Present and accounted for! Even if really late.... XD Man, I gotta find a way to fit this in to Next Gen Purchase crazi! Oy. WORTH IT FOR MANAKA!
This and Chaos Breaker (aka Dark Awake) have my interest BIG TIME now that I'm getting a PS3.
Don't forget a bit of Chaos Code with your Chaos Breaker! Since getting a PS3 last year, I've never gotten an Uncharted or GoW... but I made sure to get Code, Breaker, Arcana 3, and Import Aquapazza, lol.
There's one huge issue (at least with the import version, and I seriously doubt this is fixed in the US release): the netcode is absolute, irredeemable garbage. It seriously is KoF XIII console levels of awfulness when played online.
This seems somewhat exaggerated. Though I got this at the same time as Arcana 3, I found myself wanting to play this much more, because I enjoy it's gameplay more. In that time, I found a FEW people who played in the US, but mostly Japanese players (east coast US myself).
A lot of this was pre-patch. Though I played a few post, as well.
Some matches were clearly horrible, yes. KoF XII levels of stutter and lag. And as this game DOESN'T have absolute guard AT ALL, being off on the high/low mixups will often lead to horrible death.
But others ran consistently, and with low lag, given the situation. And as a person playing Local VS more often that online in the game, I found little issue transitioning between the two, in the best of matches. A few JP to US ones felt as good as the rare US to US ones I encountered. Didn't seem to have a host advantage either, as most ranked matches would switch between host, and I'd fight the same people from both sides of the screen.
If I remember right, the training mode even has an option to let one practice in variations of lag (much like Marvel VS), as well as quick character, assist, and stage select from right within the menu, so one can test their motions and such under adverse situations pretty easily. Playing Manaka with her Instant-double-jump-for-Short-hops demanded the game respond when one wants it too, on offense and defense, and I generally found this doable.
US to US matches should easily be worlds better than most of the hell I experienced then, haha. Especially since it's post patch.
I think the worse thing is that it tries to Synch like Blazblue did, but if it Synch's wrong, you're in for a world of crap. And it can flux between matches with the same people. But when it's at it's best, it does fairly well. I rarely had issues with inconsistency between solid higher connections.
As far as seeing the game light on content... with the WIDE variety of gameplay behind the assist-usage, I never felt this way. I still now feel that there are worlds of depth I could plumb by putting Manaka or Hakuwolo with new partners, and Sasara, Chizuru, and Morgan still feel unexplored to me. Everyone really plays different with many unique movement options, special meters, and funky little trickery that feels kind of like an old-school take at making Blazblue like uniqueness.
I absolutely love how unique the game feels, even to this day. The idea of getting to see new players grow though playing it makes me smile, as I have found memories of seeing people pull off new stuff in every extended play session I managed to jump into...
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ReXXXX, how did we NEVER get in any matches, even though we were both lookin' forward to it last year around this time? LoL.
