MBAACC 1.07 impressions

Akiha Tohno by NFB-ZMC

Current Code 1.07 came out on PC recently, and the game is pretty much as good as I had hoped from watching videos.  I had already mentioned before in earlier posts about Melty that MBAA improved on MBAC in almost every single way, but there were still fundamental problems with the game, like how strong being in the air was.  Most of those leftover issues were fixed in CC 1.05, and carried over to 1.07 so I'm pretty happy with the way the game turned out.

A CC 1.05 change that carried over to 1.07 was in airthrows, specifically raw airthrows.  Airthrows are godlike now so you can really bring on the pain against people who just jump and frolick around all day.  This is a really great change as it makes the air game less dominating, so there's a bigger emphasis on proper ground movement.

Somewhat related is the almost universal increase in character walkspeeds, which also makes the ground game stronger.

I also want to talk about the removal of anti-A armor, which was something a lot of people were divided over.  It's pretty clear why it was added in the first place though, since A attacks in MBAC were so dumb.  But the active frames on A attacks were already universally toned down in MBAA, so anti-A armor ended up being kind of overkill.  It's been removed since vanilla MBAACC, and one of the results is that antiair 5a becomes viable again.  This sounds bad, as 5a mash antiair was one of the most obnoxious things about MBAC, but I think it's been toned down appropriately in CC because of the counterhit change.  So for the most part, if someone scores a trade from a mash 5a antiair, the extra counterhit stun will be just long enough so that they won't be able to combo afterwards.

The 1.07 port is almost perfect, as far as I've seen.  Frenchbread is known for adding in last minute balance changes in the home ports, but PC CC 1.07 seems to be devoid of this.  The training mode is an improvement over the PS2 version, especially in the amount of replays that can be saved and the maximum time allotted to dummy record.  However, the training mode has actually lost some features like the status bar.  I can never understand it when game developers actually remove features that were present in earlier versions of a game.  Unless these certain features were problematic.  But status bar was very useful for getting an indication of the cancel points of attacks.

In contrast, the 1.07 netcode is easily the worst I've ever seen in any fighting game.  It doesn't handle packet loss well at all and the way it calculates delay is completely off.  Now, delay based netplay in general is terrible.  But Frenchbread isn't exactly a big company like Capcom who is rolling in money, so it's somewhat understandable that they'd go this route.  What I don't understand is not allowing the players to manually choose what delay to set.  The connections seem completely random too.  Some people can't even get good connections with people that live less than an hour away from them, but can play people out of state just fine.

In terms of balance, it's a bit too early to say but every character seems viable at this point.  All of the ridiculous characters in 1.05 were toned down, in particular PCiel and Ryougi.  VSion and Mech, who were considered bottom of the barrel in 1.05, have also been improved by quite a bit.  The game's only been out for a few months, so there are just 2 "credible" character rankings right now.

First off is top Miyako/Ries player Kanna's list, which he made within the first month of the game's release!
S Arc PCiel Kohaku Nero Satsuki Roa Seifuku Ryougi
A Warc Shiki Akiha Wara Hisui Nanaya Sion Ries Aoko WLen Ciel Kouma VAkiha Hime Len Miyako
B VSion Mech

Notice that HisuKoha, the Necos and the various team characters are missing.  Supposedly he didn't include them because of the lack of exp vs them in 1.07.

Next up is top VAkiha player Hato's list, which was actually published in the most recent issue of Arcadia magazine.
S Nero Ryougi
A+ Arc Satsuki Wara Seifuku
A Sion Warc Akiha VAkiha Nanaya Kohaku HisuKoha Mech Len Kouma Ries Roa PCiel
B VSion Shiki Ciel Miyako Aoko WLen Hime
C NecoArc NecoArcChaos KohaMech Necomech

There's a great deal of disagreement here, so clearly it's a sign that it's much too early in the game's lifespan for a tier list.  I should also mention that 1.07 came out in mid October, so the game is still pretty new.  Some characters are still relatively unexplored, so there's a lot of potential for change!  I still remember how different the final AA char rankings were compared to the ones made in the first year of that game's life.

As for characters I've been using, I have mostly been playing F Archetype Earth and my old AA character F Akiha.  I streamed a quick F-Akiha tutorial the day the game came out, detailing her general gameplay, normals, combos, and her 1.07 changes.  F-Akiha plays exactly the same as she did in AA; it's just that everything she does deals less damage now, so it's a bit harder to win.  In particular, her fire webs(412) do way less damage and have a proration of 50%, so it's not even worth trying to work them into combos anymore.  It also affects her web+arc drive unblockable setup, making it do about 1000 dmg less on average.

The recovery on the projectile version of her arc drive has also been increased, which at first doesn't seem like a big deal.  But it actually weakens her corner unblockable, because in previous versions, whenever someone wanted to reduce damage on the F-Akiha unblockable, they would just jump guard.  The projectile version of her arc drive would lock the opponent in blockstun, and since web is air unblockable, they would then get their guard broken and take a bit of damage.  Her arc drive in the older versions of the game recovered very fast, so F Akiha could just combo off of this and score another knockdown.  She can't do this anymore, so now the opponent gets to escape.  The damage that the opponent takes is generally between 1.4K-2K, so it's a significant reduction over the 4K that the opponent would take if they had gotten grabbed.

In earlier versions, even if the opponent reduced damage on the unblockable by jumping, Akiha would still be in a favorable position because she could combo into knockdown.  Now that she can't do this anymore, it's hard to say whether or not it's still worth it to go even go for the unblockable setup in this version.  Guaranteed damage is nice, but the setup does require her to be in MAX or Heat, and the opponent can easily reset the match back to neutral by jumping.  It seems like the Japanese F-Akiha players have decided that it's not worth it anymore, because I have never seen anyone go for it in 1.07 match videos.

The only thing she's gained is 623c having OTG relaunch properties.  Since OTGs scale pretty severely in this game, it's not very good for adding extra damage to combos.  However, it IS useful for extending midscreen combos to get that extra corner push, and it can also be used to confirm a really far 2c hit.  Since 2c at its maximum range doesn't go into any combos normally, 623c is a good tool to make this more scary.


That's pretty much it for impressions.  I'll probably talk about Archetype Earth in my next post.

MBAACC 1.05 and 1.07

The last time I wrote about Melty here, it was in the early months of 1.05's release.  Now 1.07 is out and the game is looking better and better.

1.05 was very short lived, and the response to it was very mixed.  There were just as many people who loved the changes as those who thought they were terrible.  The game was drastically different to the point where many people felt it didn't play like Melty anymore.  There was still one thing that everyone agreed on though, and that was the game needed more time for playtesting before release.  Specifically things like C-Kohaku's 5c giving easy OTG relaunches and Powerd Ciel in general made it really obvious that the game wasn't thorougly tested.  The new OTG relaunch mechanic, which I felt gave the game some extra spice, was also kind of a mixed bag.  The main problem was that some characters could abuse it to no end(C-Kohaku), while others literally gained nothing from it(Wara).

Surprisingly 1.05 ended up being a very balanced game.  The top tier was very silly, but 1.05 gave a lot of improvements to characters who have been traditionally terrible in the series.  C-Roa, C-Seifuku Akiha, and C and H-Arc were some characters who were completely garbage in the previous 2-3 revisions of Melty, and this version was able to give them some nice tools from both system changes and character specific changes to make them competitive.

The game didn't last long enough for there to be a tier list made by surveying top players, but there was one that the entire Japanese BBS basically agreed upon.  It was:
S Kohaku PCiel HisuKoha Ryougi
A+ Shiki Arc Nanaya Warc Satsuki Miyako Len Aoko
A Everybody else
A- VSion Mech-Hisui

Top Nero player SAT also made his own list, which is almost exactly the same:
A+ Kohaku HisuKoha Ryougi PCiel
A Everyobdy else
A- (Nero) Mech-Hisui VSion

And top Miyako player Kanna made his own list as well:
A+ Leo's Ryougi, PCiel
A Everybody else
A- VSion
Leo best character in the game!

1.07 is out right now, and it's brought a few new things to the table.  First off is a new character in the form of Archetype Earth, who was previously a broken boss in the PS2 version of AA.  She's probably the most unique character in the game, having an omnidimensional flight mechanic that drains meter.  OTG relaunches are still in the game, but they seem to have been toned down considerably.  The damage in general seems to have been lowered a bit, compared to 1.05.

Archetype Earth, or Hime as the Japanese are calling her, is a really interesting character.  I originally thought that her flight mode was balanced by it 1)draining meter and 2)disabling her ability to block.  But from all the footage that's been released, it does seem like she can block during flight.  Maybe the vulnerability only lasts for a few frames in the beginning of her flight?  I'll have to actually play her to figure this out.

Hime seems pretty strong right now, as her flight gives her unparalleled movement options relative to the cast.  Her normals and specials also have a ton of range and are easily hit confirmable into combos.  Her damage seems to be on the low side, but I suspect this is because it's an early stage of the game where people haven't yet ironed out optimal combos.  Her defense modifier seems pretty terrible: if I had to estimate she looks like she's between Warc and Wara.

If the main theme of 1.05 was buffing characters who were traditionally bad, I would say the theme of 1.07 is charged moves.  Almost every single character in the game has gained new charged moves, which is a pretty funny way to add new moves into the game without drawing any new animations.  It's hard to say how much these new moves add to the game from the footage we have, but some characters like C-Wara and C-Akiha get some nice new combos.

The overall reception to 1.07 right now has been overwhelmingly positive.  Some people on the BBS think it's the best version by far.  I'm really happy with the direction Melty has been going since 1.05, so I'm pretty hype for 1.07's PC release.  Archetype Earth is a really cool character too, and as the sole character in the game with any kind of cleavage, I am obligated to play her!

Changing Seasons

I haven't really mentioned this in my blog, but I spent the past 2 years at Mt. San Antonio College taking random classes there.  My original plan after graduating was to go to Pharmacy school, and there were still some prerequisite classes that Pharm required so I ended up going to Mt. SAC community college to take care of that.  Mt SAC is like 10 mins from my house so this was pretty convenient.  One of the classes that I had to take was Anatomy, but I had the worst luck with registration dates so I had to wait a whole year before I finally got a good reg date to add in.  During that year I was basically taking useless classes with the expectations that having some units under my belt would help me get a better registration date, but this was clearly not the case!

Anyway, I eventually got into Anatomy, but during that wasted year I was starting to consider other paths too like continuing Chemistry into a Masters program or just getting a Chemistry related job.  I applied to a lot of places and even enlisted the help of a headhunter but it was impossible to get anything without experience.  So the other thing I was thinking about was that my Chemistry knowledge was starting to fade at this time, so one option would be to keep it sharp through tutoring.  I knew Mt. SAC had a Learning Assistance program so I applied to be a Chemistry tutor, and they actually accepted me!  Except, that there was apparently no demand for Chemistry tutors so they made me a Math tutor instead.

So I then spent the next year taking more random classes + Anatomy, while working part time as a Math tutor.  It was a good experience and I met a lot of cool people.  And in the end, it was a good choice for me to consider other career options, because after taking Anatomy I knew I would not like the Pharmacy program.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't do bad: I actually got one of the highest scores in the class.  I just disliked the class, and I was like man...  if I go into Pharmacy, it's just gonna be more and more of this same kind of stuff.

The main thing I disliked about Anatomy was the sheer amount of memorization.  That's not to say that you can do good just by memorizing.  It's just that, at the core of every subject and discipline is problem solving.  In math(undergraduate, at least) you can learn the basic background and some formulas for a mathematical concept, and in almost no time at all you can start applying those formulas to solve problems.  In anatomy, you have to memorize a million vocabulary words, functions, and locations before you can even begin to apply that knowledge.  Maybe if I was a bit younger, back when my mind was sharp, I could handle this but this is not something that I can stomach anymore.

We're almost in present time now!  During my time at Mt SAC when I was tutoring, I decided to continue my studies in Chemistry and go for a Masters degree.  I got accepted into both schools I applied to, and chose Cal Poly Pomona since it's the closest one.  Saving money is good.

In the acceptance letter, the Dean of the Chemistry department also said that there was a demand for new Chemistry teacher assistants.  I had been tutoring math for a year by now, and this looked like a good opportunity to brush up on my General Chemistry skills while doing my Masters program, so I applied.  That ended up being an extremely painful process in itself and it's a long story, so the gist of it is that the department was actually going through a bit of drama the past few years and was also in the process of moving.  So it was hard to get in contact with people and get consistent answers.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that I got accepted!  Initially I expected that the TA job would be pretty simple: I would grade papers, transport materials for the professor of the course, and hold a discussion section as a supplement to the main lecture.  But it turned out to be much more than I expected.  CSU Pomona doesn't even have discussion sections, for one.  The classes that they made me TA were two Freshman Chemistry lab courses.  At UCLA, the lab courses have a lecture that is handled by the professor, and actual labs that are supervised by the TAs.  Well at Cal Poly the lab only meets once a week, so the lectures and the labs are handled by TAs.  So in essence, I'm more of a lab instructor than a TA at this point.  This also means that I have to hold office hours and check my school e-mail often for any questions asked by students.  I really wanted to have both my math tutoring job at Mt SAC and Chemistry TA position at CSU Pomona at the same time, but you can see that the TA position had a lot more responsibilities than I expected.  So I had to quit my tutoring job, and this made me sad because I really liked the people I worked with.

So as you can tell, my life has been going through some major changes recently.  I'm still trying to adjust to this new lifestyle of being a Masters student and a Chemistry lab instructor at the same time.  It's been going very well so far but I can get very tired during the week, which makes me appreciate weekends a lot more now.

I think the best thing that I've taken from both my math tutoring job and this new TA position is that it's made me a much better student.  I remember from math tutoring when I would get students who were clearly not going to class and just going to tutoring for homework help.  Initially I was really annoyed at them, and then I realized, "That was me when I was in undergrad."  So being able to experience education on the other side has really helped me out.

One last random thing I wanted to mention is that Wednesday Night Fights has moved to Super Arcade, which is right across from Mt. SAC.  They have Skullgirls there on a somewhat frequent basis, and I've really wanted to go but my Wednesdays this quarter are super busy to the point where I'm too tired to do anything after school that day.  This makes me sad, but I'll find some way to play Skullgirls!

My life summed up in 4 seconds

Real updates coming soon, I guess.

Cynthia the Mission

is a terrible, terrible manga.  I remember exactly what compelled me to read it.  I saw this image:

Kinda reminds me of Ichi the Killer.

I had to know what events in the plot would lead up to this, so that was my hook.  If I had to describe Cynthia the Mission, it's like a really silly version of Kill Bill, where a girl is trying to escape her assassin heritage.  Except that in this case, this girl is just starting high school and is bald.  This girl, who is named Cynthia, is a master martial artist and has several friends in her school...  who are also amazing martial artists.  The manga is really violent and there are a lot of different fighting styles displayed.

Anywho, Cynthia the Mission has that shonen manga problem where characters have constant flashbacks of their past when fighting.  Along with flashbacks, there's also long explanations of their fighting styles: if a character hits his opponent with a new move, he must spend the next 10 pages explaining the origin of the attack and how it works!  Characters frequently break the fourth wall and make really silly facial expressions when fighting.  There's also a HILARIOUS set of chapters about a girl with hypnotic power attempting to assassinate George W. Bush.  So I'm guessing the author wanted to let the readers know that it wasn't intended to be read seriously but that doesn't make it any less terrible.

However!  Even though this manga is so awful I read it in ernest and ended up finishing the whole thing this weekend because there is a really great character in this mess of a story.  It's Cybele Rou, who is Cynthia's older sister.  As you might guess, she's a master martial artist and assassin.  She's the main antagonist of the story, as she is the one who wants Cynthia to be a master assassin.

Anyway, Cybele is amazing.  She's easily one of my favorite manga characters, as she's pretty much everything I want in a strong female character.  She also likes cosplaying while fighting: off the top of my head, I remember her wearing a maid outfit, a teacher's uniform, lingerie, cheongsam, and a bunnygirl outfit.  It's most likely fanservice, but I like to think of it as being so confident that she just wears whatever she wants, haha.

Cynthia the Mission is pretty obscure, but I guess Cybele was popular enough to get her own figure!

On the left, Cybele in bunnygirl costume during the Tournament arc.  On the right, Akiha lookalike Araya Kuga.

It kind of threw me off to see her with green hair.  I kept thinking of her as a blonde in the manga, especially since Cynthia is a blonde too.