Category: News

Naoki “Nemo” Nemoto has announced that he will be parting ways with sponsor The Black Eye by the end of this month, a move the team says is motivated by personal reasons.

After starting as a simple space to get in some fighting game practice, The Black Eye has grown considerably in Japan. Though not as large as professional gaming organizations like Evil Geniuses, their competitive team has secured a number of impressive wins over the years, and Nemo is a big part of their success.

Though initially a Guilty Gear player with a handful of Tougeki placings, Nemo made a huge splash in the United States thanks to his penchant for defeating Marvel gods and now sits as, arguably, one of the best Street Fighter players in the world. He most recently placed fourth at both Evo 2015 and Tokyo Game Show.

Fortunately, this isn’t the last we’ll see of Nemo. He says he will continue his fighting game career, though no word was provided concerning future support.

Sources: Nemo (via NeoGAF), Black Eye, image courtesy of Red Bull

Street Fighter V’s Laura Matsuda was only revealed a couple of weeks ago, but the cosplay community seems to have already taken quite a liking to her. While we’re sure there’s a number of cosplayers out there working on Laura outfits at the moment, two in particular recently caught our eye.

AnaLu Sauceda and Vanessa Wedge have both put together excellent Laura outfits, right down to her unique hairstyle and accessories. They were gracious enough to allow us to highlight their takes on the Brazilian newcomer, so we’ve included galleries of their work below for you to check out.

AnaLu Sauceda

Click to view slideshow.

Vanessa Wedge

Click to view slideshow.

You can find more of Sauceda’s work on Facebook and Deviantart, while Wedge has a number of costumes and prints available for purchase through her webstore. Let us know what you think of their early Laura cosplays in the comments below.

Sources: AnaLu Sauceda via Cross Counter, Vanessa Wedge

The (Japanese arcade) players have spoken! After three weeks of in-game ballot casting, the Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- Playable Character General Election came to an end a few days ago. On today’s Arc System Works official stream on Niconico Live, the results of that vote were announced. The character with the most votes will join the Guilty Gear Xrd cast in a future update. And the results…

177,681 total Votes

Rank	Character	Votes
1	Dizzy	32990
2	Bridget	32639
3	Baiken	31281
4	Hol Order Sol	28977
5	Anji Mito	13758
6	Testament	7578
7	Robo-Ky	5633
8	Izuna	5064
9	A.B.A	3731
10	Zappa	3404
11	Valentine	3274
12	Raven	2665
13	Fanny	2160
14	Dr. Paradigm	2070
15	Justice	1628
16	Kliff Undersn	829

If you’re a Dizzy fan, you’re in luck! The Gear, wife and mother narrowly beat out Bridget and Baiken for the highest number of votes. While Dizzy’s involvement in the GGXrd story makes her an ideal choice to integrate into the game, work on the character is starting from scratch. Look forward to seeing more of her in the future!

In addition to the vote results, Arc System Works announced that they would be hosting a Halloween party at the Ikebukuro GiGO game center in Tokyo. The October 31 event consists of a ladies tournament, a cosplayer tournament and open tournament.

Source: Arc System Works

Skullgirls occupies a very unique position within the fighting game community. While it didn’t quite reach the lofty heights of Street Fighter or Marvel throughout its early years, the distinct artstyle and tight gameplay crafted by the folks at Lab Zero Games earned it a dedicated following both in and out of our niche scene. Subsequent releases saw the title updated with new characters and launched on different platforms, and now the developers are looking to a separate genre for their next project.

Indivisible tells the story of Ajna, a “good-natured tomboy” who finds herself mixed up in a larger conflict when her town is attacked by a group of vicious warlords. It’s during this time that she discovers a special power that allows her to fuse with Incarnations and use their special abilities.

Lab Zero is drawing inspiration from titles like Valkyrie Profile and Super Metroid for Indivisible, most notably the combat of the former, the exploration of the latter, and the classic world-building found in both. This gives them the ability to craft a universe that combines the various cultures of our world with the fantasy world Ajna inhabits, brought to life by the same amazing artists that made Skullgirls such an aesthetic delight.

Unfortunately, they can’t do it alone. Much like their previous foray into downloadable content, Lab Zero has turned to the gaming community at large for their help in making Indivisible a reality. Their current Indiegogo campaign carries a hefty goal of $1.5 million, though publisher 505 Games is prepared to contribute another $2.5 million should they reach that amount.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Shoryuken, what does this have to do with fighting games?” And to that I say…well, not a whole lot. If you’ve played Valkyrie Profile, you’ll know that encounters in the classic RPG revolve around combos. The longer you can keep an enemy pinned down or airborne with your party’s various attacks, the more damage you can tack on before their counter-attack. While not exactly like a fighting game, there are enough similarities there that fans of the genre will likely find a lot to love in Indivisible.

And, to be fair, Lab Zero went through increasingly crazy levels of shit to get Skullgirls out the door, and their dedication to the indie fighter has got to be some kind of testament to the level of work they put into each of their projects.

Now, we won’t compel you to donate or, hell, to even look at their campaign, but if any of the stuff we detailed above sounds interesting to you, feel free to head over to Indiegogo and learn more.

Indivisible’s crowdfunding efforts currently sit at $262,150 with 30 days left to go. You can download an early prototype here if you want an early glimpse at what they have in mind.

Special thanks to Jason S., Sairus D., Cellsai, Ethan, Weatherbee, gluemchen, and Red Witch for sending this our way.

Following up on their favorite plays from SoCal Regionals, the folks at Capcom have compiled a similar group of replays for Brazil Game Show. This year, the winner of their Capcom Pro Tour event saw automatic qualification for the final Capcom Cup bracket, making the tournament one to remember.

While various Japanese players made their way to the South American nation hoping to earn a spot, it was the locals who came up big. Reversal’s ChuChu, who always makes waves at these types of events, showed he still has what it takes to compete at a high-level with both C. Viper and Sakura, and Keoma ended up taking home the gold thanks to his intense Abel dedication.

For a quick look at some of the most exciting moments from this event, be sure to check out the recap below.

Source: Capcom Fighters

When eigoMANGA ported Tomoaki Sugeno’s indie fighter Vanguard Princess to Steam last year, some fans noted that while the game gained a new playable character in the form of Hilda Rize, it did so at the cost of another, Kurumi Mirumati. Now, eigoMANGA is bringing Kurumi back as downloadable content.

A plane crash survivor without any memory of her past, the cheerful teenager Kurumi brings a unique twist to the game by having only one offensive special move. She makes up for this deficiency with an assist meter that fills up faster than normal as well as sporting attacks that change depending on her selected assist. Combine this with her fast normals and command roll, and you’ve got an interesting, assist-based, mixup character that stands apart from the rest of the cast.

In addition to Kurumi, this package also adds Team and Streak modes. The former sees players face off against a team of two opponents, while the latter puts them through a series of uninterrupted one-on-one battles until they defeat the entire series or get knocked out.

Kurumi is currently available for $3.99. Vanguard Princess itself can be purchased on Steam for $4.99.

Source: eigoMANGA via Siliconera

Early next month, StrikeFirst Colorado and Mile High Burst are set to put on the third installment of their Focus Attack Donate Cans charity event. Last year, the Denver fighting game community was able to raise over 1,3000 cans of food and 35 frozen turkeys for the Denver Rescue Mission, with countless more provided by monetary donations, and they’re looking to break that record in November.

Like any tournament, competition will be held in games like Street Fighter, Marvel, and Guilty Gear, but with a unique twist when it comes to entry fees. Venue entry will cost $10, with five cans of nonperishable food required to register for each game. Attendees that plan to only play one or two titles but want to donate more will receive a raffle ticket for every ten cans they donate after that. All cash donations will go towards purchasing more frozen turkeys.

The organizers are also planning to provide a way for folks at home to donate as well, but specific details are still forthcoming.

Focus Attack Donate Cans 3 is scheduled for November 7 at Boss Stage Arcade in Northglenn, Colorado. More details can be found by following the link below.

Source: StrikeFirst Colorado, special thanks to Jamaal Graves for his help in putting this article together.

CEOtaku, the tournament organized by CEO Gaming’s Alex Jebailey as a way to reach out to folks in the airdasher community, is just around the corner. As such, new details have surfaced online pertaining to registration numbers, and things are looking pretty good for the upcoming event.

There are currently nearly 350 unique participants spread across the tournament’s nine official titles and six side events. Unsurprisingly, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- drew the most attention with 185 participants, one player shy of double the next highest title, BlazBlue: Chronophantasma EXTEND. Following that, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late show respectable numbers, and Marvel brings up the rear.

A complete look at the numbers can be found below.

Arguably more important than the straight numbers, the organizers have also shared tentative pool assignments for folks to review and provide feedback. Much like the details above, these are subject to change due to seeding errors and late registration, but they still provide a quick look at which players are likely to run into each other.

Some of the competitors that you can expect to see include Argenrost, BananaKen, Colpevole, dekillsage, Dogura, doren2k, Kazunoko, ElvenShadow, Flocker, Flux, Foo, FullSchedule, Havoc, Hotashi, Thebeautifuldude, BT|Viscant, and many, many more.

CEOtaku is scheduled for October 17-18 in Orlando, Florida. Further details can be found here.

Source: CEOtaku (1, 2), special thanks to Jebailey for sending these details our way.