Let’s go ahead and preface this — online play is no replacement for quality offline play. Street Fighter V ranked matches, however, can help you learn and give you a sense of achievement when you do level up.
A lot of people, however, are perpetually stuck in a purgatory of silver or lower. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Fighter’s Dojo takes on some of the glaring issues that players have that simply don’t rank up, and gives a road map on the fundamentals it takes to rank up properly. He breaks it down to memorizing three or four basic combos, learning to anti-air properly, and learning good habits within matches.
It is often said that without Street Fighter II, modern fighting games would not exist in the format that they exist now. While much is made about how well the game played, Ars Technica decided to go a different route in their appreciation of the 25-year-old title.
In their article, they discuss how the development team squeezed so much into 12 bits of power. They discuss how complex the color palette is, allowing for the detailed and iconic graphics and stage design that we still admire today. They also discuss the iconic music that is still rehashed and revamped in every iteration of Street Fighter since, with the only exceptions being Street Fighter III and the third installment of the Street Fighter Alpha series.
With the competitive scene in complete agreement that C, A, N, and K-grooves being the most viable in Capcom vs. SNK 2, P-Groove has been thrown to the wayside and is highly underutilized. The risk and reward of the groove shows; for gaining the ability to parry like in Street Fighter III, you only have one bar that grants you access to a level 3 super — while only having 80% of the guard meter as the rest of the grooves make it very risky to take this groove seriously.
So what exactly can you do with this groove? Silentscope explains the groove further in the 4th part of his CvS2 tutorial series.
Did you miss the ECT Street Fighter V top 8 live? You missed an amazing event, with some amazing play from the likes of Nemo, 801 Strider, and iDom just to name a few. Not only that, but you missed an epic Winners Finals between PG|Punk and EG|K-Brad, with them swapping their mains and still showcasing some insanely high-level play.
As always, Team Sp00ky is quick to get their replays up, and you can catch every bit of the action on their YouTube channel. Grab some popcorn and take some notes.
Last’s month Circa Smash Cup was a success, with 70 players vying for stream time and money. It was successful enough the Circa is bringing it back for round 2.
The second Circa Smash Cup will be held on September 23rd and 24th, and will feature Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. A free tournament, it will again feature a $100 pot bonus, and will again be streamed live on Circa eSports’ Stream.me channel. Think you have what it takes? Make sure you sign up on smash.gg, and have your Wii U friend code ready!
We are now hitting the one week mark with Menat, and likely have only hit the tip of the iceberg of what she is capable of. However, more and more interesting tech is coming out of the woodwork, so it would be bad taste to leave you guys hanging, searching for yourself. With that, here’s some more Menat tech to give you aspiring Menat mains the upper hand.
Since when are taunts only useful in Street Fighter III? Tokido showed off their usefulness with Akuma at Evo 2017, but Menat may also have some functionality in her taunt as well. What kind of functionality? Well, who has time for command grabs when you can do splits? That’s right, Menat can lower her hurtbox with her taunt to completely avoid command grabs.
Next up, here’s a new combo from zZInsaneZz where Menat carries from midscreen to corner with the greatest of ease.
Menat’s damage output on Akuma shows how dangerous she truly is. How dangerous is that? It looks like her maximum punish off of a blocked DP reaches 729, including a stun midway through.
When you have a high-execution character, you’re bound to attract the likes of HORI|Sako. Here he is again, showcasing his execution prowess with Menat:
What about CO|Go1, the top player that has seemed to moved squarely to Menat as a main? Well, he had an interesting set with Itabashi Zangief recently, and I do believe grapplers have a new character to fear.
Finally, there is one more player that is trying Menat out online. None other than Evo 2017 champion Echo Fox|Tokido is giving her a test drive. While he has not fully unlocked her technical game like Go1 and Sako has, he still displays some interesting things that are worth mentioning for potential mains.
If you build it, they will play. That was the dream of Lab Zero Games when they started out designing Skullgirls in around 2008. It’s no longer a dream, as the game still enjoys a competitive scene and sold very well for a independent title.
As game designer Mike “Mike_Z” Zaimont took to Twitter to announce that the game has hit 1,000,000 copies sold on Steam as of September 3, 2017.
One million on Steam, WEEEE DID IT!
Well I mean, /you/ did it. I didn't do it, because I had a copy from development. :^P
This does not factor in sales on home consoles, so this number is even higher when you count total sales of Skullgirls. This is an inspiration to all indie developers aspiring to put together a quality fighting game. If you build it, they will play. Congratulations goes out to the team at Lab Zero for everything they’ve done.
The floodgates are still open on Menat tech on the Internet, and as such, it’s time for another Menat roundup to show you everything currently circulating on the web.
Go1 leads off, showing what he’s discovered with the character — a 50/50 mixup in the corner with V-Trigger. By varying the button used to achieve her drill, it can either cross up the opponent, or land in front, making this completely ambiguous.
Next up, VesperArcade discusses the viability of Menat in his review of the character. He discusses the complexity of the character, among various other things that will factor in to a lot of people’s decision-making process in maining her.
Young Commander also shows a variety of Menat resets. Due to her damage scaling on her intricate combos, this is something that must be watched for anyone considering to pick her up.
He also goes into a bit about her mixup potential beyond what Go1 displays above.
AutoMattock also discusses how difficult to deal with her V-Trigger will be in the future.
Finally, let’s go full circle and return to Go1. One of the closest examples of the character within Street Fighter V’s roster is Dhalsim, due to Menat’s long range buttons. How does she fair against her Yoga counterpart?
With the alliterations in the title aside, Street Fighter EX2 is known for some pretty creative combos with its loose cancel mechanics and the Excel system — which acts similarly to the custom combo modes in Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Capcom vs. SNK 2.
With ARIKA’s current-generation fighter coming next year — and currently lacking an alternative to Excel, there are less mechanics to use for extending combos. However, is that really necessary? With this combo video that leaves out Excel in Street Fighter EX2, and focuses on the three characters that were available for play at Evo 2017, it shows that the combo system is still very deep even taking away one of the most vital parts of the mechanics.
Let’s face it, we all need some chill out time after our sets. Fortunately, The Consouls haven’t forgotten about the fighting game scene with a couple of releases in the last month, this being one of them.
Straight out of Nintendo’s title ARMS, they have now released a jazz cover of Spring Man’s theme — Spring Stadium. With some smooth bass and sax added into some amazing improvisation, and you have a beautiful arrangement for an awesome theme.
