Category: News

Part of getting better at fighting games means having to take losses. It’s just the nature of the genre and its one-on-one competitive format – you will eventually lose and it will, most likely, be your own fault.

In his latest video, longtime fighting game enthusiast and genre scholar Patrick Miller talks about dealing with your losses and, more importantly, how to figure out why you lost in the first place.

When it comes to why you lost, Patrick breaks this down to one of two things. Either you pressed the wrong button, courtesy of an execution error or choosing poorly, or you did something at the wrong time. Additionally, he also mentions that there are times where any button is the “wrong button,” especially in games like Street Fighter V that seem to greatly emphasize frame traps when compared to others.

The second deals with the fact that everything in a fighting game happens in real time. Just pressing the right button isn’t enough; you need to make sure that you press it at the right time. Time is a resource that you have to play around, and you’ll need to train your reactions to be able to use the “right button” at the “right time.”

You can learn more about these concepts in the video below, as well as in the corresponding blog post.

For those who would like to catch Patrick’s inisights live, be sure to check out his Twitch channel where he streams twice a week, with interviews taking place on Mondays and lectures and gameplay streams on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

Source: Patrick Miller

Here’s some great news for pad players out there: the Evolution Championship Series staff has made the decision to legalize DualShock 4 usage at this year’s event. Though normally banned due to their Bluetooth capabilities, folks who rely on these devices to compete will now be able to utilize their controller of choice.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be regulations in place to ensure they don’t interfere with the competition. It will be every DualShock 4 users’ responsibility to make sure their controller is no longer paired with the console after their match. Anyone who doesn’t risks automatically disqualified from the tournament.

If you plan to compete in Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat X, or Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, and are unsure of how to desync controllers from the PlayStation 4, the video below should have all the answers you need.

Evo 2016 is scheduled for July 15-17 in Las Vegas, Nevada. More details can be found here.

Source: Mr. Wizard, video c/o CEO Gaming

As promised over the weekend, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS players can now access Bayonetta and Fire Emblem Fates’ Corrin.

Both characters can be purchased for the Wii U or 3DS version of the latest Super Smash Bros. title, or in a pack for both systems. Of course, it wouldn’t be a batch of Smash content without plenty of Mii costume parts thrown into the mix as well, and you can grab all of this new content together if you so choose. And finally, players can now grab every post-launch character as part of the All-in-One Fighter Bundle.

The price breakdown for the United States is as follows:

• Bayonetta – $5.99 one system, $6.99 both systems
• Corrin – $4.99 one system, $5.99 both systems
• Mii Fighter Costume Bundle #6 – $4.50 one system, $6.90 both systems
• Collection #6 (Bayonetta, Corrin, Costume Bundle #6) – $15.48 one system, $19.88 both systems
• All-in-One Fighter Bundle (every post-launch character) – $34.93 one system, $41.93 both systems

Details for other regions can be found on the official website.

As was noted before, these are the final characters to join the Super Smash Bros. cast, and it’s likely that the game has also received a number of balance changes. Stay tuned for more information.

Source: Smash Bros.

Last month, Prima Games announced the upcoming release of their Street Fighter V strategy guide. The book, which sports a hard cover and comes paired with a special edition matted art print featuring Ryu and Ken, contains everything players have come to expect: strategies, frame data, and all of the character information you could want to know.

To give an idea of how all of this will be presented on the printed page, Prima recently released a few sample images from Karin’s section. You can get a look at the images below, or take a trip over to Prima Games to see them there.

The Prima Game Street Fighter V guide will be available for purchase on February 16. Those concerned about changes in frame data making the physical copy of the guide irrelevant will be pleased to know the digital guide–which will see regular updates throughout the game’s first year–comes with the physical copy. It can also be purchased on its own.

Source: Prima Games

Last month, Prima Games announced the upcoming release of their Street Fighter V strategy guide. The book, which sports a hard cover and comes paired with a special edition matted art print featuring Ryu and Ken, contains everything players have come to expect: strategies, frame data, and all of the character information you could want to know.

To give an idea of how all of this will be presented on the printed page, Prima recently released a few sample images from Karin’s section. You can get a look at the images below, or take a trip over to Prima Games to see them there.

The Prima Game Street Fighter V guide will be available for purchase on February 16. Those concerned about changes in frame data making the physical copy of the guide irrelevant will be pleased to know the digital guide–which will see regular updates throughout the game’s first year–comes with the physical copy. It can also be purchased on its own.

Source: Prima Games

Artists have been drawing inspiration from gaming for as long as we’ve been able to pick up pads and move shapes around the screen. Well, maybe not the entire time–I doubt something like Pong initially lit any creative fires–but it’s been happening for a long time.

One such artist, by the name of Pior Oberson, recently drew inspiration from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, taking on the task of creating a 3D model for Q. Those who have spent years looking at the 2D sprite associated with the mysterious fighter will be pleased to see Oberson stayed true to their subject material, right down to the pork pie hat.

You can check the images out in the slideshow below, or head over to Pior Oberson’s Tumblr to see the originals.

Click to view slideshow.

Does Q look better in 3D, or should he stick to the second dimension? Let us know what you think.

Source: Pior Oberson via r/StreetFighter

With a brand new year of competition already in full swing, tournaments across the globe have begun announcing plans for their next installments. The same can be said of SoCal Regionals as of this morning thanks to an announcement by organizer Alex Valle.

Level|Up Series is apparently targeting October 14-16 as the SoCal Regionals 2016’s official dates. Due to the language, it’s entirely possible these may change in the future, but players now have something to start planning around until official details drop.

Venue issues forced SoCal Regionals to delay last year’s event from summer to fall, though a pair of Prelude events held competitors over until then.

Keep your eyes on Shoryuken for the latest information as it becomes available.

Source: Alex Valle

This year’s NorCal Regionals will experiment with a new way to handle emergency registration, organizer John Choi announced this morning. Folks who register for Street Fighter V, Ultra Street Fighter IV, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on-site will be placed into separate pools without seeding or player limit, forcing them to face other late registrants in order to make it out.

Their reasons are three-fold. First, this makes the process transparent, heeding complaints from their previous outing. It also keeps late registrations from throwing chaos into an established bracket, meaning pool assignments won’t change from their first publishing apart from fixing errors. And finally, the organizers hope to deter emergency registration in favor of the online process, which will help brackets run smoothly at the event itself.

“Note that online pools are typically 16 or 32 man brackets and NCR historically receives over 50 emergency registrations, including many top players,” Choi explained in his official statement. “So it is your choice if you want to wait to do emergency registration, pay more money, and gamble on this final bracket being smaller in number or lacking seeded players.”

Pools for the three aforementioned titles will all run on the same day to avoid players gaming the system and waiting for an easier bracket. Adjustments will be made should the tournament receive zero emergency registrations, but we all know how unlikely that is.

Of course, this also has its downsides, notably for community members who can’t reliably plan for a tournament months in advance. Coupled with the already steep costs of emergency registration, this move could likely prohibit some players from attending the tournament altogether.

Choi also addressed last year’s biggest fiasco, which forced them to replay a portion of the Ultra Street Fighter IV bracket after noting that the game wasn’t updated properly. NorCal Regionals will be training every staff member in how to confirm a title’s version and double-checking before finals. Street Fighter in particular is set to run entirely digital on PlayStation 4 to alleviate chances of the mistake happening again.

NorCal Regionals 2016 is scheduled for March 25-27 in Sacramento, California. More details can be found here.

Source: John Choi

Back when much of Street Fighter V’s cast was still a mystery, widely circulated rumors mentioned that a character named Zen would debut alongside Laura and Rashid. As new developments came along, many assumed that the newcomer became F.A.N.G, but a new piece of concept art from e-Capcom dispels that notion.

According to brief details, a character named Zen was indeed created Street Fighter V. Although we now know he hailed from India, it’s still unclear at what point in development he was cut.

【#日刊ストＶ】ちまたで一瞬話題となった「ゼン」というインド人を開発が面白がって描いたイラスト。登場しません。（開発秘話）#SFVhttps://t.co/t4VWDKSwKT pic.twitter.com/ROZhW4Nf3g

— イーカプコン (@e_capcom) February 3, 2016

Could Zen make an appearance in Street Fighter V sometime down the line? That remains to be seen, so for now, feel free to let us know what you think of his design in the comments.

Street Fighter V is set to launch on PlayStation 4 and PC on February 16. An additional round of downloadable characters will release periodically starting in March, with a second helping planned for sometime after that.

Source: e-Capcom via Laban