UPDATE: Vanessa's stance switching move is called "Switch shoulder" and her Prone upkick stance is called Intercept stance. Sadly, Vanessa also lost her Gliding Toe, Gliding Middle Hold G, UBK, and her Gliding Slicer , and Gliding Back Knuckle Hold G, UF P. If I knew how much they were going to butcher Vanessa's movelist , I don't think I would have been as excited for Final Showdown. Honestly, they seriously fucked up my favorite character, all for the sake of making the game n00b friendly. Shou (japanese star VF player) Said some in Japan say FS in final showdown stands for "FUCK SEGA" , I'm starting to see where he was coming from. Lets try to stay positive. I will just say that the new features of Final Showdown (new stages new moves better music new characters playable Dural who is a beast with a killer moveset, by the way ) outweigh my ire over the omissions and missteps.
The positive things I can tell you is Her lancer Tackle ground and pound is improved. So people could do
multiple escape inputs in Vanilla, and it was annoying now you have three choices, B P+G, P+G,or F P+G while in takedown state and they only have a 1 in 3 chance of escaping
Vanessa has no low throws in Offensive stance, that sucks , but she has 3 low throws in Defensive stance now. Her leg bomber is now gone from defensive stance, so if you want to bounce somebody during a combo, you have to use Grand Spike 2 P+K instead. I don't know what her mid sabaki is anymore,because she lost her FP+K ,p sabaki. They are really trying to piss off Vanessa players,aren't they? She lost her P+K attack from Intruder step,but intruder step only works against n00bs anyway. She is highly exposed and vulnerable during intruder step, and most seasoned players exploit that.
During Intercept stance, she has a hit throw, it is 2 K,P+G. The timing is extremely strict. At least I have some challenge to work on.
UPDATE: While it is true that Vanessa lost her
CANNED combos that stance switch, she has
new moves that each do
25 Points of damage that allow her to stance switch (they are
F P+K+G in defensive style,
F P+K+G in offensive style,and
UF K+G in either style switches to the prone "up kick stance". (Vanessa has a cool taunt done by pressing the P button while in prone stance).. SO much of my anger is averted and dissuaded . Vanessa can still switch stances aggressively, that's what I'M most concerned about. I don't like canned combos anyway, I prefer Jet Kune Do free thinking and creating your own combos. The new F P+K+G stance switch attacks allow you to do just that. My bad SEGA, I spoke too soon. I never should have doubted you. So the only things that suck about Vanessa's changes are robbing her of her B P+K and DB P+K reversals, and her lack of manual punches in
Lancer Tackle take-down stance. You can still do her Kimora/figure 4 arm lock from that stance. Her ground and pound is now a THROW, not a manual punch. I used to like the mini-game of mixing up your body punches and face punches so your opponent doesn't know what to defend against.
This is the character I'm most pissed about in Final Showdown. compared to VF5 Vanilla , she has been gimped dramatically. She lost all her Manual Reversals, B P+K,and DB P+K. She has to rely on her hand hold reversals, and sabakis. It limits her OPTIONS and VF is always supposed to be about options. Worse than that, she has LOST all 12 of her stance switching combos. You know all those combos that either ended with the switch back blow or the Switch Knee lift. Those combos I fucking loved that let you change stances aggressively without giving up your offensives momentum. All this was done so n00bs could see which stance Vanessa is at all times. Apparently Vanessa switching stances at the end of a combo confuses them. You have switch bodycheck now, F+P+G+K, and it does 25 points of damage and switches you to your next stance. That's not so bad.
This is mostly bullshit because Pai, Lau Shun Di , Aoi,, Lion and Lei Fei ALL have combos that end in them switching to a different fucking stance, so why not Vanessa? It's bullshit. As a consolation Vanessa gets a prone stance that everybody will sidestep and stomp her in day one, guaranteed.
UPDATE:(I got kicked several times doing this stance At PAX East,but I did get a few up kicks in first. The taunt is cool.) Looking at the Masters guide, Vanessa has a PARRY she can do while in her prone stance . If you parry your opponents down attack on time, you can gain the advantage. Not bad.
Fuck n00bs they will quit this game in two months when Skull Girls Hyper edition comes out. Sega will realize they made a mistake and reverse all this kiddie friendly shit when VF 6 comes out. I hope. /Endrant.
There you have it.
