This update to Fantasy Strike is available on Steam right now.
This month, there’s a new profile screen, facial animations for characters hit by cinematic moves, and lots of bug fixes.
[Update: facial animations during “get hit” animations have been removed as a hotfix. They caused faces to be bugged in other situations. We will fix this, then reinstate the get-hit faces next patch.]
Profile Screen
There’s now a new profile screen, accessible by clicking the icon in the upper right of the main menu. This screen shows you how much you’ve played each character, your XP, rank, and progress in 1p modes. You can see the profiles of friend by clicking on them in your friends list and choosing “view profile” from the dropdown menu. You can also see profiles of any player searching for them on the “add friend” screen. That’s helpful if you’re searching for a particular friend, and several similar-sounding results come up. Looking at their profiles can help you figure out which the person you’re really looking for.
--When you have more than level 100 in XP, you now get a bronze star under the level. Level 200+ gets two bronze stars, etc. At level 600+, rather than 6 stars, you get a single silver star, and so on.
FRIEND SCREEN
--You can now see the rank of your friends on the friends list (as in how good they are at ranked mode, not a rank of how much you like them). You can also see rank of each player in the search results on the “add friend” screen.
--When navigating through the friends list, going left to previous page had the correct behavior (selecting the player in the last column) but going right to next page didn't select the player in the first column. Both work the same way now.
--When you select a player on the friend screen, the highlight position now updates instantly, rather than 1 frame later.
GAMEPLAY
MIDORI
--Dragon’s B torpedo is no longer throw invulnerable during the startup. (Was never intended to be.)
--Dragon’s C forward-moving throw no longer causes opponents to go into a blocking pose if they are holding back. (Was never intended to.)
ARGAGARG
--Slight adjustment to vulnerable boxes during B projectile startup so his head is a little less vulnerable.
--Slight adjustment to the vulnerable boxes as his arms extend during f+A so that it better matches the animation (slightly less vulnerable, but still pretty vulnerable).
--When you pop Bubble Shield, you can no longer always easily combo a normal attack right after for a second damage. It’s possible in edge cases to do it still (which is fine), but in general you can’t get the extra damage. It was never intended that Bubble Shield always do 2 damage, so this is a bug fix.
--If your character has horizontal velocity from something, like a pushback force from a projectile, that velocity no longer gets instantly cancelled if you got into proximity block, such as when a second projectile is thrown. This is a tiny thing that has no significant gameplay effect, but it works a bit more as you’d expect now.
ONLINE PLAY
--Fixed a bug when letting the countdown run out on the score screen after a casual online match. If you were previously in the queue for both ranked and casual, letting the countdown run out used to return you just to one queue, but now correctly returns you to both. (It already worked correctly if you clicked “ready.”)
--Desync fix: When you change your input config mid-match (up to jump, throw macro, super macro), it's immediately sent to the online opponent, rather than causing a desync.
--When you open the button config during netplay as P2, we no longer accidentally overwrite the P1 side (which are your real local inputs) with the online opponent's settings. (Oops.)
--Ranked Score screen: Now, if you press back or escape during the ranked score screen, it will skip to the final state (after all stars were granted/removed). If "Ready", "Change team" or "Leave queue" buttons are pressed before animation finishes, it will skip to the last state and wait a couple seconds before leaving the screen.
MISC
--All character now have facial animation during reacts to cinematic moves, such as getting hit by yomi counters or supers. [Update: temporarily removed, will return in a later patch.]
--Removed the debug options from screen from the game, now that we’re gearing up for release.
--Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a phantom button icon called “7” to appear in the practice mode’s input display when you pressed T or G if those keys were unassigned to game functions.
--In practice mode, when you switch between pressing "left" and "right" within a single frame without spending at least 1f in the "idle" direction, the input display now correctly displays the new direction input.
--When you switch languages, the text of the main menu character’s epithet (such as “Wind Warrior” for Grave) now actually displays text for the currently selected language.
--Fixed the sky in the Fox Den’s stage so it doesn’t show a giant missing area straight above, which was visible during certain cinematic moves such as the Dragon’s C throw.
--Fixed a bug after Daily Challenge, where mouse clicking on the “Escape | Back” tooltip sent you to a buggy state. (It already worked correctly if you pressed the escape or back keys on the keyboard or gamepad.)
--In the local versus character select screen screen, fixed character voice line overlapping with itself if character was locked in, then back was pressed, then character was locked in again quickly.
--When you choose "Skip Opponent" in Arcade mode, that opponent won't be crossed-out in in the ladder screen. You have to really beat them for their name to be crossed out. (From a suggestion on our forums, thanks!)