As we’ve been documenting, some of the craziest new tech to come from Pokkén Tournament DX involves Braixen’s new homing cancel. This cancel opens up Braixen’s Field Phase versatility considerably — in theory.
America’s most successful tournament-level Braixen, Double_FGC, was originally toying with this new tool as a means to setup guard breaks with some of the slower, more powerful supports in the game. But as a character with a dominate Field Phase, wouldn’t you want to stay there?
That’s where these new, frightening setups come in. While lower in individual combo damage, these new setups incorporate faster charge supports, drain the clock, and lock the opponent down in a Phase many characters have trouble going toe-to-toe with Braixen in.
The Super Smash Bros. Melee community, and the TOs and rules committee that accommodate them, have drawn yet another line in the sand with regards to the Smashbox/B0XX (herein referred to as Boxes, for convenience sake) vs. GameCube controller battle. Reports came in that during The Big House, players were informed that if they had a Box in their bags, they were not allowed to bring them out at any point in time. Failure to do so could have resulted in their expulsion from the event altogether, with people being threatened with having security called on them due to noncompliance.
Security for events are typically reserved for serious issues, such as violence or threats thereof, sexual assaults, and being under the influence of drugs or alcohol. All of these most certainly warrant the use of security. However, to threaten the use of security over the use of a controller — even in friendlies — that is controversial, and is taking the Boxes vs. GameCube controller debate much too far. To quote John Stossel: “Give me a break.”
While rumors abound that Nintendo’s sponsorship of the event was behind this, no official statement from the company has been made. Further, if this were an issue of licensed GameCube controllers versus unlicensed controllers, wouldn’t this have also extended to the knockoff GameCube controllers that are abundant these days? This would’ve made the culling process insanely tedious, which makes me question Nintendo’s involvement in this altogether. Further, customized controllers would have also had to fall into this ban, as well as ones that had been modified.
As Keegan “Interrobang?!” Spindler wrote in August when the Smash Unified Ruleset banned Boxes, the war on Boxes has been primarily waged by the tournament organizers themselves, most notably Arian “TheCrimsonBlur” Fathieh, and the tournament organizer for The Big House himself, Juggleguy. These controllers, which were primarily created to avoid the hand injury issues which have sidelined several players at times — most notably forcing Aziz “Hax” Al-Yami into retirement — have a created one of the most divisive arguments in any competitive scene. And beyond the physiological issues surrounding the GameCube controllers (which has been given its fair share of coverage) there are many other issues as to why this war on Boxes has gone overboard, and must be rescinded.
You can't say "we are not an elitist community" and then turn around and kick out players for using a controller that is saving their hands.
In 2011, the fighting game community began a similar debate with the creation of a controller that is becoming increasingly prevalent at events: the Hitbox. This all-button controller — which allowed players to control movement with their fingers rested on the buttons like a computer keyboard, making movement easier — was at first met with a curiosity, then later resistance due to some issues found with the Hitbox itself.
The first major issue discovered was that by pressing simultaneous opposing cardinal directions (e.g. left and right), you could block both directions at the same time in a myriad of games, or even allow charge characters to hold a charge while walking forward in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. This was quickly addressed within the community by creating circuit boards (and firmware for existing community boards) that contained built-in SOCD cleaners which prevented these issues, and Marcus “Toodles” Post creating an SOCD cleaner board for circuit boards that didn’t have it built-in, and couldn’t be flashed with new firmware. It is also worth noting that the SOCD issue is still prevalent with basic controllers by using the directional pad and the analog stick simultaneously.
While this was enough to initially satiate the detractors from the new technology, more resistance came later in 2012 — most notably from well-known Tekken and SoulCalibur player Aris Bakhtanians drawing criticism of its ease of inputs, moreso than an arcade stick or stock system controller provides. He took particular note that players in the Tekken series could easily perform just-framed Shining Wizard Kicks — a move which required three forward inputs before pressing left kick, something that could be done easily on a Hitbox by running your ring, middle, and index finger across the left or right button in quick succession.
With that, there was fear that players would rapidly adopt the Hitbox and gain an advantage over arcade stick and pad stalwarts, forcing top players to join the rank of Hitbox players or be left on the sidelines.
But there’s a problem: neither has happened. The only real high profile adoptees within the community lately have been Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez and David “UltraDavid” Graham. The former has only really been seen using the Hitbox on ELEAGUE soon after he switched — which saw him finish with a 0-7 record in pool play — and the latter is notably not on the tournament circuit anymore, and only switched to be able to continue to play due to wrist issues, a problem not too unfamiliar to Melee players. Further, should you look through tournament results to find majors won by Hitbox players, you’re going to be waiting for a while; that has barely happened, if at all. While NickTanella has done well in local events using the device, most players using Hitboxes have yet to truly crack open the field, despite an inferred advantage in ease of inputs. There may have been instances of Mortal Kombat players also doing well on the device, due to instant air moves being easier. However, the point still stands that the overall balance has never shifted to the Hitbox being dominant.
Boxes vs. Hitbox vs. GameCube controllers (The dreaded WWE triple threat match)
The FGC concluded that despite the ease of inputs, the Hitbox offered no noticeable advantages over any other recognized method of input in the scene to warrant a ban. With no macros or rapid-fire options on the device, and with it being visually apparent if a player has circumvented SOCD cleaners on them (even if a person were to try to circumvent this, most modern titles have been programmed with SOCDs in mind, blocking them from within the code itself) the Hitbox has universally been recognized as a tournament legal input method for many years now.
Hax with his version of the B0XX
Boxes, on the other hand, have automatically been labeled as unfair to use by the Smash rule committee and shoved to the wayside almost unilaterally since their invention. While the ease of inputs of the Hitbox may have influenced that decision given its similarities with Boxes, traditional fighting games and platform fighters such as the Smash series are so vastly different that such conjecture is a kneejerk and baseless assumption.
There have been times where the Smash community has chimed in with their support of Boxes as a valid input option. In December, Daniel “Tafokints” Lee explored the issue on Yahoo! Esports’ Melee Science, stating that he saw no performance difference between the Smashbox and a GameCube controller, even going so far as to say that using a Smashbox made certain things — such as tilts and slight directional influences — more difficult to perform.
By taking devices that were mainly designed to avoid physical issues with regards to the GameCube controller, and making it about a non-existent ease of inputs, the Smash rules committee have not only missed the point, but they have begun to make fools of themselves. This debate — or lack thereof — has begun to look less like protecting the integrity of the game, and more like a group of five elites saying, “Stop liking things I don’t like!” There couldn’t be a more vivid outsider’s description of their stance, than the strongarm tactics portrayed at The Big House.
Further, if they were so concerned that the integrity of Smash would be destroyed by using anything but stock Nintendo GameCube controllers, there are other fish to fry than simply Boxes. Kotaku recently reported on the prevalence of modified GameCube controllers, which featured notches cut into the holes where the analog sticks jut out from. Notch cutting makes shield dropping far easier to execute, which puts into a gray area, where it could create an unfair advantage against players who do not have notches cut into their controllers. If this were a question of integrity in the game, wouldn’t this be excluded? If this were a matter of dealing non-licensed peripherals to make nice with Nintendo — who has had a difficult past in dealing with the competitive Melee community (something I alluded to earlier) — wouldn’t Chinese knockoff controllers, as bad as they are, be banned as well? Wouldn’t the well-accepted Universal Controller Fix—which is an unlicensed software fix that corrects issues with backdashing on certain GameCube controllers — also be banned, especially if this were a Nintendo-forced issue?
This ban has become something that doesn’t protect Melee’s integrity in the slightest. Pointing at UCF and saying, “Progress!” doesn’t make this any less true. This is something that only looks like people that are afraid of what’s different, and not giving it the time of day. Imagine if this were to happen in a sport like golf, tennis, baseball, or ice hockey, where players use a variety of brands and styles of equipment to suit their preferences, to negligible performance results compared to their peers. Athletes would riot or boycott. ESPN, TSN, and their various counterparts would have a field day with the ongoing debates. But professional sports have not stifled technological advancement, nor should competitive gaming — which is exactly what Smash is doing.
Brand Recognition
Let’s just say that the report that this ban is Nintendo-forced is true. Let’s hypothetically say that they were doing this to limit competitive Smash to Nintendo-branded products — something already nullified by the existence of UCF itself at super-majors. What do they gain from it? Unless a port of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is planned for the Nintendo Switch, alongside a licensed Nintendo GameCube to Switch controller adapter and a resupply of GameCube controllers, they stand to gain nothing. GameCube controllers are out of production. By relegating players to only GameCube controllers, Nintendo makes zero money off of this. This is further compounded by the fact that Super Smash Bros. Melee itself has been out of print for a long time as well, and not once has Nintendo conclusively hinted to a re-release of the title on the Switch.
Nintendo gains nothing from the existence of Boxes outside of negative press should they fight against it. Why would sponsors have any say in what controllers are used in any fighting game event? At what point has this precedent been set? Did MadCatz ever do this at any event they sponsored? Has Qanba, Razer, or HORI ever forced players only to play on their controllers at events? Has Sanwa ever held a gun to peoples’ heads forcing them to play only on the JLFs and OBSFs that are standard in nearly every commercial stick produced these days?
No, and you won’t hear of that. Why? Because players would have a field day. Try telling JDCR, Knee, or any Korean Tekken player that their Korean parts are not welcome because Sanwa sponsored an event. Try telling Echo Fox that they have to cover up the Qanba logo on their jerseys because Razer sponsors the Capcom Pro Tour. Try telling John Choi that he lugged his giant MAS stick to Evo to leave it in his hotel room because American parts are banned. The tournament circuit would crumble within only a few events if something like this were ever dictated by sponsors. Which is why if — despite what I said above — Nintendo is behind this, they’ve only further blackened their eyes in their involvement with the community that plays their games.
The Vicious Cycle
What this ultimately amounts to is a vicious cycle that these new devices’ developers may never win. They want their devices to be deemed tournament legal. They can’t prove them tournament legal until they are given a chance to be showcased in competitive play. They can’t be showcased in competitive play because they aren’t deemed tournament legal. And they aren’t deemed tournament legal because a few stalwarts at the top of the competitive circuit are resistant to change.
They have every opportunity to give these controllers a chance, and see whether they affect the competitive scene. This approach is not unlike the one we traditional fighting game players utilized when the Hitbox came out. While the odds are against the Boxes making such a shift that you’ll see Mew2King, Leffen, Hungrybox, or Armada forced to drop their GameCube controller for B0XX in order to remain relevant, if that were to happen, all they have to do is institute a ban. If Boxes truly did create an unfair advantage enough to affect tournament results in such a dramatic way, the shift would be quick enough that you could quickly institute the ban without affecting the legacy of Melee much one way or the other.
But by blindly banning such instruments, you do affect the legacy of Melee automatically. And it starts to look like a bunch of crotchety old men screaming at Box players to “Get off their lawns,” over something far too asinine, while players fall left and right to hand injuries over a controller so unergonomic, that when I showed it — as well as a video of Mew2King playing on it — to Toronto chiropractor Katherine Siu, she strongly advised that players either avoid the controller entirely, or play no longer than 30 minutes at a time.
Is this the legacy that Melee wants? It looks like — from the comments I’ve seen via reddit, as well as speaking with people I personally know who are Melee players — the community is starting to say that the ban on Boxes is unwarranted, whether they intend to gravitate toward the devices or not.
Now it’s up to the rules committee — Fathieh and Juggleguy in particular — to get in line with the community’s voice. Enough is enough; it’s time to let the Smashbox and the B0XX have their chances to prove themselves.
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.
Not much emphasis has been placed on Ryu as a character in Street Fighter V over the course of Season 2. While he has become staggeringly weaker in this version of the game, he still can be optimized to continue to be a threat.
In this video, World Warrior shows off some nasty hard knockdown setups for Ryu, in a similar vein to the ones he showcased for Ken and Akuma. Utilizing various tricks including left/right mix-ups, this gives Ryu more damage potential than just his neutral game provides.
In this video from SSBM Tutorials, they discuss the tricks Sheik can perform in conjunction with various stage platforms. That’s not the only thing she can do, but this one gets a little more tricky.
Using a combination of short hop, fast fall, and her neutral air, she can create an insane amount of pressure from a tactic known as the Sami Nair. While this sounds great in theory, in practice, the amount of precise inputs required to do this and not get an up-air or down-air makes this one of the more difficult techniques in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
If you’ve been paying attention at all to the tournament circuit this season, you know how great Echo Fox’s Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi has been. Starting with a brand-new character in Season 2 — Akuma — he has struck at just the right times this year. Emerging from the losers bracket in top 8 of Evo 2017, he absolutely dominated the bracket, getting straight into runner-up Punk’s brain during the Grand Finals.
Tokido’s masterful play completely sealed his place in not only the annals of fighting game lore, but Capcom Cup as well. Does he have enough gas left in the tank to win it all in December?
The Murderface Returns for Blood
Last year, I called Tokido a favorite to make it to Grand Finals of Capcom Cup. I was decidedly wrong, given that he lost his only two matches at the event. The big upset was his first-round match against the Dominican Republic’s DR Ray in a result that no analyst would have ever predicted, and he didn’t have any more luck against Eita in losers bracket. While this exemplifies that not a soul who makes Capcom Cup can be slept on, it also shows some flaws to Tokido’s game.
While he was one of the best examples of how to properly play Ryu in Season 1, by Capcom Cup, he had hit his ceiling with the character. You could tell that by how hard he was having to scrape to win his matches. Tokido has always been known to desire to not only win, but do so efficiently. This is exactly why he picks Vega (Claw) in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and why he is credited for the invention of the Akuma vortex in Street Fighter IV. Ryu had no such tech that allowed for efficient kills like this. While again, you cannot take anything away from DR Ray or Eita for their wins against Tokido, the fact that he was stifled by a cast where the character that most fits his profile doesn’t have the creativity he needed was becoming evident.
His switch to Akuma has breathed new life in Tokido. He has certainly unlocked the potential of the character, and thus unlocking the potential for him to close tournaments. While he will be humble enough to say that he doesn’t take a lackluster tournament seriously, that 0-2 will hang on his head. He will definitely be aiming to do better this time around.
How Deadly is a Demon Exactly?
After Evo, the sky is the limit when it comes to Tokido’s Akuma. People had to go back to the drawing board after seeing what he did with the character at Evo 2017. He was tested so many times, both on potential match-up inexperience (vs. Filipino Champ’s Dhalsim), and facing the player that had dominated everyone all year, in Punk. Every test he faced proved he had studied hard enough to ace it.
His spacings were amazing. He had setups that no other Akuma had been exhibiting. He read like an encyclopedia of Akuma tech, incorporating not only his discoveries but things posted on the internet by the likes of KS Tali and RagingStormX to his advantage. This just shows how much Tokido had worked on the character since his release in December.
He understood the limitations of the character. He has low health just like always, but also featured many other disadvantages, such as no full screen fireballs, no jump back fireballs outside of V-Trigger, and not being able to perform a true vortex like in Street Fighter IV. He not only accepted his disadvantages — he made them disappear.
Now that he has had almost a full year with Akuma, what might Tokido be waiting to unleash in Capcom Cup? We’ll all be waiting with bated breath to find out.
Track Record
Out of the top 5 on the Capcom Pro Tour rankings to date, Tokido has won the least number of events on the CPT circuit. Even if you factor in his Brooklyn Beatdown win, that only puts him tied with Haitani, who has won the second least. While his track record of top 8s is impressive — only falling outside two of nine — that still doesn’t speak to his ability to close, Evo be damned. Outside of CPT, he has also fallen short twice at Chinese invitationals, losing to Xiaohai at Uleague and losing to Xian at Lan Story Cup for two runner-up finishes.
I’m not going to sit here and say that winning Evo is something to be scoffed at. Given his run through losers bracket, it’s worth it to say that he can close. The question is more or less how many times does he do it? Is he capable of doing it again?
Training Regimen
A lot has been made of Tokido’s training, which he has constantly been modified since last year. Last year saw him training the physical side of the game more, with him decreasing the amount of time he spent in game as opposed to studying his opponents and setups he can find online. But this year has seen the biggest shift in his game, and is what I believe has helped lead to the success he found this year.
Tokido has talked a lot about the mental aspect of the game, and controlling opponents. He isn’t just a talker, he’s a doer. He has began training his mind, most notably for being in a position to control his opponents. To that end, he has begun to practice meditation and deep breathing techniques. He now practices karate, helping balance him mentally, but also teaching him to problem solve in high-pressure situations. He has even gone as far as to adopt a new snack of walnuts at events, which are packed with nutrients that help foster good brain health.
Another thing that he has changed that not many people have talked about is his change in posture. He got his Murderface moniker for his slouched-over serious look before, which caused him to look more menacing. However, menacing doesn’t always make you stronger. Lately, we have seen him sit further upright, and while this may seem to be a small change, it is actually a big one. People with bad posture tend to see a decrease in blood flow. By opening up his posture to a more upright position, this increases blood flow and allows enough oxygen to get to his brain to keep his mind sharp as well.
It seems that Tokido’s claims that his training regimen may be stronger may actually be true. But it takes going to a deeper level than just playing to make those changes necessary to win.
Final Thoughts
Everyone within the top 5 on the CPT leaderboard is a killer right now, with a high percentage chance of winning everything. Tokido is right there in that group.
The problem is that to get there, he will have to face the strongest players in the world. That will be the deciding factor, it will totally depend on who is fully focused enough to bring it home. He’s probably starting to focus on Capcom Cup as his goal right now, but he’s fully aware that everyone is doing the same thing.
It will be hard to make it the year of the demon, winning both Evo and Capcom Cup. But if anyone has a chance to do this, he’s the most serious threat we’ve had.
Some more hints on the nature of the returning master of Bushinryu.
Capcom Community and Esports Manager Matt Edwards is back to introduce us to another new challenger: Zeku, the Ever-Changing Ninja. Edwards kicks off with some history on the long-lost master of Bushinryu, then follows up with some details on Zeku’s stance (and age) switching system, and some tips on why a player would want to pick up the shifty ninja.
Want to learn more about Bushinryu? Check out Zeku’s movelist, and Capcom-Unity’s reveal of his V-System and alternate costumes. Zeku joins the SFV roster on October 24th.
For over 2 decades now, Bandai Namco (back then, just Bandai) has held the license to produce games based on the Dragon Ball manga and anime franchise. In recent years, two of the people in the company handling these games have been producers Ryo Mito and Masayuki Hirano. In a recent interview, Game Informer got a chance to talk to them regarding the process of creating Dragon Ball video games.
In the interview below, Mito and Hirano talks about how Dragon Ball has such a large following — and that this results in a playerbase with varied tastes. As such, their process for deciding what games to make involves making sure that they hit a large number of peoples’ “likes.” Based on this, they then go and look for a studio that can achieve that. Dragon Ball FighterZ is just one example of this, seeing as they knew that a competitive 2D fighter based on the franchise was something people wanted, and that Arc System Works was a studio they could work with.
Regarding future games — and continuing to experiment with the franchise and different genres — they acknowledged that games take longer (and cost more) to make nowadays. They need to look ahead 3 to 4 years when figuring out what to do with the next game, including considering out how the market will move in that time.
That said, Hirano does state the he still believes that their mission is to “elevate Dragon Ball games to the next level” — something he believes Dragon Ball FighterZ will do. Specifically, in regards to the game’s nature as a 2D fighting game (something Game Informer mentions being something more of the past) Hirano states that taking things to the next isn’t just about the games content, but also showing players new possibilities of what a Dragon Ball game can be.
Anthony “RoksoTheSavage” Paratore was one of the most dominant Pokkén Tournament players during the game’s Wii U run, and one of the very few tournament players that stayed dedicated to under-represented Pokémon Garchomp. Between placing frequently at majors and doing it with a character outside the meta, it’s no surprise that an esports organization took notice of him.
Rokso is now officially INC|RoksoTheSavage. Needless to say, we’ll be seeing a lot more of the corner rush-down that has taken Garchomp (and Rokso himself) to this point in DX tournaments.
Canada Cup’s Super Street Fighter II Turbo tournament last year was an instant classic: with 73 players and 3 Japanese legends there to increase the hype for the event, it was one for the ages — and proved that ST was not slowing down.
This year is proving to be bigger and better, given that the event has matched last year’s total registrations, with a week left to register. Registrants now include yet another Japanese legend — one that will prove to be a familiar face from last year. Legendary O. Honda player Shougatsu has thrown his hat back in the ring after his fourth place finish last year, and has formed a team with Japanese N. Honda player Kusumondo (2nd place finisher last year) and Japanese Ryu player Tomo, who has been tearing up SoCal while studying in the area.
This is one ST event you don’t want to miss, so don’t hesitate to register on smash.gg!
Sadly, saving the world doesn’t do much to help your credit rating.
In the first episode of the fan series Saikyo Ryu Online, Dan Hibiki returned from his Street Fighter hiatus just in time to save the world from a cosmic threat (at least, that’s the story as he tells it). But he came home to find his dojo taken from him, and he must confront the coldest, most merciless enemy he has yet faced: the bank.
Looks like there’s some hard times ahead for the master of Saikyo-ryu… can he endure financial destitution? Who is really responsible for condemning his beloved dojo? Find out below!
If you haven’t seen the first part of Dan’s man-made adventure, check out the first episode of Saikyo Ryu Online!
