Overview:All Stars Battle of Fighters is a mod where different anime characters are brought together to fight. The game mostly uses GBA/DS games' ripped sprites, but I did see some moves which sprites' I have never seen. So it seems there was some work done in doing custom sprites as well. In the game, I've recognized few characters I know myself like Goku, Vegeta and Freeza from Dragon Ball, Gon from Hunter X Hunter, Luffy, Zoro and Sanji from One Piece, and to my surprise, Yugi Moto from Yugi Oh!. But the main questions is, were the characters work of quality?
Review:So I started the game by jumping to VS mode for a quick match. 16 characters were there (excluding YinYin's training/sandbag), and I went with Goku since Dragonball character are often fun to play with (another reason was that @bashscrazy, who's done some excellent work in his DBZ mod, is in the team ). It was a match against a randomly picked character which turned out to be Sanji from One Piece. Movement and controls were fluid and up to my expectations. Generally speaking, there were lots of moves which were fairly different and managed to stay true to Dragon Ball, but there were 2 moves which, while fancy looking, weren't very special. The first being Kaioken + A which activates a length pre-scripted combo with Goku moving in a straight line which very often misses. And even if it hits, you can see few of the attacks not hitting the target (might be a high v/arest value problem). I would've loved it if it was something more than a fancy combo which you can't combo from nor to. The other being the grab attack which was another lengthy pre-scripted combo that stops where it ends (how the last part of it hits makes no sense to me. It's just Goku teleporting to where the target is and they're taking damage ?_?) . I would have preferred a much simpler one with a unique advantage over the rest of the moves. DvA is one attack which is currently useless, but can be really useful if only its starting time is decreased (enough to be used straight after defending an attack).
Sanji, on the other hand was just the opposite of that. His attacks were dull, slow and stupidly conditional.D>J aka "Grill Shot" has a big start up time and will only hit after Sanji dashes a fixed distance with his red hot leg. His first hit in his basic combo is 2 kicks which were slow, and using them already puts you in a great disadvantage where you're welcoming the opponent to attack from the back or from an angle. The time gap between the hits in the combo is big enough for the victim to leave the injured state and counter :\. His jump attack is Brochette/Drill kick/Skewer which is Sanji "drilling" his way straight to the ground, so it's difficult to even hit an opponent who's in front of you in the air (they must be under you or close enough for the attack's hitbox to collide). His run attack is a wild dvx:100 dash followed by a sudden stop which feels jerky. Sanji is supposed to be a very fast combo machine, which is certainly not what I have seen there. The only attack(s) I liked was the D^A combo, but again, I was disappointed that it can't be used mid roll (which again takes a big distance and lots of time for its animation to finish :\).
One moment in particular with Sanji triggered a reflexive F4 click for me, and that was Sanji using his "speciality" (only knew it was intended after I inquired); the fire defense 0_0. One of Sanji's powerups "Diable Jamble" involves [url=i930.photobucket.com/albums/ad146/SanjixNami/OnePieceSanjiVSJyaburaDiableJamb-1.gif]spinning around himself extremely fast until his leg glows red hot[/url]. In the game, special defense is that Sanji's leg blocking and BURNING the opponent it touches which is very cheap.
Luffy's case was better, but still not satisfying. Again, controlling him felt very stiff an no where near some Goku in responsiveness , and he had the problem with the great time gap between the attacks in the basic hit combo. Conqueror's haki was made very cheap; no bdy so you're invulnerable during its frames, low MP consumption and can hit anyone around within a huge box range around you. It is true that it doesn't inflict much damage, but its still a decent amount for what it does. Also, I really don't think the run attack should have any MP consumption.
Zoro is a huge mess on his own, and one of the characters I'd consider broken. His move set is good and all, but there are few points you NEED to resolve. Shihi sonson (the run attack) can be used infinitely many times in a combo (just Shihi Sonon them back and forth). I really think it has a huge range. I mean OniGiri (D>J) is what Zoro used to clear crowds. Shishi sonson is a short ranged 1 sword focused version of it which is good at penetrating defenses. Another issue is DVJ, which, in addition to being an over powered move on its own, consumes NO MP. Zoro never really made big projectiles like that also. Zoro's roll, which was made an evasive move that is followed by a counter (Tiger hunt) has the evasive part extensible by continuously tapping D. Zoro is completely invulnerable during these frames, and it has very little MP consumption. Dragon Twister (DVJ) is another move you can spam against a victim in one end of the stage to KO him even if he has full HP. DJA seems to lead to unused frames with missing pics for what seems to be "Asura"
Vegeta, another character I played a lot with, was very well done, even though I felt was quite underpowered compared to the rest of the cast. When you see Vegeta and Goku in a game, you usually think these will pretty much be skins for the same character. But this wasn't the case here! This was apparent the moment I used D>A (which is Goku's Ki ball combination), and Vegeta fired his
characteristic satisfying reckless impulsive barrage of Ki balls to greet the enemy. His playstyle was fairly different from Goku for real this time. Only common move would be his D>J (Galick gun) which correspond's to Goku's kamehameha. He has a fair number of combos, and is very smooth to play with. Vegeta was definitely well-made and is one of the best characters in this game.
Frieza, the third and the last Dragon Ball character in the mod was disappointingly just another projectile berserk. Almost all of his moveset are just projectiles which hit differently. The rest is a tackle attack and one useless static combo dubbed in the movelist "5 beam combo" and an upper direction pre-scripted combo which I barely used.
Gon from Hunter X Hunter wasn't bad, but nothing special either. His main attacks are based on his signature "Rock Paper Scissor" moves which were done good, but aren't anything special on their own. When I picked Gon, I expected something more mobile and acrobatic, but the moveset given to him didn't offer any of this. His attacks are very straightforward; using his fishing rod to do damage from afar, an uppercut (scissor), an energy ball (paper) and punch that is similar to Hero Fighter's Drew's D>A, except that it went farther forward. The attack has 3 levels, the second and the 3rd which were very poorly done. The second was basically the same punch (probably does more damage) except that you get to travel forward consuming MP until it is the right time to hit your opponent with it using the attack button. The way Gon floats for that long in that pose is really awkward, and it gets worse when you learn that you can change your moving direction by clicking back. The 3rd level is just a fast screen-width-sized leap forward to punch the opponent. Too much for a punch. The fishing rod attacks has much waste potential for comboing; like DvA could've been beautifully made to combo with D^A.
The Naruto characters are good and fun to play with, but they're not very different from the ones you've played in NTSD and other Naruto mods. To be fair though there were a couple of good moves added. One thing which I didn't like was how Gon's charging is through DJA AAAAA while Dragon Ball, Naruto and Bleach characters could charge with DJA only. I don't know, but I really think you should've tried being consistent with the inputs even though the characters are from different anime.
The Bleach characters had similar moves to Bleach Bankai Revolution's (I could tell from that sparkling slash effect in Ichigo's last hit in the combo.) The characters are great and quite fun to play with. My only critique has to do with their almost instantaneous teleporting move which makes them lean more towards the overpowered side of the scale. Also, it's worth mentioning that Bankai Ichigo's walking sprites animate too fast.
Natsu from Fairy Tale, another fair character with fair attacks. I didn't play him much, but his most interesting move is an idle frames during which
if attacked by a fire projectile will "eat it" and gain HP. Neat, and I believe is being true to the anime/manga series, but very useless and serves no use during actual battles. I mean if someone wants to heal himself, the health kit items are all over the stage for that. That is one other problem which needs to be resolved.
Sawada, from ???.. Okay, it's good that characters from non-mainstream anime are brought into the game. Basically, Sawada is an all fire character who can fly using fire from his limbs as jets. He can shoot fiery projectiles, one which leave fire trails behind them (Firen run's). In short, OP and will defeat 7 opponents teaming up on him with little effort. His flying ability wasn't restricted as necessary, so you will often find him flying very high in the air, way beyond the LF2 screen's viewport. I also noticed that he's missing the D(v^><)(AJ) tags in his defend frames, thus; forcing you to wait until you're out of the defending frames for your input to trigger the special move.
Muto Yugi. My favorite, and most broken XD. Playing with this character is plain fun (especially if you're battling against another Yugi (preferably controlled by a human)). Every move is done with cards. Defend to place down a trap card ("Binding Circle") which stepping on will trigger it. Attack draws a card, and clicking it again will summon "Cletic Guardian" who will be spawned to attack in a static straight line. D>A activates the spell card "Swords of Revealing Light" which will spawn the swords which, if successfully fell on the the opponent, will catch the victim in place for a while. DvJ summons "Dark Palladin" who, if hits a character, will "remove him from play" (you can guess what that means in the game
). "Dark Magician", "Gaiya the Fierce Knight", "Kuribo" and other good-old-days cards can be summoned or activated in a similar fashion with effects that fairly matches the show's. Summoning Exodia perform a ritual where the five cards are connected, and if Yugi is not interrupted in time, Exodia emerges and everyone automatically loses. There are also the 3 god cards which pretty much KO any opponents they land their attacks on. Well obviously, the character is broken and and just about spamming cards. But this doesn't mean it's not fun like that
.
If you're a Yugi Oh fan, it is worth checking out this mod just to try him out.Aaand I was about to forget talking about Edward from Full Metal Alchemist (I think). Ultimately the best character in terms of quality. Edward has only got 4 specials which is really few compared to the rest of the characters, but playing him requires making use of all these attacks given to him equally. The first being a big stone barrier which can block everything; even physical attacks will be absorbed by it if their hit boxes goes through and reach you (I certainly have never seen anything like that done in data changing before). The second attack D^A plants a rock fist under the closest target that knocks them up in the air. D>J, a rock version of Freeze's D>J and DvA which is a very short ranged electrical sword slash. Thats a typical LF2 move set for you. Simple, but the attacks work together in various ways.
The verdict: There are still some issues to be resolves but,
Very good! It has been a while since I last had this fun with LF2.
Home 
Portal 
Search 
Latest images 
Register 
Log in 
Subject: A-Man's Feedback Thread :P 
Fri Nov 06, 2015 7:01 am
