Author: John "Zidiane" Silvia

With the Injustice 2 beta out we’re seeing gameplay surface from some high profile players. You can check out a roundup of this gameplay here, but we also have some internet personalities getting access. One notable personality is Maximilian, who has gone over the beta and his feelings on many things on his channel.

He talks about everything from the general game feel to smaller details like minor bugs. He also covers the gear system, which seems to be giving gear at a much faster rate in order to allow players to fully experiment with it, but there’s also an option to play without gear in a “competitive mode” though both players have to accept the terms meaning your opponent can choose to play with their beefed up gear while you have an objectively weaker character. Check out the video below for his full thoughts.

Source: Maximilian Dood

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is a game that’s gone largely underplayed by the community at large, thanks in large part to the unfortunate Wii exclusive nature of the game and the relatively unknown Tatsunoko characters. It has seen play at a few Evos over the years, even seeing play as a main game a few times, but players who love the game are having to struggle to keep playing.

While this is an unfortunate landscape for any fighter, the TVC crowd hasn’t given up on their game and they continue playing every chance they get. One such chance was at Frosty Faustings IX, where the game had a healthy showing and a respectable Top 8. If you missed the event, MeleeEveryday has compiled all of the VODs into one single playlist.

With Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite taking clear inspiration from Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, especially with its tag combo system and the rumored return of Giant characters, you could expect more players going back to this often overlooked title in the Versus series.

Source: MeleeEveryday

One of the most powerful characters in the Street Fighter universe often gets treated very generously in-game as well. Akuma traditionally gets a slew of options and just deals with the downside of lowered health. This glass cannon gameplay has been a staple of the character for decades, but he has some noted changes from past incarnations. If you’ve been struggling to get the hang of Akuma in SFV, we have this basics tutorial which should help you out.

jmcrofts goes over a lot of Akuma’s choices, and even talks a bit about his design philosophy as opposed to previous incarnations. He covers the basics of Akuma’s moves and goes over changes from past incarnations, new moves and unique move properties. He doesn’t touch on anything too complicated or much of his V-Gauge specific stuff, but another video is said to be on the way breaking into all that.

Source: jmcrofts

Melee is one of the most refined fighters around, with a lot of complexity in both the dexterity required and the way to think about the game itself. While many core concepts overlap with traditional fighters, the completely new landscape of a Smash game takes some adjustment, even if you are familiar with the series on a casual level.

To help you acclimate to the environment, the folks over at theScore esports sat down with several top Melee players to advise how the game should be thought about in order to succeed. Many of these talking points should help with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U as well, so learn from the best and improve your game.

Source: theScore esports

About a year ago Japan got a Skullgirls Arcade cabinet, along with a physical release of the game courtesy of Arc System Works, so we’ve been seeing more and more Skullgirls play this past year. If you missed our last article on Japanese Skullgirls highlights, you can check that here.

Just like last time our feature player is Poccola, who regularly records and heavily edits his matches with jokes, special effects, and commentary in a truly unique fashion. He’s been uploading compilation pieces of all of his play from 2016, so we have some cherry picked footage here. If you haven’t checked him out already, you’d be doing yourself a favor by doing so now.

Source: Poccola_margherita0141

Injustice: Gods Among Us was a fantastic game with a great story to tell. That game did, however, pick up halfway into the story. A lot of Superman’s rise to power and the escalation of world affairs was left a mystery, but recently all of those mysteries were solved in the comics. The Injustice comics covered the five years between the events that set Superman on his violent path, but if you aren’t interested in catching up on everything, here are a few breakdown videos from History Behind the Warrior.

Year 5, the final year before Injustice: Gods Among Us, is missing from these breakdowns, but will likely be uploaded soon so keep an eye on his channel. As for Injustice 2, he has uploaded this next video compiling everything we know about the story of Injustice 2 so far, including a bit of speculation on characters and allegiances.

Source: History Behind The Warrior

Skullgirls enjoys some truly unique combo potential, thanks in large part to potential team combinations offering new combo extensions. Combo making becomes more expressive than usual, with all sorts of unique ways to continue the combo.

Our combo maker for today is Cadenza, and he’s provided us with some impressive combo compilations. First up is titled Martial Opus and features a combination of Parasoul, Double, and Filia in various orders.

This next combo video’s title, Severin Ties, is a shout out to the Skullgirls player Severine. This CMV uses Sev’s team to make a flashy collage of combo potential.

The final CMV we have the day features “The Twins”, as they’re called, in Fukua and Filia. This video focuses on odd conversions with a fairly strange presentation to match.

Source: Cadenza (YouTube)

Skullgirls enjoys some truly unique combo potential, thanks in large part to potential team combinations offering new combo extensions. Combo making becomes more expressive than usual, with all sorts of unique ways to continue the combo.

Our combo maker for today is Cadenza, and he’s provided us with some impressive combo compilations. First up is titled Martial Opus and features a combination of Parasoul, Double, and Filia in various orders.

This next combo video’s title, Severin Ties, is a shout out to the Skullgirls player Severine. This CMV uses Sev’s team to make a flashy collage of combo potential.

The final CMV we have the day features “The Twins”, as they’re called, in Fukua and Filia. This video focuses on odd conversions with a fairly strange presentation to match.

Source: Cadenza (YouTube)

The Injustice 2 Beta has been circulated and the few lucky players to get into the beta have been spending their time breaking this game open. A second wave of Beta keys will be circulating shortly, but until then it’d be a good idea to see what the game looks like in the hands of some great players.

Up first we got some footage uploaded by cR|HoneyBee featuring his Supergirl up against Superman and Atrocitus.

We also got some footage featuring Batman and Atrocitus.

There’s also some Supergirl mirrors, featuring SonicFox.

If that all isn’t enough for you, we have streamed a bunch of streamed footage of the game for a good while, and you can lose a few hours watching footage of them playing

Sources: HoneyBee CMNDR (YouTube); MK_REO (YouTube); GameSpun (YouTube); Forever King (YouTube)