With a total of 56 playable characters, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 proved to have one of the largest rosters in fighting game history. Despite this, only a handful of characters were considered tournament viable, and Hayato — a character from 3D fighter Star Gladiator — was one of those that missed the competitive mark.
In this article, Twin Galaxies explains how the character had a very unique moveset, but that in itself helped to prevent the character from rising in the tier lists. The character could easily make one mistake and be opened up very quickly, due to whiffs being costly for him even from full range. Check out the full article here.
With the 23 year-old Super Famicom title Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S gaining popularity in the West, many people are wondering exactly how to dive into this simple-yet-deep fighter. Fortunately, the SMS community is releasing a lot of information about the game to help out newcomers to the title.
Xsjado Blade has started a tutorial series for Sailor Moon S, and started out by discussing the core system mechanics, which might loan itself to early Street Fighter and TheKing of Fighters titles, but still has unique properties to get used to when coming from either series. He then posted a video discussing Sailor Mercury’s moveset and strategy.
Attracting new competitive players to the fighting game scene isn’t easy — though arguably, it’s much easier than it was ever before, thanks to the widespread availability of streaming, esports organizations, and prizes. But the latest episode of Exploring Fighting Games argues that this also encourages people to be viewers rather than competitors.
Episode 12 talks about how team tournaments can help more fledgling fighting game competitors enjoy their time at events. Quoting Max Wertheimer’s Productive Thinking, the episode proposes something that can help out. By adding more cooperative aspects to the play, newcomers won’t be as discouraged to try and veterans won’t be as bored, as given in a badminton analogy. When forming teams with members of diverse skill levels and matching them against opponents in a similar order, the tournament experience will benefit those players more. Additionally, it’s a good way for players to bond with people they might not have normally talked about.
It’s a very interesting propostion; although many majors commonly feature team competitions, they usually allow those who sign up make up their own teams.
After the epic announcement of Jiren coming to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, more details arrive surrounding the latest expansion to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. Extra Pack 2 is so far confirmed to include Fu, Jiren, and most recently announced, Android 17 (Dragon Ball Super). This version of the android has a host of new abilities witnessed during the Tournament of Power saga of Dragon Ball Super. While he is an unexpected addition, the character has more than proved his capabilities in the most recent arc.
There is also a free update coming alongside the DLC release that will be adding even more surprising content to the game. A brand new “Overlimit” skill is going to be added which can be used by any custom character. It provides a one-time boost to your character’s capabilities that’s extent depends on the number of enemies defeated and the kind of warrior used. The Saiyan custom character race will get a huge power up with the “Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan” awakening skill. Which is certainly awesome — but curious — to bypass the original Super Saiyan God form, I’m sure we can assume our custom heroes pulled a Vegeta and are capable of using the form, but seldom use it. (Unless you count the manga.) And last and certainly not least, the most unexpected of additions to the game, Android 18 and Videl will be able to fight in swimsuits. Neat!
Xenoverse 2 feels like the gift that keeps on giving. Bandai Namco has more than fulfilled their promise of supporting the title for a year after the release. More information on the DLC and the free update is bound to be on the way with accompanying trailers before the contents’ release! Only a few more questions remain, when will the content release, what is the new form of Goku (Ultra Instinct?), and what will the collaborative FighterZ content be? Until then check out the full scan below and imagine your custom character with shimmering blue hair. (If they are a Saiyan, of course.)
Looking for a jolt of gaming inspiration? Cammy pro Simon “Popi” Gutierrez is the subject of a brand new YouTube interview series Meet My Story, and inspiration is the core of his. Half a decade ago, he was a man that could not be stopped in Street Fighter IV. Between 2012-2014 he racked up $15,000 in earnings, and was among the first to defeat the seemingly invincible Infiltration in his break-out underdog moment.
This interview covers that monumental event, and the positive mindset that Popi employed to make it happen. It also covers the aftermath of being thrust into sudden stardom, and the marketing pitfalls therein.
Teased in their closed beta announcement, Wavedash Games have revealed Icons: Combat Arena‘s duo character, Afi and Galu. Twin statues imbued with the power of water and fire, Afi and Galu break with the traditional formula for duo characters in platform fighters, as only one of them can be active on screen at once.
When one statue is active, the other will lay dormant — standing stock still until the player switches to the other one. Awakening Afi will cause a water geyser to shoot up around them, while waking up Galu will cause a jet of flame to erupt from around them. Playing Afi and Galu at a high level will involve mastering statue positioning, and punishing an opponent who puts a foot wrong. You’ll need to be playing multi-dimensional chess, while your enemy is playing checkers.
The duo also has a special dash, which allows the player to move either towards or away from your inactive partner, relative to their position. Using this life-link will be key for ending combos and also saving your hide when you overextend for an edge-guard. Keep alert though — your partner may be impervious to damage while dormant, but they still obey the laws of gravity. If a dormant statue drops into the blastzone, you will lose a stock.
As for when you’d use Afi or Galu, their elemental attacks send foes at different angles. Afi’s fire knocks the opponent outward, so they are best used for kills off the side. Galu’s water knocks the opponent upwards, so they are best for killing off the top.
While the previously announced characters for Icons stick to platform fighter archetypes quite rigidly, Afi and Galu act as the first character to really break the mold and try something new with this particular archetype. If the remaining two launch fighters are as creative as Afi and Galu are, Icons’ launch roster will be something special.
If you are in the Icons: Combat Arena closed beta, you won’t have to wait long to try these soul-swapping statues, as they will be available to play next week. Wavedash Games are continually adding players to the closed beta pool, so sign up if you want to give this platform fighter a try.
Three deadly competitors add their muscle power to Altas Bear!
Atlas Bear is a new esports team from Indonesian entrepreneur, Kevin “Burung” Mintaraga; following his partnership with Benoit “Gunfight” Arquilla, they are proud to announce the signing of three players for their Street Fighter V roster: Kichipa-mu, StormKUBO, and Gunfight himself.
Mintaraga and Gunfight are aiming to establish a global e-sport team. According to Mintaraga: “We want to enlist players with big ambitions and huge potential, but are not yet exposed to the global e-sport scene. We want to give them a chance to gain worldwide recognition, and we’re excited for what they can do.”
Gunfight — well-known for his Alex play in SFV — states that the team decided to approach Kichipa-mu and StormKUBO because they fit the vision Mintaraga and Gunfight share for the future of Atlas Bear. “They are young, they’re growing at exponential rate, and they have gained recognizable experience in the last couple of years,” says Gunfight. “StormKUBO is one of the world’s best Abigail players, and Kichipa-mu is famous for his hard-read Zangief gameplay. More importantly, they share the same passion and ambition that Kevin and I have for the team. I am excited by this move, and I cannot wait to see the game they will bring to the FGC scene.”
Atlas Bear plans to bring their trio of big-body brawlers to Evo Japan, coming up on January 26-28. Watch for them there!
We’re into another day of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition! While players are still largely experimenting with the combo potential of the new V-Triggers, we are starting to see more exploration of resets, new character options, and more. If you missed the day one video round up, you can check that out here!
So what has the community created today? Well, starting us off is The Prince‘s demonstration of M. Bison’s new V-Trigger II stun resets.
Meanwhile, El Chakotay has a comprehensive breakdown of R. Mika’s new quality of life.
Juri’s new V-Trigger, “Feng Shui Engine Beta,” is the subject of marlonlonmilk’s latest video.
JST is also on the Juri Hype train, covering her new new damage opportunities with the (now 2-bar) V-Trigger I.
NurseLee has been making the most of Ryu’s new stun/reset synergy. Beware, low stun characters!
He’s not the only one enjoying Ryu, though. Impractical combo God desk took the world warrior for a spin, too.
MrSlaynman covers Zangief’s new V-Trigger, which gives him buffed SPD damage, and an announcer that’s constantly losing his mind.
Chun-Li’s damage output is looking just fine in Brian Kasugano‘s new combo video for Season 3.
World-Warrior‘s “Upgrade Your Arsenal” series starts S3 off with (perhaps unsurprisingly for any of World-Warrior’s followers) Ken’s Shinryuken combos.
And lastly, Peter Souvannarath has an entire playlist of Dhalsim tech centered around meaty VTII setups.
If you see anything worth sharing, let us know by submitting a tip for our next roundup!
The recent Fighting Game Awards from Arc System Works culminated in a monumental BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle announcement. Up to this point, we’ve been trickle-fed monthly character reveals, often spread across the colliding universes (though usually leaning heavily on BlazBlue’s). At the end of the BlazBlue: Central Fiction tournament, the company gave us a release date for BBTAG (May 31st for Japan, June 5th for the US), revealed the expected Blake Belladona from RWBY, and showed off a fancy “Limited Box” that will contain multiple goodies.
That’s not what caught the attention of most fans. It turns out that Blake won’t be part of the base game; rather, she is part of the paid DLC content. What’s more, we now know that the base cast is 20 characters. However, an additional 20 characters will be available for purchase as add-on content. So yes, 50 percent of the game’s cast needs to be purchased. This is surprising, and problematic.
In a way, it’s not that strange that BBTAG has a large number of DLC characters. After all, the combined character pool from BlazBlue, Persona, Under Night In-Birth, and RWBY is quite huge, easily reaching 80 combatants. It’s all the more reason to be surprised at a skimpy launch cast of only 20 fighters. Though Arc System Works generally pushes quality over quantity (The first BlazBlue installment, Calamity Trigger, started with just 12, after all), most players are already familiar with the cast.
This could possibly have something to do with the release date. Personally, I predicted the game would ship sometime in the fall; the end of May is much sooner than expected. Coming out before Evolution 2018 is surely the goal there — though, as an aside, it’s hard to see BBTAG taking up a main stage slot among a crowded roster of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and BBCF itself. Naysaying aside, the release date might be a premonition of a rushed title, which explains the somewhat slim cast and a large number of DLC characters.
In announcing 20 launch DLC fighters, Arc System Works is breaking a new record, and already the reception is largely negative. No other fighting game in history has had so many characters blocked off by a paywall. We know the price point of the game in yen: 5,800 in retail, a little less via download, which is roughly $52 at the current exchange rate. Given that ASW sticks to their expected $7.99 per character (and hopefully, they “generously” offer the same price for each three-character pack), buying all the DLC should cost you $64. The “All-in-one” pack could be cheaper, however, and we don’t know how much the Limited Box will cost yet. This suggests the DLC could cost more than the base game itself.
Aside the outrageous cost there, what’s even worse is how ASW is deciding who is a “base” character and who is a “premium,” (paid) character. Take the RWBY characters, for instance. Two of the core ladies, Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee, are included. Blake however is a separate charge, and there’s a good chance the same will be true of Yang (ASW denoted one character DLC that isn’t a bundle of three). This is such an obviously ruthless business move that it hurts to see it. Personally, I think of DLC characters as extra content, maybe some kind of special character, but separating the four main girls of the show with a paywall is just greedy. I’d like to see older, more powerful people from the show as DLC, like Qrow, Raven, Ozpin, but not the heroines. Imagine if Jin Kisaragi, Noel Vermillion, or Rachel Alucard were not included in the base title.
There’s another thorn in this “core” character DLC kerfuffle. BBTAG is a rehash of sorts of characters we’ve already seen and have played for years. Don’t get me wrong, I love Litchi Faye Ling, I main Amane Nishiki, and enjoy wrecking people with Ken and Koromaru in Persona Arena. But should they show up as paid DLC, having played those characters for years and having had them available as base characters before is aggravating.
But what’s really problematic about this is the initial offering. The starting casts for all the non-BB titles are very skimpy, at just four characters per universe, with RWBY getting only two:
Persona 4 Arena
Yu Narukami
Yosuke Hanamura
Chie Satonaka
Yukiko Amagi
Under Night In-Birth
Hyde
Linne
Waldstein
Gordeau
RWBY
Ruby Rose
Weiss Schnee
There’s not much one can say about this: it’s disappointing. While surely there will be devoted fans who will get the product or the Limited Box, having such a large number of tournament-legal characters is a problem for competitive players. Not only will organizers have to worry about providing complete setups, but also, as someone who personally doesn’t buy every possible DLC character, it will be easy to run into issues when playing casual games with friends who use certain paid content. There’s a difference between having single-player additional content and fighting game extras. So many DLC walls put up a hindrance to competition and learning match-ups.
Some marketing or executive gurus decided to split team RWBY with a DLC paywall.
DLC in of itself is expected and common practice. It wouldn’t be as problematic if the roster’s balance skewed a bit more to a bigger base, but seeing so many additional, paid characters is outrageous. Had they reserved a couple of special, extra characters as launch DLC — sure, we could stomach that. With such a large cast, it’s a given that ArcSys would reserve some as DLC. However, they definitely crossed the line here.
Hopefully, the company sees the overall disappointment from fans and does something to rectify the situation. As it stands, the future of BBTAG may very well be ruined at the start. In the past, ASW has released “Extend” editions (which is a problem I’ve also written about) that ship with all the DLC characters. I can see many people withholding from buying BBTAG at first, waiting on discounts, thus weakening the initial community for what otherwise could be a very fun game.
And for those saying “Capcom does this all the time, but when ArcSys does it, it’s OK” — nope. This is the time. This is ArcSys getting called out for their DLC practices.
Announced as a mini-Christmas miracle last December, Radiant Entertainment have officially released Rising Thunder: Community Edition, so people can continue playing the popular but short-lived fighter. This special edition of Rising Thunder comes in three parts: the client, an open source server, and a special goodie package.
The client is fairly self-explanatory; it’s the latest version that was available internally at Radiant, with some updates to allow offline play and the open source server. While it has had some basic tests, there will be bugs so don’t expect everything to run smoothly when you boot it up. Radiant have also bundled in the source code for Rising Thunder‘s UI, meaning dedicated modders can poke around and make improvements if they wish.
The open source server is a much improved version of the original one, making it easier to run and tinker with. It is only basic at present, with rudimentary matchmaking and two-player lobbies. If you add more than two players, it will just crash so don’t bother. Things like ELO, accounts and a progression system aren’t there yet, but Radiant are looking into potential FightCade integration for the future.
Finally, the last part of Community Edition is a goodie pack, filled with concept art, early development videos, lore about all the pilots, acting as a potted history of Rising Thunder‘s development. Radiant have teased that they are indeed at work on something for Riot Games — possibly the long-rumored League of Legends fighting game — so don’t expect any more from the studio for a while.
To download everything, head on over to the Rising Thunder subreddit. Let’s hope this kicks off a mini-renaissance for this cult classic fighter!
