Impressions!

[Knoxximus]

Man, seems like all the JPN players are out tonight....straight whoopin' that AZZ.

I got my 10 ranked matches in before I quit for the night...4 wins, 6 losses. I almost went 5-5, but that last Temjin got crafty on my Raiden in the final round. My 1st match was dope though! Dude fell for the Raiden Twin Laser at-the-start-of-the-round special BOTH TIMES! Got my perfect achievement off of him for the 2nd round too! Then...I ran into the SAMURAI.

I didn't think the Twin Stick control option was horrible...it's just awkward fumbling for the triggers and bumpers. I ended up playing with the Dreamcast padmap option, and that's what I used to play ranked. I'm currently a Private 2nd Class.

Overall, the magic is still here, and the online matches (for me anyway) have been magically lag free! I'm DEFINITELY modding my Twin Sticks ASAP!!

How are you guys getting along?

[Dreamcazman]

Oh this brings back some awesome memories.

It's so damn hard trying to pull off the moves with analogue controls on a bloody control pad! ARRRGGGHHH... I can't wait till I finish my twin sticks so I can play this game again properly.

*cools down* Besides the controls, everything is as I expected if not better. Nice, crisp HD visuals running at no less than 60fps, and the Virtuoids still got there Dreamcasts on their backs. lol, even noticed that if you want to use your custom Robo - select the VMU!

[Long Shadow]

Forgive my ignorance, but what or who is, the "SAMURAI"?

[VR-Eli]

Auuugh, I'm so out of practice! D: Twinstick on the xbox controller is a paaaaaaain!

[LordOfMeep]

I didn't find getting used to the twinsticks all that hard, though trying to do turbo'd moves can sometimes be tricky since RT and LT are analog.

Netcode is really good. I'm pretty sure that since AM2 did this port, they used the same netcode as Virtua Fighter 5, and that has some of the best netcode I've ever seen.

[Schooly D]

Loving it so far!

Got in three ranked matches -- all against Japanese players (you can check a player's Gamer Card after a match to see where they're registered). The lag is pretty bad facing Japanese, which is unfortunate because they probably make up 95% of the players out there. Won all 3 by the way.

Then got in a whole bunch of matches against somepunk here. I probably seemed shy, but I couldn't speak too much for fear of waking up my roommates. Still had a blast, though! First time in my life I've had to deal with Raiden trap lasers

Can't wait to see the rest of you out there!

Also, Aph C's RW is the best in the game. Fact.

[RVR - 42]

Loving it so far!

Got in three ranked matches -- all against Japanese players (you can check a player's Gamer Card after a match to see where they're registered). The lag is pretty bad facing Japanese, which is unfortunate because they probably make up 95% of the players out there. Won all 3 by the way.

Then got in a whole bunch of matches against somepunk here. I probably seemed shy, but I couldn't speak too much for fear of waking up my roommates. Still had a blast, though! First time in my life I've had to deal with Raiden trap lasers

Can't wait to see the rest of you out there!

Also, Aph C's RW is the best in the game. Fact.

Hahaha! I'm so jealous. I wanna play, I wanna play! Who were you using Evenpar? I'm assuming you tried out Aph. C, but I know...I know you made us Cypher users look good, right? lol

[Davo87]

I want to play it too. Im tempted to make my fd DL it and play just so I can get a taste this week. Gawd.... the service for my 360 only just started... teh rrod is just HORRIBLY timed!!!

[somepunk]

hey guys! Washington here, 6 AM, I'm still awake and loving it, I'm pretty exhausted though, I've been awake upwards of 36 hours to play this!

Me and Evanpar had some badass matches! I have a VO party going on, me and a few buddies were switching off on matches on Xboxlive with both Evan and a couple others, I've been messing with all the features, all my cancels still work great we are still playing system link, and I'm on my second redbull!, we I can officially state that APC is a beast! The controls are better than using a dreamcast pad, being able to rotate with right stick for my raiden worked wonders! I love how the replays were integrated (smartly) and I love the new color scheming as well! 10/80 also surprised me, I'm having a lot of fun with that VR!

[Schooly D]

Hahaha! I'm so jealous. I wanna play, I wanna play! Who were you using Evenpar? I'm assuming you tried out Aph. C, but I know...I know you made us Cypher users look good, right? lol

Come on, bro. You know how I do.

I used Cypher in all the ranked matches, but I was switching around during the customs against somepunk. I really like Aph C's RW. It's powerful and fires plenty of shots while dashing so your VR has time to turn and lock on a passing VR (as opposed to Temjin whose Fwd RW "Big Two" often misses)

Important note: I strongly recommend making use of the Xbox Live "Party" feature when playing with buddies. The game dumps the whole party (well, those playing VOOT at least) into an in-game lobby automatically, and lists the players on the left-hand side. All you have to do to start a match is highlight one of the names, press A to enter into a pregame screen with the guy, and press A again to ready up and play. This makes switching VRs between matches much easier since you can just hit B a couple of times, switch VRs, and hit A a couple of times and you're back in the lobby. Yes, once in multiplayer (searching for a match, etc.) you do have to back yourself through some menus to get back to the VR select screen. A little annoying at first but, with the party lobby feature, you don't mind it after a while.

[Comrade Pete]

All good so far although I've only played single player so far - wasn't finding any players for either ranked or unranked matches but it's probably just the time of day (lunchtime here...).

Messing about with the colour schemes is great though & being able to check out other players replays is pretty interesting.

[Schooly D]

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8& ... 60&t=h&z=0

Posting this here just in case we have some XBLA ballers who haven't checked in. The lag vs. people not on your continent makes it so we pretty much have to play locally.

[somepunk]

I think they did it good justice, I'm just mad there isn't a reset button in training mode! Grr...but it's a small qualm, really! Everything else, I couldn't be happier, cept I'm about to collapse from exhaustion! haha

I was also dissapointed that the prototype suits were missing, but I just checked the easter egg section, and they included those as well!!!!

Cheers all around!

[RVR - 42]

Hahahah! Nice evepar...nice. Keep it up my fellow Cypher pilot. You've got double time, because you gotta make up for me too. lol

[Frostycyke]

I really like Aph C's RW. It's powerful and fires plenty of shots while dashing so your VR has time to turn and lock on a passing VR (as opposed to Temjin whose Fwd RW "Big Two" often misses)

Truth!

I've been a Temjin player since VOOM on Saturn, but after a few games with the Commando, I don't wanna go back.

[Testament/Seven7]

First impressions: ooooh
Second: Ahhh

Sound seems better, gameplay is "definitly" faster, while expected, the actuall speed caught me off guard at first.

I tended to default to the d-pad and not the left analog stick, this got me in trouble with bratos more than once ^^;;;

Virtuaroid customization was wierd for one reason only....WHY do the VR's move? was it so hard to implement the old system where they stood still? Maybe they didn't want the old system? It's not that big a deal, but if i'm tweaking colors, I don't want the proverbial canvas to be bobbing up and down, you know?

Again, no big deal...

My main is temjin, and what a pleasant surprise, my friend got an upgrade. To be specific, the right weapon has a crazy-fast reload time. This made the fight against Tangram much easier.

I seemed to have more trouble with Bratos than tangram...isn't that supposed to be the other way around?

I was pleased with the Custom VR select, didn't expect a flight sequence with the custom colors, nice touch. ^^

Overall, i'm very happy with this so far. It'll be a couple days or so before i can go gold, which bites, but i'll join my fellow pilots in the breach soon enough.

[Knoxximus]

Forgive my ignorance, but what or who is, the "SAMURAI"?

The Japanese pilots.

[commonlogik]

Wow, where to start... well, i've been about 5 hours (1:00am to 6:00AM) playing this game and overall, I'm really impressed with the quality so far of the XBLA game.

Graphics:
Pretty much what I remember, maybe a tad sharper in color. And man, it's been awhile since I've played a game that ran at a solid 60 fps.

Sound:
A symphony of synthesized sound! Won't appeal to everyone, but certainly fits the game.

Gameplay:
The real reason why all VOOTers play this game. I don't know if it plays any faster than 5.2 or 5.4 - it's been so long but the gameplay still is fast!

Three preset configs, default is nearly identical to Dreamcast standard setup. You can also customize button command (not sure if you can bind shortcuts to unused keys. That might be pretty neat to have a button that automatically does a LT or RT attack).

My primary is Bal Bados, but tried out the three newer guys:

Apharmd C - Shotgun reminds me a lot of Apharmd VOOM and has more kick than Apharmd S pod launcher. Machete is great for Dash CC and RTCW version kinda acts like Specineffs Boomerang (LTCW.CC activation range is identical to Apharmd S though. Speed is between Apharmd B and S.

Stein Vok - I dunno, he seems kinda like a not very interesting add-on where all his beam weapons come from different other Virtuaroids; he kinda borrows beam attacks from Raiden, Cypher, and Temjin. He Magnet Ball attack is pretty interesting (CRCW).

Temjin 10/80 - I've heard Temjin 10/80 is to VOOT like Dan is to Street Fighter Alpha (comedy relief character). No air-dashing or watari dashing, but all attacks are pretty balanced (and boring, IMO). Hilarious that Temjin's old VOOM Gliding Ram is done exactly the same for Temjin 10/80.

Playing online was pretty cool, tho wasn't able to join game easily - probably cuz all the players at the hour I played were in Japan. Some of those Japanese players just handed me some humiliating losses (got hit by a Cypher Air Dashing CC - that was humbling), but came out about 50/50 in the end. The ranking system is pretty neat - you earn experience to rank up (went from Cadet to Private 2nd Class in just a handful of games). Not sure exactly how they measure experience (whether it takes into account how well you played, or if you just won). I do wish there was a way to section out game regionally, so you can play just players from the US, Japan, etc.. (maybe there is, but didn't see right away).

Lastly, it may be my rusty skills, but i had a HELL of a time trying to beat the last boss with Bal Bados - Energy Ball attack has to hit at the EXACT right time and flush on the "eye", else doesn't do crap damage. Took me about 4 tries to finally defeat end boss with Bal Bados... is it just me?

Ok enough for now... I have to go to bed =D (gamertag is commonlogik)

[Unsubliminal]

Haven't noticed much lag...and very glad to see a system link feature like the DC versions...overall pleased and its great to see my favorite game (other than street fighter) gaining back its popularity

my gamertag is Dreamcast415...I'm still rusty and I main Cypher so go easy on me

[Sixfortyfive]

I started off with a 13-win streak in ranking mode against random Japanese players. Then all of a sudden it seemed as if the really crappy ones just logged out, as I've been having a harder time since then and am about 50/50 now.

Protip: If your opponent has an Idolmaster avatar, they're probably not that good at this game.