In defense of Reversal Edge

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Recently Crow Spaceboy, a writer for SRK, has released an article discussing his impressions of Soul Calibur 6 based on the demo build that was available at Texas Showdown from May 4-6. As someone who was present at both Final Round and Texas Showdown to play the demo, I have some grievances with his article, specifically his discussion of the mechanic Reversal Edge. While everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, I think it is dishonest and a disservice to readers to dismiss a mechanic as a "dismal failure" while clearly not understanding how the mechanic functions and how it affects the game and while stating "I did not once use this mechanic intentionally." In the interest of providing factual information about Soul Calibur VI I will discuss Reveral Edge vs Guard Impact.

The main point used for why RE is bad was that it serves the same function as Guard Impact while carrying more risk. For those of you that do not know Guard Impact serves as a tool to break up attacks, working against Highs, Lows, Mids, Grabs, and Critical Edge in SC6, Reversal Edge absorbs hits from your opponent and then launches into an RPS like mini-game if it hits. The options available in Reversal Edge are A, B, K, G, Gi, sidestep, backstep, and forward step. It may seem at a glance that RE is much riskier than GI because it requires two reads to get a payout out of significant damage while you can lose for starting RE, but it is important to note that Reversal Edge is clearly in favor of the player who initiates the exchange. On the first round of Reversal Edge if both players attack you have a 1 in 3 chance of losing, 1 in 3 chance of winning, and a 2 in 3 chance of winning vs evasive options. In the second round of Reversal edge, it carries the same odds except you have a 2 in 3 chance of winning on both for attacking with lethal hit damage. Also worth mentioning you can kill with the hit of Reversal edge before the rock paper scissors exchange, and you gain roughly a third of a bar of meter for initiating.

Now with Guard Impact, you are making a 50/50 decision after the impact on whether your opponent will reGI or block, so you could also argue that you could lose for starting a Guard Impact exchange which is statistically less in your favor. You also take Guard Guage damage for whiffing a Guard Impact and Break Attacks specifically give a Lethal Hit against Guard Impacts to discourage players from using Guard Impact. Reversal Edge does have a long whiff animation that can be sidestepped, but you are not going to sidestep Reversal Edge when someone uses it in the middle of a string you could also say that Guard Impact also carries the risk of being punishable if whiffed. Reversal Edge serves as an excellent utility in string defense and stopping from your opponent. Looking at the exhibition from Texas Showdown you can see BxA Party Wolf the best Xiba in America during Soul Calibur 5 (probably the world too) and Link RkC the Soul Calibur 3 legend using Reversal Edge to great effect. I do not want this to be taken as an attack on Crow; I want to address what I believe to inaccuracies in his article regarding Reversal Edge.

edit: this is all based on how reversal edge functions on the demo that was available at Texas Showdown which is subject to change
Original Article Here: http://shoryuken.com/2018/05/07/han...r-vi-at-texas-showdown-2018-part-1-mechanics/
 
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If you don't care about strategy and get scared that someone read you with a defensive move, then maybe fighting games aren't what you find enjoyable. Stuff like this has been in every SoulCalibur game. It's a fun mechanic too, so while it may be "unnecessary", I am going to have to disagree with you 100% that it shouldn't be in the game.

Thats not what I meant at all. I obviously love strategy, i love fighting games.

My point was that RE seems pretty unnecessary which you actually agreed with me about...
 
Thats not what I meant at all. I obviously love strategy, i love fighting games.

My point was that RE seems pretty unnecessary which you actually agreed with me about...
It’s easy to agree with because a lot of things are unnecessary. You only need one attack in a moveset. The rest are unnecessary. It’s a useless term in a fighting game. In fact, that philosophy is what makes products like SoulCalibur V, Street Fighter V, MVCI, etc.
 
Had a long post written but decided to scrap it. Long story short, I had a very limited time with sc6 this weekend. Crow was pretty condescending to me wanting to play a 4th game after I sat and watched him and bibs play a set for 30+minutes.

See you in sc6, or more than likely not.

Waaah? Aww man, all I did was tell you to speak up if you wanted games. I felt bad that you waited so long -- I can't know that you're there if you don't say anything man! lol

I didn't mean anything else by it. You just gotta speak up. Everyone had been doing first to three since before I got there.

I'm sorry that I made a bad feeling, you know I like ya. Next time you're in town, I'll buy you a burger. :(
 
I'm not a high level player so my opinion amounts to nothing but I'll just leave this here as food for thought anyway.

Guessing games have been a vital part of fighting games. This mechanic just means that every character has a chance at initiating and winning one, as opposed to some other games where top tiers just shit on low tier characters. On paper this mechanic is great.
 
RE still seems kind of purposeless imo. I like that they are trying to do something new other than just adding traditional supers. I just don't see a scenario where I would want to initiate a RE when I could just use a safe poke or something evasive. It seems like when I would use a RE I'm giving the opponent a chance (even if it is 1/3) where as putting out something safe seems to just be a better option. If the goal is to use it to bait out a GI, or break up string pressure, there are already tons of other safer ways to do that. I think with the way RE is currently it should be at least give the initiator more options than the rock paper scissors set up. So I generally disagree with your post and I'm still concerned about the actual usefulness of RE. I walked away from his article more excited for sc6 than before. As an old vet it seemed more cautiously optimistic than completely negative and misleading as some of you guys believe. Personally I'm much more interested in what someone with that much experience enjoyed about the game than hanging up on the small things they didn't. RE still hasn't been proven in my book and that's completely ok. We should have some level of scrutiny for new mechanics being added to our franchise, and we should be cautious to praise things that have yet to be proven in actual meta.
EDIT: not to mention with the way GI has been buffed so hard i see even less reason to use a RE against strings and pressure. I'd rather land a GI and have the opponent right where i want them. It would give me way more tools at my disposal than just the options from RE. Plus it wouldnt give my opponent more meter like RE does. In the end I hope RE is useful as it was probably a lot of money and dev time to make all those pretty mid game cutscenes.
RE definitely has a purpose. Here's an example of when I played Link rkc where he got a guaranteed kill while also avoiding the insane pressure that NM's SC 6BBB gives. Link is a well respected tournament veteran and he was the one I saw using RE the most that weekend. By the end I started using RE myself and it helped my overall play. Skip to 3:40

 
Waaah? Aww man, all I did was tell you to speak up if you wanted games. I felt bad that you waited so long -- I can't know that you're there if you don't say anything man! lol

I didn't mean anything else by it. You just gotta speak up. Everyone had been doing first to three since before I got there.

I'm sorry that I made a bad feeling, you know I like ya. Next time you're in town, I'll buy you a burger. :(
What happens if someone speaks up about an ignorant article full of negativity and misinformation? To be honest man, I've never had an interest in starting crap with you (even now, as I start crap), but when you claim to represent a community that has no idea who you are and use that claim to spread negativity and ignorance, then you just call me a troll for calling you out, I can't *not* throw shade man. I think that burger is a LIE!

I'm sure you're a perfectly reasonable guy - so am I - but at this point you're not willing to reasonably acknowledge that you aren't a learned competitive player in SoulCalibur. You just aren't and you absolutely disregarded the people who are (and mislead the people who aren't) by doing that crap. Hit me up in a PM sometime or on Discord (you can find me in the 8wr Discord easy enough) and maybe we can have a good, wholesome talk where I can explain to you the issue and you can explain to me whatever you feel makes that issue null. Hit me with some elucidation and maybe you'll be surprised how objective I can be. Maybe we can even be friends and I was totally off base!

But honestly, what kAb said; see you in sc6, but more than likely not. Maybe you'll surprise me, though.
 
You should have seen what I did to DoA. I DIDN'T PLAY IT. Pretty devastating if I do say so myself.
That's the responsible thing to do. Speaking up is risky. It can cause one to get muted on Twitter for disagreeing with a blowhard for example.

Ever since SC3, there's been this demented undercurrent where people think saying something causes the community to fracture. Then you get people thinking they're saving things by quashing all criticism and then you have people who think disagreement with the criticism is death to the community.

Those kinds of false binaries actually alienate more people than they retain.

Fact is if the game's good it will sustain itself. If it has more flaws than not, that's why it'll suffer. Not because someone complained about them.
 
Hey bud why not respond to my example of RE netting a guaranteed kill instead of riding some guy who admitted to not using RE.
lol k, in your footage, he could have just stepped nightmare's attack and punished. I also saw lots of footage of RE eating strings yet the opponent was still able to recover and sidestep the slow ass startup of RE. there you go.
 
lol k, in your footage, he could have just stepped nightmare's attack and punished. I also saw lots of footage of RE eating strings yet the opponent was still able to recover and sidestep the slow ass startup of RE. there you go.
I dont think you know how fighting games work at a hight level. The point of RE is that it covers multiple options. Its called a multitasker like Gi. If i had done 2A instead and the sophie stepped he wouldve gotten hit meanwhile RE covers both options. NM's 2A wont recover fast enough for a step forcing him to block or get hit. Why are you speaking on something as if its truth when you have no experience with it?
 
Also please dont mention Gi in that situation because the sophie player wouldve had to have guessed again to to get a kill there meanwhile RE guarantees damage on your first guess. Im the NM player in that vid btw.
 
lol what you talkin about man? All I said was what I saw in some other footage as well. If RE is so good why not just spam it all the time then? why even put out pokes when RE covers more options? So because I think RE is kinda dumb that means I don't understand fighting games at a high level?
 
You saying why not spam RE is exactly why i think you dont understand fighting games at a high level. Gi is good, you dont just do Gi all day because anyone with a brain will punish you. No one here is saying RE is the best mechanic in SC ever. We're defending it as a useful mechanic with a purpose.
 
You saying why not spam RE is exactly why i think you dont understand fighting games at a high level. Gi is good, you dont just do Gi all day because anyone with a brain will punish you. No one here is saying RE is the best mechanic in SC ever. We're defending it as a useful mechanic with a purpose.
I just don't see its purpose. why risk getting punished with a full combo by throwing out a RE when you could do other much safer things? It seems too risky because of how slow it is, I'm sure playing the demo people were throwing them out all over and people haven't yet learned to recognize that slow ass startup. The way I see the meta evolving would be to not throw out pokes like you did with NM because RE would just beat it. If you threw out faster safer pokes and stepped more I think RE would be very easy to avoid. RE just looks like a shittier focus attack. How many hits or damage can a RE absorb?
 
The reason you risk using RE over stuff like GI is that you get guaranteed damage. The risk isn't any bigger then Gi in most cases. You get launched and comboed for a whiffed Gi as well, only difference is that its a smaller window to punish. We dont know how the meta will evolve. If people resort to nothing but safe pokes and statue blocking that opens the door for grabs. Stepping all day is what horizontals are for. Any number of scenarios can happen involving RE usage in the meta or not down the line but right now RE is looking pretty useful.
 

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