Missed you!
I never could get into the Killer Instinct games. I don't even know much about the characters, so pick one out you think I'd like. :)
Maybe a BaD Day to Say Hello and Fight a Day 1
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 On 02/01/2016 at 06:28 PM by Vice's Assistant See More From This User » |
Hello.
Its been about a year since I've been on PixlBit and things have changed a lot. I left due to family health problems. The family member is doing OK right now. For myself I've changed jobs from a crappy 3rd Shift Stocker to a semi-crappy (at least pay wise) Call Center job, now looking for a "big people" job (so far things I haven't worked out yet). I haven't done much writting last year but I have done alot on my tumblr and YouTube Channel. I'm sorry I haven't been here. Hopefully, by doing BaD, I can pick up where I left off. With that, lets get to the BaD. Thank you everyone who left well wishes on my last blog here and good luck to everyone in BaD this year.
Fight a Day: Still A Live With Killer Instinct
Fight A Day: All Blogs about Fighting Games, M-F, All Through February, That's Pretty Self-Explanatory, Right?
Killer Instinct (2013) is a game for in all intensive purposes should be dead. It was announced an really awkward way, at the really awkward premier of the Xbox One, not to mention it was a Rare IP, a company that Microsoft already treated awkwardly before hand, but was outsourced to Double Helix games (Silent Hill Downpour) with Rare overseeing bits and pieces of it. When the game finally launched, it was a skeleton of a game primarily devoid of much of its features at the start, and right as things started to look up for the game, the company was outright bought by Amazon to be apart of its new game development wing (which if you are just remembering that was/is a thing shows how well that when), leaving Microsoft to give the game to Iron Galaxy Studios, known more for their ports of Capcom games, Divekick, broken promises of Windjammers HD, and the thing known as Dave Lang. Game development though? Not so much.
When you look at it this way Killer Instinct should have gone down with other fighting games like Samurai Shodown Sen and whatever you want to call Shaq-Fu 2, as another classic example of a failed classic fighting game reboot.
Yet this past weekend was the Killer Instinct World Cup with $25,000 up for grabs and more information on Killer Instinct Season 3 which is coming out in March.
How did KI make such a great comeback? Simple, the game is damn good.
I had a chance to play a little bit of the current Season 2 build of KI at a convention I when to a Anime Convention in Ohio a few weeks ago and I can see why Microsoft invests so heavily into game. KI is just fun to play. I played around with Saberwolf, who was the only character available in the build they had at the Xbone (It was the F2P version but it was patched to the latest version of the game) which really game me a good feel of the game. The best way to describe KI is to think of it like Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3. What I mean its features the expressive characters and animation like Darkstalkers but also the game play refinements. The third KI now has a meter which allows for more powerful versions of special moves like Darkstalkers' ES moves known as Shadows. On top of that, the the game features a mode similar to Vampire Savior's Dark Force mode, Instinct Mode. Instict mode allows for character only abilities for short time. Only KI is far more combo heavy which is the most beautiful part of the game. I know very little about KI's combat engine but even after button mashing for a few rounds, things quickly started to make sense, even combo breakers. There's something so satisfying about popping off a combo breaker, both in audio and visual splendor.
Alot of the praise of Killer Instinct has to go to both Double Helix and Iron Galaxy who not only kept KI's identity intact but improved the series. KI feels much more like a modern fighting game but usually doesn't get the spotlight deserves. Ironic thing too when you consider Capcom is clearly using inspiration from KI for Street Fighter V's gameplay, unlocks, season pass, and even story mode. Hopefully KI's player base will expand more as the game plans to come to Windows 10 OS PCs later this year, including myself if can get a powerful PC to run the game. Till then I guess I'll just have to watch streams to get that good old combo breaker feel.
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