Killer Instinct 4

Looks better than the current one.

Yeah, but itā€™s honestly hard to say if a lot of that was from straight-up design choice or if it was more due to hardware limitations.
And darker & more haunting music? Have you recently sat down & compared the older themes to their newer ones? I really think that is a matter of nostalgia headphones (I would say goggles, but weā€™re talking about audio here.
I mean take Spinalā€™s theme for exampleā€¦his original theme was essentially the skeleton army theme from Jason and the Argonauts with a xylophone added for ā€œboneā€ effects.
His new theme includes a low chanting choir, a flute made from a human femur bone, heavy drums, and a lot of a kinda of moaning, creaking flow to the musicā€¦how is that ā€œnot as darkā€??
Glacius had more of an upbeat techno-pop feel where now itā€™s more of a big budget sci-fi alien invasion movie theme going on.
And then there are the ones in the cast where the themes are the same frikin tunes they had in the originals, justā€¦you knowā€¦good.

No the original themes were not darker. They were simplier tunes, less fleshed out, but certainly not darker in toneā€¦unless you consider 90ā€™s techno/dance dark.

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@Fwufikins So why were staggers added?

@TheKeits said during the Tusk reveal that they created staggers as a mechanic specifically for him, and evnetually then they sprinkled them through the cast because it turned out to be really cool.
"You canā€™t cancel these normals. So the best way to do it is to confirm off of the stagger with a normal."

They tested the mechanic out with Shadow Jago (almost a year ago now), so theyā€™ve had lots of time to perfect it, and the player base has had almsot as much time to learn how to deal with itā€¦

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The point people are making is that it seems you donā€™t like the things that give this game its identity.

If you combo break with the right strength at the right time on a breakable move, combo breakers always work, barring weird edge cases like glacius shadow hail that Iā€™ve never seen anyone actually take advantage of in a match.

The mechanic was made specifically for tusk. I imagine they spread it around the cast to give characters additional hit confirming options and expand combo optionsā€“e.g. TJ can now easily confirm into shoot toss from his TJ combinations, raam can combo locust kick into heavy command grab for high guaranteed damage and good oki. A good handful of characters have staggers that expand their confirm options from neutral, e.g. kan-raā€™s 5HK confirms into scorpion tail from max range and command grab from slightly closer.

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Staggers and flip-outs? KI was better without them in my opinion.

Not sure what you meanā€¦

The fact that you donā€™t know makes it especially weird that youā€™re saying breakers ā€œdonā€™t always work,ā€ because thatā€™s the only case I can think of where thatā€™s actually true.

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You mean when someone tries to break shadow hail?

Glacius has the same bug sadira had last patch, where a projectile shadow opener causes the combo system to behave strangely. Essentially, shadow hail as an opener doesnā€™t count as an opener. Whatever you manual after will be unbreakable and not cash out, and with infinite meter you can do as many shadow hails as you want and thatā€™ll still be true. This is an edge case, that in practical terms wonā€™t matter often in a match due to the difficulty of comboing into the full hits of shadow hail.

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You messing up and getting locked out =/= combo breakers donā€™t always work.

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Yeah, I dunno, bud. Most of what youā€™re suggesting sounds to me like MK:PG, which is pretty far from what I would want out of a fighting game. Sorry for the bad formatting (on mobile).

Iā€™ve never played a fighter for finishing moves, and itā€™s been my experience that no amount of finishers make up for bad game design. Honestly though, at this point, I donā€™t see a great argument AGAINST Ults or whatever, so long as they are mechanically identical to the in-game precedent. Supers make games lame in the period of time a match should be hypest.

Your point about the combo system and staggers doesnā€™t sound like it jives with an interesting array of post-neutral states and strategic possibility. As to the flipout thing, how do you break light wrong? Does anyone other than Kan-Ra have non-light flipouts?

After reading the part about the ā€œoverall toneā€ā€¦ and Cyber Jagoā€¦ who is a monk, not a ninja (I didnā€™t write it, thatā€™s canon)ā€¦ but Cyber Jagos gameplay more or less exists in the Cyber Shoto, Fulgoreā€¦ like, KI2(?) had 2 totally different characters that were both Janet Jacksonā€¦ nah man. I donā€™t want MK absurdity, but I want Nickelodeon: the Fighter way less.

The point you make about taunts is meh to me, but also you might be talking about inter-round win poses (might be wrong, I donā€™t really taunt in games). The repositioning phase though!? Yo, thatā€™s a big thing KI does that others arenā€™t. Arbitrarily nixing sounds like a bad idea.

Yeah, i dunno man. This has been a real head scratcher. :dizzy_face:

On the topic of cyber jago, he doesnā€™t need to be a robot, he can have a cyber look while retaining his current moves.

But then heā€™s just Discount Fulgoreā€¦

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I think the general idea here is Jago having accessories that looks like heā€™s covered in futuristic tech.

Oh, and as far as the Monk thing goesā€¦yes as far as canon goes heā€™s a monk, however it is obvious by his design not only in this KI but previous ones that he is an amalgamation of several eastern warrior tropes, and as such ā€œninjaā€ fits him in terms of description just as well as ā€œmonkā€ does, though in this iteration of KI he is obviously more aligned with the ā€œmonkā€ moniker.
Whether or not you want to agree with that doesnā€™t dismiss the fact that there is some ā€œninjaā€ influence in his design.

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Kan-Ra has a non-light flip out 0.0

Oh yeah, thereā€™s definitely some ninja inspiration present. Old school Jago was like Right Said Ninja.

In this story though, the writers are like " This iz protagonist, him iz Tibet monk, whoa!". So the ninja ingredient feels more like a vague reason for him to wear a fancy partial mask. Westerner+half mask=ninja or something. I wouldnt be opposed to a more NRS accessory set, but I think itā€™s reaching to say his ninja elements are inspired by Asia and history more than the OG devs successful competition in their time.

I thought his M&H Grabs were flipouts. Is that incorrect? (been awhile and canā€™t check)

If Kan doesnā€™t, then my point is strengthened - the only way to strength lock v flipouts is to literally just randomly smash buttons. And the right stick, I suppose, if you use a controller.

EDIT: soz for double post. Formatting one handed on mobile is hella tough.

They are indeed flipouts.

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Medium and heavy grab flip out lel. I donā€™t think anyone uses them which is is fine anyway.

Seems out of character for Jago, no offense. I always pictured him as basically a ninja Ryu, even in the old KI games. I like the route the developers have gone with his character. Stoic, naturally gifted martial artist, who relies on his own skills and not upgrades, and is haunted by past sins he committed and a hatred for the one who corrupted him. Him being a cyborg or using cyber tech doesnā€™t really add to that (in my eyes at least).

If anything, I would picture his sister taking advantage of cyber tech instead. I could see Orchid being like ā€œGraft that screwdriver to my forehead if it means taking down Ultratech! Beep Boop!!ā€

This is all my own opinion of course. Again no offense.

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