Author: John "Zidiane" Silvia

Between the big sale going on for the game through Steam, the new physical release on its way, and the big balance patch coming (under the title 2nd Encore+), there is a lot for a Skullgirls fan to get excited over. This is before getting into the Skullgirls community focusing on events, with another one coming up next month, GUTS4. All of this excitement leads to more tech videos and combo videos, which I’ve gathered for you here.

First up is a lighter video, form fan favorite Poccola, featuring a rather humorous misstep by an unfortunate Beowulf.

From Poccola as well we have an updated version of the game’s new intro animations, fully colored. He even takes the time to go through the animation frame-by-frame to get a full appreciation for the details.

Here we have a useful corner combo, from long-time Skullgirls fan Datagram. It does a healthy amount of damage and isn’t too costly meter wise, so it’s definitely something to look into if you use this team.

Next up we have an interesting CMV, focusing on crafting combos using specific palette references with particular characters. You may recognize this content creator, Salty Noob, as the person behind that lovely Skullgirls Rhythm Heaven CMV

Lastly we have a Parasoul+Eliza tech and combo video, brought to us by NanoNEVERMIND. This features some pretty oppressive setplay and interesting setups that I haven’t seen before.

Sources: Poccola_margherita0141; Salty. N; datagram; NanoNEVERMiND

The days are ticking away until Mai Natsume becomes available to all Western BlazBlue fans, but that isn’t stopping details from surfacing. We covered some initial tech and combo discoveries from Japanese players earlier in the week, so here are some videos showing off other aspects of Mai, like her special interactions with other characters on the roster.

First up are colors 1-22 for her, as well as some of her Distortion Drives and Astral Finishes. This compilation is brought to us by Jourdal, whose channel is home to all sorts of Blazblue content, including gameplay and CMVs.

Next we have her trials, shown off by Dandy Antagonist. Some of her trials appear fairly basic, and she gets good corner carry off of most conversions.

As is the norm with ArcSys games, special interactions are available when Mai comes across other key members of the cast. Here is a compilation of all of them.

Lastly we have some gameplay through replays, provided by Yoshi SF.

Sources: Jourdal; Dandy Antagonist; SyaoranQ8; Yoshi SF

Learning to cover your opponent’s options and punish in any given situation is essential to playing your character well, no matter what game or character you play. As far as Smash goes, due to the sheer number of movement options some characters have, this can seem a bit overwhelming. That’s where SSBM Tutorials come in, to help point out some of the most optimal options to cover when playing a certain character.

In this tutorial, Captain Falcon is shown covering various tech chase and pressure situations. Options after grabs and stomp are covered, as well as his options following the opponent’s directional influence.

Source: SSBM Tutorials

Few things capture mystery and intrigue quite like a hooded figure who manipulates sand. While playing a fighting game may at times seem as effective as pounding sand, we luckily have friendly community members willing to break things down, making them nice and simple for us.

Coliflowerz us one such friendly face, who regularly uploads helpful content for his game of choice. This time around, he’s helping us learn Kukri, teaching things like pressure tools, punish options, anti-air tools, as well as of course some basic and advanced combos to learn.

If Coliflowerz’ work impressed you, don’t be shy about checking out their channel. They regularly post really helpful content in an attempt to elevate the community.

Source: Coliflowerz

Many characters in King of Fighters XIV are capable of using certain normals or short hop with an air move to dodge projectiles, if they aren’t capable of outright armoring through them. We’ve already reported on a few videos by Gato Ray on the matter, but he’s back with an update. After the latest patch, certain character fireballs were made less effective, making them easier to dodge, especially for characters with poor options to do so. He goes through all of these options, making it easy to brush up on your matchup knowledge.

Source: Gato Ray

There are big changes being tested in the Skullgirls Beta, which will eventually make their way onto a final patch, and eventually on a physical disc release of Skullgirls. The finality of these changes means that developer Lab Zero has to be extra careful with new changes, to ensure they don’t break the game.

Speaking of breaking the game, the latest character to be effected on a large scale is Beowulf, who is receiving a massive update to his signature hype feature. You can read up on Beowulf’s changes here. Essentially, Beowulf will now be allowed to spend accumulated levels of hype on special EX versions of certain moves, allowing him more versatility and combo potential. He received a damage nerf to compensate, but it became very clear very quickly that further tuning is needed. Check below for a sample of what Beowulf will be getting.

Do note that this key change to Beowulf is still in beta, and the damage is likely going to change in the next patch. The EX finishers are staying in some form, but this damage isn’t.

There is also this other video, which plays around with the changes to see what else he’s capable of.

Sources: Winnie; Mike Z; RemiKz

Still enjoying his big win at The Big House 6, where he took first place in both Smash for Wii U singles and doubles tournaments, ZeRo still finds time to upload useful videos to help other players along.

This time around, ZeRo gathers all of his knowledge on Captain Falcon to put together this compilation of competitive strategy for the character. He covers the Captain’s strengths, weaknesses, normals, his neutral, as well as things like players to watch and bad matchups. If you are a Captain Falcon main, or are even just having trouble fighting him, be sure to check this video out!

Source: ZeRo