Author: Sam "Trilby" Foxall

To compliment their Super Smash Bros. Melee recaps hosted by their resident analyst and Ice Climbers main, PG|Wobbles, Panda Global has kicked off an equivalent series for Smash 4, where players come on to walk through the main events of big tournaments. As their pilot episode, Panda Global has drafted in barrel technician MVD to recap the top 32 of this year’s Evo.

The presentation of this series is a cut above the Melee pilot, complete with short clips from select games and full screen graphics showing each individual player, their character, and who they lost to during top 32. Every player gets their moment of analysis, which is a welcome touch–as most recaps tend to solely focus on the top 8, as that is where most of the excitement takes place.

A potential criticism of this pilot is that PG|MVD sounds like he’s just reading off a script, which makes him seem strangely distant from the information being presented–this man is incredibly knowledgeable about the game already, and had firsthand insight of the tournament. Make sure to leave your own thoughts and constructive criticism in the comment of the video, to help improve the series.

Source: Panda Global

The modding community for super Smash Bros. for Wii U has exploded over the past few months, with talented people working together to create new character skins, a special Tournament Edition, and re-texturing existing stages for different looks. It was only a matter of time until modders started working together to port old stages from Melee and Project M to Smash 4.

After hints on Twitter and some promising screenshots, the Yoshi’s Story stage from Super Smash Bros. Melee has been remade and successfully ported to Smash 4. This isn’t just a re-skin of Battlefield though–it’s a proper replica of the starter stage, complete with same blast zones and a working version of everyone’s favorite smiling cloud, Randall. While the cloud timings are slightly off compared to Melee, it’s still a great feat to clone the stage and get it looking so vibrant in Smash 4. Currently, the stage replaces Kongo Jungle 64 Omega, as modders haven’t quite figured out how to replace normal stages without causing the game to lock up. This stage is also not safe to use online, so don’t expect to play this with friends over Wi-Fi.

The stage is available for download from gamebanana now; check out the video below to see the stage in action. The video even teases a remake of Fountain of Dreams, so expect that stage to also grace many modded copies of Smash in the near future.

Sources: Gamebanana; DemonSlayerX8

The dust has well and truly settled after that crazy weekend in July. Riding high off of his victory in Killer Instinct, the team over at Ultra Combo caught up with Evo champion F3 HollywoodSleep to talk about his history with KI, his character choice, and plans going forward.

His switch from Kan-Ra and Aria to Gargos and Arbiter was one that naturally fit Sleep’s playstyle as he likes “characters that play keep away, or that can trap you.” With Arbiter’s reset capabilities off grenades, and Gargos’ mental pressure with the minions and his almost unlimited armor, this character combination seemed like the perfect pick for Sleep. As for the Gargos pick in Grands, this choice was to exploit UA|Bass’ lack of match-up experience, seeing as Gargos was still a great unknown going into Evo. According to Sleep, Gargos is “a fun character but not really a great character on paper,“ so this tactical counterpick was to mess with Bass’ familiarity with Sleep’s Arbiter. Clearly it paid off.

Sleep’s next goal is to take the big prize by winning the KI World Cup in March, cementing his place as the true master of Killer Instinct.

Sources: Ultra Combo; evo2kvids

The dust has well and truly settled after that crazy weekend in July. Riding high off of his victory in Killer Instinct, the team over at Ultra Combo caught up with Evo champion F3 HollywoodSleep to talk about his history with KI, his character choice, and plans going forward.

His switch from Kan-Ra and Aria to Gargos and Arbiter was one that naturally fit Sleep’s playstyle as he likes “characters that play keep away, or that can trap you.” With Arbiter’s reset capabilities off grenades, and Gargos’ mental pressure with the minions and his almost unlimited armor, this character combination seemed like the perfect pick for Sleep. As for the Gargos pick in Grands, this choice was to exploit UA|Bass’ lack of match-up experience, seeing as Gargos was still a great unknown going into Evo. According to Sleep, Gargos is “a fun character but not really a great character on paper,“ so this tactical counterpick was to mess with Bass’ familiarity with Sleep’s Arbiter. Clearly it paid off.

Sleep’s next goal is to take the big prize by winning the KI World Cup in March, cementing his place as the true master of Killer Instinct.

Sources: Ultra Combo; evo2kvids

Prepare for explosive punches, devastating chops, and back breakers a-plenty as Team Ikari makes quite the entrance in this new King of Fighter XIV trailer. Along with showing off Ralf, Leona and Clark’s Super Special and Climax Special Moves, this trailer shows the team fighting on a brand new aircraft carrier stage–complete with military personnel watching as two people knock seven bells out of each other.

The Navy must have done an appropriate risk assessment, as jets are taking off and engineers are doing maintenance as normal in the background of the fight; it must be the lunchtime entertainment for everyone on the ship. I have to say that Ralf’s Climax Special is especially vicious, as he magically shoots flak out of his fists then punches someone so hard that they explode.

Source: PlayStation

Marvel keeps on trucking, and so do the combo videos. Back for the 16th installment in the ‘Experi-Mental’ series, KoreanDrifter has released a combo video for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 which is half exhibition, half dance track. The video starts off fairly normal, showing off some cool loops for Akuma, and team combos using Amaterasu’s Veil of Mist, before going nuts with Level 3 setups–which sees Drifter carefully positioning himself to deal even more damage once the opponents exits the missing Level 3 animation.

If that wasn’t enough, the combo video then shifts into music mode, with the last three minutes of the video having combo hits timed to the beat of the song. This includes characters practically dancing to the music in split screen, hits being layered and pitch shifted to match the backing track, and some mental editing to send this combo video over the edge.

Source: TheKoreanDrifter

As everyone is gearing up for the latter half of the Capcom Pro Tour, the organizers of this year’s Manila Cup have released all the details about their upcoming Ranking Event. Taking place at the Acropolis Clubhouse from September 10-11th in Quezon City, the winner of this event will automatically qualify for the Asian Regional Finals at South East Asia Major in October. While the event is primarily for Street Fighter V, Manila Cup will also be hosting tournaments for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Mortal Kombat X and BlazBlue Chronophantasma Extend.

Online registration is now live, with venue fee being $50 and per-game fee being $10. Registration will close on September 7th, and there will be no on-the-day signups, so put your cash down now to avoid disappointment. Any additional details, including hotels in the area, can all be found on the Manila Cup event page.

Source: Manila Cup