Category: News

Teaming up with one of Europe’s best players, The Beefy Smash Doods have released a brand new combo video, dedicated to pM|Sodrek’s Fox. Titled “The Natural,” this combo video shows off Sodrek’s top quality Fox play, with his great usage of footstools both on and off stage, to either extend a combo or dunk someone into the abyss. Some of his conversions are out of this world, reading opponents’ air dodges to extend a combo with uptilts or simply following an opponent’s DI to kill them with a well-placed up air. There are even a few shinespikes thrown in the mix, alongside some of these lighting-fast combos.

Watching his Fox in motion, it’s no surprise that Team Prismatic signed him just ahead of the Rio eGames Showcase. If Sodrek and other Foxes keep innovating on the character at this pace, Smash 4 may also be consumed by 20XX. Keep an eye out for Sodrek at Syndicate this September, where you might see him creating some more clips for his new combo showcase.

Source: Beefy Smash Doods

Along with their new King of the Ring online tournaments, The Dutch Brawlers are going big by hosting Kombo Klash Netherlands this October. As part of the Benelux Firstlook Festival held in Jaarbeurs, Utrecht, Kombo Klash Netherlands is on track to be the biggest Killer Instinct tournament in Europe, with the winner automatically qualifying for the Killer Instinct World Cup in early 2017.

Sign-ups will go live next week and you can find all the details on the event over on The Dutch Brawlers website. With it being part of a larger gaming festival, expect quite the atmosphere as players try to compete for that coveted spot at the Killer Instinct World Cup. I know for a fact that Killer Instinct players from the UK are planning to rent a mini-bus to drive all the way to Utrecht to compete at Kombo Klash Netherlands, so watch out for some stiff competition over that weekend.

Sources: Firstlook Festival; The Dutch Brawlers via TDB|Fear.

The saga of English dubbing for BlazBlue: Central Fiction continues. Last week, Aksys Games tweeted a few statements regarding the localization, explaining that including English dubbing would mean potentially delaying the game’s impending holiday release by six to eight months. While fans have sent many tweets at both Arc System Works and Aksys Games’ accounts, a formal petition popped up on Change.org.

@aksysgames 2. An English dub is possible, but sometimes devs need extra convincing. Petitions, fan pages, etc all help. Fan communities

— Aksys Games (@aksysgames) August 26, 2016

“Support the dub for BlazBlue: Central Fiction!” garnered close to 2,000 signatures over the weekend. The post summarizes some fan sentiments about the issue and includes statements from Ragna’s voice actor, Patrick Seitz, who revealed a stark lack of communication from the companies.

Aksys Games has pointed to Arc System Works as the main decision maker. They also stated that even if there’s enough interest in the game, the release won’t be delayed, but the dub can be added as DLC.

Seitz also wrote a follow-up Facebook post, thanking fans for the support and endorsing the petition.

Of course, even if the petition reaches its goal, that does not guarantee that Arc System Works will take any action–but it will demonstrate community interest.

Sources: Change.org; Aksys Games; Patrick Seitz

Known of some of the best Super Smash Bros. for Wii U content creators out there, the Beefy Smash Doods are moving from exclusively making videos, to now fielding an esports team. Smash 4 will be one of their main games, picking up suitably beefy players from Europe and beyond to represent their team.

Alongside original members of the Beefy Smash Doods vyQ and Luigi_player — two renowned Austrian Smash players — BSD has picked up Swedish Link extraordinaire Ennis “IzAw” Al-Maatooq as one of the first members of their Smash 4 team. Known for his own stellar Smash 4 videos as well as his Link play, IzAw joins the Beefy Smash Doods, further strengthening their video production and their Smash skills. Syndicate is the next big tournament for Smash 4 in Europe, so the Beefy Smash Doods will no doubt be hoping to make a big entrance with their new players.

Source: Beefy Smash Doods

Killer Instinct is well and truly booming in Europe, with scenes across the continent slaving away to get their players up to standard to fight on against the rest of the world. As such, there is a real influx of local and online tournaments to help up the standard of play across Europe. The Netherlands esports team, The Dutch Brawlers, are leading by example on this front, starting up a new online championship series called King of the Ring.

This monthly has a cap of 64 players so get signed up over on the Challonge page should you wish to compete. It is set to be held on the 18th of September at 2pm CEST so mark your calendars and get practicing those combos for a chance to win the first in hopefully, a long series of online KI tournaments. There is also the promise that if this first King of the Ring meets its 64 player cap, it will become a points event for the KI World Cup so if you want to be in the running for some precious Ranking points, sign up now.

Sources: The Dutch Brawlers; XboxViking

Another top Street Fighter V player from Japan will be joining the ESL’s Brooklyn Beatdown. Capcom Cup 2015 Champion Ryota “Kazunoko” Inoue has won the Asia qualifier for the Brooklyn Beatdown, going through a loaded field of high ranked players to win a trip to New York this October.

Kazunoko, the only Japanese player to make the top 8 of the qualifier, blew through the winners side of the bracket, including the two top Korean players who who he would later face in winners and grand finals, NL and Tourniquet. Kazunoko first sent NL down to the losers bracket in the winners semi-finals before facing Tourniquet, who is currently ranked at #1 online, in winners finals.

Both these players would later face each other in losers finals, NL having eliminated Razer’s Xian along the way. NL played an amazing set against Tourniquet, bringing out some clutch reads and amazing reversal Critical Art punishes to earn the right to face Kazunoko again in grand finals. NL would again bring these same thing against Kazunoko in grand finals, however in the end, this wasn’t enough and Kazunoko won the set with a convincing 3-1 win.

With this win, Kazunoko joins players such as  EG|Ricki Ortiz, F3|Alucard, NVT|Flash, MJS YDlHaitani, and RZR|Xian who also joined the qualifier despite already being confirmed for the tournament.

Results

1. Kazunoko
2. NL
3. Tourniquet
4. Lineni
5. RZR|Xian
5. Adelloon
7. NarahKof
7. xyzzy

Source: ESL

Featured image c/o Robert Paul

UK champion Ryan Hart was able to secure an interview with some important people from SNK during their visit at Gamescom 2016. The Prodigal Son sat down with King of Fighters XIV Producer, Yasuyuki Oda and Art Director Nobuyuki Kuroki and asked them questions that were submitted to him by fans. The fan-submitted inquiries were mostly about character designs, customization options, future DLC and things of that nature. There were also some things answered regarding the game’s new fighting engine and the possibility of characters from previous titles returning.

For those that don’t know, Ryan Hart is fluent in Japanese and his translated encounters with Japanese developers tend to have a more personal touch to them. You can read the full interview here.

Source: Ryan Hart

Based off the original 5G event from Japan, Red Bull is bringing this 5v5 tournament to the UK this September to determine which side of the UK is better at video games; the North or the South. Players choose which region they can support, as well as the game they wish to compete in with Street Fighter V acting as the fighting game of choice for this tournament.

The online qualifiers for Street Fighter V will be on the 2nd, 9th, 16th, and 23rd of September, with the top players from each of those online events going to a final qualifier on the 27th. In October, there will be regional finals in Manchester and London to determine the single Street Fighter representative for both Team North and South, with the Red Bull 5G final happening in November. The exact location and date of the regional and grand final are yet to be confirmed so keep your eyes peeled for that information. Winners of the final will get an all-expenses paid trip to Japan, the home of the original 5G event.

Additional information can be found on the official Red Bull 5G page and you can sign up right here if you want a shot at that trip to Japan. As part of this promotion, Red Bull are even offering codes for the Hot Ryu skin on special 4-packs of Red Bull. If you haven’t got the skin and are in need of some energy, Red Bull has you covered.

Source: Red Bull eSports

Shining a spotlight on top players in Killer Instinct, Ultra Combo have released another interview in their ‘Behind the Sticks’ series. In this interview, Ultra Combo sits down with one of the world’s top ARIA players, SeaDragon, to talk about what got him into KI, his advice for other players who are trying to improve as well as why he gravitated to ARIA.

To go from mainly playing online and at 8BitBeatdown, to placing third at Evo 2016 at only 16 years old is a massive achievement. Unfortunately, due to his age, SeaDragon doesn’t get to go to many big offline events and has dedicated himself to helping other KI players improve in the meantime. He has confirmed he will be attending Evo next year and hopefully, he may find the time to make his way to KI World Cup in early 2017. If you are ever looking to learn how to play the ARIA matchup or generally about Killer Instinct, make sure to follow Seadragon on Twitter and even add him on Xbox Live at SeaDragonKI if you are feeling really brave.

Source: Ultra Combo

During the course of a gargantuan seven hour livestream, Square Enix have revealed three new fighters that are making their way to the latest update of Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade. The first is the protagonist from Final Fantasy Type-0, Ace who is classified as a ‘Shoot’ type fighter. He fights using a deck of magical playing cards, firing bolts of energy to deal Brave damage and using a blast of flame to deal a HP attack. The other two characters are making their first appearance in Dissidia Final Fantasy Arcade, seemingly acting as the replacements of Cosmos and Chaos from the previous games.

Materia is the female goddess, wielding a staff and wearing a dress which looks like it’s made of potato waffles. The male god is Spiritus, who wields a giant sword and has flame powers. There was no actual in game footage of these two gods during the stream, fans only got to see Ace in action. The rest of the livestream was dedicated to a special Dissidia tournament, with 16 teams facing off in 3v3 battles to determine the best Dissidia team. The matches are a feast for the eyes but there is so much visual clutter during fights that it’s very difficult to actually determine who is winning or losing. Matches are four minutes long and quite a few of them go to timeout so I don’t expect Dissidia to make the snappiest tournament viewing once it comes to PS4 in the not too distant future. You can find the reveals of Ace, Spiritus and Materia below, thanks to the people over at Nova Crystallis, as well as the full livestream on Square Enix’s YouTube channel.

Sources: Square Enix Japan; Nova Crystallis