The latest post-release balance patch for King of Fighters XIV will arrive later today at approximately 6 p.m PDT (9 p.m. EST) as announced by SNK Playmore’s official Twitter account. While the game is still young, several characters including Nakoruru, K’, Love Heart, Mai, Mature and Athena have been clear standouts during the game’s early months.
This patch will be game version 1.03, following a day one balance patch and an update focused on the game’s netcode. With a cast of more than 40 characters, the community will have to wait and see how SNK chooses to create parity between them.
Smash has to be the number-one community for finding new complicated tech in their game. New ways of playing are constantly being presented, from things like better ledge guarding setups to completely new control methods. It’s honestly impressive!
Today, we are presented with yet another step in leveling up your Smash 4 game, courtesy of the Beefy Smash Doods. This tech is another ledge guarding method, named Instant Ledge Trumping. As the name suggests, this tech has characters instantly tethering to the ledge, to lead into a ledge trump back-air or to simply bait opponents into another risky off stage position. Only specific characters who have a tether can use this, of course. Check out the video below for a full description, as well as some example applications.
About a week ago, Evo 2016 champion Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo from Team Razer dropped the bomb that Razer is hard at work on a new arcade stick for PlayStation 4. Now, it seems we have our first glimpse of said arcade stick.
In a recent tweet, Razer showed a promotional photo of the supposed contents of Infiltration’s backpack. The centerpiece of the shot shows a blue Atrox featuring a new, larger switch panel with a touch pad positioned near the center of the stick (similar to MadCat’z TE-S+).
However, it isn’t just Infiltration who has this stick in his bag. It seems that his teammate Xian also has the PS4 Atrox prototype in his bag, and has in fact been spotted testing it the wild. NCK Feroce from the Shoryuken forums was able to take some photos of Xian’s PS4 Atrox prototype at the CPT European Finals at Milan Games Week this past weekend.
In addition to this, it seems that Xian was using the PS4 Atrox prototype at SEAM 2016 as well. This is interesting, as Infiltration was mostly seen using a MadCatz TE2+, most likely the ones provided on the Steam setups at the event.
Combined with Razer’s tweet, these shots of the stick in what seems to be near final form being tested in the wild seem to indicate it’s almost ready for production. Razer have had it rough as of late with their arcade sticks, with the modded Atroxes that their players have been using suffering from issues at some tournaments, and most famously, Evil Geniuses’ Momochi suffering from a disconnect at Evo 2015 Grand Finals that almost cost him the tournament. A new Atrox built specifically for PlayStation 4 would address these issues while at the same time, give Razer a foot in the door for what is seemingly the console of choice for fighting games this generation.
For the most part, Japanese companies have been slow when it comes to sponsoring players to play fighting games; so far, HORI has been the only company from Japan to do so. Now, another Japanese company is throwing their hat into the ring.
Sanwa Denshi announced this weekend that they have signed Japanese player M’ as their first King of Fighters player. M’ actually participated in last weekend’s KOF XIV tournament at Toushinsai as a player for Sanwa.
In addition to this being only the second time a Japanese peripheral company has signed a player, this is arguably the first time a Japanese King of Fighters player has received this kind of corporate sponsorship.
We here at Shoryuken wish Sanwa Denshi and M’ the best in this new relationship.
The hits just keep coming, as far as King of Fighters is concerned, with no signs of slowing down. Today we have another roundup of combo videos for various characters.
First up we have a pretty creative 100% Iori combo, using Mai’s Fan projectile to help him keep the combo going, courtesy of Persona Entertainment. That YouTuber also uploaded a Billy 100% combo, listed right below Iori.
We have more standard combo videos to gander at as well. We have a Goro Daimon video, which attempts to find the max damage combos for this character.
Up next are a couple of combo videos by another YouTuber. If you like these, be sure to check out his channel, as he looks to be making his way through the entire cast in this manner.
The strings of the Iron Fist Tournament are strong.
Fans of the Bandai Namco’s Tekken series–or just fans of video game music in general–will want to check out this latest tribute piece from Setnomessej; having previously brought us an excellent acoustic cover of Rashid’s theme from Street Fighter V, this time Setnomessej has put together an acoustic guitar-guided journey through Tekken’s auditory landscape with these selections from the Tekken franchise’s soundtrack. Have a listen below!
For those unaware, Mortal Kombat X recently received a huge overhaul to its characters; many characters are completely different, with whole new possible combo routes and neutral options. With all that’s changed, dedicated fans have been scouring the game to explore everything, and a few YouTubers have, of course, uploaded their findings–as you’ll see below.
First up is a meterless 40% combo with the new Cryomancer Sub-Zero. This video explains each portion of the combo, to help viewers at home master this combo for themselves.
Bo’Rai Cho also has some new flare, with content creator ETCChile providing this video fitting as many Fire Spits into one combo as possible. They also provide us with a cool Kung Lao 61% combo.
Lastly, we have a combo guide for Cyber Sub-Zero Triborg, going over many bread and butter combo routes, some more specific confirms, as well as a guide for Cryomancer Sub-Zero. This YouTube channel, ahmz1404, has other guides like this one; including one for Scorpion, Quan Chi, and more.
It was reported in September that the work-in-progress Gundam Vs. title coming to PlayStation 4 would have a closed Alpha test in Japan; it was recently announced via the official Gundam Versus Twitter that the test will take place between November 26th and 27th, and will not be held online but locally at the developers’ studio. Though these details could be bittersweet news for overseas fans who were hoping to get their hands on the alpha, US fans can at least rest assured that a version of the game with English subtitles is planned.
Editor’s note: the linked/embedded music videos below contain NSFW language.
One of the best playlists on Spotify is called “Discovery Weekly.” Spotify updates it once a week with new music. I usually wait around until the office clears before I jam it loud from my laptop (in wannabe Michael Burry fashion) while I do stuff for work.
As soon as the office emptied out on Friday, I hit the play button again and got back to it. But then I heard one of the best words I have ever heard to start off a song: a too familiar insert coin noise followed by a man yelling “Fight!” The very same sounds from the beginning of every round from Street Fighter II. And then, an awesome beat dropped that sounded like the perfect mashup of all the best tracks from the game (produced by Yoko Shimomura, Isao Abe, and Syun Nishigaki).
I’m probably late to the party on this one (about a year late actually), but the great song is “Sorry Not Sorry” by Bryson Tiller (Trapsoul, 2015). It was produced by Timbaland. If you haven’t heard it already, listen for yourself:
Since I heard the song, I have been thinking back to and looking for other songs that reference, sample, or are somehow related to fighting games. I also went through my iTunes to look at some of music members of the FGC have produced inspired by fighting games too. A few of my favorites are listed below.
Childish Gambino – Heartbeat (Camp, 2011)
There’s a clever Super Smash Bros. pun around the three-minute mark.
Kanye West – Facts (The Life of Pablo, 2016)
Kanye samples Dhalsim and Guile’s voices from Street Fighter II to use at the end of some of his verses on this track. Kanye also samples Street Fighter II on a Life of Pablo track titled “Pt. 2.”
Kyle – Sex and Super Smash Bros. (Beautiful Loser, 2013)
Title really says it all on this one.
Drake – Pop Style (Views, 2016)
The Street Fighter II announcer makes another appearance in this song featuring Jay-Z and Kanye West.
The guys at Godlike Sounds have more than a few awesome takes on fighting and other video game music. But this one is an open love letter to Killer Instinct fans (as if the original SNES soundtrack wasn’t good enough).
Even in 2007, well before the infamous Daigo match, Lupe Fiasco was rapping about his appreciation for Street Fighter.
For my own sake, I just have to say that no respectable video game music list should go without at least mentioning the Street Fighter III soundtrack. You can find it here.
Honorable Mention: James Chen, Indestructible Cover (Street Fighter IV, 2009)
A classic.
Know of any other songs that reference or sample fighting games? Feel free to comment and post below.
She’s not Super Street Fighter IV’s spider anymore.
Juri’s Street Fighter V iteration is significantly changed from her Super Street Fighter IV origin; fans returning to the character have been met with a fighter that feels both similar in some respects, but very different in others.
In the video below, marlonlonmilk addresses how Juri’s fireball has changed–now much less viable for zoning, but instead very effective as a pressure tool, combo extender, and finisher. New SFV Juri players in particular, or those struggling to adjust to “new” Juri: have a look.
