CheekyLee

I sometimes feel as if "block" is some secret DLC that I don't know how to buy! Makes no difference who I play as, everyone is seemingly psychic, dodging or blocking all my rushdowns before turning it back at me and making me eat endless facefuls of feet. Then at the other end of the scale we have Justin Wong, who is so good that he was trying to beat players at Platinum by only using all 13 of Zangief's throws/grabs 1 time each during his stream last night. So it's clearly my own execution that's lacking, I am sure that with the right training and practice I can get better, but MAN is it frustrating to lose to a one-trick Honda!

In news that surprised me much more than it will anyone else, I have placed Iron with Dhalsim! And at least 2 of my opponents along the way were one and gone. I guess I need to start actually learning some of his combos, as I pretty much played the old-style "Stay the fuck away from me!" game that I'm not really suited for. If I ever learn to block with any kind of regularity, I might even be able to withstand the many people who I beat down in round 1 only to find I get cornered by and burnt out against in rounds 2 and 3, over and over again. I didn't even use a single level 1 art. I tried 2 of the CAs, and both started out but then got interrupted by DIs. Which means that I both hate DI, and love it because Dhalsim's really does seem to catch everybody by suprise.

We're at the point in the season where the game finally eases up on me and I actually start winning some. You know, just when there are no more season pass quests to complete? I am REALLY looking forward to the Spidey-move stuff next season. I'm just shy of 6000 tokens right now, and will definitely break that with tomorrow's Token Tusday if not sooner. Spider-Ham WILL be mine! Yes, I know that it's not perfect, but I literally couldn't tell you the last time I saw Inifinaut or Giganto outside of my own Drac Pack deck. Slapping him down the second it's clear my opponent is running Galactus? You have no idea how much that will make me giggle.

I went with the standard version from CD Keys, £34.99 being the only way I could afford it before I get paid on Monday. No doubt I'll end up buying all the passes at some point regardless, so long term I may not have saved anything but I NEEDED IT NOW! Besides, if the last couple of years of Capcom is anything to go buy there will be frequent, near constant, sales of all the DLC. I just did the arcade story mode with Cammy, and I have now sat through a good 5 minutes or so of credits before working out that I need to press the start button first to be able to skip them. I've seen Marvel movies with fewer credits. Like, seriously, it's a ridiculous amount of names. There is an Information Security Management Team involved in the making of this game! What exactly did they do? There then followed 14, yes, FOURTEEN pieces of artwork. I have only one complaint with this game, and that's the overly fiddly menu systems. I thought I had changed my title from "Let's Do This", but it seems that isn't done on your character menu. Why is this stuff so arcane and opaque? Having to change control style for everyone is annoying enough, but then also having to do it for avatar battles in World Tour? It's ridiculous in a game that is, in every other respect, sheer bloody brilliant.

That was me, the very first time I went online with a fighting game. In my case, it was Alpha 3 via some emulator, quite possibly ZSNES, with some Yahoo chat friends. The first few games were mixed, but then I went up against a Bison player. In that moment I went from being the best fight game player I knew to having my backside handed to me in 10 straight losses. I just couldn't hit him, let alone beat him! I was utterly humbled, and it is a feeling I've gotten used to over so many games as online has gotten more accessible. DOE 4 on 360? I have the 20 Straight Losses Online achievment. SF4? I played my first 100 online matches with Dan, and am actually proud that I won 33 of them, but my percentage overall remained more or less that low. SF5? Played against a guy I worked with, and took about 7 rounds in 20 matches one lunchtime. The only time I managed a win was when I got lucky with Laura. And as recently as the beta for this, Benny took 10 straight matches against me. I long ago realised that I'll never be the man to fear again, but these days as long as I'm "Not last" I consider it success. And yet, even losing, this one feels like it is MY Street Fighter game.

A deck I have lots of fun with is my Jeffity. I am hoping for Forge > Jeff > Beast > Forge/Shuri > Jeff, which gives me a 10 point mobile card on turn 10. But even if I don't get that, Nebula and Kitty put plenty of pressure on, and Ironheart is always worthy. It's an evolution of an early one I ran where I tried to make Nightcrawler a powerhouse. Jeff is simply far superior! Not to mention, a 0 cost Kitty is an absolute wonder, especially if you get to clone her, like I did in this game: Luke Cage is there for High Evolutionary, who I faced almost exclusively during his first week. Armor protects Nebula from Killmonger, whereas Nova makes use of him when they are obviously running Sera. And Skrull is sometimes amazing, sometimes pointless, but he does counter the Dino, which I have seen a lot during the last couple of days.

I would try and fit Mysterio in there, if possible. Your Ultron bots and Squirrels are all open to Killmonger, so perhaps squeeze Cosmo in, too? I don't know, though. I pretty much sidelined my Patty Cake deck now, onlybreaking it out for the "Play 3 cost cards" missions whenever they show. I suspect this particular season quest is going to cause me to not complete the lot this time round, because I almost never even get to fill locations now let alone win with them full. However, you can cheese them by escaping when you are winning a location, which is someyhing I will almost certainly do and feel downright dirty about if it looks like I won't make it.

Why is that 16GB? Surely it could have been done via a browser plug-in? Utter madness. Very good review scores, none of which anyone needs to read. If ever a dev were review proof, it's Capcom. Their franchises make life-long fans. We all knew it was going to be great, and then all saw just how great it is when we played the demo. Now I just need to convince at least some of the people I work with to get the damn thing!

When the stars align! Even with the 2 Dracula's selecting the 2 lowest power cards left in my deck, which were Orka and Death, my poor opponent had no chance. Kitty Pryde is amazing.

Hazmat generally pairs with Luke Cage, to protect your own side from the power drops. Best guess is that Venom ate him, thus removing the shield. 😆

I have 2280 gold this morning. Obviously, that won't do. Since they know I don't splurge on the bundles, how do they get me to spend? By dropping Dan Hipp Zabu, Baby Nebula, and Chibi Jeff into my shop for a combined 2600, that's how! After what feels like months of pointless checking only to see countless Pixel variants or "Nice art, but I just don't use that card", they well and truly got me today. I'm still being RNG screwed. Last night, the location that picks a card from each of us came out 1st turn. It took my Hobgoblin, and then revealed his Odin. I am in an abusive relationship!

Echoing the "Take your time. Explore." mindset. Last time I posted I was talking about how I disliked the Fire Temple, and left it. I have since completed the Water Temple, found Kakariko and Hateno, several memories, and basically progressed in just a couple of the billion or so other directions available to me. Going back to the Fire Temple meant I unlocked the final 2 doors in a quite short space of time. One in particular was, like, "How did I miss THAT?" I rarely rush games, but this is a world to savour. If it takes me 6 months, I'll not mind. I don't need to finish it to know that it's just a class above anything else I've ever played.

I don't know if I would say it's badly designed, but I would agree that it's less enjoyable than any other part of the game so far. It's definitely a bit more opaque than anything up to that point. I'm 3 locks in, and just so frustrated that I ragequit and went to Zora's Domain instead. And getting up to the Water Temple is pure joy! I can always see exactly what they want me to do, and executing it is straightforward. It's the polar opposite of Fire Temple, where most of the time I've been climbing the outside because I just can't see how I'm supposed to get somewhere. Or, worse still, I get there but something else I didn't see along the way comes back to bite me in the arse. It is the only thing in the game so far I haven't adored. It didn't help that by the time I got to it that I just happened to have had no non-wooden bows left!

It truly is a game that keeps on giving. Like, when they told us about the Sky islands, I just assumed it would be a fairly mundane addition. Something of a fun diversion. But, here I am, in the middle of some crazy Death Star contraption miles in the air, wondering how I'll ever get to the Borg Cube and suddenly finding Rockets in a dispenser! They didn't even mention The Depths, which are just mind-blowing in scope. An entire game world underneath the game world? It's nearly impossible to believe it, but it exists. What makes it, though, is not anything that the designers tweaked, fine-tuned, and polished in standard "Do it like this" fashion. It's that there are a million wrong ways to do everything in the game, something that is reinforced whenever I watch my girlfriend play. She delights in building bridges, brute-forcing her way past things that I try to smugly finesse my way past. She also wants to kill EVERYTHING, and has fused some much nicer weapons than I have. It has taken what was already the most open of open-worlds, and expanded it in every possible direction. The game is simply a miracle, and I can't see this being improved upon.

Despite losing 10 straight to Benny over the weekend, and then losing 8 of my qualifiers to be dumped into Rookie, the game won't let me into the Birdie servers. So what? Hopefully Ranked balances it all out and all the psychic players I've been fighting are off perfectly reading and faultlessly blocking each other, leaving me some lowbie scraps to pick on. Even losing feels like proper Street Fighter, and I do feel like improvement is not only possible, but also likely. It remains to be seen how I do with Cammy, who has been my go-to for, like, the last decade. Tried the new characters, and ... I have mixed feelings. I already know I will basically never get the hang of Jamie Gordo, but Kimberley seems like she'll be fun if I ever learn to block. My stick, while definitely of lower quality, clearly needed a workout as I can feel it becoming more responsive. But I'm still going to get a decent one. It's not even about the Ranked journey, though, I've just spent a weekend being reminded of how much better than any other fight game Street Fighter actually is. And custom World Tour matches will unquestionably be the best thing ever!

And I thought I was playing Fall Guys, constantly jumping in! Well played, I best get to labbing. I literally pulled some plastic off my stick during that, might be better going back to pad for the time being ...

Bobby doing us proud!

I think it's gotten about as ridiculous as it can when Ashley Young drops to the floor, holding his head, after heading the ball. It would be nice to force Martinez into a save, though. Everything from any kind of distance is going straight to his hands. Europa looking more and more likely the longer this goes on.

Since when do VAR ask referees to go t the monitor to check offside? Has that ever happened before? I'm aghast at this.

Villa players hurling themselves to the ground repeatedly, any time there is a red shirt anywhere near them. Asking the ref to show cards. It's definitely the go to strategy for teams playing us now, and refs are allowing it week after week. Not that we're doing anything to deserve a lead, but it is still horrible to watch.

Well, this has been a nightmare so far.

Injured, sadly.

That, but you need to do it for each character. Yes, seriously! Also, you probably spotted this already, but you also need to set the controls as both players 1 and 2. Because Capcom.

One thing I'm unsure if I'm a fan of or not is that I have to set my control style for each character individually. Sure, I have no idea how to play as Kimberley, but I'm also not going to learn how to play as her with what, to me at least, is a foreign control scheme! But then I think a little, and see that it could actually be beneficial if there is someone with some uniquely accessed moves, being able to put those command onto a single button could prove useful. Went back in and played a couple more matches. Man, I'm rusty! Came up against a Guile who Perfected me 1st round, some of this to be fair to me was due to me getting out my pretty poor stick, some cheap thing that clicks and clunks. Since I'm old and slow these days, I haven't really considered a stick as something other than a nice thing to have, but think I'll definitely invest in a good one now. Unquestionably, this is going to rekindle my love of this series. But then, I played against a Chun Li who was happy to replay after beating me 2-1, but less so after I took the 2nd match 0-2. And then a Kimberley who wouldn't rematch at all after I won 0-2. Slowing myself down a little, and going easier on the stick helped. Things are coming back to me. I'm aware that I sound like I'm bragging a bit, by the way, but I was once the best SF player I knew. Then ... I went online, and realised just how much I still have to learn! I assume you guys are all finding the least crowded server to play together on at the moment? There are so many options in the menus that it's all a little bit dizzying. I have a weekly challenge to "Nice" the profiles of 3 players, and not really sure how I do that. I'd rather give the kudos to people who I know and like than randoms just for the sake of some drive tickets that I may end up not using anyway. (Although, I have bought a nice hat already.) Where does one find this information? I thought every server just had the one lobby, so I'm clearly not paying as much attention as I should be.

I'll echo this. I've been around since 2, didn't quite get on the same with 3, but loved Alpha and even EX+ Alpha. 4 was joyous, but 5 felt too ... stale? Clean? I'm not even sure what it felt, but it never quite grabbed me as it should have done. Even after only a handful of games, I know this is my Street Fighter again. It just feels like it's BACK, BABY! And I am going to try to bore everyone I know into giving it a go, because nothing is quite the same as some good old fightan games.