While Team St1ckbug’s latest event is going down on the east coast, folks in the western United States will be taking part in their own airdasher event: United NorCal Dogfight.
A special, larger iteration of the same tournament that takes place every month, United NorCal Dogfight will feature attendance from a wide array of regions, including Northern California, Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, and Canada. The official lineup consists of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, Vampire Savior, and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.
To catch all the action live, you can watch in this article or over on Twitch. We’ve also included a converted schedule below the broadcast so you can plan your time accordingly.
Showdown.GG and HTC eSports have put together a major Super Smash Bros. Melee event for this Saturday. HTC Throwdown will be happening at the Folsom Street Foundry in San Francisco, California, with $12,000 total prize bonus. The event will feature both singles and doubles tournaments, with the top two placers in singles winning a trip to DreamHack Winter.
You can expect to see many of the biggest names in SSBM, including C9|Mang0, TSM|Leffen, MVG|Mew2King, Liquid|Hungrybox Tempo|Axe, MacD, HUgs, Plup, Silent Wolf, WFX|Shroomed, CLG|PewPewU, SFAT and many, many more.
The DreamHack Open Tour will be heading to London this weekend, with a few fighting games as part of its line-up. Taking place at the Copper Box Arena, DreamHack London will feature Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultra Street Fighter IV, with $20,000 and $5,000 prize pools, respectively. In addition, the top two finishes in the SSBM tournament will score a trip to DreamHack Winter 2015 in November.
The SSBM tournament includes a few power hitters, including Alliance’s Armada of Sweden, Ice of Germany, Westballz of the United States and Professor Pro of the United Kingdom. While not a part of the Capcom Pro Tour, the USFIV tournament also has a quite the list of names, including MD|Luffy, YP|Valmaster, FA|Prodigal Son, KIG|Problem X, RIZE|Infexious, UM|Imstilldadaddy and more.
Just in case fans weren’t excited enough about Dengeki Bunko FIGHTING CLIMAX IGNITION heading to consoles, Sega recently released a new trailer at Tokyo Game Show to drum up hype for the game’s impending arrival on home platforms.
The original installment pit characters from various light novel franchises, as well as a a few characters from Sega’s own stable, in dream match battles. IGNITION adds even more fighters and three new gameplay systems – Blast Characters, Ignitions, and Double Ignitions – that shake up the way the game is played.
Dengeki Bunko FIGHTING CLIMAX IGNITION is scheduled to launch on December 17. Whether or not the title will see a western release is as of yet unknown, but the original is still headed for North America this fall.
Like many anime conventions, CEOtaku has gone the extra mile by commissioning a special mascot to represent their brand.
Designed by fabulous Northern California artist Joelyn “Shunao” Lai, the CEOtaku mascot takes inspiration from a number of sources, including organizer Alex Jebailey’s “waifu” Hibiki Takane (The Last Blade, Capcom vs. SNK 2), Guilty Gear, and the tournament’s own color scheme. The gallery below highlights Shunao’s early concepts as she worked on bringing this character to life.
But there’s only one problem: she doesn’t have a name! To correct this, Jebailey has turned to the fighting game community, asking players to take part in a poll to determine which moniker is the best. You’ll find this poll over at CEO Gaming, so feel free to take part if you feel strongly about your favorite.
CEOtaku is scheduled for October 17-18 in Orlando, Florida. Online registration is open here. Those interested in checking out more of (or even purchasing!) Shunao’s art can find her on Store Envy, Twitter, and Tumblr.
If you were on social media the morning Capcom unveiled the first set of Street Fighter V costumes, your feeds were no doubt inundated with folks fawning over Ryu, or as he was dubbed thereafter, Hot Ryu. A mixture of intense feelings for an imaginary character and satisfaction in seeing the iconic world warrior’s look updated, however slightly, this phenomenon caught fire and burned out fast, but the developers definitely took notice.
“I’d say there will be more beards, because of the reaction to Hot Ryu,” Capcom’s Matt Dahlgren told Kotaku at Tokyo Game Show. We’ve already seen Birdie and Rashid rock their own facial hair, so who else could do with some fuzz? Would M. Bison look better sporting a gray goatee? Does Ken need a tiny soul patch to complete his obnoxious ensemble?
Interestingly enough, bearded Ryu isn’t just a one-off skin; Dahlgren mentioned that this grizzled look factors into Street Fighter V’s story, though no further details were given.
Feel free to let us know what you think about this hairy reveal in our comments.
Mad Catz has a number of exciting fighting game events planned in preparation for the insane Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament at Tokyo Game Show tomorrow. But don’t be sad if you can’t attend in person, as their broadcast just went live, streaming each and every event live no matter where you live.
From collegiate competition to high-level exhibitions, there’s sure to be something for everyone over the next few hours, so do your best to tune in and catch it all as it happens. We’ve also gone ahead and put together a handy schedule to save you the hassle of converting for your time zone, which you’ll find below the streams.
Capcom’s Monster Hunter Frontier G X Team Mad Catz
1:00 PM
9:00 PM
12:00 AM (Sat)
4:00 PM (Sat)
GUILTY GEAR XRD -SIGN-
1:45 PM
9:45 PM
12:45 AM (Sat)
4:45 PM (Sat)
TOPANGA: USFIV – JP University Competition FINALS
3:00 PM
11:00 PM
2:00 AM (Sat)
6:00 AM (Sat)
USFIV – Dream Match Exhibition – 3V3
4:00 PM
12:00 AM (Sat)
3:00 AM (Sat)
7:00 AM (Sat)
Event Descriptions
10 AM – 11:45 AM JST – TOPANGA: Ultra Street Fighter IV – Japanese University Competition Qualifiers
Competitors from Kanagawa University, Kokugakuin University, Komazawa University, Hokkaido University, Niigata University and Kyoto Institute of Technology battle it out in a round robin 3V3 tournament! We will round out the competition until we have the final top two school teams.
The producer of this new fighting game title, Masayuki Harada, will be joined by AP Mikky as they show off the first preview of playable character ‘Super Sonico’ and some other surprises for the TGS crowd!
1:00 PM – 1:30 PM JST – Capcom’s Monster Hunter Frontier G X Team Mad Catz
Monster Hunter Frontier G producers Teruki Miyashita and Ryo Sekino join forces with Street Fighter producers Koichi Sugiyama and Tomoaki Ayano as they hunt with Team Mad Catz’ Daigo, Mago and Tokido!
Arc System Works’ battle director Pachi will join us for a special exhibition between top Guilty Gear players!
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM JST – TOPANGA: Ultra Street Fighter IV – Japanese University Competition FINALS
The top two qualified schools battle in an epic 3V3 team battle to crown the champion rival school!
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM JST – Ultra Street Fighter IV – Dream Match Exhibition – 3V3
The Mad Catz fighting game team of Daigo Umehara, Mago and Tokido will take on the EVO 2015 top players, which consists of EG Momochi, GamerBee and INFILTRATION!
Around the holidays a few years ago, my family gathered to consume hams slathered with honey, pies filled with various fruits, and my brother-in-law’s latest batch of homegrown ghost pepper salsa, which I inhaled with reckless abandon. After effectively burning away my lips and inner cheeks, I checked in on my oldest nephew. He was watching a Modern Warfare streamer whose name I don’t recall. I’d not yet played the then-recent version of the game, so I sat down and had a beer, partially to nurse my wounded mouth, but mostly because I was interested in seeing the game in action in the hands of someone who knew how to play it.
Halfway through the beer, my brother-in-law came in to ask if his salsa had unmanned me, but before I could come up with a witty retort, he dropped another question: “Hang on a second, are you guys just watching someone else play a game?”
He left the room shaking his head, again, before I could reply.
Gaming as a spectator sport hasn’t been around all that long, so a bit of confusion–sometimes even outright hostility–toward the act of watching high-level competition, or even a favorite streamer on Twitch, is not only understandable, but expected. And there’s a good chance that everyone reading this has run into a situation similar to mine. Everyone reading this can also likely come up with plenty of reasons to kick back and get lost in the play of others, thanks to some stream or another, be it tournament or a favorite weekly series.
Gerald Lee from Core-A Gaming put out a video earlier today discussing what he believes makes watching fighting games superior to watching their real world counterparts. Lee cites the fact that fighting games don’t require judges to determine a victor and that no one (typically) receives physical injuries from partaking in digital competition as two of the pluses that the fighting genre holds over things like boxing and UFC.
The video also touches on the lack of physical fitness required to compete at the top level in fighting games and how that may have a good deal to do with the less-than-positive reception they sometimes receive, or at least why they’re nowhere near as popular as their traditional sports variants. It’s easy to see how a certain degree of satisfaction can be drawn from watching two combatants at the height of human fitness slug each other in the jaw until one of them falls down, but something that those on the outside of the gaming sphere looking in may not understand is the level of thought that goes into every button press, be it a jab or a half-step backward. That the competitors pressing those buttons can be literally anyone from anywhere, regardless of age, gender, physical fitness, disability, you name it, makes this point all the more beautiful. Those taking home the prize at a major tournament may not be able to bench press a small car, but they can solve any problem thrown their way with unparalleled accuracy and speed, a skill that certainly demands respect.
People have been stepping into arenas to settle matters by way of bloodshed since humanity has had the skills to record such events, so a more traditional take on this sort of activity maintaining popularity makes sense. But if fighting games can, in fact, deliver the same sort of excitement without many of the negative aspects–as Lee suggests, and I wholeheartedly agree–we may all live to see a time when our genre of choice eclipses even the mightiest of mainstream sports.
We’ve got a beautiful thing here in the fighting game community. We may not be as big as League of Legends, Dota 2, or any number of other massive competitive scenes, and we may not be as familiar to the general public as boxing and UFC, but we’ve got more heart than all of them combined. We’ve got a community of individuals who do everything they can to help grow the scene, and many of those individuals take part in streams and tournament organization. With that in mind, I close with a question: which streams will you be watching this weekend?
Be sure to check out Core-A Gaming’s full video below. It’s loaded with excellent information that didn’t make it into this article, and everyone who loves chucking hadoukens should absolutely give it a watch and encourage their friends to do so as well.
Which character will join the Guilty Gear Xrd cast next? Arcade-goers in Japan will decide that by way of the upcoming Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- Playable Character Election. The voting period is set to start on September 24 and run through October 13, with a midway report on October 2 and a final results on October 16 courtesy of an Arc System Works broadcast on Niconico Live.
But the question remains: how would each character play if they end up being selected? Guilty Gear battle planner Pachi recently broke down the ways in which the returning fighters could potentially be adapted to fit into Guilty Gear Xrd, along with brief profiles for folks unfamiliar with them.
We’ve taken the liberty of translating this information, but please take note that these are speculative comments and may not reflect how the characters will play in their finished forms.
A.B.A
First Appearance: Guilty Gear Isuka
A female homonculus whose entire body is wrapped in bandages. Because she was locked away alone in a testing facility for a long period of time, she is very wary of strangers. She fell in love her key-shaped axe Paracelsus at first sight and treats it has her spouse.
If she joined the cast?
A.B.A is a character that uses a weak normal mode and a powerful but high-risk, high-return Moroha mode. Blood packs are limited, giving her a clear periods of when she’s good and when she’s bad, but it might be interesting if blood packs had a blood type property that changes her personality.
Izuna
First Appearance: Guilty Gear 2
A spirit born in the Backyard. He lives with other spirits in the underworld plane between the Backyard and the real world. He has a keen sense of observation but is detached and elusive individual. He has a unique, hybrid way of speaking mixing together different dialects.
If he joined the cast?
Izuna is a relatively all-purpose character, but because has a unique double dash ability called Nanba Step, he seems like he would be a character with short range but able to fight with a hit-and-run style with his dashes. He would want to place a Daruma doll on the opponent’s wake-up to apply pressure.
Valentine
First Appearance: Guilty Gear 2
A life form born from the “Merciless Apocalypse”, modeled after a human (Sol’s former lover Aria). She appeared in the present world and brought about the Baptism 13 Incident, bringing ruinous damage to the capital of Illyria, but was subjugated by Sol. She keeps a balloon named Lucifero as her companion.
If she joined the cast?
Valentine was originally a projectile-based, long-range character, but since some of her moves like Zest and Calvados have been taken by other Valentines (laughs), if she appears we might want to give her a different fighting style. She has great air mobility, so maybe making her a character that’s weak on the ground but specializes in fighting in the air.
Kliff Undersn
First Appearance: Guilty Gear
Commander of the First Sacred Order of Holy Knights and a frontline warrior wielding his sword Dragonslayer. Though he left active duty for a time, after hearing of Justice’s revival he returned to battle. In the Second Hold Order Recruitment Tournament, he perished in a fight to the death with Justice.
If he joined the cast?
Kliff is a character with long reach and high firepower but heavy movement, but it would be interesting if he fundamentally kept that style but had stamina allotments. He is an old man after all. Personally I think that we could present young Kliff even better in 3D, so I’ll like him to have young Kliff moves.
Zappa
An extremely ordinary youth possessed by the apparition S-Ko. After being possessed he frequently fell into poor health, so he continued his journey in search of Faust, the famous doctor capable of curing any disease. However, Faust told him that spiritual diseases were out of his field of expertise. He has no memory of when he is possessed.
If he joined the cast?
Zappa is the tricky character who possesses three types of evil spirits in ghost, sword and dog forms with the ultimate goal of possessing the powerful Raoh. If he makes it in I think it be alright to keep that trickiness but updating the three types of spirits.
Justice
First Appearance: Guilty Gear
The most powerful and most evil Gear, created by That Man. Using her ability to control all Gears she rebelled against humankind, starting the hundred-year-long Holy War. Though she brought humanity to the brink of destruction she was defeated by the Sacred Order of Holy Knights and the secret maneuvering of Sol. Afterward, she was revived as a result of the Holy Order Recruitment Tournament front, but was again destroyed by Sol. However, in the previous game SIGN, she was being revived by the hands of the Senate.
If she joined the cast?
In Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus R, she seemed like a fortress with her usage of projectiles, but if we add her to GGXrd I’ll like to give her a fighting style with a bit more mobility. That said, she wouldn’t have free mobility, but I’d to make her capable of creating mix-ups using N.B. and herself.
Holy Order Sol
First Appearance: Guilty Gear XX Slash
Sol during his time with the Sacred Order of Holy Knights. He joined the order after being scouted by Kliff, commander of the Holy Order. There he meets Ky Kiske. Unable to grow accustomed to the actions of the order, he shortly after leaves the organization, taking with him the sword Fireseal.
If he joined the cast?
Order Sol is a character with speedy battle style that uses a charge system to strengthen his specials and activate them in succession. I think it would be interesting if we could capture that fundamental style but make it so that when he does a Roman Cancel the decrease in charge slows, allowing him to do more powered-up special moves than before.
Dizzy
First Appearance: Guilty Gear X
A half-Gear born of a human and a Gear. She has a kind heart and gentle personality, but as she is a Gear, she is targeted with a large bounty on her head. While taken in by the Jellyfish Pirates, she falls in love with Ky Kiske and the two are blessed with a son, Sin. Afterward, when the Valentine invasion begins, in order to protect her from sublimation she is sealed away in a space with an extremely slow flow of time. However, in SIGN, that seal was broken.
If she joined the cast?
Dizzy is a mobile character that has a variety of mix-ups stemming from her abundance of projectiles. With her usual style I think her set-play and Roman Cancels would synergize well, but I’d like to give her a style where she appears in your face rather than retreats away. Plus she’s a mother now, I think her move names would be great (laughs).
Testament
First Appearance: Guilty Gear
A kindhearted young man willing to sacrifice himself for others. He was raised as the adopted son of Holy Order commander Kliff, and though he joined the Holy Order, he became wrapped in the scheme of a certain country and was modified into a Gear. Following this, he devised a plan to revive Justice using the Second Holy Order Recruitment Tournament as a front, but it resulted in failure. After regaining a human soul with the destruction of Justice, he led a peaceful life away from human civilization in the Devil’s Forest, serving as Dizzy’s guardian.
If he joined the cast?
Testament is a character that sets the pace by applying abnormal statuses to the opponent with poison and crow summons while setting multiple traps. I have the feeling that his complexity has increased with each game, so I want to make him a little easier to understand. For example, making it easier to judge his crow mix-ups yourself.
Dr. Paradigm
First Appearance: Guilty Gear 2
A Gear in the form of a bird. He himself is insistent that he is a dragon, and despises being called a bird. He is diligent and logical. At first he looked down on humans, avoiding contact and living on a remote island with other Gears, but he finally opened his heart after coming into contact with Ky. Currently he is working with Ky to bring coexistence between human and Gear. He’s a perfectionist but is a poor finisher.
If he joined the cast?
In Guilty Gear 2, Dr. Paradigm was a character that used his minions to allow him to run about, but I think it would be interesting if he could keep the minions but fight in a more conventional style. I think it would be neat if Roller was a rush move, Bower was an anti-air move and Bone Biter was a move that allowed him to do decoy attacks. I want you to feel the universal gravitation (laughs).
Baiken
First Appearance: Guilty Gear
A one-armed, one-eyed swordswoman of Japanese decent. A master of the Japanese sword and hidden weapons. She is hot-headed, short-tempered and strong-willed. During the Holy War she suffered severe injury and lost her family and friends. She journeys in search of the mastermind behind the Holy War, That Man, swearing revenge.
If she joined the cast?
Baiken is a character with short range but who takes the initiative with her abundance of guard cancel moves. It would be interesting if she kept that fundamental style but we updated her approach from her guard cancel moves. Instead of connecting directly to return, letting her seize the pace.
Fanny
First Appearance: Guilty Gear Petit
Feeling a debt of gratitude towards the famous physician Dr. Baldhead, who once saved her life, she pursued a path in medicine and became a nurse in order to assist him. She journeys in search of Dr. Baldhead, whose whereabouts are unknown.
If she joined the cast?
Fanny has moves similar to Faust’s but more of a close-range style. If Fanny is selected, she’d undergo a full model change and become a different character practically. She has a lot of medical moves, so maybe mixing medicines to make herself stronger or affect the opponent.
Bridget
First Appearance: Guilty Gear XX
A boy who was raised as a girl in order to protect him from the village law that male twins bring calamity about the land. His speech and behavior are feminine. He loves fun and his extreme actions stand out, and though he often brings trouble around him, he always seems to be be enjoying himself. He’s a yo-yo expert and uses it as a weapon. He cherishes his teddy bear Roger.
If he joined the cast?
Bridget is a mid to long range hit-and-run character that sets his yo-yo and uses it to rush about the screen. It would be interesting if he had a greater variety of tricks using his yo-yo, while keeping his trademark mobility to a certain degree. I’ll like to increase his yo-yo recall types and Roger moves.
Aji Mito
A hot-blooded man who follows intuition over reason. He is of Japanese descent but hating colony life, he journeys. He has the divine weapon Zessen in his possession and pursues That Man out of intellectual curiosity. A specialist in the ancient tradition of Japanese dance, he makes use of this skill in battle.
If he joined the cast?
Anji’s specialties are his guard point moves that attack while blocking the opponent’s attacks and his various mix-ups from his rush moves. I want to change his style while keeping the interesting parts of his guard point moves like Kou. It seems like he would be good with a style centering around close-quarters fighting using his guard points to approach.
Raven
First Appearance: Guilty Gear 2
A close aid of That Man. He was born in the Middle Ages but due to his undying body he lives eternally. For this reason it is different for him experience real feeling, so he attempts to obtain that feeling through pain. To others, he appears to be an extreme masochist. His body is pierced with needles throughout.
If he joined the cast?
In Guilty Gear 2 Raven had a style to fluster the opponent by attacking the opponent from long range with projectiles, slowing them, and attacking them from behind. I think in GGXrd with the addition of some updates he would be able to do so at mid range. And fitting with his personality, I’d like to give him a move where he intentionally takes the attacks.
Robo-Ky
First Appearance: Guilty Gear XX #Reload
A humanoid weapon developed by the Post War Administration scientist Crow. It was designed using sample data from Ky’s battle records from his time in the Holy Order. Despite being a robot it does not heed the words of his master and is egotistical and selfish. Nevertheless it somehow has a sense of charm. It is looking for a wife.
If it joined the cast?
Robo-Ky has a unique mechanic called the Electric Gauge that strengthens its special moves when it builds charge. It’s a character with slow movement while have some damage, but I think it might be interesting to increase the breath of its power-ups through electricity. Giving it a temporary mobility increase, or allowing it to electrocute, for example.
Do you have some free time this weekend and want to jump into a new fighting game? Well, the Humble Store, Steam, and PlayStation Network are making that a little easier financially with sales in their online stores.
Ultra Street Fighter IV, Mortal Kombat X, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Mortal Kombat 9, and Mortal Kombta Arcade Kollection, and Divekick have all seen markdowns that will last the next couple of days. We’ve included a handy table below with all the details.