The folks over at VGBootCamp recently went live with another installment of Smash @ Xanadu from Xanadu Games in Baltimore, Maryland. These weekly broadcasts provide a great look at the region’s Smash community, and tonight’s installment will feature competition in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
If you’re interested in some Smash Bros. action, be sure to tune in. The stream is live below, but you can also head on over to Twitch to join the chat.
Earlier this week, Japanese competitor Cross brought to light a rather quirky aspect of the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 engine that helps decide which character is hit in a happy birthday scenario should the attack’s hitbox disappear on hit (i.e. non-piercing). We were able to report on this thanks to translations by Arcade UFO owner Ryan “Fubarduck” Harvey.
But that doesn’t appear to be the end of it. Zissou recently expanded on assist priority–now called “Maluk Shield” after the player who discovered it–with a rather helpful video, touching on its basic aspects before noting the differences between consoles and even player position. If you’re more of a visual learner, this will no doubt be a godsend compared to previous writeups.
We’ve also whipped up a quick table that denotes how priority is assigned between the first and second players on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Player 1
Player 2
Xbox 360
2 > 1 > 3
1 > 3 > 2
PlayStation 3
3 > 1 > 2
3 > 2 > 1
All in all, this appears to be a useful technique in certain situations, though not entirely groundbreaking to the game as a whole. Still, if you count yourself among the “When’s Marvel?” crew, you’ll definitely want to keep this information in mind as you continue competing.
After opening their alpha build to the entire community, the folks behind Rising Thunder have been hard at work on another update. This latest patch continues to improve performance for the developing title, fixes a number of bugs, and even adds new moves for Edge and Vlad.
The developers note that, as a work in progress, these changes are not final. Please keep that in mind while checking them out below, and be sure to let us know what you think.
Rising Thunder Patch Notes, Build 1292
System Changes
Legend tier players will now see their ranking among all players.
The UI will now display both Kinetic and Overdrive meters for both players.
Performance
AMD processors should no longer have extreme FPS drops when dealing with audio.
UI platform has been integrated with the Unreal renderer, clearing up some cases of UI flickering, UI not updating, and UI that never appears.
Dauntless
S1v2 punch recovery has been reduced by 1 frame, making it (just barely) safe on block.
Edge
New S1 variant! Tranquil Thunder allows Edge to charge up his sword and Kinetic/Overdrive meters without hitting the opponent.
S3 overhead is no longer cancelable into Overdrive.
Vlad
New S1 variant! Revolutionary Rocket calls down a missile strike from the sky. Vlad decides the timing in advance, but that information is hidden from the opponent.
Vlad’s Overdrive now destroys all his projectiles when it connects, so they can no longer knock opponents away from the remaining Overdrive hits.
Vlad’s hover meter now refills between rounds, and disappears properly when full.
Vlad’s Sputnik Torpedo cancel window has been standardized to match other projectile specials.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that allowed throws to be performed while holding Down+Back.
Fixed various bugs caused by projectiles connecting on the same frame as throw attempts, causing characters to become attached or warp away.
Fixed a bug that prevented Crow’s c.H disc from following his hand properly.
Fixed an issue that caused certain items, such as Edge’s sword and sheath, to flip the wrong way at the end of a round.
Standardized Edge’s reaction to Vlad’s forward throw, to make him fall at the same rate as everyone else.
Visual Improvements
Edge’s model is now textured! Who will be next?
Round icons have been added to the in-match HUD.
Overdrive meter moved from below the lifebars to the bottom of the screen.
Slight pose improvement for Edge’s F+M.
Slight pose improvement for Talos’ uncharged Meteor Breaker.
Talos’ Meteor Slam and Meteor Breaker whiff animations have been shortened slightly to better convey their true recovery frames.
Zib has a new small flag.
Audio Improvements
Cooldown refresh sounds no longer play after KO.
Note: We consider the new Vlad variant to be a highly experimental move. As you’ve already seen, we’re doing a lot of fine tuning during our Alpha test, but we’re also excited to try out some new things that you might not have seen before.
This move may be too weak, or it may be too strong, but we need your help to figure out its possibilities and limits. We hope you’ll enjoy the chance to have some fun together and try new things!
As always, your feedback is not simply appreciated, it literally makes it possible for us to make the game its best.
Rising Thunder is currently undergoing alpha testing. Signing up and taking part is as easy as visiting the official website.
Anyone with a fair amount of fighting under their belt knows that there’s more to making opponents hold that L than learning proper execution. Sure, making the most of every damage opportunity is a great start on the long road to victory, but being able to get opponents into bad situations reliably may mean more than piling on the one-frame links.
Jay Rego’s latest Newcomer Lessons video delves into the art of deceiving opponents. These deceptive tactics come in the form of allowing yourself time to learn your opponent’s style, while also creating a false sense of security when it comes to something like, in Rego’s example, punishing a raw Tatsu from Sakura. Punishing Sakura the first time it happens could change the way your opponent plays. It’ll get you a bit of damage, which is hard to ignore, but perhaps the best route, as Rego suggests, could be to hold off on the punish until you can get some meter involved.
And the lessons don’t stop there. If you’re new and looking to add some trickery to your game, regardless of what game that may be, be sure to check out the video below.
Every Shulk player has probably been there: their opponent just reached kill percent, so they go for that final hit, only to eat an attack of their own. They go careening off the edge of the stage, but it’s no big deal, they plan to just swap to Monado Jump and hop back up. But Monado Jump is still down from earlier. No problem. They change plans and decide to just use up special and grab the ledge. But that up special won’t come out, and they keep falling until they meet their fate with the bottom blast zone.
This recovery glitch has likely caused headaches for everyone who has attempted to protect the Gaur Plains. In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to fail to recognize that the glitch has occurred until much too late. Thanks to this video from Erico9001, Shulk players can learn what causes this glitch to occur, and also pick up a couple of ways to go about correcting it.
Ideally, after watching this video, Shulk mains will be able to recognize the potential for the glitch to occur before it does and save themselves some pain, and perhaps even a stock or two.
One of the most important things for any budding fighting game player needs to learn is okizeme; that is, the art of approaching a downed opponent. Good oki allows players to control the pace of the match and set up all sorts of offense.
For those looking to learn May in Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, 2ndState recently shared a brand new tutorial that breaks down her okizeme options. The video covers the best ways to end her combos and set up favorable situations, how to create mixups, and how to capitalize on any mistakes that her opponents make.
Of the many new V-Skills given to characters in Street Fighter V, one that players seem to have trouble coming to grips with early on is Chun-Li’s Rankyaku. The move, which launches her at an angle towards the opponent, functions both as an attack and a pseudo-short hop.
In this new video, Nilo demonstrates some of the ways Chun-Li’s V-Skill can be used to set up combos. These are done either from using it as a jump-in or as a launcher when close to the opponent. They also break down how certain moves behave, depending on the spacing when Rankyaku hits.
Take note that, since these are based off the beta version, some of the combos demonstrated below may change when the games comes out on PlayStation 4 and PC next year.
UltraChen TV is back with yet another broadcast of their Tuesday show. Tonight, UltraDavid and James Chen will be discussing a variety of topics, including some of the community’s most recent tournaments, news, and more.
The stream will be live in this article, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat.
In addition to some useful Ryu information, we were recently sent a video demonstrating a highly-damaging M. Bison combo in Street Fighter V. While it relies on a number of factors–landing a jump-in, having the opponent in the corner–this devastating string pushes the boundaries we’ve seen so far by doling out a whopping 500 damage and 875 stun.
Of course, there’s a small catch. Near the end, opponents can tech after Bison’s EX Psycho Blast and block his stomps, but uploader GLHFtv mentioned that aspiring dicator players can substitute the ending in the video above with an EX Psycho Inferno, resulting in a slightly lower 474 damage, 765 stun.
Also, be sure to stick around until the end for a look at an interesting mixup setup for Bison’s Critical Art, the Ultimate Psycho Crusher.
Like many things in the Street Fighter V beta, this combo isn’t guaranteed to carry over to the final product, but it’s still pretty fun nonetheless. Let us know what other crazy combos you’ve found in this early build.
The folks over at VG BootCamp recently went live with another installment of Smash @ Xanadu from Xanadu Games in Baltimore, Maryland. These weekly broadcasts provide a great look at the region’s Smash community, with tonight’s stream focusing entirely on Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
The stream is live below, but you can also head on over to Twitch to join the chat.
