Evo 2016‘s Street Fighter V finals took hype for a fighting game to soaring new heights, giving spectators a fierce battle on a scale never before seen; the matches were an intense struggle between eight of the world’s best players of Street Fighter V–tricky, tense matches showcasing what the upper level of SFV looks like so far in 2016: RZR|Fuudo’s whirlwind of an R. Mika; HM|GO1-3151’s and MOV’s battle of the Lightning Legs; HM|Eita’s fiery Ken and AW|Nemo’s slippery Vega; and Yukadon, crowd-favorite LI Joe, and eventual champion RZR|INFILTRATION putting their Nash games to the ultimate test.
Capcom Fighters has uploaded the full video set of these fights, to relive the intensity or see it for the first time if you happened to miss it.
Shadaloo’s Dolls are the Street Fighter V General Story Mode‘s breakout stars and fierce opponents (at least, on the Extra playthrough), built with almost complete movesets–and desk’s latest combo video features what they are capable of. Now, the Dolls aren’t technically playable, and desk doesn’t use hacks in his videos, so what he shows off in this video isn’t based on his inputs specifically–these combos are what the Dolls do on their own, with SFV’s CPU AI, with a little encouragement. Enero is very aggressive with her megaphone, and Marz is definitely violating her laptop’s warranty.
Seeing what the Dolls can do–even in their current state, seems such a shame to leave them as mere AI opponents in General Story Mode. Here’s hoping we see more of them in the future of the game.
See the CFN Portal profile pictures for the full cast of Dolls here.
As promised, the Capcom Pro Tour Premium content (including the Evo-customized Ring of Destiny stage, as well as new costumes and other items) is already available for purchase individually or as a bundle on PSN, but Capcom snuck in two of the previously leaked swimsuit outfits as well: Chun-Li and R. Mika have joined Karin on the beach with new premium costumes, now available for purchase.
The outfits will set you back three to four dollars or euro each, depending on your region. With the swimsuit and CPT costume selections, it seems clear that rather than Street Fighter IV’s full-cast outfit spreads, we can expect individual characters to get their own unique outfits in more single-shot purchases going forward.
Ono responded on Twitter to disappointment voiced about the lack of new SFV content as compared to Tekken’s, apologizing to fans and indicating more is to come before and/or at Capcom Cup:
Yeah,thats right.I apologize that I couldnt be in time about new announcement.I'll go ahead preparation untilCapCup https://t.co/Su9x2gG7TW
The Capcom panel at Evo 2016 did already reveal the CPT premier content package, including the Ring of Destiny stage that was featured throughout the SFV finals.
When UDON announced their upcoming exclusive items for sale at San Diego Comic-Con, they hinted at more surprises to come: Capcom-Unity has revealed one such surprise item in the form of extremely limited-edition special layered Street Fighter V prints.
Sized at 18 inches by 25 inches, the prints feature a multi-layer design that allows the character art to be reordered or swapped out from against the SFV logo backdrop. Offered in a default or Battle Costume variant, they will only be producing 50 of the regular set and 25 of the alternate; either one costs $100 USD each, and can be pre-ordered here–but unfortunately, at the time of this writing the Battle Costumes version is already sold out; it seems Hot Ryu’s appeal is just that irresistible.
UDON will have Street Fighter V Executive Producer Yoshinori Ono at their booth (#4529) on Saturday, July 23 from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM, enabling customers to have this print signed by not only the artists in attendance, but Ono as well. Ono will also have an exclusive metal card to give away at the booth.
UDON has a busy year planned for Street Fighter: the first hardcover collection of Street Fighter Unlimited hits stores in July, and in September we can feast our eyes on their upcoming Street Fighter Swimsuit Special.
As much as Capcom has indicated that they don’t want option selects as part of Street Fighter V’s toolbox, they continue to surface. Stream Fighters has uploaded this video, demonstrating a potentially new one: they attack with a fireball, with a Critical Art buffered: if the fireball connects, it’s followed by a linked Critical Art–but if the fireball is blocked, then the CA doesn’t start.
It appears to work with multiple characters, and possibly with specials other than fireballs as well. There is some debate as to whether this is new tech, or just something older getting new attention, and it is still unclear why exactly this option select works.
How long this option select will actually remain usable is also questionable; Capcom has shown some new alacrity in patching out glitches, so this tool may be short-lived.
After Street Fighter, Tekken is probably the second-biggest fighting franchise in the genre’s history–yet despite its pedigree we’ve seen a bit of a lull over the last few years as other games have grown. The latest iteration, Tekken 7: Fated Retribution holds the second-lowest registration of any EVO 2016 event, topping Killer Instinct by only three players! This may be due to the lack of a console version of the game–Tekken 7 at Evo 2015 was played on the arcade version, and Tekken 7: Fated Retribution will be played the same way this year–reportedly we won’t be seeing the game’s console release until early 2017. But 549 competitors is still a lot of players eager to exchange blows in the Iron Fist Tournament, regardless of being dwarfed by Street Fighter V’s numbers.
THE GAME
Tekken is one of the greats of the 3D fighting genre, and as a 3D fighter it has a much different feel and dynamic than its original 2D inspiration. Tekken 7 introduced new gameplay mechanics such as Power Crushers (moves that can absorb damage without being interrupted) and Rage Arts (similar to Street Fighter IV’s Ultra Combos), and a refined okizeme system. The game currently boasts a character roster of 29 playable fighters including classic characters such as Kazuya Mishima, Heihachi Mishima, King, Paul, Nina, and Yoshimitsu; newcomers include mysterious Kazumi Mishima, Arabian warrior Shaheen, and perky cat-girl Lucky Chloe. The Fated Retribution upgrade added improved graphics, the Rage Drive mechanic, and the most notable addition to date: Street Fighter’s Akuma.
THE DEMON
Tekken 7 got a huge boost to hype when it was revealed that Akuma would be joining the roster, and not just as a bonus character but actually integrated into the game’s lore. After Street Fighter X Tekken, this wasn’t really that much of a shock, as a Capcom/Bandai Namco pattern of collaboration has already been established. In fact, many believe that the demon joining battle with the Mishima family paves the way for the much-delayed Tekken X Street Fighter, but time will tell.
However, Akuma’s crossover has drawn some prominent Street Fighter players to join the 3D fight…
THE PLAYERS
While there’s a fair amount of footage of EG|Justin Wong taking Akuma into battle, Wong is not registered for Tekken 7 this weekend in Vegas. His opponent in the above video, however–Hoa Luu, AKA Circa|Anakin, was the winner of Community Effort Orlando‘s recent Tekken 7 event (using JACK-7, Paul, and Shaheen) and he also took the top spot at Combo Breaker 2016 earlier in the year using JACK-7 and Dragunov. With these two big wins under their belt, this may be our Tekken 7 champion at Evo 2016.
They are not without competition, however! Secret|PoongKo took the top spot at CEO’s T7 Auction Tournament with Akuma, making them another one to watch in Vegas. Other recent high-rankers that are in this year’s Tekken pools include Mateo (Matthew Szabo), Fred Distance (Fredrick Osei), Circa|Speedkicks (Stephen Stafford), NG|Obscure (Vante Flint), and Reflex (Dick Varian). But the top eights seem to vary significantly between Tekken 7 events so far, so there’s still a lot of room for a newcomer to step in and place high.
Kazuya, Heihachi, Law, King, Steve, Paul, and JACK-7 are all popular choices among the top players, but there is still some variety in character selection. Even Lucky Chloe saw some play from RenoFace, Combo Breaker’s 3rd place finisher. But as much attention as Akuma’s addition has drawn, he doesn’t yet appear as a popular choice for the serious players (aside from PoongKo above). We’ll have to see how far the Satsui no Hado will carry Akuma into the Tekken fight–but at this point, it looks like he might be more useful for marketing than winning tournaments.
THE FUTURE
This will be Tekken 7’s last fight as an arcade-only title at Evo; next year (presuming its return), the console release should really shake up the competition as the game becomes more readily available for training. In the meantime, look forward to seeing some fierce 3D action from these contenders–will CEO’s and Combo Breaker’s fighters hold their claim, or is there a new King of the Iron Fist Tournament waiting to be crowned?
The Beefy Smash Doods have long explored Super Smash Bros. for Wii U’s intricacies where breakfalls are concerned, and they thought they knew all about what could and could not be teched at this point. But in their latest video they relate the discovery of a new untechable situation: if your fighter is above 100% damage (or reaches 100% before being knocked away), they may be thrown into this spinning animation that you cannot breakfall from. It only happens in certain exchanges, and even then the spinning property that prevents teching appears to be randomized.
Study up on more Smash 4 with the Beefy Smash Doods with their footstool and grab release tutorials.
The first issue of the new limited series, featuring a brand new wraparound cover with art by the four primary UDON artists: Long Vo, Joe Ng, Jeffrey Chamba Cruz, and Edwin Huang. All four of these artists will be in attendance, so getting your copy signed should be no problem!
Super Street Fighter Turbo: Character Select Mystery Pin Collection ($20 USD/2 pins)
UDON launches the UDON Collectibles line with these limited edition Cloisonne pins, each 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches in size, made of high-quality hard enamel. The series features 16 pins based on the designs of the selection screen head shots from Super Street Fighter II Turbo–sold in mystery blind boxes, contaning 2 random pins per pack. There’s special alternate color chaser variants of each character, and of course a hidden secret character pin to find, if you’re lucky.
If you don’t want to play the random game, you can drop $399 USD for a complete (minus the hidden character/alternate colors) framed set of the pins, which includes the exclusive stage-selecting airplane pin!
BONUS–Street Fighter: Limited Edition Metal Cards Collection Series 2 (free)
These laser-etched metal trading cards–featuring new artwork by Long Vo–will be given away at random to fans making purchases at UDON’s booth. The gold Akuma card will only be available with the purchase of the Super Street Fighter II Turbo Character Select Pin Collection Framed Set.
If you want ensure your share of this swag, UDON indicates preorders are available here.
Since Balrog stepped into the Street Fighter V ring, we’ve started to see just how much damage the Fight Money-hungry boxer can dish out–and it was looking to be on the higher side. In his latest video, desk shows off Balrog combos that can–through liberal application of specials, wall bounces, and that powerful Critical Art–each rack up 652 damage, 811 damage, 1043 damage, 1269 damage, 1477 damage, and what might be the most heavily-damaging combo in the game to date, 1615 damage!
Sized at 18 inches by 25 inches, the prints feature a multi-layer design that allows the character art to be reordered or swapped out from against the SFV logo backdrop. Offered in a default or Battle Costume variant, they will only be producing 50 of the regular set and 25 of the alternate; either one costs $100 USD each, and can be pre-ordered here–but unfortunately, at the time of this writing the Battle Costumes version is already sold out; it seems Hot Ryu’s appeal is just that irresistible.
Tekken is one of the greats of the 3D fighting genre, and as a 3D fighter it has a much 
