Category: News

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.

The prize structure is as follows.

• 1st place prize: $1,400
• 2nd place prize: $700
• 3rd place prize: $350

Those interested in joining can register here.

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
  • 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: SNK Developers Panel
  • 1:00 PM – 1:30 PM: SNK Developers Autograph Session
  • 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.

Source: Atlus

E3 may have come and gone, but the hype for Tekken 7 remains strong long after the convention doors have closed.

As proof of this, Bandai Namco just released a video of Tekken reactions throughout E3 2016. The video follows the game’s journey from the Xbox conference stage to the hands of the players themselves.

Community personalities like Xavier Woods, Maximilian, and Kenny give their impressions about Tekken 7, its Cinematic Story Mode, and the inclusion of Akuma from Street Fighter.

While we do not currently have an exact release date, Bandai Namco has confirmed that the title will release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in early 2017.

Source: Bandai Namco

In their third devlog for their as-yet untitled platform fighter, Wavedash Games’ Creative Director Jason Rice has finally revealed some concept art for their first character. Designed by recently employed Character Designer Adam “Strong Bad” Oliver, this new character is called Ashani, a speedy brawler who runs fast and hits hard, very similar to a character like Captain Falcon in Super Smash Bros.

This comparison is quite apt as along with showing concept art, Jason showed off a very early model of Ashani which showed her idle animation as well as her performing a punch which looked remarkably similar to that of the famous bird-themed racing driver. Her costume seems to indicate she is some kind of technologically augmented soldier, with heavy gauntlets and a chestpiece similar to Iron Man’s Arc Reactor. Her concept art shows sparks of lighting flying off her fists so you could expect some attacks to deal massive electrical damage, similar to Captain Falcon’s knee in Melee.

Based on this short glimpse of the in-game model and concept art, I’m not instantly taken with the artstyle. It seems fairly generic sci-fi and lacks that splash of color or hint of character personality which hooks people into playing a certain character in a fighting game. Again, it’s still early days at the moment but I hope Wavedash Games are able to jazz up the characters enough so their visual design matches the mechanical inventiveness that they are promising with the full product.

Source: Wavedash Games

 

“Since when did everyone become so knowledgeable about input lag?”

Very succinctly, Katsuhiro Harada stated his point. The long time director of the Tekken series has never been one to shy away from speaking on controversial issues within the fighting game community. When people complained about Josie Rizal, Shaheen, and Lucky Chloe’s designs in Tekken 7, Harada responded with his own brand of rhetoric aimed to silence his critics. And when Capcom, a company whose Street Fighter franchise Harada has credited as being inspiration for Tekken, came under attack for the 8 frames of input lag inherent with Street Fighter V, the man came to their defense.

In an interview with GameSpot, Harada argues that most players and critics were completely unaware of the amount of lag past titles in various fighting game franchises had. He later adds, “I have a feeling people are just prone to being swayed by popular catchwords.” He also stated that he believes, when based on the correlation of the design and the inherent lag, “the actual mechanism is different depending on the game.”

He was also quick to defend his own series, Tekken, from any possible accusations of input lag, stating, “Tekken 7 is the first arcade fighting game to have online play between arcades around the country. It costs roughly $1 per play. Do you really think it would be this successful and well received if everyone was complaining about input lag?”

When later asked about incoming characters for Tekken 7 after the release of Dark Resurrection, he stated that the roster shown at E3 is “not the full one at this time,” but later declined to comment on who might later be included and whether or not they would be released as later DLC.

Source: GameSpot

Sanford Kelly has been known for a while as a drifter in the community as far as teams go.  Having been a member of Empire Arcadia and The Steam Co., the New York-based fighting game veteran has added yet another team to his journeyman status.

It was announced yesterday that Kelly has joined Mutiny, a professional eSports team known primarily for First Person Shooter teams, as their first Street Fighter V player.  As such, he will be competing under their banner just in time for Evolution.

We're excited to announce our first #SFV Player @SanfordKelly who will be attending @EVO.
Welcome to the#MutinyFAM pic.twitter.com/SIEkWa3lih

— Mutiny™ (@MutinyGG) July 5, 2016

Congratulations to Sanford in this new chapter of his career, and we wish him and Mutiny the best of luck with his sponsorship.

Source: Mutiny

As was reported last year, Bishop “Shatterstar” Wagner, famous within the FGC for his “Negro Install” line of apparel, is battling cancer. Over the course of 2015, Shatta was able to see the cancer go into remission. The community began to rejoice.

Fast forward to March 2016, and we were told more grim news on his condition via DarkGeneral on the SRK forums. The cancer was back with a vengeance, was not responding to chemotherapy, and doctors predicted at that time that he had 6 months left to live. But Shatta is still a fighter. He hasn’t given up. Nor has the community.

Jeffrey “RagingStormX” Hill of Team ArcadeStream, known for his heartless Vega play, and Peter “Aikawa” Baek also of Team ArcadeStream, banded together to help out a fellow brother in arms. And as such, a charity drive at ArcadeStream will be held on Saturday July 9th starting at 2PM KST (1AM EDT), with all proceeds going directly to Shatterstar himself. Tournaments for Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Street Fighter V will be held during the charity event, with food and drink orders also going toward Wagner’s recovery. There will also be raffle prizes, and a chance to donate from the stream to help out our brother.

If you want to tune in to either lend moral support or give to this cause, please point your web browsers and smartphones to ArcadeStream’s Twitch channel. In the meantime, you can also donate to help Shatterstar at his CrowdRise page.

 

 

When Street Fighter V’s free cinematic story expansion hit last week, it allowed players an early taste of Juri and Urien, characters who have yet to be released, in one of the story mode’s chapters. This has opened up a can of worms, as some players have found ways to make both characters playable online.

In a recent stream on Capcom’s Twitch channel, Street Fighter 5 producer Koichi Sugiyama and assistant producer Tomoaki Ayano took time to address this.

They stated that they have seen the videos of how to make these characters playable in online play and have a good understanding of how to see who’s been using them. As such, Ayano has stated that anyone who they know is using the characters will be dealt with strictly.

In addition to this, they also discussed the recently discovered glitch that gives Ibuki a few frames of invulnerability after landing from a whiffed air throw. They’ve stated that this is unintended and will be patched out in the near future. No date was given for when this fix will hit, but players have been urged to simply not use it.

Source: Capcom

VesperArcade has uploaded new images of the colors and costumes we can expect to see in Street Fighter V’s future. Following up on the reveals of premium “Summer” outfits for many of the cast (and after the official release of Karin’s swimwear), here’s an expanded look at Cammy’s “utility bikini”, Chun-Li’s swishy & stylish swimsuit, and Ibuki’s Strider Hiryu-inspired garb.

Click to view slideshow.

We also get a closer look at the “elegant” outfits for Cammy and Chun-Li.

Click to view slideshow.

The colors that we can look forward to unlocking for Juri and Urien are also shown in detail.

Click to view slideshow.

Still no information as to when Capcom plans to release these premium costumes, or if new outfits will be offered for only the female side of the roster–surely the men will also class it up, or strut their stuff on the beach? Stay tuned.

Source: VesperArcade

In news many PPMD fans were dreading, one of the Gods of Melee has had to pull out of attending this year’s Evo, stating that his health still hasn’t improved to a state where he is comfortable to travel and compete. PPMD has been battling with health issues for a while now, impacting his tournament attendance and ability to compete with him only competing at Genesis 3 and Battle of the Five Gods in recent memory. He was seeded 7th going into this event, the lowest of all the Gods due to his inactivity at tournaments. Tempo Storm’s Axe will now take PPMD’s seed.

However, treatment does finally seem to be making a difference, as documented in a previous TwitLonger which stated that he has started testosterone therapy and this should help increase his low energy levels and hopefully restore him to his prime state. It was in doubt as to whether he would finish his first bout of treatment in time for Evo and it seems to stay safe, the Doctor has unfortunately had to miss out on this year’s tournament. We wish PPMD the best and hope for a full recovery, in time for him to make another event sometime this year. In the mean time, it is up to Cloud 9’s Mango to hold the torch with his PPMD-esque Marth, in his own journey to get the Evo threepeat.

Sources: Axe, PPMD feature image c/o Evil Geniuses