As we are all saying our farewells to Season One of Street Fighter V, many players and video creators are choosing to remember this year by creating final combo videos ahead of the December 20th switch over. Pepopulo has gone all out with this memorial to Season One, creating a cracking CMV which shows off the crazier combos that the SFV cast could pull off.
While pepopulo chooses to focus on the madness that comes from Urien’s Aegis Reflector and Guile’s Sonic Boom loops, Laura, Birdie, Ken, Ibuki, Juri, Alex and Balrog also get some time to show off some of the wild stuff that was possible in Season One. Let’s just hope Akuma and his cohort of new fighters can create equally as creative combos.
Creators of the Bishoujo line of character figurines, Kotobukiya is returning to the realm of Street Fighter with its new Ibuki figurine. Using her initial design from Street Fighter III and then re-imagined by master illustrator Shunya Yamashita, this Ibuki figurine would suit any Street Fighter collection, joining Poison and Sakura who have also been given the Bishoujo treatment.
Ibuki stands at 9.65 inches tall and can be pre-ordered for $74.99 over on Kotobukiya’s official website. If you do order now, figurines are set to arrive sometime in March 2017. Do note that there will be an alternate release of this Ibuki figurine in the future, which will have her ninja mask included. Check out the shots below to see both a front and back view of this Ibuki figurine.
Alongside the reveal of Panda, Kuma and Tekken 7’s Online Tournament feature, the King of the Iron Fist Global Finals brought with it another big announcement for fans of both real and virtual fighting. In a collaboration with New Japan Pro Wrestling, Tekken 7 will feature a special outfit for King, based on the wrestling attire of current IWGP Heavyweight champion, Kazuchika Okada.
A new trailer was released showing off this new outfit, and showing Kazuchika Okada talking about this new “Rainmaker” outfit for King. King has even gained the use of Okada’s Rainmaker finisher as one of his new moves in Tekken 7, making this collaboration an absolute dream for wrestling fans.
Alongside the reveal of Panda, Kuma and Tekken 7’s Online Tournament feature, the King of the Iron Fist Global Finals brought with it another big announcement for fans of both real and virtual fighting. In a collaboration with New Japan Pro Wrestling, Tekken 7 will feature a special outfit for King, based on the wrestling attire of current IWGP Heavyweight champion, Kazuchika Okada.
A new trailer was released showing off this new outfit, and showing Kazuchika Okada talking about this new “Rainmaker” outfit for King. King has even gained the use of Okada’s Rainmaker finisher as one of his new moves in Tekken 7, making this collaboration an absolute dream for wrestling fans.
Not one to be left out of the pro circuit trend which is taking over fighting games, SNK has released more details about the King of Fighters XIV World Championships which are set to take place early in 2017. With their new esports initiative, SNK is planning to sponsor more tournaments to become part of the qualifying stages of the KOF World Championship, so more and more players can get a chance to win Antonov’s shiny championship belt and be crowned the actual King of Fighters.
While more tournaments are slowly being added to this early 2017 season, this new information mainly revolves around the final two tournaments that will end the World Championships. This penultimate stage will be the “Four Kings” Tournament held in Tokyo on February 18th, 2017. 16 top players will be invited to compete, either by gaining ranking points from qualifiers or being specially selected by SNK, until only four finalists remain.
These “Four Kings” will then be invited to Beijing to compete in the Championship Finals in mid-March, where they will compete for the title of King of Fighters, as well as some “gorgeous prizes,” according to SNK. SNK will be providing accommodation and flights to anyone who makes it to either the Four Kings Tournament or the Championship Finals so get entering those qualifier event to win that all-expenses paid trip.
More details can be found on SNK’s official site and keep an eye on SNK’s Twitter, as they regularly announce new tournaments which are acting as KOF XIV World Championship qualifiers.
Even though Tekken 7 isn’t actually out on general release, the world of Tekken is gearing up for the biggest event of the year, with the Global Finals of the King of the Iron Fist tournament happening tomorrow, live from Tokyo. This event comes after multiple qualifiers held all around the world, to decide who is truly the best Tekken 7 player, even though the game is only available in arcades.
To help people organize their viewing for tomorrow, the official Tekken Twitter has released a viewing schedule, with the aid of master FGC statistician acekingoffsuit. The action kicks off at 4:30pm PST/7:30pm EST, with there being a scheduled break after pools play, before top 16 starts at about 7:30pm PST/10:30pm EST. Once the winner has been named, there will be a short awards ceremony and a special Tekken announcement, which will probably be the worldwide release date for Tekken 7: Fated Retribution.
Be sure to tune in for the TEKKEN 7 – KING OF IRON FIST TOURNAMENT GLOBAL FINAL tomorrow! Thanks @acekingoffsuit for creating this chart! pic.twitter.com/20sXXt2BWx
You can find a picture of who is in which pool below, courtesy of FlyingWonkey. The bracket is dominated by players mainly from Japan and South Korea, with three American representatives and the countries of Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and the Philippines fielding a player each. All the action will be streamed over on the Tekken Twitch channel so make sure to tune in to see the world’s best Tekken players have at it.
The King Of Iron Fist Tournament 2016 – Tournament player blocks for the Grand Finals tomorrow pic.twitter.com/rXsgOkFjJQ
Ryu and Ken will soon be visiting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, as Street Fighter V will be featuring in Twitch’s special White House Game-a-thon, on December 12th. Organized by Shaq of all people–who is a part owner of NRG eSports–this special livestream event is to help promote the importance of getting healthcare coverage among gamers, with the event being streamed on the GetCovered Twitch page.
While there will be a host of other games being streamed live from the White House, the most important slot for the FGC will be an exhibition match between Mike Ross and EG|Justin Wong, commentated by gootecks. Who knows, we may even see the current President come round to throw a Shoryuken with Mike and Justin.
The White House Game-a-Thon begins on Monday 12th December at 1pm PST/4pm EST, so tune in to see if an arcade stick goes flying out of the Oval Office and onto the White House lawn, in the event someone gets double-perfected.
Wavedash Games have been quite tight lipped as of late, keeping information about their platform fighter to a minimum over the past month or two. Luckily, they have finally broken their silence by revealing Xana, their grappler character.
Xana had been teased in previous developer videos but we finally have some artwork of her, showing her off to be a famous celebrity on her homeworld, famous for her lovable personality and fighting prowess. Her long reach allows her to grab opponents and set up “crushing combos,” according to this teaser, with her special moves giving her the ability to armor through projectiles and get out of danger when faced with quick opponents.
As with the other fighters revealed by Wavedash, the design is fairly generic, without nothing about Xana’s costume showing off her vivacious personality or fighting skill. For a socialite/fighter, you’d expect her to be wearing some kind of outlandish wrestling belt or bright colors to show off to her adoring fans but this could just be a very early stage of her design. Without seeing her in action, these trailers do not act as the best way to display just how fun and memorable these fighters are–which is kind of what’s needed when you’re going up against the likes of Super Smash Bros., with its cast of Nintendo mainstays.
Wavedash Games do say that actual gameplay footage is planned to be released in 2017, so let’s hope for a trailer at Genesis 4, where they will no doubt be showing off an early build of the game to certain lucky people.
Following the run-away success of their Kombat Cup online series for Mortal Kombat X, Stream.me is expanding into Killer Instinct with their new Kross Up series. Similar to the weekly structure of Kombat Cup, Kross Up will take place from January 14th to April 2nd, with regular best of five, single elimination tournaments for KI players on both Windows 10 and Xbox One.
Every event will be hosted on a Saturday, with top 8 placers all receiving ranking points while the top 4 receive ranking points and a cash prize for their efforts. Season One of Kross Up will end with a special double elimination bracket, where the top eight players with the highest ranking points will battle it out for the title of Kross Up Champion.
At this time, you must be aged 17 or older and live in either the USA or Canada to enter any Kross Up events, with sign ups going live on smash.gg in the not too distant future. Further rules and regulations, alongside the actual events themselves, are all available on the official Kross Up Stream.me page, if you require more information.
With all the fan speculation and theories as to what Akuma can do in Street Fighter V, it’s time for Capcom to formally introduce us to the Raging Demon through one of their regular character introduction videos. Acting as a short run-down of Akuma’s new tricks with his V-Skill and V-Trigger, Capcom community manager Matt Edwards gives a small glimpse of some of the devious things Akuma players can pull off in Season Two of Street Fighter V.
He even shows how Akuma can combo off of his taunt, using the ground slam to set up into a Shoryuken which can then be cancelled into his Kongou Kokuretzu Zan Critical Art for big damage. There isn’t long to wait now, with Season Two’s release being just under 2 weeks away, so get ready to unleash this lion-haired beast on December 20th.
