Author: Casey "Waveflame" Rinaldi

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Get All Warmed Up with VesperArcade’s Demonstrations of Alex’s Street Fighter V Season Two Changes

VesperArcade continues his ongoing series of videos looking at changes in Street Fighter V’s second season with the game’s first DLC character, Alex.

Unfortunately, despite being considered a mid-tier character in Season One, it seems the “Awakened Talent” had a lengthy meeting with the nerf bat. Many of his normals saw increased startup, a reduction in active frames, and reduced hitboxes/increased hurtboxes–greatly impacting his neutral game. His EX Knee Smash okizeme game was also greatly reduced. However, his Cr.LP now combos into his light Flash Chop and Cr. HP is now a faster anti-air, to make up for the nerf to his St.LP. His lariat, F+HP, is now +6 on hit, allowing it to link into St. MP–but it’s 1 frame slower. He can also no longer link St.MP into lariat after a V-Trigger confirm, since it is now only +10 instead of +12. But his V-Skill, Overhaul, now builds him 30 V-gauge after the motion is completed: allowing him to acquire Rage Shift and Big Boot much more quickly. To close, Vesper gave his final thoughts on Alex’s changes:

Overall, he’s been greatly nerfed. So many normals nerfed, and more importantly, none were really buffed to compensate. We got the Cr. HP buff, but if they’re taking away Alex’s neutral pokes, he’s not getting anything in return. Oki from the EX Knee Smash is nerfed, which was probably his best oki tool. Everything that was buffed on Alex, there was some nerf that came with it as well. There was nothing that was just a straight buff, and that’s it. You could say that they slightly buffed his close-range game, which was already strong, but then they just completely gutted his mid-range game. I feel like Alex in Season One was in a pretty decent spot. He wasn’t too strong, but he wasn’t too weak, either. But now I feel like he is definitely the weakest of all the DLC characters after reading most of these notes. Definitely one of the most nerfed characters that I’ve read so far.

As always, he also uploaded videos demonstrating Alex’s notable buffs, and the new combos that are possible. You can catch both of them below.

You can check out his previous entries in this series below. Be sure to let him know which character you’d like to see covered next!

Source: VesperArcade

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VesperArcade Breaks Down Juri’s Street Fighter V Season Two Changes in These Demonstration Videos

After beginning his new series by looking at the changes made to Ryu, VesperArcade continues his character-by-character exploration of the alterations made to the original 22 cast members of Street Fighter V, by turning his attention to one of his personal favorite DLC characters (and one of mine!) the Korean Spider of S.I.N., Juri Han!

Following her release in July, she was not well-received by the community, due to the fact she seemed lacking in tools compared to the majority of the roster. Along with her significant gameplay overhaul, many considered her one of the weakest characters in the game. Vesper even put her at the very bottom of his personal Season One tier list, at C-.

However, Capcom seems to have heard the outcries from her fans, and rewarded the “Purple Smoke Of Deception” with a myriad of buffs, in an attempt to raise her stock in the title’s sophomoric Season. Her Tensenrin DP has been remapped to punches instead of kicks, preventing input overlap with her Fuharenkyakus. She has more Ryodansatsu combos, and complete projectile invincibility on the EX version, improving her damage output. Her V-Skill’s strongly improved, allowing her to reach Level 2 of Kasastsushu quicker. Vesper gave initial thoughts on the changes:

Overall, I think it’s pretty easy to say that she’s been buffed, for sure. Her combo potential is way higher now; they really buffed her V-Skill, her throws, but I think what was holding Juri back a lot in Season One was basically her play style. She’s a character that can’t do her full combos until she gets these stocks, so you have to leave yourself open, and you might lose neutral pressure or push yourself into the corner. Since they didn’t really change that, I think that stops her from being “greatly buffed.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that she could’ve got buffed harder, but I just don’t think that she’s on insane levels.

You can see the full video where he goes over the patch notes in detail below.

As with Ryu, Vesper also posted a second video of him taking Juri into the lab to provide a visual demonstration of all her notable buffs and new combo routes.

Vesper will continue making these videos for the 20 remaining Season One cast members, so stay tuned to his Channel!

Source: VesperArcade

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VesperArcade Asks if Street Fighter V Needs Another Balance Patch Before the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour Season Begins

With Final Round XX, which takes place March 10-12 in Atlanta, Georgia, announcing that they will officially be a part of the Capcom Pro Tour 2017 Season in two months, many within the community are wondering if Street Fighter V needs a second balance patch–following last month’s Season Two update–before the competitive Season begins.

Citing characters like Nash, Ryu, F.A.N.G and even Rainbow Mika receiving a heavy amount of nerfs–while already-powerful characters like Guile and Urien were given a hearty amount of buffs–as possible justification for another round of tweaking, as well as Battle Director Woshigie’s comments to Yahoo! Esports that the Season Two balance changes would not be “What players are expecting,” (which could be seen as a contradictory statement, as Capcom had been promoting that SFV’s balance philosophy would be to focus primarily on buffing weaker characters to the level of the top tiers, as opposed to hitting them with heavy amounts of nerfs to bring them down closer to the middle of the pack). One of the slides at their Evo panel even stated that one of their “Lessons Learned,” was to “Don’t greatly nerf characters, buff the weaker ones instead,” to ensure that there is “large character diversity in each tournament.” Additionally, we have Akuma, as well as the other five yet-to-be-revealed new challengers for Season Two, who will automatically alter the meta and tier lists simply with their presence alone.

While balancing a fighting game is certainly not an easy–or enviable–task, VesperArcade suggests that perhaps Capcom should utilize a public test server (similar to what can be seen in games like Overwatch) to allow players to try out potential changes that Capcom wants to make, and having the opportunity to leave their individual feedback for the development team to take into consideration; as similar to what they did on the Capcom-Unity Forums for the creation of Ultra Street Fighter IV.

“It just looks like Capcom has their own agenda when it comes to balancing, and I think we have some very smart people in our community that can give very valuable feedback and insight on making all the characters fair, and especially, fun. That is the key word: fun,” Vesper said. You can catch his entire video on this topic below.

So what are your thoughts on this hotly-debated topic? Do you feel Capcom should stick to their word of only doing balance patches in-between CPT seasons, and that we need to let everything play out before jumping to conclusions, or do you think there are some balance concerns with the current version of the game that should be addressed before the Pro Tour starts heating up? Feel free to let us know in the Comments below!

Source: VesperArcade

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VesperArcade Provides Detailed Breakdown and Demonstration of Ryu’s Changes in Street Fighter V Season Two

With the release of Street Fighter V’s Season Two last month, Akuma, new costumes, and stages were accompanied by a whopping 92 pages of balance changes and character notes that were adjusted within the new patch, as the title saw its first of what is expected to be yearly balance updates as the game ages.

In order to help players further digest and navigate the overall ramifications of these changes safely, VesperArcade has begun a new series where he will cover each of the 22 Season One character’s changelogs individually and in great detail, explaining to viewers exactly how each individual adjustment will impact that fighter’s game, either positively or negatively. He then heads to the Training Room to provide a visual demonstration of some of the new combos and setups each of the World Warrior’s has been newly afforded thanks to these changes. And who better to begin with than the poster boy of the franchise, the Wandering Warrior, Ryu!

After spending time detailing each of his specific adjustments, Vesper provides a final analysis on Ryu’s future prospects in the new Meta. Believing him to be nerfed overall, due to the removal of his throw loops, reduced range on standing light kick, and his general neutral tools being made weaker overall in this new season. However, he also feels that all hope is not completely lost for the character, as his V-Skill, Mind’s Eye, now builds twice as much V-Gauge when successful, meaning he now only requires six successful parries for one bar, and twelve for two, as opposed to needing twelve and a staggering twenty-four parries for a full V-Trigger in Season One; his V-Trigger-cancelable st.HP, that can go into any special or a Critical Art, has greatly improved his combo and damage potential off of simple conversions; his axe kick has become special, Critical Art and V-Trigger-cancelable on both the first and second hits; Solar Plexus Strike is now +8 on hit, allowing for links into his hard normals, as well as it having increased stun on all versions; and his Air Tatsumaki Senpukyaku can now juggle into his Shinku or Denjin Hadoken on hit. In the second video, Vesper demonstrates some of these buffs in action, to give viewers an idea of what he is now capable of in the Heart of Battle. You can catch both videos below.

Vesper has promised to continue this series in the future, making a pair of videos going over each character individually, so let him know which fighter you’d like to see next! For further breakdowns of how each of SFV’s initial fighters has fared in Season Two, check out Bafael’s Rising Up: At A Glance series for ShoryukenTube here, as well as breakdowns from UltraChenTV’s James Chen here.

Source: VesperArcade

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Ed Boon Reveals Injustice 2’s Release Date

After receiving a large amount of radio silence on the forthcoming sequel to Netherrealm Stuido’s DC fighting game Injustice 2, save for a quick gameplay breakdown video of Supergirl on IGN First, Ed Boon has officially revealed the title’s release date on his Twitter account, Pinning a tweet that simply says “i2.05.16.17,” indicating that every battle will begin to define us on May 16th, 2017!

You can see the announcement Tweet embedded below, along with Boon answering questions relating to the date, below:

We haven’t seen a character reveal since the Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn and New Challenger Deadshot were announced back in August at Gamecom 2016. With the game now coming out in a little over four months, the character reveals and announcements are sure to pick up speed in the new year. In the meantime, Boon has taken to running polls on Twitter, ranging from everything from the inclusion of Watchmen characters, to which Mortal Kombat character fans would like to see make a guest appearance, like Scorpion did in Injustice: Gods Among Us.

Is there anyone else you’re hoping to see in the title that hasn’t been announced yet? Let us know below in the Comments!

Source: Noobde (Twitter)

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The Beast vs. The Machine: Daigo’s Guile Faces Poongko’s Urien in This Trio of FT2 Ranked Sets in Street Fighter V

Given their myriad of buffs in Street Fighter V’s Second Season, it’s no secret that a great many top players are taking a look at two of Season One’s DLC characters Guile and Urien, who have improved dramatically with this patch–to the point where many now consider them the two strongest characters in the entire game. We’ve seen what Alienware’s Nemo can do with the Vice-President of the Illuminati, but it seems he’s not the only one taking to the “Dominating Light,” as Team Secret’s Lee “Poongko” Chung Gon has been using him frequently on his stream as of late. Conversely, Daigo Umerhara has cooled off a bit on his signature Ryu–likely due to some of the nerfs the World Warrior has incurred in the Second Season, and has been focusing the majority of his time on the American family man Guile, to some great results.

Now, Xuses brings us a trio of first-to-two Ranked matches between the Machine and The Beast, utilizing their new mains, displaying what both of these post-launch roster additions are capable of in the current iteration of the game with all of their new tools. While these two have battled many times over the years in both Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V, who will win their latest encounter? You can catch the video below to find out.

Source: XusesGB

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Toshimichi Mori, Kyuta Yamada, and Kazuto Sekine Share 2017 Arc System Works Fighting Game Ambitions with 4Gamer

Last week, to celebrate the end of 2016 4Gamer conducted interviews with a total of 146 game creators from various companies, including Sega, Square Enix, Koei Tecmo Games, SNK, Capcom, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Arc System Works, to share their favorite games of 2016 as well as some of their personal ambitions for the new year. While SNK’s Yasyuki Oda was quoted about the upcoming KOF XIV Version 1.10, as well as several other titles they have in the works,  a trio from Arc System Works spoke about the future of their latest fighting game release, BlazBlue: Central Fiction.

Director and Producer of the BlazBlue series, Toshimichi Mori had this to say about the future of the franchise:

After a long time working on it, the BlazBlue series has reached a point where it can take a break… is not something I can say completely, as only the scenarios have reached a stopping point. We will still continue to liven up BlazBlue, so everyone please continue to give us your support. However, because I think I want to make things other than fighting games, I would be very happy to receive your support.

Kazuto Sekine, the General Battle Director at Arc System Works, who worked on Guilty Gear Xrd and BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, teased a possible announcement at the Arc System Works Fighting Game Awards 2016, coming up later this month.

I would like to do various new things in 2017, so it would be nice if I can deliver something. First, on January 14th, the Arc System Works Fighting Game Awards 2016 will take place. Fighting games are interesting to watch, but they’re more interesting to play, so please watch the event and try playing if you possess the interest.

Kyuta Yamada, a Director at Arc System Works, also teased the possibility of one of their titles coming to the Nintendo Switch, of which they’ve already been confirmed to be providing third-party support for:

Next, I want to make a game that can be introduced in a Nintendo Direct. I will do my best.

With Es, Mai Natsume, and Susanoo now recently added to the Arcade version of BlazBlue: Central Fiction, could we see more new characters–or perhaps a balance update–headed to the title. Back in October, some sound files for the final member of the Six Heroes, Jubei, were datamined from CF. Could he be finally ready to enter the battle for the Azure? Either way, the Wheel of Fate is turning, and we’ll be sure to keep you informed right here on Shoryuken if any announcements are made about BBCF in the near future!

Source: 4Gamer

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Illuminati vs. Shadaloo: Who Will Emerge Victorious in This FT2 Street Fighter V Ranked Battle Between Nemo and Galtu?

With Season Two of Street Fighter V providing significant buffs to two of the title’s evilest warriors, Alienware’s Nemo, Ranked 95th online, looked to test his newly-minted Urien against 6th-ranked Galtu’s buffed M. Bison in a pair of FT2 Ranked sets. Both players display a mastery over their characters, taking advantage of their respective changes in order to wage a back-and-forth war that could easily go either way throughout its duration. Which player will emerge victorious, and prove that their character is the true dark mastermind of the Street Fighter universe? You can catch the video below to find out.

Source: XusesGB

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VesperArcade Asks if the Community Is Satisfied with Street Fighter V’s Current Input Delay; Capcom Has No Plans to Reduce It Further

One of the biggest topics throughout the young lifespan of Street Fighter V has been its increased amount of input delay as compared to Ultra Street Fighter IV. Initially sporting a whopping 8 frames of delay (versus Ultra’s mere 4 frames). Referencing an interview with Combofiend from EventHubs in December, Rosas said that:

There are no immediate plans to further reduce the input delay at this moment in time. I would like to point out, however, that with our most recent update to input delay a few months back, input delay was reduced to 6.5 frames. Players have mentioned that their experience has improved greatly since that update and that they react to everything in Street Fighter V that much easier.

Additionally, a test from Display Lag back in November revealed that SFV, as of the September update, weighed-in with 6.2 frames of lag vs. USFIV’s 4.3. Vesper wonders if having an extra 2 frames of input lag reduced should be a priority, particularly for the competitive scene with the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour Season right around the corner. However, some of the Season Two changes Capcom has implemented may actually be helping players out in this scenario: several long-ranged normals, such as Dhalsim’s limbs and Birdie’s mediums, have expanded hurtboxes, making them easier to whiff punish (even as they retract), as well as many of them also receiving reduced pushback. Overheads have also become more punishable, with the majority going from -4 to -6 on block, as well as V-Reversals being made slower–and thus easier to throw on reaction–along with several of them also becoming more negative on block and less advantageous on hit to remove offensive mixup opportunities from characters like Ryu and Ibuki. You can catch the video below.

Do you feel that this is something that needs to be addressed for the competitive future of the game, or do you feel Capcom should direct their efforts and priorities elsewhere, to improve other aspects of the game? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments section below!

Sources: VesperArcade; EventHubs

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Celebrate the Holidays with the BlazBlue: Central Fiction Tournament from Tokyo Button Mashers

In order to celebrate the Christmas holiday, Tokyo Button Mashers hosted a Blazblue: Central Fiction tournament, dubbed the “Blazblue Christmas Festa”. It featured several top players from the Land of the Rising Sun, including Ryussei, Minami, Goro, Dora, Tetsuwo, Kaqn, Yutta, Fumi and Ronnita, among others. Most interesting is that Saki forwent the usual selection of Nine The Phantom to bring out Mai Natsume, giving us a taste of what the currently-console-exclusive Blank Grimoire is capable of at the highest level of play. This is certainly a great event to watch for any fan of the series, featuring a large amount of character variety, amongst a bracket full of killers, and some of the best in the world.

You can catch the entirety of the streamed matches below, split up into two parts: the leadup to Top 4 and the Top 4 bracket, with timestamps included, courtesy of Mdesilva, below. You can catch the entire stream archive over on Tokyo Button Mashers.

Sources: Mdesilva; Tokyo Button Mashers (Twitch)