MBAACC 1.05 and 1.07

The last time I wrote about Melty here, it was in the early months of 1.05’s release.  Now 1.07 is out and the game is looking better and better.

1.05 was very short lived, and the response to it was very mixed.  There were just as many people who loved the changes as those who thought they were terrible.  The game was drastically different to the point where many people felt it didn’t play like Melty anymore.  There was still one thing that everyone agreed on though, and that was the game needed more time for playtesting before release.  Specifically things like C-Kohaku’s 5c giving easy OTG relaunches and Powerd Ciel in general made it really obvious that the game wasn’t thorougly tested.  The new OTG relaunch mechanic, which I felt gave the game some extra spice, was also kind of a mixed bag.  The main problem was that some characters could abuse it to no end(C-Kohaku), while others literally gained nothing from it(Wara).

Surprisingly 1.05 ended up being a very balanced game.  The top tier was very silly, but 1.05 gave a lot of improvements to characters who have been traditionally terrible in the series.  C-Roa, C-Seifuku Akiha, and C and H-Arc were some characters who were completely garbage in the previous 2-3 revisions of Melty, and this version was able to give them some nice tools from both system changes and character specific changes to make them competitive.

The game didn’t last long enough for there to be a tier list made by surveying top players, but there was one that the entire Japanese BBS basically agreed upon.  It was:
S Kohaku PCiel HisuKoha Ryougi
A+ Shiki Arc Nanaya Warc Satsuki Miyako Len Aoko
A Everybody else
A- VSion Mech-Hisui

Top Nero player SAT also made his own list, which is almost exactly the same:
A+ Kohaku HisuKoha Ryougi PCiel
A Everyobdy else
A- (Nero) Mech-Hisui VSion

And top Miyako player Kanna made his own list as well:
A+ Leo’s Ryougi, PCiel
A Everybody else
A- VSion
Leo best character in the game!

1.07 is out right now, and it’s brought a few new things to the table.  First off is a new character in the form of Archetype Earth, who was previously a broken boss in the PS2 version of AA.  She’s probably the most unique character in the game, having an omnidimensional flight mechanic that drains meter.  OTG relaunches are still in the game, but they seem to have been toned down considerably.  The damage in general seems to have been lowered a bit, compared to 1.05.

Archetype Earth, or Hime as the Japanese are calling her, is a really interesting character.  I originally thought that her flight mode was balanced by it 1)draining meter and 2)disabling her ability to block.  But from all the footage that’s been released, it does seem like she can block during flight.  Maybe the vulnerability only lasts for a few frames in the beginning of her flight?  I’ll have to actually play her to figure this out.

Hime seems pretty strong right now, as her flight gives her unparalleled movement options relative to the cast.  Her normals and specials also have a ton of range and are easily hit confirmable into combos.  Her damage seems to be on the low side, but I suspect this is because it’s an early stage of the game where people haven’t yet ironed out optimal combos.  Her defense modifier seems pretty terrible: if I had to estimate she looks like she’s between Warc and Wara.

If the main theme of 1.05 was buffing characters who were traditionally bad, I would say the theme of 1.07 is charged moves.  Almost every single character in the game has gained new charged moves, which is a pretty funny way to add new moves into the game without drawing any new animations.  It’s hard to say how much these new moves add to the game from the footage we have, but some characters like C-Wara and C-Akiha get some nice new combos.

The overall reception to 1.07 right now has been overwhelmingly positive.  Some people on the BBS think it’s the best version by far.  I’m really happy with the direction Melty has been going since 1.05, so I’m pretty hype for 1.07’s PC release.  Archetype Earth is a really cool character too, and as the sole character in the game with any kind of cleavage, I am obligated to play her!

Changing Seasons

I haven’t really mentioned this in my blog, but I spent the past 2 years at Mt. San Antonio College taking random classes there.  My original plan after graduating was to go to Pharmacy school, and there were still some prerequisite classes that Pharm required so I ended up going to Mt. SAC community college to take care of that.  Mt SAC is like 10 mins from my house so this was pretty convenient.  One of the classes that I had to take was Anatomy, but I had the worst luck with registration dates so I had to wait a whole year before I finally got a good reg date to add in.  During that year I was basically taking useless classes with the expectations that having some units under my belt would help me get a better registration date, but this was clearly not the case!

Anyway, I eventually got into Anatomy, but during that wasted year I was starting to consider other paths too like continuing Chemistry into a Masters program or just getting a Chemistry related job.  I applied to a lot of places and even enlisted the help of a headhunter but it was impossible to get anything without experience.  So the other thing I was thinking about was that my Chemistry knowledge was starting to fade at this time, so one option would be to keep it sharp through tutoring.  I knew Mt. SAC had a Learning Assistance program so I applied to be a Chemistry tutor, and they actually accepted me!  Except, that there was apparently no demand for Chemistry tutors so they made me a Math tutor instead.

So I then spent the next year taking more random classes + Anatomy, while working part time as a Math tutor.  It was a good experience and I met a lot of cool people.  And in the end, it was a good choice for me to consider other career options, because after taking Anatomy I knew I would not like the Pharmacy program.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t do bad: I actually got one of the highest scores in the class.  I just disliked the class, and I was like man…  if I go into Pharmacy, it’s just gonna be more and more of this same kind of stuff.

The main thing I disliked about Anatomy was the sheer amount of memorization.  That’s not to say that you can do good just by memorizing.  It’s just that, at the core of every subject and discipline is problem solving.  In math(undergraduate, at least) you can learn the basic background and some formulas for a mathematical concept, and in almost no time at all you can start applying those formulas to solve problems.  In anatomy, you have to memorize a million vocabulary words, functions, and locations before you can even begin to apply that knowledge.  Maybe if I was a bit younger, back when my mind was sharp, I could handle this but this is not something that I can stomach anymore.

We’re almost in present time now!  During my time at Mt SAC when I was tutoring, I decided to continue my studies in Chemistry and go for a Masters degree.  I got accepted into both schools I applied to, and chose Cal Poly Pomona since it’s the closest one.  Saving money is good.

In the acceptance letter, the Dean of the Chemistry department also said that there was a demand for new Chemistry teacher assistants.  I had been tutoring math for a year by now, and this looked like a good opportunity to brush up on my General Chemistry skills while doing my Masters program, so I applied.  That ended up being an extremely painful process in itself and it’s a long story, so the gist of it is that the department was actually going through a bit of drama the past few years and was also in the process of moving.  So it was hard to get in contact with people and get consistent answers.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that I got accepted!  Initially I expected that the TA job would be pretty simple: I would grade papers, transport materials for the professor of the course, and hold a discussion section as a supplement to the main lecture.  But it turned out to be much more than I expected.  CSU Pomona doesn’t even have discussion sections, for one.  The classes that they made me TA were two Freshman Chemistry lab courses.  At UCLA, the lab courses have a lecture that is handled by the professor, and actual labs that are supervised by the TAs.  Well at Cal Poly the lab only meets once a week, so the lectures and the labs are handled by TAs.  So in essence, I’m more of a lab instructor than a TA at this point.  This also means that I have to hold office hours and check my school e-mail often for any questions asked by students.  I really wanted to have both my math tutoring job at Mt SAC and Chemistry TA position at CSU Pomona at the same time, but you can see that the TA position had a lot more responsibilities than I expected.  So I had to quit my tutoring job, and this made me sad because I really liked the people I worked with.

So as you can tell, my life has been going through some major changes recently.  I’m still trying to adjust to this new lifestyle of being a Masters student and a Chemistry lab instructor at the same time.  It’s been going very well so far but I can get very tired during the week, which makes me appreciate weekends a lot more now.

I think the best thing that I’ve taken from both my math tutoring job and this new TA position is that it’s made me a much better student.  I remember from math tutoring when I would get students who were clearly not going to class and just going to tutoring for homework help.  Initially I was really annoyed at them, and then I realized, “That was me when I was in undergrad.”  So being able to experience education on the other side has really helped me out.

One last random thing I wanted to mention is that Wednesday Night Fights has moved to Super Arcade, which is right across from Mt. SAC.  They have Skullgirls there on a somewhat frequent basis, and I’ve really wanted to go but my Wednesdays this quarter are super busy to the point where I’m too tired to do anything after school that day.  This makes me sad, but I’ll find some way to play Skullgirls!