Originally known for playing Sega’s Virtua Fighter series, Razer’s Keita “Fuudo” Ai has made a much bigger name for himself playing Street Fighter. Starting with his win at Evo 2011’s Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition tournament, Fuudo has become one of the biggest names in competitive Street Fighter.
In a new short web documentary titled “The Life of a Street Fighter Pro,” IGN takes a look behind the scenes at Fuudo’s daily life. The video starts with his work doing streaming show Game Ningen Gakuen for Dengeki. He reflects on how things have come full circle, since he originally worked at a part time job for them. After that, it goes on to showcase bits of his life, including the places and game centers he used to visit growing up, as well as the games he would play in them, ranging from Gunslinger Stratos, and of course Street Fighter IV. The latter allows him to segue into how it led to him competing at Evo, and eventually being sponsored by Razer.
The rest of the video focuses on Fuudo’s approach and philosophy on getting better at games. He also goes on about how he feels that players can get better if they play the games with other people.
Lightning Legs and glops of poison fly in this set between RZR|Xian and HuomaoTV|HumanBomb! While this is presumably just a friendly match, the first-to-five clash gets pretty fierce as both players remain constantly on the offensive.
While their main character choices may be on (nearly) opposite ends of the tier list, in terms of skill these two players are neck-and-neck. Due to Season 2 changes, Xian has said that he would drop F.A.N.G in favor of a higher tier character–but he appears to still hold his own just fine against an A-list Chun player. F.A.N.G’s still got a lot of tricky antics to threaten with; though while struggling at some points, in this set HumanBomb looks anything but overwhelmed.
It is interesting to see how Xian and HumanBomb are adjusting to Season 2. With their play styles, skill levels and character choices taken into account, they are easily two of the most entertaining players to watch!
Any character that has stances in a game can be very difficult to play intelligently, especially for newcomers to fighting games. (Part of that is why Gen was always considered lower in the tiers in Street Fighter IV, despite Razer|Xian’s artful usage of the character to win Evo 2013.)
BlazBlue has a couple of these characters, including Kagura. Here’s a tutorial on how to properly utilize his dive stances to maximize your success with the character: there is a huge difference between him and other stance characters, in that he can cancel his stance changes easily just by hitting 4D in order to mix up his opponents–however, his stance cancel has been slowed down since Chronophantasma. Also, one big thing to note that the video goes over is that Kagura cannot enter the same stance twice in a combo or blockstring, so it is important to train yourself on picking and choosing your stances properly.
We haven’t seen too much Street Fighter V footage of Echo Fox’s Momochi lately–but considering his track record, it’s hard to doubt that he’s staying at the top of his game. In this footage that seems to confirm that statement as fact, Momochi reappears in Street Fighter V online Ranked matches and unleashes a Ken that’s looking mightier than ever.
Just as he made the transition from Street Fighter IV to Street Fighter V Ken, Momochi has adjusted to Season 2’s Ken rather well. With the year and season still being relatively young, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of damage he does in 2017 under the Echo Fox banner.
One of the biggest driving forces behind community’s push to get Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 back onto the Evo main stage–via the Player’s Choice vote–was none other than BROKENTIER’s Armando “Angelic” Mejia. Aside from helping to rally the community together, Angelic also helped by setting up a fundraiser at his own tournament, Undefeated, to help raise money for the drive.
PVP Live’s Chris Bahn recently got the chance to talk to Angelic, and discuss the significance of UMvC3 returning to Evo–as well as the series in general’s importance to him.
Angelic states that it is the end of a chapter in his life: having started playing the game a few days before launch (via a broken street date) and continuing to play it until now. More importantly, he cites how it’s helped bring the community together, as they all worked hard to get the game into Evo for one last time.
Aside from this, he also goes on about the series’ history and importance to Evo, having been a part of the tournament since its inception, even before he joined. He mentions how its easy to feel the “full weight” of the series’ history whenever he’s on stage. He concludes by saying that he truly believes that Evo wouldn’t be the same without the series: “Evo is Marvel,” he states.
In addition to this, he’s also gets a chance to talk about the Pokkén Tournament community and how he never held any ill will against them, as well as his own tournament Undefeated and what inspired him to become a tournament organizer.
You can read about all this and more in the full interview on PVP Live.
One of the toughest things to accomplish in Super Smash Bros. Melee is a proper recovery from getting knocked off the stage. This problem is even further exacerbated by the dreaded edgeguard: when your opponent grabs the edge for a handful of frames to make you fall right through to your death.
However, there is a way to circumvent their devious efforts to make you plummet. If you perform an ASDI fast fall technique, as showcased in this tutorial video, then you can make it onto the stage without their edgeguard blocking you. While this technique is most useful with Marth or Sheik, it is still useful across the cast.
As part of their resurgence, SNK has been doing its best to use its characters and IPs in multiple projects, outside of their traditional arcade and fighting game domain, to help bolster the company. It seems their latest move in this direction is towards the budding medium of virtual reality.
It was recently announced that SNK would be partnering with Studio Roqovan to bring content from the former into the latter’s VR projects. The studio, which is made up of former Disney and Infinity Ward employees, is mostly known for creating the class-based VR first-person shooter World War Toons.
Whether or not this means we’ll see SNK characters appearing in World War Toons, or if we’ll eventually see a new VR game featuring one of SNK’s IPs, is yet unknown. That said, the announcement stated that the first collaboration–and the specific IP–would be announced later this year.
Smug is the hot new player on the scene. While we have known for a long time how strong he is with his Dudley in the Street Fighter IV series, he is now completely hitting his stride and dominating every tournament he appears in. Not only that, but he consistently sits either #1 or #2 on the CFN leaderboard. People have had great difficulty dispatching him, including Echo Fox’s Justin Wong and Evil Geniuses’ K-Brad.
With the younger players struggling with Smug’s Balrog, it’s now time for the veterans to take their shot. Who better in America to test Smug’s mettle than Alex Valle? Valle is still known as a giant killer, always taking care of business when it’s crunch time against the world’s best. So can his Ryu stand up to Smug?
Fox vs. Sheik is a very commom match in Super Smash Bros. Melee. However there are so many high-level intricacies involved in the match that–to the untrained eye–may seem trivial.
This is why prestigious Fox main Armada has decided to analyze a match at Genesis 4 between TSM|Leffen and Plup. In this video, he goes over many of the spacing intricacies and mind games involved in selecting options to approach each other. He also discusses some of the stage picks after the initial game, and why Leffen ultimately fell to Plup in the match.
If you’ve paid attention to fighting game media on YouTube within the last couple of years, you’ve surely crossed paths with a Core-A Gaming video. From their information on the Korean FGC, to fighting game analysis and even some interviews of Korea’s top players, he has covered nearly everything fighting game-related. Owing to their unique takes on some of the major issues within the scene–interlaced with wild humor and meme usage–the channel has become popular in a very short time.
Recently, I was able to sit down to talk with Gerald “mintcheerios” Lee, the creator and voice behind the videos of Core-A Gaming. One of the most opinionated and intelligent minds in the FGC media, he had a lot to say on the direction of the Korean FGC, which was why he started creating content in the first place.
Corey “Missing Person” Lanier: Gerald, with all the quality content you’ve put out over the last year and a half, you have become quite the fixture in the FGC. What drove you to start putting out content as a relative unknown in the community at large?
Gerald “mintcheerios” Lee: One of the most important things was when Hyounoo “Drakefang” Sung opened a bar called ArcadeStream in Seoul, and it became a place where all the top players could come and play weekly and monthly events on stream. But it was also a dart bar, and a general bar where you could also get food service. When it opened, it was a chance to cover the Korean FGC in a way that it hadn’t been covered before. You’d have all these top players coming in, with all these events happening in Seoul, with no one really covering it. I figured this would be a good opportunity for me to do so, and that’s how the Core-A Gaming channel got started. [Note: as of November 2016, ArcadeStream is now known as DartStream and is solely a dart bar.]
Later, I started doing analysis videos after having a lot of conversations with fighting game players. I thought a lot of these conversations were interesting, and thought that it would be a good idea to put that into a video essay format to see what happened. It turned out pretty good.
Missing Person: With the rise and fall of ArcadeStream, how do you feel this will affect the Korean FGC moving forward?
mintcheerios: Like I said, the main reason I started my channel was to support my local arcade, which was ArcadeStream, and if you look at all my videos prior to its closure, there was always a link to directions on getting to ArcadeStream at the end of my videos. Of course it’s important to have a place where you can go to play these games, and Street Fighter is not in the actual arcades over here. They had Street Fighter IV in some arcades at a certain point, but even those cabinets were getting removed. There are still a couple of places around for the scene to congregate, but they aren’t dedicated to Street Fighter, weeklies, and streaming.
I’m sure that everyone knows in recent years that it’s difficult to run an arcade. Nonetheless, it’s still important to have a scene, and place where people can meet and play these games. It’s kind of a loss to lose ArcadeStream, but I feel like it’s not over yet. I have some plans in regards to that, but some things need to happen first for them to come to fruition. I am trying to reunite the players over here, as all the players really don’t have too many places to go.
Missing Person: Do you feel like there are difficulties within the Street Fighter community in Korea beyond just having a place to play?
mintcheerios: The good thing is the internet here is really good. I recently tweeted what my internet connection looked like, and for the cost of $30 I was getting 100mbps both ways and a ping of 1ms. A lot of the up and coming Street Fighter players in Korea, such as NL and XYZZY, are really far away from Seoul, so they rely solely on online play to practice and improve. I feel like Capcom has moved in the right direction by getting people to play online. Of course, there are still some kinks to work out, but I’m sure they’ll come through.
Missing Person: Do you feel like NL and XYZZY’s travels are helping them, and overall do you think this will help improve the Korean scene?
mintcheerios: I feel like having these players–especially NL, who has been on TV and is a well-known King of Fighters player in Korea–definitely does bring more awareness to the game. It’s amazing because my cousin–who is a Tekken player–he heard about NL playing Street Fighter and decided to give the game a try. When you see these players trying out different games, it inspires you to try as well.
I’m not going to lie, Poongko’s ridiculous Akuma in Tekken 7 inspired me to get into Tekken somewhat, so I’m going to give it more of a shot when it releases on console.
Gerald “mintcheerios” Lee (left) with HyperX|Daigo Umehara at Evo 2013. Photo courtesy Gerald Lee.
Missing Person: With Tekken and KOF being the biggest games in Korea, and Street Fighter just emerging in the market, are players from other games branching out more with the rise of Street Fighter and the Capcom Pro Tour?
mintcheerios: I think it has waned a bit. Street Fighter had a big push when it first came out. There was a big advertisement for it in Yongsan–the biggest electronics center in Korea–so it had a lot of momentum from that. I think it’s starting to normalize a bit. But there are still a lot of new faces I have never seen before. I think Street Fighter is getting bigger than it’s been since the Street Fighter II days in Korea. It is growing; it’s just not huge. But it is becoming increasingly known. So even it doesn’t hit MOBA levels in the esports realm, it is still steady and consistent.
Missing Person: Talking about new faces in Korea, are there any you could name that people should be looking into?
mintcheerios: A lot of these guys are online warriors, but they do show up to the local tournaments. They do get good online, because with the internet here you can play all the best players in Korea and Japan online with very little lag.
But as far as names, I would look out for Verloren, as he won the Amateur Cup at Southeast Asia Major, and also made it out to Canada Cup as well. His Cammy is ridiculous. There’s also a solid Dhalsim player named Save over here.
I think these are players that are doing well, but all their success is going to depend on how seriously they take the game. I think one of the things about them is going to be support. Even people like Infiltration and Poongko, they were supported by r/Kappa back in the Street Fighter IV days. Even recently, XYZZY has also been sponsored by them. But it just goes to show how difficult it is for these players to get noticed enough to get sponsored for traveling and playing. And because of that, it’s going to be difficult for them to get to Capcom Cup despite their high-level play.
Missing Person: So in Korea, there is an influx of expats living in Korea and playing Street Fighter. Do you think this has helped the Korean FGC out?
Mintcheerios: Not necessarily. The expats and the Koreans don’t really mingle, partly due to the language barrier. Of course when we meet in tournaments, it usually goes well.
But the expats do definitely make their presence felt within the scene here. If you go to any tournament in Korea, you can expect the expats there. But what I like about Street Fighter is how international the game is.
