The 3rd annual Manila Cup is back, and bigger then ever. With a new venue in Circuit Makati, Philippines at the Power Mac Center, the successful Filipino major is slated for another year on the Capcom Pro Tour as a Ranking event. But Street Fighter V is hardly the only game there: every series from last year’s event has returned, with 4 new tournaments joining the fray on September 8th:
Street Fighter V
Tekken 7
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Injustice 2
Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2
Blazblue: Central Fiction
Mortal Kombat XL
The King of Fighters XIV
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
For Street Fighter V, there’s also pending information for the Road to Manila Cup tournament, an event that shows off local talent prior to Manila Cup. Last year’s winner, PBE|Don, not only ended up placing top 8 in Manila Cup 2016, but sent Japanese pro GW|Eita to losers bracket in the process.
Registration details are not yet available, but we will update you as soon as they are available (or, you can follow the Manila Cup Facebook page!).
Take your favorite fightstick back in time and revitalize some older PS2 titles with Brook’s upcoming adapter!
If you’ve got some older fighters languishing on the PlayStation 2 platform (and there were many quality titles released for the PS2!), Brook’s latest Super Converter will give you the means to use your current PlayStation 3 or 4-compatible fightstick or wired/wireless pad with the good ol’ PS2 console. It will support XInput, button mapping/turbo/vibration functions, and firmware upgrading as necessary.
Pre-orders for the Brook PS4/PS3 to PS2 Super Converter are currently open now at Arcade Shock, for $29.95 USD (discounted from the regular price of $34.95 USD), and should be shipping out at the end of June 2017.
Ever since the announcement it was announced, both fighting game and Final Fantasy fans are eagerly looking forward to Dissidia Final Fantasy NT on PlayStation 4 next year. However, most of what we know about the game comes from gameplay footage from Japanese arcades, alongside comparisons with its predecessors on Sony’s portable systems, until now.
Square-Enix shared around 15 minutes of gameplay footage from Dissidia Final Fantasy NT over on IGN’s pre-E3 live stream. As part of the presentation, they go over some of the game’s mechanics, and its vaunted “Bravery Combat System.” In addition to this, they also give an in depth look at Cloud and Lightning as they play in the game.
Ever since it was announced a couple of days ago, people have been looking forward to seeing Bandai Namco and Arc System Works’ Dragon Ball FighterZ in action. Well, this morning (afternoon in Japan), they held a special live stream over on Nico Nico focused on Dragon Ball games, and Dragon Ball FighterZ was part of the show.
The gameplay itself is quite interesting. While it’s a 3-on-3 tag team fighter similar to the last 2 Marvel vs. Capcom games, the game itself seems to play closer to Arc System Works’s own games, especially the Guilty Gear series — there’s even an attack that seems to work similar to that series’ Dust attack. However, assists do tend to work similar to other games with the feature, with characters coming in to perform attacks, and then being unable to be called for a short recovery period.
One thing that the game won’t have compared to other tag team fighters is incoming mix ups after a character goes down. After a character is KOed, a cinematic plays of the incoming character coming in and clashing with the surviving character, and the the action resets to back to the middle of the stage.
Other mechanics seem to be taken from other Dragon Ball games. There’s a powered-up dash that seems to home in and hit opponents (tagged in characters also use the same dash). And, of course, characters can charge up their ki to build meter. Speaking of super meter — from what we’ve seen, the game allows for more than five bars of meter. This meter itself is used to power several techniques, aside from super moves. These included dodges, and of course, transformations. At the very least, Frieza was shown transforming into his golden form at the cost of three bars.
The super themselves are pretty dramatic, filling the screen with all manner of beams. These supers, along with other powerful moves, leave visible damage on the stage. Some powerful supers, however, seem to actually be able to change the stage. In the demo, Vegeta’s Final Flash was shown to change the Namek stage to the burning, lava filled version of it from the end of the Frieza saga, when it was about to explode.
Now for all those who missed the stream and are salivating at all these things, more than a few folks have uploaded clips of it onto YouTube. The PS360HD channel has put up these three matches from the stream.
Some time back, we reported that a hitbox viewer for The King of Fighters XIV: Steam Edition was in development. Now, the tool is finally available for download.
Developer Loïc Petit has now put up his hitbox viewer for the KOFXIV on Steam, called KOFBox, up for download over on GitHub. The application itself will simply overlay the hitboxes onto the game once a match is running. Petit has also shared a video of it in action over on Twitter.
Take note that there are still some issues with KOFBox. Most notably, it does not yet differentiate between hurt boxes and those with autoguard.
Interested players can download KOFBox here. The King of Fighters XIV: Steam Edition launches on June 15, however access to the closed beta can be gained simply by purchasing the game on Steam.
The Nintendo Switch hasn’t really seen much in terms of traditional, 2D fighting games. With that in mind, Nicalis looks to end the drought with “Blade Strangers.”
Announced over Twitch’s pre-E3 stream, Blade Strangers comes from Studio Saizensen — the team that brought you Sega’s Blade Arcus. Unlike the latter though, Blade Strangers is a crossover fighting game, featuring a number of characters from Japanese indie games such as Cave Story, Code of Princess, as well as the Umihara Kawase series.
Also unlike Blade Arcus, Blade Strangers will use traditional 2D sprites, albeit ones rotoscoped from 3D models. The rotoscoping is done via proprietary technology that they’ve developed, however each sprite is still tweaked by hand where necessary.
The game’s planned features include story mode, mission mode, versus, training, and online versus. Story mode will be like the traditional arcade mode, but will feature character interactions and clashes. There’s also mention of making the game have the easy inputs of a Super Smash Bros. game, but with the speed and complexity of something like Guilty Gear or Street Fighter.
Aside from Nintendo Switch, the game is also set to be released on PC, PlayStation 4, and in arcades as well. For more on the game, check out this footage from the stream, as recorded by Nintendo Everything.
ELEAGUE is showing no signs of stopping its fighting game coverage, as it has just announced that it will be hosting the Injustice 2 World Championship this October. Following on from the success of the Street Fighter V Invitational, this acts as another big event on the bustling competitive circuit for NetherRealm’s super-powered fighter.
The Injustice 2 World Championship will act as the grand finale of the whole Injustice 2 Championship Series. As a result, we’ll no doubt see finalists from the Pro Series, Hometown Heroes, Path to Pro and Liga Latina being invited to compete in this tournament, so players from all regions have a chance to prove themselves as the world’s best Injustice 2 player.
It’s unknown at this time if the Injustice 2 World Championship will follow a similar format to the Street Fighter V Invitational, but we’ll probably learn more after the E3 craziness has calmed down.
Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer excitedly presented the first ever gameplay footage of the highly anticipated Arc System Works developed title, Dragon Ball FighterZ at the Xbox E3 2017 press conference earlier today.
The trailer might not be long, but it shows off enough to give excited fans a vision of how battles will play out. In Dragonball FighterZ, the gameplay appears faster, fiercer, and more dynamic than any other Dragon Ball fighting game to date. This new fighter looks almost identical to the anime, thanks to its 2.5D presentation, which no doubt comes from the use of a modified version of the Guilty Gear Xrd engine. 3v3 battles take the stage with tagging, assists, and over-the-top super moves that only Dragon Ball can provide. We don’t currently know how far into the Dragon Ball mythos this title will delve into, but we can be sure to expect some Dragon Ball Super content, thanks to the Gold Freeza transformation in the trailer. So far, the confirmed playable fighters are:
Goku
Gohan
Vegeta
Maijin Buu
Freeza
Cell
The game is set to release sometime in early 2018 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. There are also plans for a PS4 and Xbox One closed beta at the end of the summer according to Bandai Namco Europe, so stay tuned for more information on how to sign up. It will be playable on the show floor, so expect plenty of impressions from those attending E3 2017!
Dragon Ball FighterZ is coming to XB1, PS4 & PC! Made by Arc System Works, play 2D 3V3 fights! CLOSED BETA on XB1/PS4 before end of summer!! pic.twitter.com/gygz767t3S
— BANDAI NAMCO Europe (@BandaiNamcoEU) June 11, 2017
GCYoshi13 has remained a dedicated Bedman player since the beginning of Guilty Gear Xrd. This top 8 finisher at NorCal Regionals 2015 knows his character in and out, and if you want to pick up Rev 2’s creepy sleepy boy, this anti-air explanation video is a great place to start.
GC-Yoshi covers all the nuance you need to control the skies, from his gigantic 6P to his air-to-air options with jumping punch and jumping slash. This anti-air guide is apart of a larger Bedman primer GCYoshi is putting together, so if be sure to check out his channel for more Bedman vids.
The story of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite’s development is one closely tied to leaks, with the game’s existence being hinted at by leakers and insiders before its official unveiling at PSX 2016. As such, it’s fitting that right before E3 2017, we have what seems to be another big leak for the game.
The leak in question comes from a Redditor named RunningfromTrevor who claims to be a freelance animator who’s worked with people involved in the game at Capcom USA. Most of the details of the leak, including the characters mentioned, line up with what other leakers such as Ryce have already stated.
What’s interesting here however are the additional details about the game’s story mode that it drops. While the story mode will have you play as certain characters, what’s unique here is that it gives you the option of playing either as a solo character, or as a team from the characters available. Also, similar to Street Fighter V, there are some non-playable characters, such as Asgardian soldiers, that the player can fight in story mode.
Also similar to Street Fighter V is the fact that some of the DLC characters will make appearances in the story. However of these, only Sigma will be fought. This brings up an interesting point, work on the DLC characters is not yet done – the most that some of them have is just a 3D model.
Speaking of the DLC characters, the leak claims that they will be coming out in sets of two at a time. In addition to this, the leak states that they won’t be splitting up the DLC characters into seasons. Rather, there’s talk of putting them out in a series of themed packs – something that lines up with prior leaks.
Of course, given the nature of these things, we should all take this leak with a grain of salt. We’re likely to learn more about Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite at E3 this coming week.
