Category: Fighting Games

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Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Will Bonchan let out a roar?

Bonchan has had sort of a rocky year. Able to take two ranking events and a Premier event in 2017, he was unable to come close to that sort of success this year. While there are certainly many factors that could be at play, this makes people doubt his abilities in 2018. Regardless of that, he was able to find his way into Capcom Cup yet again… Will he make up for lost time this weekend?

sfv ae sagat promo

The King

Bonchan has been known for his stellar Nash play since 2016. He was still able to ride the character through much of 2017, while also throwing out a Karin to take care of his worst match-ups.

But we all knew what was coming late in the year: the return of Sagat, his long-time main. While we’ve seen very few instances of him bringing out the character — outside of TWFighter Major — there have been hints on social media that Bonchan may decide to ride Sagat through Capcom Cup.

And if he does, it’ll be a risky proposition, but one he could muster. Everyone expects Nash or Karin at this point from him. But his Sagat is definitely a force to be reckoned with, playing him as optimal as you can. He has great usage of his V-Skill for big bursts of damage when he gets the chance. He does great at zoning while taking care of his bad ranges with good reads into kara-cancelled DPs and resetting the situation with yet another V-Skill. This shows that he may be playing the character right, but just needs to give himself opportunities to throw him into the wild to see what happens.

Dethroned

But the issue lies in how dominant he became in 2017 and the lack of that same success in 2018. While a lot of late 2018’s issues could be attributed to the character crisis caused by Sagat’s release, it definitely can’t be attributed to his early results. In fact, he has done equally as well — if not better — after Evo than before it.

In fact, so rare are the times that anyone not qualified for Capcom Cup finishes above him in the ranks that you have to realize that Bonchan is still on pace with everyone else at the highest levels. The problem is, he still has yet to reach the level it takes to capture something like Evo or Capcom Cup.

sfv ae sagat tiger rampage critical art finish ryu

Final Thoughts

For Bonchan, all is going to depend on whether he sticks to his guns and plays Sagat throughout the bracket. In fact, I think this is the gamble he needs to take to stand a chance. People have always prepared as though he could bring the King out at any time since the character released, only to been met with a Karin or Nash that they’re more than prepared to dispatch.

To throw himself fully into Sagat at this tournament would probably rattle them. Especially so if Bonchan has new tech or approaches with Sagat that people would never have thought to prepare for. This will leave people scrambling to find an answer to him: provided he dances around the likes of Sako, Justin Wong, or any other player/character that deals with heavy zoners well.

If he blinks and we see him go back to Karin or Nash, I fear it’s lights out for him.

CAPCOM CUP 2018 ANALYSIS SERIES

capcom cup 2018 poster

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Warner Bros. announces fan art project “MK Kollective” for Mortal Kombat 11

Back during the initial days of Mortal Kombat X, NetherRealm Studios revealed “The Kombat Kollective”, a digital hub for fans, creators, and community members to showcase innovative and original content related to the Mortal Kombat franchise. If you were a fan of the Kollective, then we’ve got good news! Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has revealed that this community-driven group will relaunch, and with a new name: the MK Kollective.

Prominent content creators across a variety of categories have been chosen as MK Kollective ambassadors and will be unveiling unique Mortal Kombat 11-inspired creations on MK Kollective’s official website. You can also join in with your own fan art via #MKKollective. (It’s worth remembering that there’s always the chance of your creations making it in-game, after all!)

Mortal Kombat 11 is scheduled for release beginning April 23, 2019 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Source: MK Kollective

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Capcom Cup 2018 Analysis: Is momentum on CJ Truth’s side?

CJ Truth has propelled himself into the stratosphere this year. Relatively unknown in the pro ranks at the beginning of 2018, he began to rally after Evo to find himself in the hunt for a Capcom Cup berth. With his win at Red Bull Conquest, is he able to parlay that momentum into a huge payday?

sf5-cammy-mika

On Guard

There are two different styles of Cammy play that have prevailed over the course of three years. There’s the ever-popular aggressive Cammy where you put players into a lot of frame traps and bad situations. This is the style that has been popularized by NL, and subscribed to by Verloren.

On the other end of the spectrum is the very patient, counter-poking style of Cammy play that Xiao Hai has always made his calling card. When you watch CJ Truth, you can see obviously which side of the coin he falls on. Rarely jumping, you don’t see too many of NL’s divekick gimmicks. But what you’ll see is a stable ground game, with a few calculated risks thrown in just to throw you off. This is the type of play that fits CJ Truth well, and is part of the reason why he’s done so well.

You often see players perplexed by him and Xiao Hai, who aren’t adverse to sitting around and waiting to get their hits in. Once they do, they try to put their opponents into bad situations with their movement more often than frame traps, and it works wonders.

Wins Across the Board

No one has been able to shake CJ Truth this year — even with the “Cabagate” issue of noise behind players offstream causing him problems in a top 24 run at NorCal Regionals. What this did was only further his resolve, where he was able to string together a run of top 16s and top 8s to prove exactly where he stood in the grand scheme of things.

Had it not been for his determination and perseverance, his win at Red Bull Conquest’s Premier side would have maybe only been relevant in determining who I’d pick for Capcom Cup 2019. But his grind of points helped to propel him to Capcom Cup off of that win.

But to further illustrate how good he is, he was able to take it off of resetting Tokido in Grand Finals, after the man put him into Losers Bracket. When you further take into account that he eliminated Tokido at CEO, and realize that CJ Truth has a winning record overall against the #1 seed, it becomes less of a question mark of if he can take the whole thing.

Street Fighter V Cammy 750x400

The Pure Mirror

Here’s his issue going into Capcom Cup: Xiao Hai. As mentioned, they both play very similarly, and to think Xiao Hai doesn’t know how to deal with his own style would be laughable. Given this is his very first match in the bracket, and Xiao Hai beat him four straight rounds at DreamHack Montréal, this is going to be a hard start for the Capcom Cup rookie.

It’s all going to depend on the homework CJ Truth has done and whether Xiao Hai is aware of the threat CJ Truth has become. He could hypothetically do it, but this is the hardest start he could’ve had.

Final Thoughts

The thing is, Xiao Hai does everything in this style better than CJ Truth. I’m almost ready to chalk his first round up to a loss. He may be able to pull together some magic going through Losers Bracket, but given the likelihood of players like Mago, Punk, and the like being their to spoil his day, it could be a situation where CJ Truth just has to prepare to go back to the drawing board for 2019.

CAPCOM CUP 2018 ANALYSIS SERIES

capcom cup 2018 poster

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Square Enix is celebrating Dissidia Final Fantasy’s 10th anniversary with a special livestream on December 18

The 10th anniversary of the Dissidia Final Fantasy sub-franchise is coming up next week. To celebrate this, Square Enix is hosting a special livestream on December 18.

The livestream will feature both a retrospective on the original Dissidia Final Fantasy and Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy for the PlayStation Portable, as well as some new info for Dissidia Final Fantasy for arcades and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT for PlayStation 4. Joining the live stream are producer Ichiro Hazama, director Takeo Kujiraoka, as well as a few special guests.

For those interested in catching it, the stream will take place on Square Enix’s YouTube channel on Dec. 18, from 6:00 PM JST to 10:00 PM JST (1:00 AM PT to 5:00 AM PT).

Source: Gematsu

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VesperArcade shares his thoughts on the insanity of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition’s new “Sponsored Content”

At some point in time, in some marketing meeting filled with starched suits and blank expressions, a Capcom executive that has never played any of his own company’s games called the now-very-real in-game advertising campaign of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition “bold” and “innovative”. After the meeting, they went ahead with the program without discussing what the ads would look like, or considering the impact it would have on the way the game was perceived on social media. No one cared. The machine just moved on.

I just made that up, but I’m sure reality has to be close to that scenario. I can’t imagine how else the completely hideous ads in SFV came to be. It would seem VesperArcade is on a similar wavelength in his latest video: In case you somehow missed it, SFV’s character costumes are now inelegantly splattered with ads in what is likely a work-in-progress for in-game ad space for ESPN, Capcom Cup, and other future big events. Vesper breaks down all the ways the ads impact SFV from both aesthetic and gameplay perspectives — and why he, and likely all SFV players will be toggling that Sponsored Content switch to “off”.

Welcome to the future, I guess.

Source: VesperArcade

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Capcom Cup day one starts earlier this year; Chris Ceg explains why

The schedule for Capcom Cup 2018  has been released and people have noticed one important change: day one of the tournament is now starting earlier. That’s right, Capcom Cup’s top 32 will now be starting at 10:00 AM on Saturday.

In a series of tweets, ten/0’s Chris Ceg, who made the decision to make the event start earlier, explained that it was due to a combination of experience from the past years’ events as well as feedback from the community. Specifically, previous Capcom Cups took a lot of time to finish when doing best 3 out of 5 sets, even when the tournament was split into two streams. Additionally, the system of splitting the tournament into two streams proved unpopular with players who stated that playing on the second stage felt like playing on a side stream.

One other consideration was that attendees also wanted an after party, with Capcom Cup being the final event of the Capcom Pro Tour season and players and organizers alike wanting to celebrate. However, with the event being on a Sunday, having the after party later in the evening meant people wouldn’t be able to go because they had work the next day (or catch flights, in the case of some players).

With this, and a few other considerations in mind, they have decided to start Saturday earlier to be able to finish all the way to top 8. This way, they can make sure that those players who make it to top 8 on Sunday all get to play on the main stage.

Of course, you can read more Chris’ reasoning on this over on Twitter.

Source: Chris Ceg

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Version 1.2.0 update coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate next week

Gameplay changes are likely coming in this patch.

Nintendo’s newly-released Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is getting a patch sometime next week. The announcement came via the game itself, which has started alerting players about it.

The interesting thing about the alert is that it comes with a warning that any replay data from matches prior to the patch would no longer work after it. This seems to indicate that the version 1.2.0 patch will bring with it significant gameplay changes to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

SmashU_1.2.0_alert

Source: Siliconera

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Mikado Arcade’s Street Fighter Carnival 12 tournament VODs for The King of Fighters XIII Climax, Ultra Street Fighter IV, and Art of Fighting 3

It’s not Christmas just yet, but world-famous Mikado Arcade is giving us gifts anyways! They’re back with three more VODs in their Street Fighter Carnival arcade-tournament series.

Our first two entries are more modern affairs, still beloved by the arcade scene of Japan: The King of Fighters XIII Climax and Ultra Street Fighter IV.

In some particularly cruel twist, Mikado has set the date on machines for Art of Fighting 3 to be October 22nd; characters get access to their desperation moves at the start of the round on their canonical birthdays, and Oct. 22nd just happens to be the birthday of the rightfully-maligned boss tier Wyler.

You can follow the action of SFC12 by subscribing to Mikado’s official YouTube channel. For the night owls in the US, you can even try to catch them when they livestream.

Source: Mikado Arcade

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Capcom Connect (Episode 11) streaming live from Esports Arena Oakland

The news, art, and action continues on Capcom Connect.

Capcom’s new weekly streaming show Capcom Connect continues tonight at 8:00 PM PT, streaming live from Esports Arena Oakland! Tune in at Capcom Fighters on Twitch.

Watch live video from CapcomFighters on www.twitch.tv

The stream will once again feature event and news recaps, Street Fighter V matches with guest players and art and cosplay from Street Fighter fans.

From the original Capcom-Unity announcement:

You will have the chance to win various codes for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition just by watching and interacting with our social channels. In the afternoon before each show, we’ll tweet out a specific hashtag on the Street Fighter or Capcom Fighters Twitter account. All you need to do is use that hashtag in a tweet of your own before the drawing begins at around 8:15 PM PT. During the show, we’ll randomly choose winners and announce them on-stream. After the show, expect a Direct Message from the Street Fighter or Capcom Fighters accounts with your code. The codes are currently only for North America.

If you’re an artist or cosplayer, tweet @StreetFighter with pictures of your creation and we just might feature it on the stream with all credit going towards you!

SFV AE Splash Art

RELATED POSTS

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition will be free to play on December 11-18 on both PlayStation 4 and Steam, adding “Sponsored Content”

Mech Abigail, a Jin Saotome Crossover Costume for Ryu, and a myriad of costume DLC bundles are coming to Street Fighter V

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition’s upcoming patch will also re-balance Extra Battle mode

 

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SikShot Gaming breaks down all of Maxi’s stances in SoulCalibur VI

Maxi is one of (if not the) most complicated characters you can choose to play in SoulCalibur VI. Much like Tekken‘s Lei Wulong, Maxi has a large number of stances with non-intuitive options and transitions, making him a character you must do your homework with if you want to do anything competent with him.

The trade-off for all that hard work and stance study is massive damage and the sinking feeling in your opponents gut that they are never quite sure what move is coming next. Check out sikshot gaming‘s breakdown below to jump into the art of nunchaku.

Source: sikshot gaming