Mulling a refund due to Kokonoe's moveset

[OPPAI-INARI]

Blazblue's Kokonoe Mercury is my favorite fictional character of all time, from any media. I love everything about her, and I really enjoy her moveset in the original Blazblue games. I wasn't interested in this game until my friend pointed her out in the trailer; it's not an exaggeration to say that I bought this game because she's in it.

However, I absolutely hate her moveset in this game, specifically her regular attacks. There are a few attacks that are okay (not great), her jumping attack and her dash attack—although her dash itself is super bad because it's hard to actually stop her without jumping or attacking, and it's almost impossible to tell when the i-frames on it end (if there are any? I can't tell.)

The real problem of course is with her basic attacks. I don't know why someone would decide to give her the moves that she as her basic attacks after playing her in the fighting game. These really should have been skills!

Her first attack is based on her 236C from the FG, a slow move that works well because it freezes the opponent and has a couple of followups that are direct attacks. In this game, it's still a slow, clumsy attack, but to make it worse, the damage on it is pathetic and there are no direct followups, two factors that, combined, make it dangerous to use as it also lacks the freezing effect that the original game had on this move.

It's also frustrating that she has no proper heavy attack. Holding the attack button just extends the spray of water projectiles from her ice gun (??), and very frequently, the game reads the next attack input (as in, "I want to do the second attack now") as an input to continue the first attack, which I can't imagine anyone ever doing as the first attack's damage is pathetic.

Her followups are two more slow and clumsy attacks, both originating from a portal over her head: first, a shorter-ranged spray of sparks, and then a succession of bombs that drop in a line in front of her.. Both of these seem more like moves you would get either as a passive addition to the moveset (i.e. hold up+basic to do the shower of sparks) or as skills (the bomb cluster).

Where is her wrench? The rocket hammer? The brass knuckles? The helmet? The claw? You know, the things she actually uses for basic attacks?! Why is she so slow to fight with? She's not like that at all in the original game. It's really disappointing.

With her moveset being the way it is I really don't find her any fun to play at all. I'm wondering if the developers feel strongly about the moveset or if they're interested in revising it. If there's no interest in revising her moveset, I'll probably refund this, unfortunately.

[DrunkHobo]

She is my least favorite character in the game next to Ragna. She basically just becomes a spam skill damage character. I beat the game with her and Ragna and I don't expect to ever play them again.

Her basic attacks are just really slow and can be nice to cheese the last area a bit because of all the raised platforms but otherwise she just feels really bad to play.

Its a shame because I really like riding around on the scooter.

[The nameless Gamer]

I too am confused as to how her I-frames work. In the usual mayhem on the screen, I only notice that SOME attacks don't hit me when I activate her dash as with other characters, but under which conditions her basic (unrelated to tactics and potentials) invulnerability triggers and how many I-frames roughly she gets is beyond me. Ironically, she's the first character I made it to the (current) final boss with, mostly thanks to playing as if she had no I-frames whatsoever... and a massive laser from space.

[Fraggoth]

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

I too am confused as to how her I-frames work. In the usual mayhem on the screen, I only notice that SOME attacks don't hit me when I activate her dash as with other characters, but under which conditions her basic (unrelated to tactics and potentials) invulnerability triggers and how many I-frames roughly she gets is beyond me. Ironically, she's the first character I made it to the (current) final boss with, mostly thanks to playing as if she had no I-frames whatsoever... and a massive laser from space.

The stuff listed as granting i-frames definitely seems hit or miss, which is pretty easy to observe when running Hakumen and taking damage doing things that - according to the descriptions - should be granting them for their duration. There might be some hidden cooldowns or other conditional limitations (like what direction you're facing, etc.) that aren't conveyed well in the current translation but I can't easily prove it without inordinate amounts of RNG luck.

[The nameless Gamer]

Originally posted by Fraggoth:

Originally posted by The nameless Commander:

I too am confused as to how her I-frames work. In the usual mayhem on the screen, I only notice that SOME attacks don't hit me when I activate her dash as with other characters, but under which conditions her basic (unrelated to tactics and potentials) invulnerability triggers and how many I-frames roughly she gets is beyond me. Ironically, she's the first character I made it to the (current) final boss with, mostly thanks to playing as if she had no I-frames whatsoever... and a massive laser from space.

The stuff listed as granting i-frames definitely seems hit or miss, which is pretty easy to observe when running Hakumen and taking damage doing things that - according to the descriptions - should be granting them for their duration. There might be some hidden cooldowns or other conditional limitations (like what direction you're facing, etc.) that aren't conveyed well in the current translation but I can't easily prove it without inordinate amounts of RNG luck.

I still did manage to figure out Hakumen: I-frames for his dash only negate trap damage by default. For enemy attacks, parry/blink are the way to go. But Kokonoe? Even despite playing more runs with her, I'm still as clueless as on the first run as to how to avoid damage. Hibiki, Mai, Ragna and Noel seem to work pretty standard for roguelites - I-frames on dash and dash-cancel work (most of the time, Mai and Noel can't dash-cancel the final hit of their basic combo). Edit: haven't unlocked Lambda just yet, so I can't talk about her.

[Smurf]

I never went past Continuum Shift, but I was a fan of Kokonoe's character. I knew she could've been a character in future entries at the time, but my attention was elsewhere in video games when the sequels came out. So I don't know what she's supposed to play like, but only have an idea of what the moves she does look like.

So to the devs, as a person who has played half of the fighting games and not the two entries Kokonoe appears in, I actually like playing as her. Granted, I see tons of feedback from people who were expecting a lot more from the game as a whole, I have been the opposite since I put the game on my wishlist. Due to the genre, my expectations have been to not expect it to be anything like the game's featured IP, even for gameplay. I get where the frustration comes from though, given what the game looks like.

For constructive criticism from me, the thing about the heavy attack is something I wondered about, too. Since she doesn't seem to have one, I do agree maybe her auto combo could be altered a bit to make the missile at the end potentially be the heavy attack. Just a thought anyway. Additionally I agree with the first response to this thread about the scooter. That part about her is one of the most enjoyable things.

[Sim]

Kokonoe definitely is funky at the start, but once she gets her potentials going she is pretty crazy. I made a detonation build, basically try to focus on component potentials and get the detonation move. The teleport dodge is also very good because it drops a component when she enters and leaves the teleport. The potential that allows for timed detonation is also great because it will also leave a fire field when it blows up. Get any tactics that leave something on dodge, some are really great. She also has a potential that releases bombs when she dodges. Then you just go ham, teleport X3 and sometimes do air attack to leave components behind and detonate.

Here is my Kokonoe at the end of an advanced training. It actually has room to be stronger, I didn't even get her SP skill to rain missiles down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vNHgbqXfNQ

[OPPAI-INARI]

Well, I appreciate you going to the effort to give build guidance—really, I do—but I just had a certain expectation of her gameplay and it was utterly, completely not met. Unless there are potentials that actually change her basic attacks I don't think I would be satisfied by any particular build, haha.

Originally posted by Smurf:

Additionally I agree with the first response to this thread about the scooter. That part about her is one of the most enjoyable things.

I also love the scooter! Although as I mentioned it's annoyingly hard to get out of/off of the scooter once you start using it, lol.

[Sim]

There is a potential that improves her basic attack and heavy attack. They definitely are not her normals from BB but they make her current moveset much stronger, I can see potential builds for it. I tried a run with the potential that changes the heavy from a water gun to an icicle spray that ends with an ice cannon once you hold it enough, it makes it so she nukes everything horizontally. It definitely is cumbersome compared to other playstyles especially if it is against a boss that needs you to move a lot, but the damage seems to be there.

[Toxi The Vagrant]

She has a brass knuckle attack on dash attack, but it's a bit clumsy since it stops dead after the step forward into her uppercut.

Overall, she's a bit more of a utility based fighter in this one where each individual move has a unique utility, but the whole kit falls apart if you don't adhere to them.
For example, her missiles and water gun are the fastest debuff stackers in the game barring Hibiki's throwing glaives and Noel's gattling gun, the Flak sparks and unguided bombs are good AOE's that can cover the ground forward and below her and her air dash is weirdly good at making distance, provided you don't accidentally fish bounce into a trap from it.

I'd say I don't blame you for wanting to refund off of the basis of you buying the game entirely to enjoy playing as Kokonoe and it falling short due to the second edge of the Playstyle Variance spectrum, I'd probably be pretty upset if Lambda didn't feel true to the multirange fighter I enjoy too, though some of your woes could be contributed to by being early in metaprogression when she feels pretty Metaprogression reliant. (Like, without the stackable debuff tactics I never came across until I got that second tactic packet, I don't think I'd play her more than I had to)

[zetto]

i did a full broken run with kokonoe and she melted both an and susanoo but i hate the palette they went with for her so i deiberately avoid playing as her despite of how optimal she is, they did her dirty...

[Toxi The Vagrant]

Wait, aren't the colors determined by Evotype setup?

[SRY:(]

Originally posted by Toxi The Vagrant:

Wait, aren't the colors determined by Evotype setup?

you mean the character custome colors? man would be coul to have alt outfits for characters on launch

[Geist]

To me she is the character that is hurt the most by RNG on level ups. She needs her basic attack and dash mods because her base normals are so bad. But yeah she is definitely the skill spammer.

[Smurf]

I actually noticed something the other day with her that seems a bit unique...

If I'm doing her basic combo, I can jump in between each part and when I land and begin attacking again it picks back up where it left off. So at times I might delay the attacks to properly stagger or keep somewhat of a distance from enemies with larger health.

It's kinda cool. Tried it with other characters and it didn't work.

[Maelis]

Originally posted by SRY:(:

Originally posted by Toxi The Vagrant:

Wait, aren't the colors determined by Evotype setup?

you mean the character custome colors? man would be coul to have alt outfits for characters on launch

I'm sure that the pink room which you can't enter is a barber shop in which you can change your palette