By now, you’ve surely heard that Cammy and Birdie have found a home among Street Fighter V’s growing roster. While Cammy’s inclusion comes as little surprise, many fans of the series–myself included–expected anyone but Birdie to be announced alongside her. It’s easy to understand this announcement coming as a surprise, too, as we haven’t heard anything from Birdie in nearly two decades–a period that he seems to have dedicated to devouring everything that he could get his hands on.
As part of their running series, “The World Warriors,” Capcom UK released a breakdown of Birdie’s history within the Street Fighter universe. This includes details about everything from his Saturday Night Slam Masters ties to his involvement with Shadowloo. If you’re looking to learn more about the chain-toting fighter, this video is a great place to get started.
In addition to opening up a handful of combo opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be possible, dash Ultras in Ultra Street Fighter IV allow players to discourage opponents from throwing fireballs at a much greater range than normal. For these reasons, anyone playing a charge character should learn to perform this powerful technique as soon as possible
In Bafael’s latest video, he breaks down how to perform both standard and “Flash Kick” Ultra combo inputs following a dash. While this information is undoubtedly old news for many of our readers, players just getting into Street Fighter, or those who have only just recently tried their hand at a charge-based character will be pleased to add this trick to their game.
With three new additions to the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U cast, it’s easy to lose sight of the characters that have been in the game since release. But that hasn’t stopped the guys at Smash and Grab from creating an incredibly in depth tutorial for Shulk.
This tutorial starts with the absolute basics, including things like how to properly use his jab and tilts, and how each of his stances impact said attacks. The tutorial also includes advanced tactics like timing stance changes so that they activate when landing to mimic the L-cancels of old.
If you’re in the market for a new sword fighter, but haven’t yet jumped on the Roy bandwagon, be sure to give this tutorial a look. Shulk may be just what you’re looking for!
Olympic Gaming is back with another Ultra Street Fighter IV player spotlight, this time focusing on the masterful Rolento play of Pandora House’s LPN.
What you’re about to see encapsulates the essence of Rolento: a good hit-confirm followed by a difficult guessing situation on the part of the defender often results in a stun and the sort of damage lead from which opponents aren’t likely to recover. Pair this with the standard Rolento options of frantic rolling and Stinger chucking, and this highlight reel is just a lot of fun to watch.
As always, you can check out a brief text-based interview in the video’s description to learn more about the featured player.
There’s a reason that characters hit with a focus crumple enter into an aerial state before they fall fully to the ground in Street Fighter IV. Not only does this make the timing on the next hit targeted at them slightly tighter than it would otherwise be, but it also prevents an endless chain of focus attacks from crumpling opponents ad nauseam.
Nintendo took this into account when they gave Ryu a version of this powerful attack to bring up against the cast of Smash, but there is a way around it in some situations.
Consecutive crumple attempts pop up opponents only if the focus attack isn’t held for its full duration, or if Ryu faces his opponent when the move’s animation finishes. This second condition can be finnicky and will occasionally allow for a handful of back-to-back crumples at specific damage ranges, but it’s inconsistent at best. If allowed to release on its own after reaching full capacity, and with Ryu’s back to his opponent (this part is key), Ryu can indefinitely crumple some characters; Charizard and Donkey Kong have been confirmed as potential victims.
Actually pulling this off in a match won’t be simple since Ryu has to be practically inside the hurtbox of his opponent when his first focus attack finishes, but once he gets going, the combo is essentially free. Check out the video below from Dezmu to get a feel for the sort of timing that this requires.
Source: Dezmu and a shoutout to KGA’s Lenny for sharing this.
Street Fighter’s Shoryuken is one of the most iconic attacks in the fighting genre, and perhaps gaming as a whole. No one could have known when the rising dragon fist first hit arcades back in 1987 that it would leave such a lasting impression on the world–well, except maybe Sagat.
Since its creation, the Shoryuken–or some variation thereof–has become the signature attack for a slew of characters in the Street Fighter universe, and has shown up in a host of other fighting titles as well. Guilty Gear’s Sol Badguy, King of Fighters’ Kula, and Smash’s Mario all sport a rising uppercut-style attack, and they’re just the first few characters that come to mind; there are plenty more fighters from across the genre who round out their arsenal with an uppercut of some variety or another.
Being so well-known, the move has also seen its share of the spotlight in various pop culture outlets over the years, but, strange as it may sound, Ryu wasn’t the first animated character to curl his fingers into a fist before slamming it into his opponent’s chin while leaping into the air.
In a 1935 episode of Popeye the Sailor Man titled “The Spinach Overture,” we see the man himself inhale a can of spinach and pound out an impressive number on a nearby piano (even using his feet and pipe to play) before spinning up to Brutus to deliver a blow that sends him flying across the room. All that’s missing is the yelling of the attack’s name as Popeye unleashes it.
It’s impossible to know whose idea it was to have Popeye deliver this style of attack, as the series employed a handful of animators, not all of whom were involved in each episode of the show. This particular episode credits Seymour Kneitel and Roland Crandall for bringing the sailor to life, so they could have had a hand in the creation of this attack, or it could have all come from the mind of series director Dave Fleischer. At any rate, Popeye seems to have beaten Ryu to the punch.
You’ll find the full Popeye episode below, cued up to the moment in question.
Source: James Flynn, special thanks to UncleSamPatriot for pointing this out to us.
If you’re in the market for a new character to add to your King of Fighters XIII team, now may be the perfect time to pick up Athena Asamiya. With this extensive combo guide–which clocks in just shy of the one hour mark–in your back pocket, adding the Psycho Soldier representative to your squad should be no sweat.
The guide features every sort of combo that you could hope for including basic meterless strings, ways to burn any amount of meter that you may have at the time of a successful hit-confirm, and, of course, some stylish touch of death combos.
If you prefer more condensed combo collections, Persona dedicated a video to Athena a while back that provides only the most advanced strings.
As with any fighting game, the importance of punishing opponents for their mistakes in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U can’t be stressed enough. Even so, there are plenty of reasons that can prevent optimal punishes (or any punish at all) from being possible.
When you put down your shield in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, your character suffers through seven frames of recovery before they’re able to act, which can quash punish attempts and leave opponents free to do whatever they want.
In the video below, ZeRo aims to help players make sure punish opportunities of this sort don’t slip by. With proper timing, players can eliminate shield recovery frames entirely by dropping from a platform as they release the shield button. The timing and execution requirements are strict, but what stands to be gained from mastering the technique appears to be well worth the effort.
If you’re looking to up your game in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, be sure to give this technique a shot.
Whether they’re creating their own UI elements, digging through files to make the unplayable playable, or any number of other things, the creativity of modders within the gaming community never ceases to amaze. Recently, a modder by the name of PFunkk flexed their creative muscles and produced a version of Street Fighter III’s Alex, which they then plopped right into Ultra Street Fighter IV in place of Abel.
It’s important to note that while this is a model replacement for Abel, it’s not simply a haphazard reskinning of the French fighter–far from it. The model for Alex was painstakingly built from the ground up, a process that you can see unfold through a vast number of screenshots included in this gallery. Sadly, the nature of this mod prevents Alex from unleashing any of the attacks that he’s known for performing, but Abel’s moves don’t look too out of place on him.
The video that we’ve embedded below shows the skin in action by way of an Alex mirror match tied together with a soundtrack right out of Street Fighter III.
If you spend most of your time in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U lobbing brightly-colored eggs and using your face to spike opponents, My Smash Corner’s latest video will be right up your alley. That’s right, the Smash tutorial extraordinaire has given Yoshi some attention, sharing a plethora of tips and tricks for the Mushroom Kingdom’s resident wearer of the tiny saddle.
As you might expect, My Smash Corner covers combo options that can be applied across a wide spread of percentage ranges, including important follow-ups to Yoshi’s egg throw special. On top of that, he takes a close look at the dino’s jab cancel and how to go about pulling it off, complete with a handcam.
If you’re not a Yoshi main but have been looking to give him a try, be sure to check out the video below.
