Finally have XRD on PS4 after having the original version on PS3. It's great how well the PS3 version held up; It all still feels familiar in the right ways.
Dizzy definitely has that extra TLC compared to other characters; Why do I feel like Johnny's Intro / outro is more framey / at a different pace than others? And that piece of paper Jam reads in her intro looks oddly low-res... *shrug*
So I can earn Raven in game, and Kum is the only thing I have left to buy... ok. That's not as bad as it could be. Does beating / (watching?) the story mode give enough funds to earn Raven?
I've gotta give time to fall in love with the gameplay, because I'm still not enjoying that "death from a thousand cuts" method for low life here. I've only played CPU and 10s of local VS matches so far, and mostly with established Waifu (Ramlethal, Dizzy, Jam, PumpkinKula), but I can't get fully sold on "Yeah, this is gonna HURT!" for like... anything yet, lol. Like... damage feels GREAT on a counter Hit Cr.S -> Cr.HS with Rammy, but the big dramatic well-animated cinematic supers I do with her never seem to kill ANYONE, lol.
I also don't understand why sound direction seems off in this game. Dizzy's
Look cool, surely, but the screams that go along with her "DON'T DO IT!" face and turning around sound like they're whispered, or said for different scenes. She sounds really chill and kinda... eh... in her victory quotes. The impact of the sounds, and the balance of voice to music during fights just don't gel. I'm gonna mess with the Sound options to see if I can find something that works for me... but I'm just confused at how un-eventful things feel at times. Jam's Ki charge looks so much less impressive / impactful than it did in the old games, even if the arm and effect motion is nice. Her Bruce Lee-Like screams don't feel as meaningful and impactful as they did in the older games, though the actress performance seems pretty solid, on it's own.
None of the music has endeared itself to me yet. I LIKE a lot of it, but none of it has gotten stuck in my head, or even brought back memories from the older days. The best turn I've had with music is that the parts of the song that played for my Rammy VS May battle felt like each opening cinematic had it's own soundtrack mutation, hinting at each characters personality. Don't know how purposeful that is, but it felt cool. Please tell me Jam's theme turned out well!
I am very happy to see there's a lot of unlockable colors (even if many of them are things I remembered having as free DLs on the PS3 version), and hey, FISHING! Also glad offline VS earns you stuff (though I wish it was more obvious how much you earned per fight.)
All in all, I'm very glad to have (most of) the game, finally. I did miss Ramlethal, which may or may not additionally feel nice because I've see Megumi Han at a few Anime cons before, lol. Dizzy gives me a link to old GG that none of the other characters from -Sign- really gave me (No Baiken, Anji Mito, Testament...), and it's great seeing more characters and stages created under this obviously-still-growing graphical presentation. And I get to try out Leo and Sin now, whereas I never purchased the former, and never earned the latter, PS3.
