While Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is known as “America’s Game” within the fighting game community, the US wasn’t the only country that developed a scene for it. The Philippines also developed a large MvC2 scene during the early 2000s, with many feeling that it could hang with the US. Sadly, sometime in the mid-2000s, arcade owners all agreed to switch the game to its lowest damage settings, a change which effectively meant that the Philippines was playing a different game altogether.
That said, the country’s love for the game has never faltered, and when Justin Wong visited the country again over New Years, an exhibition match was set up between him and the layer widely accepted to be the best MvC2 player in the Philippines: JR Bata.
To make the exhibition more interesting though, it was decided to play two first-to-seven sets, one with the standard settings for the game, and another running “Philippine settings” with lowest damage. This way, both players would have one set with settings that they weren’t familiar with. The result of this are a couple of nail-bitingly close sets that you can catch below.
Square Enix has been doing a good job with regular content updates to their arcade arena fighter Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade throughout most of last year. That trend will continue into the new year it seems, as Square Enix is set to announce yet another new character to the game.
The new character will be revealed during a live stream on NicoNico, set to take place on January 10 at 9:00 JST. In addition to the new character, Square Enix will also be talking about the content of the game’s latest version, as well as answering questions from players and fans.
Sephiroth was the last character to be revealed for Dissidia, so it’s fair to assume we’ll be getting a hero as the next combatant. Based on Final Fantasy XV’s recent release, it would not be surprising if Noctis was announced as the newest fighter. And with Final Fantasy’s 30th anniversary being at the end of this month, there may finally be a release date announced for the console version of Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade.
Despite all the content that Capcom has added to Street Fighter V, the one thing that’s still missing from the game is a traditional arcade mode. While it’s something that most competitive-minded players don’t mind missing, many casual players do find the lack of arcade mode to be a glaring omission.
Now, it seems that there may soon be a way to play arcade mode in Street Fighter V–on PC, at least. A modder by the name of Resvrgam is currently working on an arcade mode mod for the PC version of Street Fighter V.
The mod adds a new “Arcade Mode” option in the game’s single player menu. Selecting this option actually strings together matches versus the CPU, with added elements to recreate certain arcade mode staples, such as a continue screen.
This arcade mode mod is currently in an an early alpha and is not yet publicly available. In the meantime, here a video from Resvrgam showing a playthrough of the mod.
Despite their nature, playing video games competitively still requires some level of physical readiness that can be affected by injury. This is especially true with games such as Super Smash Bros. Melee where a good number of the advanced techniques used by competitive players requires a fair degree of execution, especially on the GameCube Controller. With players already experiencing severe hand pain from playing normally, trying to play high-level Melee with a broken finger sounds like an impossible task.
Evolution 2016 champion Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma from Team Liquid has stated that he may not be able to compete at Genesis 4 due to a broken finger that he sustained from playing dodgeball. The injury, an X-Ray of which you can see as part of Hungrybox’s tweet below, involves his right index finger–which makes it difficult for him to perform certain inputs.
Because…it turns out my finger is actually broken from dodgeball
In light of this, Hungrybox may only be able to compete at Genesis 4 if he was able to use a Smash Box with a remapped input to allow him to jump. This would allow him to compete with a broken finger–but with the amount of controversy surrounding the vanilla Smash Box, I doubt this button remapping would be allowed.
Whatever the outcome of this is, we here at Shoryuken wish Hungrybox a speedy recovery from his injury!
Street Fighter V’s launch year could generally be described as “rough,” especially when it comes to the non-competitive side of things. While the game has had a great showing at tournaments, the lackluster launch meant that it didn’t do as well in terms of early sales, especially among the less competitively-inclined.
With this in mind, it comes as a great surprise that Street Fighter V has actually made Steam’s list of top 100 selling games for 2016. The game sits in the “Bronze” tier, alongside other notable games such as DayZ, Dragonball Xenoverse 2, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, NBA 2K17, and Dishonored 2. As for what exactly Bronze entails, Valve did not release any actual sales numbers for any of the games on the list.
As stated above, Street Fighter V did have a rough launch. However, data from Steam tracking site SteamDB shows that the game has seen an increase in sales in the past month alone. While this may may be due to seasonal sales, it still shows that people are picking up the game, and that Capcom’s efforts to address the content issues may be hitting their mark.
With Capcom already working on the game’s second season of content, and possibly doing 3 more seasons after this, the future seems to be bright for Street Fighter V.
With the announcement of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, we have another entry into Capcom’s storied Marvel Versus series. This announcement, as well as the gameplay changes being implemented, has started a fair bit of conversation among both fans and non-fans about the chaotic–almost broken–nature of the series.
The Marvel Versus games are famous for the way player push their engines well beyond what the developers envisioned. Despite this, the games have remained popular and highly competitive: “Marvel never dies” is so common a war cry that it’s almost clichéd.
Why is this the case? The answer may lie in their tag-team nature, specifically the tag-team format that they use. During the creation of the original X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Capcom chose to use an elimination-style tag-team system. Why does this matter? Because elimination-style tag-team games are all about momentum and control, or more precisely, being able to steal these things.
Fighting the Slippery Slope
Since the game doesn’t end once one character has been eliminated, the system creates a slippery slope for the losing player, where they can end up having to fight in situations where one character on their last legs has to somehow fight against an entire team of 2 or 3 characters–who may still be at full or near-full life.
Situations like these wouldn’t make for compelling battles if the losing player had little chance of taking down an entire team. This is where the ability to steal momentum and control comes in. The “broken-ness” that makes the Marvel Versus games so chaotic is also what allows a skilled player to fight out of a 1-on-2 or 1-on-3 situation, and come out on top.
This is most evident in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, where many of the glitches and exploits found in the game actually made it much more competitive. The game’s oppressive reset-heavy nature (the term “vortex” actually originates from MvC2) combined with occasional one-touch kill combos meant that a skilled player could make a comeback off one or two good reads. Meanwhile, exploits such as the “double snap” glitch (that allowed a player to kill off an assist character, while the player character was forced off screen) offered even more ways to even the odds.
Meanwhile, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tried to make this reversal of fortunes more accessible by giving every character access to big, near-character-killing damage, off of almost any hit confirm. This was combined with X-Factor, a mechanic that tended to favor the last remaining character of a team.
X-Factor was an attempt to give everyone the ability to steal momentum and control.
The Marvel Versus games aren’t the only titles to do this. Other elimination-based tag-team games also try their best to implement this concept. Skullgirls–which borrows heavily from Marvel vs. Capcom 2–features similar reset-heavy gameplay, while also turning the “double snap” glitch from the latter into an actual feature.
Skullgirls tries its best to refine what made MvC2 work.
Meanwhile, the Dead or Alive series has been one of the few titles that implement both singles and tag-team in the same game. For Dead or Alive 5 and its updates, Team NINJA combined the new game’s more combo-oriented nature with changes in the games physics in tag mode. Tag mode in DOA5 has lower gravity, allowing for longer combos.
Indeed, this philosophy can also be applied to non-tag games that do feature a team-elimination system, such as The King of Fighters and the Capcom vs. SNK games.
Meanwhile, certain other tag-team fighters, specifically the Tekken Tag series and Street Fighter X Tekken, try to work around the aforementioned slippery slope situations by simply removing the elimination factor, and thus requiring the players to take out only one character from a team to win.
Balance, Allowing the Best of Each Style
This emphasis on stealing momentum and control also applies to how these tag-team games are balanced. As we’ve seen multiple times in the Marvel Versus games, these games tend to allow the most powerful and oppressive expressions of certain playstyles, as these are best suited to steal control and momentum.
The application of this is easy enough to see in rushdown characters. By their very nature, rushdown characters are good at generating momentum and taking control–which is why they often take the point role in a team. Naturally then, these characters are also good at taking back momentum and control as well. That said, with other play styles also being given the “best of” treatment–being made stronger in response to rushdown’s naturally affinity for this–the style does need a little something extra.
In the Marvel Versus series, that something extra is freedom of movement. The series sees an amazing diversity of movement options, with multiple directional air dashes (including the vaunted 8 way air dash), fast teleports, free flight modes, and more. This is why characters such as MvC2’s Magneto or UMvC3’s Zero are top tiers. They have good mobility that compliments their rushdown games.
Arguably one of the best rushdown characters ever designed.
Zoning is a style that’s less straightforward when it comes to making it something that can steal momentum and control. Just keeping an opposing team at arms length slows momentum down, but doesn’t actually steal it. What these characters need is a way to capitalize on the mistakes that their opponents make in trying to get in.
The simplest example of this is MvC2’s Cable. When he has five stocks of meter, he can punish any mistake with multiple Air Hyper Viper Beams. Skullgirls has a similar thing, where Peacock can combo her Argus Agony beam into another one (if the player knows how). Of course, being able to punish with powerful supers isn’t the only way zoning characters can steal momentum. MvC2’s Storm, arguably the character most capable of running away in that game, can still easily take out and deal massive amounts of damage when she gets in on her opponent. Meanwhile, aside from her “bullet hell” fireball lockdown, Morrigan in UMvC3 can also deal a healthy chunk of damage if she gets a hit–which is why it took a player like EG|Chris G to popularize the bullet hell style.
Her bullets can put you through hell–or outright kill you.
The latter example, Morrigan, also brings us to another interesting playstyle that is only really expressed fully in the Marvel Versus games–lockdown, also known as trapping. This playstyle uses either extreme zoning or rushdown to keep to keep an opponent blocking, “trapping” them so to speak, while punishing any attempts to get out. This play style is something that can only really be considered fair in a tag-team game–being able to lock an opponent down would be too much in a one-on-one fighter. While UMvC3’s Morrigan/Dr. Doom core is the most recent example, it was in MvC2 that this style really shined with combinations such as Clockw0rk’s Strider/Dr. Doom, Duc Do’s Spiral/Sentinel, and even more that were capable of it.
Get hit, and you die. Block and you die, but much slower.
One thing to note, however, is that lockdown tends to work only with a combination of two specific characters. Stealing momentum and control here then comes more near the start and middle of a match, where both characters are still alive. When left alone without their partners, said characters are usually still able to steal control and momentum on their own, but usually through other means.
Now, having these powerful characters representing the very best of their playstyles sounds like the recipe for a broken game. But, the tag-team nature of these games means that each player has 2 or 3 characters on hand. A player cannot simply steal momentum and control once, and win the match outright.
What’s more debatable is how to maintain that momentum and control once taken. Are we allowed to maintain them easily and kill a character outright, or do we need to take some risks and perform resets, which also gives the other player the opportunity to steal them back? Marvel vs. Capcom 3 clearly favored the former, and some do criticize the game for not allowing the player being comboed the chance to play. Games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Skullgirls however go for the latter, arguing that it allows for more interactivity, with the player being comboed still having to look for chances to get out.
Tag-Team Fighting For the Future
So, what does this all mean for us players? Well, by knowing this, we can all better come to grips with the design decisions seen not just in the Marvel Versus games, but in other tag-team games as well. It allows us to get a better understanding of what is truly fair or broken in these games.
More importantly, it also helps us in making better character and team selection decisions when approaching these games. Alongside the usual things we look for in a team, we need to look at whether the team or character we chose can allow us to steal momentum and control in those dire moments when we need to do so.
In addition to this, people working on their own tag-team fighting games can–and should–also take these concepts into account (and we as players should make sure they’re aware of it). By this, I’m not just referring to Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, but to any team that’s working on or planning to work on a tag-team fighting game, or even just planning to add a tag-team mode to their fighter. It’s all too easy to just add in the superficial parts of a tag-team fighting game without understanding how they work on a deeper level. For the sub-genre to continue to thrive, these concepts of momentum and control–and stealing them–cannot be ignored.
As many of you already know, Justin Wong has left the Evil Geniuses esports team to be a free agent. However, just because he’s a free agent doesn’t mean he’s going to be handling things on his own when it comes to the business end of all things esports! Mark “MarkMan” Julio and Justin Wong have announced that the former will now be Justin’s manager.
Looking forward to 2017 & working as manager for @JWonggg! We have a bright year ahead & will do a lot together for the #FGC! Dattebayo! pic.twitter.com/s2dHCKoLMm
With all he’s already accomplished, MarkMan is likely the perfect choice to manage a free agent like Justin. Since he left MadCatz early last year, Mark has accomplished a lot: becoming the community advisor for Tekken, the FGC consultant for Razer, as well as handling business development for Evo, the latter of which has in part led to the confirmation of Evo Japan next year.
We here are Shoryuken look forward to what Mark and Justin can accomplish with this new relationship.
Back in 2013, Razer released their first arcade stick: the Atrox for Xbox 360. Coming out after an extended beta test period, the Atrox was initially well-received by the community. Our own review found it to be a well thought-out arcade stick, boasting a surprising degree of customization, albeit at a high price point.
While the Atrox reviewed well however, the stick faced issues as time went by. The first of these was with its USB connector–a custom plug based on a design used for car audio–which started failing after a few months. This was most visible at Evo 2015, when EG|Momochi’s stick failed during grand finals. Later on, some folks complained that the casing, specifically its hinges, failed–something which indeed happened to the then 2-year-old test unit sent to Shoryuken.
The biggest problem with the Atrox however was the fact that it was an Xbox 360 stick, meaning that many players, including more than a few pros, needed to have it modified to run on PlayStation 4. This led to occasions where modded Atroxes failed at tournaments. The most notable of which was at Final Round 2015 where the Atroxes of Infiltration and Fuudo, both playing for Team Razer, failed due to issues with said modifications.
With these problems in mind, once the company started producing PlayStation 4 peripherals, many rightfully believed that a new arcade stick was on the way. This new arcade stick is the Panthera.
The Basics
On the surface, the Razer Panthera looks just like an updated Atrox, and that is basically what it is. Despite the issues that it faced, the original Atrox was a solid design that just needed a few kinks ironed out.
The Panthera shares the same form factor, layout, and features as the Atrox, with just about the same degree of mod friendliness as its predecessor.
What has changed however is the new control area on the Panthera’s top panel. The Panthera follows in the footsteps of the MadCatz Tournament Edition S+ by moving its control area towards the center of the top panel, instead of the upper left. As with the TES+, the Panthera’s control area also sports a touch pad.
On a smaller–but still pleasant–note, the Panthera still comes with an optional bat top for its Sanwa JLF lever just like the Atrox did.
Build Quality
Build quality is the area that’s likely of most concern to prospective Panthera buyers, given the issues that the Atrox developed. On the surface, the similarities of the Panthera to the Atrox may indeed seem worrying. However, closer inspection will show that some effort has been made to address any niggling issues the Atrox had.
The entire top cover now seems to be of a different design. Of course this was a given, due to the changed control area. However, the changes go beyond that. The plastic that comprises most of the top cover now seems to be thicker, and there’s simply more of it under the metal panel than before. The top panel acrylic is now also firmly bonded into place. The result is a top cover that feels much more solid than the Atrox, at the cost of some customization.
One interesting thing is that the gas strut that was in earlier Atroxes–but removed from the Ultra Street Fighter IV version–has returned in the Panthera. The Panthera already features beefy, spring loaded hinges on the top cover, so our guess is that this was brought back to control and limit the movement of the top cover and prevent any unnecessary wear and tear on the hinges themselves. The downside of this is that it takes some force to close the top cover.
Another major change is to the USB connector. The Panthera now uses the same screw on 5-pin aviation connector that MadCatz uses for their Tournament Edition 2’s Pro Cable. This design has proven to be quite reliable in the MadCatz controllers and has less points of failure than the multi-pin car audio jack that Razer used in the original Atrox.
Complimenting this is the fact that the USB cable itself is now covered with a threaded outer skin. This should help prevent any extreme folding when stuffed into the Panthera’s crowded cable compartment – something that could result in internal cable breakages if not for the threading.
Ergonomics
In terms of ergonomics, the Razer Panthera doesn’t stray from its Atrox predecessor. As with the latter, the Panthera uses Razer’s version of the Taito Vewlix layout. The buttons are now arranged in the familiar layout with face buttons on the left and shoulder buttons on the right.
With the control area now moved to the center, one interesting thing that the Panthera gains is that the L3 and R3 buttons, as well as the touchpad button, are now more easily accessible by the players right hand. This could be a boon for any players who map functions to these in training mode.
Like the Atrox before it, the Panthera has its start button on the right side panel of the case. As with the Atrox, this means that these buttons can get accidentally hit when playing in close quarters, meaning that players will have to engage the tournament lock.
On a minor note, said tournament lock, alongside the stick selector and console selector toggles on the control area have a nice, textured design, giving them something of a more premium feel.
Customization
The Atrox’s friendliness when it comes to being modified is already well known. Being based on that stick, the Panthera carries this over as well.
The Panthera contains the same hexagonal screw panel that allows for the mounting of new control boards. It also comes with the same color-coded internal cabling, and handy wiring guide as the Atrox.
One area where the Panthera loses out on is in its top panel. The top panel acrylic is no longer screwed on, but rather it seems to be glued on instead. This means that any players looking to customize the top panel artwork will need to do some extra work compared to the previous stick, as well as with the Panthera’s main competition from MadCatz, the Tournament Edition 2 and 2+.
Performance
One of the biggest issues that any arcade stick can face when it comes to performance is whether or not it has any input lag. To test this, we used out totally unscientific method of simply wiring out two arcade sticks to a single button and using them to test if they cause trades in game. For this, we tested the Panthera alongside the MadCatz Tournament Edition 2, and ran Street Fighter V.
The results of the test, in-game footage of which you can see below, are interesting. For the most part, the inputs come out at exactly the same time, resulting in traded hits from both player 1 and player 2. However, there were a couple of times in both rounds where the TE2’s input came out slightly faster. That said, this was a rare occurrence and, about 90% of the time, their inputs come out at the same time. While we don’t have the equipment to actually measure the difference, this points to the TE2 being only just slightly faster than the Panthera, with the difference coming on those occasions where they barely just miss being on the same frame.
Of course, the above test doesn’t necessarily reflect real world conditions. As such, we also took the Panthera (and the TE2) to the regular weekly Friday Night Fights tournament at PlayPad Gaming Hub where some of Metro Manila’s best Street Fighter V players compete.
Here, we had the Panthera used on one of the stations for the actual tournament, letting the players try it out. The feedback in general was positive, with no reports of the Panthera feeling laggy, dropping inputs, or disconnecting. The only negative bit of feedback, if you can even call it that, was on how it felt like the older Atrox, and not a new stick.
Value
When it first came out, the Atrox was considered quite pricey at $199. Nowadays however, most premium arcade sticks retail for around the same price. With this in mind the $199 price point for the Panthera no longer seems as daunting, what with its competitors being priced similarly.
The question then for any prospective Panthera buyers if any advantages it has, such as its greater customize-ability, outweigh those of similarly priced sticks such as the MadCatz Tournament Edition 2+ or the Qanba Obsidian.
Conclusion
The original Razer Atrox has something of a troubled reputation. While it initially came out to good reviews, many issues with the stick soon came to light that, alongside a what was then high price point, gave it a less favorable reputation in the community.
The new Razer Panthera for PlayStation 4 does its best to address those issues. Effort has been made to beef up the sticks sturdiness, though at the cost of some customizability. Additionally, the Atrox’s biggest issue–that of its USB connector dying–has been addressed with a new connector design, similar to that used by the competition.
The Panthera’s price on the other hand has remained the same as the Atrox’s, something which has developed into a non-issue considering that most professional level arcade sticks now sit at that same price point.
Now, while only time and extended play can tell on its long-term quality, based on our time with it, the Panthera is a solid sophomore effort from Razer. It represents an evolution of an already revolutionary design that addresses the issues with the original Atrox, while also showing Razer’s commitment to competitive fighting games.
Pros
Highly customizable just like the Atrox with the easy open top panel and honeycomb floor for easy PCB mounting.
Top cover feels sturdier.
New threaded USB connector using the now standard threaded 5-pin aviation connector works much better than the connector used in the older Atrox.
PS4 (and PS3) support, with touchpad–something earlier PS4 sticks did not have. Bat top included.
Cons
Top panel art can no longer be easily changed.
Atrox-based form factor still holds some stigma, and needs further long-term testing to verify if the case issues have been resolved.
PCB may occasionally be slightly slower than the MadCatz TE2’s.
With the buffs that Zangief received in Street Fighter V Season Two, many expected Red Bull’s Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis to return to the character he became famous for in Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. However, it seems that he’s made the decision to go with a completely different character lately–Akuma.
Now, while he was mostly known for using Zangief, Snake Eyez did have a pocket Akuma in Ultra Street Fighter IV that he would occasionally bring out on stream.
For those interested in how Snake Eyez is taking to Street Fighter V Season Two’s Akuma, Game-Heure has put up a compilation of replays with him playing the character online. You can check the video for this below.
With the buffs that Zangief received in Street Fighter V Season Two, many expected Red Bull’s Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis to return to the character he became famous for in Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. However, it seems that he’s made the decision to go with a completely different character lately–Akuma.
Now, while he was mostly known for using Zangief, Snake Eyez did have a pocket Akuma in Ultra Street Fighter IV that he would occasionally bring out on stream.
For those interested in how Snake Eyez is taking to Street Fighter V Season Two’s Akuma, Game-Heure has put up a compilation of replays with him playing the character online. You can check the video for this below.
