It’s no secret that the airdasher or “anime” subgenre often receives the short end of the stick when it comes to fighting game events. While they’ve managed to maintain a dedicated following that continues to grow, you’d be hard-pressed to find major events that cater to their niche apart from efforts like Frosty Faustings or CEOtaku, the latter of which just kicked off this year.
Fortunately, Aksys Games is set to rectify this problem with Anime Ascension.
Scheduled for early next year, Anime Ascension represents the publisher’s attempt to put on a large-scale airdasher event of their own, in cooperation with Mad Catz, D-Link, and Fighting Gamers @ UCI. With an official lineup consisting of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, BlazBlue: Chronophantasma EXTEND, and Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, and an overall pot of $5,000, we think they’re definitely heading in the right direction.
Anime Ascension is scheduled for February 28 at the University of California Irvine. More details can be found on the official website.
For those looking forward to Street Fighter V on PC, now might be a great time to do so. Green Man Gaming has put out a special voucher code for November that allows players to purchase select games at a 20% discount.
In the case of Street Fighter V, using the promo code SAVE20-WTHGMG-NVMBER at checkout will bring the title down from its regular price of $59.99 to only $48.
Take note that, since this counts as a pre-order, those who purchase Street Fighter V from Green Man Gaming will also be given access to the game’s third and final beta phase as well as any stress tests that open up before then. Additionally, they will also receive Chun-Li’s alternate battle costume as a pre-order bonus.
Please take note that the voucher is valid until 10 AM GMT (5 AM EST, 1 AM PST) on November 26.
Street Fighter V launches for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16.
Olympic Gaming is back with another Ultra Street Fighter IV player spotlight, this time dedicated to Italdan’s terrifying Oni. It doesn’t take long to see that once he gets in, Italdan tends to not stop until his opponent has run out of health. Get ready to see plenty of high-damage conversions, numerous stuns, and one particularly beautiful (and totally unnecessary) Raging Demon.
As always, the victims–er, sorry, opponents–faced here include high-ranking online warriors as well as top players from the tournament scene, including Canada Cup Gaming’s Air and Team Spooky’s Arturo Sanchez. And if you’d like to learn more about the featured player, be sure to check out the video’s description for a text-based interview.
The developers behind Killer Instinct continue to release updates ahead of its third season, and they will soon drop a patch that adds numerous HUD elements to the rebooted title.
While a lot of fighting game knowledge comes with experience and study, Killer Instinct’s updated display puts that data right on the screen to remove some of the guesswork. Now, players will know when they’ve perfected their reversals, combo breaker strength, and the length and type of lockouts. Iron Galaxy also plans to include a punish indicator in a future update.
There’s no doubt Killer Instinct has a lot going on in each match, and these additions will go a long way in providing useful information to players and spectators alike. Further patch details can be found in the official announcement.
David “UltraDavid” Graham and James Chen of UltraChen TV dedicate their third World Warriors of Capcom Cup episode to YUBIKEN’s Dashio. There’s no questioning the fact that Dashio has poured hours upon hours into this game perfecting his Seth play, but even so, his appearances at tournaments have been limited, and he’s only made it out to majors twice this year.
To show off Dashio in his prime, the duo discuss his grand finals performance at Tokyo Game Show back in September. This set put Dashio up against Red Bull’s Bonchan, and was the set that–spoiler alert–actually ended up allowing Dashio access to the Capcom Cup finals. Since he’s facing off against Sagat, we don’t get much of a chance to see how he handles the zoning game with Seth, but we do get to witness his ability to successfully mixup one of the best players in the world time and time again.
This year’s Capcom Cup tournament will be Dashio’s first trip to the United States, and only his second trip out of Japan for a fighting game tournament. Will his mixup mastery be enough to mitigate the jitters he’ll (almost certainly) feel as he sets his first foot on American soil? We’ll find out soon.
The World Warriors of Capcom Cup release schedule has allowed us to feature a double dose of their player spotlights today. The video that released just a short while ago features a man who requires little introduction: Mad Catz’ Tokido. When you’ve been around the fighting game community for as long as he has, you tend to become a household name, and James and David discuss the long road that got him to that status. Of course, they talk about his history as “Dirty Tokido,” a name gained through tactics fraught with Vega wall dives in Super Turbo, unblockables in Third Strike and, of course, the Akuma vortex of his own development in Street Fighter IV.
James and David feature Tokido’s second place finish at South East Asia Major, which won him his spot in the Capcom Cup. As opposed to analyzing the grand finals match–which Tokido obviously did not win–they spend some quality time with his losers finals match against Qanba’s Xiaohai.
There are still plenty of players to cover, so check back often to catch the latest episodes.
Any time we see a character reveal trailer, we’re all quick to jump to speculation surrounding how the character will play once they make their way to the game; it’s only natural. In the case of Cloud Strife, we’ve already seen some of this speculation in the form of videos.
GimR of VGBootCamp recently took a swing at this topic as well, and his video not only discusses the potential uses of each move the materia master brings to the fight, but also reveals the approximate frame data for these attacks. The idea of gleaning frame data from a reveal trailer may seem a little strange, but Smash players have proven their ability to determine slight frame data changes every time a patch has hit the Wii U version of the game by doing their own research, so the numbers likely aren’t too far off.
If you’re looking to scratch that Cloud itch until he makes his way to our Wii U systems, be sure to check out the video below.
While fans in Japan will be able to grab four different Street Fighter V bundles when the game launches early next year, American players won’t have quite the same choices. Fortunately, Capcom has partnered with GameStop to provide some pretty massive compensation for folks in the west.
The collection in question bundles the Street Fighter V collectors edition package, which includes a Ryu figurine, art book, and more, with one of Mad Catz’ brand new Chun-Li Tournament Edition 2 arcade sticks and three months of PlayStation Plus.
This exclusive bundle is priced at $329.98, but is limited to just 400 units, so be sure to take advantage soon if you’re interested.
Street Fighter V is scheduled to launch for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16.
The latest installment of Arc System Work’s BlazBlue series, BlazBlue: Central Fiction, is now out in Japan. Released in arcades on November 19, the game features two new characters, updated gameplay mechanics, and a host of balance changes for the returning cast.
Legendary game center Neo Amusement Space a-cho took time to record footage from one of their cabinets the day the game launched, providing over an hour of match footage. If you’re interested in newcomer Hibiki Kohaku, you’ll be happy to know he shows up quite frequently in this archive, so check it out and let us know what you think.
It’s that time of year for Japan’s largest Tekken event, MASTERCUP.8. After three years of memories with Tekken Tag Tournament 2, the series’ eighth event moves on to the latest Tekken title, Tekken 7. With 187 teams, 935 players, this 5on5 tournament is incredibly massive, yet run entirely in a single day. If you’re craving some high-level Tekken, you’re looking right place.
MASTERCUP.8 uses a unique format. Play starts with the first preliminary. Teams are broken up into blocks of three or four teams, totaling 56 blocks. The first place team of each block advances to the second preliminary. The second preliminary consists of seven blocks of eight teams; the first place finisher in each block advances to the finals tournament.
The game isn’t necessarily over for the non-first place teams however. The second and third place teams from the first preliminary and the remaining teams from the second preliminary move to the wildcard. 123 teams enter the wildcard, but only one will survive to reach the finals tournament and complete the bracket of eight.
Three streams in three languages will be bringing you the action live from Tokyo Leisureland Palette Town. Game Newton will be hosting the original Japanese broadcast. Green Tekken will be providing a Korean broadcast, while the official TEKKEN channel will be covering English. Check out all the action on Twitch.
Although Gamecenter is no more, that isn’t going to stop the anime heads in Northern California from getting together and throwing down in some great fighters. Today, another gathering will be taking place in San Carlos featuring a number of games, including traditional fighters like Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, and Aquapazza, as well as the two-on-two arena title Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. Full Boost.
If you’re interested in seeing some exciting competition, be sure to tune in below or visit Twitch to join the chat.
