Did the Local Anime Con yearly fun this year, and one of my main points is always to play as much Random KOF and SNK as I can.
But at the same time... there's never a greater time to see how ignored certain fighting game series are, compared to others, than at an event like this. Also never a time for me to see how much I dislike PS4 controllers, but that's another rant, lol.
I got to play the weirdest stuff... Double Dragon (the one that ties into the Movie Game), some of the most REAL SamSho II I've played in years (Always emphasizing how little I think about things like blade catch, kick use, and the short hop in that game), Breakers 2 (Tia is so modern KOF Yuri that it's great), and the random playing of SVC Chaos (which I enjoy, even if I feel worse at it each time, lol.) On the non SNK / Neo Geo Side, I got to play Chaos Code VS some live people for the first time in ages, but my time with it was much too short. Much like UNIEL/UNIEST, I swear it's a much more fun, varied fighter than given credit for.
Also Played the Fate Unlimited Codes Capcom Fighter (wish I got it on PSP back in the day, or that we had a proper console release), Rumble Fight 2, Fighting Layer, and Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle (which I think looked better on a stretched flat screen TV than I expected?!) I had no love personally for modern 3D fighters, and to see BBCTB and Chaos Code replaced in their machines by SFIV and V totally killed my interest in using that machine, lol.
I never like dropping back into BlazBlue, because, much like GG, they're not fun if you're not well versed in the latest awkward patch shifts and changes. The gap between "let me get my bearings..." and "I've been playing this non-stop for 3 weeks!" is so different, that it's not welcoming to return to, and the mid-point isn't fun at all.
But this totally makes me enjoy BB Cross Tag Battle more. And much like enjoying CVS2 because it lets me play KOF with a more interested group, that the same thing CTB lets me do with UNI characters. Unlike SamSho, however, where it felt like I was playing a person that knew the game more intimately than most I've ever fought... BBCTB was pretty much just a demonstration of how to frustrate players with my Waldstein, lol. No-one was willing to lame him out. And he shines when I can read and counter active opponents. That's cool. But when people are willing to back up to a corner and do almost nothing un-safe, while having worlds more control at those ranges than I do, then he struggles. So I never really had to struggle, I just got to play him as I wanted, with little resistance.
And it really is those kind of shifts that makes fighter so fun to play. Frustrating, too! Like... I swear most of my loses in KOF XIV were due to the PS4 controller in part, since I dropped stuff I was way to calm and focused to be dropping. Playing a majority of the Neo Geo games on actual Neo-Geo sticks felt pretty great, save for the Ball top on it annoying my hands much more than any other stick for the first day.
I didn't play any CVS2 this year, but man... I wish there was something new like that, which would help SNK games cross a bit into the mainstream again. It not only helps at times like this, by making that one relevant game get more play, but it also helps general consciousness SO much, and gets the classics and others played more. Geese is a great first step in T7, but I definitely wish it'd happen more often. The biggest plus I see from Tag Team Heroines in a situation like this, is that having it, KoF XIV, and maybe even XIII, will give more of a chance for there to be a section that plays modern SNK games, rather than the 1 spot for XIV, and the one spot that has a super-cart with neo-geo classics on 1 TV.
