Author: John "Zidiane" Silvia

The announcement of King of Fighters XIV’s inclusion on the Evo lineup was very well met. The King of Fighters series has a storied history with Evo, and it’s nice seeing the series making its welcome return with KOFXIV. To celebrate, let’s look at some of recent KOF community content.

First up we have a neat Terry Safe Jump compilation, featuring a lot of regular situations he might find himself in that he can keep himself safe while keeping up the pressure.

Next up is a combo video centered around utilizing one specific Iori super, with some pretty funky looking combo extensions from it.

We also have a seductively devastating corner combo from Luong and while it does cost five bars, it seems like it’s worth the resources.

Our last video for the day is for one of the most underutilized characters in the roster, Verse. He’s awkward and hard to understand, but thanks to the efforts of dedicated fans he’s building up some very useful tech. Here is a list of many option selects and Okizeme setups he can use to his advantage.

Sources: Hoemhiem; FightingMachineVS; Paul Guzman; APE OF THE U N I V E R S E

The announcement of King of Fighters XIV’s inclusion on the Evo lineup was very well met. The King of Fighters series has a storied history with Evo, and it’s nice seeing the series making its welcome return with KOFXIV. To celebrate, let’s look at some of recent KOF community content.

First up we have a neat Terry Safe Jump compilation, featuring a lot of regular situations he might find himself in that he can keep himself safe while keeping up the pressure.

Next up is a combo video centered around utilizing one specific Iori super, with some pretty funky looking combo extensions from it.

We also have a seductively devastating corner combo from Luong and while it does cost five bars, it seems like it’s worth the resources.

Our last video for the day is for one of the most underutilized characters in the roster, Verse. He’s awkward and hard to understand, but thanks to the efforts of dedicated fans he’s building up some very useful tech. Here is a list of many option selects and Okizeme setups he can use to his advantage.

Sources: Hoemhiem; FightingMachineVS; Paul Guzman; APE OF THE U N I V E R S E

Skullgirls is a game that takes great care in learning from bugs and oddities in past games and adapting them in a cohesive way. One such bug was found in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, in which characters who used their air options only regained those air options upon jumping again. You can hear Mike Z explaining everything about this and other bugs in MvC2 here, but the one we’re looking at today is the air option mechanic.

Skullgirls player Skarmand, who recently made a video tutorial on how to perform a Double Jump Instant Overhead, is at it again with a video discussing the aforementioned air option mechanics. He explains the mechanic as well as how to best use the knowledge of other players not having access to their air options.

Source: Liam

SNK has a long history of fighting games, with The King of Fighters being the feature series today. This particular franchise has included a great number of titles and iterations over the years, a history to be proud of for sure. A great deal of time and effort was put into each of these games, which is nice to see remembered even to this day.

One lover of old school King of Fighters, YouTuber 8Sin-Am put together this CMV a few years back featuring a good selection of the KOF library. This combo movie is older than some of the early 2000 stuff, but it still has that artistic anime movie vibe to it. If that’s your thing, enjoy!

Source: 8Sin-Am (YouTube)

The tradition of holding a community-run Kumite–a series of sets one after another, against one particular player–exists as a means to test endurance and adaptability. In fighting games, a Kumite can improve your ability to adapt rapidly, while also testing matchup knowledge and mental fortitude. The tradition of Kumite matches has become popular in the Skullgirls scene, promoting one player as they are tried through a gauntlet of sets.

Today we have one such Kumite, hosted by KPB|McPeanuts, featuring the Canadian Squigly/Big Band player Yaya. The sets take place online, with commentary from both McPeanuts and Yaya. and features a lot of strong play from various characters, for over three hours. It’s worth a watch–but mind the slight NSFW language!

McPeanuts has several other Kumite sets up on his YouTube channel, so be sure to check out his playlists for similar compilations.

Source: peanutscontainedmay

The King of Fighters has always been a flashy franchise, but The King of Fighters XIV blows past previous titles in terms of show: between the fully cinematic super move startups and animations, this sets a new bar above the rest of the franchise. This flashiness of course bleeds over to combo videos, which get to be that much more dynamic.

The YouTuber that we can thank for our video today is ALX, who has been gathering these combos from version 1.02 of the game, up until now. Note that because of the span of versions, not all of these combos may still work–but they’re all certainly all still cool to watch.

Source: ALX

The King of Fighters community is incredibly dedicated to their game. There is non-stop content coming from their corner: combo videos, tutorials, and frame data breakdowns for all 50 characters, and this support of their latest title is being mirrored by SNK with patches that address player concerns, along with their tournament support… It’s a good time to be a KOF fan, plain and simple!

Today we have the fruit of one fan’s labor: another KOF XIV beginner tutorial video from Ra3bones. He’s been nonstop with the tutorials, and has covered over half the cast already. Today’s tutorial focuses on Leona, showing beginners the basics of all of her normals, specials, and supers, which moves make good anti-airs, pressure tools, and more.

Source: Ra3bones

Smash Summit has made a name for itself as one of the most prestigious events in the Smash community. Smash Summit 3 last year had an amazing reception, with a lot of fun events for the spectators and the players alike. Now, just a few months after the previous event, we get an announcement for a Spring event!

This event will see 16 of the best Smashers–10 pre-selected, and 6 elected by Twitter voting–compete for $15,000 in cash prizes. You’ll be able to contribute to the prize pool, so the final prize pool will likely end up much larger. The event will take place over four days, from March 2nd-5th, so mark your calendars and get ready for a great show.

Source: Beyond the Summit

As was shown off during the demo, every character in The King of Fighters XIV now has two more colors to choose from. In addition to this, many palettes were either subtly or obviously altered. These changes seem very welcoming, and atop both the new palettes and improvements on older palettes, a lot of the complaints players have had with the palette selection are being directly addressed.

Gato Ray has helped us out once again, this time providing a nice visual representation of all of the colors in the game. While past colors that have changed aren’t as easy to spot, everyone can appreciate the newness of colors 5 and 6. Do you see any old colors that have changed, though?

Source: Gato Ray