Author: Corey "Missing Person" Lanier

Skullgirls has always been known for creativity; not once, however, could it truly be considered creative in the way you can taunt your opponent — until now.

In an online tournament set between players Havic and Pugloaf, Pugloaf had Havic down 2 games to 1, and down to his last character, Big Band. In an effort to prove that you should never give up, Havic stages an epic comeback, getting both Pugloaf’s Eliza and Cerebella caught in a Happy Birthday, killing both characters in the most stylish way possible: by using four of his five bars of meter to play the “Happy Birthday” song with Big Band before finishing off the characters with a level 1 super. (Contains NSFW language due to commentator hype.)

Wow this is actually OD! ?? https://t.co/ximTRggSIE pic.twitter.com/zE7F1kXFAl

— NerdJosh #ECT2017 (@NerdJosh) August 29, 2017

Havic not only won this game, but took the entire set off of the strength of his Big Band, and captured our hearts in the process. We salute you, Jazz Hero.

Source: NerdJosh (Twitter)

While setups and setplay have long been a staple of the fighting game genre, perhaps no game has relied on it more heavily than Street Fighter V. In order to maximize your ability to win, you have to implement some setplay into your repertoire in order to deal enough damage to get a stun, or even a KO.

This video — using Ryu and Ken as an example — explores the concept of setups and setplays, and shows how to implement them into your game. With these kind of setups, you can catch a lot of your opponents’ wake-up options, and even force them into less optimal situations by trying to avoid your pressure.

Source: World Warrior

Ken’s mobility is always something that can cause a lot of issues in every game. In Street Fighter V, it works further in his favor and makes it possible to instill fear into people who would dare to back rise.

Using a combination of his V-Skill and light Tatsu, Ken has a devastating array of options to punish his opponents’ back rises with meaties. Naturally, they’ll only work if the opponent doesn’t have access to or doesn’t do an EX wake-up reversal to punish it. There are, however, exceptions with Urien and Ed where he can do character-specific neutral jump setups to punish them for even thinking of doing a reversal on a back rise.

Source: World Warrior

Even the addition of parachute pants and Lisa Frank folders couldn’t make this trailer hit the ’90s kids in the audience any harder. To celebrate Windjammers in all of its epic ’90s glory, the folks at DotEmu put together a trailer marking the release of the title by releasing the most ’90s-inspired trailer possible.

Set in the fashion of an old  infomercial — with all the neon colors and attitude to boot — it even goes so far as to make the netplay options for the game sound completely futuristic. To complete the experience, try listening to some Paula Abdul or Will Smith while you wait for the game to download.

Source: DotEmu

The Sega CD (or Mega CD for our non-American readers) was one of the first CD-based systems on the market, beaten to the punch by only the TurboGrafx CD and the Phillips CD-i. With the technology in its infancy, most developers didn’t quite know what to do with the format, and decided to just port some of their popular games over — with a mixed bag of results.

Thus, it’s only natural that a few fighters found their way onto the platform, both old and new. Sega Lord X took it upon himself to catalog all the fighters on the system that he could find, and showcase the best and the worst. With bad fighters like Brutal Paws of Fury making the list, he does note a couple of standouts in the port of Mortal Kombat, as well as the sequel to Eternal Champions for the Sega Genesis. This video is definitely worth the watch if you’re a collector looking to expand your fighting game library — or just want a history lesson in the genre.

Source: Sega Lord X

Cammy’s V-Reversal has long been problematic for Street Fighter V players. While there was a nerf to it in Season 2 that didn’t allow it to knock down, characters that don’t have a parry — so mostly everyone except Alex, Ryu, and Akuma — had problems dealing with the side switch and white health that Cammy was allowed off one bar of V-meter.

However, Shaquille has found some options with Ken that deal with her V-Reversal quite handily. Ranging from normals, specials, Critical Art, and V-Trigger, Ken can deal hefty damage if he predicts Cammy will V-Reversal, making Cammy players scared to use it again.

With this discovery, there will likely be more with other characters down the line.

Some interesting ways to punish Cammy V-Reversal (Both Midscreen & Corner Setups) !!! pic.twitter.com/RJgzmjKtyE

— Shaquille (沙奎尔) (@akaJoness_) August 24, 2017

Source: Shaquille (沙奎尔)‏ (Twitter)

Rashid has been one of the more creative characters with his mixups and setups in Street Fighter V. However, too much of the same old setups can turn the Turbulent Wind into stale air.

However, there’s still room to explore Rashid, and this recent video proves such. Rashid has decent options off of a crush-counter sweep, and they can result in some devastating V-Trigger setups. Not only do they make the opponents guess, but they take away Dragon Punches as an option, as you can convert even after a connected Dragon Punch if you quick rise.

Source: Mighty_Malc (/r/StreetFighter)

In the 1990s, movie adaptations of video games were on their way becoming merely a method of milking money from unsuspecting and naive children. People remember this decade of video game movies and shudder at adaptations like Super Mario Bros., Double Dragon, and the notorious Street Fighter.

However, one adaptation was released that raised the bar for later game adaptations to come — at least a little bit — and that was Mortal Kombat in 1995. While it hasn’t necessarily aged well, it was able to showcase what sticking to the source material can actually do for a successful movie.

James Rolfe — famous for his Angry Video Game Nerd series of game reviews — has now delved into the film. While he admits that the movie does not generate the hype for him that it did when he was a kid, he praised the producers for sticking to the plot of the game and portraying the characters and scenarios as faithfully as possible. He also comments how the game comes full circle: once being inspired by Enter the Dragon, it also becomes a film with a similar structure to the Bruce Lee classic.

Some NSFW language ahead.

Source: Cinemassacre