Category: News

A new challenger has joined the fight over at Wavedash Games. Having previously worked at Riot Games and Blizzard, Art Director Josh Singh comes to the fledgling development team to help guide the art direction of the project–hopefully to shape this new platform fighter into a game filled with a diverse cast of colorful characters and fun locales to fight in.

Josh is no stranger to designing cool characters, as he was part of the design team that created League of Legends heroes such as Nautilus, Draven, Darius, and Jayce. He also helped rework older heroes like Twisted Fate, Annie and Sion as part of the revamp team so he no doubt be well equipped to inject some life into the currently uninspiring visuals for the project (based on the few bits of concept art we’ve seen for Ashani).

With a former Project M dev on the team–and now, someone who is quite adept at designing and reworking characters to be memorable and visually engaging–I think Wavedash is now starting on the way to making something special. Hopefully they will release a sneak peek of the game in motion at Super Smash Con, and we’ll finally get a name for this project that has its sights set on the hardcore Smash crowd.

Source: Wavedash Games

The development of Rivals of Aether continues with the 0.15.0 patch for PC, which hits Steam today. The Beefy Aether Doods have provided a handy video guide that showcases the incoming changes.

Many of the game’s baseline mechanics have been significantly altered, contributing to a faster, more responsive overall feel. The animation of parrying a projectile can now be smoothly canceled into a follow-up attack; air attacks now have no landing recovery, which means it’s easy to continue pressure. However, there are exceptions to this–and the Beefy Aether Doods point them out. There’s also no more whiff lag, except on dash attacks.

Other major changes include a new CPU setting for parrying, an overall increase of run speed, and the ability to create custom character colors. The video finishes up with the character-specific updates.

Rivals of Aether also recently launched on Xbox Game Preview. Check out Rivals of Aether on Steam.

Source: Beefy Aether Doods

The development of Rivals of Aether continues with the 0.15.0 patch for PC, which hits Steam today. The Beefy Aether Doods have provided a handy video guide that showcases the incoming changes.

Many of the game’s baseline mechanics have been significantly altered, contributing to a faster, more responsive overall feel. The animation of parrying a projectile can now be smoothly canceled into a follow-up attack; air attacks now have no landing recovery, which means it’s easy to continue pressure. However, there are exceptions to this–and the Beefy Aether Doods point them out. There’s also no more whiff lag, except on dash attacks.

Other major changes include a new CPU setting for parrying, an overall increase of run speed, and the ability to create custom character colors. The video finishes up with the character-specific updates.

Rivals of Aether also recently launched on Xbox Game Preview. Check out Rivals of Aether on Steam.

Source: Beefy Aether Doods

When SoCal Regionals 2016’s lineup was first announced, there was some disappointment at the exclusion of certain games; well, fans of those games can now rest easy, thanks to this latest announcement from the organizers.

In a recent tweet, Level Up’s Alex Valle announced that both Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Killer Instinct have been added to the tournament lineup for SoCal Regionals 2016.

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Killer Instinct Season 3 is now part of the SCR lineup! #SCR2016 pic.twitter.com/CU4wDmlHbE

— Alex Valle (@TheAlexValle) August 4, 2016

While KI and UMvC3 aren’t exactly the most popular games at the moment, both have strong and dedicated competitive followings. The UMvC3 community in particular has been reinvigorated–thanks in part to the game’s strong showing at Evo 2016.

SoCal Regionals 2016 takes place from October 14 to 16 at the Esports Arena in Orange County, CA.

Source: LU|Alex Valle (Twitter)

While Street Fighter V has seen a lot of new content added over the past few months, the one feature that has yet to appear are the daily “Targets”: challenges for players to earn additional precious Fight Money. Capcom will be giving an update on this soon.

In reply to a question on the r/StreetFighter subreddit, Capcom’s Neidel “Haunts” Crisan stated that they will be addressing the daily challenges in an upcoming blog update. According to Haunts, they haven’t been able to offer any new information on them because they’ve been focused on the Capcom Pro Tour DLC, as well as working on a general FAQ for the game. Have a look at his original reply here.

With the number of things Fight Money is needed to purchase in the Street Fighter V Shop, any feature that allows players to earn more would be welcome. Here’s hoping that we get to see this promised blog update about the daily challenges soon.

Source: r/StreetFighter

Street Fighter V players will have multiple opportunities to qualify for ESL’s Brooklyn Beatdown tournament, including an online tournament series for North America, Brazil and Europe.

Southern California’s Wednesday Night Fights will host their own series of qualifier tournaments, with the winning player earning a fully paid trip to New York City for the October event.

The top eight participants of WNF each week will each receive ranking points towards the finals event. Last night’s tournament was the first qualifier, and the series will culminate the final event deciding the winning player on September 21.

Brooklyn’s Next Level Arcade also announced that they will be giving away weekend event passes–for ESL One and Brooklyn Beatdown–to participants at their weekly Next Level Battle Circuit tournaments and weekend events. Based on tweets from the arcade, the passes wont be given exclusively to the winners.

Thanks to ESL @ESL & Daniel Frontera @Mobstazzz, We'll be giving away at least 1 ESL Brooklyn Beatdown weekend pass every Wednesday!

— Next Level (@nycnextlevel) August 2, 2016

ESL’s Brooklyn Beatdown Open Cups–their series of online qualifiers–will continue online, with the top two placers each week earning a spot in the regional finals later this month. The North American final will be held Aug. 23 and includes four qualifiers so far: Chris Tatarian, XsK Samurai (winner of Capcom Pro Tour Online Qualifer #1), MikeandIke12, and Yuudai.

The European and Brazilian regional finals will be held online August 28 and August 31, respectively. For the full schedule of Open Cups ahead of the regional finals, visit ESL’s website.

Brooklyn Beatdown will be held at the Barclays Center October 1-2, during ESL One New York. The tournament will be open entry with a player cap of 1024, and a prize pool of $75,000.

Sources: ESL; Next Level (Twitter)

Aside from Street Fighter, Capcom created a number of fighting game series back in the late ’90s: one of the most popular was Rival Schools, a unique take on the genre that mixed 3D movement with high flying air combos similar to the Versus series. Combine this with the unique cast of high school students–guest-starring Sakura Kasugano–and you have one of Capcom’s most memorable entries from the era.

Now, it seems that there’s at least one person at Capcom interested in bringing Rival Schools back. Hideaki Itsuno, who directed the original games before moving on to titles such as Devil May Cry 3 and Dragon’s Dogma, has been talking a lot about reviving the series over at the CFN Portal.

The interview itself goes over a lot of topics concerning the series creation, such as how they originally came up with the concept, and the actual designs of the characters. One thing that’s clear is how much Itsuno loves the series.

Itsuno concludes the interview by stating that he’s been wanting to continue the series for the longest time now, and states that the story of the main characters (Batsu, Hinata, and Kyosuke) isn’t finished. He encourages fans who want to show support to tweet him with the hashtag #RivalSchools3.

Source: CFN Portal

Aside from Street Fighter, Capcom created a number of fighting game series back in the late ’90s: one of the most popular was Rival Schools, a unique take on the genre that mixed 3D movement with high flying air combos similar to the Versus series. Combine this with the unique cast of high school students–guest-starring Sakura Kasugano–and you have one of Capcom’s most memorable entries from the era.

Now, it seems that there’s at least one person at Capcom interested in bringing Rival Schools back. Hideaki Itsuno, who directed the original games before moving on to titles such as Devil May Cry 3 and Dragon’s Dogma, has been talking a lot about reviving the series over at the CFN Portal.

The interview itself goes over a lot of topics concerning the series creation, such as how they originally came up with the concept, and the actual designs of the characters. One thing that’s clear is how much Itsuno loves the series.

Itsuno concludes the interview by stating that he’s been wanting to continue the series for the longest time now, and states that the story of the main characters (Batsu, Hinata, and Kyosuke) isn’t finished. He encourages fans who want to show support to tweet him with the hashtag #RivalSchools3.

Source: CFN Portal

Japan’s Rage eSports recently held the final event for volume two of their Street Fighter V tournament series. Eight qualifiers from Tokyo and Osaka were chosen through ranking tournaments leading up to the Rage League Grand Finals last weekend.

Among the qualifiers were Evo 2016 runner-up RZR|Fuudo and third place finisher Yukadon, along with Tokido, GGP|Kazunoko, HM|Eita, OR|Nuki, Cojiro and StormKUBO. All eight were placed into a best of three double elimination bracket, with only the grand finals being best of five games.

A pair of international visitors made appearances for special exhibitions as well, with South Korea’s RZR|Infiltration facing off against RZR|Fuudo in a rematch of the Evo 2016 Grand Finals and USA’s RB|Snake Eyez playing against Tokido.

The Rage League Grand Finals are rather production heavy, coming out to nearly seven hours of footage. but you can find the complete event here with English commentary and time stamps below.

Source: KarinSF4

The English language version of Daigo Umehara’s book “The Will to Keep Winning” is now available digitally through Amazon’s Kindle service. Originally published in 2012, Daigo’s book focuses on his path to becoming the world’s most recognized Street Fighter player, as well as his competitive philosophy.

Umehara’s rise to the top of the fighting game pantheon has been well documented; at age 17 he was thrust into international competition, facing off against a young Alex Valle at the Street Fighter Alpha 3 World Championships in 1998. For nearly two decades Daigo has maintained a level of dominance across multiple games that players across the world aspire to.

Earlier this year Daigo launched his stream BeasTV and was recently named Twitch’s first global ambassador in addition to his Red Bull partnership. Once known for his steely demeanor, Daigo now plays hosts to Japan’s top fighting game players every week, exhibiting top level play and strategy tips. BeasTV streams in English and Japanese each Friday on https://www.twitch.tv/daigothebeastv and replays are available on Youtube.

“The Will to Keep Winning” is available through Amazon for $14.99, and can be read through the Kindle app on most mobile devices.

Source: Amazon.com