Month: March 2017

Are Daigo Umehara’s iconic main’s best days behind him?

Twitch.Hx.CYG BST|Daigo Umehara: an FGC institution, well-known for sticking with Street Fighter V’s poster boy Ryu, despite acceptance that the shoto is not holding up great on the tier lists. Umehara’s clean, methodical play is still a joy to watch–when he isn’t being blown up by a higher-tier character, regularly raising the debate as to whether Umehara is struggling with Street Fighter V in general, or just saddled with a flawed fighter. This could prove an even more common occurance in SFV’s season two build, where Ryu’s nerfs have weakened the wandering warrior even more.

Xuses gathered up some older footage from Ryu’s season one days, for a look back at the tougher, “godlike” Ryu as played by The Beast:

Umehara has tried out other fighters since, most notably the high-tier-placing S2 Guile; caught working with Guile in casuals at Final Round 20–by fellow Ryu main XSK_Samurai of Winter Fox–it seems once again Umehara may be considering dropping Ryu in favor of a keener weapon:

See Daigo playing Guile in casuals during top 8. I go to him laughing & ask, "Guile? What is this?!"

Daigo laughs saying, "Give up." #FR20

— Miky Chea (@SamuraiWFX) March 13, 2017

We’ll have to see if The Beast actually casts aside the Hadoken for some Sonic Booms and somersaults in tournaments to come!

Sources: XusesGB; Miky Chea (Twitter)

A new mobile fighting game for players craving some metal-on-metal throwdowns.

Kabam–mobile developer for Marvel: Contest of Champions–is looking to offer a similar experience for Hasbro’s Transformers franchise with Transformers: Forged to Fight, coming to a smartphone near you this April. This mobile-based fighter will collect different versions of the classic Autobots and Decepticons–from different parts of the franchise’s long history–into a game with strategic, team-building, ‘bot-collecting, and (most notably) one-on-one PVP Transformers battles. As described by the press release:

TRANSFORMERS: Forged to Fight is a new 3D action-fighter and character collection game that gives players access to nearly every era of the franchise’s history, challenging gamers to assemble the ultimate team of Transformers characters, including Autobots and Decepticons from the animated TV series, blockbuster films, as well as fan-favorites from the Transformers comic book series and Hasbro’s line of iconic figures. As fans assemble their team, they will forge alliances, battle other players and dive into a unique storyline that goes beyond good versus evil.

Check out the action in this new trailer from PAX East, showcasing many of the characters’ signature abilities (that will be immediately recognized by longtime Transformers fans):

It’s hard not to feel like this could be a more substantial experience on a non-mobile platform, but it’s premature to judge the end product until the game is out in the wild. We’ll see how much fun–and how fan-faithful–this Cybertronian slugfest is when it launches to the App Store and Google Play on April 5, 2017.

Sources: press release; Transformers: Forged to Fight; Transformers: Forged to Fight (YouTube)