Rant on Mega Man on Super Smash Bros. 3DS

I was supposed to talk about this in my post yesterday.  But I was so excited about everything else I totally forgot to talk about Megaman in Super Smash Bros. 3DS, even though I said I would!  But here I am, back again to yell and complain.
First, I want to point out how ecstatic I was to find out Mega Man was joining the roster for Super Smash Bros.  If you look at all the move sets and animation for Mega Man, you'll notice that it's a 1:1 representation of Mega Man from his original games:

Not to mention, all the sound effects are the ones from the original.  This incredible attention to detail and canon references is the perfect homage to the blue bomber.  Now to get onto the matter at hand: playing as Mega Man in Super Smash Bros. 3DS.

I'm pretty sure Mega Man will play exactly the same way in the full version considering the game's already out in Japan and the full game comes out here on Friday.  Still, everything I rant about here is based on what I've played from the demo.  I will come straight to the point and say "Mega Man isn't very good..."  People who have played the demo or the Japanese version of the full game all seem to agree that Mega Man isn't that strong compared to most of the characters or that he doesn't have a good moveset.  The main problem is that a lot of his moves puts him in danger more than being the danger.  He's his own worst enemy!  The other problem he has is kill potential.  This is a major problem I had with Sonic the Hedgehog in Brawl (and I'm afraid he might be the same in this one too) in that it was very difficult to finish off a player, let alone trying to damage them.  Let's go through all his move sets and take a closer look at his kit:

Note: A = Neutral Attack; B = Special Attack

Ground Attacks
A - Mega Buster (Safe): Mega Man can shoot up to 3 small projectiles that does 2%-2.5% Damage.  It's not the best, but it's not bad either.  You can recover out of the attack immediately and sneak in some extra damage between every other attack using this.  It's not very far ranged.

Forward A - Running Mega Buster (Safe): So like in the Mega Man games, he can run and shoot at the same time.  This can be useful leading into a grab or slide.

Up A - Mega Uppercut (Risky): So here we have our first problematic move.  It's the uppercut move that Mega Man uses from Marvel vs. Capcom.  It does a decent amount of damage (12%) and can KO around 80% or so.  The problem is using it.  It's an up-tilt move which means you might execute an up-smash or Up-air by accident if you don't do it right.  And if you do execute it right but miss, it takes forever for you to recover.  You can cancel out of it, you come back down really slow, and you're in the air long enough for the enemy to knock you out.  It's a good KO move if you can land it, but there are so many drawbacks on using it that it doesn't seem worth utilizing.

Down A - Slide Kick (Risky): I like this move because you can chain it into or from other attacks.  But you can't stop when you start and it's really easy for the enemy to just block grab you since you're locked down to that animation until you're finished.

Dash A - Top Spin (Risky): Much like the Slide kick, you're locked into animation when you start and can easily be block-grabbed.  Based on Top Man's weapon from Mega Man 3.

Ground Smash Attacks
Forward Smash - Charge Shot (Risky): The familiar charge shot from the series, it does decent damage (12-20%) and is one of the potential KO attacks.  But it has a delay before coming out, is slow, and takes a bit to recover from.  It's risky to use unless you put your opponent in a position where they can't avoid it.

Up Smash - Spark Shock (Risky): 15-20% is pretty good for this move, but it's not a KO move.  I don't understand why this isn't switched with the up-tilt attack.  That would make much more sense.  It's also a very risky move.  The skill lasts for a good few seconds and takes forever to recover from.  Based on Spark Man's weapon from Mega Man 3.

Down Smash - Flame Blast (Risky): This isn't far off from Up-Smash.  Rather than an attack right above him, it's two flaming pillars to both sides of Mega Man.  It does a good amount of damage (17-24%), but doesn't have KO potential and takes forever to execute and recover from.  Based on Flame Man's weapon from Mega Man 6.

Air Attacks
Neutral Air - Mega Buster (Safe): Mega Buster in the air.

Forward Air - Flame Sword (Risky): I like this skill.  It has good coverage, reach, and okay damage (5-9%).  It has a slight recovery time lag, but I'd much rather use this than any of the other moves.  Based on Sword Man's weapon from Mega Man 8.

Back Air - Slash Claw (Safe): This is, hands-down, the best move Mega Man has.  It's fast to execute and recover, it has KO potential, and it has decent range.  It doesn't have the strongest knock-back power for a KO, but it's the safest one.  Based on Slash Man's weapon from Mega Man 7

Up Air - Air Shooter (Safe): This is a hilarious move that can KO an opponent.  Rather than knocking them out of the screen at full speed, it carries them up and out of the screen slowly.  It's not too risky of a move, but it's very difficult to utilize effectively because of how slow it travels.  Based on Air Man's weapon from Mega Man 2.

Down Air - Hard Knuckle (Debatable): I really like this move, as well.  But there are problems with using it.  It's a downward spike that has very strong KO potential (I'm able to KO the CPU around 24%-32% using this) but is very difficult to land.  The D-air is most effective off stage.  It takes about .5-1 second for it to execute, so there's a timing issue.  Then there's also the fact that the 3DS doesn't have a C-stick, so if you press down too hard and execute it, you'll be locked in animation and fall at a very fast speed to your death.  Even if you don't fall off, there's a bit of a recovery time lag before you can do anything else.  It's the most satisfying move that Mega Man has in his arsenal, especially when you successfully land it.  Based on Hard Man's weapon from Mega Man 3.

Special Attacks
Grab - Super Arm (Safe): Thankfully, Mega Man's grab is really fast.  It can lead to some nice setups for damage and KO.  Based on Guts Man's weapon from Mega Man.

B - Metal Blade (Risky): Throws a circular metal blade that can be thrown in 8 different directions.  It takes a short delay to use, does very little damage, travels very slowly, has no knock-back, and can be grabbed by the opponent to be used against you.  What a terrible move.  Based on Metal Man's weapon from Mega Man 2.  (Looks like there are other weapons for custom later in the full version).

Side B - Crash Bomber (Risky): A slow traveling projectile that sticks to opponents and acts like the Gooey Bomb from Brawl.  It also has a short delay before execution and can be used against you since it can be transferred around by just touching.  Also a terrible move.  Based on Crash Man's weapon in Mega Man 2.

Up B - Rush Coil (Safe): Okay, this is pretty cool.  It's kind of like Sonic's Spring where Rush appears and lets Mega Man ascend higher and can be bounced on by anyone.  I heard Mega Man can get out of being stun-locked by combos using this, but I haven't confirmed that yet.  It's a really good recovery skill and can be used to chase enemies in higher areas for a KO or take out enemies below the stage platform and get back on safely.  Based off of the Rush Coil from Mega Man 3.

Down B - Leaf Shield (Risky): You bring up leaves that circle around you that does 1-2% damage for each one that makes contact.  Slow to bring up, slow to use, does very little damage, and slow recovery.  Another terrible skill.  Some have pointed out it might be good for setting up grabs, but using it would give a huge hint to the opponent on what you're going to do.  Based on Wood Man's weapon from Mega Man 2.

Final Smash - Rockman Special(Safe): You shoot a black hole and can execute it to stop and grow.  If anyone falls into it, the special will go off where 4 other Mega Mans from the series (X [X series], Exe [Battle Network], Volnutt [Legends], Geo Stelar [Star Force]) charge up their blasters along with Mega Man to blast the opponent.  Yes, it's a single-target Final smash, but it's pretty cool and a great treat for Mega Man fans.


So let's count: There are effectively (by default, not counting custom specials yet), 8 skills which are pretty safe to use, one that can be argued as being safe or risky, and 10 which are risky by nature due to the vulnerable state that the skill leaves Mega Man in when he executes them.  That's pretty bad when more than half of a character's kit is risky to use.  Not to mention that most of them don't reap the rewards that come with the danger of using them.  I think Mega Man is really fun, and so do many other fans who have played the demo; however, it seems apparent that he isn't as solid as we would hope for him to be as a fighter.  I'm still going to try to main him, but I doubt it'll turn out well considering what I went through with Sonic the Hedgehog in Brawl.  Hopefully, Mega Man's custom specials make him a bit more viable in a fight.  At this point, I don't really care.  I just want to play the game!  Three more days...

Fighting games and MORE fighting games!

This year was supposed to be all about RPGs as I tried to cut down on buying games and focus on the longer games I have in my collection of backlogged games.  And yet, I'm about to make several purchases all relating to the fighting games genre as a slew of games releases for the Fall.  But I guess I should talk a little about work before I get on to games.

It's been a while since I've brought out my Mix Turn-Table and messed around with it.  I played around for it a bit and decided to do some mixes.  So far, I've made 3 mixes: a slower, harder electronic mix; a somewhat faster and upbeat electronic mix; a vocal electronic mix; and then I have 2 other mixes planned (a Trance mix and a Drum 'n Bass mix).  It's a small break from the usual work I do for music, but I've also been looking into job openings and fixing my resumé throughout the month.  Eager to get back into doing some real work with music, I decided to do a remix of the new main theme for Super Smash Bros. 3DS/Wii U.
I started last week and finished last night so that I could upload it today.  Other than remixing the main theme of Super Smash Bros., I also added in a song from Mega Man 2, Pac-Mania, Punch-Out!!, and Xenoblade Chronicles in celebration of the addition of these 4 new characters to the game.  I've gotten to play Mega Man in the demo for Smash Bros., but I'll talk about that a little later.  I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do right now.  Finding an open position in anything in the game industry is difficult, let alone trying to find one specifically in music composition.  And there's still so many personal projects I want to fulfill.  But it's hard to think about any of that when October is going to be filled with so many distractions!

Super Smash Bros. 3DS releases this Friday on October 3rd, 2014.  That's all I could think about this month!  And somehow, I still managed to work on my resumé and finish 5 music projects (3 mixes, the Super Smash Bros. Remix, and last week I recorded a piano arrangement of a song from Rusty Hearts).
So before I forget, Rusty Hearts shut down this month on the 15th.  I was sad to hear the news but wasn't entirely surprised seeing the low population of the servers.  It was definitely one of my favorite online games with the witty dialogue, dynamic combat mechanics, and entrancing music.

I'm definitely going to buy Super Smash Bros. 3DS this Friday, but I'm also considering on buying Arcana Hearts 3 Love Max!!!!! for the PS Vita since they added new characters and a extra story mode to the very brief story mode for each character they already have.  And since it's a fighting game, it's probably a game I'll play for a really long time so I don't feel as bad getting it at full price.  That's 2 games right there.  Then there's Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus, which I pre-ordered already, that revealed to have a release date of October 14th.  The September 30th date listed was an estimate and not an official release date.  At least it'll give me some time to play Smash Bros. a bit before I get it.  Persona 4 Arena Ultimax comes out tonight, but I might wait to get it.  I also realize I haven't gotten BlazBlue Chronophantasma yet, but I'm waiting for a more definitive version since they keep popping out DLC characters.  Then there's the hope that Dengenki Bunko Fighting Climax will release in the West, Under Night In-Birth gets pushed back to next year, and Yatagarasu Attack on Cataclysm should be releasing sometime soon.  That's a whole lot of Fighting Games!  And fighting games can last a very very long time depending on how much you play them.  I actually haven't been playing that much Fighting games this year as I try to get into my RPGs.  I got through Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 while I started Lightning Returns (It's pretty fun so far).  I had gotten through StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm about 2 months ago (which are not RPGs, but are long overdue in being played).  Still, RPGs wear me out because of how long some of them are and so I fall back on shorter games.  Because of that, I've been playing (and buying) a LOT of platformers.  I think I've bought over a dozen platformers this year if not two dozens.  One of them was Azure Striker Gunvolt, which I knew I wanted to get way before it released since it's by the creators of the Megaman Zero series.  I beat the game fairly quickly but enjoyed it immensely.  It reminded me of the simple yet challenging joy of difficult Action-Platformers.  After beating it, I realized I never beat Megaman Zero 3 and 4 in which I did so shortly after. MMZ 3 was pretty hard while MMZ 4 was stupidly hard.  MMZ 2 was definitely my favorite in terms of overall gameplay and presentation.  But not all the platformers I played were great.  Last month, I mentioned Platformines.  That was fun for a bit and then became stupid and annoying.  Blade Kitten was actually alright.  It was pretty fun, but I wasn't happy to find out that it was a cliff-hanger ending.  Then there was Blood of the Werewolf where it just bugged me throughout the whole game with "why would they design it like this?".  It was also a cliff-hanger ending which I didn't care since I didn't even enjoy the game that much.  The Expendabros was pretty entertaining, and it was free!  It was also only an hour long.  With all these other games, it's hard to focus on the longer ones.  I've been playing Project X Zone for over a year now!  It's fun, but it's hard to get through since it's so long.  Despite my large collection of unplayed games, I continue to buy more games because of sales.  I bought Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies alongside Azure Striker Gunvolt since it was $18 from it's usual $40.  That's hard to pass up!  But I haven't found ANY time to play it, and I'm about to get Smash Bros. for my 3DS which gives me even less reason to play it at the moment!  Even then, I ended up buying Tales of Symphonia Chronicles and Shin Megami Tensei IV (2 more long RPGs!) two days ago since they were on sale for $20 each.  After the incident with Xenoblade Chronicles, I get paranoid about certain games becoming too rare and being sold for unreasonable prices.  All I can do is take it one game at a time.  I'm very close to finishing Ys: Memories of Celceta for the PS Vita.  I like it, it's a fun game!  A part of me thinks it's not as fun as Ys; Oath in Felghana, but I think it's mainly because it's a slightly different experience.  After Ys is Hyperdimension Neptunia PP.  I'm not sure if I can finish that before the end of the week if I really do plan on buying Arcana Heart 3 Love Max!!!!!  Not to mention I still have Persona 4 Golden, but I don't plan on playing it until I play through Persona 3 at least once.  It's still not as bad of a backlog as my 3DS is building up.  I remember when I first got my 3DS, I only had super short games and finished them all.  Because of that, I wanted longer games to play.  Now I have too many long games and I can't finish them in time for the next one!  Other than not knowing what to do for the next month because of difficulty in finding an open position to apply to, I really don't know what to do to pass the time before this Friday in which I'll be playing a LOT of Super Smash Bros.  I guess I'll try to finish Ys: MoC and then play Hyperdimension Neptunia PP.  Waiting for Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus will be a cinch since I'll have Super Smash Bros. to play.

I've been finding a lot of new music to listen to.  One of the things I found to listen to is the soundtrack for Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson.
It's crazy how big Senran Kagura got.  We haven't even gotten Shinovi Versus yet, but Japan already got 3 other Senran Kagura games after that one with a new one announced called "Shinovi Estival" releasing for the PS Vita and PS4 next year.  So far, I really like the music in Senran Kagura 2 - Deep Crimson.  I kind of wish it wasn't so focused on fan-service and busty girls so that the franchise could be as big in the West.  Unfortunately, it probably wouldn't have gotten as big in Japan and thus not worth bringing to the West in the first place.  It can be really hard to favor the audience of both the East (or Japan in particular) and the West.  Still, I'm glad the games are being brought over since I'm enjoying them so much.

I just finished watching an animé called "No Game No Life" and it was great!  It was fast, witty, and unpredictable.  It was also very colorful and wild.  You can't really mistaken it for any other animé, even by just looking at screenshots of it.  I also really liked the BGM as it was very electronic influenced which really made heated parts of the show even more exciting.  The show also makes a TON of references from other animé and games.  I loved the show.  It was fun, exciting, funny, and very cute.  It also ended way too fast.

I think that's enough for now.  My brain can't function correctly right now.  All I can think about it is "Smash Bros."!