ARIKA was at Evo 2017 with the latest build of their tentatively-named “ARIKA EX” fighting game. Now, we’ve seen some off-screen footage and even heard people’s impressions of it; however, what we haven’t seen yet is actual direct capture footage of the game in its current state.
Fortunately, for those wanting some direct feed footage of the game, Maximilian got to record some footage of it from the Evo show floor. The result of this: 15 minutes of direct gameplay footage of various matches, played in ARIKA’s booth. Check it out below!
If there’s one thing that’s caused a lot of heated discussion regarding Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, it’s the game’s art direction. Certain characters on the Capcom side of the roster such as Chun-Li and Dante, have been criticized as being rather sub-par, especially when compared to their Marvel counterparts.
We’ve already seen that Capcom’s been working on fixing these issues, with Chun-Li getting some improvements in the Evo preview. Now, it seems that Capcom have committed themselves on working to resolve these issues right up until the game’s launch. At their panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, producer Yoshinori Ono has confirmed that there will be art fixes coming to the game on “day one”.
Chun Li's face and more characters are getting improvements on day 1. #sdcc#mvci
This should come as good news for those worried about the look of these specific characters in the game. Of course, ideally these would come with the game on launch, console release testing and certification cycles mean that games need to be sent in early for testing and certification, and any work done after that will have to be added in as a day 1 patch.
If there was one player who was conspicuous by his absence from the last day of Street Fighter V at Evo 2017, it would have to be Cygames Beast’s Daigo Umehara. The fighting game legend has missed his second Evo top 8 in a row and has generally not been as dominant in Street Fighter V as he was in the previous game.
At Evo 2017, Mark “BornFree” Sheridan (with Zhi Liang Chew translating) got the chance to get together with Daigo for an interview. In the video below, Daigo talks about a number of topics, not just limited to Evo. They even go as far back as ELEAGUE, where Daigo talks about his match with Eita. The latter’s style of Ken play really got under Daigo’s skin in that match which resulted in him dropping his usual defensive style with Guile in favor of going head to head with Eita’s Ken. He admitted to enjoying getting emotional in that match and that the crowd enjoyed it as well. Additionally, the match reminded Daigo of an old-school, man-on-man battle of wills from the arcade days, and he promised to himself that he would remember that feeling moving forward.
Moving on to other events and other players, he talks about his match with Echo Fox’s Tokido at Red Bull Kumite. Specifically, he mentions how he didn’t want to exit the event in an unsatisfactory manner, this is why he turned up the offense against Tokido in that match.
Daigo also moves even further back to the past, talking about Alex Valle with whom he had a legendary rivalry back in the turn of the millenium. Daigo considers Valle to be the strongest Ryu player he had faced at the time, and it was thanks to Valle showing him what Ryu could do that he started playing the character that’s now so closely associated with him.
Of course, this isn’t all that they talk about. Daigo also talks about the future, including which characters he wants to come back in Street Fighter V – specifically mentioning Gen, Rolento (who he played in Street Fighter Alpha 3), Evil Ryu, and Sagat, the last one of which he wants for Bonchan. He also talks a bit about other games such as Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Arika’s unnamed fighting game, and Dragon Ball: Fighter Z.
With Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite focusing on Capcom crossing over with the Marvel universe, it’s a great space for telling stories not just in the game, but also in comic book form. We’ve already seen special MvC: Infinite variant covers coming to select Marvel books next month however, what’s missing is an actual comic book based on the game’s setting, until now.
At their panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, Capcom announced a special crossover comic book, coming exclusively to Gamestop. The 20 page comic book sets the merging of Wakanda, from Marvel’s Black Panther comics, with the Val Habar region from Capcom’ Monster Hunter games.
We’ve already seen the results of these with the “Valkanda” stage seen in the Versus demos that Capcom’s been lugging around to events. The comic should then show how the normal residents of both places react to the merge.
Available exclusively at Gamestop, the comic book will be available in both English and French. In the meantime, here’s a shot of the slide from Capcom’s presentation, showing the cover of the book, from Fresno Gaming’s JardFGC.
As the world recovers from the spectacle that was Evo 2017, many esports organizations are starting to look to the fighting game community to find new players that can represent them. The latest player to get picked up by a team is Hong Kong’s Kevin “Saunic” Souvanheuane, who has been signed by Talon Esports.
Saunic has recorded a number of impressive performances in tournaments in the region. These include a second place finish in Thaiger Uppercut, and a 8th place finish at the Hong Kong eSports festival last year. Both helped him reach the rank of 61 in the Capcom Pro Tour worldwide rankings last year.
Talon Esports is a Hong Kong-based esports organization, that usually competes in the Greater China Area. More known for competing in Blizzard’s Overwatch, Talon recently entered into the world of competitive fighting games by signing Taiwanese Street Fighter V player Xaiobao — who finished 9th at Evo 2017.
One of the most heartbreaking losses at Evo 2017 was that of Panda Global’s Victor “Punk” Woodley at the grand finals of Street Fighter V. The player many thought would be the first American to win at a Street Fighter at Evo was visibly distraught after losing to Echo Fox’s Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi.
Following this, Punk tweeted that he felt that he had “let everyone down” and was “so disappointed in myself.” To which many of his friends and fans came out in numbers to try to cheer up Punk. Of all these, one of the most meaningful for the 18-year-old may be from none other than former WWE pro wrestler Phil “CM Punk” Brooks.
The Fighting Game Community has always had this interesting connection to pro-wrestling. Many players are fans of pro-wrestling, and a number of pro-wrestlers are big fans of fighting games. Falling into the former, Punk actually chose his handle because he was a fan of CM Punk and his attitude. As such, the video message, which fellow pro-wrestler and fighting game fan Kenny Omega shared on his Twitter for Punk to see, is quite special to the young rising fighting game star.
“Everyone’s proud of you. Nobody feels let down by you. You made it all the way to finals, and everybody has no doubt that you’ll do it again. Fall down once, get up twice. Fall down seven times, get up eight. See you in the finals next time.”
In response to the message, Punk was quite surprised and very thankful. In a later tweet, he also promised to do his best to “take it for America next year.”
HORI has done a great job of updating their arcade sticks for the current generation of consoles, releasing new versions of their Real Arcade Pro and RAP VLX lines of sticks. However, one line of arcade sticks has yet to be brought up to date: the classic Fighting Edge.
Now, we already know that HORI is working on an updated Fighting Edge for PlayStation 4, we just haven’t seen much of it — until now that is. At HORI’s booth at Evo 2017, the latest prototypes for the new Fighting Edge were on display. Luckily, SPLITFRAME’s Hibachi was once again able to get a shot of the prototypes at the booth.
As with the prototypes first shown at E3 2016, these new prototypes lack the haptic touch panel of the original. More importantly, the new prototypes lack the unique 3 row layout that the old one had, replacing it with a more conventional 2 row layout. This could indicate that the design of the new Fighting Edge is closer to being finalized, and that it may enter production soon.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U has not been updated for over a year now. Its last patch, version 1.1.6, hit the Wii U on May 19, 2016. However, a new update has now arrived for the game.
For those wondering if this update for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (and 3DS) changes anything significant about the game’s balance — well, it doesn’t. The 1.1.7 update for the game does not bring any balance updates that we know of, whatsoever. All the update adds is compatibility for the last three amiibo needed to complete the game’s cast — Cloud, Corrin, and Bayonetta, arriving in stores this Friday.
These three amiibo were the last three from the game’s cast that had yet to be supported. Previously, we had reported on rumors that these were delayed to coincide with a Switch release for the game. However, with this patch, we’re now getting support for the amiibo (and their player 2 variant versions) without any official confirmation of a Smash game for the Switch.
This year marked Evo’s second year on ESPN2, as the Street Fighter V finals on Sunday were once again broadcasted on the network. So, the question now is, how did it do in terms of viewership?
ESPN2’s Evo 2017 Street Fighter V finals broadcast on Sunday pulled in an average of 180,000 viewers over the course of the event. Of this, approximately 136,900 were from the key 18 to 49-year-old range, covering ESPN’s target demographic. This is comparable to the viewership numbers on the simulcast on Twitch, which pulled in 179,200 on the main channel, and 219,568 on Twitch in total.
What’s interesting is the fact that the ESPN2 ratings are slightly down compared to last year’s broadcast, which peaked at 201,000 viewers. While this is somewhat disappointing, it’s not unexpected — given the growing number of viewers opting to cut their cable service in favor of internet-based streaming.
More importantly, ESPN2 wasn’t the only channel broadcasting the Street Fighter V finals at Evo this year. Sister channel DisneyXD also broadcast the event (alongside the finals for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U), though the numbers for those aren’t yet listed.
This generation, the console of choice for fighting games has primarily been the PlayStation 4, with the PC and Xbox One following up a bit behind. Nintendo’s consoles however –the late Wii U, and now the Switch — have traditionally been bereft of fighting games save for a few outliers and Nintendo’s own Super Smash Bros. series. However, that doesn’t meant that this can’t change.
One person who believes that the Switch can be a system for fighting games is BlazBlue creator Toshimichi Mori. The Switch, and the likelihood of a BlazBlue title appearing on it, were topics that were brought up in a recent interview with Mori on Red Bull eSports.
Regarding the Switch, Mori believes that with the introduction of titles such as ARMS, fighting games can find a home on Nintendo’s hybrid console. As for BlazBlue — the logo of which was spotted in list of upcoming titles for the Switch at a Nintendo event earlier this year — Mori states that he “unfortunately can’t say much today.”
Of course, this is just part of what they talked about. Mori also talks about BlazBlue itself and continuing after the end of the “Ragna Arc.” Additionally, he also talks about supporting players, even going as far as stating which specific player he’d like to support.
