Author: Casey "Waveflame" Rinaldi

JUMP FORCE finally gets Bizarre!

With Bandai Namco Entertainment’s massive 3V3 arena fighter JUMP FORCE set to release in a matter of days, it was time to finally pull back the curtain on a much-requested pair of beloved Shonen Jump characters that have appeared to close out the game’s launch cast. The main protagonist and antagonist of Hirohiko Araki’s Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 3: Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro Kujo and the villainous DIO, have finally stepped into the JUMP FORCE ring.

Wielding their iconic Stands, Star Platinum and The World, respectively, Jotaro batters foes with his signature barrage of rapid-fire punches, the Star Finger, and what appears to be his time stop as his Ultimate. DIO also battles in a similar melee style (they are both close-range Stands, after all), while mixing in The World’s ability to stop time, the vampire’s ability to drain the blood of his enemies, as well as his iconic knife barrage and infamous Road Roller to squash his adversaries in style.

It seems that these legendary Stand users will close out the game’s base roster of characters, as Bandai Namco Entertainment tweeted that there are no more fighters left to be revealed. However, there will be nine additional DLC characters released post-launch via a Season Pass.  You can see the bizarre reveal trailer below.

This brings our final base roster count to 42 playable characters from 16 Weekly Shonen Jump series, including:

• Dragon Ball’s Son Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, Perfect Cell, Piccolo, and Trunks,
• Naruto’s Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake, Gaara, and Kaguya Ootsutsuki
• Boruto: Naruto Next Generation’s Boruto Uzumaki
• One Piece’s Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Marshall “Blackbeard” D. Teach, Sabo, and Boa Hancock
• Bleach’s Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki, Sosuke Aizen, and Renji Abari
• Hunter x Hunter’s Gon Freecs, Killua Zoldyck, Hisoka Morrow, and Kurapika
• Yu Yu Hakusho’s Yusuke Urameshi and Younger Toguro
• Saint Seiya’s Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu
• Rurouni Kenshin’s Kenshin Himura and Makoto Shishio
• Fist of the North Star’s Kenshiro
• City Hunter’s Ryo Saeba
• Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Yugi Muto
• Black Clover’s Asta
• My Hero Academia’s Izuku “Deku” Midoriya
• Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai’s Dai
• Akira Toriyama-designed original characters Kane and Galena. Death Note’s Light Yagami and Ryuk will also be in the game as major Story NPCs.

IGN also released some gameplay, featuring Jotaro, Deku, and Asta battling DIO, Kaguya, and Boruto.

A character reveal trailer for Boruto, Dai, Gaara, Kakashi, and Kaguya also recently dropped.

Nope! The roster is complete!

— Bandai Namco US (@BandaiNamcoUS) February 6, 2019

This brings our final base roster count to 42 playable characters from 16 Weekly Shonen Jump series, including:

• Dragon Ball’s Son Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, Perfect Cell, Piccolo, and Trunks,
• Naruto’s Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake, Gaara, and Kaguya Ootsutsuki
• Boruto: Naruto Next Generation’s Boruto Uzumaki
• One Piece’s Monkey D. Luffy, Roronoa Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Marshall “Blackbeard” D. Teach, Sabo, and Boa Hancock
• Bleach’s Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki, Sosuke Aizen, and Renji Abari
• Hunter x Hunter’s Gon Freecs, Killua Zoldyck, Hisoka Morrow, and Kurapika
• Yu Yu Hakusho’s Yusuke Urameshi and Younger Toguro
• Saint Seiya’s Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu
• Rurouni Kenshin’s Kenshin Himura and Makoto Shishio
• Fist of the North Star’s Kenshiro
• City Hunter’s Ryo Saeba
• Yu-Gi-Oh!’s Yugi Muto
• Black Clover’s Asta
• My Hero Academia’s Izuku “Deku” Midoriya
• Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai’s Dai
• Akira Toriyama-designed original characters Kane and Galena. Death Note’s Light Yagami and Ryuk will also be in the game as major Story NPCs.

JUMP FORCE will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam on February 12th for Ultimate Edition owners, and February 15th worldwide.

Sources: Bandai Namco Entertainment America (YouTube)/(Twitter); IGN

The Regeneration of Brutality begins!

With the release of Dead or Alive 6 fast approaching, Koei Tecmo Games and Team NINJA have revealed that series veteran Cyborg Raidou will be returning to the latest installment of the franchise. The original antagonist of the DOA franchise, Raidou was thought to have perished following the conclusion of the original DEAD OR ALIVE tournament, but his body was recovered by DOATEC — who, using experimental biotechnology, revived him as a mindless cyborg who was stronger than ever, and returned in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round. You can see his gameplay trailer — where he battles Hayate — below.

His trailer description reads: “With Mugen Tenshin Ninjutsu as a base, he uses his mimicry skills to copy various powerful moves of other styles as well. He favors a power-focused fighting style, making use of his colossal physique, using both moves stolen from others, and his own, such as the Tenho-Gorai-Sho and the Rekku-Jinraisatsu … without a mind of his own, he has now devolved into a madman who only craves strength and destruction.”

Cyborg Raidou joins Kasumi, Hayate, Ayane, Ryu Hayabusa, Bass and Tina Armstrong, Bayman, Brad Wong, Christie, Eliot, Helena Douglas, Hitomi, Honoka, Jann Lee, Kokoro, Mila, Leifang, La Mariposa, Marie Rose, Rig, Zach, newcomers Diego and NiCO, as well as pre-order DLC characters Nyotengu and Phase-4, bringing the current roster up to 26 characters, with more to be added as DLC.

Dead or Alive 6 will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam on Friday, March 1st, 2019 — with regular, digital, and digital deluxe editions.

Source: Team NINJA Studio (YouTube)

The leader of the Black Dragon rises again!

At the end of January, WB Games Brazil held a Mortal Kombat 11 reveal event in the country. Though the playable build was the same one used at The Reveal event last month –featuring already-announced Kombatants Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Dark Raiden, Sonya Blade, Baraka, Skarlet, and Geras — there was some exclusive news. Ed Boon announced that the leader of the Black Dragon clan and Mortal Kombat original Kano would be once again joining in the bloody carnage.

This version of Kano looks much slimmer than his Mortal Kombat XL counterpart, while only sporting a tattoo on a single arm rather than both like before, implying this could be a younger version of the Australian mercenary — likely brought about by Kronika’s time-bending.

Additionally, Kano will be receiving a special, free, regional-exclusive, alternate costume, that will only be available (for the time being at least), to players in Brazil. This “Kangaceiro” outfit sees Kano don a version of the trademark hat and leather jacket worn by a group of Northeastern Brazilian “social bandits” in the late 19th and 20th centuries, who would steal from the rich in an effort to oppose the poverty that defined the times. A vest of bullets can also be seen adorning the straps holding in his iconic chest piece. This will join Skarlet’s Russian-exclusive “Kold War” skin, which sees the blood mage dressed in the attire of a KGB agent. The Official Mortal Kombat Twitter account has also released his official character render, describing Kano as, “Greed personified.” You can see both pieces of artwork below, as well as a video of Ed Boon announcing Kano at the event.

Greed personified.

Kano returns to Mortal Kombat in #MK11. https://t.co/1FVdgG6G1r pic.twitter.com/0TzPjq3LiS

— Mortal Kombat 11 (@MortalKombat) January 31, 2019

Mortal Kombat 11 will be released worldwide, on Tuesday, April 23rd, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. However, the Switch version has unfortunately been delayed in Europe, until Friday, May 10th.

Sources: MortalKombat (Twitter); MrRedRivers (YouTube); Test Your Might

Take a look at all of the system mechanic changes as DBFZ powers up for Season 2!

Following the conclusion of this past weekend’s 2018/2019 Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour Finals at Red Bull: Final Summoning, Bandai Namco Entertainment announced the beginning of Season 2 for the team-based title. In addition to the FighterZ Pass 2, which includes Jiren, Videl, the Dragon Ball Super incarnation of Broly, SSGSS Gogeta, and two more mystery warriors yet to be announced, a new balance patch was applied to the game to alter some of its fundamental system mechanics. Though there were no character-specific changes made within this update, many aspects of the current meta have been altered — such as notably improved defensive options (with longer backdashes and increased Guard Cancel invincibility), reduced blue life in an attempt to quicken the pace of matches, enhancements to Sparking Blast to increase its potency as a comeback mechanic, adjusted damage scaling on supers, tweaked Dragon Rushes, as well as reduced meter gain. Even Shenron’s “Make Me Immortal!” and “Revive My Allies!” wishes will now restore larger amounts of health, giving players ever more incentive to collect those Dragon Balls during the course of battle. You can view the full list of changes below.

HEALTH RECOVERY UPON TAKING DAMAGE:
– Reduce the amount of recoverable health when damaged. (Excluding invincible moves)

KI GAUGE:
– Decrease the amount of Ki Gauge gained when receiving damage from Super Attacks and Meteor Attacks, and increase the amount of Ki Gauge gained when receiving damage from other attacks.
– For a short period of time after using the Ki Gauge, the overall amount of Ki Gauge gained is now reduced.

MID-AIR SMASH ATTACK:
– When the condition for a camera change is met, the camera effect will occur regardless of the height of the character’s position now.

INVINCIBLE SPECIAL MOVES:
– Z Assist and Ultimate Z Change will now be unusable during Invincible Special Moves aside from when it hits.

POWERED-UP SPECIAL MOVE:
– Reduce the amount of Recoverable Health when receiving damage from Power-up Special Moves. (Excluding invincible moves)

SUPER ATTACK:
– Reduce the amount of damage dealt when a move other than Ultimate Z Change connects after a Super Attack hits.
– It is now easier to successfully connect Ultimate Z Change after Super Attacks.

ALL METEOR ATTACKS:
– Increased the minimum damage of all Meteor Attacks.

SPARKING!:
– Sparking! can now be used while blocking. (Includes blocking in mid-air)
– While Sparking! is active, reduce the amount of recoverable health of the opponent when damage is dealt to them. (Excluding invincible moves)
– Increased the start up frames of Sparking! aside from when cancelled from an attack.

VANISH MOVE:
– Camera change is easier to occur when cancelled from an attack.

Z-REFLECT:
– You will be invincible to the opponent’s Sparking! activation after a successful Z-Reflect against an opponent’s attack.

ALL THROW MOVES, DRAGON RUSH:
– Specific throw moves and Dragon Rush cannot connect more than once within a combo.

DRAGON RUSH:
– Decreased the amount of Ki gauge gained and damage dealt.
– After a Dragon Rush during mid-combo, camera change will not occur for subsequent hits. (Mid-combo Dragon Rushes will now use up your Smash attack if it’s still available.)

MID-AIR DRAGON RUSH:
– The opponent will ground slide after a mid-air Dragon Rush during a combo.

GUARD CANCEL CHANGE:
– Invincible state will now last until coming into contact or in close vicinity with the opponent.
– Increased the recovery frames and landing recovery frames when blocked.

GROUND BACKSTEP:
– Increase the distance travelled.

SHENRON (REVIVE ALLIES):
– Increased the health of the revived ally.

SHENRON (MAKE ME IMMORTAL):
– Increased the health recovery rate.

GROUND RECOVERY:
– Reduced the collision from mid-air opponent. (It is now more difficult to get while Quick-Rising.)

DELAYED GROUND RECOVERY:
– Until completely down, you will now be able to perform the different ground recovery options.

DRAMATIC FINISH:
– Vanish Move will also trigger Dramatic Finish now.

For our readers who prefer a more visual guide to the alterations, rooflemonger’s got you covered with a video going through the most pertinent changes.

Sources: Bandai Namco Entertainment America website; rooflemonger (YouTube)