How does the Street Fighter V roster stack up at the close of Season One?
Season Two’s patch is rolling out at this very moment; to send off Street Fighter V’s first-year roster, VesperArcade has compiled one final tier list for the first twenty-two fighters before all those buffs and nerfs get installed tonight. In the video below, he lists the characters according to grade, and discusses his reasoning as to why they ended up there.
According to VesperArcade’s reckoning (characters are in no particular order within their grade):
A+: Chun-Li A: R. Mika, Cammy, Ken, Necalli, Nash A-: Ryu, Urien, Guile, Karin
B+: Vega, Alex, Rashid B: Birdie, Dhalsim, Balrog
C: M. Bison, F.A.N.G, Zangief, Ibuki, Laura C-: Juri
Despite the base game’s age, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round still has a decent-sized competitive following, as evidenced by last weekend’s Dead or Alive 5 Last Round Battle Royal grand final at NEC 17. This is helped by Team NINJA’s constant injection of downloadable content into the game. That said, this tidal wave of DLC can make the game financially intimidating to get into.
To help these players out, Team NINJA has put up a limited time Dead or Alive 5 Last Round starter pack for the game on PlayStation 4. This package, the third of its kind that they’ve offered, is available on PSN for $92.99, and comes with a good amount of DLC, including downloadable character Naotora Ii, as well as Season Pass 3. The latter includes 101 costumes, including the Tatsunoko themed costumes and originally retailed for $92.99 on its own. Additionally, Season Pass 3 is itself on sale for only $65.09.
Interested players should get on these soon however, as both the starter pack and the discount on Season Pass 3 will only be available for a limited time.
Moving to the Mega Center at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, Illinois, Combo Breaker is back for yet another jam-packed Memorial Day weekend of fighting game action. Running from May 26th-28th, Combo Breaker 2017 promises 18+ tournaments, a 24 hour venue, and loads of different events to keep fighting game fans pleased outside of playing their tournament matches.
First off, what games are going to be present at Combo Breaker? Well, for contemporary fighters, you have:
Street Fighter V
Tekken 7
Mortal Kombat X
Injustice 2 (this is pending a release date before May 26th)
Killer Instinct
The King of Fighters XIV
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-
BlazBlue: Central Fiction
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Brawlhalla
While for retro fighters, Combo Breaker is partnering with 2 Old 2 Furious to bring players special tournaments for Vampire Savior, Soul Calibur II, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and a special arcade-authentic Super Street Fighter II Turbo bracket.
Combine this with player workshops, the return of the Character Auction tournaments, cosplay contests, an arcade room, offline Ranked ladders and much more, there is absolutely no fear of running out of things to do at Combo Breaker 2017. If you aren’t looking to compete, great news: you can actually attend for free as a spectator, just to see the excitement and joy of the fighting game community doing what they love.
If you are interested in competing, registration for Combo Breaker 2017 is now open, with early registration costing $50 and running until January 17th. You can actually skip those lengthy badge pickup queues, as Combo Breaker is offering a service where they ship your badge to you ahead of the event.
Do check out the Combo Breaker website for all the information and check out the trailer below to hype you up even further.
A slightly less-intimidating version of the massive Season Two changes to Street Fighter V.
If you’re finding Capcom-Unity’s 92-page textbook of today’s incoming balance changes to Street Fighter V a bit daunting to look at, check instead this web-based version, with a handy sidebar menu to jump to your favorite character (or worst matchup) a bit more easily. It can even be switched between English and Japanese.
You can still grab the basic PDF version, and read about the other additions coming in today’s patch, here.
One of the things that Guile players are worried about in Street Fighter V’s second season: the possible closure of his V-Trigger Sonic Boom loop. The official patch notes indicate that the loop was possibly removed, by giving his standing fierce punch and crouching strong punch more pushback. However, it seems that the loop may still be possible, based on this clip from B. Shazz.
As demonstrated in the tweet below, using the beta test of the game on PC, B. Shazz has found that a variation of the loop still works. The main difference is that he substitutes a crouching strong punch with 2 chained crouching jabs instead. Doing so allows Guile to remain close enough for the rest of the loop to still connect.
For those looking forward to the classic Athena costume for The King of Fighters XIV, it seems that you can download it for free right now–if you live in Europe.
The costume is available as part of the so-called Athena Holiday Pack, which can be downloaded for free right now on the European PlayStation Network. In addition to the costume, the comes with two new PlayStation 4 themes, one focused on Athena, and another holiday one featuring Athena, Yuri, and Kula.
The European release of the costume is in line with the release for the traditional Chinese version, which also comes out today. This also likely means that the release for the North American version is coming soon. In the meantime, here’s the official trailer for the pack from SNK.
Crytek has had a rough 2016 culminating in today’s announcement that it is closing five of its seven studios. The only two to remain in operation are Frankfurt, Germany and Kiev, Ukraine. Rumor also has it that Crytek has sold Warface and its sequel to Mail.ru, though this remains unsubstantiated at this point.
For those whose Steam games list isn’t full enough, get ready! PayPal UK has revealed the start date of the Steam Winter Sale. Save a few bucks because all good gaming deals will be had beginning Thursday, December 22nd.
Variety is reporting that Kabam Inc. has sold most of its assets to Korean gaming giant, Netmarble, including the Vancouver studio currently behind the juggernaut mobile title, Marvel Contest of Champions. The purchase will become complete in January 2017.
Not officially part of Origin’s “On the House” program, Mass Effect 2 is currently free through EA’s gaming platform for the time being. BioWare’s Twitter indicated that it is going to be giving away five days worth of free games, beginning, it seems, with what many see as the finest of the original Mass Effect trilogy of games.
