EMPEROR C0W has returned with his first combo video since the release of Dead or Alive 5 Last Round. Here, he focuses on Rig, the mysterious Taekwondo-jin who supposedly can’t remember his past.
As with all of his videos, this one focuses on various practical bread and butter combos, critical burst setups, power launcher combos, and environmental combos. More importantly, they’re designed so that opponents cannot stagger escape, forcing them to guess a hold and risk taking even more damage when doing so.
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 and Super Smash Bros. 64.
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.
This week’s installment of Next Level Battle Circuit is now streaming live courtesy of Team Spooky. As always, the event is being broadcast from its namesake, Next Level Arcade, in New York City. Tonight, they’ll be running Ultra Street Fighter IV, featuring some of the best players on the east coast.
If you would like to check out these weekly tournaments, be sure to head on over to Next Level Arcade and take part every Wednesday. The address has been included below.
4013 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11232
The stream is currently live below, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat. Full brackets will be made available through Challonge.
While the arrival of a new character and various balance changes have rightly dominated Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS discussions this morning, one curious Reddit user recently discovered sound files in the handheld version that may point towards appearances by Street Fighter’s Ryu and Fire Emblem’s Roy.
According to their findings (which have subsequently been confirmed by the folks behind The Cutting Room Floor), these new themes pull music from both characters’ respective franchises with very little editing, leading us to believe they may be leftovers from earlier development or just in the beginning phases. We’ve included all of these tracks, along with a preview of the sound work being done for Lucas’ release in June, below.
snd_bgm_Z81_F_Ryu_3DS.wav
snd_bgm_SF01_SF2_Ryu_3DS
snd_bgm_Z83_F_Roy_3DS
snd_bgm_Z82_F_Lucas_3DS
So, what do you think? Might we eventually see Ryu and Roy join the game as downloadable characters? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
The latest version of Blazblue: Chronophantasma has been out in Japanese arcades for some time now, and players have been competing in tournaments across the country. As with any game over a period of time, players have studied matchups and character strength, placing the cast into rough tier rankings according to their overall power.
Speaking in interviews with Famitsu this week, two of Japan’s strongest players have both provided their own respective lists, along with some thoughts on the game’s overall balance. With the balance patch coming to consoles next week in the form of Blazblue: Chronophantasma EXTEND, now is a very good time to see where the cast stands.
The first player to give us their list is Goro. He is most known for performing very well at national tournaments with Makoto, even sticking with her through versions where she was considered to be a weaker character.
“There’s a difference in strength when you compare tiers A to D, but it’s not that much of a difference when talking about tiers A to C. Ragna, considered by many a strong character, was placed in the B tier,” he went on to explain. “Regardless of how strong Ragna may be, he’s still Ragna. His ‘IAD crossup 623D’ is certainly a very strong mix-up tool, but the rest of his mix-up does not work against seasoned players that consistently appear and place well in tournaments. In other words, it becomes difficult to imagine him not having a hard time against many characters when his mix-up is subpar and he needs to fish confirms on neutral.”
Dora also provided his thoughts. A consistently strong performer, he plays very well in Japanese tournaments with Bang and also travels overseas to compete in North America from time to time. During his last trip here, he placed third at Evo 2014.
When speaking on his reasoning, he had this to say: “The four characters placed in the S tier are the ones considered extremely strong this time. As a whole, the game seems well balanced – when comparing the S and B tiers the difference in strength is visible, but it’s not the case when it’s between S and A tiers. In general, right now it seems like, for the most part, it’s more important to consider the character match-ups rather than how strong a character is.”
Source: Famitsu, special thanks to Hiago for bringing this to us and providing translations.
Although traditional controller usage is a bit more common than in other scenes, news that Mortal Kombat X would support the previous generation’s arcade sticks on PlayStation 4 made the proposition of upgrading for the new title a bit more enticing for many members of the community. Unfortunately, it appears as if it’s not being implemented as simply as Lab Zero Games envisioned when they were developing the driver for Skullgirls Encore.
According to Mad Catz community manager Mark “MarkMan” Julio, playing Mortal Kombat X with an older peripheral still requires the presence of a DualShock 4. This means, obviously, that if you want to jump into some matches with your friend but only own one PlayStation 4 controller, one of you is going to be twiddling their thumbs while the other performs their easy fatalities.
As the driver doesn’t normally require anything special to function, Lab Zero’s Peter Bartholow and Mike Zaimont believe the way NetherRealm Studios is handling profiles for things like trophies is to blame for these odd circumstances.
Mortal Kombat X is schedule to arrive on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 sometime this summer, releases we assume will support legacy arcade sticks just fine.
From Shoryukens to Rising Jaguars to Cannon Spikes, uppercut-style moves are some of the most satisfying moves to mash out in Ultra Street Fighter IV. For those who can’t get enough, Bafael’s new combo video is just the thing for you.
In the exhibition below, Bafael strings together combos that feature almost nothing but these high-flying specials, using the game’s various systems to link them together both in the corner from and mid-screen. He also gets fancy and throws Supers and Ultras that can be thought of as uppercuts into the mix.
Some time back, Vesper Arcade released detailedbreakdowns for Street Fighter V based on what we saw during the Capcom Cup exhibition. Since then, Capcom held another exhibition, this time between Mad Catz’ Daigo Umehara and Bruce “Gamerbee” Hsiang of AVerMedia, at Taipei Game Show 2015, providing even more footage of the upcoming title.
As such, Vesper Arcade has dropped yet another video detaining their expectations for the game based on that match. The below breakdown points out some interesting things, such as the ability to counter-hit throws. Additionally, they revisit some items from the previous installments, pointing out any new information that this most recent footage has unearthed.
Source: Vesper Arcade, thanks to TheBlackHombre for the tip.
We’re now well into the second day of Mortal Kombat X’s official release, and it’s obvious that everyone is excited to help spread some knowledge surrounding the game. Today, we’ve got a collection of combos and other technology for a handful of fighters that are almost entirely different than those we shared yesterday, which is great to see. Let’s get started!
Team Spooky’s NerdJosh kicks things off today with a handful of combos for Kenshi’s Possessed variant. This variation is known for its high-damage hits, which Joshstrings together in a series of corner combos to reliably top out over 40% damage.
If Possessed Kenshi isn’t your thing, EnderGamma has offered up a quick collection of combos for all three of the blind swordsman’s fighting styles. They express some concern with regards to the damage output of the Kenjutsu variant, but seems to be pleased with the other two modes.
Yesterday, we featured plenty of Kotal Kahn tech from UltraDavid, which allowed the emperor to fully buff his damage with a totem and blood sacrifice mid-combo, dealing over 100% in just two hit-confirms.
However, today we’ve got a Kotal combo that pushes out 91% damage by itself. That’s right–ninety one percent. And it should go without saying, but this series of blows does take advantage of both of the fighter’s damage increasing specials.
If you caught the Fatal 8 last weekend, you likely saw Australia’s Tony-T throwing down with Raiden. Even though he went out in his first match, this mastermind had a great showing, especially since Austrailia isn’t exactly known for its Mortal Kombat scene. The fact that Tony was able to perform at such a high level in such a short amount of time amid a sea of Evo champions and other major names in the tournament scene speaks highly of his familiarity and comfort level with the series.
Below, you’ll find some of the Raiden findings he’s put together since the tournament’s end. It seems that 50% damage in one combo is no big deal for the Thunder God.
Next, the folks at Cross Counter have teamed up with TMP|NYChrisG to bring us some combos for all of Reptile’s variations, with a special focus on his Nimble form. This is one of the longer videos that we’ve seen so far this week, and it’s loaded with all sorts of ways to convert stray hits into damage. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Reptile combo video without a display of some Flash-style Basilisk strings, which you’ll find peppered throughout.
TheConan1234321 serves up some BnB combos for Sonya’s Covert Ops variant in this next video. This collection of mid-screen and corner combos includes various starters, many of which make great use of the fighter’s Military Stance to keep the hits coming.
Moving on, we’ve got a lengthy collection of combos for Kitana. These combos span all three of her variants, but most of the video is dedicated to her Assassin style.
If anyone is looking for a quick and easy way to learn how to make use of the game’s run mechanic mid-combo, I’d personally like to suggest giving the first combo presented a try. It leaves a great deal of room for error and is perfect for getting the hang of the new mechanic.
If there’s one thing you don’t want to do in Mortal Kombat X, it’s get cornered by Goro. As you’ll see in this video from Nico Montano, the Shokan prince gains massive combo potential when he’s got his opponent pressed against the wall.
And I have to say, picking the perfect anthem for a character can be tough, but Waka Flocka Flame’s “Hard in Da Paint” flows fits quite well with a series of Walk Punches.
As a departure from videos dedicated only to combos and setups, we’ve also received a couple of videos from SupermanSajam that detail how characters should approach the fight. These guides cover the differences between variations, important strings, and general strategies for winning with the characters in question.
The first two, which you’ll find below, focus on Jacqui Briggs and Cassie Cage.
Have you found something brutal in Mortal Kombat X that you can’t wait to share? Drop us a line and let us know; your video could be featured in our next roundup!
While the major news in the Skullgirls world these days is the upcoming release of downloadable character Beowulf, Lab Zero Games’ Peter Bartholow took the time to drop some brand new details on the upcoming PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita ports earlier this morning.
These versions, now dubbed Skullgirls 2nd Encore, will apparently feature a number of improvements to the base game along with new features and modes. One new bit of functionality will allow the fighter to be played between all of Sony’s consoles thanks to cross-play functionality, and those who purchase one will be treated to a free download for the other platform.
As the developers feel the upgrades being made are pretty substantial, however, owners of the original PlayStation 3 release will not be able to take advantage of cross-buy without first buying the game on PlayStation 4 or PlayStation Vita.
More details, including some information on when players will be able to get their hands on these releases, are planned for the near future.
