quote Manta

I've got the green light to say what I'd like divulging anything about the game, bare with me as I have a tendency to elaborate a bit.

So we've played for about a month, and I'd like to say that almost every single 'bad' first impression we got as a change. . . we either got used to it, or simply adapted, and it's quickly becoming a very, very fun game.

Almost every character is weaker in their trademark bread and butter moves. You *will* hate what they did to your character on your initial impression (and not just because the game is slower) But I can *almost* guarantee, aside from the crap characters (yes, there's a couple we think so far) you will find other new or existing moves that rock so hard.

Through playing much more, we've found so many other moves have been improved, new comboss and stun properties, and many secret JFs discovered (not in move lists) - - I remember when everyone said that SC2 Cervy was bottom tier... then we later find out he's definitely not --

There are crazy changes. Some will piss you off, others you might love. This is a new game. If you want to play Calibur 2, or Calibur 3, go ahead, but this is Calibur 4, a totally different beast of it's own Hope I've emphasized enough... on to the changes ---

Not being able to guard impact throws:
Yup, couldn't even get a single perfect GI. Post GI, it's now guaranteed 50/50. On top of this, many throws ring out better, but many at the cost of a little less damage.

White Flash on any Just Frame performed:
Probably the coolest addition to the game, when ya perform your favorite JF your character flashes a bright white, even as a just frame tech pulled off successfully.

Hwang is not in the game:
Seriously. Wtf? Namdai's lost their mind when they pull shenanigans like this.

CFs *very* viable, and random Armor Break system:
This game's got weird properties when it comes to both. The Soul Gauge (the colored bubble when blue = good, red = bad) will change much depending on the move.

Oddly, some very powerful, damaging, slow moves will take almost *no* Soul Gauge meter from your opponent, when a certain quick lighter damage attack will take a chunk more. Many times we found *both* of our Soul Gauges blinking, and we aren't really big turtles in our style of play.

On top of this, although armor breaks after several hits, it's very inconsistent. It seems characters that have juggles and air combos will be ten times more likely to break armor pieces than a heavy hitter like Astaroth or Nightmare. In either case CFs don't depend on if an armor piece is broken, once your meter is flashing, and it's broken, so will an armor piece, so ending the round.

4G / 1G GIs now near useless : Unless ~
The ONLY time these are useful are when the opponent has a wall on his *right* side only. He'll get wall splatted, and you're guaranteed some damage on a combo. Other thing sad about 4/1G, unlike 6/3G, it won't effect your Soul Gauge.

Perfect GI much easier to do:
If your timing is great, you'll be getting plenty of counter-hit combos, I remember them happening so rarely in SC3, you wouldn't anticipate a CH combo... now it's very appropriate to plan it all the time and get your damage in =)

Step Changes
By hitting either 8 or 2 once, you'll take a good distance in stepping, but be unsafe until you complete that step. Better, but worse. Doubling the movement barely makes you move, but at least you can block. It's hard to explain, but it makes a predictable vertical 'much' easier to step.


-Manta-

quote Manta

JFT: Just frame techs:
Literally must be 1/60 frames -- On examples like Mitsu's 2K, B - right after the B slams you to the ground, you *can* JFT out in time to escape followups with your character flashing white. I read here that people in the demo build thought it was a glitch. It's legitimate, but very, very tough to pull off even if ya know the timing. Many combos I'm sure can be escaped this way, but they're so tricky to pull off, they might as well be guaranteed.

Many notations changed . . . again . . . for no reason:
If ya think your move's gone, you're might be wrong, as it's probably now done from a certain stance, or different notation all together. A little annoying at first, but again ; we adapted.

The game is slower. . .but still feels fast:
The game still has i11A attacks, and i13 Sophi Stabs etc... but as buffering is harder to do, and many string's animation between moves looks sluggish - I almost want to say that it was slowed down for online play, but it doesn't make sense since the normal GI window is even smaller. Maybe it's just me getting used to it, I hated the pace at first, but now I love it.

Wall hits are now guaranteed stuns:
Reminds me of Tekken, sadly - though the damage scales down very quickly, a lot of characters can get pretty damaging combos on a wall, or after a 4_1 parry, completely unshakeable. It's still better than getting rung out...

Some characters have WL:
Wish there were more though. Cervy and Tira for example have their WL Bs, just as 7_8_9B now.

Can't reiterate enough - the changes are all something you can get used to. For me, discovering and re-learning many characters was a huge part of the fun -- I'm sure a good lot of you won't agree with differences, but I think everyone should give Calibur 4 a damn good chance and reserver your judgment until you've spent some real time playing in local gatherings or competition. I personally find it a blast to play. Guess that's my review =)

-Manta-

quote tieTYT

I played SC4 for about 2 days. Here's my impressions:

First of all, my initial impression of the game is that it sucked. In fact, I felt like I could have easily put it down and not played it anymore within the first 10 games. But, the more I played it, the more fun it was. At the end of the 2 days, I now like the game.

One thing that I still hate is the User Interface (UI) of the game. Start+Select doesn't do anything anymore... why take this out? At the end of the last round, you can't skip the winner's win pose. In practice mode you press K to cancel out of menus but in VS mode K has no function... The 2nd player can't control the title select screen. Not only that, but i couldn't figure out a way to set the controls of P2 without going to VS mode and pausing. These inconsistencies and tiny annoyances really add up.

Unlike my first days with SC3, I was unable to find anything extremely cheap yet. Hopefully that'll stay the same for the rest of the game's lifetime.

We (aris and i) checked out the moves of Cass, Sophi, Yoshi, Setsuka, Sieg, Nightmare, Maxi, Kilik, Mitsu, X and Asta. So far I'd say the cheapest thing I saw is Mitus's 2KB. If you intentionally do not juggle off of that, the wakeup games he gets seem pretty hard to deal with.

I think I've read that Critical Finishes are a lot easier to do, and they really effect the way you play, but they are rare. I tend to disagree with the last part. With Sieg I probably got an opportunity to do a CF every 4 games.

Here are some of our findings:
For all the moves we tried, there seemed to be a consistent effect on the CF gauge. That is, blocking the same move x times will cause a CF opportunity.

Body armor, on the other hand, seems to have some random elements to it. One of Yoshi's move, for example, consistently broke low armor after 5 hits. But another one of his moves seemed to break the low armor after a different number of hits each time. We also couldn't see a consistent effect on the increased damage the broken armor caused. For example, losing your high armor increased 1 move's damage by 6%, but another's by 11%.