The second Dead Or Alive Festival, Team NINJA’s big tournament for Japanese Dead Or Alive 5 players, is taking place this weekend in Tokyo, Japan.
To help celebrate, Team NINJA just dropped a new trailer for the event. The trailer highlights what will be taking place this weekend, such as the art and cosplay contests as well as the main Dead Or Alive 5 Last Round tournament itself. This includes footage of some of the visiting American players, ilike last year’s champion Kristian “MC Kwiggle” McLean, who the Japanese will have to overcome if they want a shot at this years Battle Royal final at Final Round.
Ibuki has always been known for having a wide variety of ways to keep opponents guessing, and her bag of tricks is bigger than ever in Street Fighter V. In a new video, PAN demonstrates how to make the most of Ibuki’s tools to create and maintain pressure while keeping opponents on their toes. Frame traps, meaties and a lengthy segment dedicated to proper V-Trigger placement fill this nearly eight minutes of footage.
As expected of a ninja, deception and technical know-how are two core factors in being a successful Ibuki player, and this video will certainly help make learning such a tricky character a bit less overwhelming.
If you’re looking for even more Ibuki strategies, be sure to check out our previous tech roundups.
The Daily Dot’s latest Best of III features an interview with our favorite smiling slugger, Evil Geniuses’ Eduardo Perez, better known as PR Balrog. In the interview, Perez talks about his hopes for Evo and his new attitude about Street Fighter V now that his trademark character is part of the game. He mentions his initial impression of Balrog was that he looked overpowered, referring to the high-damage exhibition displayed at the CEO reveal, but now that he has spent time with the character, he feels, in his words, “complete” and enjoys playing the game more than ever.
Eduardo is also asked about how the top contenders in the US will fare against the titans of Japan. You can hear his honest opinions on that and much more in the full interview.
Billed as a more precise way of playing Super Smash Bros. Melee, Hit Box Arcade has announced a prototype controller known as the Smash Box, designed to make techniques like shield dropping and waveshines a hell of a lot easier. The control layout will look alien to your typical Smash player, but once you wrap your head round how you manipulate diagonal movement, it seems like a great way of playing Melee without flubbing inputs.
Rather than having the Analogue Stick used for diagonal inputs, you combine a cardinal directional input (as seen with the red Analog buttons) with either the Tilt Y or Tilt X Axis buttons located in the D-Pad area. This then makes doing an angled forward tilt, for example with Fox, a matter of holding the top Tilt Y Axis button down while pressing either Up on the Analog buttons to angle upward, forward to do a standard forward tilt, or down to do a down tilt. It’s much easier to see in the short demonstration video, but using this new input method, it makes basic movement options like wavedashing and dashdancing much easier to perform. There are even separate buttons for light shields and normal shields, as seen with the special Shield Tilt button.
This new combination input system will make precise movement much easier, as well as less taxing on your wrists, but there is the whole question of whether this input method will be allowed. There is a history of controller modifications in Smash, like changing trigger heights to do light shields and full shields, as well as putting in notches on the Analogue Stick bumper for precise shield drops, but this drastic of a controller input shift may raise some questions as it makes previously complex inputs much easier to perform once you’ve passed the initial barrier of the new control method.
This may be the perfect way for traditional fighting game players to transition into Melee, as well as for veteran players who are beginning to struggle using a GameCube controller for long periods of time. In any case, it’s certainly an interesting development and I do like the look of the Smash Box itself, complete with full Sanwa Denshi arcade buttons which are all color coded like a GameCube controller.
The controller is in the early stages of development yet, but keep your eyes peeled on the Hit Box Arcade official page for more details, as they are hinting at a Kickstarter campaign in the near future.
Many Street Fighter V players have voiced frustration with Survival Mode: the twitchy AI, the unfair randomized health recovery, and the massive amount of time required to complete the higher levels–all for the incentive of unlocking the full set of costume colors for your favorite fighter(s). But Capcom Digital Media Director “haunts” has indicated on reddit that Capcom still plans to implement additional means of unlocking those colors, though they have not said exactly what form those other options may take. His reply (edited for clarity) states:
I can’t get into the details right now, but we are working on additional methods to unlock colors in the game outside of Survival Mode. I’ll update on specifics once I get more info.
VesperArcade spoke at length on this matter in his latest video, pointing out that while more options to get those colors would be welcomed (at least by PlayStation 4 players, as on PC there are cheats to unlock them much more easily), it would spell the practical death of the unenjoyable Survival Mode in its current state, as the colors and Fight Money are the only motivators to play the frustrating mode. He suggests fixing Survival Mode should be a priority in Street Fighter V–a game already much too lean on quality single player content.
Speaking of colors: check out the costume color selection for Juri, Urien and others here.
With the competitive fighting game craze reaching peaks first thought impossible, it now seems that the entire world is looking to cash in.
Fusion Fight Gear, a Canadian-based company whose mission statement includes offering, “best in class officially licensed grappling gear with kickass designs that will help take your BJJ and MMA game to new heights,” has now begun offering officially licensed Street Fighter training gear. These products are adorned with various characters from the Street Fighter franchise, and include a Chun-Li themed pair of tights specifically for female practitioners. They also have a full gi themed after Ryu, complete with the hadoken motion on the front to show your opponents the full power of your shotokan love.
While this gear does not promise you the ability to throw fireballs or become the world’s strongest woman on the mat, it does guarantee that you will show your love for digital fighting in the physical arena, whether you are a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu rookie or veteran. No word on a Laura-themed rashguard yet, or whether said rashguard will protect you from high voltage.
Last year, Arcade Shock brought us special exclusive Evolution Championship Series arcade parts from Sanwa Denshi. This year, they’re back with another set of exclusive parts.
This year, however, they’re taking things a stop further as the new parts are based on Sanwa Denshi’s new line of metallic arcade components. That’s right, the Evo 2016 x Sanwa parts, both balltops and pushbuttons, will be available in both Metallic Silver and Metallic Gold.
The pushbuttons (OBSF-30-MG and OBSF-30-MS) will retail for $12 each while the ball tops (LB-35-MG LB-35-MS) will retail for $14.
As with last year’s batch, this will be a limited release with 170 pieces of each item being made. These will be available only at Arcade Shock’s booth at Evo, starting from 8:00 AM on Friday, July 15.
The King of Fighters is known for its popularity in Latin America, especially Mexico. As such, it’s no surprise that SNK has created a number of Mexican characters for it over the years.
In their latest team trailer for the King of Fighters XIV, one of those characters makes a return. Ramon joins together with Angel and the King of Dinosaurs to form Team Mexico.
In the trailer below, Ramon shows off his trademark flashy style completing a team that’s heavily influenced by Lucha Libre and wrestling in general.
The King of Fighters XIV crosses the border over to North America on August 23.
When Blade Arcus From Shining EX hit PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 late last year in Japan, early adopters were given access to an exclusive character: Shining Resonance main character Sonia Blanche.
Those who weren’t able to get her have reason to celebrate, as Sega has some great news to share. Sonia Blanche is now available to download for free via the Japanese PlayStation Store for both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.
In line with this, the game itself is currently on sale on the PlayStation Store, with a 40% discount for PlayStation Plus subscribers and a 20% off for non subscribers. This sale lasts until July 19.
With Atlus and SNK doing their best to bring the King of Fighters XIV to events all over the world, many have been wondering if the game would be at Evo 2016. Well, it turns out that the answer to that question is a resounding yes.
Atlus have announced that the King of Fighters XIV will not only be playable at Evo 2016, but that they will be hosting an official side tournament at their booth on Saturday, July 15. Entry into this tournament is free, however those who make it into the top 3 will receive cash prizes.
In addition to the tournament, SNK will also be holding a panel at the event featuring both key developers and artists who’ve worked on the series. The panel will take place before the tournament, at 12:oo PM on Saturday, and will be followed by an autograph session.
You can check out their complete Evo 2016 schedule below.
FRIDAY, JULY 15
All Day: THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIV Freeplay and Tournament Practice Stations
SATURDAY, JULY 16
All Day: THE KING OF FIGHTERS XIV Freeplay Stations
2:00 PM : Side Tournament (ATLUS Booth) Matches Begin
TBD: Special Exhibition Match
TBD: Side Tournament Top 8
Evo 2016 will take place from July 15 to 17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and Mandalay Bay Events Center. The King of Fighters XIV launches on August 23 for PlayStation 4 in North America.
