Category: News

Many games these days, including fighting games, are often released alongside strategy guides to help players acclimate themselves to their mechanics. While these guides contain a decent amount of information about the game they cover, they’re usually not enough to get players started in truly playing the game at a competitive level.

To address this, Dead or Alive players Legendary Goken and Force of Nature have decided to create their own strategy guide for the franchise’s latest release, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round.

Top Tier Tips is a beginners guide that covers some of the more intricate aspects of Last Round’s system, including punishes, usage of throws and offensive holds, the stun system, stagger escapes, side steps, fuzzy guards, and more.

While it doesn’t highlight some of the more advanced mechanics in the interest of not becoming too complex for new players, it should be enough to prepare beginners for matches with actual opponents.

Interested folks should check the guide out here.

Source: DOA5 Top Tier Tips via Free Step Dodge

Tekken 7 data reveals that Jin Kazama, Devil Jin, and a couple of new characters may find their way to the newly-released fighter in the future.

At the end of Tekken 6, Jin supposedly died after a long and convoluted effort to rid the world of the Devil Gene. This left many fans with the question of whether or not Jin would make an appearance in Tekken 7.

According to Avoiding the Puddle, a group of fans in Korea have been able to gain access to character data from this week’s official Tekken 7 launch. The leaked information shows character models for not just Jin Kazama, but for his alter-ego, Devil Jin as well.

But it’s not just returning characters that have been revealed–the data also shows what seem to be not just one, but possibly two newcomers. The first of these is a female fighter wearing a short dress and the other, which may just be a skin for an existing character, is a red humanoid with all sorts of metal tubing stuck onto it.

Jin Kazama

Devil Jin

New Characters

Tekken 7 had its full launch in Japanese arcades yesterday and is set to make its North American debut at Final Round 18 this weekend.

Source: Avoiding the Puddle, thanks to Great Dark Hero for the tip.

The folks over at NetherRealm Studios have announced that they will be conducting yet another installment of their Kombat Kast streams tomorrow. As with past shows, this one will focus on new Mortal Kombat X details, and it appears as if they have some very juicy stuff in store.

According to the “whips, sais, and a little surprise” tagline attached to the news, we can only surmise that we’ll finally see some footage of newcomer Takeda Takahashi (Kenshi’s son, for those of you out of the loop) and Outworld rebel Mileena–outside of the content-heavy story trailer, that is.

That being said, the whip comment could also be an allusion towards Sindel, who uses her hair much like the striking weapon and was also seen in the aforementioned trailer.

Of course, creative director Ed Boon couldn’t help but get his own teaser in as well. He took to Twitter shortly before the announcement was made to mention that a brand new “-ality” finishing move will be revealed during tomorrow’s broadcast as well. What exactly he’s referring to is anyone’s guess, but he’s already struck down the return of Mortal Kombat 3’s Animalities.

The stream will be live at 3 PM CDT (1 PM PDT, 4 PM EDT, 8 PM GMT), so be sure to tune into Twitch to catch all the new details as they arrive.

Sources: NetherRealm Studios, Ed Boon, special thanks to Insider2000 and Haketh for contributing their Mortal Kombat knowledge.

News recently broke that Combo Breaker, the spiritual successor to Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament in the Midwest, will act as a premier qualifier for next year’s Killer Instinct World Cup, giving its first place finisher automatic entry into the high-level bracket. But it looks like future prestige isn’t all they’ll be able to look forward to.

According to World Cup organizer Brandon Alexander, the Killer Instinct community has rallied together to provide an additional $1000 to the game’s prize pool at Combo Breaker, to be split among the top eight players. Additionally, Alexander’s venue Ultra Arcade will be handing out tee shirts to the game’s first fifty entrants.

This development is the latest to boost Combo Breaker’s profile, and another sign that the Killer Instinct community is definitely capable of holding up their scene without outside support. Godspeed!

Combo Breaker is scheduled for May 22-24 in Rosemont, Illinois. More details and registration information can be found on their official website.

Source: Brandon Alexander

Though its release on PC gave players yet another platform to hone their skills on, Ultra Street Fighter IV’s arrival on Steam was greeted with a number of issues, chiefly poor netcode that made it difficult to participate in online matches without it becoming a stuttering mess.

As part of their continued efforts to correct these problems, the folks over at Capcom recently implemented some brand new netcode changes in the Steam Beta client. While not part of the main game yet, following a few simple steps should give fans the opportunity to check out the updates they’ve made and provide feedback.

For more details on how to access the beta client, check out the official announcement here.

Source: Steam via r/StreetFighter

UltraChen TV is back with yet another broadcast of their Tuesday show. Tonight, UltraDavid and James Chen will be discussing a variety of topics, including SXSW Gaming’s Fighters Invitational, Nine States Tournament 2015, Evil Geniuses’ Momochi, and more.

The stream will be live in this article, but you can also visit Twitch to join the chat.

Watch live video from ultrachentv on www.twitch.tv

Source: UltraChen TV, featured image courtesy of Kara “Karaface” Leung

NorCal Regionals, typically hyper-focused on Capcom games like Ultra Street Fighter IV and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, has once again allowed the community to decide which games will also be included in the official lineup for this year’s event. While a title needed only eight entrants to be considered, the recent March 15 deadline gave us a clear picture of which scenes will be showing up to Sacramento to compete and which will not.

According to an email being sent out to registrants, Skullgirls, Street Fighter x Tekken, Divekick, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, Soulcalibur V, Soulcalibur II, and Capcom vs. SNK 2 did not receive enough participants to keep a spot in the roster.

These results show a continuing decline in 3D representation outside of particular regions, but perhaps the most surprising is the absence of interest in perennial favorite Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Fortunately, it’s not all bad news! Fans of King of Fighters XIII, Killer Instinct, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and BlazBlue: Chronophantasma will be joining the aforementioned Capcom games as well as Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U in the weekend’s lineup.

NorCal Regionals 2015 is scheduled for April 3-5 in Sacramento, California. Registration for this event will be open until March 27, so be sure to visit the official website for more details.

Sources: NorCal Regionals, ImpactFlame

Back in the summer of 2009, Mad Catz and Capcom partnered to release their first limited edition variant of the Street Fighter IV Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition at San Diego Comic-Con. With only 250 ever made, this version of the original Tournament Edition arcade stick has now become a highly sought after item among aficionados and collectors.

Now, Mad Catz is looking back to that stick for their first exclusive model of the Tournament Edition 2. This RIVALS variant features an all-white casing, orange bezel, and orange and yellow Sanwa parts, just like the aforementioned Comic-Con release. Even the art, which is new, pays homage to the original’s design.

If you’re interested in grabbing one of these for yourself head on over to Mad Catz’ site to sign up and be notified when it goes on sale. Regional availability will be determined on this registration, so this is a good chance for folks outside of areas like the United States and Japan to show they want this and future limited edition sticks released in their neck of the woods.

Mad Catz’ RIVALS Tournament Edition 2, which is compatible with both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, will be available at select events and online this summer.

Source: Mad Catz