Category: Fighting Games

In the latest addition to Capcom Fighters’ CPT Interview Series, Capcom community manager Matt Edwards caught up with MJS|Haitani–widely considered to be the best Necalli player in the world–at Stunfest 2016. They talk about his experience at Stunfest, why players from Japan would travel to France to compete, the similarity between Street Fighter V’s Necalli and his Ultra Street Fighter IV main Makoto, and what SFV DLC character he’s most looking forward to. He also talks about the (losing) matchup against EG|Momochi’s Ken, and what he’ll do when facing Momochi next time.

Other Stunfest competitors covered in the CPT Interview Series include OR|Nuki, Rize|Cobelcog, France’s own Kayane, and Stunfest 2016’s winner EG|Momochi.

Source: Capcom Fighters

Editor’s note: Some responses have been slightly altered for clarity. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the interviewer and interviewee; they do not reflect Shoryuken as a whole.

I recently sat down with Jamie York. He’s the owner of a ‘Mom and Pop’ arcade, one that sells games and holds tournaments, including fighting game tournaments. I wanted to take a peek at what it was like behind the curtain to see what it’s like running regular locals and Majors. You can read what he had to say below.

John “Zidiane” Silvia: Tell me a bit about yourself and where we’re at.

Jamie York: Sure. My name’s Jamie York. I’m the owner of Game Underground, a store in the Natick Mall of Natick, Massachusettes. It’s the biggest Mall in New England, and we run fighting game events every Friday night for Fight Night. We also do Smash Brothers on Tuesday and Thursday for Smash 4, Project M, and Melee. We also run monthlies for all kinds of different fighting games. We play everything from Magic: The Gathering to Halo to Street Fighter–all kinds of games.

JS: When did you first decide to hold events for fighting games?

JY: Actually, I used to be the manager of a place called Game Universe. That started about 10 years ago with my friend Dave, and around the time SFIV came out the scene was picking up. We had always wanted to hold events and tournaments at the store, so that was one of the first ones we started with. So, we ran pretty big SFIV and MVC3 tournaments, and we just sorta grew with those games pretty much.

JS: How long did it take before you started running bigger events like GUTS?

JY: I’d say we started getting bigger about 6 years ago. GUTS1 was about five years ago. We skipped a year when we were moving our store from our old venue in Framingham to our current one in Natick, so it was too much to run GUTS at the same time as moving the store.

JS: That was right after GUTS3, right?

JY: Yeah. GUTS3 was on the Capcom Pro Tour. It was awesome. We had over 750 in attendance, and we had over 20,000 people watching online between Smash and Street Fighter. This year we’re hoping to break 1,000 players for GUTS4 across all games. My goal is over 1,200. I think we can do it, there are a lot more games we’re running now than before.

JS: What’s the drive behind the dedication needed to consistently make these locals and big tournaments happen?

JY: Well, our weekly events are what keeps us going as a store. We pretty much have four big things that keep us running: we sell video games, we have an arcade, Magic: The Gathering, and we have video game tournaments and nightly meet-ups. With everybody attending every week, we think it’s worth it for New England to have a big event like GUTS for all the guys that support us. You never know how big or successful an event is going to be, but I know it’s worth it for these guys to have a home game to go to instead of having to travel out to CEO and Evo, or Big E’s events. It’s nice for them to be able to do something that’s local and, once in a while, having people come to play on their turf.

JS: How much time does doing everything for fighting games take? How much free time do you have between all these events?

JY: Myself? Well… I try to be competitive in, like, SFV, but I literally work seven days a week at my store right now, and I have been for the last few months. It’s pretty much me, my wife, and a couple of our best friends running this place. Like, today I got here at 10 AM and I’m working until 2 AM, you know what I mean? Tomorrow I’ve got a big Melee tournament, I gotta come back at 10 AM and will probably leave past midnight again, but, you know, I take a lot of happiness in providing a place for people to come and make friends and have a place to compete and get better.

It means a lot to me when I watch a big event that like LuckyD travels to and they feature some of our MA friends on the stream. It means a lot to the players around here. I personally have made a lot of friends in the FGC; I can’t even express how much that means to me. People tell me stories all the time about, you know, maybe they didn’t have too many people to hang out with, but now they got their crew that they go to all the big events on the EC together. It’s become a really big group thing to be a part of. It’s really nice. I really love being a part of that and helping provide a scene.

This was the store we sat in while I interviewed him about his past and his hopes for the future.

JS: Tell me a bit about what it’s been like maintaining your local. How do you get people to come out and keep coming out?

JY: I think the hardest part is getting a solid venue to go to. Because we are the venue it really helps us, but I know there are a lot of other people that try in NE to do the best they can to hold events at like bars or Chinese restaurants or things like that. I respect those guys a lot because you have to go out there and find a place that’ll let you play. I just try to, as part of what we’re doing, be that place for people to go. When we started Game Underground, even before then when we were Game Universe, eSports was barely a thing that people were talking about. I always loved playing fighting games growing up, you know? I grew up playing Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II and all those old games with my friends and had the best times, so I understand what it’s like growing up and having that enviornment to go somewhere and play that. I used to go to the local arcade here in Natick Mall and play Tekken and Soul Calibur all the time. There was no arcade in this mall for 10 years, and now we have an arcade again and a place to go and play people and prove what you’re worth from all your training. It’s something to be said to be in the same room with people, that face to face competition. It’s amazing, it’s a lot of fun.

JS: Which communities are the most active in your locals?

JY: Oh man. Well, I have to say a combination of all the Smash Brothers games and SFV. Those are definitely the biggest followings we have here, but we definitely see people come here and they play Skullgirls, they play Marvel, they play KI, MK; KOFXIV is gonna be big here, Tekken 7 is gonna be HUGE. Right now there’s no Tekken presence at GU, but when Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection came out we got the arcade machine. We used to have a 20 person line because there was no console version of it, and now Tekken 7 hopefully one day will come out in America on consoles. People in Boston are dying to play this game, you know, we can’t get the arcade version, not easily, so we’re waiting; we’re ready for Tekken 7.

JS: For the people out there who are thinking of hosting locals like yours, how lucrative is it to keep holding these locals and Majors?

JY: I’m hoping one day that it will be? I mean, to be honest with you, I’m very lucky to have a job I get to go to every day that pays the bills, but I’m not GameStop, you know what I mean? We’re not millionaires here guys. I’m just happy to have a job I go to every day that I have fun at, and I make enough money to provide for my family and help a few other people in the community to be okay with their work, but you know… it’s a struggle. I mean… GUTS is something where I’m never sure if we’re even going to break even on, but I feel like we need to do it for this community. I hope that we can do well with it one day, maybe one day we can grow to be as big as CEO or something like that.

We gotta take it one step at a time, though. Going from GUTS1 we had like 350 people, GUTS2 had over 400, GUTS3 had 750 people show up. There are more games out now and more people in the scene, and we have friends helping us grow the Smash scene, so New England is starting to get really big. I don’t think that people realize across the country how good of a scene we have here. Even though no one here has made it to like Top 8 at Evo yet or anything, we have good players that love the game and the community and are willing to travel to big events, so it’s only a matter of time before one of these hungry guys is gonna do that. Like Marss, one of our Smash 4 players, started placing really high at Majors, and he plays a lot of games and comes for our weeklies. I’m really happy that the Smash 4 community here is starting to get a lot of attention. Some of these Street Fighter guys are starting to do really well and I’m excited that, you know, New England could be viewed at the same level as New York and the West Coast.

JS: What’s been the most memorable moment or experience so far in holding these events, either locals or Majors?

JY: Just having players come up to me and say, “Oh yeah, man, I drove 3 and a half hours to come here today.” That’s insane, like, I can’t even explain to you what it’s like… having the kind of reach that lets other people from other states know about my store. It’s very humbling, and just amazing, I can’t even describe it. I’d say that and also, probably, just… the hype of being able to work really hard on something like GUTS and have people turn out for it and the exciting matches we get to see there, it’s awesome, just that means a lot to me.

JS: If you could guarantee one thing to absolutely happen for prospective attendees at your upcoming Major, GUTS4, what would it be?

JY: Haha… uh… I’m just giving you dead silence, sorry. I don’t even know how to not just say “People play videos games”! You know what? What I can promise you is that we’ll put on a good event, to the best of our abilities. It will be fun, there will be a lot of good people to play games with. Also, no matter what game you play at GUTS, you’ll feel like we’re treating you as an equal, and we’re trying to do our best to feature everyone. That’s what I can guarentee.

JS: I saw a Killer Instinct setup in the back, there. I know you’ve mentioned KOF and SFV are the new games that are definitely getting a lot of hype, but is Killer Instinct going to have a presence there?

JY: Oh yeah, definitely, KI will be there. We’re having over 20 games at GUTS4. We’re holding obvious tournaments like SFV, as well as games like Super Turbo and Skullgirls, Guilty Gear, a lot of Anime fighters that people want us to feature. We’ll do our best to make sure that everyone has something featured that they want.

JS: If anyone wants to find out more information about GUTS or your locals, where can they do that?

JY: Our website is Game-Underground.com and our facebook is facebook.com/GameUnderground.

JS: Was there anything else you wanted to say?

JY: Just that if you’re in the NE area I would encourage you to come and check us out. I know a lot of people play online, and that’s awesome, but there’s really something to be said about meeting people face to face, and coming to play with people that have the same interests as you. There’s something to be said for making friends in places like this, you can make a lot of friends if you try to get out there and play.

After covering the concepts of meter management and frame data in previous episodes, PND Ketchup and Mustard tackle the concept of attack direction and how it is handled in Mortal Kombat XL.

They begin with Highs, which are generally used for anti-airing due to their fast startup. However, they can be neutral crouched, which could lead to full-combo punishes if not used carefully. They suggest only using these attacks for pokes when outside of the opponent’s range, as AAs or as punishes.

Next up, they tackle Mids. These normals can hit crouching opponents, but can be blocked both standing and ducking. This makes them dangerous in the neutral game, due to the respect they demand, but they should primarily be used for special canceling and combo extension.

Ketchup and Mustard note that Overheads must be blocked standing, while Lows must be blocked crouching, which is the basis for basic 50/50 mixups. In this game, most of these attacks are slow, single-hitting or are in the middle of certain strings, but such attacks can also come in the form of special moves.

While we’ve seen a lot about Fuzzy Guarding in Street Fighter and the Arc System Works games, in MKXL, you can avoid certain mixups, such as Scorpion’s B3/F2 Overhead/Low mixup, by first crouch blocking the low and standing up on reaction to the overhead’s animation.

Unblockables include attacks such as throws, command throws and certain special moves, such as Shinnok’s Scepter Strike and Scepter Quake in the Bone Shaper variation.

Though the information contained here is likely second-nature to the majority of our readers, it is crucial knowledge for any beginning player looking to improve their game.

Source: ESL

Last weekend saw Smashers from around the world descend on Ontario for the warmup wargames for the upcoming summer of Smash. Get On My Level 2016 acted as the pacesetter for the rest of the summer and it looks like Smash will be travelling at 100 miles a minute, based on the matches seen across the weekend. Melee, Smash 4 and even Brawl had their moments of hype, with the two days leaving everyone ravenous for the tournaments to come. Here are some of the key storylines and moments which punctuated these wars in the north.

The Lion Enters the Den

GOML was the first tournament outside of Mexico for one SmashFactor’s MKLeo and what a debut it was. Going uncontested until Winner’s Semis, Leo took down False, Kid Goggles and even Team Liquid’s Nairo in a convincing 3-1 set. It took Canada’s own Ally to stop Leo’s rampage, forcing him off his main of Meta Knight and making him switch to Marth, in order to counter Ally’s Mario. While the counterpick did allow Leo to take at least one game, he was plunged into the loser’s bracket to potentially face LowLandLions’ Mr R or TSM ZeRo. Fans were lucky to get the match which many thought would be in Grand Finals, with ZeRo finally getting a chance to take on Leo and prove that he was still the king. Games 1 and 2 were an absolute stomp, Leo being run ragged by ZeRo’s Diddy and making Leo switch off Meta Knight yet again to try to take down the world’s number 1 with Cloud. Games 3-4 were a reversal, with Leo getting some amazing f-smash and limit side b reads to take ZeRo to game 5 in the closest game of the tournament to that point. Game 5 was a last stock, last hit situation with both players neck and neck for the majority of the match but the plot armor continued to hold. ZeRo eventually felled Leo and proceeded on to fight housemate THEFAD|Larry Lurr in Losers’ Finals. While he may not have won the day, to get 5^th at one of the most stacked majors in Smash 4 history in your first foray outside of your home country, is quite the achievement. No doubt this loss has lit a fire under Leo and he’ll be back to take 1^st next time.

Regicide

When two kings face off, there are guaranteed to be fireworks. After a shaky start to the tournament, almost losing to LoF Blue in Top 96 pools, ZeRo was not looking in top form for the rest of GOML. Meanwhile, EchoFox’s Mew2King had a hell of a run up to top 32, not losing a single game and looking on form to take the whole tournament with his Cloud. However, in Winners’ Quarters, the king of the Mews and the king of Smash 4 would clash in a battle that had the audience at GOML screaming in delight. M2K had almost felled ZeRo at PAX Arena, going all the way to game 5. Mew2King didn’t even let ZeRo on the board, defeating him with a clean 3-0 and sending the crowd absolutely wild. Even with ZeRo’s finger injury and absence from tournaments in recent months, this victory cements Mew2King as the best Cloud in the world for sure. However, fortunes would soon change as after a close 3-2 loss to Larry Lurr (which finished with a Melee-esque double shine), Mew2King would then lose to Nairo 3-1 and end his tournament run on a bit of a whimper. ZeRo on the other hand, gained a second wind off of his loss, going on to outplace Mew2King and get 2^nd place.

Canada Defends the House

Who came in first I hear you ask? Well, none other than hometown hero Ally who had been on a roll even before Smash 4 singles top 8. Having won both Brawl singles and Smash 4 doubles, Ally was on pace to take the whole tournament. After convincing 3-1 victories against Leo and Larry Lurr, Losers’ Bracket ZeRo was the only thing standing in between Ally and finally taking a major in Smash 4. The battle was hard fought, going to a game 5 situation where ZeRo was looking ready to reset the bracket. Ally must have eaten a 1-up mushroom or something, as Mario won the day, finishing game 5 with a trademark up smash to send ZeRo into 2^nd place and his 2^nd ever loss in Smash 4’s history. Ally’s win finally means a major under Mario’s cap and to do it on home soil, that’s just the icing on the cake.

N0ne Elbows His Way Into The History Books

Moving over to Melee, there was another breakout performance from a Canadian player with n0ne’s electrifying performance with both Ganondorf and Falcon. Taking out CLG|PewPewU’s rarely seen Fox and sending HugS to the Shadow Realm with Ganondorf, n0ne had the pleasure of fighting Mew2King, a player who had not been eliminated by a Falcon since MLG Anaheim back in 2006. N0ne played like a man possessed, with knees flying all over the place and eventually finishing M2K off with a forward smash which had the whole of Canada behind it. To say the venue got rowdy would be an understatement, the place practically exploded when n0ne won, with the entire Canadian faction coming to congratulate their boy. N0ne then went on to face Norwalk’s own Lucky and while that set was almost equal in nerve shredding as the last, Lucky took the set and progressed onto Loser’s Quarters. Even though he’d lost, the venue erupted in a chant for n0ne, after providing two of the most exciting sets of Melee in this year.

Summer Mango Awakes

It must be something in the air or a switch must flip in the back of his head, as Cloud 9’s Mango seems to triple in power whenever he takes a trip to the Losers’ Bracket. After losing to TempoStorm’s Westballz in a set as sloppy as a jar of pasta sauce, Mango would have to take a long walk through Losers’, facing off against COG|Wizzrobe, Winterfox|Shroomed before arriving at rank number 1, Alliance’s own Armada. Much like in Smash 4, this set would be something you’d expect in Grand Finals, let alone Losers’ Quarterfinals. Switching between Fox, Falco and even Falcon in game 2, Mango triumphed over Armada, eliminating him at 5^th place and sending Mango on to fight best friend Lucky for the 4^th place spot. Switching back to Falco, Mango made quick work of his friend from Norwalk, before facing Hungrybox in a runback of DreamHack Austin. Whatever adjustment Mango had made to his playstyle clearly worked a second time, defeating Team Liquid’s resident Puff player 3-1 to furious ‘USA!’ and ‘Mango!’ chants from the Canadian crowd. The final opponent lay in wait, ready to slay the 4^th god in attendance at GOML.

The Godslayer Returns

This man was none other than TSM Red Bull’s Leffen, who was looking to finally get himself out there after his disappointing performance at EGLX a few weeks earlier. Luckily, there were no Samus players to block his way, as the Leffen slayer Duck had to drop out from GOML due to a case of food poisoning. Without that mental block in the way, Leffen proceeded to lay waste to the bracket, charging through the 4 Gods in attendance and making his way to Grand Finals to play against Mango. Despite the powerup from the Losers’ Bracket, Leffen took the tournament and signaled his return to Melee after a long period of absence and dodgy play. This summer could finally be Leffen’s.

The next super major looks to be CEO 2016 near the end of June, with plenty of smaller tournaments for players to warm up and rejig their playstyles ahead of the gauntlet of CEO, WTFox, Evo and Shine 2016. GOML is a tough act to follow, but if the next 4 big tournaments are anywhere near as hype as GOML was, we’re in for the greatest summer of Smash yet.

Sources: smash.gg

Following up on a tutorial explaining Pokkén Tournament’s Phase Shift mechanic, Psyant’s latest video addresses Synergy Burst. In addition to covering the basic advantages gained by all Pokémon while in the Synergy Burst state–i.e. shielding and access to their potentially game-changing Burst Attacks–Psyant describes other significant changes that can occur for different Pokémon, such as improved mobility and slightly (or drastically) altered movesets.

The video describes in detail how to most effectively fill your Synergy Gauge, comparing the power gained from inflicting or receiving damage, Synergy Power, cheers, Support Pokémon, and causing Phase Shifts. Viewers will also learn how to extend their Pokémon’s time in Synergy Burst to gain that edge needed to dominate the Ferrum Region.

Source: Psyant

Mark “Markman” Julio might be best known for his contributions to the arcade stick industry, but he’s making his mark again in the Tekken community with a new talk show focused on Tekken 7, the newest installment in the iconic franchise.

In the first episode, which aired earlier this week, he’s joined by EG|Justin Wong and Circa eSports’ recently acquired Hao “Anakin” Luu to show off some fresh gameplay from the upcoming Tekken 7 Fated Retribution. Of course, Mark also dedicates some time to a question and answer session with viewers.

Sadly, Markman was tight-lipped about a console release date for the game, but there was plenty more to talk about while Justin and Anakin got their hands on Akuma and a handful of other characters, including a surprising announcement from Anakin ahead of Combo Breaker.

With over an hour of fresh T7FR gameplay and conversation, there’s plenty to see, so check out the video below.

Source: Bandai Namco Official Fight Channel, with a tip from GamerDWreck

The world of modding has brought Street Fighter V players who prefer to throw down on the PC platform a number of costume options not otherwise available.

Some recent mod offerings of this type include an alternate version of Zangief, as well as a return to Vega’s 90s attire. Though he’s not likely to start scrambling up cages in the background anytime soon, this practitioner of Spanish Ninjutsu will certainly be slashing opponents in an even more stylish fashion than before when he struts into the arena under the effects of this mod.

You can check out both modified character costumes in this short bit of match footage.

If you’re new to the world of modding Street Fighter V and want to give it a go, you can check out this handy guide to get started.

Source: SFV Mods