Few characters in Street Fighter V are as fun to play–and as hard to keep to keep your eye on–as Rashid of the Turbulent Wind. For those just starting to learn the Wind’s ways, or more experienced rashid players looking for some more tech, check out NurseLee’s latest video below. It contains a few meaty setups that follow-up Rashid’s light Spinning Mixer attack, with variations based on your opponent’s recovery options.
Of course, these are “Season One” setups–SFV’s incoming patch may change their effectiveness.
Following a short retirement period starting back in December 2015, David “KirbyKaze” McDonald is back in the Super Smash Bros. Melee scene and has been picked up by Melee It On Me as their next player. As Canada’s best Sheik main and possibly their best player overall, KirbyKaze has been racking up some decent wins since his return to Melee, gaining ninth at The Big House 6, fourth at Canada Cup 2016 and fifth at Eden this past weekend.
Before his break from Melee, KirbyKaze had taken sets off of Liquid|Hungrybox, C9|Mango and EG|PPMD, marking him as one of the world’s strongest Sheiks during the period of 2010 to 2012. Hopefully, with the support of Melee It On Me, KirbyKaze will reach those lofty heights yet again. KirbyKaze’s first tournament with MIOM will be at Genesis 4 next January in San Jose, California.
For those who don’t know, rather than being your typical team, Melee It On Me is a sort of “player incubator,” advising and representing Melee players until they can sort them a high level sponsor. Previous MIOM alumni are DNL|Duck, Tempo|S2J, CLG|SFAT and C9|Mango, so the team has quite the impressive track record for securing their players decent contracts.
It seems that the re-release of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and the announcement of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite has reignited everyone’s love affair with all things Marvel. Today, we have not only one but two combo videos–from two different sources–for your enjoyment.
First, we have a video that is literally from Russia, with hype. This video features combos specifically from a team of Magneto, Wolverine, and Shuma Gorath. This is a pretty unique team, so seeing what has been done with it is pretty amazing!
Next we have a video featuring Dormammu. This is a character we don’t see prominently displayed in many combo videos, as his keepaway game has been notably stronger than his ability to go in. But this Dormammu is not interested in bargains.
Thanks to an accidental beta release by Capcom, Street Fighter V’s Season Two changes have been available early to PC users. As part of this, Akuma is also playable in the beta by playing around with the beta’s update files. This has allowed players to try him out, and test out how certain moves and properties work.
Now, one of the things that players may have been wondering about is whether or not he can kara cancel into his Raging Demon. In most of his incarnations in previous games, such as in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike and Street Fighter IV, Akuma can cancel the start up frames of certain moves into his Raging Demon super. Coming into the new game, one where other kara cancels were taken out, people are wondering if he could still do this.
Well–it turns out he still can, at least in the beta build. In the video below, Jake Johnson demonstrates how Akuma can kara cancel his forward and medium punch into the Raging Demon.
This is an important discovery, as it means that Akuma players can still perform the move without any stray button presses from its awkward input (light punch, light punch, forward, light kick, heavy punch) giving the move away.
Last month, a new fighting game titled Fantasy Strike was revealed to the world. Being made by ex-Street Fighter developer/competitor David Sirlin and his team at Sirlin Games, this title has its sights set on both casual and competitive players alike. With extremely simplified controls and a low execution barrier for new players, while maintaining the strategy and depth found in classic and modern fighters for veterans, Fantasy Strike has something for everyone.
I recently got the chance to try out the alpha build of Fantasy Strike with Sirlin and his team at their booth at the PlayStation Experience inside the Anaheim Convention Center during the first weekend of December. I played between 60-70 sets with the Fantasy Strike team and PSX attendees in a three-hour timespan; during that time, I was able to get a good feel for the controls, core mechanics, and overall fun factor of the game in its early state so far.
Controls and Core Mechanics
Although I understand Fantasy Strike is still early in development, visually the game looks rather basic and bland. While the title does run at a steady 60 frames per second and sports a myriad of colors with a certain lighthearted brightness to it, the characters and stages the team had available were lacking in finer details, as well as smoother animations when performing normal actions and specials. I’m sure that will all be remedied and more polished once the final product is out on PlayStation 4, PC and Mac. Also, when it comes to sound effects and music in this build, there is still a long way to go in that department–but what was in the game was fine enough at this stage in this development. What really matters is how it controlled and played so far.
Controls are simple enough: X is your jump button, which is usually not the norm for 2D fighters–they’re more common in platform brawlers, like Super Smash Bros. Melee for example. Square is your regular attack button with neutral, left and right motions being pressed along with it to do different attacks, as well as to throw when up close (more on that later). Triangle and circle buttons are for your special attacks. No input motions are necessary to execute them, and pressing both of them at the same time activates your character’s super move both on the ground and in the air. Movement on the D-pad is relegated to just walking left and right, and controlling your jump arc when you use the jump button. There is no crouching in this game, as well as no dashes or runs. Every character has different walk speeds, so that makes up for the lack of extra universal movement options, since the main goal of this game is to make it very simple for anyone to pick up and play right off the bat.
It did take some getting used to the jump button, even though I have played Melee to death on a casual level since its release. Since this game seems to be heavily influenced by the Street Fighter series which I’ve been playing since SFII, having a jump button felt foreign to me the first few sets. After roughly 10 sets in though, it started to feel natural and having a control scheme this easy to use, I was able to move around freely and play some solid neutral on the ground while not having to worry about messing up motion inputs that could cost me critical rounds to close out sets. It felt refreshing to not have that added stress of executing hard combos and specials, and instead focus on more important aspects of the match such as spacing, offense, defense, and mind games between the opponent and myself.
Along with the easy-to-use controls and low execution barrier, the mechanics of FS are not only just as simple to grasp and understand at a basic level, it adds some unexpected depth and strategy for seasoned fighting game veterans to toy around with what’s underneath this surface of simplicity. From my time with the game, Fantasy Strike had three interesting and important mechanics: life bars, super meter and Yomi Counters.
Life bars for the characters in Fantasy Strike is not one long single life bar, like in other games, that gradually decreases with damage taken. Each character’s life bar is broken up smaller life bars instead that usually range from six to as many as eight bars. There is chip damage in this game, but it’s done a bit differently in Fantasy Strike: when specials and supers hit a blocking opponent, one of their individual bars starts to flash red. According to the guide, if you hit your opponent’s character while they are in a blocking position two more times while their life bars are in that flashing state, they will lose that bar and take damage. However if you don’t chip them during those four seconds that their one bar is flashing red, the bar goes back to its original non-flashing state and no chip damage is taken. This opens up an interesting meta when it comes to playing a defensive game where at a certain point you’ll be forced to go on offense instead of just sitting there all day taking free damage, which you can lose really quickly in this game if you’re not careful and don’t weigh both your offensive and defensive options correctly.
Speaking of offense, you don’t build up your super meter again after you use your super move by dealing or taking damage like in other games. Instead, your super meter has a cool-down period, and it refills after a few seconds go by during the match. While it sounds intriguing on paper, this might pose a problem in the long term by fostering too much reliance on supers–since they’re not only invincible for a long period of time after activation, but some of them do a lot of damage, which might get abused since the players won’t have to do anything to get the meter back again; the game does it for them. It’s one of those ideas where the whole concept of FS being easy to pick up and play might fall flat on its face. I would say in this case, the player should build it back up in chunks by going on offense, or if they take too much damage, but we’ll see where that goes.
The third and probably most interesting mechanic of the game is the Yomi Counter–teching and countering throws by not pressing any buttons and not moving at all. It’s a very risky tactic to use, but if you know your opponent wants to throw you, just do nothing and you’ll not only tech the throw, but you’ll deal some damage back with a freeze frame counter animation, and get a full super meter as a reward. This really boils to getting to know your opponent’s tendencies and conditioning your opponent to do or not do certain things during the match. If they like to try to Yomi Counter a lot, you can use it against them instead by actually just making them stand still by faking that you’re going to throw them and instead do a high-damage special, super or combo on them to make them pay for their mistake for not doing anything. This opens up a whole new mind game that hasn’t been explored in other fighters before, and it might make for some more exciting chess-style matches between players who know each other very well. However, getting rewarded with a full super meter might be a bit too much on top of damage you are already doing for landing a successful Yomi Counter. Maybe half a super meter bar instead?
First Impression Verdict
Honestly, I was skeptical about FS due to its extreme simplicity and not-so-stellar visuals (so far), but I was very surprised by how solidly it played even in its early alpha stages. Out of the eight characters that were available to play, I enjoyed learning Valerie (a blonde rushdown female fighter with a deadly paintbrush) and Rook (a stone golem grappler-type who feels like the lovechild of Zangief and The Hulk) the most. Even though I lost a lot of games to Sirlin, his FS team and other players, I was having so much fun just learning the ins and outs of the game while appreciating both its casual and competitive aspects.
Even though FS still needs a lot of work (and financial support, through Patreon) to be able to fix or spruce up some of its glaring issues, such as the visuals and sound effects of the characters and stages–as well as balance out some of the potentially awesome mechanics of this game–I think it says something when pro players such as Long “LPN” Nguyen, EG|Justin Wong and even ZOWIE|Bruce “GamerBee” Hsiang stopped by the booth during the weekend to play the game and left with a positive experience from it. The potential for FS is high, and with Sirlin’s veteran experience and his team of passionate staff members, I’m sure the finished game–with enough support–will be something great for everyone to enjoy.
You can get four fists furiously flailing in Brawlout, as the frog warrior shown off in the first trailer has taken on a dramatic transformation. We don’t know who he is under the mask, but we do know that Paco will be taking up the role of grappler in the upcoming platform brawler. Unlike traditional grapplers however, Paco looks to be as mobile as he is powerful, with plenty of movement options already shown off in the trailer below.
You’ll be able to give him a go during Brawlout’s open beta, which is coming to Steam on December 21, so brush up on your Frog-Fu, pull a mysterious mask on, and go to work on your opponents. And if you’re not sure what Brawlout is, or how it’s shaping up, be sure to check out our hands-on impressions of the alpha.
Developer Hangame has announced a special crossover treat for fighting game player and mobile game players alike. Characters from The King of Fighters series will be featured in their free-to-play mobile game Crusader’s Quest.
Characters shown in the trailer include Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, Billy Kane, Leona Heidern, Sie Kensou, and Chizuru Kagura: in complete “chibi” form to match the side-scrolling game’s style. The game is available on both the iTunes Store and Google Play Store–for iOS and Android respectively.
Welcome to the Rollback: a frame-by-frame look back at our past week’s most notable news and our favorite SRK articles from December 9 to December 15, 2016!
Oddly enough, this is the Tekken 7 character announcement I wanted most–well, short of Gon. This sort of silliness is what I love about this series! Beating your opponent down with a huge salmon will make the wait worthwhile.
This is a great breakdown of who’s who going into this big Super Smash Bros. for Wii U event–required reading if you’re going to watching the ZeRo Saga this weekend. Will TSM|ZeRo reign supreme and break the Curse?
I love UDON Entertainment’s Street Fighter Unlimited, and this Annual is a great wrap-up to a year that was full of great Street Fighter comics. It’s good to see Dan is still in fine form, too.
This is definitely a cross-over I can get behind. With King getting the Rainmaker as one of his new moves, it makes sense for him to get a whole Rainmaker outfit. Now, let’s hope for some Bullet Club costumes as well.
Street Fighter in the corridors of power, who would have thought it? Well, while the President didn’t come down to throw some Sonic Booms, seeing Mike, Ryan, Darryl and Justin represent the FGC so professionally was a big moment.
I’m going to miss these events from Mikado, seeing some arcade classics still being played by some dedicated players. What a way to finish SSFC 2016 with one of the most broken fighters of all time: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
There’s something strangely compelling about Super Smash Bros. 64. It’s a game focused almost entirely on neutral, where one mistake can leave you down a stock and working to get back in the game. Wangera is among the best in the world, with a character that is not all that popular, so watching him go to work is an absolute pleasure.
As someone who calls this damp little island home, it’s very exciting to see efforts being made to improve the status of esports in this country. There’s no one better to fight in the corner of the FGC than Ryan Hart, who is one of the most decorated Street Fighter players of all time.
This news is still blowing my mind. You read it right–a brand new Super Famicom fighting game. No, I’m not sure why either. It’s probably going to be amazing, though.
December 20 is almost upon us–which means Akuma, Master of the Fist, has almost arrived in Street Fighter V! In this WSO Showcase you can see some top players try the Raging Demon out and learn more about what powerful techniques he’s bringing to the game. Shun Goku Satsu!
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article and the selected posts are solely those of the writers, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.
FloKO interviewed The King of Fighters XIV director Yasuyuki Oda about the upcoming Version 1.10 patch for his game; in addition to discussing the inspiration behind the graphical changes and SNK’s decision to increase support for the esports scene, Oda says that he has a “small present” planned for the Christmas season. Since the 1.10 patch won’t be officially implemented until January, we can assume that whatever the surprise is will be something unrelated to the graphic and balance updates. Christmas season is practically here, so it’s likely we’ll find out what it is soon.
You can watch FloKO’s full interview with Yasuyuki Oda here.
[Editor’s note: there’s a possibility the “present” refers to the yet-unreleased classic Athena costume, which is apparently going to be a free download temporarily. Or, maybe not! We’ll see.]
The newest installment of the Vs. series, Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite, is causing a bit of controversy amongst the hardcore fanbase, due to the removal of the signature Assist mechanic, something that hasn’t been absent since 1996’s X-Men vs. Street Fighter. VesperArcade has decided to look back on the history and evolution of this mechanic alongside veteran Marvel player Detrimantix, who may be remembered for his 17th-place finish in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 at EVO 2011.
The Assist mechanic was first introduced in the second game of the Vs. series, 1997’s Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. During the course of a match, as long as you were on the ground, you could call in your inactive secondary character to perform a pre-programmed attack. During this time, your point character would be stuck in their Taunt animation, unable to move until the animation completed.
Detrimantix described the system as “primitive” and “something they were just testing the waters with at the time.” As far as the meta, “people just played the characters they wanted, and whatever happened happened,” although in later years players would discover greater depth with the new system, despite the fact that some of the trap and lockdown setups the series would later become infamous for weren’t possible yet.
However, in 1998’s Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, the Assist system would be revamped completely, as rather than calling in either of your team members to perform an attack, players would be granted one of 22 “Special Partners,” such as Thor, Psylocke, Colossus and Devilotte, who would be randomly selected–pending a secret code which allowed for choices–before each match began, and would be limited to a set number of uses.
“It opened up a lot of possibilities that weren’t possible in Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, but it came at a trade-off,” said Detramantix.
Capcom significantly expanded the presence of Assists in 2000’s Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, by expanding to 3-character teams, who had 3 Assists to choose from, with each Assist having its own button, as opposed to using the Medium buttons, as well as no limitations on calls, which gave birth to more intricate gameplay styles, such as Spiral trap teams and MorriDoom’s oppressive zoning in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. This also lead to the practice of certain characters, such as Psylocke, Captain Commando and Tron Bonne, who were pretty poor on point, getting chosen solely for their powerful Assists, something the developers are looking to remove in MvCI.
That brings us to 2011’s Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. With a stronger emphasis on ground bounces, wall bounces and OTGs, Assists were modified to compensate, such as Albert Wesker having both an OTG and a wall bounce Assist. Assists were also more vulnerable, making “Happy Birthdays” more common than in past games, along with using both in a single combo, leading to the “touch of death” situations we’ve become familiar with. You can catch the video below.
What are your thoughts on how the Assist mechanic has been implemented over the years? Let us know in the Comments.
UDON’s Street Fighter Unlimited Annual #1 Hits Stores Today!
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Wangera Sleeps on the Competition in This Super Smash Bros. 64 Compilation
Ryan Hart Joins the Advisory Board for the British Esports Association
Ex-SNK Developers Are Working on a New Fighting Game–for the Super Famicom