delete_me

That Chun placement is weird, in my opinion she's extremely strong but just a tad more technical than the rest. One character I just don't see the strength yet is Cammy. I don't think she's bad or anything but I've yet to see someone prove that she's indeed one of the better characters in the game. I think Punk played her some, might have to watch those matches.

So I unlocked Manon and Cammy in World Tour, showered the first one in wine and force fed some eels to the latter so that they gave me her outfits. Such a wholesome game.

Indeed.

Interesting how that doesn't represent my experience at all. I barely ever see Juri or Cammy for example, which surprised me quite a bit. Marisa, Ryu, Ken and, oddly, JP are all over the place in my games.

It's E3 season, Mortal Kombat just had a big presentation, the internet moves fast. From this perspective I could see why they would want to show something. But on the other hand, waiting until all of that stuff has cooled down and then getting back into the discussion with Rashid might even be a better strategy.

Do you think they'll show/tease Rashid on their showcase on Monday? I feel like it's a bit too soon, but on the other hand it would be a good way to keep the current momentum going.

Yeah, I don't want to derail it either, but I thought it was an improvement. It's still far from perfect, but the previous games looked a lot rougher and stiffer.

I thought MK looked decent. Animations not quite as stiff and laughable as they used to. Still not my kind of game but it was a good showing.

A healthy dose of gamma radiation should do the trick.

Should show it right above those, the second tab in your profile if you hit the shoulder button (HK) once.

They say when Manon is losing a round she can still start building her medal level for the next and have an inherent advantage in R3. To that I say: wtf? Her combos into hitgrab are so situational that you have to mess up for her to get the opportunity (DR combo, anti-air combo, Punish combo). And if you get command grabbed so many times during your "winning round" that she gets a bunch of level-ups, then that's on you. If it was Gief, you might even have lost that round instead because his SPDs do more damage than hers at that point in a match.

I can barely complete a 3-hit combo in training mode before an opponent has been found. Night and day compared to SFV's online experience.

I ran into a Honda yesterday who almost literally only used headbutt and HP. I lost 1-2. I'm not sure if I want to hop on the hate train quite yet but it's striking how hard it is to deal with something that takes so little effort to pull off from the Honda player. I completely agree that defense should be harder than offense because otherwise the game becomes a turtle fest and nobody ever takes damage, but, eh, the balance seems a bit off here. But I've only played two or three Hondas so far, maybe I'll get more comfortable punishing his headbutt with EX grab soon. Certainly a very powerful counter, though you have to be on point and ready for it all the time. JP is whatever. Sometimes he perfects me from full screen, other times he can't do anything because I get an early knockdown. I don't really like playing against him but the more basic fireball zoners like Ryu and Guile are actually harder for Manon to deal with IMO.

Installed world Tour the other day and gave it a spin earlier. Wasn't really planning to but I needed a bit of a break from the PvP side of things and I have to admit, it's actually solid. Like a very old-school kind of 3D beat'em up that might as well have come out on PS2, with all the silliness and humour and it not being afraid of trying something dumb. Not sure if I'll play through it entirely (any numbers on how long that'll take?) but I try to go at least far enough to unlock some costumes for characters I care about.

I think my plateau in this game will be wherever you end up if you can't react to DI. I just don't see it, even if I wait for it there's a solid 75% chance I'm getting hit. There's also some characters who have significantly harder to read animations than others. From what I've seen so far the likes of Ryu or Dhalsim are on the easier side (though still can't counter them on reaction) while Cammy or Blanka I only realise they did it when they already connected with my character. Cammy's in particular might as well not have the colour splash at all as far as I'm concerned, I couldn't even see that coming in slow motion. I tried the few tips people posted online like turning up the volume for Drive Gauge moves but I didn't notice anything really.

You have been visiting a different internet than me the last few days. I think he's beyond stupid at full screen away but thankfully somewhat manageable at any other distance. But when he lands that cane strike special and puts you at the other end of the stage there's no other counterplay than to wakeup parry which is oddly limiting for this game.

Tried to punish heavy Blanka Ball with Manon's Level 1. She stops dead in her tracks literally 1 pixel in front of him, it felt like Capcom was just trolling me. Went to training mode and unless I'm missing something the only way to punish that move with her is perfect parry into QFB LK which does almost no damage. I think Ono's ghost is still lingering in Capcom HQ.

I actually keep forgetting Drive Reversal is a thing. This game is so bloated.

Lily feels like a nightmare at the moment. On paper her weakness is that she has to charge her Windbuff, until you realise that anyone half-decent with her will never run out of stocks. And at that point you're just going up against a grappler who can fly in your face and be plus on block all day. I haven't played many Lilys so far so there's definitely a massive amount of matchup inexperience on my end, but I get the feeling she's slept on right now. right now I feel like I have to turn my brain off and hope for an early knockdown into potential snowball effect because if you let her get started you're screwed. Edit: The duality of man. Though I wouldn't even disagree with her being basic.

I was expecting Kimberly, particularly with Modern Controls, to be everywhere at launch but I've run into literally a single one so far. Same goes for Blanka, who was all over the place in SFIV but for some reason people seem to have stopped caring about him after 09 (not complaining).

This one was excellent, too:

I was doing some Guile trials yesterday when I remembered there was a bit of a discussion around his frame perfect Sonic Booms at some point. I think in practice this really is a non-issue, I actually had to deliberately use a different timing than I'm used to for charge moves to get the non-perfect version. But I think most people already came to that conclusion, just wanted to get it out the system. One other thing I'd like to point out though is that his st.LK animation looks hilariously stupid. If you haven't seen it yet, please go check it out ASAP, absolutely worth it.

I'd never buy a Season Pass before even knowing what's in there or in this case, if I'd even enjoy/play the characters but I always presumed people who do so would, well, read what it entails. "This couch SUCKS, it doesn't even fit in my living room, 0/10"

I'm not landing any command grabs anymore, my opponents are all constantly holding up. I collect my medals nicely like a good Manon via her QCF Hitgrab, but I barely get to experience the rewards anymore. Funnily enough it doesn't really have a big impact on my overall performance with her but the flying opponents are getting a bit lame.

I'm ashamed to admit that after going through the trials and playing some lobby matches with a friend I got the impression I felt most at home with Ryu. But there's no way I'm going to play him, I hate mirror matches and I find him boring visually. Manon is okay, but it feels like I'm just poking around a bit and waiting for them to jump at me. Conversely, I have absolutely no idea how to open people up with her, particularly defensive fireball characters like Ryu, Chun, Guile, Sim and JP. Those matchups are a total snoozefest that I eventually lose with 1 seconds on the clock, but I suppose that's just the grappler lifestyle in general. I actually liked Honda from his trials, but the fact that you have to buff his Hand Slap for it be good is a serious turnoff. Matter of fact I'm not a fan of these installs/buffs across the cast. For Manon it works because you don't really have to think about it but if you to stop and power up or something, eh. Tried Juri a bit more seriously, too, but I'm not feeling her. I'Ve always liked SFIV Juri and she's a bit closer to that than she was in V but there's something about her that I just don't enjoy. There's also something off when chaining together her charged releases. I can't for the life of me figure out the timing and had to mash the motions, which is super unrewarding. Chun is cool, but too execution heavy in this game for me. Might look a bit more in-depth into Gief, he seems to be basically the same as Manon but with a bit more nuance, oddly enough. JP might still be my ideal character but I kind of hate him already.