Dragon Ball FighterZ may release in about a week, but it appears some players have gotten their hands on early copies, and are diving into the mechanics of the full game. The information that is presented in this article was found through Reset Era Forums after reporting by Attack of the Fanboy.
One new feature that has not been officially addressed is the game’s capsule system. Similar to loot boxes, these capsules — from the trusty Capsule Corporation, of course — contain randomly-assorted cosmetic items like lobby avatars, character colors, and titles. The capsules can be purchased with two different currencies. There is Zeni, which is unlocked by regular gameplay (like completing Arcade Mode or playing through the story), and there are Premium Z Coins. The latter currency is gained when duplicate items are obtained through the capsules.
There is no confirmation on whether or not Premium Z Coins can be purchased with real money — due to the full-version game servers still being down — but it is assumed, by those who have gotten access to the title by a link to the Xbox Store found on the menu.
The unlock system is very similar to the one Arc System Works used first in Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-. There is a fishing mechanic where players use in-game currency to unlock similar collectibles. Here is an in-depth look at the system -REVELATOR- presents.
This system appears to be one of the most friendly forms of the loot box practice. Everything can be earned in-game, and while it has not been confirmed, allowing the option to instead purchase the Premium Z Coins isn’t all that bad, either.
We will know all the details soon when Dragon Ball FighterZ finally releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on January 26. It has been a heck of a ride since Xbox’s E3 conference last year! I can’t wait to see what this title has in store.
One of the games that many players are waiting for with bated breath is ARIKA’s Fighting EX Layer. This revival of ARIKA’s past fighting games is something many fans have wanted, especially since it brings back some of the roster from Street Fighter EX.
For those looking to get a chance to play the game, ARIKA has announced that they will be bringing the game to Evo Japan. Fighting EX Layer will not only be playable at Evo Japan, but the build that ARIKA is bringing will feature fan-favorite Doctrine Dark.
The mentally-unstable mercenary is coming to Evo Japan, garrote and explosives in tow. He will be joined the original six characters from the beta last December: Kairi, Allen, Shirase, Garuda, Darun, and Skullomania.
Evo Japan takes place in Tokyo, on January 26 to 28.
The latest issue of Weekly Shonen Jump has just revealed the fourth playable character for My Hero Academia: One’s Justice. Toshinori Yagi, a.k.a. the hero All Might, will be joining Izuku Midoriya, Tomura Shigaraki, and Katsuki Bakugo.
The deuteragonist of My Hero Academia, All Might is the number 1 ranked hero who bears the title of the world’s “Symbol of Peace.” He’s also the eighth holder of the “One For All” Quirk, that he has since passed on to Izuku Midoriya who he is grooming to be his successor.
With this “One For All” Quirk, All Might can use standard attacks that knock his opponents back, and all of his moves are “ultimate class.”
My Hero Academia: One’s Justice is set to release on PlayStation 4, Switch, PC, and Xbox One in the West sometime later this year.
With a total of 56 playable characters, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 proved to have one of the largest rosters in fighting game history. Despite this, only a handful of characters were considered tournament viable, and Hayato — a character from 3D fighter Star Gladiator — was one of those that missed the competitive mark.
In this article, Twin Galaxies explains how the character had a very unique moveset, but that in itself helped to prevent the character from rising in the tier lists. The character could easily make one mistake and be opened up very quickly, due to whiffs being costly for him even from full range. Check out the full article here.
After the epic announcement of Jiren coming to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, more details arrive surrounding the latest expansion to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. Extra Pack 2 is so far confirmed to include Fu, Jiren, and most recently announced, Android 17 (Dragon Ball Super). This version of the android has a host of new abilities witnessed during the Tournament of Power saga of Dragon Ball Super. While he is an unexpected addition, the character has more than proved his capabilities in the most recent arc.
There is also a free update coming alongside the DLC release that will be adding even more surprising content to the game. A brand new “Overlimit” skill is going to be added which can be used by any custom character. It provides a one-time boost to your character’s capabilities that’s extent depends on the number of enemies defeated and the kind of warrior used. The Saiyan custom character race will get a huge power up with the “Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan” awakening skill. Which is certainly awesome — but curious — to bypass the original Super Saiyan God form, I’m sure we can assume our custom heroes pulled a Vegeta and are capable of using the form, but seldom use it. (Unless you count the manga.) And last and certainly not least, the most unexpected of additions to the game, Android 18 and Videl will be able to fight in swimsuits. Neat!
Xenoverse 2 feels like the gift that keeps on giving. Bandai Namco has more than fulfilled their promise of supporting the title for a year after the release. More information on the DLC and the free update is bound to be on the way with accompanying trailers before the contents’ release! Only a few more questions remain, when will the content release, what is the new form of Goku (Ultra Instinct?), and what will the collaborative FighterZ content be? Until then check out the full scan below and imagine your custom character with shimmering blue hair. (If they are a Saiyan, of course.)
Looking for a jolt of gaming inspiration? Cammy pro Simon “Popi” Gutierrez is the subject of a brand new YouTube interview series Meet My Story, and inspiration is the core of his. Half a decade ago, he was a man that could not be stopped in Street Fighter IV. Between 2012-2014 he racked up $15,000 in earnings, and was among the first to defeat the seemingly invincible Infiltration in his break-out underdog moment.
This interview covers that monumental event, and the positive mindset that Popi employed to make it happen. It also covers the aftermath of being thrust into sudden stardom, and the marketing pitfalls therein.
Teased in their closed beta announcement, Wavedash Games have revealed Icons: Combat Arena‘s duo character, Afi and Galu. Twin statues imbued with the power of water and fire, Afi and Galu break with the traditional formula for duo characters in platform fighters, as only one of them can be active on screen at once.
When one statue is active, the other will lay dormant — standing stock still until the player switches to the other one. Awakening Afi will cause a water geyser to shoot up around them, while waking up Galu will cause a jet of flame to erupt from around them. Playing Afi and Galu at a high level will involve mastering statue positioning, and punishing an opponent who puts a foot wrong. You’ll need to be playing multi-dimensional chess, while your enemy is playing checkers.
The duo also has a special dash, which allows the player to move either towards or away from your inactive partner, relative to their position. Using this life-link will be key for ending combos and also saving your hide when you overextend for an edge-guard. Keep alert though — your partner may be impervious to damage while dormant, but they still obey the laws of gravity. If a dormant statue drops into the blastzone, you will lose a stock.
As for when you’d use Afi or Galu, their elemental attacks send foes at different angles. Afi’s fire knocks the opponent outward, so they are best used for kills off the side. Galu’s water knocks the opponent upwards, so they are best for killing off the top.
While the previously announced characters for Icons stick to platform fighter archetypes quite rigidly, Afi and Galu act as the first character to really break the mold and try something new with this particular archetype. If the remaining two launch fighters are as creative as Afi and Galu are, Icons’ launch roster will be something special.
If you are in the Icons: Combat Arena closed beta, you won’t have to wait long to try these soul-swapping statues, as they will be available to play next week. Wavedash Games are continually adding players to the closed beta pool, so sign up if you want to give this platform fighter a try.
Stash will be upgrading to Tier 4 soon. It brings with it a wealth of new content including new zones, dungeons, bosses, class abilities, loot, increased player levels and more. To get players prepped for the content drop, the balance of January is filled with Bonus XP events every weekend as well as significant rewards to be handed out for reaching leveling milestones.
Three deadly competitors add their muscle power to Altas Bear!
Atlas Bear is a new esports team from Indonesian entrepreneur, Kevin “Burung” Mintaraga; following his partnership with Benoit “Gunfight” Arquilla, they are proud to announce the signing of three players for their Street Fighter V roster: Kichipa-mu, StormKUBO, and Gunfight himself.
Mintaraga and Gunfight are aiming to establish a global e-sport team. According to Mintaraga: “We want to enlist players with big ambitions and huge potential, but are not yet exposed to the global e-sport scene. We want to give them a chance to gain worldwide recognition, and we’re excited for what they can do.”
Gunfight — well-known for his Alex play in SFV — states that the team decided to approach Kichipa-mu and StormKUBO because they fit the vision Mintaraga and Gunfight share for the future of Atlas Bear. “They are young, they’re growing at exponential rate, and they have gained recognizable experience in the last couple of years,” says Gunfight. “StormKUBO is one of the world’s best Abigail players, and Kichipa-mu is famous for his hard-read Zangief gameplay. More importantly, they share the same passion and ambition that Kevin and I have for the team. I am excited by this move, and I cannot wait to see the game they will bring to the FGC scene.”
Atlas Bear plans to bring their trio of big-body brawlers to Evo Japan, coming up on January 26-28. Watch for them there!
The recent Fighting Game Awards from Arc System Works culminated in a monumental BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle announcement. Up to this point, we’ve been trickle-fed monthly character reveals, often spread across the colliding universes (though usually leaning heavily on BlazBlue’s). At the end of the BlazBlue: Central Fiction tournament, the company gave us a release date for BBTAG (May 31st for Japan, June 5th for the US), revealed the expected Blake Belladona from RWBY, and showed off a fancy “Limited Box” that will contain multiple goodies.
That’s not what caught the attention of most fans. It turns out that Blake won’t be part of the base game; rather, she is part of the paid DLC content. What’s more, we now know that the base cast is 20 characters. However, an additional 20 characters will be available for purchase as add-on content. So yes, 50 percent of the game’s cast needs to be purchased. This is surprising, and problematic.
In a way, it’s not that strange that BBTAG has a large number of DLC characters. After all, the combined character pool from BlazBlue, Persona, Under Night In-Birth, and RWBY is quite huge, easily reaching 80 combatants. It’s all the more reason to be surprised at a skimpy launch cast of only 20 fighters. Though Arc System Works generally pushes quality over quantity (The first BlazBlue installment, Calamity Trigger, started with just 12, after all), most players are already familiar with the cast.
This could possibly have something to do with the release date. Personally, I predicted the game would ship sometime in the fall; the end of May is much sooner than expected. Coming out before Evolution 2018 is surely the goal there — though, as an aside, it’s hard to see BBTAG taking up a main stage slot among a crowded roster of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and BBCF itself. Naysaying aside, the release date might be a premonition of a rushed title, which explains the somewhat slim cast and a large number of DLC characters.
In announcing 20 launch DLC fighters, Arc System Works is breaking a new record, and already the reception is largely negative. No other fighting game in history has had so many characters blocked off by a paywall. We know the price point of the game in yen: 5,800 in retail, a little less via download, which is roughly $52 at the current exchange rate. Given that ASW sticks to their expected $7.99 per character (and hopefully, they “generously” offer the same price for each three-character pack), buying all the DLC should cost you $64. The “All-in-one” pack could be cheaper, however, and we don’t know how much the Limited Box will cost yet. This suggests the DLC could cost more than the base game itself.
Aside the outrageous cost there, what’s even worse is how ASW is deciding who is a “base” character and who is a “premium,” (paid) character. Take the RWBY characters, for instance. Two of the core ladies, Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee, are included. Blake however is a separate charge, and there’s a good chance the same will be true of Yang (ASW denoted one character DLC that isn’t a bundle of three). This is such an obviously ruthless business move that it hurts to see it. Personally, I think of DLC characters as extra content, maybe some kind of special character, but separating the four main girls of the show with a paywall is just greedy. I’d like to see older, more powerful people from the show as DLC, like Qrow, Raven, Ozpin, but not the heroines. Imagine if Jin Kisaragi, Noel Vermillion, or Rachel Alucard were not included in the base title.
There’s another thorn in this “core” character DLC kerfuffle. BBTAG is a rehash of sorts of characters we’ve already seen and have played for years. Don’t get me wrong, I love Litchi Faye Ling, I main Amane Nishiki, and enjoy wrecking people with Ken and Koromaru in Persona Arena. But should they show up as paid DLC, having played those characters for years and having had them available as base characters before is aggravating.
But what’s really problematic about this is the initial offering. The starting casts for all the non-BB titles are very skimpy, at just four characters per universe, with RWBY getting only two:
Persona 4 Arena
Yu Narukami
Yosuke Hanamura
Chie Satonaka
Yukiko Amagi
Under Night In-Birth
Hyde
Linne
Waldstein
Gordeau
RWBY
Ruby Rose
Weiss Schnee
There’s not much one can say about this: it’s disappointing. While surely there will be devoted fans who will get the product or the Limited Box, having such a large number of tournament-legal characters is a problem for competitive players. Not only will organizers have to worry about providing complete setups, but also, as someone who personally doesn’t buy every possible DLC character, it will be easy to run into issues when playing casual games with friends who use certain paid content. There’s a difference between having single-player additional content and fighting game extras. So many DLC walls put up a hindrance to competition and learning match-ups.
Some marketing or executive gurus decided to split team RWBY with a DLC paywall.
DLC in of itself is expected and common practice. It wouldn’t be as problematic if the roster’s balance skewed a bit more to a bigger base, but seeing so many additional, paid characters is outrageous. Had they reserved a couple of special, extra characters as launch DLC — sure, we could stomach that. With such a large cast, it’s a given that ArcSys would reserve some as DLC. However, they definitely crossed the line here.
Hopefully, the company sees the overall disappointment from fans and does something to rectify the situation. As it stands, the future of BBTAG may very well be ruined at the start. In the past, ASW has released “Extend” editions (which is a problem I’ve also written about) that ship with all the DLC characters. I can see many people withholding from buying BBTAG at first, waiting on discounts, thus weakening the initial community for what otherwise could be a very fun game.
And for those saying “Capcom does this all the time, but when ArcSys does it, it’s OK” — nope. This is the time. This is ArcSys getting called out for their DLC practices.
