The final qualifying event for Pokkén Tournament DX at the 2018 Pokémon World Championships is going on right now! 184 players are battling it out in the Last Chance Qualifier to make it to tomorrow’s World Championship tournament. And for good reason — A prize pool worth over $20,000 awaits the winning competitors in the Pokkén Tournament Championship Series!
You may remember that the ESRB rating for SoulCalibur VI accidentally confirmed the existence of Astaroth and Seong Mi-Na long before they were announced. Among the weapons listed in its rating was the “pistol”, which either would refer to a new character or, more probably, the Soul series’ original antagonist: Cervantes de Leon.
Cervantes is such an iconic foe (and unique moveset) that it would be foolish not to include him. But, just in case there was any doubt…
… Bandai Namco’s press conference with IGN showed a Create-A-Soul character dual wielding a very familiar style of blades. Whether this means Cervantes will be announced soon as part of the main roster, or in the Season Pass, remains to be seen. Sadly, there’s not too much to go off of in the above video, as the CAS character was controlled by an AI. His bA auto-GI and 6B have returned in some form, and his old 1B from SCV (6A+B in SCII) is now the second hit of his 4B string. Outside of that, no new moves were shown for his toolkit.
Looking for a major in South Central U.S. to travel to in October? Oklahoma’s third installment of its King of the Sticks 2018 tournament is set for Oct. 27th, and features arcades, free-to-play areas, vendors, and pot bonuses for each of its six main games.
Venue: Tulsa University 3135 East 5th Place Tulsa, OK 74014
CONFIRMED GAMES
Dragon Ball FighterZ ($500 pot bonus)
Street Fighter V ($500 pot bonus)
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U ($500 pot bonus)
Super Smash Bros. Melee ($500 pot bonus)
Tekken 7 ($500 pot bonus)
SoulCalibur VI ($500 pot bonus)
SIDE EVENTS
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Doubles
Super Smash Bros. Melee Doubles
Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2
Injustice 2
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
ENTRY
$25 Pre-Registration (Ends October 17th, 2018 @ 11:59:59 PM)
$35 Registration at the door (Cash Only)
$10 per game
$10 spectating/casual fee
Only game fees are refundable after registration
SoulCalibur VI players should pay particular notice to King of Sticks 2018, as this is one of the first majors that you’ll be able to play SCVI at post-release!
You can find out more information and register for the event at their smash.gg page.
If you missed TW Fighter Major 2018 , you missed out on a whole host of hype from the Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition tournament. Luckily for you, you don’t need to go clawing through the archives to catch up — Capcom Fighters has put together a highlight reel just for you:
Upsets, ridiculous comebacks, and some of the first tournament footage available of Sagat and G’s potential all made TW Fighter 2018 one for the record books. If Bonchan is already this strong with Sagat now, imagine how terrifying he’s gonna become as he develops his favorite character…
As we near the release of Nicalis’s new crossover fighter Blade Strangers, it’s important for the FGC to understand what a proper match looks like before making a purchase. Blade Strangers is a new IP and, as such, there’s only one beta test environment likely to produce quality matches that will resemble post-release games: the tried-and-true environment of arcade location tests in Japan.
These videos were taken from two days of testing at Port 24 Gaming Center. The most recent footage from the 15th shows a wide variety of character usage. Pay special attention to the win streaks from the hyper aggressive Helen and Ali players, who make excellent use of Melty Blood-esque air-to-air counter-hit conversions and set-play.
For grappler fans, you’ll want to see the footage from the 12th — Shovel Knight plays a simple, powerful game with his counter-hit jump in combos and EX Command Grab conversions. If you get someone into the corner? Lock them down all day with dig.
This footage was brought to our attention by Doghouse|Corgian, whom is also in charge of the Blade Strangers discord server. If anything interests you about the footage above and you want to find out more about the game, be sure to check out the growing scene here!
Blade Strangers launches on August 28th for the PS4, Switch, and Steam.
One of the most talked-about hardware displays at Evo 2018 was the Victrix Pro FS, a $350 fight stick controller attempting to redefine the standard of arcade sticks. At that price point, it very well should — it is impossible to have a conversation about the Pro FS without discussing whether or not its steep price tag is justified. (Our own Lazybones2020 looked into the features of the Pro FS live on the Evo 2018 floor — you can read about his own hands-on experience here.)
Victrix seems comfortable enough now with their beta that they are putting it the hands of players to try out. BornFree was one of those lucky few, and has broken down the stick’s strengths and weaknesses here:
What do you think? Is the Pro FS the direction arcade sticks should go, or is there not enough punch for its price tag?
With season 2 of Tekken 7 on the horizon, some characters are inevitably more likely to receive buffs than others. One of those characters is the underrepresented Lars — it’s no secret that Heihachi’s Swedish son got the short end of the frame data stick. One area he isn’t weak in, though, is whiff punishment:
JusticeSoulTuna shows that fact with a breakdown of options at various ranges, and the damage output possible between them. B+3,4 in particular is worthy of praise, allowing the electric swede to setup his high damage wall combo game off of baited getup kicks.
The King of Muay Thai, traditionally, was a zoning character in past iterations of Street Fighter. With the combination of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition‘s get up mechanics and his long limbs, though, this tiger is not so easily pigeonholed, as World Warrior FGC demonstrates in his latest setup video:
EX Low Tiger Shot and Tiger Knee, in particular, allow Sagat get creative with his setups on a grounded opponent. Particularly in the corner, it becomes easy for Sagat to work tricky which-ways and meaty setups on those that panic when getting up.
It has been 14 years since the original release of the oddball Data East-developed disc throwing game Windjammers. In that time, Windjammers has defied categorization and expectations — it managed to remain relevant in FGC side tournaments, run a massive international tournament league, and was at one point considered for main stage Evo time.
It makes you wonder how well a true sequel could do, doesn’t it?
Get ready! The legendary disc throwing game, Windjammers, is getting a sequel! Windjammers 2 will combine everything fans love about the classic title with entirely hand-drawn 2D animations to create the ultimate windjamming experience. Windjammers 2 will fly onto Nintendo Switch and PC in 2019.
This is a surprising new chapter in the Windjammers saga, one as appropriately unpredictable as anything else involving Windjammers. Though DotEmu has proved themselves capable of updating a classic, the french developer is almost exclusively known for emulation — Windjammers 2 is a bold attempt at entering the development market.
Despite the gloriously retro animation in its cinematic trailer, there’s currently no information or visuals of the gameplay itself — though there’s the hint that its cast might be all-new, as neither of the characters in the trailer are from the original Windjammers. Either that, or their character designs have been pushed so far over the top with glitter and neon colors that they have become unrecognizable… Which, for Windjammers? That’s totally fine.
DotEmu’s claim of “entirely hand-drawn 2D animations” is a herculean promise in this day and age; SRK will be ready to report further on it once we see it in action.
“When I saw Tekken Crash, I saw my future playing professional Tekken.”
Dimeback, whose moniker is a play on Pantera guitarist “Dimebag Darrell”, has made a name for himself in the Tekken 7 scene for being one of the very few Asuka players to take her to the top. It may have been fate that led him down this path, though, because his most famous character was not who he wanted to play as — in fact, it was a complete accident that he ended up with Asuka at all, as he revealed in his latest interview with BornFree:
If you believe in fate, at least, then Dimeback’s pick is certainly a product of it. “Asuka can kind of ignore frame data,” Dimeback said. “Being able to play the mind games where I can play unexpectedly, is something I like to do.” Knowing that, it’s hard to imagine that he almost ended up being a Kazuya player.
