Interviews are typically designed to get a deeper insight into the biggest players in our tournament scene — and no one is better known for getting interesting interviews than Mark “BornFree” Sheridan. It’s no surprise that the man that lives in the post-match minds of players for his job also has more than a few stories to share himself.
“Salt Shakers” is a New Zealand FGC Podcast hosted by Drax_8, working to cover NZ’s events and local FGC talent. Salt Shakers also serves as a stream for some NZ events, which you can catch on their twitch channel.
Characters who’re larger or smaller than normal tend to attract unusual size-specific combos. Such is the case with Dragon Ball FighterZ‘s Cooler, who is one of the larger characters in the game’s cast.
Now the above statement itself is an understatement — YouTuber Final Showdown points out that Cooler is the biggest character in Dragon Ball FighterZ so far in terms of width and height on screen. However, for some reason, once he’s being juggled, he somehow becomes normal sized. This makes finding specific big-body combos on Cooler difficult, though that hasn’t stopped Final Showdown from doing so as the video below demonstrates.
The late 90s marked the end of one era — and the beginning of a new one — in many areas of the gaming industry. The fighting game genre was no exception, with Capcom teaming up with Arika to produce the 3D Street Fighter EX series, and Midway doing the same with Mortal Kombat 4.
We get to see elements of this shift in design in today’s behind the scenes video from NeoGamer, which features not only some of the motion capture technology used in the creation of the game, but also the heavy promotional machine behind it. Their tour — which brought the game across cities in North America — was similar in many ways to the location tests in Japan. Given the amount of distance needed to travel the US for such a test, it shows the drastic change between the modern era of gaming and the older titles’ development cycles.
The sentence that I was about to type was “Lei Wulong has this odd move…” This is a foolish thing to do right out of the gate, as that would describe most of the massive movelist this stance-heavy character has in Tekken 7. Still, among a sea of odd techniques, Lei’s “Defense Breaker” stands out as a particularly annoying gimmick to deal with.
If you’ve been baffled by when (or even how) to get out of this trap, NurseLee‘s latest breakdown shows the gaps, how to exploit them, and how to approach the situation depending upon your character’s tools.
When Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition‘s Nash was originally nerfed from his strong Season 1 incarnation, part of the compensation at the time was for the 8 frames of delay naturally found in the game. That delay is now a thing of the past, but Nash’s poor mobility still remains. It has been rough for Nash ever since, and he’s floundered between low and mid tier in Seasons 2 and 3.
Based off this, VesperArcade predicts that buffs must logically be incoming for the lost soldier. This video speculates on the areas Nash could see the most improvement in. Do you agree with their vision of Nash in season 4? What changes would you like to see?
Law specialist Reepal “Rip” Parbhoo is one of the Tekken scene’s most recognizable faces. There’s hardly a form of media he hasn’t touched for its scene — he runs Level Up Your Game, he commentates several majors, and… oh yeah, he won Evo, and placed top 3 in Tekken 6 three years in a row.
But it almost didn’t happen. Rip may have grown up playing in arcades, but he didn’t initially want to enter tournaments. Tekken 5 changed that for Rip, and led him down a wild series of tournament victories and legendary moments — which made his decision to go into commentary full time (a decision forced on by injuries) all the more difficult.
The most accessible fighting game of all time is finally getting a ranked mode — and it differs a bit from the current competitive fighting game meta.
Fantasy Strike developer Dave Sirlin took to YouTube to break down the mode, which acts quite differently from online matchmaking modes in other fighting games. Rather than setting up two players against each other for stand-alone matches, Fantasy Strike’s online environment acts much like a tournament, which Sirlin feels is “more exciting.” The tournaments will be eight-person competitions, with brackets that are made “on the fly” — without the need for an immediate opponent to face off against.
Familiar to fighting game players is the game’s ranking system, which places players in leagues of Bronze through Master. Fighters will engage with other players within their rank in tournaments, which will be three out of five games — meaning that players who win a total of three games will take the tournament. The mode utilizes Fantasy Strike’s Team Battle system, as well, allowing players to use a total of three characters against their opponents.
The tournaments’ point system works in a system of rewards and demerits. Players earn a star for every win, and lose a star for each game they lose. However, Diamond ranked players will not earn a star for taking the first round in a tournament — but they will lose a star for losing, though. Additionally, Master ranked players will have the star system thrown to the wind, and must face other Master league players without the reward of earning stars at all. While simplistic, the Fantasy Strike ranked experience makes sure to provide ample challenges for players looking to rise above the competition.
With this ranked system comes a slew of other updates to Fantasy Strike, including improvements to the game’s Training Mode, enhanced animations, and frame advantage indicators. Characters’ movements have been kicked up a notch: fighters now have a harder time throwing heavy opponents like Rook, while previously, they would fling him off without a hitch. In addition, new frame advantage indicators now give players data with every hit, delivering them visual cues as to their character’s recovery status. The color and size of sparks reveal if a player is plus or minus on a certain move in-game, giving an approximate indication as to how many frames they are ahead or behind.
Other visual and sound improvements were also made to the title, including features like characters’ eyes flashing purple when their super meter is full. Fantasy Strike is nearly a new game, now — and its online ranking system is ripe for the taking!
Fighters from the ring and the octagon band together through family and friendship
Koei Tecmo announced the next characters to join the Dead or Alive 6 roster are none other than the superstar wrestling family Tina and Bass Armstrong and the MMA knockout Mila. The characters are showcased in a new trailer highlighting the three fighters’ relationships and fighting styles. Tina and Bass have joined together to create their own wrestling organization, and Mila trains to best her fighting idol.
You can also check out the newest stage to join the over the top action pantheon, the wrestling ring titled, THE MUSCLE. Be careful near the edge of the ring unless you want to risk taking heavy damage, otherwise, use it to your advantage and take in the cheers of the crowd!
Dead or Alive 6 keeps looking better and better with each new character and stage announcement. This brings the announced roster to 19 including the pre-order bonus, Nyotengu, and the Deluxe Edition bonus Phase-4. If the opinion that there will be 25 characters in the title’s starting roster turns out to be accurate, it appears we are in the final stretch for additions before launch.
Dead or Alive 6 releases on February 15, 2019, on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Who hasn’t been announced yet that you hope makes the cut? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Great players and great character variety make this VOD worth your attention!
If you missed the action from Esports Arena in Orange County last night, Body Count Fighting has got you covered with this replay of the Wednesday Night FightsStreet Fighter V top 8 from WNF 3.8. See some of SoCal’s best face off in these fights featuring BushinStyle’s Zeku, Stupendous’ Zangief, Dankadillas’ Dhalsim, and much more!
You can find more Wednesday Night Fights stream replays over on the Body Count Fighting channel!
Jumping in is certainly stronger in Street Fighter V than many players would like.
VesperArcade is joined by Mir on this discussion video, in which they explore what needs to be improved about Street Fighter V‘s neutral game — this time specifically, they’re talking about anti-airs.
It’s widely agreed that anti-airs are too weak in Street Fighter V, either not damaging enough, or not setting up fortuitous situations for the defender; they certainly aren’t as threatening to potential jumpers as they could be. When a single landed jump-in combo can outstrip the damage from multiple successful anti-airs, the risk vs. reward system seems to be severely imbalanced in favor of offense. VesperArcade and Mir talk about what anti-airs work in SFV and which ones don’t, and what they hope to see changed for Season 4 — such as altered scaling rules to allow anti-air specials to hit harder, or heavy normals causing juggle states to allow for anti-air follow-ups.
