« A Closer Look at Melty Blood: Actress Again Written by its Players »
FuriousRGD
You can be forgiven if you've never heard of Melty Blood: Actress Again. It isn't a household name outside of Japan. However, it does have a very dedicated fanbase and its players are passionate about the game. Melty Blood is also one of the games being played at Evo 2010, the largest and most important fighting game tournament in North America, so it will undoubtedly become more popular after being in that massive spotlight. So, what is Melty Blood? Are you curious?
This article was put together by Melty Blood players to give you an overview of the game. It gives a brief history so you can get some reference, goes into what makes Melty Blood unique as a game, some info about the community, and why they love the game. Don't be afraid to read on.
You can probably figure from the game title and screenshot that this is a Japanese fighting game. Until recently, the Melty Blood series of fighters was almost exclusively that; Japanese. But now, the vastly improved sequel has, by the merit of its mechanics and the enthusiasm of its originally small American following, turned the heads of enough gamers to find itself a featured game in Evolution 2010. As the game's American community grows rapidly to rival regional tournament scenes of Blazblue and Tekken, there is no better time to learn more about the game and what it can offer you. This article will tell you the basics and give you resources to learn more, with everything split into manageable sections.
A Brief History:
The Melty Blood series of fighting games has undergone many revisions, and MBAA is unrecognizable from the original game and even its earlier sequels. The original game took its cast of characters from a Japanese visual novel and anime, which caused considerable disdain from members of the American gaming community opposed to the gratuitously female cast. Originally a primitive and rather dysfunctional game made for the fanbase of the visual novel and anime, the game evolved throughout the series. Mechanical improvements over time ultimately resulted in MBAA, which was so strong of a game that it became the third most popular arcade fighter in Japan (ranking by Arcadia Magazine).
Today, MBAA attracts most players solely by virtue of the gameplay, and derives its popularity from from there rather than from the fan factor or storyline.
American Scene:
;)
The prior versions of the game attracted a small but very loyal following of gamers who liked its even then unique play style. Recognizing the potential of MBAA, the community advocated it and helped expose it to future players from many scenes. The community is growing rapidly despite the lack of a US release of the game, which must be imported or obtained by other means. There are particularly large followings on the east and west coasts, with tournament attendance at NEC 10 exceeding all but two games.
Lacking an online play mode, the American scene is largely regional, but culminates to form a large and close knit national community linked by the Melty Bread forum and the irc channel #mbaa on irc.mizuumi.net:6667. These are the primary places to go for information and networking. Team Sp00ky's website is also a major information hub for the northeast coast community.
Many of the original players and advocates of the game are key figures in the community now. A few of the most historically important follow:
Team Sp00ky, a NYC based group that organizes and hosts key east coast events, has been one of the biggest advocates of Melty Blood since it came to America.
Big Eric, a major tournament organizer on the east coast, has been and continues to be a warm supporter and key figure in raising awareness of the game.
Bellreisa, a founder of the community on the west coast, continues to host events and grind training mode with his pals on sunny days.
Gameplay:
First, let me put things into perspective. Everything in MBAA happens faster than most fighting gamers are used to; many characters need to land in excess of 50 hits to get a KO and most rounds in America end in less than 40 seconds. Characters can move across the entire screen in a couple of seconds. Moves are fast and easy to cancel into other moves, so if you desire, you can almost constantly be doing something offensive (unless you are unfortunate enough to get hit).;)
MBAA characters are incredibly mobile; most have a ground dash, two jumps which can both be superjumps, and an airdash. Some have even more aerial options including teleports, third jumps, and second airdashes. This in combination with a large screen and a huge variety of projectiles and melee ranges results in extremely freeform and improvisational spacing. Characters are wildly diverse in terms of movesets, strategies, speeds, and health defense. There are three styles for each of the 30 characters which each have different movesets and strategies. Just about every option you've seen in another fighting game is present in Melty Blood including throw breaks, dodging, superarmor moves, invulnerable specials (DP), and bursting. There is also a parry system reminiscent of SF Third Strike, a special meter which can be used to regain health, and an unparalleled number of move canceling options.
All this results in a very fast paced, dynamic gameplay with unmatched freedom of options for the players. Whereas some fighting games have very structured play flow and limited options that make the game almost like chess, MBAA is more like a brawl where you can pretty much do anything and if you're smart enough it'll work. The only thing that makes a player cautious is the fear inspiring knowledge of how many options their opponent also has.
Specific measures are taken so that the game isn't just a mashy luckfest, which previous sequels were accused of being. The priority system and move speeds have been refined to perfection over time to assure that basically, nothing makes you say “Argh, that's stupid” for the wrong reasons. That said, there are a few strategies that may have you yelling things much more furious than that, but not because they are badly designed. The balancing of tactics and between characters is impeccable; the top 8 of a MBAA major typically represents 8 characters.;)
One other point worth mentioning is that there is a certain degree of theatrics involved in MBAA which makes matches easier to get excited about. Combos and offensive setups in MBAA can be extremely flashy and variable, and many players have their own custom sequences. This allows players to make decisions that translate into almost a sort of performance art and keeps both players and spectators entertained.
Players of MBAA find themselves addicted to the fast pace of the game, the almost artistic freedom of expression afforded by the mechanics and character selection, and the hype and friendly community. Also, because of the of the pace and flashiness of combos, most players will say that the game is simply cooler to watch than any others. If that sounds interesting to you, it may be worth your while to take a closer look into MBAA.
To get you started, here are the essential links for information:
MBAA Wiki: mbaa.mizuumi.net
www.meltybread.com/forums
Guide to MBAA mechanics for SF4 players: http://www.meltybread.com/forums/game-engine-mechanics/wip-guide-to-learning-mbaa-%28as-an-sf-player%29/
And sample GAMEPLAY VIDS:
American character concept matches with Team Sp00ky: http://www.justin.tv/teamsp00ky/b/262742923
Japanese 23v23 tournament: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vO8ZZzhQaY&feature=related
www.youtube.com/meltybread
Also, to give you a look at the community: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V3xk7UUvgw
A community that makes sidebets on AI's fighting each other between tourney matches and is willing to play at tournies powered by a Snapple machine
So hopefully, your interest is sparked, and if not, at least you're educated. My great hope is that I'll see you at an event someday and you can experience this:
Huge thanks go out to the Melty Blood players who created this article for the IPW readers.
Visit Melty Bread, their community forum, for more info.
Reader Comments (45)
I always wondered what the hell this game was. Well done. And LOL at the last pic.
Must say this game looks interesting. hmm. Howd this game make it to Evo if it isn't as popular in the US tho?
Great post, thanks for putting this up on your site Furious!
If got alot of hype at NECX this year and it got voted into EVO. Its not that well now out here but its a popular game in japan. Also its gonna be fetured at SBO this year also.
Great article, gives a basic rundown that should be a suitable starting point for anybody interested in the game. There are countless things to learn about this game, and I would hope anybody who enjoys these type of fighting games would at least give it a chance.
MB is going to be the biggest disappointment of Evo this year.
Im not surprised that we got someone trolling the game and what not. Im pretty sure there's gonna be more, but i'll just say haters gonna hate.
if melty's biggest names all come to evo, i think we'll all be in for a pleasant surprise.
Medieval_Beatdown - It got voted into EVO by popular demand when Dustloop withdrew BBCT because top BB players were already playing CS. Hopefully it lives up to the (moderate) hype, because it's fun both to play and to watch.
Slightly wrong. MBAA got top votes for EVO and then BBCT was replaced with Marvel.
haters gonna hate hurf durf
I played MB in the scene's infancy (AC vA and vB and even have one of the first MeltyBread accounts). I might still play it if it actually had a scene, so I have no ill will towards the game. The fact is, MB's only claim to fame this year is one 60 man tournament. ECT had 30 and its in the same region. For the sake of guys like Sp00ky, I'd love for it to make an impact at Evo, but I expect a whimper.
Great read, know very little about the game and this was very helpful to learn some base knowledge.
On the whole topic on if it will make a splash or not, we shall see. It not having online or a scene in most areas will not be helping matters, but fact of the matter is its at evo and we will no doubt see some very skillful amazing matches being shown. I personally think every fighter that inspires a good fan base such as this should have its moment in the sun. Even if that moment is only for 3 days in July or 2010.
Also fact is more eyes will be on the game those days then ever before so that can only be a good thing. Someone is going to watch that stream and start playing the game. Maybe a few someones even. One can start a wave with a ripple.
GET HYPE.
"melty blood, the game for the 3S rejects!" lmao i heard some dude screamin that a year ago at CTF
come on guys, MB is totally gonna...be.....*yaaaawn*..um..hyp..zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ"
Ok, my haters gonna hate mentality aside, I still cannot believe this got voted in as opposed to something like cvs2 which at least would have featured some players people are actually interested in seeing.
I still think the way things went down kind of sucks... they included mvc2, 3s, cvs2 etc in the vote, but after it was all said and done included MvC2 anyway. While it may be arguable, I think most people would agree, that if the MvC2 fans/voters KNEW that it would end up in, they would have voted for something else, and that something else most likely would NOT have been melty. I'm pretty sure that would have lead to a different outcome.
come on guys, MB is totally gonna...be.....*yaaaawn*..um..hyp..zzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ"
Ok, my haters gonna hate mentality aside, I still cannot believe this got voted in as opposed to something like cvs2 which at least would have featured some players people are actually interested in seeing.
I still think the way things went down kind of sucks... they included mvc2, 3s, cvs2 etc in the vote, but after it was all said and done included MvC2 anyway. While it may be arguable, I think most people would agree, that if the MvC2 fans/voters KNEW that it would end up in, they would have voted for something else, and that something else most likely would NOT have been melty. I'm pretty sure that would have lead to a different outcome.
uh, sorry... post wasn't showing and I refreshed like 5 times to make sure it wouldn't be a double post...then bam.
The melty community has been working for years to get their game out, and I think we deserve the spotlight for once.
"MB is going to be the biggest disappointment of Evo this year."
You misspelled TvC.
Haters gonna Hate! I guess people love living in the past. Evo means Evolution for a reason. People are tired of seeing the same games over and over again at Evo. Let some new games have a shot at growing. Trolls!
Mashy blood.
haters gonna hate is stupid
how about idiots gonna idiot
again, if ALL of melty's big names show up, the tournament will be a hell of a show.
unlike GG, it's not competing with final round for east coast attendees.
Melty Blood has At least Two Japanese Top Players, and one Korean Player, Coming to EVO.
There's no one top player in Japan, or the USA; so the finals are totally up in the air.
And at least it's not TvC or Smash.
lol @ inevitable crybabies WAHH THEY SHOULD HAVE THE SAME OLD CVS AND 3S NONSENSE INSTEAD
WAHH THIS GAME SUCKS CAUSE IT ISNT MY OVERRATED NOSTALGIA FIGHTER
No ill will towards those games, but take a step back and separate yourself from your arbitrary nonsense for once.
I'm so happy Melty is made it to EVO.
I wanna start a new community for the Arcana Heart games. So it will gain more popularity. It'll be a really big task though. So many people dropped the series after AH2. Hopefully, I can restart it with AH3.
cvs2 was actually just starting to get interesting again this year, but i still think it's more or less a dead horse at this point.
marvel, on the other hand, is going to be a retirement home.
but hey at least we have tvc and the girls tournament right
Well get used to all insulters from all the MB haters, all they can comment is "This game sucks" and giving no real reason why it sucks. Maybe cuz it is themselves who suck so much to get them going in the first place haha.
JYEEAH, PHERAI, YY, I bet I could beat you up decently at your own game and scoring all perfects on you guys in MB if we were to ever play each other's game lol. Small guys with small dicks always amount to nothing when they trash out haters' comments. ROFL.
Oh from what I remember JYEEAH ain't he the sore loser who can't even play his own game properly and not being liked by others in the community ? Ahhh, his comments matters so little now lol.
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to write this up! ^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGUGKwX_hLQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y42ee5mtrqI
Here are some tutorials for people that want a in depth look at the game mechanics.
As someone who doesn't follow MB:AA I will say that this article is very well written. Although there are a few things I still do not understand about the game I can now look at a match and look back at what was said in this article.
This is a good step to get people outside of the MB:AA community to understand the game better. Now what I think you guys should do next is write an article about who the top players in each regions are in MB:AA. As an outsider I feel that is one of the thing that's missing is that I do not know who these players are.
It's hard to explain why but in a way as a person who doesn't follow the scene it at least makes me look forward to seeing certain matches especially when we are talking about rivalries or the best of the best. It's much different when someone walks upto the stream and say x.guy is "good" (#123 in Florida) than say I'm watching the Justin Wong, Alex Valle or #4 vs.#7 of MB:AA facing off right here.
Overall good job on the article, +1 and I look forward to seeing more of MB:AA.
- EG|GenoZ
As someone who has played Melty Blood since the beginning (initial doujin release and Re.ACT followup), this doesn't really excite me. I guess I'm just burned out on Melty. I'll still watch, because it's a great game and matches are fun to watch, but I'm not exactly up-to-date on AA's mechanics since there was no PC release and it's not easy to find actual humans to play against.
Also, RGD, earlier iterations weren't exactly "mashy luckfests," either, especially given how slow, floaty, and demanding the original Melty Blood was. Re.ACT felt mashy, but that was mainly due to its vastly increased speed and widened combo window, and it's important to remember that you could mash out combos only after you connected with the first hit, and to that effect, no game has used blockstring combo mechanics quite like Melty has.
Mintycrys - This article was created in collaboration with notable players in the Melty Blood community, not by FuriousRGD. I think they know better.
But here's my take: Older MB was mashy in the sense that a simple mash 2A can get you out of many things, be it on blockstring gaps or wakeup. Mashing 2A is also the most basic and very effective way to start combos. In MBAA, they fixed this by adding a priority system against light attacks.
Genoz - I do not believe there are any solid rankings of players for US Melty. In my opinion, the East Coast has the better collection of players. If you want a list of recent winners in Melty majors, you have Meta, Tiggy, Lord Knight, and Zar. There are also at least a couple of Japanese players coming over to compete. If you see something nice, you'll be cheering for that guy.
EG|Genoz - Since I don't believe we will be able to throw up another article covering top players before Evo, I'll give a quick rundown of some people to look out for. Because the game doesn't have netplay, the community is very tightly knit in regional groups, so I'll list out some top players from each region. Also note that there is a moderate level of East/West rivalry, though the East coast has a larger scene with more top players in general. Alright, onto the list (this is mostly based on who scores top in recent majors, so apologies if I miss anyone). Not all of these players may make it to Evo, but the majority of them should be there.
Northwest - YAT, Snozz
Southwest - HF Blade, Xie, Bellreisa, Tempered
Midwest - Meta, Tiggy
East - Lord Knight, Zarthebiscuit, Jiyuna, MakotoFox, GenericSuperhero, Sp00ky, XAQshinor, Tonberry
South - Doren, SilentShinobi, Brandino, Phfor
Interesting note: Of all the players listed, there are only two pairs that share the same character and moon groove (Doren and Tiggy - F Miyako, Sp00ky and Meta - H V.Sion). The amount of character diversity seen placing top in tourneys is pretty staggering.
If I had to subjectively pick out my top picks for the best of the best, it would probably be:
Lord Knight, Zarthebiscuit, HF Blade, YAT, Doren
And finally, here's a couple notable international players flying in:
Garu (JP), Chelsea (JP), Kusanagi (MX)
You forgot CL from Korea as well
NVM hes not coming anymore
@LoliSauce thank you. That is kinda what I meant. I will definitely check out youtube videos and look out for these players when watching the MB:AA matches.
@Mistwraith
If you're ever in socal we can play 3s for money since you think you can beat me up decently.
People who play MB should stop getting trolled
Thanks for putting this article up!
So... somebody should mention somewhere where does this game run, right? Is it a PS2 game, a PC game, an arcade game that can be emulated? Is it possible to play online?
BOH - This game runs on PS2, but unlike GGXXAC it doesn't have an american verison. So there you would have to buy a swap magic and melty blood actress again in order to make this work. Also unfortunately it doesn't have a online mode. So therefore if you wanted to find humans, you would have to go on the Melty Bread forums and go to regional section and look for your state or city and hopefully find some people there.
Hope that answers your questions. :)
So... in that video that's linked to (and several videos after that). Is the guy playing "Nvrsqnaytxazzdgh" really that awesome or is he a boss character from an SNK fighter, because that was some seriously psychotic crap there. First he's just using the same two air moves over and over and over again, then all of the sudden there's chompy mouths on the floor and ravens and deer and rhinos all over the damn place. It's redonkulous. I mean, really, it's almost comedic to read "balancing between characters is impeccable" then view that video (and several ones after that).
I'm not trying to hate on Melty Blood or anything, despite what it may sound. I'm sure there's some kind of deep mechanics going on or crazy mindgames that I can't see cuz ahma stewge, so I'm mostly just saying that it if you're trying to deter haters, that is definitely NOT the video to use. Of course, I'm seriously late in making this comment, so I guess what I'm really looking for is an explanation of what's going on there, and maybe some kind of assurance that the game isn't normally that insane. Or if it is, other characters can at least pull off similar nonsense.
Nice post. I personally am a fan of the whole Melty Blood/Tsukihime universe in its different forms, and while the background is written off by people it has a much more interesting background and characters than the majority of fighting games.
A game of Melty Blood has a wonderful feel of it due to the speed and constant flow of the characters, and as the article mentions it neatly sidesteps the issue of mashy mashy players.
Being in the UK the playerbase is even smaller than the US, but you'll often find a decent player pool at anime conventions (surprise!) or larger gaming conventions here.
There are rumours of a x360 or PS3 variant/port/re-imaging, but I have no idea how solid these are. Would be nice as the lastest versions of MB only exist on PS2 or Arcade.
@Snarf
The game is pretty balanced, but there are newb owning characters that make it seem otherwise to new players. Nero, the guy you just saw with the deer set ups and stuff is on of these newb owners.
Although I don't play Nero or played against him, I can tell that he's got a solid zoning game and can keep the opponent locked down on knockdowns. I don't know what kind of mix ups he has, they're probably not strong if many Nero players just go for EX Deer or crows or snakes on knockdowns.
Even though Nero has a good pressure game, it's tricky for him to get out of it himself.
Other characters have some crazy stuff, V-sion for one has a summoning special she uses for safe mixups and a ridiculous dive kick. Akiha has crazy Oki and i think tech punishes, I haven't much of MBAA akiha. Vakiha is incredibly mobile and has crazy mix ups and oki on wake ups. Aoko's space control and zoning.
In Response to Snarf
Nero ranks at A+ in the tier rankings at best (rankings going S, A, B)
Though he looks impressive and confusing he's actually quite difficult to use at a high level of play, has some of the worst matchups in the game, and loses out to very simple stuff
As of now there is only one Nero player in the US who has any kind of success in tournament and he's never won a major
Speaking of tiers, about 70% of the cast is in A tier, a few characters are in S and the rest are B
but only four top American players use S tier characters which is because there is not a huge disparity in S vs A tier matchups
and in response to Carlos, yes Nero is a good character for scrubs to use to own scrubs, but the level of play you're talking about is that of someone who goes to a remote arcade cab and plays with his neighborhood friend every now and then without looking up info on the game online
As for the choice of video: there's no point in hiding it; that's what melty blood looks like. It's not a traditional looking fighter so you may not understand things at first. Despite Capcom FG background experience, your level of knowledge when viewing the game is (no insult intended) going to be comparable to someone who's good at rock paper scissors watching SF4 and saying "oh man that fireball thing is cheap as shit". And yes, MB looks crazy as shit about half the time, the majority of the characters have some flashy "nonsense" moves, none of which are overpowered in context of their characters
Oh and Snarf, the Japanese player you saw using Nero happens to be one of the top 3 users of him and one of the top players in the world. The linked video was impressive to players of the game because it was one of the craziest win streaks ever recorded. The player, Lucky Star, makes everyone look pretty free because he is around 90% accurate with his reads throughout that streak