Ubisoft has responded to threats of a For Honor boycott by reversing some unfavorable changes to the game’s content, as well as improving the in-game currency system. They are reinstating the popular River Fort, one of the Vikings maps (the other being High Fort) that was removed after issues with online match stability, and they are increasing the value of Steel income across all platforms. In addition to these changes, they announced new Elite outfits for every class in the Viking, Knight and Samurai ranks–a total of 12 costumes divided amongst the three.
Issues with earnings and discarded maps are only two of many complaints, it seems. Poor multiplayer connectivity, balance issues with Heroes, and glitches in the combat system are also high on the list of gripes. To their merit, Ubisoft has responded to the negative feedback rather expediently–and their decision to focus on improving the currency system is hardly random: after a story about a concerned player’s conclusion that it would take either two years or $732 to unlock all of For Honor’s in-game content began circulating, it eventually caught the attention of the game’s director, and these latest developments in the For Honor player/developer relationship show that cries are not falling on deaf ears.
While these updates may be enough to forego any boycotts, there is still work ahead before all of the issues are addressed. Hopefully this show of good faith from Ubisoft will keep players connected with hopes of more progress.
Game a-cho arcade in Kyoto, Japan uploaded two hours of Final Fantasy Dissidia gameplay, giving overseas spectators a good look at what a typical run of this game in an arcade setting looks like. 3v3 Faction Battles seems to be the preferred mode in the two hour stretch, and the clashes make for a thorough examination of what to expect if you were in the sword wielder’s seat.
One of the highlights comes early on when a Squall players summons Ramuh, who showers the stage with lighting attacks and also prevents opponents from summoning for 50 seconds. Not only does it look awesome, it’s interesting to see how the summons change the activity happening on the battlefield. (Videos embedded below are set to start at various time marks.)
Unsurprisingly, most of the footage captured is of teams lead by Squalls, but there is some nice footage of Kuja, one of the newest characters that was announced in January. Aside from the gameplay exhibition that came with his announcement, this is the most extensive in-game Kuja footage we’ve seen yet.
Within the span of the two-hour session many different arenas were used, and they all had their unique aspects that influenced the pace of the match. Below are time marks with battles happening in different stages so you can see for yourself. Fans of the Final Fantasy series can probably pick up on some of the settings.
Overall, great graphics, a diverse cast and a unique style of gameplay is apparent in this footage from Game a-cho. If you enjoyed the above highlights, be sure to check out the full video to see the matches in their totality.
Street Fighter V is also on sale for $19.99, which is perfect timing for those interested in picking up the title after trying out the CFN beta which is currently available for all Steam users until April 3.
Check out the full list of discounted titles here!
Are you ready to graduate from Street Fighter Academy?
Capcom’s CFN Portal site is offering a new minigame for April Fool’s Day (in Japan): The Street Fighter Academy quiz! Challenge Chun-Li, Ryu, or Juri with your knowledge of Street Fighter history, moves, music, and more to see if you can prevail.
The game’s banner and link seem to indicate this is a bonus available on the CFN Portal site only for today, so head over to test your Street Fighter trivia chops. You can play the game in Japanese or English, just go to the Portal site main page to set the language to your preference.
The CFN Portal profile for Sheng Long has also gone public for today!
Go to a public place, shout this in the middle of a crowd, and note people’s reactions. Most people will ignore you–or give you a strange look–but there is always someone who gets it. Though, there is a chance that there is someone else in that crowd for whom those words have special significance.
Evo Moment #37’s significance can’t be overstated. It inspired a new generation of fighting game players, and to this day, remains one of most iconic moments in competitive gaming. When we discuss famous FGC-related media, this is no doubt the most relevant one, globally. However: did you know that another famous FGC video had a similar influence on the Japanese FGC? Years before Daigo Umehara parried his way across cyberspace, he was V-ism Demon Flipping a young Alex Valle on Japanese national television.
Umehara mentioned in passing, on his show BeastTV, how this broadcast had a strong influence on Street Fighter Alpha 3’s lifespan. According to multi-time Evolution champion (2005, 2007 CvS2, B5 Alpha 3, 2006 GGXX Slash) and winner of the 2nd official Alpha 3 national tournament (in 1999) D44|BAS, this broadcast had a similar effect to the parry video, though on a smaller scale and specific to Japan. From the time it aired in 1998, it helped cement Alpha 3 as a high-impact title in the Japanese arcade gaming scene, and was no doubt important for media visibility for fighting games going into the golden era of the early 2000s.
Over the years there were several Alpha 3 National tournaments held, but as Capcom released more titles they stopped holding official events for the game. That’s when events like the “Ultimate Zero” series stepped in and continued to run national-scale events for the game. [Reminder for those unaware: the Street Fighter Alpha series is called Street Fighter Zero in Japan. – Editor] I decided to attend the Ultimate Zero 12 tournament on March 19, 2017.
-Ultimate Zero 12-
The tournament was held at Try Amusement Tower, a popular arcade in Akihabara. Try is a 6-floor arcade (floors 2-8), with each respective floor housing a variety of music games, UFO catchers, classics, and fighting games.
The strongest Alpha 3 players from all over Japan gathered on the 8th floor of this arcade, where the Ultimate Zero 12 tournament was held! Ultimate Zero 12 ran a singles event and a 3v3 team tournament. The format is traditional Japanese style, FT1, single elimination. Bas mentioned that by his estimation, the average age of participants at this event was over 35 years old.
The Ultimate Zero tournament series is a grassroots event that started in 2001. This year’s event–the 12th installment–ended a 6-year hiatus the event took after 2011.
19 years after its initial release (1998), Alpha 3 continues to maintain a small community of players in certain arcades. In Eastern Japan (Tokyo Area), Alpha 3 is still played at a high level at Big-One in Saitama, as well as the tournament venue, Try Amusement Tower. In Western Japan, A-cho in Kyoto and Monte 50 in Osaka still have gatherings regularly. In addition to many top players from these areas, this event boasted strong representation from various regions all over Japan.
Fortunately for the foreign audience, this event was streamed live thanks to Twitch Japan staff and K8.
Alpha 3 exists in a strange space amongst core SF players because of the way the game developed, and of course, its infamous V-ism infinites. Thanks to a system exploit referred to as “crouch canceling,” these infinites are possible, and the V-ism gauge has a large influence on in-game decision-making. Beyond that, it also has strong influence on character strength and tiers.
While this style of combat has something of a mixed reception amongst SF players, there was a unique sense of discovery and creativity that came with Alpha 3. Combine that with the art style and the music, and it is no wonder why this game garnered such a following. You can see in the above photo, artist Urushika drew support art for the various players from around the country who attended. This game was a high-impact title in the late ’90s, and this tournament pays homage to those heady days.
-The Tournament-
The singles tournament had over 74 entrants, and some great exchanges throughout the bracket.
Amamiya made clever use of Juli’s air V-ism activation invulnerability to make Harasho’s DP whiff. This opened the door for Amamiya to steal back the round with a V-ism confirm of his own, and send Harasho–one of the strongest Cammy’s in Japan–back to West Japan in the early rounds!
Catapult had a high-impact performance with his rare X-ism Boxer, upsetting Mukai, a high profile V-Dhalsim player, to qualify for top 4! Using counterhit confirms into dash punch after slide, he erases Mukai’s health in seconds for a big upset.
Aojiru and Fuchi face off in a high-profile East vs. West Japan matchup. Both players were a little nervous, it seems, as the first round had both players “juggling” the round. Despite this, Fuchi recovered, and punched his ticket to top 4!
Things get crazy as Amamiya takes on Gabe, a notable Akuma player. Gabe beats Amamiya’s air V-ism activation, but can’t convert after. After tagging Gabe out of V-ism, Amamiya bets it all after blocking Gabe’s hop-kick.
Takedaru exhibits some awesome patience, use of drills, pressure, and acute decision making against the defending Ultimate Zero 11 champion, Igari. Note how Takedaru uses slide against Igari’s V-ism activations on his way to top 4.
Takedaru forces Amamiya’s hand, and burns him alive after an anti-air LP V-ism activation in the corner. With this match, Takedaru sealed his seat in the Grand Finals.
Fuchi eliminates Catapult in the most Alpha 3 way possible. With this, the Grand Final is decided: Takedaru vs Fuchi.
Amamiya shows nice footsies and reactions to shut Catapult down in the mid-range during this consolation match for 3rd place. Note the jab checks on the rush punches!
In this Grand Final set, we saw Takedaru completely shut down Fuchi’s ground game with limbs and drills, and even neutralized his V-ism activations. Takedaru did such a great job of frustrating Fuchi, slowing the match down, and playing at his pace. After a couple of key anti airs in the second round, Takedaru closes out the tournament.
Singles results:
Takedaru (Dhalsim)
Fuchi (Ryu)
Amamiya (Juli)
Catapult (Boxer)
The 3v3 team tournament had 68 entrants, and the Grand Finals saw Team Soinpo go up against Team @35. Team Soinpo featured Makoto (Zangief), Nishikawaguchi (Dhalsim), and Tabatake (Sakura). The lineup for Team @35 was S (Sakura), Mukai (Dhalsim), and Igari (Ryu). This matchup was interesting because both teams had a lot of Ultimate Zero tournament history. Team @35’s Igari is the defending Ultimate Zero 11 champion (he won singles & teams that year), and his teammate, Mukai, has a 2nd place performace at Ultimate Zero 9 under his belt. Team Soinpo features Nishikawaguchi, who has a singles tournament (Ultimate Zero 2) and 2 team tournament (Ultimate Zero 9 and Ultimate Zero Direction) as wins in his portfolio. Nishikawaguchi’s teammate for those two wins was none other than Makoto. Tabatake also has a singles tournament runner-up performance at Ultimate Zero Direction, and a team tournament win at Ultimate Zero 7. Given their performance histories, this was a great lineup to close out the team tournament for Ultimate Zero’s comeback event.
In the final face-off of the team tournament, Nishikawaguchi Dhalsim, a longtime Alpha 3 Dhalsim player, went up against S, who played anchor for Team @35. Nishikawaguchi has a reputation for being very good with anti-airs, and today was no exception. In the final match against S, he displays awesome movement, patience, air control (some demoralizing airthrows in the first round of his game vs. S). S, on the other hand, also showed some incredible patience and great ground game skills himself, especially when it came to challenging Dhalsim’s limbs in the mid-range. In the end, S ate a counter-hit fierce from Nishikawaguchi and he answered with a bad air tech, giving Nishikawaguchi the window to activate V-ism and snipe Sakura out of the sky, for the win.
Teams results:
Team Soinpo
Team @35
Of course, there was much more to this event than the clips you see here. Feel free to check out the entire event archive on Try Amusement Tower’s Twitch channel, here!
-The Legacy-
The cool thing about title-centric events like the Ultimate Zero series is that it gives a single game’s scene a platform to express themselves to the fullest. Events like these feel more like celebrations of scene history, relationships, and battles rather than actual tournaments. These players come here from all over the country–but not to seek sponsorship, chase money, or find fame. For them, the chance to fight with old rivals, old friends, or even new challengers is more than enough to sustain them. Here, there is no stage, no prize, and no ceremony. Just two chairs, two cabinets, two hundred yen, and a chance to make history.
Looking around the venue, it is as if I am looking at ripples in a pond, from a stone that was thrown long ago. The influence of that 1998 broadcast echoes through their cheers and expressions. Through their battles, we can see the living memories these people share: of a golden age inspired by that ground-breaking battle in San Francisco.
If there’s one sub series of the Street Fighter franchise that doesn’t see much representation these days, it’s Street Fighter EX. It was somewhat of an experiment on bringing the series to 3D, with the help of Arika–a company co-founded by Street Fighter II co-creator Akira Nishitani. Sadly, the complicated issues with the rights to the characters means we won’t be seeing any EX alums in main-line Street Fighter any time soon.
That said: Arika certainly hasn’t forgotten about these characters, and the company has released the following video showcasing a “what if” hypothetical look (at least as far as we know!) at what a new EX-style game with these characters would look like, just in time for April Fool’s Day in Japan.
Now, the video itself states that it’s for April Fool’s–so fans of these fighters shouldn’t get their hopes up too high. Although–the production quality looks almost too good for a one-off joke video, which certainly fuels the hope of another EX-related game…
The CPT’s first European stop is almost ready to begin!
This weekend will see Sonic Boom blast into action in Madrid, Spain on April 1-2–2017’s first European stop on the Capcom Pro Tour. For those of us unable to fly over to Spain, the CPT has released the streaming information for the event. Check it out live on madridfgc’s Twitch channel!
The above schedule is for Street Fighter V singles; the full array of events at Sonic Boom 2017 is:
Street Fighter V (singles)
Street Fighter V (5v5 teams)
Ultra Street Fighter IV (3v3 teams)
The King of Fighters XIV
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (side tournament)
Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- (side tournament)
Keep an eye on Sonic Boom’s official website for further information.
A lot of top players will be heading to Sonic Boom to battle for those coveted CPT points; notable fighters expected to be competing in this event (in no particular order) include Afii, RB|Luffy, EG|Ricki Ortiz, Packz, DA|ImStillDaDaddy, Nasr|Big Bird, MD|Mister Crimson, Millenium|Will2Pac, Echo Fox|Justin Wong, Mouseports|Problem X, ZOWIE|Oil King, Flash, Mouseports|CCL, x6tence|Vegapatch, ISDD, Atrosh, and Brick.
Commentary will be provided by Damascus, Tyrant, Jay Killah, Nacho Ortiz, and Sh4in.
When it comes to arcade sticks, there’s no other peripheral company that has had a larger impact than Mad Catz. Starting with the release of their original Street Fighter IV-branded Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition, Mad Catz has been a constant presence within the fighting game community, supporting both players and events–while also providing hardware.
While Mad Catz did see success with their fighting game products, the company has struggled as of late, especially after the seeming failure of their peripheral line for Rock Band 4. They were just recently delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Unable to recover from their financial woes, Mad Catz has now made a voluntary assignment in bankruptcy. As part of this, the company will cease operations and their entire board of directors has resigned as of March 30. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been appointed to handle Mad Catz’s assets as their trustee.
Mad Catz’s original Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition was a game-changer when it launched alongside Street Fighter IV back in 2009; prior to its release, players looking for an arcade stick with genuine arcade parts would either have to build a custom stick, or look for a rare limited-edition retail stick (HORI’s Real Arcade Pro line only had arcade-standard buttons in the limited SA and SE variants). With the release of the “TE,” companies such as HORI (and later Qanba and Razer) had to step their game up to match, and offer arcade sticks with full arcade-quality parts as standard.
This increased availability allowed for a boom in the arcade stick modding and building community. A small cottage industry sprang up around modifications for the TE–and eventually, other top-of-the-line arcade sticks as well. At the same time, custom builders–freed from having to make everyday arcade sticks–now moved on to making true “premium” sticks that are as much works of art as they are video game controllers.
In addition to this, Mad Catz was one of the first companies to start sponsoring players, including legends such as Kenryo “Mago” Hayashi, Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi, and of course, Daigo Umehara. In addition to this, they also helped sponsor other players via other teams such as Ho Kun Xian as part of Team Desperation Move, and Ryan Hart as part of Western Wolves.
We here at Shoryuken would like to thank Mad Catz for all they’ve done for the fighting game community.
It’s time to start studying, as the latest version of Guilty Gear Xrd, subtitled REV 2 (I won’t miss writing out Xrd -REVELATOR- all the time) has officially launched in Japanese arcades. After many presentations, pre-release streams, events, and character overviews, arcade competitors can play REV 2 at will and begin competing for the highest rank.
As usual, Jonio has already streamed a ton of footage from Mikado on his Twitch channel.
This first segment features mostly the returning characters; Hase’s Slayer is very prominent, though an Answer player shows up around the 1:28:00 mark.
The second clip shows off a returning character, Baiken. Jonio’s Johnny fights her at the eight-minute mark. Later on, as Taka’s Slayer shows up, Baiken’s on the stream again at 0:41:00. About seven minutes later, there’s an Answer player on screen.
The last clip prominently features 310’s Venom as he fights an Elphelt and Slayer. Toward the end of the video we can see 310 practicing on an Answer dummy and CPU.
Stay tuned to SRK as we explore more REV 2 gameplay footage.
According to Gematsu, the game’s version 2.00 update will arrive on Wednesday, April 5th, which will open up all 4 of the announced DLC characters–and the 2 previously-announced new stages, Transcontinental Railroad and City Circuit, will be added free of charge. Other features are as follows:
Overall character balance adjustments
Action record and playback feature during dummy reversals in Training Mode added
New background music added
Feature improvements and some bug fixes
Though no price point for the other three characters has been officially revealed, we know that Whip will cost $5.99, so it’s safe to assume the other three will follow suit. You can see a post from SNK’s Twitter account about the news below.
Looking around the venue, it is as if I am looking at ripples in a pond, from a stone that was thrown long ago. The influence of that 1998 broadcast echoes through their cheers and expressions. Through their battles, we can see the living memories these people share: of a golden age inspired by that ground-breaking battle in San Francisco.
