ASB League Groups E and F Full Fights

I didn’t pick up on it before, like most of the time with these, but now I know why Hermes seems less geared towards overuse of her stand. It’s not because she’s not going hog wild with it. It’s because unlike a lot of the other stands that have ORAORA that the user fires off, KISS attacks to enhance what Hermes is doing. If she slide kicks, which you’ll see a lot, KISS will too. If she punches, it will and maybe follow up with a short combo. I actually think that works and looks better in general.

I’m a little busy today, so I can’t come in with my full “pretend I know what fighting games are” analysis at the moment, but I wanted to post the video since that’s the important part.

ASB League Groups E and F Highlights Reel

And with this, the tournament is closed. All the results are in and the real tournament can begin unless there’s going to be some last minute entries. I remember hearing something about that.

Group E

Poor Joseph. If this was Part 3 you, you might stand a chance since you’d have Hermit Purple. Unfortunately, stand users are supreme unless you have enough projectiles and your machine gun is a super. And you have to fight freaking Narancia this time. Narancia was one of the characters I was concerned about because of the Part 5 game. In that, Aerosmith was ridiculous because it could stop everyone, except Ghiaccio, in their tracks by flying in a circle and firing bullets. I was worried that Narancia was going to be exactly like that, an impenetrable wall of bombs and bullets.

But it’s not all lost. This group does buck one of the trends.

No one sweeps this time! Everyone suffers at least one loss, and there’s a distinct upset. I mean, other than how upset I am that, even with no sweep, Joseph got completely shut out, or that I’m upset that I was right about Narancia being the harbinger of RC Airplane Death. It’s that Hermes manages to sneak a win against Narancia of all people, being the one blemish on his record.

To that end, Hermes is now one of my favorite picks. Not because she beat Narancia specifically, but because her fighting is geared towards more aggressive and upfront fighting. More specifically, she’s a stand user that doesn’t seem to fight mostly by doing stand shoot and inching closer to do more stand shoots. She even has a nice counter move. It’s refreshing.

JoJolion Josuke is the other exception. He has some nice combos, though he is a little overly reliant on his break dance spin. There are some times where he goes for the ORAORA, notably in his fight with Akira, but he does use some nice combinations of moves that make him look pretty good. We get to see plenty of his ultra where he steals your site, which doesn’t makes as fun use of the game mechanics as I thought, but blanking the screen after that move is used would be more annoying than anything.

Narancia and JoJolion Josuke move on to the final 16.

Group F

I didn’t get the big group shot for this one, so I went with the picture of what ends up being probably the worst fight since Johnny and Hol Horse. This is not a game for projectile users that aren’t Caeser, so most of their fight is them standing on opposite sides of the map taking potshots at each other. I do think that has to do with the AI, for what it’s worth.

The group is Cars, Kakyoin, Mista, Okuyasu, and Diavolo. It’s another grouping of stand users with one non-stand user. I expected the Group E result again since Cars isn’t Caeser, but this is the group for bucking trends even more.

Not only are there no sweeps, there are no shut outs either. Everyone manages to win at least one fight. This is because projectiles are the losers paths and everyone is able to stomp all over Mista except for Kakyoin. Like I said, they spend most of the match taking easy potshots at each other. Kakyoin was able to do ok in his other matches because he can fight at long to mid range, but he let Mista fight at long range the whole time. That’s why he was able to pull out a win and not be this group’s shut out.

Also, Cars kicks some ass without ever going Ultimate Lifeform and defying my expectations by being a finalist with no projectiles or stand. He and Diavolo are on top because they managed to fight the same way of getting in close. Only Kakyoin was able to keep Cars reasonably at bay. Okuyasu sort of fought the same way, but he wasn’t really able to pull anything off because he seemed to keep trying a charge move, like Jotaro and Star Finger, but kept getting interrupted, like Jotaro and Star Finger. He also seems a bit slower than Cars and Diavolo, and that doesn’t help.

Diavolo and Cars move on to the final 16. I’m not sure when it is they’ll be broadcasting the fights from them, but it’s 15 fights in total. We’ll also get to see the return of our top popular competitors Johnathan, DIO, and Josuke. Keep an eye on the UStream.

(Thanks to JoJo F2C for posting. You can also watch the vidoes there if you prefer it to Polsy or if the Polsy links go down.)

The Great Battle of Sound and Sound vs. Dora and Dollar. The Koichi and Akira Famitsu Special!

Yes. The full disclosure on Koichi and Akira in ASB is here. You’ll get to see all the moves, all the models, all the Okuyasu and Josuke getting their asses kicked you could hope for. And doubly cool is that mikestrider from the JoJo forums has already released a full translation of the article. I’ll cross post that to here, so if you’d like, crack open this link in a new window and read along. As usual, I won’t include all the images because this post would be gigantic if I did, but I will include the Great Heat Attacks.

Koichi Hirose and Echoes Acts 1 – 3

CV: Romi Park

Battle Style: Stand (Echoes)

Making his debut in Part IV. Awakened as a Stand User after receiving “The Arrow” from Keicho Nijimura. His Stand can evolve to Act 2 and Act 3 to match his mental growth. Act 1 can create sound effects and attach them to any surface/object, and subsequently make the sound it creates repeat itself. In Act 2, the sound effects are only created from the tail, and by touching the created sound effect with the tail the user increases its effectiveness. And finally, Act 3 has the ability to add weight to objects it hits, increasing their gravity.

Special Attack:
“The sound of cicadas goes through stone” (Transliteration; Researching the Japanese line referred me to a common spring haiku)

Attacking with ACT1’s tail, numerous sound effects appear over one another, quite literally it’s telling the opponent to “soak it up!”.

Special Attack:
“Dojuuu” *sizzle*

ACT2 throws this “sizzling” sound effect into the enemy, and when hit the opponent receives fire damage.

Throw
“Dohyuuu” *whoo~sh*

The opponent is grabbed while ACT2 releases the *whooooosh* sound effect, literally sweeping the enemy off their feet.

Counter Attack
“Dogg~on” *booo~m* (kinda)

Koichi charges the sound effect for a shockwave within himself, it releases on the enemy if they attack him.

Special Attack:
“Boyo-yo~n” *Bou~nce*

ACT2 leaves the sound effect for “bouncing” on the floor. If the opponent passes over it, they get sent flying upward.

Special Attack:
“S-H-I-T” (ACT3.)

Special Attack:
“What’s with this air pressure!?”

While in Body Mode, ACT3 comes out very quickly and sends out a shockwave to blast the opponent away. You also take some damage, but the opponent is sent further away from you.

Special Attack:
“Beat them, ACT 3!”

Special Attack:
“I can’t forgive you”

Unique Attack:
“Stop I~t!”

Taunt
(Yes, hmm..)

Heart Heat Attack:
“Echoes 3 FREEZE!!”

The damage of the move itself is low, but it weights down the opponent forcing them into a crouching positiong for a certain period of time, so their movement is limited. After the pre-determined time elapses, the opponent is released. Caution though, even though there’s ample time, the opponent has some capacity to reduce the amount of time their stuck crouching.

Great Heat Attack:
“Did I really show some growth??”

A continuous attack performed by all three ACTS. Starts off with ACT1’s sound effect attack. Then, ACT2 intensifies the previous sound attack to further the damage. Finally, it ends with a physical attack from ACT3 while saying “get heavy”, applying all damage at once.

Akira Otoshi and Red Hot Chili Pepper

CV:Showtaro Morikubo

Battle Style: Stand (Red Hot Chili Pepper)

Making his debut in Part IV, he was given Stand power from Keicho Nijimura, but Akira killed him, took the Bow and Arrow, and started making more Stand Users. His Stand, Red Hot Chili Pepper, absorbs electricity and can move any place where there is a power supply. It is a remote Stand, yet it can become quite powerful if it absorbs enough electricity.

Unique Move:
“Charge”

Akira has a special “Electric Power” gauge above his HH meter. His performance changes depending on how much the gauge is filled by. If the gauge is at 0%, it has to be recovered or else he can’t use his Stand. With this unique move, he takes out a battery to charge his electrical power. It can be used at will when needed.

Special Attack:
“Spit Fire”

Calls out his RC plane, and RHCP comes down from it to attack.

Unique Taunt:
“Light Hand Method”

A special taunt for accumulating his HH gauge.

Special Attack:
“I’m closing in on you!”

After grabbing onto the opponent, releases a torrent of electricity at the both of you.

Counter Attack:
“Aim here! Right here”

Taunts the opponent, and and if attacked RHCP blows back at them.

Special Attack:
“The power of a jet engine!”

Attacks the opponent with overwhelming power.

Special Attack:
“Upon reflection, I’m strong…”

Additional attack after “The power of a jet engine!”. Sends the opponent flying with a direct attack.

Special Attack:
“I’d like to see a knock ou~~~t!!”

Additional attack after “The power of a jet engine!” A big wind-up attack that hits from overhead.

Special Attack:
“High level Whack-A-Mole”

Throw:
“Increase the power!” (Normal Throw)

Taunt

Heart Heat Attack:
“I only need this little finger to beat you!”

An electrified RHCP closes in on the opponent from the ground, the final blow is an uppercut with his pinky.

Great Heat Attack:“I’m getting de~spera~~~te!”

A Stand Rush at impressive speed. Akira starts playing guitar, while his Stand performs a continuous rush of attacks from all directions. The opponent meets with a singular strong attack at the end. Akira finishes playing after the attack is over, and he is just in his own world with an “entranced” look on his face.
Morioh Town Stage

As previously reported, there are stage gimmicks in many stages. A “Lightning Strike” hazard can be triggered near a downed sign board. After Rohan reads in Hayato’s memory about lighning strikes, he is surprised to say the least, lightning falls after this moment. This scene is sure to make fans smile.

Lightning strikes randomly in 3 locations in the stage, and deals shock damage if you’re struck. However if RHCP is hit by lightning, Akira’s “Electric Power” gauge recovers.

I’m going to be interested to see how they work the electricity gauge recovery by being hit by lightning into strategy. The move names continue to please with “S-H-I-T” and “High Level Whack-a-Mole.” It looks like that Koichi using different Echoes for different special moves rather than having one Echoes or whatever was the right guess. He’s also set up to have some traps like you’d expect from the Echoes power set. Akira’s move where he summons stage lights from nowhere, “Light Hand Method,” is one of the best moves I’ve seen so far. If you end up playing Akira, using that battle once a match would be appreciated. Seems good to me. Looking forward to whoever’s next.

(All images from Famitsu. © Famitsu, Sheisha, CyberConnect2, LuckyLand Communications, Hirohiko Araki, and Namco-Bandai. Thanks to mikestrider for his work on the translation.)

Akira and Koichi Preview Speads 2

In the battle of “Sound vs. Sound,” we don’t need any color.

So we get a little more information on Koichi and Akira in good old black and white. The bulk of the information you can get out of it is from Koichi’s page. Akira just seems to have his guitar and lightning and lightning while he rocks out on his guitar. That’s fine and all. It’s what you should probably expect from Akira, but Koichi having all the Echoes acts is what catches my eye. We were talking about it in the main JoJo’s thread and the idea that Koichi could act as a stance based fighter was brought up. He’d have Act 3 and would have projectiles in one stance, because Act 3 retains Act 2’s version of the sound effect power, and be something like a brawler in the other stance by using Act 3’s gravity like power. With Act 1, that idea sorta goes out the window. What’ll probably happen now is what’s happening with Johnny. Koichi will have moves from all Echoes forms, and it’ll just change to use the appropriate move. I wonder what it is that Act 1 will do. I know that Koichi was able to drive a guy crazy by putting loud sounds in his ear, but I feel like the combat applications are pretty limited when compared to Acts 2 and 3. I guess we’ll see.

I don’t remember who’s going to be voicing Akira, it’s too small in the picture for me to read, but Koichi will be voiced by Romi Park. That’s fun because she was Giorno in the Part 5 PS2 game. I hope they have special dialogue because of that. It makes sense for them to have special dialogue anyway. Maybe throw a little in-joke on the pile.