Author: Lance "Tarnot" Hood

Every Capcom Pro Tour event is important; that’s what a $500,000 prize pool will do. Even beyond picking up guaranteed slots at Capcom Cup, gaining points by placing favorably in Ultra Street Fighter IV tournaments throughout the early months means an easier end-of-year; sure, prize money will always be on the line at these individual events, but once players have a pile of points stowed away, their chance of making it to the final showdown in San Francisco greatly increases.

But we’re well beyond the beginning of the year; in fact, just over a month separates us from what could prove to be one of the most exciting Ultra Street Fighter IV tournaments to date–appropriately sending the game off before the era of Street Fighter V can fully begin. It’s crunch time. In this final month, Capcom Cup hopefuls who’ve yet to make the cut need to perform well at the Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals, DreamHack, and/or Canada Cup in order to make sure their personal tours aren’t cut short.

With players and viewers alike feeling the heat, it’s good to have actual numbers to work with to figure out just how much pressure we should all be feeling. Bavo Bruylandt, who many of you may recognize as the man behind Shoryuken’s player ranking system, recently published a post on Reddit to address this issue. As you might expect, this data comes from his dedicated tracker, which was then consolidated with a list of top players known to be attending Canada Cup created by r/Kappa’s fgcdrmike.

The list in question includes players that have already directly qualified for the Capcom Cup and are simply seeking better seeding: Evil Geniuses’ Momochi, Bonchan of Redbull, Razer’s Fuudo and Xian, GamerBee of AVerMedia, Mad Catz’ Mago, and, last but not least, free agent Kazunoko. Any of these titans making it into the top eight would come as little surprise, and by going so far as to take first place–and, perhaps, additional spots following that–these players could potentially feed Canada Cup’s qualifying spot to a lower-than-expected placement.

Next come those already qualified by points: Redbull’s Snake Eyez, Justin Wong of Evil Geniuses, Razer’s Itabashi Zangief, 801 Strider of Winterfox, and YOMI’s Dieminion. As you’d expect, these players stand to shake things up quite a bit. In the event that one of them directly qualifies at Canada Cup, we’ll see a shift in the qualification range that will allow players to make it in from points alone. This is due in part to Team YP’s Valmaster, whose current point total of 148 would become the new number to beat in order to qualify. That total currently stands at 160, held by Gackt of Razer.

From there, we move on to the final two areas, which make up the bulk of the list. Players like Ricki Ortiz and K-Brad of Evil Geniuses, Team Spooky’s Sabin, MOV, and a handful of others need various amounts of points to gain entry to the finals; the best bet would, of course, be directly qualifying at Canada Cup, but gaining substantial points totals would work just as well in many cases.

Below them come those whose only hope to make Capcom Cup would be outright qualifying in Canada. This list includes the likes of Cast Blanka, Alex Valle of Level|Up Series, Canada Cup Gaming’s own Chi-Rithy and Air, and the ever popular Kitasenju DJ, who will be representing r/Kappa.

These players each have their own following, and everyone likely has more than one favorite from the list of hopefuls; with so many big names it’s nearly impossible to choose only one to cheer on. So, who will you be rooting for this weekend? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

Canada Cup takes place this weekend from October 30 to November 1. Preliminary brackets can be found through Challonge, and the full list of Capcom Pro Tour point totals are available on our ranking page.

Source: Bavo Bruylandt

The word of the week is datamining. We’ve gotten plenty of Street Fighter V news from official sources lately, but just as much has come from people poking around in the beta files on their PCs. As with most information found through this kind of searching, none of these details have been confirmed by Capcom, and could very well be serving as red herrings to throw us off the trail of things they’d prefer we not find. Anything is possible.

With that caveat out of the way, recent discoveries point to Street Fighter V including two modes that have made their way into plenty of fighting games in the past: story and survival. Neither of these modes come as a surprise, but we don’t currently have any idea how involved either will be.

Story mode, for example, could be something as simple as what we got in Street Fighter IV’s arcade mode–an introduction for the character, a specific rival battle, and an ending scene to (sort of) wrap everything up. But with the praise that Mortal Kombat X received for its involved, B-movie-inspired narrative, it’s hard to speculate that Capcom would stick to the easier route in the upcoming title. That isn’t to say that the developers have to do exactly what NetherRealm Studios did, but they could. If they do, let’s hope they at least skip on the quicktime events.

Survival mode is a different beast entirely. Sure, we could see something pretty plain: pick your Ryu or your Ken and get your one health bar, punch the bad guys until they’ve punched you too much, fall down, game over, enter your initials for the scoreboard. That would work, but it would be boring. What about item pickups? What about RPG elements? In a game mode (likely) designed to have the player face off entirely against AI opponents, there’d be no need to worry about the player becoming too strong, so they could go nuts. Give us Rainbow Edition moves. Give us tag partners. Let us fight seven R. Mikas at once and win.

Okay, so, maybe not seven R. Mikas at once, but you get the idea.

As it stands, Street Fighter V is already making strides in the right direction with beta tests to make sure everything works once February 16 rolls around and the addition of cross-platform play (they’re not the first to do it, but it’s an excellent, modern feature). There’s so much more they could do to make the single-player elements just as inviting as the competitive elements to perhaps draw in more players and help grow the scene, so let’s hope these tiny details add up to something great.

Source: Namr2000, tip from Neoxon

Back in July, we first caught wind of Brave Wave’s partnership with Capcom, as well as original Street Fighter II composer Yoko Shimomura, to bring fighting fans a remastered version of the Street Fighter II soundtrack. We recently spoke with project director Mohammad Taher, who provided loads more information for those of you excited to get your hands on a copy of the album.

First of all, the album has officially–and appropriately–been dubbed “Street Fighter II The Definitive Soundtrack,” and we can expect to see it available for purchase some time later this year. The exact date remains unknown, but Taher notes we’ll have more precise details “soon.” The album, which boasts over 100 tracks totaling more than 2 hours of pure arcade nostalgia, will be available as a vinyl or CD release as well as a digital release through media outlets like Bandcamp and iTunes. Those who decide to pick up a physical copy–vinyl or CD–will also receive a digital version of the tracks.

As with anything of this nature, there’s plenty of debate over whether the CPS-1 or CPS-2 versions of these classic songs should bear the “definitive” moniker, and the folks at Brave Wave knew that to be the case. With this in mind, the massive track list is owed in part to the inclusion of remastered versions of both. When asked about the subject in an interview with The Verge, Taher responded with a question of his own: “Instead of us deciding which version is definitive, why don’t we just release both to the fans and they can enjoy both?”

In celebration of the upcoming release, as well as to give folks an idea of the sound quality they can expect, Taher provided Shoryuken with exclusive access to a previously unreleased comparison track. If you’d like to give it a listen yourself, we’ve embedded Sagat’s CPS-1 theme below. It begins with the remastered version of the song, then switches to the track before Brave Wave got their hands on it, and continues to flip back and forth for the duration.

For additional comparison, Taher provided us with Sagat’s CPS-1 theme in its original, on-board form lined up with the same remastered mix. The differences are staggering.

 

Care to hear some more comparison tracks? You can fill your ears with the soothing sounds of Ryu’s Theme (CPS-2 version) and Cammy’s Ending Theme (CPS-2 version) by following their respective links. We’ll keep you posted with more official details surrounding this soundtrack as they become available.

Sources: Brave Wave, The Verge