Chat
Discord
56 - D.R.LF2 (Click to View)
D.R.LF2 (DoctoR?) is a creation of In_The_End which is a series of story-oriented version, featuring a large list of zombified corrupted fighters and pawns, powerful bosses, some ripped characters (both graphically and mechanically) and detailed story mode.
This version is very popular due to its extensive usage of quality graphics, outstanding mechanisms and overpowered characters. However DR is also despised by players who disagree with skill-less creations.
There are at least 5 viable versions of this game that are published and each of them carries parts of a large story. Also each version includes slightly different character, v5.0 is the newest version which includes the most original characters out of all of them.
Because of a bunch of factors: Stage mode is incredibly tedious, characters do not differ much between versions, and general battles are awfully long, I won't play any version apart from v5.0 and I'll just recall my memories of earlier versions to review the whole DR.
85 Originality
This game has a unite theme of Dark magic, while characters have vastly different moves including Dropdown explosions, Eye-beam and Witchery, they fit the theme quite nicely. Unfortunately the ripped graphics may slightly hinder the originality.
Ripped characters including Ragnarok Online Assassin and some Joker pixie... are just ripped. In_The_End has done good job to implement the performance and mechanism though.
87.5 Marco Graphics
Not only ripped graphics fit into the version well, revamped moves have nice transparency effects and are with slightly higher quality. Coloring of projectiles that are not ripped are slightly bland though.
Recolored original characters range from neatly done to moderately crude. There is little expansion of them apart from coloring though.
85 Micro Graphics
Pixelation, aliasing and color blocks are nearly impossible to be seen. For characters which is heavy for transitions like DLAE (A cloud composed of eyeballs which can stretch its arms which ends are skulls) the work is highly smooth. Most of animations are well animated.
Some moves however are not animated at all, including chasing balls generated by John's JA and DLAE's beam attack.
40 Macro systems
This version has major problems that makes it unfavorable to play in versus mode.
The apparent sin is its incapability to maintain a solid balance scale. Without a scale there is no guarantee which character is suitable to 1v1 against another.
A lot of characters have unique strengths but they are not properly explained, and instructions to use them are buried in very messy move lists. Too many character traits also cause them to become very unpredictable and frustrating to fight against.
A large number of boss characters boast excessive defensive and offensive abilities which basically denies any viable way to deliver considerably damage to them, except to spam projectiles like no tomorrow.
Dark fighters are capable to perform death juggles at ease, and as the game is developed, characters that have reasonable weaknesses and are suitably powered are replaced by Dark fighters.
Stage scenarios are easy to follow, just slightly lacking in clarity.
30 Micro systems
A number of critical mistakes are made in this version despite a generally good looking damage table and power rating for individual character.
MP cost is not well defined. The power rating between characters are not defined: A number of wave-clearing moves and high-damage moves are poorly designed. They are very unstable in damage output even though stable hitboxes are provided.
The version is generally overpowered that means even calculating damage of same move for different characters will be nasty.
Neither stage play nor versus play would be fun:
As aforementioned trying to find two evenly matched characters to play versus will mostly bring frustrations, because everyone would finally just spam ultimate moves;
Stage mode is incredibly tedious and repetitive, including boss and subboss with supreme defense and excessive health, too many friendly and enemy units, unpredictable behavior for EVERY character including pawns.
35 Balance
The balance of DR is twice as nasty as R-LF2, which is barely maintained by its painstaking damage table.
This is due to overpowering moves are more prevalent and more absurd defensive abilities are forced into boss characters, while this might not be serious concern for general vers/mods, DR took a hideous path by firstly phasing every original fighters with overpowered, unbalanced Dark fighters, then attempt to amend the strengths of boss characters based on these abominations, causing more irreparable irregularities.
50 Intuitiveness
DR barely passes the mark intuitiveness due to following reasons:
Installation, playing and compatibility are confusing
DR also initiated the bad habit of blaming player's computer requirements instead of improving the game's compatibility
Move list is crammed with unnecessary details
Character who does not appear in a certain version should not appear in that version of move list at all,
To attempt to one-size-fit-all with a single set of readme is not a practice for majority of fighting game.
The packaging for each version should be available for download separately
Too many systems which are not fitting into LF2 module at all or generally do not give constructive value to the game
Repetitive, standalone moves
Some moves are unclear, with identical character actions, or worse, no notable action
35 Replay value
If the replay value of DR is about the story plot and overpowered characters, I can predict that nearly no new player by now would fancy DR, and those who play DR until now are probably obsessed with overpowering and the culture of this game.
From my quick scan, it seems very few to none characters introduced by DR can be directly incorporated into other mods (in reality, none of them) and they don't even produce a valid versus environment.
From the view of various stage playthroughs, it seems the plot doesn't even worth the boring battle the stage mainly consists of. I used Fear (John) and Henry just to confirm I can just use one move forever without positioning, and this lame method ensured safe passage of many stage sections. So the Stage mode is a definite failure.
56 Overall Score
I personally would give it a 46 instead (by taking out an 87.5 and an 85 instead, focusing on the bad things of this version)
One sentence fits all: Rotten orange
I now understand why In_The_End does not even go for reboot of this version because it is so screwed.
83 - D.R.LF2 Special: Tower Defense (Click to View)
Abbr. DRS-TD, this is possibly a reboot of D.R.LF2 created by In_The_End.
This version features nerfed moves from D.R.LF2 and a very mature tower defense mode, replacing the survival mode in original LF2.
As a sidenote, I usually start testing a ver/mod by viewing the Demo of the game. It can give an rough impression on how moves are empowered and how well the AI is in the game.
I have also discussed about the balance of this game and he claims that a lot of work is done to prevent spamming moves, but I think there are still lots of improvements to be made for them.
Unfortunately, the v6.0 published for the game is most probably the final version, because it was released 6 years ago, despite itself claiming to be in beta.
87.5 Originality
The main feature of this game is tower defense, as the game claims, and is proven by me and several players.
While there are some concepts that are not very new, including the usage of stationary barriers in RN, hell moves from R-LF2, this version has a nice mashup of elements that has a complete overall feeling.
90 Marco Graphics
The quality of graphics of this version goes beyond JW2 and DR, to very smooth and appetizing level. The usage of transparency is not deterring to eye at all.
Some character moves have a rapid and rather crude transition, including the grab moves of LouisEX and Rudolf, but the execution of moves is smoother if the grab succeed, otherwise they are cartoon-like.
77.5 Micro Graphics
Although the artifacts of graphics are almost absent, there are frequent sudden transitions of animations, and a lack of division of animation, for example:
Dennis has two moves that use the identical Chase Ball launching animation
The ultimate move of Dennis at start looks just like a speedy Whirlwind Kick
Enemies included in TD are quite strong, but the problem is the dark blue background would make attacks of Dark Knight quite difficult to see, especially moves and projectiles are fast and transparency is used in deep grey sprites.
The sprites in short, are not too colorful but sometimes difficult to see.
80 Macro systems
The tower defense system has a list of problems (the core mechanics are solid), the major one being the tower is difficult to manage.
The tower has an irregular move list, consisting of commands like AAA, DJJ, DAA and there are three levels of tower which has a separate move list.
If you let AI use tower and few enemies get close to it, chances are the tower would be reluctant to upgrade.
The siege weapons are strange in terms of hitbox, they become invulnerable whenever they move and they have some invulnerability when they are attacking. While you can lure weapons to a safe distance you cannot guarantee damaging them.
New moves of characters (some are inherited from DR) are generally powerful, including the usage of lightning dash (frigging fast movement) and lightning weapon (STM spammed this weapon in a play in TD) both used by Louis.
The concepts of new characters abilities are certainly nice additions, and are adjusted well.
95 Micro systems
The concept is not organized very well but the acting of characters is well done. Characters have consistent offense and defense stances, the effects are well done, and hitboxes are carefully placed, if you take out the blinking invulnerability problems for some characters.
Even though balance seems somehow out of place it can be perceived to be easily fixable because the arrangements are highly completed.
Kudos on the effort on the TD instructions. There are some parts difficult to comprehend but once playing in TD mode, they are really straightforward to follow
75 Balance
New moves of characters have high power or high priority, or are difficult to avoid. In return the synergy is worse for those moves.
The priority weighs the most in decreasing the balance mark of this version, moves like John's giant purple column are nearly unavoidable and Davis has a very large range counter move (although it doesn't deal much damage).
In overall the version strongly encourages new moves to be used because of upper edge they provide, although they don't really deal more damage. As a result the rewards of playing combos is reduced but new moves try to compensate them, even if they slightly fall behind because of possibility of being spammed.
75 Intuitiveness
The move list included inside the bundle didn't improve in clarity.
New moves of typical characters are abundant, the author tries to explain this as much as possible, but some moves are not easy to memorize, since most characters have at least 8 moves and new moves need 4-6 keypresses to trigger.
The overall impression though is alike original LF2 although with some complexity, the learning curve for old moves stay quite flat so some practices from original LF2 can provide quite enough enjoyment in this version.
90 Replay value
The TD mode is not very controllable in overall, due to powerful ally and enemy knights and generally a "farming" experience of the game: Collecting energy orbs has become a major part of game, that emphasizes on avoiding attacks.
Character moves are not to be easily compared to another version that stay very close to original LF2, and they are inspirational to new products due to careful positions and interesting effects.
There are some unpolished parts even with sophisticated layout of the characters and siege weapons, these can be improved slowly (if someone intends to make a game that combines TD and FTG)
83 Overall Score
78 - BX-LF2 v2.0 (Click to View)
BuXie-LF2, which BuXie stands for the main character (and the representation of the author) is a version which features a large number of new characters with original sprites and moveset, along with a series of complete stage mode.
This version has some similarities with both D.R.LF2 and its sequel DRS-TD, and although it has an impression of being a polished DR, it has some highly differences from DRS-TD.
87.5 Originality
This stage mode features large number of original characters, some ultimate moves and a stage mode (if you count the earlier versions, there are multiple stage modes).
I do not wish to give a score of 90 despite of very abundant original content:
Concepts of new characters do not really go much further from LF2, including the humanized Keroro soldiers, Aquarion ultimate move and some samurais who fight very similarly to those from Last Blade (a FTG made by SNK).
Quality graphics and some backgrounds requested from Marshall seem to hype this version for some bit.
Nevertheless, the mashup of characters from different genres into a balanced selection of characters is highly appreciated.
85 Marco Graphics
New characters are generally colorful but not too distracting. They are quite easy to distinguish even without dedicated details. The overall animation in other hand seems to be skip frames in unnecessary occasions and sprites are often reused. Some moves use oversized projectiles.
The worst part is some characters are really hard to determine which move is he using, including that yoyo-user that utilizes ice and fire attacks.
The projectile sprites, while ripped, are just as good as where they came from. This doesn't contribute to more originality but is at least appealing.
75 Micro Graphics
This version intends to impression players with well-scripted transitions, but only succeed in those in projectiles. Some characters (about half of them) do not have enough motion indications, they may look like launching a projectile or swinging a weapon but their body movements are insufficient to indicate so.
For instance, Henry-like character with a sword may use moves like throwing a flying sword and wildly swinging his sword to fend off enemies. The motion speed is great for the character but little motion shades were used.
70 Macro systems
New characters generally follow a model which has crowd control ability as strong as Firzen, but the damage output is not stronger than typical fighters. It means although they are able to use weapons to damage enemies they are generally incapable to have any synergy with weapons, and not to say with other characters.
Many new characters generally do not chain combos well, some cannot chain at all.
New ultimate moves of fighters in this version are not interesting (are at the level of hell moves for R-LF2). Deep has an ultimate which launches a fast-moving state: 15 blast that has unlimited range. This does not suit his character at all.
Each new character also has a hell move that use extreme amount of MP. While they do not provide a viable way to OTK players in versus mode, this has a very large impact in Stage mode, making playing frustrating because background have very narrow Z-axis width and is often crowded.
Backgrounds is a collection of original LF2 and some Marshall's creations (BuXie has obtained permission on that matter). The Stage mode is a collection of cornered battles which include some number of higher skilled enemies and allies. This means the player have less control on the battlefield and cannot find suitable strategy to protect his allies. Allies can be overwhelmed easily in the middle of each stage, player would often have to face too many enemies either early-game or late-game.
The only puzzle stage, Stage 3 is noisy and unintuitive. Spike Traps are deadly and it's quite unfair to forcibly walk onto spikes, and there is a bandit ambushing you from behind. Even if you get to Stage 3-3 there are completely unpredictable randomly placed traps (you cannot even see where they are) that might (it's all random) instakill you because you get stuck between standing javelins.
77.5 Micro systems
Character moves are implemented well with generally little inconsistencies (but they are still confusing to use, just each move is good).
Stage mode is a mixture of some cheaper techniques including enemies spawning in between your army, or worse, your ally would fail to avoid the ultimate move of an enemy hero and be instakilled, which happens quite often. The highlighted puzzle stage is nasty, it doesn't feel rewarding even if you manage to clear this because it involves overpowered traps and much of RNG.
67.5 Balance
It feels like a mixture of DR and DRS-TD when it comes to balance. There are projectile spamming moves where DRS-TD don't dare do, but the moves are generally predictable.
In several Demo plays, original fighters (which are unchanged except of the new hell moves) are more competent than new characters in 1v1. Combined with spamming tendencies of new characters, it may come to conclusion that new characters are generally just noisy and have unnecessary complications that make them not as rewarding as fighters.
If you don't think it is worth a mediocre score, I will add that some moves are very punishing including a ground-thumping move that hit enemies far away in z-axis, and samurai characters have ripoff of hell moves from last blade that charges forward quickly and deal 250 damage.
85 Intuitiveness
Majority of characters have very straightforward move lists. Combos are not an issue because generally they... don't combo.
Stage mode does not differ much from fight-and-kill actions, and revolve generally about one-time army and boss-oriented army.
72.5 Replay value
The learning curve is generally short-lived for new characters, and hell moves have no extension on the curve.
Stage mode does not feature a replaying value due to:
Lack of participation rewards
Slowly overwhelming or overwhelmed enemy force (due to consistent adding of strong allies)
As such the replaying value of this game lies on the new characters.
There's not much to say about them other than they don't have good synergy and the cartoon style would not exceed much from original LF2.
Especially transitions are not much better, sometime worse than of original.
78 Overall Score
75 - SDL-LF2 v2.0 (Click to View)
SDL-LF2 (likely ShingDiLun, don't blame me for the unfamiliar name, this is translated from Taiwanese) is the sequel of BuXie-LF2.
This mainly features completely redrawn characters (and some new ones) and more stage modes.
I forgot to say that SDL-LF2 has bundled the stage modes of previous versions which can be easily switched by extracting the corresponding zips, so to the final version (v2.0) of SDL-LF2, it actually includes 3 SDL stage packs including 2.0, and 4 BX stage packs, to a total of 7.
However I feel uneasy when they are not all packed in one format (both 7z and rar are used).
This review will compare SDL-LF2 with past products and earlier LF2 creations. Although you would expect improvements I am typically harsh on these matters and have found various rather unsettling trends for this version.
87.5 Originality
This version inherits some characters from BX and replaces some characters with new ones (according to story for each version), also includes a stage mode for each update of the game.
SDL-LF2 introduces more beast systems and puzzles in stage mode. Properties of old characters are largely unchanged.
Sprites of exclusive characters are all redrawn to higher resolutions.
New boss fights do not add original content but the boss characters use new techniques, as per the trait of BX.
Not many new features are introduced since release of BX v2.0 (each feature has lots of content though) so the score will stay at 87.5.
80 Marco Graphics
Graphics of all characters are remade. They are of better quality of original fighters now. Skipping of frames is reduced to about that of fighters. This in overall gives a streamline experience, especially when playing with melee characters.
I don't appreciate the lack of work done on projectiles (even after several iterations), new projectiles are either recolored original sprites or ripped form other games. Some other sprites are reused from removed characters.
75 Micro Graphics
Usage of weapon for new characters are not carefully positioned (as per BX), and punch motions are not improved either, they look like using too much efforts compared to fighters.
Transitions are surprisingly not improved despite the reduction of frame skipping. To explain this properly, "frame skipping" refers to insufficient frame to even support an animation, and "transitions" stand for the motion that is derived from the frame animation of character.
Melee characters are much better animated than ranged characters due to effective usage of repeating character frames. Ranged characters lack a large number of buildup and ending frames.
The cavalry system introduced in SDL-LF2 is uneasy to determine the states of characters, especially defending. This may be due to lack of animation of horse in some frames.
72.5 Macro systems
SDL uses the inherited systems from BX, that means characters are roughly the same as from BX, having crowd control as strong as Firzen but damage input no more of a fighter.
Cavalry system gives new possibilities in battles, it's just not very appetizing the whole body of a cavalry unit suddenly becomes semi-invulnerable and hurts everyone in path of it.
It's still tedious in versus mode to fight as or against new characters.
Some moves of recurring characters are adjusted, they don't differ much from that of in BX.
New characters except Leaf (who doesn't yell) and Zex are noisier than even other BX characters, mainly due to sound amplitude not properly adjusted.
Melee new chars do quite well in combat but ranged characters are a fest of spamming projectiles.
Recurring ranged chars... are just not fixed at all.
The two new bosses, purple-cloth psychic (XiangChengLiu) and Cat-ear juggle king who has voice of Dio (Zex) are powerful. They give fights as good as purple cat-god in BX (Ming) and are challenging. Too bad the solo boss fights in 3-2 and 5-3 feature seemingly low health bosses who actually have greatly increased health regeneration, making the fights very tiring.
Be wary of XiangChengLiu who has an attack that summons 9 glowing mines at once that spreads, if you are in close proximity you can be instakilled! Even if they have spread the mines are triggered by itr kind: 9 which will blast you into air repeatedly, dealing heavy damage. They are very nasty and will deflect your projectiles, as per properties of itr kind: 9.
The excessive amount of allies continues from BX to SDL. The simple best way to play through stages is to spam powerful moves because usually you will either be covered by allies after being beaten up, or have a very large supply of beers and milk. Oh, and the stages are only slightly wider in z-axis.
Stage 5 puzzle in v2.0 is intuitive but has some bugs that upset players, including the positioning of henry flutes is unfriendly and may make the game stuck, and milk isn't readily picked by the stage-specific knight.
The only BG effect that is implemented in the game is made by Blue Phoenix (I guess) so I won't comment much on that, other than its sudden appearance and hindering of movement might unsettle players.
Lastly, hell moves of fighters are replaced by something alike Firen's explosion, if you amend the explosion to everyone's need, every hell move uses about 350MP.
75 Micro systems
The new ranged characters are just not good:
Usage of even faster projectiles
Repetitive: Zack in particular uses three moves which all involve black energy disks which all move at same speed and the launching motions are nearly the same
Unavoidable moves for hero characters
(Star Tsumani and literally every move of Sirius, Kanno can deal incredible damage once she grabs with chasing attacks, and she can summon 3 chasing objects with only 60% MP, not to mention she has multiple chasing moves)
It is confusing in catching and caught animations of cavalry. Louis's whirdwind throw with them was well done though.
Implementation of stages continues to be difficult because players would have hard time to decide how to keep his allies and himself living. My attempt on Stage mode... was just to flute all the way along. I didn't get through Stage 1 Difficult and got instakilled in Stage 3 by XiangChengLiu. But it is less than fun if flute>drink>flute is the ideal way to clear the stages. I did that because the stage layout strongly recommends me to do so, especially multiple enemies with innate armor are overwhelming in these stages.
65 Balance
There is not much balance change for old characters, boss characters can be skipped but new ranged characters are annoying (again!):
While exclusive ranged characters are expected to have a generally lower output, some new characters have projectiles that are both fast and deal slightly too much damage.
Not to mention unavoidable and unblockable moves.
New projectile moves try to match the quantity scale of old moves. I insist that it is just not good to try copying the number of knifes Purple throws.
I HATE frigging Sirius both in playing as and against him. He is just a stronger bow-wielding template in RN except his attacks are shorter and wider.
New melee characters blend in the game smoothly with others.
Oh, frigging cavalry bandits can stab in rapid successions, it will certainly be humiliating if I ever get juggled to death by this dumb technique (but it's a repeating move that drains MP constantly, so it's completely possible for AI to kill you that way)
Horses are difficult to tackle, they have armor and they may become invulnerable in occasion which replenishes his armor in progress. Nasty.
In conclusion, the balance of SDL just gets worse than BX. More instability kicks in which does not provide an enjoyable versus experience and slowly tears away what remains in BX.
75 Intuitiveness
I should give 85 except that I cannot find any information about move list of sub characters (I can choose Cavalry bandit without inputting lf2.net and it is included in random selection!).
Also move list doesn't tell me of MP consumption for most of exclusive moves!
72.5 Replay value
It's surprising that additional contents can actually reduce the replay value of a sequel, but the poor mixture of contents along with stage mode that has not improved a lot don't deserve a raised score.
75 Overall Score
A decreased score means there is definitely something wrong with the development of SDL from BX. I hope if I direct this review to BuXie he would be more careful in future game development.
75 - XLF-Omega (Click to View)
XLF-Omega is the final creation of the trilogy for the XLF series, X stands for X-power, a supernatural force wielded by all major characters of this game. XLF series was created by two-men team team SR (stand for Sten and Robert, and they have representative characters in the game).
This version features a submersible experience in using original characters who have completely new moves and combo chains, a bunch of shared abilities which are similar to in some FTGs, hell move systems (yeah...), backgrounds and story mode.
I am going to review only Omega and not the part creations: XLF can no longer be found and I definitely don't want to rate XLF2 after playing some orange Freeze with horizontally flipped hair.
90 Originality
Firstly, about the concepts of characters here:
Characters are reconstructed from parts of original characters. Every character use moves that summon oversized hitbox and projectiles, but from my experience it was intended. I just don't like some moves have too little initiation time. About half of moves are presented well although there is a problem in repetitive moves both between and within the same character.
The projectile sprites and BG graphics are ripped. There doesn't give much originality but the presentation of moves based on the projectiles is acceptable, the mechanics are fresh although not carefully polished.
The combo system apart from being completely different from LF2, are generally harder to chain. A lot of characters rely on spamming projectiles (fortunately most of projectile moves aren't overpowered), melee characters do have reasonable reach to prevent being owned easily, and are generally more appealing to play.
There are few new features introduced in Stage mode, apart from new pawn graphics, the majority of fights are plain, and there are a few dialogues. No puzzles there and only a little criteria-based fights.
The boss fight of Lambda and DX-Sten are similar in scale of Julian and CL in R-LF2. No big issues.
75 Marco Graphics
There was a very large improvement from XLF2 which only recolors characters and adds small parts, Omega assembled characters very well with nice color themes for each character.
Each character move is generally nicely constructed. There is sufficient indications of moves, although some moves barely did it with frame skipping and therefore transitions are only fair. Melee characters would perform slightly better here.
Fortunately, although background are largely stationary (some have parallax) they are of high quality (even many are ripped they chose very correctly). I can see some resizing problems but this is little compared to the good effort in removing aliasing and pixelation problems.
BGs are generally of milder color themes compared to characters which is good, partly because fights are intense and players do not pay much attention there.
The main downside of graphics in XLF-Omega is the poor interface. Improperly stretched letters in selection menu and the blinking "Click to join" are not easy to read. Character portraits in selection screen are generally out of proportions. I don't require a terrific portrait face but Cloaked Davis (Chisel) has 70% of his head shown as his hair. The worst part is about the HP and MP bar. It's very difficult to know of exact health left provided the red and brown HP proportions are now having very similar color, and the size of bar has shrunk. This part gives a very large penalty in the impression of the overall graphics.
In battle mode I have a problem of determining which pawn corresponds to which function he has.
67.5 Micro Graphics
Apart from poor transitions, some moves are difficult to see and distinguish (repetitiveness in the same character) and character positions are not fully rectified, there are sudden sprite changes regarding melee characters.
K.O. notices are oversized. I think this problem is less prevalent in 1v1 and stage mode (there is no light weapon except milk and beer) but it still obstructs vision. Reducing its size to acceptable level is much better.
62.5 Macro systems
Again, character power that rivals R-LF2 is difficult to manage. This version did good job in preventing spamming moves but chaining combos is a lot harder compared to what promotion video did. Unfortunately some characters are innately programmed to spam, include Mark without sunglasses (Joy) that has an AI which spams shockwaves like no tomorrow. It's not like projectiles are overpowered but they are strategically very favorable to keep anyone at bay.
The thing I dislike the most about this version is the oil barrels, they are generic heavy weapons randomly falling from sky, but they summon a heck load of explosions when destroyed. Because characters do not deal enough damage, there is a large element of RNG roaming across the game. Two barrels can possibly instakill a bunch of people staying very close to each other! This can ruin the whole gaming experience.
Character strengths are at least aligned, I see effort done by authors, if without RNG and assume I can chain properly, the damage yield of characters can be very rewarding. Too bad chaining is not easy and too many repetitive moves along with heavy MP consumption drive me back from enjoying the game.
Pawns (X-rangers) punch really fast. Do not let them get close and be aware of "Hunter" ranger who can shoot multiple state: 15 fast bullets very rapidly.
The bosses are really nasty to tackle, provided you already have spamming moves of heroes. A John-Dennis (Hades) can FILL a map with his projectiles and LouisEX with Scythe (Gene) is just launching really powerful moves and projectiles. Lambda has invulnerability once it gets hurt, has incredible moves, DX-Sten as the hidden boss is just "hidden", once he is damaged enough he will spam D>J (there are even 2 more variations) from more than a screen away and blasts you for 40% HP at a time.
There goes a big problem on the shared properties of heroes in this version: X-power. The concept is okay: Healing and supercounter, but they do seem to make fights less fun since they are scaled based on the spamming abilties of heroes, the supercounter blasts everyone across THE WHOLE MAP at an instant, healing is alright but unfortunately would prolong fights.
70 Micro systems
Provided moves do not use really complicated systems like position detection, their implementations are straightforward and moves generally do not glitch badly, apart from their already bugging properties.
It's not like authors did a particular job on the details of moves, but hitboxes and movements of characters are mostly reasonable, that contributes to consistency. However a major discredit to it is the damage for each move is inconsistent if two or more hitboxes are present in a single move. It's very difficult to determine how much displacement and damage a move deals because it depends on distance of enemy very much.
72.5 Balance
I didn't test all characters but it seems there is at least some interesting balance that slightly exceeds SDL, if you take the speed moves of XLF-Omega as common speed you would soon get used to it and develop some highly damaging combos. The bright side is, Although every move of XLF-Omega is better than moves in LF2, their strengths are rather similar to each other, compared to DRS-TD, BX and SDL which feature a few super-powerful moves for every character.
85 Intuitiveness
While this version uses generic input keys in LF2 for new moves, characters have more moves and start to use composite keys like DJAJJ for some moves. Fortunately the number of composite keys are few, it makes character straightforward... a more important point here is there is generally enough time to use composite keys.
X-power and taunts use shared keys and have identical effects for every character. This is a good measure to implement a new large system.
In overall this version performed well in presenting how to use moves for every character (But forgot to tell us MP consumption of most moves, what a shame).
80 Replay value
The stage plot is not really much, although some veteran LF2 players despise the story of XLF as bland and mindless, this can be said to several other versions as well. The plot is acceptable for a FTG, if you think that Ryu's story never advanced at all.
The stage mode is a spamfest. However it isn't caused by abundance of allies but the high firepower of each character. The layout of each stage session is much nicer and at least gives high control to the player, alike in original LF2.
Characters have a rather steep learning curve, if the barrel, counter and HP bar problems are taken out, this game can take on really good fights, although to further improve some nerfing on abilities should be done. The former three problems are easy to fix anyway.
75 Overall Score
Well, this means I would roughly equally recommend SDL and XLF-Omega to others, because SDL has some bad marks that are not present in BX, the number of players who think SDL is better than XLF-Omega or vice versa should not differ much.
83 - New Alpha (Click to View)
LF2 New Alpha is a modification created by Leaf Fantasy, which specializes in creating new variations of input keys of moves. There is not much exclusive content apart from new moves, although there are Buxie, Felix and Lighto, with some borrowed backgrounds, they are not reviewed in this version because I think most of efforts were done for their respective creators.
90 Originality
The ideas of new key inputs are very original, including Rudolf's charging DvA attack and the extension system. The implementation of latter is complete but sometimes I may miss on the target or cannot figure out proper time to chain moves.
The moves themselves are not groundbreaking, some ideas are already used by plenty of versions including Firen's D>JA and J+DvA. Also move synergy is not extended, many moves are alternations or stronger versions of original moves with different key inputs. Provided new moves cannot chain well, there is not much reason to use them practically other than admiring smooth graphics.
85 Marco Graphics
New moves follow a very smooth model where fits original LF2 very nicely. The graphics are generally smoother than in LF2. There are some reuse of sprites but in good conditions.
Some moves are notably powerful but the graphics for them are also well presented.
87.5 Micro Graphics
Transitions is especially good for this mod although some moves have sudden movement like Rudolf's DvA, and Woody's DvA< looks like skipping frames. Deep's DvJ is an exception.
80 Macro systems
This score is controversial because there are two sections of systems, one scoring significantly better than other.
The extension system which chains a new move by pressing A is notably worse than the direction key input system which charges by holding keys.
I have particular difficulty to chain extension moves, I think Firen's D>JA in my version works just like the same as the counterpart in this mod, and I am unable to use Louis's D>J<D<J (Louis jumps backward after his whirlwind kick throws enemy upwards) and any combo regarding his new moves, Rudolf's D^AD>A, and cannot chain after Woody's DvA< as examples.
John's Magical Fusion system is also seen in DRS-TD, this mod did a job not less than DRS did.
Direction key input system is well done. The presentation of nearly all moves regarding this system are good.
80 Micro systems
Since Directional Key Input system is done by using hit_d in DC, it is impossible to fix the F6 bug, so let's skip it.
The systems are generally well implemented although I see a lack of interactions other than prescribed combos indicated by the move list. For instance John can use stronger versions of D>A and D>J via magical fusion (DvA which summons a ball that fuses with other projectiles) but they push everything away when combined, which doesn't encourage players to use more projectiles to combo, especially DvA ball consumes quite an amount of MP.
Most moves are not terribly hard to trigger, just needs some time for practicing.
75 Balance
New moves although not up for synergy, promote a number of fighters to be overpowered: Henry now has delayed damage and Firen has a speed punch that can be chained into Fire Balls, Freeze has a Ice needle rain.
Other fighters have new moves that mostly do not exceed the level of LF2HongBa (of respective fighters), that means moves are generally underwhelming.
82.5 Intuitiveness
Other than extension moves (fortunately they are only minority of all moves, however I should be wary if number of ex.moves increases when developing) every move is straightforward to use. However abundance of moves tend to force some moves to use at least 6 keys to trigger them.
85 Replay value
This mod has a lot of room for practicing, including the new systems and (unknowingly) the guest characters in this mod. Because guests are better balanced inside this mod compared to their home creations, they can be fun to fight as and against. Some borrowed backgrounds unfortunately have minor quality problems including unclear z-axis boundary and too narrow passage, but the mod overall gives a fresh and memorable experience.
83 Overall Score