Tried the demo and its pretty cool, very nice looking visually and I can definitely see why it's popular but it's not my cup of tea. 'Anime' fighters in general don't do anything for me though.
The Johnny player at this year's Evo top 8 was so badass.
I'm starting to find "THE DAMAGE!" so it's getting more fun. For me it's weird because I find the fun in the even MORE anime fighters (Nitro+ X Blasters, Chaos Code, Dengeki Bunko, UNIEL) pretty fast, but I feel like I have to work harder for Guilty...
I enjoyed some of the GG I saw at CEOtaku, especially since I have a closer, even more intimate frame of reference now. I really need to learn some trickery with White RC, it seems...
I actually think this is one huge area that KOF14 fails compared to 13, and it's arguable that the older kofs did a better job. Like look at Andy's Neomax and compare it to his Climax in 14. They are both the same move, but the hit effect and sound had much more oomph in it in 13. Ralf also got hit hard by this, he doesn't seem to pummel as fast and the sound isn't as crunchy. When Ralf hits someone with a galactica phantom, the hitstop on it just let you know that he just punched a nuke right on your face. The Kyokugens usually are contenders for nicest hit effects at the end of Ranbus and dms, Ryo's hits in his combos for 14 just don't have the same feeling as 13, it felt like they had more of a pause for emphasis in the older game.
In all reality, it just feels... different to me here. We HAD harsher hitstop on the first previews of this game, and that still seemed to make people think "SLOW!". What we have now is a nice mix of camera-angles, unique sound effects, and pretty similar timing.
In one of those translated interviews, the sound team talks about how there's different expectations for 3D; like there should be sounds for cloth movements and other motions that aren't considered in 2D. Unlike GG, I can see and hear that here. I hear what I expect, and then I hear more. It's just nice how many small things have subtle attention, and I can actually tell! It seems like similar sound design to XIII overall. I loved how you could hear, say, the rustling of the flags in the top of the Coliseum stage, or how you can hear Athena's sparkles as they start to generate in her neutral stance.
I also like how KoF figures out how to "get away with it" all in an increasingly sensitive world. Yuri smacks her butt, Ralf mounts people and punches them directly in the face, Luong mounts and breaks a man
in a way not many would mind dying. People have different tolerances for these things in different graphic styles, but I feel like I get a similar feeling when taken as a whole.
I definitely miss some of the old Neo Geo sound effects, though. I really hope many "Classic Costume" stuff could be like Classic Kyo, and have sounds directly ripped from the game they come from. I need the old Neo Geo Explosion sound that was used for every boss death / Goro stomp back! XD
