October COTM candidates!)

Umezono

Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews (latest: October COTM candidates!)

#1 January 10, 2014, 05:44:48 am

MASTER LIST OF REVIEWS:
AvX Luke Cage by Arkady
Ash Crimson by Chazzanova/Quickfist
Legendary Terry Bogard by Demonkai
D by D, The Red Cloak
Caliban by Blagoy/Acey
Galivan by Tokei
Clone Koakuma by Daniel (THE REVIEW: AN ACT IN 2 PARTS)
Ganjou Dan by Descolor/(^o^)
Ming Ming by XCB/Big Eli King
October COTM candidates

Last Edit: December 04, 2018, 01:07:51 pm by Umezono

AvX Luke Cage by Arkady - This was made for the "Avengers vs. X-Men" project which I assume has something to do with Infinity MUGEN Team, which is supposed to be pretty bad. The AvX releases for general MUGEN came in a block of characters and stages with varying amounts of quality. I decided to try Luke Cage to see what they could do with him. Basically he is black Sagat with clothes and I don't have a problem with that cause Sagat is a good base for a big dude like Cage. Unfortunately this is gritty new Luke Cage so they didnt have to do much to Sagat to make him resemble the character. As a result it still just looks like Sagat and they didnt really frankensprite many basics so yeah. The spritework is a tad inconsistent: just look at the gif and notice how the insignia on his shoulder disappears for the sagat taunt. Also his shirt sleeve ripples everywhere like it has Parkinson's. The small port is fine but the big port is a lossy, compressed comic book image. Bleh. The sounds are okay, I like his win sounds at least. They are a little low sometimes.

In terms of gameplay idk why, but for a hulking dude this guy can combo anything into anything. It is versus styled but feels very wonky compared to a professional game like mvc or mvc2. I think this may have something to do with the IMT template which was always garbage and bad but I have no idea if they used it for AvX. Nonetheless things come out very fast and with high priority. His system is really loose and easy to use. A huge problem is a lot of moves are super safe on block and allow you to continually pressure with no problem cause you can't get punished. One really funny thing about him is his heavy punch (Sagat's heavy punch) automatically stuns the opponent and knocks them away, and in air it wall bounces them. This seemed like a very random and funny design choice and while it makes for interesting setups it isnt exactly fun when you want to try and mixup and you accidentally knock the guy straight the fuck away from you with a basic. It's even less fun for the opponent, cause its a pretty broken tool with high priority. Luke makes up for this by being able to combo every other move into every other move tho!! In terms of CSLNs I cannot tell you much cause I don't have an eye for them, but the hitboxes do seem a bit wonky especially on the supers. Some misaligned sprites here and there as well.

In terms of specials they gave him Deejay's Machine Gun Upper for his qcf+p and the sprites look ugly and awkward. I don't even know why they gave him this move. He also has Birdie's command grab where he flips people around with chains. I don't remember Luke being very reliant on chains but I might be wrong, cause I don't read many comics with him in them. His qcb+k move has him doing like a little crouching slide across the floor to slide sweep the opponent. It looks uncomfortable the way he contorts this body to do it, I feel like that would stress a guy's muscles out. The special itself doesn't seem very useful and just seems so lazy and phoned in. It almost looks like a basic, ala Dhalsim's slide. They didn't seem to want to give this character the originality he so desperately needed. Instead, they slapped a potpourri of unrelated moves and called it a day.

As far as supers he's got a stripped down, minimalist corkscrew blow for his qcf+2p, and a awkward misaligned ground pound for qcb+2p. The damage on both are fairly weak and the ground pound super is fucking useless, nothing seems to combo into it and you can see it coming from a mile away. For his qcf+2k, he has what I like to call the "CVG/IMT special" which is him spinning around like a ballerina whilst moving forward. It continues on for what seems like forever and looks ridiculous. I call it the IMT/CVG special cause it seems like every comic book character has some variation of this moving tatsumaki-esque move. Its like everyone runs out of ideas and decides that one of the signature moves for whoever they are making is "spin around like a wild toddler and hit the opponent 50 times." The qcb+2k is a counter move where he stands there and does Sagat's laugh. I didn't test what happens if you do hit him, cause I was too lazy. Thankfully, he does not have a SGS move which I also see on a crapton of comic book/edit characters for some reason. His super bg is like a shit brown/orangey static with an avengers logo, and a bar with a shot of his eyes splashed across it. It looks pretty ugly.

Overall this character is pretty lazy and standard but I like him somewhat anyway- cause its fun to body your friends as black sagat and do weird air combos that should not work. He can cancel into his corkscrew from his machinegun upper which is useful and even a baby could figure out the execution. Otherwise he is kinda boring. I like how it was decided to give him moves from other black fighting game characters tho as if that was what made the most sense to Arkady when he began editing Sagat's sprites. This is sort of ingenuity we need in the MUGEN community. This is the funniest part about the character. Otherwise it is no laughing matter how mediocre it is.

Download Link: http://www.infinitymugenteam.com/Uploads/AvX/

(Scroll down to get Luke Cage)

Presentation: 1/5

Sounds: 3/5

Sprites: 2/5

Gameplay: 2/5

AI: 3/5

Overall: 2.2/5

Last Edit: January 10, 2014, 05:51:02 am by Umezono

QuickFist

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews

#3 January 10, 2014, 06:18:44 am

Nice!
Hey, can you review Ash Crimson by Chazzanova and QuickFist?
http://sutcliffsouji.wix.com/cp-chazzanova#!characters/c13dn

Umezono

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews

#4 January 10, 2014, 06:27:05 am

QuickFist said, January 10, 2014, 06:18:44 am

Nice!
Hey, can you review Ash Crimson by Chazzanova and QuickFist?
http://sutcliffsouji.wix.com/cp-chazzanova#!characters/c13dn

I won't have as much to say about this one, in fact probably way less; and I was never an Ash player, but sure. It (probably) might turn into an evaluation of the character himself rather than the specifics of your conversion, so be forewarned haha.

D, The Red Cloak

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews

#5 January 10, 2014, 06:48:26 am

Wherever theres chaos, I'll be there.

Can you review my characters?

http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/nightmare-christmas-release-marco-kaiser-knuckle-149388.0.html

I'd like to here your opinion on them.

Get Current Characters Here: http://cenobite53.mugengermany.com/hosted_chars.html
SF4 NES Character WIP: http://mugenguild.com/forum/topicseen./topics/sf4nes-remake-revival-176316.msg2289279.html

Umezono

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews

#6 January 10, 2014, 07:08:28 am

D, The Red Cloak said, January 10, 2014, 06:48:26 am

Can you review my characters?

http://mugenguild.com/forum/topics/nightmare-christmas-release-marco-kaiser-knuckle-149388.0.html

I'd like to here your opinion on them.

I'll give it some thought, I would prob do D himself, no promises yet.

D, The Red Cloak

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews

#7 January 10, 2014, 07:23:04 am

Wherever theres chaos, I'll be there.

I've got no problems with that.

Get Current Characters Here: http://cenobite53.mugengermany.com/hosted_chars.html
SF4 NES Character WIP: http://mugenguild.com/forum/topicseen./topics/sf4nes-remake-revival-176316.msg2289279.html

Umezono

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews

#8 January 10, 2014, 08:19:35 am

@Quickfist:

Ash Crimson by Chazzanova/Quickfist

Ash Crimson is a King of Fighters character whom the team of Chazza and Quickfist have taken to converting into the wildly popular cult phenomenon that is "POTS style," which involves giving the character shiny new HD pots and pans to use as weapons, and state of the art kitchenware gameplay. This is my pipe dream but in actuality POTS style just means giving them a distinct style of cvs-ish gameplay based off the works of the Phantom.of.the.Server. The actual character was never included in the Capcom vs. SNK series (as most pots-style character usually are conversions of CVS styled spritesets) so it is essentially an Ash with shiny new effects and tech. Full disclaimer, I have no actual standing on the quality of POTS style, I do not care either way for it. I am simply going to comment on how the character plays for me, though I am not an Ash Crimson player (I hate charge characters) and will not be able to give you guys any cutting edge analysis.

I think my main qualm with this character's "POTS styling" is how the shiny hitsparks clash heavily against the darker and more muddy King of Fighter textures and colors, it just seems not to fit right. That's not to say the new effects and the way they did the projectiles aren't cool, in fact they look really good. From an aesthetic standpoint, they do not fit to me. This does not get in the way of the gameplay whatsoever, its just a graphical pet peeve I have with it. The graphics are otherwise very clean on both ends. The sprites from Ash himself are taken from KOF 2k3 and XI. He has a mix of animations from both games. They seem to have done a good job with sprite alignments so no real qualms there, you can probably check the release topic for actual information on that though cause people here have great eyes for it. The small and big portraits are both nice, the small portrait especially looks cool and fits in well if you have a roster full of edgy looking headshots. As for sounds I don't really have much to say, they all seem to be there. I think Ash sounds like a bitch though so I will deduct valuable points. This is no fault of the creators but simply of Ash for being a bitch.

Gameplay-wise, he plays like a CVS character which means fast combos, a roll, a dodge (performed with both light buttons) and charge abilities (performed with both medium buttons.) If you press both strong buttons at once he has the ability to use one bar of meter to go into a custom combo mode to chain ridiculous things together. He's also got counters, and then both a ground and air parry. I always saw the parry as excessive but oh well. He has EX moves and all sorts of other standard tech that comes with a proper fighting game character. It is easier to do combos with him because he is not King of Fighters, so thankfully you are not plagued with draconian execution windows and endless blisters. This will probably not sit well with source accuracy purists but there is no way to get source accuracy on either end here because they are converting him to a style in which he has never been officially. Not that much of this matter though, as Ash can be played as a zoning character due to his nature. Simply throwing out his fireball and punishing jump ins with his various specials is enough to win against less skilled opponents. In that aspect he is pretty source accurate. One funny thing is the pushback on his prarial (b + HK) which sends you sliding backward and makes it look like you are ice skating.

To review his specials for those of you who have never played him he's got a sonic boom in ventose with charge b, f + P, and a flash kick with charge d, u + K. These are standard tools that you can do simple combos with or just go standalone to deny space. qcb + p makes Ash give you an air kiss or something and deny space with a floating green ball of energy which distance away from him depends on the strength. his charge b, f + K has him charge at you. I'm not sure what else to say lmfao.

With supers QuickNova went full throttle giving you three level 1s, three level 2s and two level 3s. 8 supers is a lot but again I am not sure if its typical design-wise. The fact that the level 2s are just higher damage, MAX versions of the level 1s is okay, but boring. They are obviously a lot more useful though. The thermidor which is qcfx2 + p (pp for MAX) is a giant green ball of energy that does hella damage. Pluviose is qcfx2+K (kk for MAX) and is a succession of flash kicks that also works as a great punish. Germinal is qcbx2 + k (kk for MAX) and he pauses for a moment before doing that move like Fox does in Smash Bros where he comes at you so fast it looks like he teleported. It looks cool but the damage doesnt seem too hot and I guess itd probably be useful if you set up into it or something. I think his other supers are more useful but I am not an Ash player so I can say absolutely jack shit without looking like a dumbass.

Now uh this may just be my problem but for the life of me I cannot figure out how the fuck to get sans cullote to work. It's lp+lk+mp+mk and I tried it a billion times but it didn't work. I think its my keyboard, maybe a better keyboard would work, or maybe just a gamepad. I think its kind of annoying though, that I would have to get a gamepad to perform this move. I wish it was made easier to perform for keyboard people (maybe a config option) because thats a high majority of MUGEN players I'd think. Maybe I am wrong. I just know performing this move in nigh impossible for me unless I mash the 4 keys for like an hour while standing in place like I was caught naked outside or something. I dont think its that hard lol, I just think some keyboard cant handle the inputs. In either case I don't know. I probably wouldnt be able to do this on keyboard in like an actual KOF either come to think of it- but KOF wasnt developed with keyboard in mind. I don't very much care for the move anyways- its just a custom combo really cause it breaks juggling rules and takes out charge time. To finish it off you got qcfx2+pk which is a command grab super. It probably works wonders in corners.

To conclude this is a solid pots style character my only qualms with it is the sans-cullote, the clashing fx and ash's bitchmade voice. Decent character guys. Sorry I couldn't really talk about it in detail, I'm neither a good coder or an Ash player.

EDIT: my bad this came out looking like I was demanding a command change, I was not. Thanks to Arpa for pointing that out.

Download Link: http://sutcliffsouji.wix.com/cp-chazzanova#!characters/c13dn

Presentation: 3.5/5

Sprites: 5/5

Sounds: 4/5

Gameplay: 3/5

AI: 3/5

Overall: 3.7/5

Last Edit: January 10, 2014, 08:35:21 am by Umezono

DJ_HANNIBALROYCE

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews (latest: Ash by Quickfist and Chazzanova)

#9 January 13, 2014, 02:27:49 am

YERRRRRRRRRR
HIGHBRIDGE!

good review....feels honest. good balance of good and bad

Follow me on twitter! @djhannibalroyce

Umezono

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews (latest: Ash by Quickfist and Chazzanova)

#10 January 13, 2014, 03:30:45 am

Full disclosure man, I've never played cvs2 and I'm not a great kof player by any means, so my opinions are kinda null. It's why I like to review originals/edits more

I'll be doing D by D, The Red Cloak soon.

Amidweiz

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews (latest: Ash by Quickfist and Chazzanova)

#11 January 13, 2014, 06:24:40 am

Hey four stars, whatever that means

Well I give you something to review that is somewhat an edit and somewhat original.

Legendary Terry Bogard by Demonkai
&
Rainbow dash by rockrage8962

And lets just say in a formal matter... they have their problems.

Request thread/Edits thread

Umezono

Re: Umezono's MUGEN Character Reviews (latest: Ash by Quickfist and Chazzanova)

#12 January 14, 2014, 05:01:06 am

Okay, that puts my backlog at

D by D, The Red Cloak (requested by D)
Frugal (a rugal edit) by ??? (requested by First Lt. Ding though I gotta ask him where to find it.)
Legendary Terry Bogard by Demonkai (requested by AmidbimA)

I will continue taking requests, I've been busy but despite the length these are really easy to bang out so I'm not gonna be overworked.