#weird skills because of no fodder/arena points

[greatwyrmgold]

Tournament Arc Variation

Shonen battle series love tournament arcs, for some reasons that are good and some that are less good. Most anime fans are familiar with the format, because from the Tenkaichi Budokai to the UA Sports Festival, most tournament arcs follow the same format: After an optional preliminary round where important characters show off their strengths against extras (and the arc villain possibly eliminates a supporting hero or two), the competitors face off in a basic single-elimination bracket.

There are a lot of reasons for anime fans to be tired of tournament arcs, but the fact that they always use the same structure can't help, especially since it's such a basic format. The only two anime tournament arcs I can think of that don't follow the basic-bitch single-elimination structure are Dragon Ball Super's Tournament of Power and arguably RWBY's Vytal Festival (which is still single-elimination, but the first couple of rounds aren't solo battles). And, um. Neither of those is great. But that's a subject for another time.

So I'd like to bring up two simple variations which I think could spice up almost any tournament arc. (I have more if you're interested, Shueisha. I think you'll find my rates are reasonable—I am terrible at negotiation.)

Double-elimination

The losers of each round get put into a separate tournament bracket, fighting against one another until there's only one left. Then the winner of the loser's bracket fights the undefeated competitor. These have the drawback of taking more time if you show all the fights, but there's a pretty significant narrative advantage: Comebacks.

If someone loses one match in a single-elimination tournament, that's it; they're out. They can't participate in the tournament, and unless there's some extrinsic reward that the loser is willing to break the rules to obtain, they're basically relegated to cheerleader status for the remainder of the arc. But double-elimination gives them a second chance.

And this can be used for building tension, too. If the hero is knocked into the loser's bracket in round 1 or 2, and the main villain stays in the winner's bracket, that means that the hero is only beating fighters who are demonstrably weaker than that villain. (Bonus points if the competitor that beat the hero is defeated by the villain in the next round.) Can they actually overcome the Big Bad?

Melee a Trois

This is a simpler idea: Put more than two combatants in each fight. That adds all sorts of neat complications to the typical one-on-one blank-canvas-arena fights you see in a tournament arc. Interpersonal dynamics, temporary alliances and inevitable betrayals, more people using their weird skills at the same time.

Plus, two combatants are eliminated each fight rather than one. While double-elimination doubles the number of matches in your tournament, three-person rounds halve them. Well, aside from the fact that they can never have the same number of participants. But that's part of what's appealing about the three-person matches.

One of the benefits of tournament arcs is that they can introduce a whole bunch of new characters at once, and obviously three-person rounds let you do that a lot more. A 27-person tournament using this structure takes 13 fights, compared to 15 for a 16-person tournament. Assuming ~5 established characters going in (the hero, some supporting characters, maybe the arc villain), the former introduces more than twice as many new characters in fewer fights. And yeah, a lot of them are just going to be fodder that the antagonist(s) worf to make the audience wonder if the hero is strong enough to beat them, but that's true of all tournament arcs.

But the big benefit is definitely the individual fights. Having more than two people makes them more interesting.

[kuribaolt]

And my actual Eliwood in-game.

[shinyobjectreviews]

An In-Depth Analysis of my Observations Playing CROSSBOW: Bloodnight

CROSSBOW: Bloodnight looks like shovelware, and I don’t blame anyone for thinking that. There’s a lot missing from the game. There’s a typo in the launch announcement. However, the lack of standard triple A bloat means it’s rather easy to dissect the game. So I’m going to break apart some of what happened to me as I was playing and started to question the quality of the game only to determine it was my own skill lessening my experience.

Devil Daggers

Credit where it’s due, a lot of stuff in the game is a blatant ripoff of Devil Daggers. It will occasionally come up. If I say DD know I’m referring to Devil Daggers. The developers have said publicly the game is intended for fans of DD, so they’re not trying to hide it, and though the games are extremely similar, it’s still worth analyzing CB:Bn to see what they decided to keep, lose, or change. Originality is nice to have, but it’s not everything.

The Crossbow

Let’s start at the beginning. The crossbow is amazing. When sustaining fire the triple-chambered crossbow fires each chamber individually. When firing like a shotgun, they all fire at once. When firing the rocket, the center chamber pulls back further, and the prongs bend back considerably to emphasize the weight of the projectile. The appearance starts to resemble a modern-day compound crossbow, as though it is focusing the strength from other prongs into one. Your character also slows down: thematically this shows again the strain of this massive projectile, but practically it also helps you line up your shot better, since the rocket has more pinpoint accuracy and higher damage than the standard projectile and can therefore be used to fire at long distances. Something taken from DD is that the projectiles have a rather significant spread and a slow velocity, meaning that you can deal more consistent damage faster by being closer to your target, a dangerous but rewarding and skillful strategy. The crossbow also changes color as it upgrades, which you won’t miss due to the camera slow and bright glow, but it’s nice to see it on the crossbow itself as you’re playing. It’s an easy signifier, but it also just looks nice and feels cool.

The Introduction

The first half minute of the game is slow. A single zombie (The Restless One) spawns, then a couple more. You then get the big tentacle monsters (The Tainted Ones) that spawn the bats (The Hungry Ones). Of the few comments I’ve seen in the game, one was a complaint about this intro being slow and uninteresting after the first few runs. After all, while it does a great job at slowly introducing elements to new players, you learn pretty quick, but it can’t just be removed from the game because it would interfere with the time-attack scoring. I also disliked this part after my first few runs. However, I have come to love this part of the game. The end of a run can often feel dissatisfying, and most players will immediately want to try again. While most just want to rush to where they were at, the game forces you to wait, calm down, and get reacclimated. You also get to blow off some steam by obliterating the weak early enemies at almost no risk. I’ve also used this time to practice: learning exactly how long after the spawn animation takes until a demon is vulnerable, how close to the eye I have to shoot, rehearsing projectile timing, anything that I feel could use work.

The Spawning

This was one of the first issues I had with the game. I often died to demons spawning in behind me, or werewolves (The Feral Ones) using their long range dash to hit me from the other side of the map when I hadn’t even seen them appear. Even with the big red circles that appear before they spawn, However, there were two things I learned in short order. The first is that each enemy has its own unique spawn sound, each one roughly as loud as its importance (I wouldn’t even think the zombies had any if I didn’t hear it isolated during the introduction). The howl of the werewolves is especially notable, which is good because their dash has incredible range. The second thing I came to realize is that the game was pushing me to look where I was going. Shooters are all about circle strafing and firing while walking backwards, but not CROSSBOW: Bloodnight. In this game, you have to fire forward. Where you’re looking. It is safer to run towards one of the stationary Tainted Ones to try and kill them while letting the zombies and bats chase you from behind. The Feral Ones will dash at you, but you can pay attention to the noises they make to try and dodge them, or just turn and look if you dare. Once again, the game offers you a choice: run away from enemies while shooting behind you and risk bumping into guys in front of you, or charge at foes head on (remember the primary fire is better at close ranges) and try and thin out the herd later.

The Dash

If you check out the reviews on Steam, the primary difference between CB:Bn and DD is that the former has a dash. Once again, It didn’t really think of this while playing, and didn’t really start using it until after my first dozen runs. I actually started using it almost jokingly in the introduction as a way to get from the first spawning zombie to the second. I started learning the exact distance of the dash and it’s timing. Eventually, I started using it in game. It has the same issue as above, where dashing into a crowd of enemies is just as common as dashing away from them, but if timed well and planned well it can be a literal lifesaver. If you can properly perform it, you can also dash into the Tainted One and fire off a one-shot kill into the eye with the shotgun.

The Special

The game has an ability it grants you once every 60 seconds roughly where , if you press Q, it will slow down time a bit and show you a giant line the width of a house directly in front of you. Your crossbow is also aimed up and glows with radiant light. If you pull the trigger, every enemy in the highlighted area will be skewered with a holy lance and get one-shot. Like the dash, I was unsure of how best to implement it, but I have three theories. The first use is as a emergency clear. If you’re panicked and want to just get rid of some enemies, you can hit this to get a little space. It’s a nice way to bring the tension down if you’re starting to not enjoy it. The second option is as a time-saver. If you have multiple enemies you want dead, especially Tainted Ones whose weak points you can’t reach, you can line them up to hit at least two and maybe more. This is a use of skill and lets you try and optimize your runs. Lastly you can just show off with it. Use it for some dumb reason because you feel like it. Whatever the reason, the fact that it’s on a cooldown encourages you to use it aggressively rather than save it for a powerful attack, since the sooner you use it the sooner you can start charging up the next one.

The Enemies

I’m solidly impressed at the enemy variety. The Restless ones are bolt fodder, keeping you aware of your surroundings, but never dealing enough to kill you without you knowing it. The Tainted Ones are stationary to give you fixed goals, and they spawn bats to harass you but only until you give them a little attention. The werewolves are the first big threat: they do not exist to be killed, they exist to kill you. You must know where all of them are to stay safe. The Troubled Ones shoot shockwaves, and are the first true long-range foes. They force you to jump at the right time, forcing you to stay aware of your jumping, and punishing those relying too hard on bunny-hopping. Those are all of the enemies I’ve encountered for now, but they all come together in such exciting ways. Even the Tainted Ones themselves have neat interactions. Nearly all of them spawn at the edge of the map, making it harder to kill them form the other side and forcing you to get up close, but I also encountered one in the center of the map, whose positioning forced me into an awkward spot in order to get to its weak point.

The Map

I’ll be honest, I don’t have much to say about the map. It is donut shaped: big circle with a spot in the center no-one can get through. I much prefer it to DD because it has some landmarks around it that help orient you, allowing you to more easily remember where enemies spawn and where you are in the moment. The hole in the center also give you just enough of a safe space that your circle strafing doesn’t get weird with demons just sitting in the center getting constantly kited. I also expect a boss to spawn there at some point, making for a nice focal point.

The Setting

On a thematic level, the map is heavy with gothic arches and pointy spires. While I assumed this was an anachronistic stylistic choice, I did my research, and it turns out gothic architecture did in fact originate in the early 12th century, where the game is set. The opening text tells us that the game takes place close to 1193 AD, a time when the church outlawed the use of Crossbows against Christians. The game recontextualizes this as declaring the Crossbow as “ungodly” and “demonic,” which is a clever way of getting an excuse to use Crossbows against Demons. The crossbow in question, is mildly inaccurate not in terms of time but location. A triple-chambered repeating-crossbow seems far-fetched, but China had been using repeating crossbows (Cho ku nu) and triple-bed mounted naval crossbows for hundreds of years by this point in time. Firing multiple bolts simultaneously at the cost of reduced range and accuracy was actually a real tactic used at the time as well. The idea of either being hand-held requires some suspension of disbelief, as does the ammo storage, but that’s well deserved for an arena shooter like this.

The Story

There isn’t much of a story here, but it’s there if you look. As mentioned, the game declares the Crossbow ungodly, and implies that it is used in some form of demonic ritual. However, the glowing light implies otherwise. Each enemy is named after some form of torment: hungry, restless, troubled, tainted, etc., and with exception of the Restless Ones, each one releases a soul when slain that the player can “collect.” This implies that these demons may be corrupted forms of humans that are being slain to release their tormented souls from some form of punishment and collecting them for some unknown reason. The fact that the zombies and the bats don’t leave souls follows this logic, since the zombies seem more like animated lifeless corpses than living creatures, and the bats are, well, bats. They also spawn from the Tainted Ones, so they are kind of just extensions of that. The game also has achievements that I have yet to understand, and seem to imply I am either evil or not evil based on a statistic I have not found. It intrigues me, but I will have to keep playing I guess to find out what it means.

Minor things

I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t have anywhere else to put these so here’s some other stuff I just want to throw in there.

The first upgrade you get is from killing a werewolf, after which another werewolf immediately spawns, letting you directly compare how long it took to kill the last one and how long it took to kill this one.

You can actually see the werewolves jumping in from outside the map before they spawn.

When you’re hit, the screen goes bloody like any other game, but there’s already blood everywhere, so the game give you a scary tone that plays until you heal back up.

Conclusion

And that’s all I can really say about the game. I’m not here to convince you to buy CROSSBOW: Bloodnight, I’m not here to convince you it’s good, I’m not even trying to convince you to play it. I just wanted to talk about this. I’m not even sure if it’s my favorite game of the year, if only because Hades is about the toughest competition it could have faces. So if it’s not my favorite, not the best, and arguably not worth your time, then what is CROSSBOW: Bloodnight?

My best answer? It’s mine. This is a game I want to exist. This is a game practically built for me. I bought it, played it, I loved it, and I feel like I’m the only one who has, and that makes me feel special. So maybe don’t look too much into this review. Perhaps I’m overblowing it because I feel personally attached to this game in a way I never have before. But hey, if you’ve gotten all the way to the end, maybe you care about what I have to say. So here’s the summary.

CROSSBOW: Bloodnight is a really cool video game, and I really like it.

[feheroestips]

So legendary banner no.5 is apon us, anyone else hard to believe its been 5 of them now? Well it is and despite this we got a couple of shake ups, first they skipped Shigure as the dancer unit, don’t worry I’m sure it’s just a space thing, though brave Lucina replaced him, a unit on this banner before, the same applies to Lyn who kicked the last colourless unit, Mist, skipped, aka they missed Mist. I’ll state as a disclaimer now, more than likely next banner we’ll get brave Ike and brave Roy on the next banner, that’s just my prediction though.

Anyway as normal your rates are here for solo summoning;

Red = 9.09% 

Blue = 10.34%

Green = 14.29%

Clear = 10.71%

Basically only red has seen a change due to Morgan M becoming a 4 star unit. But note this is just summoning on one colour stone and assuming something appears each time, doing full summons is just a 2% for each colour. Basically about 50 orbs will nab you a 5 star when solo pulling. Green is the best with about 30 orbs normally nabbing you something. 

You can find every units summon rate for this banner here

Anyway if you’re still unsure if these units are worth pulling for, here’s my thoughts on each colour.

Red

Red houses Legendary Ike, who is a solid enough unit and the second best Ike but he’s also free. He’s mainly there for warding breath fodder, which is amazing for units like Fjorm, Dragons, Dorcas etc Zelgius is the best unit in the red pool, offering an amazing armour unit along with fierce stance fodder. Finally Halloween Nowi is pretty decent, she has a niche as the only red mage flier in the game and also has hone fliers and a neat legendary tome. However she’s arguably the worst mage flier (don’t get me wrong all the mage fliers are super good). Overall Red is a really good colour however I think what holds it back is that either you can get a free version, or very similar unit to them, aka everyone has BK or at least had the option to buy him, and Halloween Nowi is the only one I can justify pulling for because seasonal. I rate red 3/5, 4/5 for units but generally you don’t need these units if you’ve played from day one.

Blue

Blue has Fjorm, another free unit with no real desirable skills bar drive attack. She’s a decent wall especially if fed a breath skill. Brave Lucina is frankly a very scary lance unit with bulk speed and power, and a very solid offensive support unit for a team. However a lack of unique skills for her to give is not so nice as Tailtiu offers drive speed at 4 stars. Finally Lute is in the blue category and in my opinion the best of the 3. She’s essentially Arvis but a better colour, stat spread and debuffs which help her. She’s an amazing unit and f you enjoy a unit like Arvis or Gunnthra she’s worth pulling for. She also offers res ploy as well which is nice. Overall a 4/5, Lute is the main objective, the other two are super nice as well.

Green

So Gunnthra is here and she’s basically a gimmick character, if you pair her with Lute and Arvis *cough* see above *cough* she’ll jump tend fold. Then we have the summer units. Summer Tiki rocks one of the highest base attacks in the game. Pair this with a brave axe or slaying axe and she can wreck havoc on unsuspecting units and with axebreaker be a nice Hector counter. She also have Axe valour which is very nice for training units and close defence. Summer Elise is basically Nino but with a few points swapped. Her main advantage over Nino is the option of Hibiscus tome for support sets off the bat but its not that huge. Nino is better for Merge and availability reasons though. Still incredibly powerful unit with a blade tome. Overall green is pretty solid, on board with blue at 4/5.

Clear

I’ll save our new god till last, but Brave Lyn returns and I really shouldn’t have to talk about her. She’s a S+ unit. Halloween Sakura is in a weird spot, she was the best magic dagger tank but Since Felicias refine she’s stolen that spot back. She’s still incredibly viable and kitty paddle is a very nice weapon for dagger units like Spring Kagero. Warding stance is also nice too.

Robin F (Grima)

So we don’t know much about this Grima but in my book she is a 5/5 and Makes colourless the best colour to pull. She comes with dragonskin, a better iotes shield, cancel affinity which removes her weakness to raven tome units and res smoke is amazing. Oh and she flies, is colourless and a dragon. Her main flaw is probably a lack of special advancement like breath skills, though she might be able to use heavy blade well. From what we we’re shown in the trailer, she fought a level 40 Horse Chrom (Evident by his Hp being 41 but could be one or two levels lower but it’s generally the same) and from this combat we can deduce that she has 40hp/48 atk with Expiration/ 32 without/?Spd/30 defence~/?res which leaves her 64 points allocated when comparing her to Myrrh the other flying dragon., I’d assume she’ll have 25-30 spd and 30 or so res. though she might not be level 40 in the trailer so hey could be higher. But we know minimums. Basically she has everything she needs to be good and buffs both flier and dragon teams more. Oh and she gives speed with her earth bonus, which means it stacks with Ikes attack boost, which makes them a nice combo.

Final verdict

Overall I feel Clear stones are the no brainer followed by Blue/Green then red

Green and blue are interchangeable, blue is better arena units, green is better for training.

I’m personally not planning to pull, but good luck if you are.

[necrolordj1]

So onto stage 2 the beginning of the tournement.

So with some more training done and a more interesting lineup for universe 7 we could get down to the actual tournement itself.

First and perhaps most important would be how the fighters are being used, it’s a free for all between 8 teams of 10 even if it’s a big arena we need more overlaps between fights because quite frankly the idea everyone would just randomly find a person to fight on there own irrespective of surroundings or other fighters is just ridiculous, there should be incidents where maybe an attack missed and winds up hitting someone else entirely. The way the tournement was set up there should definitely have been more chaos at the onset.

Next point and one that ties into the entire tournement is the sayians, use them LESS, the vast majority of fighters on universe 6 and 7 (not to mention the entire tournement) are not sayians yet they seem to account for the vast majority of screen time which frankly just struck me as really lacking in ingenuity and creativity, I’d much rather see more of the universal fighters we are unlikely to have before. Alongside this I would have had universe 7 targeted a lot less, I get that they may be blamed for the tournement but it’s still tension ruining to see U7 survive against the vast majority of fighters with few losses (especially since universe 7 was considered the second lowest universe). Personally it would be way more exciting to see other universe fights like the trio de dangers fight the kamikaze fire balls in a 3 v 3 than goku overpower group after group.

I’m gonna demonstrate how I’d have had the tourney alter (keep in mind this has been a long tournement so I’m likely going to have a few mistakes in regards to order)

First and foremost universe 9 would not be erased so early, I’d love to see more of the fighters of universe 9 and more importantly given that the tournament needs fighters to act as loss fodder (ones who lose instantly to showcase the skill of there attacker) Keeping this universe around longer would give more of that. So rather than vegeta and goku beating nearly all of them, they’d take out 2 or 3 while the trio de dangers pull back the only problem I see with this approach is the difficulty in setting the tension of universes actually being destroyed (though that tension doesn’t exatly last so not a huge issue).

Next up botamo (hope I’m spelling that right) would not be eliminated by gohan as early as he was, instead he’d be replaced by a fighter from universe 9 or 10 (10 gets very little attention). Now this is partly because honestly his ability set seems pretty good for the tournement, his ejection from the tournement was just weird and I want to keep universe 6 around a little longer,

Krillin would proably remain the first to go for universe 7 but I’d definitely want to keep his moment of saving 18, maybe also add in a brief fight between her and frost as well after he’s knocked off

Around now I’d also want to see a few fighters from universe 3 get some screen time as aside from the fusion components they had, very little else done for them,

Id have universe 10 drop out roughly the same time as they did in the original timeline but here they’d be the first universe to go with possibly losing some fights to buu gohan and piccolo as a team since I think gohan would be able to coordinate the 3 extremely well and I doubt they’d want to risk buu on anything too dangerous since he has the capacity to heal fighters making him a good addition

A potentionally big change would be kale and caulifas first fights in the tournement, I’d likely keep everything the same up until universe 11 targets kale and caulifa, I’d still have kale gain control over her berserker (for lack of a better word) form (I wouldn’t keep the self loathing as the trigger though as I found that weird at best) instead I’d proably make it more to do with a desire to help/save caulifa.

However rather than having half of universe 11 eliminated here I’d proably just toss out two or one with one of the team sacrificing themselves for the others to get away, first it would establish a strong sense of team work of the pride troopers and second it would keep a lot of fighters for universe 11 which is something else I want

Roshi would still succeed against the universe 4 fighters he faced in the same way

I’d keep the fight between frost and vegeta the same but instead I’d keep magetta in the tournement as I also find him quite interesting and would like to have seen character development of him overcoming his extremely fragile emotional state and Roshi would still be eliminated.

Around now maybe add a fight between the trio de dangers vs the kamakize fire balls so we get some content from the best of different universes, I’d personally see it as a bit of a draw but I’m leaning to a trio win for this or possibly the two teams would fight to a standstill until we have bergamo abd ribirane both rise to massive proportions with possibly the two knocking each other off but the rest of the fireballs and dangers remain in the tourney.

At this point Cell and Frezia could attack some of the other universe 2 fighters such as (the winged woman) proably eliminating 3-4 partly to establish there value to the team and partly to start a sense of comradeship between them.

With universe 9 without its best here we could have buu face of against basil again while gohan faces lavender with piccolo providing backup for the two, unsurprisingly universe 7 would win here and we’d then have universe 9 eliminated.

Now another relatively big change is that of jiren, goku and jiren would have the same fight result and we’d have a similar flow for hit v jiren but with a few differences, first after locking jiren in time the universe 6 sayians may try to have him knocked off or destroy the ring, it wouldn’t work (perhaps due to jiren weird eye glare shield). But rather than jiren knocking hit off we’d instead have the two stuck like this for a a bit while other fights happen (though we could still have jiren making very slow movements to showcase his power).

Next change would be goku right after his loss to jiren, in this version hed still be too weak to fight kale and caulifa so instead we’d have cell and Frezia team up against kale and caulifa while buu heals goku

We’d have kale and caulifa fuse into kefla, begin to overwhelm cell and frezia and then for a cool thing to add we’d have cell and frezia fuse (preferably not porta fusion though) the fight would be a close one but I’d imagine cellza would win with some underhanded tactic like possibly using the needle tail to steal some of keflas energy and give themselves the boost to win (but not enough to knock them off)

Around this time we’d see some of universe 3 fight a bit more ferociously knocking off 18 (not before she’d take out a few of there’s. Meanwhile the remaining universe 6 fighters would tighten formation around hit to stop his hold on jiren being broken and would fight some of universe 11, in this current timeline aside from Doctor rota and cabba universe 6 would have all there remaining fighters though kale and caulifa would be pretty drained from there fight with cellza,

With this happening goku would finally be back in the fight and buu would defeat the remaining universe 2 (eliminating them) fighters while working with vegeta then the two would split off to fight maji and the police officer (forgot his name) from universe 3 individually while this is happening universe 4 would choose to try and pick off different fighters one by one, taking out a few from each universe such as frost and piccolo but would be defeated in the process making them the next to go, buu would be defeated but in the process take down maji and the machine with extreme defence (forgot there name as well) leaving universe 7 with 5 universe 6 with 7 universe 11 with 8 and universe 3 with 6

Ahilza would enter the fray and in the process disrupt hits time lock on jiren but the confusion would allow universe 6 to pull out

At this point jiren would be needed to stop ahilza after he elminates two from universe 11 but in the process jiren would appear to struggle, regardless though ahilza and universe 3 would be the next to go. At this point then hit would take a commanding approach to universe 6 despite his weakened state from having held jiren so long and have himself botamo and magetta face off against jiren while the rest of his team focus the other pride troopers

Universe 7 would join this fight with goku facing off against toppo, vegeta would go after dyspo with gohans help while frezia and cell would instead do there own thing and try to finish off kale and caulifa out of a hatred of sayians

So after numerous fights quite a few pride troopers would be eliminated, vegeta would be out and so would botamo, magetta and hits assault on jiren would have further appeared to weaken him however he’d still maintain the advantage, the universe 6 namekians would knock off cell after he defeated kale and caulifa would achieve super sayian 3 out of rage of kale being knocked off.

Now here goku would face off against jiren using ultra instinct and around now we’d have a reveal of jirens weakness being that despite his extreme power his ability to regain stamina/power is very minor hence why for all his power he spent so long actively avoiding fighting. So here goku would fight jiren, jiren would still hold a tremendous advantage, we have the two on the ledge where goku pulls off the surprise destructo disk but this time goku is on the falling side of the ledge as well, while magetta then charges at jiren causing all 3 to fall off. Naturally magetta would be praised by most of his team for this and the removal of jiren would be a big relief for universe 7

At this point universe 7 would be down to gohan and frezia

Universe 6 would have there two namekians, caulifa and an exhausted hit

And universe 11 would have toppo, the general and the sheild woman (there are a ton of names I forgot)

Hit would fight toppo but due to his exhausted state and the fact that toppo can use god ki (I’m not giving him the full on destruction form in this version though) toppo would best him

The two namekians would beat the general at the cost of of one being knocked off and caulifa would beat the sheild woman but at this point toppo would make short work of the two

Leaving the final fight between gohan frezia and toppo

Here toppos god ki would give him a slight advantage allowing him to fight on par with golden frezia and gohan plus their inexperience fighting together would limit there effectiveness, eventually toppo gets caught in a grapple by frezia who encourages gohan to push them both off

The universe 11 god of destruction in desperation makes a bargain with frezia to revive him if universe 11 wins yet frezia turns it down (perhaps making a comment on how he decides his fate).

With that gohan is crowned winner of the tournement tries to wish back the other universes however the grand preist reveals that wish can’t be made so instead gohan wishes the planets and people be moved to universe 7

This also raises the mortal level of universe 7 to an acceptable level

Someone then encourages Zeno to have the next tournement be between the gods of destruction, angels and supreme Kai’s to see which one becomes the new ones for universe 7 (since having 8 gods of destruction supreme Kai’s and angels would be too much) and the various fighters then return home with frezia and cell being wished back

Frezia decides to leave earth and travel in space (possibly considering trying to do what frost did about tricking people into thinking he’s a hero because of the numerous more dangerous fighters) leaving his fate unknown

Cell also leaves deciding to test himself against strong fighters but demanding that when he returns he gets a rematch against goku and gohan, leaving his exit on a somewhat honourable note

Gohan gets an offer to join the pride troopers from toppo which he accepts with the acknowledgment that his scholarly pursuits would still have a big part in his life

Toppo acknowledges he was wrong about goku and the others with quite a few other figures also regretting there earlier opinion of them

Vegeta gets the offer to visit planet saldaa from cabba but he puts it off for a while to spend time with his family

Jiren acknowledges goku is an impressive fighter with goku also acknowledging that jiren is still a lot stronger than goku

Krillin goes home with 18 the two getting reward money from bulma

Buu goes home with hercule but wants to meet the trio de dangers again at some point with Berus acknowledging he’s a good fighter.

We get some humoured moment of Roshi considering chasing after the universe 2 girls but decides against it due to his personal growth

Piccolo interacts with the universe 6 namekians and decides to return briefly to namek

And we end with chi chi appearing and going after goku for endangering the universe and running off on her earlier

Here the series could continue in a variety of ways with a new saga or end if preferred

And that is my take on how I’d have changed the universal survival arc, not perfect but do think it’s more interesting than what we currently have

Universal Survival Tournement

So I’m bored and in a bit of a chatty/ranty mood so I’m gonna just go on out and describe how I think the Universal survival tournement could have been made more interesting

Step one the line up

This will likely be the most challengable but it’s important so I’ll start here

Now it’s no secret that the current lineup wasn’t everyone’s ideal roster mine included so i think to have pumped up the tournement some more they could have either allowed more fighters (not ideal) or switched it up

Assuming they’d switch up I’d have left buu on the team because quite frankly I think he’s extremely underused he was set up as one of the strongest fighters universe 7 had ever had with even freezia being told by his father never to challenge him, that plus his unique skill set would have been great to see

Next I’d probably remove Tien I get that people want some more from original dragonball but I just feel he’s not capable of bringing a huge amount of interest to the team

Next up to add would be cell an odd choice but hear me out, he’s established as being capable of improving himself due to the zenkai boost he got from the sayian cells in his body and has been able to perform numerous different techniques off different fighters so I think that coupled with his experince and desire to fight a real challenge could make him suitable for the tournament

With his introduction we’d need to drop another member so I would personally say to drop 17, as a fighter he’s done nothing since the cell saga and quite frankly his sudden rise to being at his current strength level strikes me as a little ridiculous plus since 18 is already in the team so one androids already on the team

Now at that point I’d honestly say that would be an interesting team lineup and it would be interesting to see some of the villains interact with both each other and the z fighters

Now the next peice I’ll cover for this rant is just the build up to the tournement, if possible I’d add more content of the universes and fighters we didnt get to see maybe have hit pick a fighter for universe 6 (since he’s established as the universes greatest fighter (argueable but for another day) is feel he’d proably have some good contributions to make

And finally for the buildup have it last longer. Not necessarily more episodes but have it spread over the course of a week or even month or two I feel it would really help explain the less than consistent power scaling eveodent in the tournement

Anyway that’s it for this rant since I didn’t even get into the actual tournement hope some of you enjoyed

Have a good day/evening/insert time term here

[nazih-fares]

Over the past two years, between a hostile takedown by Vivendi and numerous other industry stories, I saw French publisher and development house Ubisoft continue to take risks and launch new IPs. After the recent Steep (which I said in my review needed a bit more of finishing touch), it is now the turn for For Honor to emerge, in a weird genre between a fighting game and MOBA mechanics, where three mighty Middle-Age warrior tribes fight an eternal war. Weird? Maybe, but it works.

First, let me start by saying that MOBA are not really my thing, and while I had fun with MMOs back in days (mostly World of Warcraft and Guild Wars), DOTA 2 or League of Legends are games that didn’t get the patience – or time for that matter – to fully get into it to a point that I know stats and traits of over 100 different characters.  Even with my short phase of playing both DOTA 2 and League of Legends, I had enough to understand the core concept of a MOBA, which is basically supporting a bunch of creeps that are your canon-fodder while you gain experience and be strong enough with your team to take over the enemy base. For Honor in this case is neither a MOBA nor an MMO, and feels more a fighting game that anything else, which was shocking for me as being in my top three most played gaming genre.

The MOBA and fantasy part of the game comes with its lore, arena fight mechanics as well as its character designs and choices (which can be also compared with the Omega Force’s titles). For Honor’s story is grounded by a fictional and eternal fight between Knights, Vikings, and Samurais, even though in real-life history, these “factions” never fought, but they do now because of some sort of world-changing cataclysm. Anyway the story is quite strange, and you discover slowly that there’s a mastermind behind this whole clash between factions, but what’s important to know is that the script of this game is not really what will get it awards. Nevertheless, there’s a “story” mode that tells the tale of three mighty Knight, Viking, and Samurai warriors, that will attempt to explain the mystic scenario of this game, while basically act as a long tutorial of each character class in each faction. Because of the AI enemy not being optimal in this story mode, I would advise to play this campaign with a friend that just grabbed the game as yourself, and play coop trough these 18 missions that need around 10-15 hours to finish depending on the difficulty levels, alongside the chance to find collectibles and other actions that will help you in customizing your gaming experience.

As you advance throughout the story, you’ll gain gold coins based on some criteria, and once you reach the 500 count, you’ll be able to start buying your very own new warrior class on top of the three starting one for each faction. Like the same strategy as Rainbow Six Siege’s operatives unlocking mechanics, Ubisoft Montreal decided to follow the same pattern and give you the chance as a player to unlock new characters the more you play the game (12 in total, 4 per faction). This logic also applies to the season pass owners, which will only get a seven-day head start to unlock the new characters, but if you wallet is heavy, you can also buy yourself the same coins with real-life currency and “speed” things up or unlock cosmetic upgrades to make each character unique in their own way.

In any case, let’s talk about each character class, shall we? First to be introduced in the story mode, are the Knight’s Vanguard, being the most versatile, easier to handle and do not have complex attack combos. However, don’t see them as the beginner class as they can become effective once you learn the depth of their technique, and their Viking counterpart can be tricky to handle with its two-handed ax, followed by the Samurai’s version with a long reach Katana. The second category includes the assassins (fitting for a Ubisoft game), which are weaker in terms of armor, more difficult to handle as they agile dual-handed warriors, except for the Samurai’ Orochi. Finally, the Heavy class of the game are like any tank in RPG: a beast of a warrior in terms of defense, and hit hard at the expense of slow movements. Finally, the hybrids are combinations of these three previously mentioned classes, with my personal one being the Viking’s Valkyrie armed which can harass swiftly like an Assassin, has Disabler abilities of the Samurai Heavy, and a long reach attack thanks to its lance (like the Samurai Vanguard).

With all this to take in consideration, and the depth of each faction’s differences even within each classes, comes the importance of training, and lots of it. The heart of the gameplay resides in a smart and simple to understand guard position (or stance), which is done to control which part of your body you want to attack and defend. So on screen, you’ll see this small chest overlay, with an arrow that is oriented up, left or right which respectively means that you are about to attack/defend your upper body, left or right side. While this seems simple by base, you discover a deeper and richer attack and defend mechanic, with a parry function that needs to be timed at the exact moment, counter attack combos, guardbreaks, and finally the map/arena itself plays a big part in the combat. You see, each arena has its own amount of obstacles, traps and cliffs which can become a viable solution to get rid of enemies, by using these environments to your advantage. There’s a fire in the middle of the field? No problem, harass your opponent until he’s forced to back into the pit and see its health fall dramatically.  present in each arena make it a viable solution when it comes to getting rid of an enemy who is unconcerned. When it comes to singleplayer, all these actions are perfectly responsive on the controller, but watch out when you play online, as a strict NAT will make you fall into the same misery of every fighting game: not being able to hit that perfect milliseconds life-saving parry because of lag. Technically speaking it’s worth mentioning that there’s difference between all platforms, with both base consoles running the game at a locked 1080p and 30 frames per second, while the PlayStation 4 Pro can reach 1440p and 30 frames per second, and PC can go as high 4K resolution but locked to roughly 40 fps (in comparison up to 90 fps with 1080p).

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Considering the fact that its main multiplayer mode sets up large battle scenes with dozens of soldiers duking it out, For Honor runs the risk of making your system stutter and lag as it tries to render all the carnage. However, I’m pleased to report that the game manages to pull off its epic stabfests with nary a stutter. Optimization is top-notch here, even with fires raging and explosions popping up. I set the dial to Ultra at 1080 and ran the game’s benchmark tool, which put my fps between 70 and 90. In real combat scenarios, I was able to hit 100 without Vsync, and with Vsync I managed a smooth 60. There were some minor stutters while turning quickly, but other than that the experience was noticeably hitch-free. In terms of controls, I will firmly recommend a controller. The reason for this is that the game’s super-intuitive and fun blocking mechanic is bound to the mouse on PC.

So instead of just flicking the right analog in the direction you wanna block, you flick your wrist to move the mouse. It’s uncomfortable and less precise, and I barely managed a few rounds with it. Stick to controller with this one, people. All in all, the game does a great job on PC and I had no trouble even when I scaled it up to 1440. Great optimization job all around.

Now as mentioned above, each “hero” will have its own advantage depending on the faction, meaning simply that my Knight Vanguard will not play the same as your Samurai version.  For example, the Viking Heavy called Warlords is equipped with a heavy shield and Gladius (Ancient Roman primary sword), which allows him to deflect blows easily and counter at close range. The list of combo styles are roughly no more than 8 or 9 variants, but the game is not lacking in depth as mastering each attack timing will require hours of actual AI or real-life opponent before it becomes a reflex.

For Honor as a game is played in confined arenas, which replicate what a medieval battle looks like without turning into an open-world game. This restriction is logical, as it helps makes the environment look stunning, whether it is the European style forest of the Knights to the exotic maps of the Samurai, passing by the snowy peaks of the Vikings. Yet the real prowess of the game lies in its engine and how it handles animations, with a realism that obviously reinforce the sheer power of some attacks, and how visually painful a hit can be. You just wait until you get to do your first assassination, you’ll just want to see more of that, like some sort of medieval Mortal Kombat style Fatalities.

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The game also has a great and effective UI and HUD, which pair visually in a great way with all actions done. For example, when you are in guard mode (a sort of lock-on aiming), the edges of the screen darken to better concentrate your attention on the locked enemy. Or my favorite is something called Revenge mode, which activates when you attack chain combos, or get damaged to near-death, and gives you this short couple of second invulnerable moment, and flashes with bright fire orange colors on screen. All these visual output are clearly Inspired by fighting games and the effect spectacle that follows great combos and super attacks.

But like most things in life, For Honor is not perfect, and has sadly the typical flaws of a newly launched internet-required game. First of all Matchmaking seems to be illogical for me, and getting paired with players of quite different skill levels, which explains the fact that the eSports/Ranked mode of the multiplayer is not launching until late April (in 2 month basically). It could be normal as matchmaking algorithms usually take time to identify a bunch of newly created accounts, but at the same time a technical beta, closed beta and open beta seemed to have not helped prevent server issues. In my case I managed to switch from a Strict to an Open NAT connection, but even that didn’t help with random disconnections from a multiplayer game.

Nevertheless, these launch issues will probably be fixed soon with a patch no doubt (as Ubisoft proved it with constant support on Rainbow Six Siege and The Division), but the biggest issue I believe is how niche this game is. You see, the campaign can be played alone or in coop, which offers several levels of difficulty thus could expand the lifespan of the game, but it’s the multiplayer modes and the number of variety that will truly make the game a long-term investment for players. Sadly due to this rare mix between a fighting game and MOBA style multiplayer modes, the complexity of it might not get the amount of players to truly make this a competitive or eSports hit, but who knows, it could become what Wargaming did with World of Tanks in Europe. In any case, its originality of gameplay features might arise curiosity in players, which will find everything you need of a game that is multiplayer firstly and a traditional singleplayer campaign game second. There’s 9 characters to unlock, a ranking system, “loot boxes” that contain equipment that boost your stats, or just cosmetic changes like a majestic mountain of golden spikes on top of helmet. To top thing off, there’s a sort of constant online Faction War (similar to the Mortal Kombat X system), which has you fight for one specific Faction, and all your feats during your multiplayer game will contribute War Assets to that banner. What this affects is the what territory each faction occupies on the For Honor world, which dictates which map you’ll be playing on as a defender in multiplayer, and which one when you’ll be the attacker.

One last thing to close this review, which is always a topic dear to me in videogames: the soundtrack. Sadly this is the thing that felt very unoriginal and bland, and even if some tunes are quite majestic, they don’t really ooze power and the fantastic theme that is a war between three iconic warrior factions of our history.

For Honor was reviewed using an Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC downloadable code of the game provided by Ubisoft Middle East. The PC version was tested by Mazen Abdallah on a PC running Windows 10, with an 8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1070 fitted on a 4th Generation Intel i7 4790 3.6Ghz CPU and topped with 16GB of RAM, while the console versions were tested by Nazih Fares and Luciano Rahal. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Ubisoft’s For Honor is an enjoyable, visually stunning and gritty experience that might be a bit too original for its own good. Over the past two years, between a hostile takedown by Vivendi and numerous other industry stories, I saw French publisher and development house Ubisoft continue to take risks and launch new IPs.