Mitsurugi Network Test Impressions

Belial

King of Hundred Swords
Unfortunately, Russia wasn't as lucky to get copies or multiple events for SC6 as the rest of the world was. We had 1 event that I missed so this weekend was my first time with the game and Mitsurugi. I'm sure there are more knowledgeable players for Mitsu outhere, but a lot of people asked me to do this, so here I go.

Strengths
+ Many good lows
+ Strong wall and edge
+ Good if you can read opponent well
+ Decent range for a close-range fighter
+ Great Soul Charge
+ Decent RE in terms of damage and versatility

Weaknesses
- Weak to sidestep
- Poor dmg outside of LH and SC
- Rather short range compared to previous parts
- Doesn’t seem to have good okizeme or pressure outside of SC and/or wall
- Almost no advantage on hit
- Poor punishment on block and wiff, lh aside

Thing that struck me the most was lack of dmg. LH did about same dmg as other chars regular combo, while combos did less than, say, Ivy’s 6A on normal hit. I think thats the main reason people think he is weak

Second reason - his range. Against characters with superior range I felt rather helpless - playing neutral felt useless when you can barely punish things on wiff. I considered going at mid-range and poke em, but found out that hitting anyone out of step was a trial for the most worthy, i deemed not to be. Even horizontals like 1A and 4A wiffed quite a lot against steppers and when you consider Risk/Reward of throwing such moves out against likes of Nightmare or Sieg the idea of neutral game becomes pretty obsolete in those MU. Basically any poke from those chars deal more damage than my wiffpunish, even if successful.

Whenever I was at far range and not 8wring I had nothing to whiff punish at all unless my opponent was completely unaware of his range. A lot of heavier characters moves do not move them forward while having a lot of range, thus even perfectly spaced I only had 66BB at tipest of ranges, if at all. Apparently Mitsu just isn't the char you can step back against “zoners” anymore.

Third reason is sidestep. Peculiar thing is, mirror matches was the only MU my 66B had a chance at hitting in neutral which lead me to conclude Mitsu movement is rather sub-par. Other chars basically “teleported” right under 66B even on meaty wakeups. Still even mirror matches showed glaring weakness to step, not just between roster but also between past games.

I haven't found any tracking mid besides 22B that wasn’t totally horizontal and I mean zero tracking. Even 3A that used to be his primary way of dealing with step upclose is now very steppable. What I ended up with was 1KB spam that luckily isn't as easy to punish on hit. Also it seems totally unsteppable this time around, what a relief lol. At range I found 66AA very useful.

At this point I must note advantage on hit issue. Turns out most hits are neutral or very small adv on hit. People that mashed 2A after being hit by that very 66AA and other moves interrupted all my attempts at “mixup”. Considering how very powerful defence like RE and GI is in this game and I find it hard to build any sort of attack flow. Is it possible that idea behind this was to use pokes against slower “zoners” like NM but play “brawlers” at mid screen? I'm not sure, but it felt weird. And I didnt notice other chars having this issue.

Finally I must note that I didn't find any good ways of punishing unsafes. If you match Mitsu ability to, say, punish wiffed throw with that of other chars it looks pretty sad. Best I came up with were 4KB and 6A+B but those are hard to land. More realistic ws AA, 236B and 236A:A did not provide enough damage nor setups. Ws B gives some great Oki but damage itself is very poor. On block his CE looks very fast and could punish things even AA could not.

Onto the good side
1A , 22A , b6, ws B2B - his lethal hits. Of course all Lethal Hits are powerful on all chars, but Mitsu LH conditions assume you use it on a hard read. Thus said using them up close seem natural but his SC is so good I wanted to RE more (consider RE also covers more stuff). 22A is great to punish strings and RE attempts, which was really helpful in this beta, where everyone seemed keen on using RE. The worst part about 1A and 22A to me was that if it hit during enemy combo LH does not occur, so its use is really limited. b6 was second in usefulness once I got grasp on the range. I wish I had more tools to make opponents want to backdash and not step vs Mitsu though. 1A I mostly used vs Maxi b/c they love to through 66A and 6A in neutral.

Speaking of neural - I loved stances the most here (you bet, haha). Despite huge nerfs they still have all the answers, especially step control via MST K,B and RLC A. MST still goes under 2A’s, still has strong punishers after evading something and across his two stances seem to have enough tools to explode enemy mind. aGI from RLC is nerfed by a lot compared to early footage - GI window is much, much smaller, but its still a threat and one of the few damaging Mitsu moves.

I really loved 1B,A+B (new low into guard crush RLC transition) near the edge or wall - this is where RLC pressure gets ugly. Any option grants you wallcombo or RO. I wish RLC UB wasn't steppable :\ its horizontal, come on Namco! Still very potent stuff. This along with his SC makes wall a scary place to be vs Mitsu

I felt his RE is very interesting. RE K deals very little damage on first round and leads to Mixup between his SC4 2KB and 66BB (both seem punishable on guard). 2nd round RE K grants lethal hit where both enders are guaranteed. RE K KB was super useful during the Beta as ppl were totally not ready for it. Other options were RE B that comboed into Super for aprox 30% lifebar and RE A that could RO really far away and I also found it can be cancelled into RLC after 2nd strike, so possibly something good on block and setups on hit.

Last but not least his SC makes up for all he’s lacking. Strong mixup, strong wiffpunishers (kB, 22BB), strong block punishment (236A:AB & 236B) strong step control (bA). I will likely find a lot of sick stuff once the game is out but even basic SC was good enough to win most games.

In general I found SC6 by far the best FG experience I ever had and I mean it. Had a lot of fun this weekend, now I have to endure another month before I can experience this feeling once again. Until then and thank you for reading.

PS: If you're looking for my games those will be uploaded shortly here https://www.youtube.com/user/BelialRus/ and here https://www.youtube.com/user/LuxiumChannel2
 
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Great review. I have globally the same feeling. I'm just afraid of stance risk reward on patient opponent.
 
Thanks for the write up, Belial. I had a lot of the same thoughts you listed, so its nice to have someone put pen to paper on Mitsurugi's current stance in the game right now.
 
I was analysing the footage you provided, and it gave the sense that with this incarnation of Mitsu, you're forced to play
extremely aggressive up close and incur loads of damage in order to build meter for SC. (My risk reward gripe.)

What left me so frustrated was the lack of scary 50/50s and overall punishment options outside of SC.
On paper, it really doesn't look too promising right?

I guess I have to be a bit more positive about it.
 
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Missing old ws k and ws b; makes it harder to attack after 2a hit. Minor annoyance that they swap 1k and 2k inputs around. b6 and 3a changes are a huge nerf from previous games. Losing 4b, 11a, and 6b2 is disappointing. Most knockdowns/combos seem to push opponent far across the stage. 66a+b~g forcing you into RLC feels bad. RLC b lost it's side step. 1b,b feels super negative on hit.

Having access to both A throws without being in stance is nice. Seems to rely an awful lot on RLC gimmicks; RLC k is nice. Soul charge is very strong. Happy he has just frames again.

But early impressions are often wrong, gonna wait for some training mode time.
 
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I don’t think that the beta was the finished product. There were many moves missing. I hope I’m right. We will get the full move list in the final game. If this is the move set we have for Rugi, he will be a very weak character. It too way too mich work to win in a game where people can just spam 2 moves to beat you
 
He definitely feels lacking in comparison to other characters, but has strong options available. I kind of wish he had more tools and also what's hurting me the most, being unable to buffer 8WR moves is the worst.
 
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