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Hello and welcome to the Fantasy Strike Games thread! What are the Fantasy Strike games? They are three games by David Sirlin that all share a common universe, set of characters, and end goal of tight, tournament-worthy asymmetrical two-player action. I have played all three and frankly they are very good! They are  OPEN FOR FREE PLAY (with some character select restrictions) on https://www.fantasystrike.com and they are: Yomi is a card game that simulates a fighting video game, a genre Sirlin much loves. I think he was a championship-level player of Street Fighter II? He did a rebalancing of it called HD Remix. Anyway, Yomi uses a 54-card poker deck and the fundamental concept of Rock - Paper - Scissors to bring the "high level mind games" of tournament fighting game play to your table while conveniently eliminating the need to have physical dexterity. Attacks will always defeat attempts to throw, which will always beat turtling, which always beats attacking...but which option will you / your opponent pick based on your respective health totals, hand size, and unique character abilities? Speaking as a casual fighting game fan, Yomi is a great representation. It's got c-c-c-c-combos, c-c-c-c-combo breakers, super moves, knockdowns, shoryukens and hadokens (abstracted but they're in), and juicy Engrish-esque move names (CHECKMATE BUSTER cannot be said, only yelled). Also, Yomi began existence as a Street Fighter game, so many of the characters are heavily based in flavor and gameplay on classic street fighters. I think that's nifty and I'll make notes on who's who to the best of my knowledge later. Speaking as a modern board gamer, it's tight. Every character has a fighting chance against every other character and fun, unique dynamics, it plays fast, and it's not heavily luck-based. The variance of card draws can be mitigated, and the RPS is a foundation, not the beginning and end of strategy. Seriously if you think it's "just RPS" go score a few perfect games on the (I think) 100% random easy-mode AI at the official website and get back to me. I perfected the dumb bastard in five plays once. Yomi plays up to 4 people. It can offer a focused 1v1 Street Fighter duel or Marvel vs. Capcom-style 2v2 insanity, complete with tag-team super-cancel bullshit!  Puzzle Strike is to Puzzle Fighter what Yomi is to Street Fighter. That is, it's a board game adaptation of a Japanese competitive puzzle arcade game. As a board game, it's exceptionally similar to Dominion, but built on heavy player interaction. Customize your personal supply of stylish combo chips and leverage your character's unique strengths to overcome the steady flow of gems on your screen and shove said gems down your opponent's throat. I had some fun with Puyo Puyo back in the day and I dig how Puzzle Strike emulates that sort of game. Adding together your whatsits of same color and then shoving them on your enemy is abstracted through "combine" and "crash" game effects but the flavor's all there. Again turning to my opinion as a board gamer, Puzzle Strike's probably my favorite Sirlin Game. It's fast, it's group-friendly, and it answers the issues I have with Dominion (comebacks, interaction) with precision and flair while keeping depth of card interactions and strategies. Oh, and it actually uses poker chips instead of cards, which is an ease-of-use improvement for physical copies you're not going to understand before you try it. Though the chips have no room for art, which is sad because the "chibi" characters from the boxes look great. Puzzle Strike Third Edition is the newest and best release. It also has a standalone-capable expansion out there called Shadows. It plays up to four people per game, with team rules or free-for-all, though like Yomi its strength is 1v1.  Flash Duel is an aberration because it is not based on video games so far as I know.* It is like Puzzle Strike in that it heavily borrows from another board game: En Garde. I've never played En Garde but that's what they say. Dance back and forth with your opponent across a short distance, trying to land the perfect blow. Select plays cautiously because your numbered cards are used to move, attack, and defend. *However, if Yomi is Street Fighter and Puzzle Strike is Puzzle Fighter...may I suggest that Flash Duel can be Super Gem Fighter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iJWz2cqCaA I haven't played a lot of Flash Duel. It seems pretty alright though. Fast. Really fast. All the Fantasy Strike games play quickly, actually, but this is the fastest. Can be taken places easily in a small box, which is nice. Just wish it'd put effort into art. Flash Duel has an all-encompassing Second Edition release out now with all 20 Fantasy Strike characters in one box. It plays up to five people per game, with team rules and a special version where players work together against a super-powered evil dragon. THE CHARACTERS Now I will give you a brief flavor text description of each of the twenty Fantasy Strike characters. The first ten were the first created. They're from Yomi's "Round 1" box and associated decks, Puzzle Strike 3rd Edition (pink box), and Flash Duel. The second ten are "expansion." They're Yomi: Round 2 and its friends, Puzzle Strike: Shadows (blue box), and Flash Duel. I'll also include an overview of how each one plays in the three games. Warning: I do not claim to be good enough at these games to offer reliable advice. ESPECIALLY Flash Duel, someone please help, I accept contributions on all of this. THE CLASSIC CHARACTERS   Flavor Grave's the "anime main character" sort who only cares about getting better at fighting. He's pretty good at it too, a jack-of-all-trades who's good at pretty much everything. He's very heavily based on Ryu. Yomi Acknowledging that the game is tightly balanced, Puzzle Strike He's still maddeningly good in Puzzle Strike. He's an ace at "economic" gameplay, where you generate big money fast and seek powerful chips. He's also resistant to aggression and tremendously flexible, capable of tossing aside unneeded chips for more powerful ones while maintaining his combo chains. He shines if he can find a way to play more than one action chain per turn due to some pretty fab innate chip-drawing potential. Flash Duel Grave meshes control and flexibility by bringing his counterspell, hand-spying technique, and hand adjustment moves to Flash Duel.   Flavor Jaina is hot-tempered. She throws caution to the wind and kills it with fire, because that's the only way to be sure, etcetera. Jaina is Grave's Yomi Jaina's pretty aggressive. She can damage blocking enemies with recurring regular attacks, she has a power to mess with enemies who try to dodge instead of blocking, she can land brutal combo chains, she generates super meter (draws Aces) easily with a dastardly RPS cheat, and if the game drags and her hitpoints sink she just starts spamming shoryukens and supers. Her hitpoints do have a way of sinking, though, because she expends them to recur her attacks and her RPS cheat backfires when outplayed, and she can't open a combo with the speed of other aggressive characters. Puzzle Strike Jaina is aggressive here too! Undisputed queen of the fast-attack game with the unique power of beginning the game with a double-strength crash. That bomb is best dropped carefully, though, because it causes her to take worthless wound chips. She is also excellent with attack chips, being capable of forking her action chain to use attacks effectively and chaining those attacks into other combos while simultaneously heating up the game and cauterizing her wounds! Flash Duel FD Jaina focuses more on her "archer" concept than raw aggression, with the power to push enemies away, ensure she has a long-range card when she needs it, and (most significantly) execute an unblockable attack at longer-than-normal distance.   Flavor Setsuki is a ninja who is all about speed, speed, speed. She apparently idolizes Grave for some reason. My ignorance of Street Fighter begins to show whenever we discuss someone who wasn't in Street Fighter II Championship Edition but I'm pretty sure Setsuki is Ibuki. Yomi Fast! Stupid fast. She has several legitimate options for beginning vicious full combos that are reliably faster than what her enemy can do, making it risky for them to try and attack her. She too can spam moves but has flexibility in which ones she wants to recall. Setsuki has the uncommon ability to do a full combo and still knock her enemy down to keep him set up for the next turn, which is something that is really just delicious when spammed against somebody. Mmmm. When her hand runs out of cards, she just draws a new hand, and if she doesn't full-combo you straight up, she dodges your attempts to out-speed her and THEN full-combos you. She crumbles when hit, though. Puzzle Strike Setsuki dominates economic play. Her ninja speed manifests here in outstanding ability to churn through her deck while dropping combo chips and the game-defining power to double-play interesting chips. By doubling up on choice money-related chips, she can "slingshot" to riches in an instant. Try it, you'll like it. However, as in Yomi, she can fall apart when attacked. Flash Duel Setsuki cannot hold still in Flash Duel. She blitzes her enemies from across the board and dances around while simultaneously attacking and dodging.   Flavor Midori is a kung fu master who taught Grave and Jaina. He's Menelker's honorable brother. He can also turn into a dragon, which is pretty sick. I swear I read once that he borrowed some move ideas from E. Honda. Forum man Alien Rope Burn notes a gameplay similarity to Tung Fu Rue of Fatal Fury, and a clear fluff similarity to Gouken. Yomi Midori is a "grappler," meaning he's really good at throwing his enemies. He possesses throw cards that non-grapplers cannot hope to trump. His attack options are slow but damage-efficient. What he's truly about is building up a thick hand of cards and then becoming a dragon. As a dragon, he shuts down most enemy attempts to dodge his wrath and taps into radically stronger attack and throw options, including a super throw that, fully charged, does 52 damage in a game where the toughest guy has 100 HP and quite a few have 70 or 75 - consider that. He can also quickly turn into a dragon and back again to surprise a cocky opponent who thinks they're only dealing with his weaker human form, and recur his dragon moves if he blocks to catch his (dragon) breath. Puzzle Strike Midori is a potent aggressive character. By turning into a dragon early he pours gasoline on the game, introducing lots of gems on player screens quickly while disabling defenses. He's not good at buying fancy things but he can piggyback on his opponents' purchases and trade unwanted assets for general-purposes cash money. He also shows a resistance to wounds that you'll love when you need it. God help his enemies if he gets his claws on a Double Crash Gem. Flash Duel Midori's still rocking the dragon in Flash Duel, using it for a relentless advance and rush defense. He is also good at having "2" cards because    Flavor Geiger is a scientist and watchmaker who is figuring out time travel for some reason. Probably because it's cool. He is totally Guile. Yomi Geiger's a very average sort of guy, with middle-of-the-road speed, "typical" arrays of attacks and throws and dodges and stuff, and good hit points. His Puzzle Strike Geiger keeps up the average guy schtick here. He is probably the single most "centered" character in the whole game, with no commitment to any play style. His gameplan tends to shift depending on what's in the chip bank, because he's adaptable. His strength is in deck manipulation. A newbie can enjoy Geiger for his ability to use key chips that aren't in his hand. An expert can time his powers with the reshuffling of the discard to guarantee optimal flow and recurrence of those key chips. Flash Duel Geiger's like a Blu-Ray player or something; he can fast-forward to take two turns in a row, he can do replays by fishing cards from discard, or he can rewind the game by shuffling the whole discard back in if the timer's low and he's not happy with that fact.   Flavor Valerie's a painter and back brace success story. She fights for creative freedom. I hear tell she's rooted in Chun Li, though forums Fool, Fenn the notes she takes very, very heavily after Fei Long. I also hear tell she's bisexual. Fighting games, ladies and gentlemen.  Yomi Valerie gives Setsuki a run for her money on attack spammin'. She lacks those ninja-fast special moves but she's capable of unpredictable bursts of speed that compensate and she will brush* right by an opponent who relies too much on the same block cards. She's also combo queen, with the unique ability to string together six-hit haymaker-roundhouse combos that fully charge her super meter. Valerie ebbs and flows, first playing conservatively to build a hand, then dropping it in a nova strike only Geiger can beat (and that's only theoretical). Like Geiger, no glaring weaknesses but her special moves are a bit slow when not amped up. *it's a joke, son Puzzle Strike Valerie's combo flexibility here takes the form of a high-quality natural action chain fork that lets her manipulate defensive chips and disruptive chips at the same time as something else entirely, plus a rainbow-colored special crash effect that gives her strong control over her own gem pile. Like Geiger, her plans tend to shift a bit depending on what's in the bank. She performs well with a splash of colorful bank chips that make the most use of her fork. Not many characters can manage the wild and varied combos Valerie does. Flash Duel I think Valerie's pretty boring here actually - she can draw a bonus card and her "flexibility" theme manifests as simply treating "4"s as "3"s and vice versa. Yippee.   Flavor DeGrey is the best because he punches people for justice, his iconic move is the most Engrish thing, and he hangs out with a ghost. Her name's Ghost-Chan (seriously). DeGrey is where I admit that Fantasy Strike is not simply a Street Fighter reskin. Forumite Elegant Fugue has shown us that DeGrey is Slayer from Guilty Gear. Yomi DeGrey can be a tough bastard to pin down. His special powers let him nail you with full combos after he dodges you, regenerate life if you disobey his orders, and change a fast throw into a heavy punch at the last second just when you thought you had him. He also hits like a goddamn truck with high innate damage on his special/super moves (PILEBUNKER) that gets further boosted if you dare to have more cards than him. However, he depends heavily on those powers because he is somewhat slow and needs a relatively small hand to milk his damage bonus, so he can sometimes get stuck in a rut. Puzzle Strike DeGrey isn't so much good at personal economy as he is really good at bashing enemy economies into bits with Pilebunkers. His gameplan is to suppress his enemies' development while using his outstanding deck-slimming power to become a lean, mean gem-crashing machine. He is also very much into extortion for a justice-minded attorney; with his chip that forces opponents to either let him play another chip or get a nice cash bonus, he says "pay me off or get Pilebunkered." Focus on slim-decking and maybe other methods of disruption if your enemies can cope with a low cash flow. Flash Duel Twisting your enemy's position to suit your needs is fun but FD DeGrey's real hotness is his power to viciously retaliate after dodging! Rush him at your peril.   Flavor Rook is the reason all the characters get together to fight each other because he thinks that's a smashing idea. He's DeGrey's justice = punching buddy. Rook also = Zangief. Yomi Rook is undisputed king of throwing. Nobody shatters a block or ignores a dodge with Rook's brutality and speed. He isn't big on combos but his damage efficiency is top-notch, and he has oodles of hit points. He can launch a Puzzle Strike Rook's an aggressive terror. He can generate big unstoppable heavy crashes with scary speed while inexorably improving cash flow, and if he doesn't feel like taking gems from you he probably won't. Just think "smash smash smash" and you'll do fine as Rook. Actually you'll probably have your enemies tearing their hair out screaming "OP." He's not one for fancy bank chips, though, and should beware clever opponents who can use funny chips better than he can. Flash Duel Rook loves getting up close and personal. He is well-armored against rushes while he closes in, pins you in place with his own rush, and outright kills you if he starts his turn adjacent.   Flavor Lum's a panda! Haha, pandas, amirite? Innately LOL! Pandas are not at all the latest nerd-beaten dead horse! I'm gonna call him Blanka solely because he's hairy and one of his moves is a rolling charge, and you can't stop me. Yomi Lum's a bit of a weirdo. He's got an uncommonly fast throw game, but he sucks at reliably knocking people down. Whenever he damages his enemy with an attack he gets a random end-of-turn benefit. Generally this means he can tap into knockdowns off of attacks, which is new and different, or recur his fast special moves, but sometimes his luck doesn't hold. Other times he puts a slow-down curse on his opponent, either baiting them into defense for a throw or opening up a window to land some haymakers. A great trick with him is to charge up your hand size and then manipulate his special ability to form poker hands with his cards (Yomi cards double as poker cards, remember) to deal automatic damage to your enemy. Puzzle Strike Lum is an economic character and a blast because his economic style isn't about generating cash bonuses - it's about drawing chips, chips, and more chips. He dances on a tightrope of squeezing out draw bonuses from bank chips as long as he can before he needs to buy crashing chips to survive, and if he gets pushed over the edge of safety he just draws a ton more chips and rolls on! Also sometimes he just randomly scores an endgame crashing chip on like turn 3. As an economy-builder, he has to beware aggressive characters who try and push him off his tightrope. Flash Duel Lum likes to try to rig the game; he'll win automatically if he can piece together the right hand, he can topdeck a random card for a little quick fix, and he can double-dog-dare his opponent to either give up or put two round wins on the line (Flash Duel's always played best 3 of 5, by the way).   Flavor I hear Sirlin used to play WoW. So here's a murloc for ya. Argagarg is a peaceful sort who is in a fighting tournament because reasons. He could be an E. Honda gameplay analogue, notes Fenn the Fool!. Yomi Argagarg is defined by his innate power to chip away at his enemy's health automatically. Despite this and his super block move that multiplies his innate power strength, he is not a particularly turtle-y character! His enemies expect him to turtle and get psychologically driven to throw the little poo poo because doing so stops the chipping. Thus, because attacks beat throws and Argagarg is on the fast side of average, he likes to attack, attack, attack! He's tough to bring down because his super block gives him a free pass on bad RPS choices, he can prohibit enemy combos, and he's got a quality counterspell. "Fast side of average" is the nicest thing I can say about his speed, though, and his damage output is nothing awesome. Puzzle Strike If you really want to make your friends mad, play Argagarg. He's a specialist in dishing out wound chips that clog up his enemies' decks. He likes to prolong games with his crash-resistant Bubble Shield and buildup-inhibiting Protective Ward until such time that his enemy basically chokes to death on wounds. He's also pretty handy with any blue defense chips that may happen to be in the bank, and choice red attack chips, but his economic capabilities must be the worst in the entire game. Flash Duel Argagarg auto-wins if he can get the game to time out and he's sufficiently far from his opponent. To help with that, he can slip around enemy rushes and close-range attacks. THE SHADOWS CHARACTERS   Flavor Gwen is Gloria's sister. She caught a serious case of the zombies and is now rotting away but got unholy powers. The expansion characters are (to my knowledge) much less Street Fighter-linked than the base characters; Gwen is no one I know. Yomi Forget Setsuki, Gwen is stupid, stupid fast. Attack spam and attack spam. Then maybe some attack spam will be in order. She loses health every turn but draws twice the cards and carves up enemy blocks like butter. She can empty out a hand of cards in fifteen different ways. Her effective health is of course low, though, and her card/damage efficiency is not enviable. Puzzle Strike Gwen is unique because she has the only actively harmful character chip. If she can't donate actions to treating her Shadow Plague, she gets messed up. Fortunately, her other character powers are ridiculously strong and afford her a flexible split action fork that lets her cope with the plague while tossing around attacks or multi-purpose chips. She is like Setsuki in overdrive, but due to the inevitability of wounding herself as time goes on tends to play more aggressively than economic-style. Personally I look at her as Setsuki cross-bred with Jaina. She's a strong character who hates being made to discard things. Flash Duel Gwen's on borrowed time! If she doesn't kill her enemy before time-out, she automatically loses twice. Fortunately she draws bonus cards and packs a mean incessant rush.   Flavor Gloria is a nice person who wants to heal the world. She's trying to find a cure for the zombies so she can fix her sister. A martial arts tournament is a good way to do that? I dunno, ask Argagarg. Fighting game logic. No known Street Fighter connection. Yomi Gloria favors a long, defensive game of attrition like her peace-loving pal Argagarg (or like he's "supposed to," anyway). A long game lets her leverage her unique power to dependably regenerate life into victory courtesy of her super move power to auto-damage both fighters. She's got a notorious card-draw engine too, between said super move giving her additional cards when she wins RPS and her self-buff that gives her cards every turn she heals (that's every turn, folks). Her issue, like so many other characters, is that she's slow. She will also suffer badly if the enemy manages to keep her hand size down because sustaining her side of the attrition takes cards. Puzzle Strike Gloria combines surprising economy with heavy defense and some deck-slimming to great results. Matter of fact I think she can generate more Turn 1 buying power than any other character. The downside to that package is that she benefits her opponents as she uses her moves, letting them draw bonus chips and hop on the deck-slimming train. Good Gloria play thus depends on watching enemy plays to time your moves for the right moment, so enemy benefit is minimized. Thankfully she is well supplied with the pig icons that let her save chips for opportune moments. She's also quite handy with any blue puzzle chips that show up in the bank. Flash Duel Gloria loves her some cards! When you rush her, she draws cards. When you punch her, she draws cards. And sometimes she just draws some cards (and lets the other guy do it too, yaaay)!   Flavor Troq is a big stupid cow who likes to hit stuff. He's a WoW-Tauren reincarnation of T. Hawk. Yomi Troq is the Shadows set's "grappler" character, meaning he's good at throws but a rather slow attacker. He throws about as well as Rook, but his tricks for overwhelming/resisting aggressive opponents aren't as potent. However, just being a pro thrower and having those tricks gives him something most of the cast doesn't have, and he hits ferociously hard with his unique gimmick to garner a lasting damage boost and unlock a Grave-level efficient super throw after blocks. He can also knock you down basically whenever he feels like it, increasing the threat of his damage-boosted punches and kicks. Puzzle Strike Troq is pretty excellent, capable of a strong aggressive or economic game. He blends the coolest parts of Lum and Midori together with a dash of Rook and a unique slim-decking potency: he can drop gems from his hand to his pile to shrink his deck and pour some gas on events (not entirely unlike Midori's dragon), he gets a juicy draw benefit if he hangs around a certain high pile height (see: Lum), and he can grow his less useful gems into better ones (shades of Midori and Rook). Pair him with the right action chain enhancement chips and he'll stomp his enemies. He does need to mind his behavior around other aggressive characters, though, as he might accidentally kill himself trying to slim-deck, and dedicated economic characters will out-fund him. Flash Duel Troq crushes you like a charging bull. He bounces you back when you attack him and auto-kills if he can get your back to the wall when he rushes. He can also customize the contents of his hand.   Flavor Geiger invented Bal-Bas-Beta because robots are cool and Geiger does cool things (see: time travel). Unfortunately the evil empire uses him and I think others of his model in the military. Oops! Bal-Bas-Beta is 100% Dhalsim. Yomi Bal-Bas-Beta is a major oddball. His game is about using his extendo-fists to put distance between himself and his enemy and essentially prod them to death. In Yomi, which has no formal measurement of distance between the fighters, that means when he lands punches he enters "Ranged" status, which immunizes him next time he takes damage and enables some cool special moves (like one that does bunches of damage even if blocked). It's pretty entertaining, but his damage output is possibly the worst in the game and he's no speed demon either. Puzzle Strike BBB hybridizes economics and defense like Gloria does, but not so powerfully. He slowly but steadily powers up his chips and nets small cash bonuses on the way. He tends to shoot for a middle-game sort of win, where he's outlasted early aggression but characters better at development than him haven't quite put their affairs in order. He's also what they call "bank-dependent:" his power level rises a ton if chips of a certain price point are available. Pro-tip: don't relentlessly Upgrade your 1-gems into bank chips without arrows on them. Otherwise, use your great flexibility to cherry-pick a winning strategy out of the available bank. Flash Duel Curiously, BBB doesn't seem to be big on ranged fighting in the one Fantasy Strike game that measures distance and position. He's still flexible in attacking and good at keeping his enemy off him, though, and can set up a pretty mean finale after dragging the game out a bit.   Flavor Onimaru is the mighty commander of the evil imperial army. I feel like I've seen his "buff samurai with big sword named Onimaru" schtick like a million other places but whatever. Dunno if he's a Street Fighter in disguise. Yomi Onimaru oozes cool. He doesn't combo because he doesn't need to. His attack cards are slow but they hit so powerfully that they shatter most enemy blocks. All of them let you discard extra cards after hitting for meaty damage bonuses (that's not technically a combo OK?!). He can declare that the special move he just used Is Hitting You Now And You're Gonna Accept That. He can't knock his enemies down for crap, though, probably because that would combine too well with his block-breaking. And did I say he's slow? No, seriously, he's slow. Puzzle Strike By player consensus, Onimaru may be the strongest character in the game (not to say it's an unbalanced game). His ability to defensively control his own pile is so ridiculous it kinda translates into attacking power, and once he accesses a decently expensive bank chip he can mold that sucker into basically whatever the hell he wants time and time again. At least his natural money-generating ability stinks. Flash Duel Onimaru forecloses your retreat, pushing you forward to a spot he knows is ideal because he's been looking at your hand, and expertly strikes you with a select card.   Flavor Quince is DeGrey's opposite number and maybe ruler of the evil empire or something. He lies to the people to maintain despotic tyranny. Not a Street Fighter. Yomi Quince is truly a slippery bastard. All of his special moves can cheat their RPS type (attack to dodge, throw to attack, like that) so long as he manages to keep hitting his enemy. Which is made a lot easier when you cheat on the RPS! To stay supplied on special cheat-moves, he can draw cards when enemies disobey his orders (akin to DeGrey) or just straight up draw some more cards and force his enemy to decide which ones to give him. While he can be aggravating with his RPS cheats, he is slow as hell when he isn't cheating, so he needs card flow. Puzzle Strike Much as DeGrey doesn't build economy so much as break other people's, Quince is an "economic" character who works by loving others over. When you're dealing with him you can't buy expensive chips unless you're proportionately close to the edge of losing. He also runs sort of a 50% chance of being able to do two things every turn, and can pull fun chips out of his discard and make his enemy agonize over which one he gets. The little turd does need to maintain his own gem screen at least so high to choke enemy economy, though, and can't buy survival-oriented chips while he's doing it. So he's another "mid-game" guy: hold 'em underwater while you develop a little, then release 'em and smash 'em before they pull ahead of you. Flash Duel Quince is opportunistic. He trades card pairs in his hand for pairs in discard, reserves cards for later recall across matches, and outright steals your cards. What a poo poo.   Flavor Persephone is an ancient S&M demon who makes me wonder about Sirlin's private life. She mysteriously manipulates the events of the world for mysterious reasons. I don't think she's a Street Fighter. Yomi Persephone loves to knock her enemies down and then get all creepy in their faces probably. She recurs cards (of her choice!) when she does it. Lots of cards if she chains knockdowns! Her signature is really getting in the enemy's business: she can counterspell his cards if he doesn't accept a life loss, she can dictate what cards he'll draw, and most famously she can outright take command of his turn if she hits him with a super! She pays for being able to lock down the opponent by having lousy hit points and poor damage output. She might get kind of card-hungry if she can't chain those knockdowns, also. Puzzle Strike Persephone is a defensive character in line with Argagarg. She also enjoys dishing out wound chips to her enemies - not so many as Argagarg, but she can draw sweet, sweet chips off of her enemy's pain. If she voluntary restricts herself on a given turn, she can use another of her powers to have an explosive turn after that. And of course her signature mind control is there. Enemies who don't mind their precise pile height risk having turns taken for them. She shines when she can find an action fork that lets her manipulate enemies to a vulnerable pile height and then mind-control them before they can respond. Red attack chips are often particularly fun for her. As usual for defensive characters, though, she stinks at making money. She also doesn't really have any special pile control against aggression like a typical defensive character does. Flash Duel Persephone won't stop with the mind-control shenanigans. In FD she can force you to spend your turn moving around instead of fighting and draw you forward out of your comfortable position. She's also good in a little skirmish as she can retain a failed attack card and use it to blunt counterattack.   Flavor Menelker does not have his brother Midori's principles and seeks power above all else. I think he intentionally caught the zombies, but he's working it in tandem with his ability to be a dragon and getting good results. He's absolutely Akuma. Yomi OK, let's just put some opinions up here: Menelker is a degenerate shithead. Sirlin's fixation on "playing to win" flavor has given Menelker the ability to delete enemy cards from the game. Especially when combined with his prodigious and unusual ability to make enemies discard, he sucks the air right out of the room. He even gets to pick the discard and thereby spy on your hand sometimes! He takes what's fun about your character away and leaves you to fight a heavy combo-making, shoryuken-recurring character with your deck's detritus. Anyhow, Menelker also lays claim to the Most Damaging Super Move in the game as his Puzzle Strike Menelker is an odd duck. I'd call him another defensive character. Instead of piecemeal pile control, though, he just sits there and happily takes his antes and enemy crashes, and then massively vomits it all out with a Deathstrike Dragon nova. It's actually pretty friggin' cool. He sucks at money, but he can take plenty of time to build up with the knowledge that he can dragon his way out of his first critical situation. He can also stymie enemy economy while he works, and select a bank chip his enemy finds particularly desirable and ban it from the game. He's unique and flavorful, with an answer to aggression and an answer to economics, but is not overwhelming. He really benefits from bank chips with pig icons so he's never caught with his dragon pants down. Flash Duel Because Menelker is King of Hates Fun Mountain, he prohibits the use of one of your three character powers every match, makes you discard a card he names, and kills you straight up if you didn't mind your position very, very carefully.   Flavor I don't think Vendetta has a case of the zombies; rather, I think he comes from a proud zombie assassin clan. He's taking it back. Reppin' natural zombie-hood against the recent influx of poseurs. He's very clearly Vega with the serial numbers filed off. Yomi I love this guy. He may not be quite so fast as other attack spammers, but he is still quick, and he has the uncanny ability to actually grow his hand while poking and poking and poking. His throw game's a little funky, but he can knockdown at the end of a combo, and knocked down enemies are in deep poo poo because he can loop a high-speed, high-damage special wall dive move on 'em. And if he loses a combat choice, hey! Do-over! He pays for all this with, once again, low hit points and subpar average damage output. Puzzle Strike Puzzle-Vendetta's a neat and distinct flavor of aggressive. He can use his power to force targeted chip discards to shut down enemy defenses before crashing at them, which he can do routinely with his unique mix-n-match action fork. And he can keep enemies from effectively getting gems out of their piles by putting a tax of sorts on their combine effects. Throw in some more attack chips out of the bank and go to town. Try using pigs from the bank to make sure you fire your targeted discard when your enemy is likely to have a priority target in hand - without that Surgical Strike, you're open to enemy aggression / risk letting an economic character off the hook. Flash Duel FD Vendetta actually feels more like a ninja than Setsuki. He somersaults out of enemy dashes, and when he dashes at you you'd better not give ground or you're likely to get locked into a retreat until he pins you and kills you by checking the discard and forcing you to defend with cards he knows you can't have.   Flavor Zane is zany! In-zane! Get it? Eh? Eh? Look out for the Zane man! He does wacky things. He blows up the evil empire's stuff because it's there. He takes after M. Bison in his aggressive, "trolling" playstyle. Yomi Zane is all about the "mix-up:" once he's knocked you down, all of his normal attacks become high-speed, even his big fat 9-damage normal attacks, so block wisely or suffer. He always poses a significant threat regardless of hand size due to his ability to spontaneously pull out combo cards and can usually string together some oddball package o' damage ending in knockdown with all his linker-type moves. He is also a bizzaro-grappler very much like Lum: he's got some uncommonly quick throws, but they don't cause knockdown or much damage. And he can force you to mulligan your hand from time to time, breaking up your carefully assembled super meter / combo plan. Without his mix-up speed boost, though, he can often be out-sped by most character's special moves or possibly even jabs. Also, he's curiously weak when defending a mix-up: he outright cannot block with odd numbers, so if you knock him down keep that quirk in mind. Puzzle Strike Zane is a bit of an everyman, tipping towards aggression due to his ability to steal his enemy's starting crash gem and explode it for a double-strength hit. He reshuffles his deck (and his enemy's) at the drop of a hat, speeding his access to fun chips, and has the rainbow-colored action fork required to do whatever he wants with the bank. The reshuffling is poisonous to enemy pigs! However, he needs to be careful that the reshuffling is benefiting him more than it benefits the other players. They get that rainbow-fork action too, and if they're built for it, they can really ruin Zane's day. Flash Duel Zane's keyword is "unpredictable." He can set a stunning trap on the board, but is not himself immune to it. He can also rush forward and shove his enemy back, but probably isn't combining that with the stun trap because he rushes a random amount of spaces. And of course he wouldn't be Zane if he weren't forcing the discard and re-draw of everybody's hands! SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2013 01:15
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Street Fighter Nostalgia Tracker! (+Akuma and Ibuki) (+Slayer from a whole different franchise) Most of the cast is there, probably! Isn't that grand. Reserved: here perhaps we can put links to strategy guides, or tournament info, or something. Or we can collect some of the most horrible and creepy posts from the official forums! For now, here are links to posts I've made periodically rambling into the uncaring internet void about Puzzle Strike. The "Chip Tips" series is my insights on Puzzle Strike's strategies, chip by chip. Secret Move Chip Damage Safe Keeping Training Day / Chips For Free It's a Trap Mix-Master SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 15, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2013 01:15
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That was a really excellent OP, good work! I play Yomi sometimes with friends online, but (much like a real fighting game) I can't really relax while playing it. This isn't inherently bad, but the game is very stressful and you're constantly second guessing yourself. I still recommend trying it, since I can't think of another board game that really gets that same feeling of dread across barring Space Alert.
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Jul 12, 2013 01:50
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Thank you. I just edited a bit because naturally the Yomi 2 specifics changed like immediately after I posted. I feel the same thing in Yomi sometimes. I've been trying to teach myself never to second-guess. My thinking is that, while I would never call the game "random" or "just RPS," there is always that chance that you just stumble into a good choice, so roll with it. When playing in person looking like you know what's up can shake the other player.
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Jul 14, 2013 18:22
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I have played entirely too much Puzzle Strike, and I will spend entirely too much time in this thread. Nice OP!
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Jul 14, 2013 20:17
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I've been playing Puzzle Strike pretty much every day. I love deckbuilders, and I love the interaction PS adds to the Dominion formula, and it avoid the missteps so many people who try to reinvest the deckbuilder wheel make.SuperKlaus posted:I feel the same thing in Yomi sometimes. I've been trying to teach myself never to second-guess. My thinking is that, while I would never call the game "random" or "just RPS," there is always that chance that you just stumble into a good choice, so roll with it. When playing in person looking like you know what's up can shake the other player. I played one game vs. the fish guy and every time I'd think, "Okay, he's probably going to block so I should throw, but he knows that so I should do something else." Then he would block. Like 12 times in a row. 
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Jul 14, 2013 20:31
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ThisIsNoZaku posted:
That's definitely the titular "yomi" idea at work, yeah. The problem with the online format is that you generally don't play long sets against people, so there's a lot of randomness. Fighting games have this problem too in tournament play, where you usually only have 2-3 games to figure out someone's entire strategy and to see how they use a character's options, so if you go in expecting the grappler to throw you a lot and he doesn't you'll get blown up, but if you go in expecting him to attack (because obviously he thinks you expect him to throw you!) and he DOES throw a lot then you'll get blown up too. When you play longer sets you fall into a groove where you can read someone, and that's really where Yomi, and gaming in general, shines. I think that's one of the reasons I don't really enjoy casino games a lot, because they often rely on heavy bluffing but you just don't know someone's habits and tells without dozens of games against them, unless you've been watching them play.
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Jul 15, 2013 01:31
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Countblanc posted:That's definitely the titular "yomi" idea at work, yeah. The problem with the online format is that you generally don't play long sets against people, so there's a lot of randomness. To clarify, this wasn't online, it was with a friend who has a physical copy. But it was maybe only the second game ever I'd played of it.
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Jul 15, 2013 07:00
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I'd actually just started looking into Puzzle Strike lately because I am of the opinion that every gaming household should have one (and exactly one) deckbuilder, and PS's Puzzle Fighter aesthetic and interesting game design seemed like the perfect fit for me. It looks like the Third Edition box has been out of stock on Amazon and Sirlin for a bit, but after this OP I'm really getting tempted to just grab Shadows for now. EDIT: Also, I feel like I should mention that, between his appearance, demeanor, totally-not-ghost-Sharon, and tendency to PILEBUNKER the living, DeGrey has gotta be a reference to Slayer, from Guilty Gear XX. ElegantFugue fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 13:22
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Shadows is "weirder" than Puzzle Strike core. It has fewer of the straightforward, "hey I remember when this was in Dominion and was called something else," drawing- and forking-type chips. It has more of the inventive chips that help PS shine as its own game, though, like Option Select and Ebb or Flow. Disclaimer: having no experience with Dominion's expansions, I don't know if any Shadows chips are Dominion transplants. Anyway, what I'm saying is, buy Puzzle Strike + Shadows because it is good. Best deckbuilder I know. However, Shadows is a hair more difficult on the player new to PS or deckbuilding. Edit to add: there's also three promotional chips out there. I don't really know where to obtain those any more since I got mine ages ago in a sort of "PS v2.5" update pack. Which also had pimp-rear end mousepad-quality game mats! I actually might recommend the purchase of the old update pack because it's got those mats...the modern game comes with lame cardboard ones. The promo chips own though. Everyone looks at Custom Combo for the first time and is like "that is a typo" but it is not a typo. Edit 2: Yes, good call on DeGrey's likely inspiration. That reminds me that I hear Yomi's "Gold Burst" and "Blue Burst" effects on the Jokers are from the Guilty Gear series. SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 17, 2013 00:40
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Welp, according to Sirlin himself as of 8 days ago, it'll be 2-3 months before the base game's 3rd Edition will be back in stock, so I guess I'll just be getting Shadows for now then Fake edit: Also it looks like you can still grab those promo chips from an 'Extras Pack.' Even faker edit: Guilty Gear does have a "Burst" mechanic that comes in both blue and gold versions; it has its own meter that builds up as you get hit and when you use it you can instantly break out of an enemy's combo with a no-damage knockdown attack.
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Jul 17, 2013 00:52
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A lot of the characters can be directed to have obvious inspirations from Street Fighter's sister game, Darkstalkers. Argagarg Garg = Rikuo, Bal-Bas-Beta = Hutzil, General Onimaru = Bishamon, Lady Persephone = Morrigan, etc. On the level of more "random guesses", Master Midori makes me think of Tung Fu Rue, a elderly kung-fu master from the classic Fatal Fury that bulked up into massive meatwall partway through the match, though story-wise he's very much Street Fighter's Gouken. Vendetta reminds me of Mortal Kombat's endless stream of color-coded ninjas, or King of Fighters' Lin. DeGrey also makes me think of - though he's not a fighting game character - Miles Edgeworth from the Phoenix Wright games. Anyway! I've been playing Puzzle Strike a lot with friends - it's really deep and has kept us pretty engaged for months. I find myself being able to better grasp timing and when to crash and not to crash, and how better to combo chips together. We always play with random chip banks using the randomizer decks from the the Kickstarter, which can lead to goofy results at times - like a recent game where 8 out of 10 chips where blue, leading to the dilemma where there were tons of defense options, but the only red / offensive chip was Really Annoying... or the recent game where somebody was playing Quince and I was playing Midori, both characters that capitalize on there being expensive chips in the bank - and then the bank was full of puzzle chips that didn't cost more than 3. Yomi I haven't gotten to play as much since I recently picked up the set, but I'm struggling to play it right - it is very much sophisticated rock-paper-scissors, with the character's specific strategies mixing it up.
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Jul 17, 2013 01:19
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ElegantFugue posted:Welp, according to Sirlin himself as of 8 days ago, it'll be 2-3 months before the base game's 3rd Edition will be back in stock, so I guess I'll just be getting Shadows for now then I'm glad to hear that it will come back into print at all.
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Jul 17, 2013 02:16
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Vendetta reminds me of Mortal Kombat's endless stream of color-coded ninjas, or King of Fighters' Lin. DeGrey also makes me think of - though he's not a fighting game character - Miles Edgeworth from the Phoenix Wright games. Vendetta is most definitely a Vega analogue, and the names of his moves give it away by a mile. Someone mentioned earlier that DeGrey was probably inspired by Guilty Gear's Slayer and I can't disagree. They're both similar visually and the art for Pilebunker in Yomi is lifted from him. I can't seem to get anyone to play Yomi with me anymore since Netrunner hit our scene. I loving LOVE Flash Duel though because it's easy to teach my young nephews how to play. I still haven't learned how to be good at it, though it usually seems like if you can get off an early dashing strike that your opponent can't block you'll have them on the ropes pretty good, because all they can do is recover and you can just keep them locked with more dashing strikes. Considering that, Setsuki's movement abilities seem like they'd make her incredible.
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Jul 17, 2013 02:26
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Bosushi! posted:Vendetta is most definitely a Vega analogue, and the names of his moves give it away by a mile. Yeah, I don't doubt that Vendetta is Vega for an instant. I'd like to say that I made a point of cataloguing analogues not just for pure nerd-reference, Family Guy-grade "I recognize that concept" crap. It would be a sorry thing to only be able to enjoy Yomi/Puzzle Strike if you could convince yourself that they're secretly Official Capcom Franchise Products! No dis to you, Alien Rope Burn, your input is great. I had not heard of Tung Fu Rue but that definitely bears investigating for Midori's roots. It's more like what I said about liking Yomi because it's like a fighting game that forgives poor reaction times and dexterity. So, when I note that Grave is essentially Ryu and so forth, I'm talking about gameplay connections over pure surface flavor*. Understanding how Grave models Ryu lets me see the rich ways that Yomi really does bring me a fighting game in card form.** That game doesn't NEED to be Street Fighter. My favorite example: Geiger's Time Stop. As I once heard it, Guile's Sonic Booms kind of make a blocking defender lock into place for a few frames when they hit him. This allows a Guile player to close and do a throw on the locked victim. Thus, if you block Geiger's Time Spirals, he can break your block with a throw and go to town. *Sometimes like with Setsuki I fold and just go with fluff because I don't know poo poo about fighting games at the "tournament level." **Did I mention I don't know poo poo? I am not good at figuring this stuff out, but I love being told about it. Like with Zane, who I swear I was told models M. Bison's gameplay, but that means nothing to me precisely because how does M. Bison play...?
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Jul 18, 2013 17:24
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SuperKlaus posted:**Did I mention I don't know poo poo? I am not good at figuring this stuff out, but I love being told about it. Like with Zane, who I swear I was told models M. Bison's gameplay, but that means nothing to me precisely because how does M. Bison play...? From what I understand, Zane's design comes more from him just being a (both in-setting and in-game) massive, chaotic troll. I can draw parallels between Zane's Maximum Anarchy and M. Bison's Head Press / Somersault Skull Diver / Devil Reverse (both of those being high-risk, high-variation moves), or both of their massive, poo poo-eating grins, but that's just be fanning. However, you can read up on Zane's design history right here. Here's some other design notes on... Midori Lum Jaina Hundred-Fist Frenzy Degenerate Trasher Secret Move Combine Chips For Free / Color Panic / Really Annoying / Chip Damage Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 17:53
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I just got Shadows in. I have enough room for all the chips and the three Promo chip sets in the box, but I'm kind of worried that there's not exactly going to be much room left for any chips from the base game when/if I get that in a couple months. Is this a case where I'd need to use both boxes to store everything, or do they make it work somehow?
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Jul 20, 2013 00:50
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I just recently discovered I can store everything in one PS box! You can too! Everything is hereby defined as: one complete set of gems, wounds, crashes, DCGs, and combines, all character and puzzle chips from both boxes plus 3 promos, four screens, four bags, four game mats, 1 rulebook, the strategy guide, and the randomizer cards. Randomizer cards are a top priority for leaving out though because there's an app for that and space will be at a premium. Remove all the gems, wounds, and crashes from the plastic insert. Use the freed space to store all the character and puzzle chips. I recommend putting the characters where the 1-gems used to be. The puzzle chips can go wherever but I tried to roughly keep them ordered by banner color and cost. Place the BOTTOM of the box you use over the plastic insert and flip that sucker, so your insert is "upside down." Your chips will be pressed against the bottom and won't move an inch. Place the 1 gems inside a bag. Place the 2 gems and randomizer cards inside a bag. Place the 3 gems and crashes inside a bag. Place the 4 gems and wounds inside a bag. Put the rulebook and strategy guide in on top of the insert, and the mats and screens on top of those. Negotiate the open space to place the four bags in, probably juggling the screens around and shaking the bags to settle contents as needed. It'll be a near thing but you can make the box close smoothly with all of these things inside! Now you can take a full PS game with you in a substantially smaller volume.
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Jul 20, 2013 19:20
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I'm getting my rear end handed to me in online Yomi but drat if it isn't fun. Having an awful time reading opponents and poo poo, probably not helped by the fact that I play Rook who is slow and has no dodges.
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Jul 22, 2013 21:53
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How aggressively do people buy Combines and more crash gems in Puzzle Strike? A lot of time I find that after ~4 or 5 rounds unless I'm just destroying the other guy, I'm struggling to keep my gem pile under control and I think I might be buying too many actions.
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Jul 23, 2013 18:26
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ThisIsNoZaku posted:How aggressively do people buy Combines and more crash gems in Puzzle Strike? It depends on what actions are available. I sometimes find myself not buying any until I can get up to a DCG. To play it I usually like to buy at least a second crash and a combine if I'm against Rook or Midori. I tend to go light on combines though, and more towards forks and engine building.
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Jul 23, 2013 19:11
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Got a chance to play some Puzzle Strike: Shadows with a friend. We had a great time, lots of fun. It gets really aggressive in a way no other deckbuilders I've played can. And oh my god, not needing to ever shuffle a deck of cards with my horrible card-ruining shuffling skills is just beautiful  I had a rules question on Bal Bas Beta- you can Upgrade a chip into a purple or a >7 cost chip without breaking the Cog Engine, right? Since you're gaining the chip instead of buying it?
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Jul 29, 2013 04:24
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ElegantFugue posted:Got a chance to play some Puzzle Strike: Shadows with a friend. We had a great time, lots of fun. It gets really aggressive in a way no other deckbuilders I've played can. And oh my god, not needing to ever shuffle a deck of cards with my horrible card-ruining shuffling skills is just beautiful Yup, anything that makes you gain a chip bypasses effects that say buy on them. I use that all the time as Grave.
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Jul 29, 2013 04:41
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I added the "chibi" art versions of all characters to the OP. These are the characters as seen in Puzzle Strike and Flash Duel. Smaller image sizes are intended. If you don't like chibi-Rook, Troq, and Bal-Bas-Beta, contact a health services professional immediately. You may be suffering from a condition known as "heartlessness." In other news dang what is up with Yomi Rook's new King anyway? I look at every change to the core characters with a wary eye because I'm coming from the premise that the core 10 were well balanced against each other (excepting Lum v. Rook, which was easily fixed without impacting Lum seriously by removing the chip damage on Rolling Panda). Look at that fuckin' card. Lightning-fast throw beats all block/dodge (obviously), 99% of other throws, and now all normal attacks the enemy is actually going to use? While delivering best-in-game 15 damage/card efficiency? Hey I've seen Zangief do that thing in SF where he puts out his hands and comes at you and jabs won't stop him too, but I dunno about this. I guess it's a brave new world with the new systemic rules in Yomi 2.0. Namely normal draw. I suppose I couldn't have expected the core 10 to remain static with that happening. What does anyone else think?
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Aug 2, 2013 19:31
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The new Windmill Crusher is... Funky. But first, a disclaimer: Even though Yomi is roughly the best game ever, I haven't played much at all recently and haven't had a chance to test the new guys. So the following is all theorycrafting! But anyway, the thing about the new Windmill Crusher is that, well, it's great and all, but it's great enough that it really motivates the opponent to play around it, and you're not that likely to draw all four anyway, so it's going to take some trying to deliver. Furthermore, Rook can't really punish opponents using normals that are slower than 5.0 – I mean, what's he gonna do, 4-attack? I'd say it's about on par with Midori's Rising Dragon side of his Q: Both are great cards that deal high damage and beat out an absolutely disgusting number of options, but through some magic I can never seem to land Dragonform Queens all that often. In short, I'm pretty cool with it. It might kinda poo poo on Rook's matchup with Midori, but I'm confident that'll get ironed out. I feel pretty much the same about most of the other changes as well. Yomi One is a great game, but there are some definitive kinks in the system, and I'm glad Sirlin's taking the opportunity to iron them out. For example, I'm so not going to miss Jaina, Careful Accountant. SuperKlaus posted:Or we can collect some of the most horrible and creepy posts from the official forums! Incidentally, I went by the name Arghy on FS.com. (No relation to the other Arghy on here, I swear.) If you guys need any help with Yomi, feel free to ask! I've been playing Midori roughly forever, so he's the character I'm most comfortable with, but I'm confident my general advice isn't all poo poo either. Edit: Oh poo poo, they reset the Yomi ladder! My rankings!  Edit 2: Oh poo poo, I didn't realize they really did implement Yomi 2 online! How sweet is that? Siivola fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 10, 2013 14:24
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I'm choosing to view the Yomis as MvC and MvC2, or like that. It's very much a case of a worthwhile original game that's not going to disappear once the new one comes out. Personally I'm a fan of Accountant Jaina but I can't really honestly argue with her nerfs. I am hopeful that there'll be a cheap "patch" available to turn Yomi 1 characters into Yomi 2, like when Puzzle Strike did its upgrade pack thing. I'm happy you're here, Siivola. Definitely check out the free Yomi 2, it's badass. With Windmill Crusher it's like, what, am I stunned that Mr. Good Throws has a really good throw card? But it raises my eyebrow in conjunction with buff new Entangling Vines and Defense Mastery taking wind out of normal draw's sails. Midori dQ is comparable but requires burning a second card on Glimpse, or burning a card on Dragonform and giving the enemy some warning. 'Course I've never been part of the online tourney scene at all.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:43
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I've been playing Yomi online a lot lately. Setsuki is probably the most fun character to play, although I tend to do better as DeGrey. By the way, where did SuperKlaus get DeGrey's ghost being called Ghost-Chan from? It's not mentioned on the wiki, and I have trouble believing that even Sirlin could come up with a name that bad.
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Aug 13, 2013 19:08
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SuperKlaus posted:'Course I've never been part of the online tourney scene at all. I suspect part of the reason why Rook got all the anti-attack buffs in Super Yomi Turbo was because he had such trouble with Lum and other characters with recurring attacks in Vanilla. Since attacking has been made easier, it makes sense that he'd be given abilities to compensate. Another reason I know for certain is that the old Entangling Vines was super boring: Everyone called it a fake dodge for a reason. Now it's a legit, game-changing tool in Rook's arsenal. Silver2195 posted:By the way, where did SuperKlaus get DeGrey's ghost being called Ghost-Chan from? It's not mentioned on the wiki, and I have trouble believing that even Sirlin could come up with a name that bad. What's up with Grave's, Val's and Sets's new art, by the way? Did Sirlin only have the rights for one edition, or..?
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Aug 13, 2013 20:17
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Is there a tentative release date for the physical copies of Hyper Yomi HD Remix?
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Aug 13, 2013 20:32
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Not that I know of, but then again, I've been out of the loop for a good while. I'm playing Yomi right now and oh my God this music is so chill.  Edit: I'm serious, this music is the chillest. I'm just jamming out, making sick comebacks left and right. 
Siivola fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 22:19
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I think the major holdup for release right now is more artwork for special move cards than rules. Though the more time there is to get character balance just right, the better, so I can wait. I really don't know why the art changed for Sets, Val, Grave, and Geiger. I either don't see a real difference or think the new pics are horrible. Here's the new stuff:  Ok, sure, I guess. He's been working out. His ankle looks like it's in a painful spot, though!  I think this is a little more titty-tastic, but again, whatever. I'll note she's no longer squatting open-legged on a wooden pole. Leg does look a little off somehow though.  Agh, ugh, what the hell? That whole arm and the hand! Like The Thing replaced Grave and we're seeing it mid-transformation.  Christ, it's like she stuffed two flesh-colored balloons in there. And what an odd leg pose. This artist seems to have a problem with legs and feet. She looks gross, when the old one was just really with comically large tits.But check this out! I found old pre-release artwork for Valerie...or part of it, can't figure out where to turn up a full portrait. People in an old official forum thread said this is the real beta-era deal, not fanart. Am I wrong here or does she look like...a human being? Rather Marilyn Monroe. What could have been!  e: on second thought, v1 Valerie art also has "flesh balloons" and an off-looking leg. I think the new one's hideous regardless. SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Aug 14, 2013 |
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Aug 14, 2013 00:47
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It's weird that they changed the art, but overall I think it's an improvement. The original art looked weird to me: Setsuki had weird fishbowl eyes, Geiger looked like he has no business being anywhere near a fighting tournament, Grave looks straight up boring, and Valerie's head just looks off. To me, it just looks like the artist improved on the previous designs since they keep basically the same poses. They all still have weird anatomy problems as you noted, but it's better than the  we had before.
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Aug 14, 2013 01:15
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Heads up for anyone looking; Amazon has 3 copies of the base set for Puzzle Strike 3rd Edition. I've been trying to find a Poker Chip case to store everything in, but I've not had much luck so far. Everything has either been too big and too awkward, not had enough room for the chips from both sets, or not had any way to label the chips easily.
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Aug 26, 2013 03:19
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Oh dang shoulda caught this earlier! All characters on all games are open for free play today 8/31 at fantasystrike.com, due to a tournament or something. Test the whole thing(s) with no obstacles while you can!
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Sep 1, 2013 01:09
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Thanks for posting this. It's a great op and I really look forward to learning about these games! I'm waiting for my Battlecon Kickstarter to arrive, and these games look similar in a lot of ways. The online play sounds awesome, too.
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Sep 1, 2013 04:28
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I do not enjoy BattleCon personally. I really, really like how Yomi lets me feel like I'm playing Capcom fighters without sucking because of the "execution barrier" (knowing how to do moves and do 'em on time). BattleCon may represent the physical distance of two fighters on the "screen," where Yomi does not, but it doesn't have combos! Combos! That instantly disqualifies it as a fighting game simulator for me. And more little things - its interpretation of "blocking," super moves, so on. I feel as if it tries harder to seriously take the exact experience of fighters and put it on a board yet feels less like them in the end. (Marginally) More seriously, I have serious questions about its balance. The characters are all over the board and do not appear to have the same core gameplay backbones as Yomi's. And, making allowances for the Yomi art pieces about which I was recently bitching, I think Yomi is roughly 1000% prettier to look at than BattleCon. Last little bitch - the tokens. Who the hell let those go to print? Tiny-rear end cardboard circles with tiny-rear end text jammed on 'em in roughly the most hideous and incomprehensible font they could find? Yeesh. Yomi's graphic design, again, 1000% better. End of the day though BattleCon costs a lot less. So.
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Sep 10, 2013 01:02
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SuperKlaus posted:I do not enjoy BattleCon personally. I really, really like how Yomi lets me feel like I'm playing Capcom fighters without sucking because of the "execution barrier" (knowing how to do moves and do 'em on time). BattleCon may represent the physical distance of two fighters on the "screen," where Yomi does not, but it doesn't have combos! Combos! That instantly disqualifies it as a fighting game simulator for me. And more little things - its interpretation of "blocking," super moves, so on. I feel as if it tries harder to seriously take the exact experience of fighters and put it on a board yet feels less like them in the end. I can't argue that Battlecon "feels less like a fighter". I think Battlecon is a good game in own right but the gameplay is a lot more ponderous and doesn't capture that feeling of making decisions on the fly. Yomi and Battlecon will always be compared to one another but really, the only similarities are that they use cards and are both inspired by fighting games. As for your beef with the art, War of Indines is indeed terrible to look at. However, the next Battlecon game, Devastation of Indines really ramped up the quality. It's due out within the next couple of months.
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Sep 10, 2013 02:02
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I gotta say, Valerie isn't Chun, she's so Fei Long it hurts. Her specials line up with Fei's too well, especially with the chicken wing equivalent getting it's cross-up properties in Yomi 2.0. It's less obvious but I think Argagarg is Honda because they both have that defensive, chip damaged focused, playstyle and the specials line up fairly well with his linker being hundred hand slap. Qunice seems to have been based on Yang at one point, given the mirror super and special grab/dodge; Yang's twin Yun also has a power up super and command throw so Midori may have, at some point long ago, been based on him. I also have hunches that Onimaru is based on Sagat and Persephone on Chun, but they're both so far removed from those characters at this point that it hardly matters.
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Sep 10, 2013 17:30
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Bosushi! posted:I can't argue that Battlecon "feels less like a fighter". I think Battlecon is a good game in own right but the gameplay is a lot more ponderous and doesn't capture that feeling of making decisions on the fly. Yomi and Battlecon will always be compared to one another but really, the only similarities are that they use cards and are both inspired by fighting games. Yes, this is fair. The boardgame community has a real problem with insisting games based on apples be directly compared to games about oranges just because their themes are fruity, if you will accept a stretched metaphor. Fenn the Fool! posted:Character concept insights. Very interesting, thank you. I think I will add these thoughts to the asides in the OP. I reported Valerie = Chun Li based on some half-remembered thing I think I read on the official forums an age ago but I appreciate gameplay-based insight from anyone. I am ill-equipped to identify Fei Long, Dee Jay, Cammy, and T. Hawk because my Street Fighter knowledge is so limited and out of date I still think of them as "those new guys."  Anyway! I'd like to share some thoughts on a particular Puzzle Strike chip. Maybe I can start a post series along these lines and maybe I'll say something worth disagreeing with or expanding on so we can get strategy discussion going. Wouldn't that be something! Chip Tips: Secret Move  Puzzle Strike, 3rd Edition What are we dealing with here in Secret Move? Its central purpose should be clear: it gives you a piggy every turn. That makes it bar none the best source of piggies in the game, especially given its low-as-possible price. And that means its value is directly tied to the power of piggies. Piggy utility is obvious and subtle: obviously, you can use piggies to save powerful chips you can't/don't want to use right away instead of throwing them to the discard at end of turn. Typically, these are "enders" (chips that do not give bonus actions and therefore "end" your combos). Thus, owning Secret Move lets you purchase chips like Ouch! or Draw Three more freely, with less fear of them clumping up in one hand draw. Speaking of Draw Three, piggies and draw effects are a natural match. Playing a draw effect when you don't have arrows to keep acting afterwards is often foolish because you risk drawing something vital (read: Crash Gem) and then being forced to discard it and wait a few turns before it pops up again. Having a piggy wards you against that eventuality. A hair less obviously, a pig can be used when your economy is really cooking to redistribute the wealth (Animal Farm, anyone?). When you own 3- and 4-gems, you sometimes have more wealth in hand than needed to make a desired purchase. When you only own a couple of 3- or 4-gems, you might find a use for pigs to transfer the extra cash to next turn, where it will be more needed! The downside of piggies is that they slow down the rate at which you churn through your bag. But that actually cuts both ways and gives pigs a subtle power: paying careful attention to whether you're going to reshuffle your discard at the end of turn can matter quite a bit. Characters like Setsuki and Geiger know there are times you actually don't want to do it. Remember, looking in your own bag to see what's coming is legal. Maybe you see Just a Scratch coming and you'd like to clean up a wound that's sitting in discard. If you let the cycle happen, you get Just a Scratch, but the sneaky wound evades you and haunts a future hand. It's a niche example. All the examples of wanting to avoid cycling are going to be niches. And a lone piggy won't necessarily even stop it. But hey, when you want it and it does! Whew, so that's pigs. What else about this chip? It's dirt-cheap. It lets you act again when you play it. As an ongoing, it stays out of your bag. Don't underestimate those three traits all together! Puzzle Strike forces you to buy a chip every turn, yet keeping your deck small is desirable. Well, hell, maybe buy Secret Move repeatedly! It'll suck a bit when it comes up, but you lose nothing action-wise in playing it and it'll "slim" your bag by spending time in the ongoing effect area. And if one piggy lets you fine-tune draws, three piggies gives you ultimate control. Ideally, this is best done late in the game when you're feeling happy with how many combines/crashes you own, or when you have an alternate path to getting them/winning. Again, niche, but I've made use of it as a "slimmer" before. In closing, this chip's true love is MENELKER. I say no one matches it better! Deathstrike Dragon is absolutely vital to Menelker. Hide it in a pig and make sure you're not caught off-guard. Menelker has a brown arrow on Bonecracker: Secret Move will transform that to black. It's dirt cheap, so even moneyless Menelker can be sure to afford it. What about the purple restriction? Menelker does not tend to buy purples before dropping the Dragon anyway! There is no facet of this chip that is not awesome for Menelker.
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Sep 16, 2013 06:15
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SuperKlaus posted:I do not enjoy BattleCon personally. I really, really like how Yomi lets me feel like I'm playing Capcom fighters without sucking because of the "execution barrier" (knowing how to do moves and do 'em on time). BattleCon may represent the physical distance of two fighters on the "screen," where Yomi does not, but it doesn't have combos! Combos! That instantly disqualifies it as a fighting game simulator for me. And more little things - its interpretation of "blocking," super moves, so on. I feel as if it tries harder to seriously take the exact experience of fighters and put it on a board yet feels less like them in the end. Having gotten to recently play Battlecon finally, I think the best analogy would be that if Yomi is Street Fighter III, Battlecon is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Yomi is about mind games with tightly tuned characters, where Battlecon instead exults in having dozens of play options and interactions between vastly different play styles. Sirlin's design is educated as a guy who has actually worked on Street Fighter II and is immersed in the competitive aspects of it. He also, thanks to that, had a working relationship with Udon, whose artists do most of the work for its games. David Talton (the guy behind Battlecon) is more immersed in CCG design, and so his design is kind of working more as emulation of a fighting games' feel, where Sirlin focuses on what he sees is as the core aspect of fighting games (i.e. rock paper scissors). I think they're both strong games, but if you want a balanced competitive game, Yomi is more where it's at. Battlecon is a more casual game with more surprising turns and interactions, and I came away feeling pretty positive about it, but it also believe it suffers from much more unbalanced matchups.
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Sep 16, 2013 14:11
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