Southern California is one of the hotbeds of competitive fighting game action in the US West Coast, with numerous tournaments taking place in the region. For any fighting game players who are thinking of passing by the region this July on the way to Evo, here’s one event you might want to check out.
Pasadena Regionals returns this year on July 28 to 29 — the weekend before Evo 2018. While last year’s event was solely focused on Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, this year’s version has grown bigger and will now feature both Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Dragon Ball FighterZ in addition to UMvC3.
For those interested in attending (or even just watching), Pasadena Regionals 2018 will take place at 3887 E Sierra Madre Blvd. in Pasadena, CA. Registration for the event is now open over at smash.gg.
Witness Ultra Instinct Goku before his final showdown!
Bandai Namco has finally given players a trailer and release date for the last known expansion, Extra Pack 2, for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. The trailer focuses on the upcoming characters, Goku (Ultra Instinct), Jiren, Android 17 (Dragon Ball Super), and Fu, and the Extra Scenario: Infinite History. Each character’s unique skills make them valuable additions to the roster.
Infinite History may be the most exciting addition to the long-supported title yet. During the new story, players join forces with their mentor and battle throughout history — but this time, it may never be the same. Unlike the previous story mode where history was meant to be preserved, anything goes!
The full extent of how much history can be changed has yet to be announced, but if its anything like the end of Xenoverse 2, players are in for some very interesting “What if?” scenarios. A few of the showcased events include Jiren teaming up with Goku Black and Zamasu and the long-awaited reunion of Tapion and Future Trunks. The upcoming DLC also includes an additional 5 Parallel Quests, 8 skills, 8 Super Souls and even more costumes!
There’s also a ton of free content coming to the game as well! Custom Saiyan characters will be able to unlock the power of Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan (Super Saiyan Blue), all custom characters will have access to the “Overlimit” skill, and Android 18 and Videl will be getting swimsuits! All of this content will release next week on February 28 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC!
Don’t forget about the upcoming Dragon Ball FighterZ DLC either! Players who own both games will get access to the Android 21 outfit for custom characters. The release date for this content has yet to be announced.
The release of Extra Pack 2 may signal the end of the bulk of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 content. Whether or not the title continues to receive DLC in the future, there is more than a wealth of things to experience; Bandai Namco has made a perfect example of post-release support.
Is an “Imagination Bomb” about to be dropped on the fighting game market?
Indie developer Zero Dimension seeks to take players back to the good ol’ days of hand-drawn sprites and 2D fighting action with their in-development project Cerebrawl. Inspired by classic Street Fighter and the Marvel Vs. games, it’s a potentially fresh look at what was great about old school fighting games. It’s currently in a crowdfunding stage, with the target being Steam Early Access.
From Cerebrawl‘s Kickstarter campaign page:
Cerebrawl is a fully hand-animated, 2v2 4-player tag-team fighting game. As a team, you and your partner can use several assist options available to maximize your damage. Cerebrawl is inspired by games such as the Marvel vs. Capcom series and their robust tag-team systems, but focuses on breaking each character out to a respective player. While it takes many notes from the VS series of games, it has become a beast of its own during its time in development. Cerebrawl is built on the idea that players not only need to know their character and the depth of their moveset, but also how players can best work together as a team to defeat their opponents.
The game’s core features revolve around competitive play with future features including 1v1 and 1v2 modes, a full button check system built into the character select, and tournament mode with a fully automated bracket system… we are also excited to add stage breaks into the game, a system where players can break down parts of the stage to either extend or narrow the size of the play space and change the meta on the fly.
On the story and setting:
Harmon City was a typical modern metropolis. But when an Imagination Bomb is detonated at the center of the city, Harmon City and its inhabitants are changed forever.
As the blast engulfs the region, the minds of the people start spilling into the reality. Reality can’t hold all the different thoughts and possibilities, and when the content of everyone’s psyche start to collide, each individual is thrusted into their own dimension. In these pocket dimensions, each citizen of Harmon City grow new worlds based on their ideals and desires.
As fast as these worlds start to form, the pocket dimensions begin to re-collapse into reality. The many dimension-worlds start spiraling back into the place from which they came, but Harmon City has only limited space. The people who were merely residents of the city now have a chance to form their environment, but to do so they need to fight for real estate, as their dimension-worlds will need space to take root in the newly forming Harmon City.
Aside from it’s classic 2D aesthetic, one of the biggest draws to the game is the hip-hop inspired soundtrack — very reminiscent of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike — to be provided by 2 Mello, featuring Mega Ran, K Murdock, Open Mike Eagle, and Time Machine.
The future of Cerebrawl may be a bit uncertain, however, as it only has a few days left in its “all-or-nothing” crowdfunding campaign, and has reached less than 10% of its funding goal. You can check out design concepts, character descriptions, preview videos, and download a demo on Cerebrawl‘s Kickstarter page.
Finally, after a long and storied development period, Mane6’s Them’s Fightin’ Herds has finally been released.
And to think that the game almost never happened! Originally started as a popular fan game based on Hasbro’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the game was hit with a cease and desist order from said company. The project got a shot in the arm, however, thanks to Friendship is Magic producer Lauren Faust — who offered to help the team create an original cast and setting for the game. On top of this, Lab Zero provided a free license to use the engine for Skullgirls via a stretch goal on the latter’s DLC crowdfund campaign.
Now, almost half a decade since then, Them’s Fightin’ Herds is finally available for purchase.
Them’s Fightin’ Herds tells the story of a tournament (natch) between the “Key Seekers” of various tribes from the realm of Fœnum. These Key Seekers are looking for the a magical key that will once again lock away the Predators that are threatening the tribes of Fœnum. The winner of this competition will become the Key Keeper, who will face the champion of the Predators.
The game itself launches with six characters: Arizona the cow, Velvet the reindeer, Paprika the alpaca, Oleander the unicorn, Pom the sheep, and Tianhuo the longma (a winged, draconic horse from Chinese mythology). These characters are controlled via four-button control scheme with 3 normal attack buttons (light, medium, heavy) and a fourth “magic” button. The latter can act similarly to the “meter burn” button in NetherRealm Studios games, allowing for powered up versions of the characters’ special moves.
Online play for Them’s Fightin’ Herds is handled by the vaunted GGPO rollback netcode. The implementation of this in Skullgirls (whose engine this game uses) is still to this day one of the best implementations of online play in any fighter, so it stands to reason that this’ll be the case here as well. To this, the game adds a new visual lobby where you can hang around in locations in Fœnum, using customizable avatars.
For those interested, Them’s Fightin’ Herds can now be purchased via both Steam and Humble Bundle.
Funcom has sent out a mysterious note leading to a cryptic page with a countdown leading to February 28th. The message reads that the company will be announcing a new game on that day. When visiting the site, “Countdown2Zero.com”, viewers are presented with a scene in a bar with four silhouetted characters named Pripp, Selma, Dux and Bormin. The bar appears to be in a modern setting with fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. Clearly this isn’t another Conan game…
Kayane is an extremely famous French SoulCaliburVI player, and given her web presence and affinity for blogging, it’s not surprising that she’s on the hunt for information on the upcoming Souls fighter. She recently posted an extensive interview with Motohiro Okubo — the producer behind the game — and asked many hard-hitting questions that fans are dying to know… though she didn’t necessarily get all the answers.
In her SoulCalibur VI interview, she opens by asking Okubo about the single-player content, specifically, the Story Mode. Okubo wants to go back to a time that’s “around, but not necessarily between SCI and SCII,” and “back to the concept of the clash of Soul Edge and Soul Calibur” swords. He can’t say yet, however, whether that content will have an overarching story or take the perspective of individual characters. A wildly-debated topic currently is whether Siegfried will be his own character, but Okubo doesn’t leave any hints — but it sure seems likely that the game will have DLC characters.
Tekken fans will definitely appreciate the Noctis discussion, as Kayane is persistent in asking about the Final Fantasy XV guest character. Okubo explains that Square Enix surprised them with their permission, and as the Tekken team is separate, there wasn’t much of a chance to put the prince in SoulCalibur (at least for now!). Kayane is holding out her hope for NieR: Automata‘s 2B, though. Additionally, there’s a revealing discussion about the difficulties of making games cross-platform.
With the latest update dropping for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition yesterday, notable dataminer X-Kira has once again unearthed some new findings related to potential upcoming content for the game. First off, he displays all colors and Easter eggs for Blanka’s costumes, as well as the Monster Hunter Crossover Costumes for Ibuki, Rainbow Mika, and Ken (which sees the shoto remove his helmet, while the ladies remove their weapons). We also get the same treatment for Captain Commando Nash, whose Extra Battle challenges will likely begin once Chun-Li’s June Lin Milliam and the MH trio have all finished in March. (Keep in mind those three sets of Battles have recently been rescheduled, if you’re looking to hunt for a certain World Warrior.)
Furthermore, we get a listen to the main theme of the Monster Hunter franchise, “Proof of a Hero,” which can be earned in an additional Extra Battle currently beginning on February 27th. This song can seemingly be set to replace the current Main Menu theme for SFVAE if you so choose, and is yet another collaboration fans of both series will surely appreciate. New Titles are also displayed.
Next, X-Kira brings us footage of a potentially upcoming new mode known as Extra Survival. Similar to the mode that currently resides in the game, you battle a series of CPU-controlled foes in single-round matches through various courses that increase in both difficulty and number of levels as you progress, gaining a choice of Battle Supplements along the way that allow you to stay in the fight as long as possible. The key difference in this mode is that you will be battling various NPC opponents, such as AS-D (Low-Ranking Shadaloo Soldier C), AS-Y (Low-Ranking Shadaloo Soldier A), AS-R (Mid-Ranking Shdaloo Soldier C), AS-M (High-Ranking Shadaloo Soldier A), and various Dolls from the General Story. Though X-Kira also notes that all 34 playable characters can also be fought in this mode, the difficulty of which is “insane.” X-Kira also notes that “some of these Dolls will appear in General Story Volume 2,” something else he has hinted at for quite some time.
Finally, he notes that the original name for this update was supposed to be “Super Street Fighter V,” before Capcom eventually settled on Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition. It will be interesting to see if these findings are related to the “Boss Rush” mode with varying courses that would pit players against the likes of Shadaloo, S.I.N., Neo Shadaloo, the Mad Gear Gang, and the Illuninati, of if they will be two entirely separate modes that will each be added to the game in the future. You can see both videos below, where X-Kira runs through Extra Survival with Nash. Keep in mind to take all of this with a massive grain of salt until it’s officially confirmed by Capcom!
He also noted recently on Twitter that a Nostalgic costume for Abigail (based on his original Final Fight appearance) is in the pipeline, and the third Season 3 DLC character — Neo Shadaloo’s Falke — will not be released until all of the Monster Hunter and Captain Commando Nash Extra Battles have concluded. New costumes for Akuma and Sakura — which could also be tied to Extra Battle — have been found, speculating that she could arrive on Tuesday, April 17th.
VAE: While the content of this client not totally published, Falke will not have its release…
Next client coming only, when that client has all placeholders filled.
What do you think of these developments? Are you excited about upcoming Crossover Costumes, or the prospect of Extra Survival? Tell us in the comments.
Our inbox here at Shoryuken is still so full of Dragon Ball FighterZ content that we may have to change our name to Kamehameha.com. (I’m kidding. Please don’t yell at me, that was originally my editor’s joke. Yell at him.) In addition to the typical assortment of combo videos that come in, we have some interesting studies on fireball priority, and other assorted tech. Let’s see what the community has submitted this time.
Do you have a friend that is into the Super Smash Bros. series that wants to try out other fighters? Because even Smash YouTube giants like the Beefy Smash Doods are getting on board the DBFZ train with this beginner’s guide video.
datHazy shows off some DHC potential with Adult Gohan.
CCW|MRpeck324‘s combo guide for Hit has an interesting reset involving the cancelable state of Hit’s Auto-Combo!
Hot on the heels of giving us our first in game visuals of them, Bandai Namco Games has now put up the character pages for Broly and Bardock on the official Dragon Ball FighterZ website in Japan.
The profiles given for both fighters seem to give good indication of how they’ll play in the game. Specifically, Broly seems like he’ll play like a traditional “big body” character, with armor on his moves. His stats seem to support this with both power and reach rated as “SS”, while his speed is rated at a lowly “C”.
Goku’s dad Bardock on the other hand seems to be more of a rushdown chararcter. To this end, his power and speed are rated as “S”, but his reach is only rated as “B”, making him out to be a fast character meant to fight up close to his opponent. Interestingly enough, both characters are both rated as “S” in terms of ease of use.
In addition to these, we’re also given the names of what may be their super moves. Broly’s is the “Eraser Cannon”, while Bardock has the “Riot Javelin”. This is on top of the ultimate attack names we previously learned which are “Gigantic Meteor” for Broly, and “Revenger Assault” for Bardock.
The commander of the Ikari Warriors is returning to duty in The King of Fighters XIV.
It has been a while since the hand-bladed Solider appeared in The King of Fighters series, and he looks as stylish and brutal as ever. Do my ears deceive me, does Heidern say “Go to HEAVEN!” now instead of “Hell”? I’m fine with either. Heidern can send people anywhere he wants.
SNK (and Atlus) have been very good about quickly getting movelists out for DLC characters since KOFXIV’s release, so we can expect to see that soon. It’ll be interesting to see if Heidern returns to being a charge character or not, and how his new moves will fit into his repertoire.
Oswald, Heidern, and the other as-of-yet unannounced DLC characters are set to appear in April, 2018.
