Kinda sucks to be Felicia. Though she is one of the few Darstalkers characters that still gets a little attention from time to time, it seems she is getting the backburner treatment when it comes to Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. Ever wonder why you hardly see gameplay video with Felicia in it or never see her in any promotional materials for the game? Well, it seem her butt nakedness has made basically banned from any marketing endeavors. Since the game is being marketed to all ages, the naked catwoman is not a good look for Capcom. Some fans however feel that marketing is not the only plae Felicia is being forgotten. Several fans took to the Capcom Unity site to voice their feelings that Felicia is basically “bottom tier” and Capcom has not given her the tools to be a competitive fighter. That’s where Seth Killian comes in. He took to the boards himself to school fans on how good Felicia actually might be.

Is there going to be one more Darkstalker in Marvel vs. Capcom 3?

Seth: No way you’re getting that one out of me :-*

Why has Capcom made Felicia weak and have a horrible English voice actor and the lowest heath in the game?

Seth: Felicia is, in my opinion, much stronger in MvC3 than she has ever been in any game before. She might seem a bit obvious so far, but she definitely has the tools to win. Right now probably the most under-appreciated character in the game (in fairness, that’s mostly by people who haven’t had a chance to play much). [...]

Seth, you’re talking about Felicia as though she’s the most awesome, deadly, unappreciated god tier character ever is really getting out of hand. — Al

Seth: ???

I don’t think I’ve really ever talked about Felicia in depth before, but I called her underappreciated because she is, and said she was, in my opinion, stronger in MvC3 than in any game before. That’s true. I don’t know how you translated that to what you’ve written above (“god-tier”?).

Your constant implications that those who say she’s bad or simply decent are fools who don’t know how to play her (which, by the way, is extremely insulting to people like me who have mained Felicia in every game she’s been in so far). She is not better in this game than in all the others she’s appeared in, she was vastly superior in Darkstalkers 3 and MvC2. — Al

Seth: Let’s take the crazy-talk down a notch here. Not sure where you’re coming from, but I didn’t call anybody a fool (how can I insult someone’s ability to play a character in a game that hasn’t even been released?). I said that nobody that I’ve seen in videos or playing at the various location tests, etc. has come close to tapping her potential. That’s also very true.

As for Felicia’s stamina, it’s below average (it’s not the lowest in the game), but low stamina is true for a lot of the strongest “rush” characters in terms of health, and she has a very strong rush-down game. Beyond her movelist, there are a lot of features of the MvC3 engine that she is particularly good at exploiting. I won’t be able to describe her extremely fast high/low mixups in a convincing way, but here’s a few other Felicia fun-facts that make her strong:

1) Being able to OTG the opponent without the use of an assist is a very valuable ability in MvC3, and Felicia’s Down-Toward + Medium Attack is one of the best in that department, meaning she can easily hit-confirm into a lethal combo from virtually any situation.

2) She can also combo from a throw as well as from her command throw. Because Down-Toward + Medium Attack is also jump-cancellable, in the corner, this is particularly dangerous.

3) She has a low-hitting assist, meaning she’s not just dangerous as a point character, she’s also one of the most dangerous assists in the game (you can set up unblockable high/low situations).

Those aren’t even the top reasons she’s strong, which are better seen than talked about. Her “Helper Kitty” super is also extremely dangerous, and sets up more potential unblockables while she’s on point.

Did you know those things about Felicia? I’m guessing “no” because nobody without a copy of the game would know them, and if you DID have a copy of the game, I wouldn’t have to tell you that Felicia is legit, because you would know it for yourself I’m not trying to go, “I have the game and you don’t! Neener neener neener!” I’m just pointing them out to illustrate that there’s a lot more to these characters than meets the eye, or that you would necessarily discover after a few minutes of playtime. You’re going to want to go hands-on and spend some time playing before you make pronouncements about who sucks, who doesn’t — there are an unbelievable amount of possibilities in here.

Anyway, enough Felicia chat — let’s have this argument again after the MvC3 release. If you still think Felicia is so worse than she’s been in other games (and can find a rankings chart or two that agrees), I’ll be happy to apologize.

P.S.: To the original poster, regarding the voice, if you don’t like the English voice actor, you’ll have the option to select her Japanese voice instead!

So there you have it. Felicia definitely and certainly might not suck.

[Eventhubs]

@Capcom_Unity @marvelvscapcom #mvc3

Seth Killian was interviewed at New York Comic-Con about Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. A lot of this is rehash of what we already know but there are a few good morsels in there.

@gamespot @Capcom_Unity

Our favorite Capcom employee, Seth Killian sits down with Gamespot to talk about Marvel Vs. Capcom planning and execution.

@capcom_unity

Strugler over at Hadoken.net had the chance to interview Seth Killian. It is a good read. More interesting than the answers Seth gives are the answers he does not give. Some of the questions he dodged give hint to some interesting things coming up.

A running rumor states that SSF4 will be getting character DLC down the road, what can you tell us about that?

Of course we’ve announced there will be some new challengers coming to Super SFIV arcade, but nothing to say yet about what that might mean for the console SSFIV.

The arcade version of SSF4 was shown to offer 2 extra character slots, does that mean the arcade version will have only 2 extra characters or can we expect more?

Time will tell.

Another rumors stated that the arcade version of SSF4 will offer 6 extra characters, is that true?

We don’t comment on rumors directly, but because the number of additional characters wasn’t finalized at the time this was said, I’d definitely say this is more like hopeful prediction than a piece of inside info.

Besides characters, what will the arcade version of SSF4 offer that the console version does not? (character specific stages maybe?)

Can’t comment on this one.

For the full interview head on over to Hadoken.net

Here are a few details about Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 that came out of the PX event…

* Seth Killian has said that fans should take the Marvel vs Capcom 3 silhouettes with a grain of salt because some of the characters may not be in the game anymore. Frank West and C.Viper’s silhouettes were reported, while some claimed to also have seen Spider-Man.
* Seth Killian also confirmed that Mega Man X is *not* in Marvel vs Capcom 3. This does not rule out other versions of Mega Man or other characters from the series being in the game.
* Seth Killian has said that there’s a character on the Marvel side for the game that is one of the craziest things ever put into a Capcom fighting game. He continued that the character would be broken except designers figured out a clever way of implementing things.
* The next cinematic for the game, titled Episode 2, features some amazing stuff, including new characters and will also have the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier from the Marvel Universe.
* The new trailer is expected to debut at Tokyo Game Show in a few weeks. Apparently, there will be much more information on the game released at that time.
* Interestingly, Ruby Heart from Marvel vs Capcom 2 was apparently a rejected Darkstalkers character design.
* In the game’s current build, the X-Factor system gives a 40% damage bonus.
* Seth Killian mentioned that X-Men fans should be happy with Marvel vs Capcom 3.
* He also went on to say that the game would have more female characters added to the Marvel side.
* Seth Killian said that Dante’s command specials are completely different moves with different button strenghts. He apparently joked that Dante has at least 40 or more special moves in the game so far!
* There is a configurable control scheme in the game. Seth said that he uses the Marvel vs Capcom 2 configuration at the office but found the new Tatsunoko vs Capcom style more favorable lately.

[Eventhubs and Shoryuken via iplaywinner]

There seems to be a bit of confusion about the online modes for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 since an interview with Seth Killian was published by GamingUnion. The interview basically gave the impression that gamers aren’t to expect too much from Marvel Vs. Capcom 3′s online modes. However Seth is saying that he was somewhat misquoted and set the record straight on Capcom Unity. Turns out we shouldnt be as worried as GamingUnion led us to be.

I didn’t say anything like what he chose to use as the headline, and was pretty disappointed to see it. Here is what I actually said (after removing the writer’s personal conclusions):

“There’s still a lot of back-and-forth internally about it, frankly. So, at a minimum you can expect your standard online modes where you can have a friendly match or a ranked match, as well as all your offline modes. But set your expectations there and hopefully we can go in some fun new directions beyond that.”

That says nothing about “MVC3 will ship with barebones online” or anything about DLC, patching, or the like. So that’s where he added this quote:

However, Killian did suggest that further modes will be patched in later, as with SFIV and SSFIV. “You want to meet all the player expectations,” he said, “but if there is something that you want to do that you’re not able to get to – patch it in later.”

I did say the things inside the quote, except I wasn’t talking about online modes at all–I was responding to another question about “why isn’t such and such character in MVC3,” and pointing out that while there’s no way we’ll get in everyone that people want to see, adding others could be possible via DLC or something later.

In short, this is trying to go from a straightforward quote to a more dramatic headline. Could you conclude the headline from what I said? No, and a simple follow-up question could have cleared up any confusion, but there was no follow-up question sometimes people would rather create a more controversial headline than to ask a question and have me just say “no, that’s not what I was saying at all.”

The writer of the story doesn’t seem to care about details though–he doesn’t even have the right logo for the game on his pic with the story.

[IPlayWinner]

Are you familiar with “resets”? Well this is how S-Kill describes them…

A reset is basically a variation on a combo. It’s interesting because while a “reset combo” does less damage than you could do by completing your combo normally, it sets up a *new* chance to do even more damage (usually by leaving you in a surprising position where the opponent will fail to block).

Why would you want to do this? Well, resets are often important because of damage scaling. Damage scaling is the well-known effect where every subsequent hit in a big combo does less and less damage, and sometimes gets to the point where even an Ultra Combo will only do a few pixels. By using a reset, you are basically trading a little bit of guaranteed damage for a % chance at doing even more damage.

Resets give you a chance to bypass damage scaling by technically letting your opponent out of the initial combo and setting them up for a new, separate combo. Since it’s a new combo that they technically could have blocked, every hit of the new combo does far more damage. This makes resets very valuable, unless, of course, your opponent KNOWS you’re going for a reset, in which case it makes them pretty easy to block. That’s why you want to use a variety of different and sexy resets to keep your opponent guessing.

A side benefit of resets, apart from the damage, is their ability to really mess with your opponent’s head. If you can land one or two of these in a row, you can turn even seasoned pros into drooling goons wondering “wtf just happened?!”

Sounds cool right? Well a guy who goes by the name of Phunkism created a nice video showing off some resets with Gouken. Check it out below.

[S-Kill's Blog]

(the only pic of Killian ever used )

iPlayWinner got to ask Capcom’s Seth Killian some questions. Interesting interview having to do with the community that continues to grow around Capcom fighting game. Here’s a snippit… (more…)

On Friday, August 20th, to Sunday, August 22nd, at Byron Hall (part of Harrow Leisure Centre) in Harrow & Wealdstone, London, Neo Empire will be throwing their huge fighting game competition Super Vs. Battle. (more…)

By now most of us have read about all the anouncements from the Street Fighter panel at Comic-Con but what many of us weren’t aware of is how much of a circus it was. Check out the footage below which is was taken at the panel. Interesting if only mildly entertaining.

Seth Killian took some time out to do what he does best, interact with the fans over on the Capcom Unity boards. He answered a few questions regarding Marvel Vs. Capcom that some may find interesting.

Seth: A lot of popular characters (in terms of tournament strength) from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 also happened to be straight up popular characters from the Marvel Universe, which is of course a big part of why Marvel wanted to see them, or why they might want to see some of them back.

You can see the same thing on the Capcom side, with the return of characters like Ryu and Morrigan — they aren’t considered tops in MvC2, but, as characters, they’re popular with fans. Capcom learned its lesson about dropping too many popular characters for [brand new ones] with Street Fighter 3, so going forward, expect to see new and/or unexpected characters alongside franchise favorites.

With a game this highly anticipated, of course everyone wants more of everything (more returning favorites, more totally new), and in a crazy game like the Vs. series, and with character catalogs as huge as Capcom’s and Marvel’s, of course there are going to be 100+ characters that *didn’t* make it for every one that did. Overall, however, MvC3 mixes favorites from MvC2 plus a very healthy dose of new blood.

The other thing I’ll say is that a bunch of characters you haven’t seen yet do a great job of really establishing a unique play-style, so when I look at the game less in terms of “is so-and-so in?” and more in terms of “are there a LOT of different, fun ways to play this game?” then I’m really pleased.

As it happens, my current favorite character to play (not yet announced) [Editor's note: This was written before Amaterasu, Thor, Trish, Chun-Li, Super-Skrull and Doctor Doom were announced] would probably be my LEAST favorite character in terms of “did I want to see this one make it into the game?” So basically the fact that I am not a huge fan of the character didn’t matter to how much fun I actually have playing them.

Other considerations are that just because someone was in an earlier game, that doesn’t mean a lot for how they will play (or how good they will be) in THIS game. Ryu is the same character from SF1, to SF2, to SF Alpha, to SF3, to SFIV, but plays in a very different style in every game, and runs the gamut from top-tier to bottom-tier, all while using different versions of basically the same moves.

The point I’m trying to make is that just because someone was tops in one game doesn’t necessarily predict that characters strength in a future game.

Tatsunoko vs. Marvel vs. Capcom … is this possible?

Seth: I think the shortest answer on this one is “don’t hold your breath.” As has been pointed out, the licensing alone would probably be enough to keep several law firms in business until the sun dies out.

What is MT Framework, that powers Marvel vs. Capcom 3 based off of? Is it PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 hardware?
It’s a PC-based engine, designed to be easily portable to whatever platform. A pretty smart idea if you don’t want to get caught with your pants down when a new console generation comes out. — PKT

Seth: Yep, MT framework is what we call “platform agnostic” which means it’s intended to be implemented in a lot of places. [...]

When he was talking about characters that are fun but he doesn’t particularly care for, I wonder if he was refering to Thor?

As we get close to the release of Super Street Fighter IV, I don’t think there is a man out there working as hard as Capcom’s Seth Killian. (more…)

Another day another Seth Killian interview. Nothing really new offered up though he does give some more insight into character balancing.

Capcom’s resident Street Fighter guy Seth Killian recently demoed Hakan for GameTrailers. Very interesting as he goes in depth with Hakan’s play mechanics. Check it out below (more…)

Here’s a couple of YouTube videos where Seth Killian is demoing Hakan at GDC. Take a look and let me know what you think. Can Hakan run with the big dogs?

On a side note Seth mentions that that is indeed Hakan’s hair and not a helmet. I was wondering about that.

Seth Killian sat down and did a over the phone interview with Gamertag to talk about Super Street Fighter IV. (more…)