Played a few levels on normal. Better than 3, but too many enemies in certain spots. Lose health way too quickly from some enemies.
Printable View
Played a few levels on normal. Better than 3, but too many enemies in certain spots. Lose health way too quickly from some enemies.
I've not played any co-op or dived into high level combo techniques yet so maybe you could enlighten me; are the leaderboards for this game just completely broken or are people actually obtaining these scores legitimately? If so, how?Quote:
Originally Posted by zyrobs
To put it in perspective for those that are unaware some stages have award an S-rank for a score in the 10's of thousands. There's an achievement for scoring something like 5 million in an accumulated lifetime score, yet people are getting hundreds of billions (trillions?) on a single stage.
For S ranks you only need to do a couple of red rank combos in the level, they will give you a couple of thousands in extra points which is usually enough to get the better rank. Not losing a life will also get you a lot of points, since the remaining health bonus will count your lives.
The 5 million lifetime rank can be easily gotten if you just play around for a few days, it's nothing special. I'm up to 10 million and I barely have time to play it due to work; but I've seen people with over 32 million.
Leaderboards are broken, people are using trainers that give them 1 trillion points and infinite star moves, and it gets put into the leaderboard.
Hello, i made a mod to be able to play with custom tracks while playing using the program "Autohotkey", that lets you input custom tracks to keys on the keyboard, so, they will start when you play a key on the keyboard. I made this configuration:
Attachment 15479
This video shows the mod working and , in the description, theres a download link.
Inside the rar there are instructions and steps of how to install the mod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws8IeecateQ
Just recieved my copy from Limited Run Games.
https://www.sega-16.com/forum/attach...0&d=1594937489
I like the SOR series but never been huge on it. When I get some other stuff in the mail SOR4 will be in the haul. Playing this game and what are the complaints? Looks great. I like how it plays. Music is really enjoyable. So where is the hate coming from some people? If I have a complaint. Bosses could be more balanced. They can spam the same move at times which can get annoying. Still not beaten it. On stage 10. So unless something horrid happens in the last 2 stages. Not seeing why some are so salty on this game. Seems better than Raging Justice or The Takeover.
Now is the time for SEGA to let Vanillaware develop a new Golden Axe. I will accept no one else.
I do like the look of the mechanics in SOR4. Seems like a measured approach has been taken in regards to combos which is good, no ridiculous GG style air juggles or anything. Attacks have weight and a pleasing impact to them, so it looks like they nailed the system ok. Watching a clear with Axel, the game moves like what i would have imagined a modern 2D sequel to the franchise to move like.
I'm having a real hard time getting over the visuals though. Funny isn't it, I don't mind low budget polys in some 2.5D shmup, but the art here just rubs me the wrong way. The style is just too cartoonish, and it affects the feel of the game. A more serious tone would have been more appropriate IMO.
Now if the soundtrack was out of this world (lets face it, it should be, look at the pedigree), that might have helped darken the tone down a bit. There should be some real hard hitting tracks in this game, but not much I've heard comes close to that description. So far.
Great video. I noticed it while playing it. It just makes so more sense why this used an animated look rather than just going for a Genesis look. I really feel this was the best possible turnout for a SOR sequel in 2020. I hope Lizardcube works with SEGA IPs again. Just not Golden Axe as I desperately want Vanillaware to do it. Maybe LC can do a Sinobi sequel.
Re-balance patch just launched today on Steam. It makes a game quicker paced and less unfair, although some enemies are still extremely annoying. You can now do specials when you got hit, it makes the game so much faster paced, not like a methodical turn-based game where either you were doing damage or the opponent.
Biggest change is Axel getting a huge speed boost, she is now pretty much on par with Blaze. Not just walking speed, but attack speed too. All of his moves seem to come out faster.
The Grand Upper has a tiny bit more invincibility at start, nowhere near as useful as in SOR2 though. It goes further and pushes enemies further too, so you wont drop a combo because you slide past the enemy like in old games or before the patch. Grand Upper also does OTG on the last hit, but you can't cancel it to a super then so it's a bit questionable what this is good for. I think you could do Grand Upper OTG, then a simple punch combo to forward + A but I haven't tried it yet.
Axels forward + A has longer hitboxes, and the standing A OTGs on the last hit too (wtf on this). His air super has quicker recovery, enough so you can keep up combos from it easier.
The standing A is very fast now, SOR2 fast. You can't catch like 12 enemies in it now due to how much hit stun it gives Axel. I kind of dislike that. Always loved how powerful the move felt.
Overall, Axel is now very fast and combos very good, he feels more like his SOR3 version now instead of a slowed-down SOR2 version. I'm sort of divided on this, because I liked how he became older, slower, more bruiser type who still retained long strings. Now he's just a fast combo machine like Blaze.
Adam is the same. Didn't play any others, but I don't remember any changes for Blaze. Cherry got a jump cancel in her punch string, but I never played her before the patch so I won't be able to tell how she changed.
As for how powerful Axel is, I did a quick run on the first few levels; damn near broke all my previous high scores and basically only did Red combos on the first four stages. And that's including the bosses, where I couldn't do Axel's infinite anymore.
Stage 1 is largely the same, but Diva has been tweaked for different invincibility frames and his ground electrocution disappears faster.
The Koobos can only levitate two weapons, apparently. I'll have to check if this makes stage 10 easier (there's 10+ objects on the ground there, which they can all levitate, if they can only levitate 2 now then that makes the stage a whole heap easier).
Stage 2 seems largely the same, except that hitting the shield of Robocop will keep the combo counter going. That means you can potentially string through the entire stage as long as you don't stop for the arcade machine. That could give you monstrous scores.
Commissioner lost a bit of speed, his dashing throw seems to have a slower startup, and he didn't even use his instant backhand slap anymore. May be just because I'm so used to dodging him now, will need to test it again. But I could confidently string through the entire fight without using infinities.
Stage 3 is largely the same, but apparently Kevin doesn't have stand-up super armour (didn't test). Big Ben doesn't have super armour in his flame breath, but this doesn't help too much because you simply have no safe moves against the flames (Flame breath still trumps air kicks, which is bullshit), unless you can somehow circle around his back, by the time he already stopped the attack. At best you can throw a weapon or another mook at him. In a solo fight he's as annoying as before.
Unfortunately, the green versions of him who spin on the ground like a pinball will still have their super armour and they are ridiculously annoying, by the time you catch up to them they are back on the roll again. But that's on Stage 12 only.
Stage 4 feels the same. The Garnet/Diamonds air kicks and slaps are supposedly nerfed, but I didn't feel much of that. Grand Upper is slightly better against their drop kicks but it's far from ideal. I think what helped the most was that Axel is so fast now, so it was much easier to walk away from their drop kicks - they supposedly do less tracking now, that might have been there too.
Stage 5 feels the same, other than the triple Big Ben being SLIGHTLY less deadly, as long as you have something to attack them with. The spawn points for the latter half of the bar fight seem to have been tweaked to make it harder to abuse early spawnings. This kind of makes it harder to keep the arcade cab alive with 4 knife galsias, 4 green dyker, and a brown dyker spawning simultaneously. I'll have to redo that to see how much you can get there.
Stage 12 is -mostly- the same, early on. Golds have no super armour according to the patch notes, but I kill them instantly all the time so I can't tell. Will need to test this more.
The second half of it is fucked up though. They changed the spike ball room in a pathetic way. Before, you had of an impossible-to-beat amount of blue and green Big Bens rolling on the floor nonstop, hitting themselves with the wrecking ball in a complete chaos situation where you could win by just avoiding them. It was a great mix-up and a lot of fun after the very hard first part. Basically it was a hilarious scene. Now, they removed the wrecking ball, removed the blue big bens, and replaced them with 4 waves of green, red, and purple ones, and a mixed one. This part now does nothing more than sap your stocked-up health away, since the big bens have no weaknesses to exploit when there's 4 of them on screen. Maybe you could use the leftover throwing stars against the flame breath ones, but that still leaves the purple and green ones who are just annoying.
At the end of the storage room, a robo ninja Shadow shows up out of nowhere. It can really throw you off. It's a completely unnecessary enemy placement.
Ms. Y is now harder, slightly more aggressive, and her sword dash has a double-up where she turns around and goes in the other direction instantly, THEN jumps in the corner and does another double-dash. Both dashes track you now instead of always going downwards, so you can't just move to the top and stay safe. Also the armours that carry the health item will make a Shadow jump out when broken.
Mr. Y can cancel his machinegun attack into a cartwheel for defense. Annoying but not the end of the world. Ms. Y is the much more annoying fighter in the team-up now.
You have to fight the twins for twice as long before they jump into the big mecha. The one who jumps in will get a health refill (!!), but it's not that bad because the mecha seems to have far less health now. It also has its attacks mixed up, there's no 1st and 2nd phase of attacks any more, it seems to have all of its moves at the same time. It felt like it did 2nd phase moves a lot more for me.
So the first half of the final boss is harder but more satisfying, and the mecha fight feels mostly the same but is over faster.
Also if you try to move up to punch Victy/Roo, you'll get 3 vials in return (one of each type) to use against Barbon. Cute.
So far my biggest dislike was that they changed the big ben room on stage 12 (it was the most hilarious fight in the game!!), and I kind of liked Axel as a slow bruiser since it fit his older persona. Now he's a Turbo Axel. Can't deny that he is much easier to play this way now, you don't have to be as careful anymore because of how fast his attacks come out now. He is as fast at doing combos as Blaze, if not faster.
I'll have to try the rest of the stages later this week.
Stage 10 is the same, except that Koobos can only levitate 2 objects now which makes that fight much easier on Mania (there are 10+ items on the floor in that fight).
The Daft Punk reject boss had the Blue Signals removed, instead a Bronze appears with very low health (and named Gold for some reason). I guess he is the VIP guard for the DJ. Also the boss will do his "Armor Up!" motion after he does his half-health-power-up animation, instead of immediately retreating to the sides - so you can get an extra combo in. Also feels like he has less health now because he seems to go down much faster - two combos from Axel (punch string, Grand Upper, cancel to f+A) and he is at half health already. I recall him being stronger. The shield still takes 4 hit from a back attack, so that much is unchanged.
Stage 6 has the motorcycles breakable at the start, otherwise it seems to be the same.
Stage 7 is the same. For the boss, the extra commissioners don't have super armor anymore, which makes the boss a LOT less unfair, especially on Mania where you have two and they could just juggle you nonstop before.
Stage 8 is the same. For the boss, the toxic lady runs around much faster now but that's it.
Stage 9 is still probably the most difficult stage in the game. They changed the 2nd apple to a chicken, and a 2nd apple will spawn during the fight with the Goros. Seems to have no more changes other than that. Max had some changes to make him more fair but more difficult. His grab in the 1st phase comes out faster, and in the 2nd phase it's instantaneous so you have to jump over him to prevent getting grabbed. And his thunder tackle doesn't juggle you anymore.
Stage 11 has cash bags on the plane, if you destroy any of the seats. The seats still leave random electrocution traps behind, so grab the money carefully. The three sluts before the final boss don't have bullshit permanent hyper armour anymore, so they are almost pushovers. On the upside, you at least don't need to save up stars to one-shot-kill them, you can use them elsewhere in the stage.
Mr. Y will do cartwheel dodges if you get too close before he shoots, his grenade toss will throw grenades forward him so it's not just a free punch move anymore, and his angled machinegun attack shoots in more than only 3 angles, so it's harder to dodge. Safest spot seems to be either above him (he shoots downward arcs), or to be directly under the line in which he is standing, it looks to me the gunfire does not hit there.
Stage 12 has the wrecking ball removed and the big bens changed around. You first fight 2 red, 2 purple, 2 greens. Then three reds, three purples, and three greens. This place sucks. A Shadow will pop up before you leave for the final boss, I don't know why they put it here, it's just annoying.
Ms. Y does back-to-back dashes in her 2nd phase, and on wakeup she does 2 small hops instead of one big one. The armours during the fight hide a Shadow each, if you crack it open for the health items, they get free - each one has a lot of health.
The Y Twins fight is now twice as long, the one jumping in the robot will get a health refill (but the robot will have less health overall), and the robots patterns seem to have his two phases exchanged. the robot seems to be less of a threat due to the HP nerf, but the fight is still harder because the Y twins are beefed up so much.
Floyd seems to play largely the same but his 4th string (the final hit) comes out very fast. So you can't spam the string 4 times then hold punch, and do the final hit + cancel to a charged punch, since the final hit comes out too fast. Unless you are in the corner or so.
Blaze seems to be able to cancel after the 1st attack of her string ender, so you do the kick upwards, then cancel to jump instead of doing the final kick downwards.
So I finally managed to get round to completing this game on the switch - slow I know! Have to say I enjoyed the game and feel it does a good job at reinvigorating beat-em-ups and the SoR series (appreciate not everyone feels the same...). My one disappointed was the ending - no final story/cut scene just straight to scrolling credits. I appreciate this is staying true to the mega drive games but it still felt a bit odd to me and not quite fitting with the updated style. That aside, I did enjoy it and have already started again but this time playing as Floyd instead of Axel.
Overall, a thumbs up from me and very interested to see what happens with the series in the future.
The DLC was announced last week, for those who missed it. It's called Mr. X Nightmare, and it has the crew taking on a VR landscape designed by Dr. Zan, to prepare them for whatever the syndicate may throw at them in the future. It will have new characters (Estel, Max, Shiva), new moves (customizable "loadout"), new game modes (training, tutorial, survival), new enemies, weapons, and a Mania+ mode.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhsAAQoYQ0k
The new stuff I've seen in the trailer:
- Adam has Ryu's hyper hurricane kick and Terry Bogards power dunk and what looks like a dashing reppuken (he does a dashing uppercut while energy rises up from the ground)
- Axel has a flaming Dragon Punch that ends with a slam on the ground (special) and an upgraded Dragon Wing that has the last bit act as a projectile (Star move)
- Blaze has a triple Kikoushou (Star move) and a rising double cartwheel (special)
- Cherry has a triple guitar slam (Star move)
- Floyd has a nearly full screen electric slam that also electrocutes enemies (Star)
- the new weapons shown so far include a huge swordfish and a lightsaber
- one of the new enemies is Mr. What (black palette swap of Mr. Why, I mean, Mr. Y)
- new stage hazards shown: a giant bumper ball that seems to act like the wrecking ball, and a large metal pillar that just smashes shit down
- Estel can tackle and bodyslam enemies (special move), blow up a grenade in place (also special move), throw a flashbang that stuns enemies (air special), pitch a normal grenade forward (also special), call for the SOR1 style backup (probably star move?), and she is shown to have what looks like a star move but involves using a knife to slice and dice in quick succession. Does that mean we will get weapon based supers back from SOR3?
- It's possible to add elemental attributes to your moves, giving the enemies fire or poison status which drains their health
- Enemies seem to spawn mid-fight in a computer-glitched-fade-in
- on top of customizing different special moves for your own character, it will also be possible to change palettes to some degree - a "Latina" Blaze is shown in the trailer.
- more retro levels will appear (SOR2 stage 1 boss alley and SOR3 stage 6 helicopter pad are shown), but it seems they will have different enemies (Karatekas in the back alley and cyborg Mr. X on the helipad)
- Exclusive tracks by Tee Lopes. His soundcloud has some great sounding tracks, here's hoping the music will have some punch to it instead of just boring synthwave.
Estel is confirmed, two other silhouettes are shown in the trailer but they perfectly line up the portraits of Max and Shiva, so they are all but confirmed.
Max trailer:
https://youtu.be/lIFAeWNgXL4
Shiva trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhSScRo3dmo
Max looks like he has mostly his old moves, and has an air special where he body slams into the ground, and a star move where he hits the ground with his strong punch creating electric shockwaves (this may be one of the upgraded attacks from the DLC). The more detailed animation makes him look kick ass however.
Shiva seems to have a LOT of new moves. He centers around palm strikes, he can flip up a weapon from the ground and instantly throw them (however, he cannot HOLD weapons), can summon after images, and has a dash attack that slices through enemies and leaves them damaged while he strikes a pose (and he can do this in the air!). He seems to have a 3-hit air combo while others have 2 hits only. His star move is either summoning afterimages like in his boss fight, or doing a 2-side palm strike similar to Akira's Stun Palm, but it looks more kick ass and gives him energy wings not unlike Rock Howard (the authors are undoubtedly influenced by SNK games and they also did a Garou MOTW mockup a while back).
What do you guys think about having to pay $7.99 for the Mr. X DLC?
I wish it was free for people that preordered the game.
I'm fine with it. Looks like plenty of new content. Of course, cheaper would be nice, but I don't think $7.99 is excessive, either. Plus, I'm happy to support a developer who exceeded my expectations with this 4th game and is aiming to make it better still.
The DLC landed and it's a TON of fun, honestly they could've charged double for this and it would've been worth it. Survival is a ton of fun, although the difficulty spikes are real and is severly gimped in 2p mode, but in single player it's a blast.
Max plays almost exactly like SOR2, a lot more than the others. His jab chain is oddly much faster and his regular jab has two hits (elbow and slap), so it racks up points and damage extremely fast. His heavy attack (charge B, release) does OTG an you can do corner combos where you OTG and chain his normal punch series 2-3 times in a row, it does frankly absurd damage, 50% damage on bosses on mania with minimum effort if you can pull this combo off, it's great. The trick with him is the same as in SOR2, use the power slide or the jumping d+B to get into grab range, then either do his multi-hit standing combo or do throws. Thunder Tackle is also exactly as good as it used to be, though it does not hit with the leg on the last frame, but when you line up 5-6 enemies hitting them all feels the exact same as in SOR2.
There are some changes. Jab speed is one. The power slide blitz move starts up slower due to having a small hop at the start. The problem with this isn't speed, but the fact that from medium range the Kevins can anti-air you out of it. You need to pay attention to your range. It still knocks down from close and stuns from long range, setting up your combos.
For his grabs, the knee, knee, headbutt has hyper armour on the headbutt (you can't get knocked out of it, but if you get hit it will break combos). Choke hold does 4 hits only, but you can cancel out to supers at any times, which makes it much more useful. If you jump up with a guy grabbed, but don't throw him, the enemy will inexplicable switch directions, so you can now execute back throws. The only issue with this is that stronger enemies break out too quickly for this to be useful, and the back throws sadly suck. Atomic Drop and German Suplex does about half the damage they did in SOR2 which is just pathetic. There's a new back throw, executed by not holding any direction and pressing punch, it's the animated slam he uses as a boss and has a cool lightning effect to it. I like it more than the atomic drop.
His back attack does a front hit and a back kick now, instead of two back hits. It also comes out too slow to be useful.
Max can't cancel a jumping down+b into a second hit, unlike Axel/Blaze/Adam, so in that regard he is more like SOR2 when it comes to his jumping attacks. They behave pretty much all the exactly same.
His air special is a BODY SLAM. It lunges him forward and body slams the ground. Covers a lot of range, and if he hits the wall he will rebound and change directions. You have to mind the range but it's a really flashy move.
Max can still hit back and front with long weapons, but the back hit range is a bit smaller. This depends with the weapon, in the dojo with the halberd he is untouchable.
His Star attack has Max jumping up and slamming the ground with two fists, making thunder bolts hit every enemy on screen repeatedly. With many enemies on screen this move alone can rack up a 100 hit combo, and it feels like it does way more damage than any other characters star move.
So aside from the weaker back throws and turbo speed jabs, Max is as good ever. The only other downside is that he keeps mouthing the name of every one of his attacks, and it gets a bit old to hear POWER SLIDE and SPINNING KNUCKLE BOMB repeatedly. There's no OO-RI-AH grunt during his air attacks either.
On that note when you select him he sometimes paraphrases Hulk Hogan: "Whatchu gonna do, brother, when Max-a-mania runs wild on you?".
tl:dr; Max is back, he isn't better than ever, but as great as he always was.
Shiva got a very extensive rework and finally feels like a complete character, not just one with almost as many moves as the others.
Standing combo is mostly the one he does in SOR2: two bitch slaps, a palm strike, and an upward kick. His attacks make him move forward, especially the kick, so mind the positioning. His normal combo ender won't cause wall bounce or too much launching either, but his strong attack will cause wall bounces.
For holds, the forward hold attack is three elbows to the face, the standing one is just one elbow for knockdown. However he can do back+punch to do a back throw (put the guy up on his foot and slams him down into the ground). His back throw is completely different, instead of lifting and slamming the enemy he just effortlessly throws them behind (the animation is pretty cool though). Both throws are slower against fat guys but it does not slow him down as much as anyone elses throws.
He has a back attack now, a dodging two finger back chop. It does NOT knock down enemies, you can repeat it up to 5 times. Feels a bit slow though.
He can do a short dash, and his blitz is the Final Crash. It can OTG. It requires a lot of space to not just go behind the enemy. You can also execute it immediately or after a split second into dash for more range, or even dash cancel to another dash and then the Final Crash.
Shiva can't pick up weapons, but he can kick them forward from the ground, or even deflect them back towards the enemy. This is completely unique and makes a weapon act as an instant projectile. Not as practical against enemies who can block or grab weapons, but otherwise a great move due to how fast it is.
Standing special is the flaming overhead kick like he does when you fight him. It can OTG.
The forward special... is a bit unique. He disappears for a split second, and depending on the distance to the enemy, two things can happen. If the enemy is at a larger distance, Shiva does a palm strike (like Gato's palm strike from Garou MOTW). If the enemy is close, Shiva will do a Shun Goku Satsu - bypasses the enemy and appears behind them making a pose, while the enemy is stunned in place getting hit by nothing.
He has two air specials. One is a forward teleport that will do shadow hits on any enemy he bypasses, similar to his standing forward special. The other is jumping down+A, a downward lounge. You can extend the Final Crash with the air special.
Most uniquely, Shiva can do AIR COMBOs. His jumping B, f+B and d+B are the same as in SOR3, but he can chain three additional hits to it for a four hit combo. The fourth hit can either kick the enemy forward, or if you end it with d+B it will elbow them into the ground. You can extend this with his air specials, but be mindful of the space, it's easy to miss.
Oh and his star move has him making a pose and slamming both fists to the side, causing purple wings to appear and do... two hits. It doesn't feel very powerful at all and the range is smaller than it appears (still larger than the star moves for Blaze or Axel), but it makes the enemies slowly float down so it feels more like a setup for air combo extends, not a screen sweeper move.
I haven't played Shiva in story mode yet but it feels like you need to be very careful with spacing to do long combos. I really do wonder how a long combo with him would look, feels like it involves a lot of long juggling.
I haven't played Estel yet, because she feels a lot different than the other characters. She has a unique hold in that she doesn't vault, instead she grabs the enemies head and rolls them to the other side. So instead of changing positions, she forces the enemy to change positions. Neat. Her normal special is a flashbang that stuns enemies, air special is a grenade pitch (it flips her back down, so unlike other players who reposition fast with air specials, she stays in place), and the forward special is a takedown charge where she lounges forward and pushes the enemy into the ground - then you can mash B to punch them on the ground. I haven't really looked into whether it can be extended.
Her normal punch string is what she uses as an enemy, her heavy attack is the rolling slam in the end. Her blitz is the move where she lounges forward with one leg, same as the ones you see when you fight her.
Star move is calling in backup to rain fire on the screen.
The meat of the DLC is the titular survival mode, which involves Zan making a VR interface for you. The survival mode randomly generates a level out of five or so different backgrounds, all with their own potential stage hazards:
- a greenish ruins, where traps include stones falling from the top, either just one stone or the entire ceiling, or arrows shot from the sides out of ancient machinery.
- a volcano landscape where you have magma geysers and lava meteorites. This one can be really annoying to navigate due to all the comets covering the screen.
- a wrestling arena, this one has the best new song in the game (the one from the Max trailer). It has laser walls that will shock and rebound you if they are on, but sometimes they turn off and you can ring out enemies. Sometimes there's a hole in the ground for additional ring outs. You can also get flamethrowsers on the side, or large wrecking balls (up to six on the screen!!!).
- an aircraft carrier deck. This one has different weather conditions. It can either have sweeping winds like SOR3s construction zone level, or it can have slipping ground like SOR4s Y Tower Spa, or it can have a thunderstorm where lightning bolts hit randomly (they do have a warning, the lightning appears a second before the actual hit).
- an industrial room that can have conveyer belts, laser beams, or a giant piledriver in the middle, all in various configurations.
- a random retro level from SOR2 or 3. The most interesting one is the alien house where Vehelitis appears, but only as a chandelier you can use as a wrecking ball. The retro stages don't have other hazards but the retro enemies are very strong.
After every round you can pick two perks (three after boss rounds). Perks can be
- generic upgrades to damage, defense, or speed
- higher damage if you are at 100% health
- less damage taken if you are at less than 50% health
- more score
- weapons lasting longer
- extra jumps
- specials use less health
- rockets falling down when you use a star move... this is extremely useful, when maxed out it can one-hit kill bosses, a necessity on later levels.
- summon an ally at the start - a random blue tinted enemy will fight with you. When upgraded, you get a stronger enemy. Even a single Galsia is good though, since the enemies will pay attention to him which is great help.
- Elemental damage to either your heavy hits and combo enders, or specials, or blitz attacks, or weapon hits. Elemental effects are: electric shock which stuns nearby enemies, toxic hits which slows them down and drains their HP for a few seconds, or the firebomb which makes downed enemies spawn a small fire which knocks out other enemies. When you combine these you can create insane area of denials, but keep in mind that survival scales so insane that this becomes necessary to survive.
Note that weapon blitz attacks count as a Blitz when it comes to upgrades so you can do elemental attacks with weapons that way. I didn't check if this stacks with normal weapon attacks.
- spawn a golden weapon - knife, pipe, boomerang, halberd. The golden weapons last far longer and do significantly more damage. The golden halberd alone can last several stages and make short work of bosses too, it's extremely useful, especially if you have the "weapons last longer" bonus on top.
- there are purple powerups which all have some downside, including:
- - jumping is reduced to the short hop but you get increased stats all around
- - deal double damage, but also get hit for double damage
- - specials use 40% less health, but you can't restore the health they use (like in SOR2)
- - doing damage heals you a little bit, but health items won't work any more - only way to heal up in later levels due to health being more scarce and enemies spawning nonstop.
- - your base damage is 10%, but every combo hit powers you up by 2%. This is indispensable on later levels because with 10+ enemies on screen and your elemental powerups doing extra hits, you can rack up a 100 hit combo in a few moves, and at high levels everything has 2+ lifebars and kills you in a few hits.
I think those are all the perks. You can grab all of them except the purple ones up to 5 times, but it's unlikely you will since there's a HUGE difficulty spike from stage ~17 and onwards. In fact, survival mode gets absolutely bloody ridiculous from that point on. Like, Stage 16 is fighting Adam and Diva together, then Stage 17 is fighting Barbon, 16 biker girls, and 3 Mr. Ys. And this gets progressively crazier. I think I lasted up to stage 36 where you get hit by six SOR1 Bongos who are all invincible while breathing fire. But don't be surprised if you have to fight four Abadedes, Shivas, or three Mr. X's at the same time either.
Speaking of enemies, you get nearly all SOR2/3 enemies, plus a few SOR1 bosses (so far I've seen Bongo, Abadede, Mr. X, and Souther). There's also a LOT more variants for some SOR4 enemies such as:
- two more karatekas (yellow and black, they were unused sprites in the original game), who can zanretsuken you from both sides repeatedly
- a new cop, Barnaby, who has an infinite supply of tasers like Jack has knives.
- a new type of Koobo who is immune to knockdown and uses an oversized bastard sword. He is basically Guts from Berserk. Comes in three elemental favours.
There are also palette swaps for some bosses:
- a green Diva who uses electricity and has a Chun-li style dashing lightning kick (very annoying)
- Lieutenant, a clone of Commissioner.
- Bruce, Wayne and Vulture, the Barbon clones from SOR2
- Mr and Ms What and Whatever, clones of Mr/Ms Y. So you have Why, What, and Whatever. I bet they had to strain themselves to come up with that. The Mr Y clones can throw more grenades and fire two rockets in succession, the Ms Y clones can do their rapier dash three times in succession instead of just two. Fighting multiple Mr Ys is absurd, they will have interlocking fields of fire preventing you from doing anything.
- DJ K Washi has a few clones, one rapidfires the blue fireball while moving, another does only the tracking yellow ones. The bad part is that you can fight as many as 6 of them at the same time on high levels and suddenly the game now looks like Touhou.
One omission is that there are no Jet enemies. I guess the engine can't handle that.
Every enemy has a red hologram variant on stages 20+, they are basically ultra fast and strong.
And you can fight clones of the player characters too. A neat little detail is that the Axel clone is called Break (the Bare Knuckle 3 boss).
Reaching further and further into Survival will unlock you extra artwork and weapon packs. Depending on whether you get enough points, you can also unlock extra moves for the characters: a new blitz, new neutral/forward/air special, and new star move. They are all very derivative, and only a few of them are really good. They just re-use existing animations most of the time. One notable thing is that Axel can do his SOR2 Beta tiger punch.
Other additions to the DLC is a Mania+ mode which adds a few extra enemies and makes everyone run around at turbo speeds. Feels more tedious but I only played it once with Max yet, who is the least suited for running around.
There's also a training mode which is pretty cool, you have 6 positions to place stuff into, and you can place down any enemy or weapon you unlocked in survival, in up to groups of 4. Meaning you can place down 24 SOR2 Mr. Xs if you so wish.
The most fun additions are the extra weapons. They really had a lot of fun with this, new weapons I noticed are:
- an umbrella with a ducky handle, which opens up for a second hit
- a gladius (short bladed medieval broadsword)
- three elemental buster swords (the huge swords that Cloud or Guts use).
- an extremely oversized buster sword which basically does not fit on the screen. It has full screen reach from any point due to its sheer size. What the hell.
- a trident that pulls enemies in on the first hit, and sends them flying out if hitting enemies in the air.
- a bowling ball, knocks down multiple enemies on one roll.
- a shrub, yes, really, a shrub.
- a blowfish which puffs up for a second hit, or on throws, and will poison enemies.
- a swordfish that has a large range and damage
- a large trout, like the mIRC slap command ("X slaps Y with a large trout")
- a lightsaber, it's peculiar in that it does not cause knockdown and you can slash very fast with it, and if you throw it it comes back like a boomerang.
- a pugil stick (pole with two large bumpers on each side).
- stun grenade
- land mine
- chilli pepper (throw weapon, explodes on hit)
- bowie knife (same as normal one, just looks different)
- SOR2 weapons all appear on the retro levels and you can carry them out. The sword in particular is extremely powerful.
The training mode also has a bunch of lessons to help learn the game. I didn't knew you could do a backwards backflip special with Blaze until this.
There have been some other misc additions, like new sound effects for weapons, throwing enemies in pits, enemy screams, the star pickup sound. The game seems to be overall faster now, with Axel getting some buffs again (more powerful normal combo and star move, less recovery on air special and forward special... you can now corner infinite with the forward special). Adams air chopper special does 5 hits now. Floyd got some improvements but he still sucks. Retro characters had some sound fixes, they still have a bunch of moves with the wrong sound effect, but it's not as common now. Some of the new weapons got put into the normal gameplay, but it's only at one or two places (a gladius shows up in the Dojo).
One small detail, if survival mode spawns multiple Noras and there are no Galsias around, their AI tells them to whip other enemies, so they will start whipping each other, ignoring you. For some reason I found this especially hilarious.
Oh and if you input the Roo code from SOR3, SOR3 Roo will become playable. You have to finish a level with him and he will become permanently unlocked. He plays like in SOR3 but his specials do a lot more hits (f.A is like 30 hits), he can do his standing special in the air, and his star move summons Danch/Bruce the clown, and you can stack it for more fun. The hidden achievement is for summoning 3 clowns at the same time. He has a new portrait art but only SOR3 sprites. Still, it shows that the devs care.
Meanwhile on twitter they already teased SOR2 Shiva...
Huge update. Free DLC. 300 changes. https://twitter.com/Dotemu/status/16...5Es1_&ref_url=
<I'll prefer 2 for life, but they did a great job with this one. To the point where I can't believe almost 2 years passed here without a word...
If you prefer to have stuff physically, there's a retail Anniversary Edition with the Mr. X's Nightmare content.
Also, I like the lightsaber is literally a saber, hilt, laser blade and all.