The “Super Street Fighter Carnival 2017” festivities continue! SSFC2017 is the currently-ongoing Japanese tournament series at Mikado Arcade that pays tribute to older — and often obscure — fighting games. If you missed the first few tournaments from SSFC2017, don’t sweat it!
The King of Fighters series is not exactly obscure, at least when compared to most games played during Mikado’s multi-month events. Still, if an KOF game is being played at Mikado, it’s usually ’95 or ’98: rarely, if ever, have I seen them pick ’97.
And that’s unfortunate, because despite some problems (of the balance and infinite variety, mostly) there’s still some great ideas in KOF ’97. This is the game that introduced ‘”Advanced Mode,” which allowed for multi-stocks of super meter, and it’s also the origin of some legacy KOF’s most famous antagonists: Chris, Yashiro, and Shermie.
As always, you can follow along Mikado’s upload schedule on YouTube, or try to catch them live on their UStream.
Ryu may have been left behind by Street Fighter V‘s meta, but that hasn’t stopped the truly dedicated from advancing his game-plan. pdcsky is one of (if not the) most active content creators for Ryu technology, and presented here is his latest exploration in the Ryu vs. Akuma match-up.
He covers Ryu’s punishes and optimal options versus Akuma’s main arsenal…
Akuma’s dive kick at various ranges…
…and Akuma’s various Demon Flip options.
If you’ve ever been unsure how to respond to Akuma’s pressure or options, this is the perfect series for you to study.
What does it take to become the best Super Smash Bros. Melee player in the world? For Team Alliance’s Adam “Armada” Lindgren, it was not just confidence, dedication, perseverance, and experience that got him to the top of the Melee mountain. As he mentions in a clip from The Big House 4: if Armada doesn’t get first place, it’s not good enough for him.
In the latest video by theScore esports, Armada goes over his competitive roots in the Super Smash Bros. series, and the surprisingly tough obstacles he had to overcome to get to where’s he’s at now. He talks about his first taste of competition in Super Smash Bros. 64 and Melee in Europe, his original main character before playing Peach, his first time traveling and competing in the United States, the brief retirement period, and eventual return to dominance since Apex and Evolution 2013. If you ever wanted to know more about Armada, check out the video below.
PandaXGaming has just announced that their “Ultra Fight Night: Battle in the Pandagon” exhibition series will be making its grand return this January at Kumite In Tennessee 2018, with a pair of blockbuster, superhero-filled, matchups in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Injustice 2.
First up, the feature fight of the evening will see Battle for the Stones Champion FORT|Cloud805 take on Echo Fox|Sonic Fox in a runback from the Red Bull Proving Grounds. Except this time, it will be in a first-to-ten affair, as voted on by fans in a recent Twitter poll.
Both players have looked extremely solid since the game’s release, with Cloud recently gaining control of the MvC:I Universe and the Infinity Gauntlet by winning Battle for the Stones, taking out the likes of KaneBlueRiver, RISE|Richard Nguyen, Splyce|RyanLV and EG|NYChris G in two separate encounters.
Meanwhile, Sonic Fox has also proven that he’s no slouch either, winning CEOtaku, coming in second at Red Bull Battle Grounds — where he scored a 3-0 victory over Cloud to reset the bracket before falling in the end, leaving their current record of tournament games at a dead even 6-6 split. He has also been a dominating force at Next Level Battle Circuit, regularly defeating names such as Panda Global’s Coach Steve and RayRay, Method’s Flux and even besting Filipino Champ in two FT10s.
With the recent balance update nerfing both members of Zero May Cry heavily, along with Fox adding Venom, Black Widow — and possibly Gamora — to his cast of characters, it will interesting to see the adjustments both warriors have made since their last encounter — which could serve to decide who the true King of MAHVEL really is at this moment. IFC Yipes will also be on hand for play-by-play commentary.
The second match on tap will see top Catwoman and Starfire player Noble|Semiij battle America’s best Batman, Circa|Forever King on the battleground of Injustice 2. Though the two have met on the online warzone of War of the Gods, they have yet to really face one another in an offline setting for this game. To further promote the event, Panda conducted an interview with Forever King about his upcoming match, which you can see below along with the announcement tweets.
It all goes down at Kumite in Tennessee 2018, which runs January 5 – 7th, at the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs in Franklin, Tennessee. You can register online, before December 29th, at smash.gg/kit18, and book hotel reservations at www.kitrevival.com/hotel. Give us your picks for these battles in the comments below.
Continuing their excellent Tekken 7 Essentials series, That Blasted Salami is covering the fundamentals behind one of Tekken 7‘s most difficult characters to play: the adopted Mishima, Lee Chaolan.
Lee’s strengths lie in his wall carry, evasive poking, and some of the best counter-hit and keep-out tools in Tekken. His hurdles — complexity, weak punishment versus push-out, and difficultly opening up opponents — can be mitigated with hard work and patience. You can start your journey to obtain both with this excellent rundown of Lee’s move-list and game-plan.
As it enters the next stage of its Fig campaign, Earth Romancer‘s sole developer Thomas “BlankMauser” Luvan has released a short interview, talking about his goals with Earth Romancer. With it taking inspiration from multiple genres — not just from other fighting games — Luvan is hoping that Earth Romancer will be a true evolution of the platform fighter, rather than just it iterating on Super Smash Bros. Melee or Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
Based on the complexity of its systems, Earth Romancer is clearly aimed to please the hardcore competitive crowd. While other fighting games are pursuing accessibility with mixed results, Luvan is aiming to provide a huge creative sandbox that players can go wild experimenting in. It should still have the “pick up and play” feel that Smash has, while also providing that mechanical depth for dedicated players to immerse themselves in. The ultimate goal of Earth Romancer is “helping people understand the joy of playing a complex fighter.”
While some may have been turned off by the initial two character designs, not all of Earth Romancer‘s cast is made up of anthropomorphized animals. The full game will feature solar-powered cyborgs, water valkyries, rabbit time lords and even a space pirate boxing champion — so there’s something for everyone. When you also consider each character has two movesets thanks to Earth Romancer‘s Red and Blueshift system, platform fighter fans have got plenty to sink their teeth into, should Earth Romancer be funded successfully.
If you wish to hear the whole developer interview, check out the video below. Along with Luvan explaining more about the game (and showing off some never before seen characters), it has brief interviews with GRAPHT’s Gllty and famed Melee commentator prog about Earth Romancer‘s potential.
Hot on the heels of the most recent batch of character trailers, Square Enix has released even more of them for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. While the previous batch focused on the heroes from the earliest installments, this recent batch is more about those from the height of the series’ popularity, in the mid-nineties.
The trailers below give us a look at Final Fantasy V‘s Bartz Klauser (Butz in Japan), Final FantasyVI‘s Terra Branford (Tina in Japan), Final Fantasy VII‘s Cloud Strife, Final Fantasy VIII‘s Squall Leonhart, and Final Fantasy IX‘s Zidane Tribal. As with the previous batch, each shows off a bit of the characters’ story before delving into action sequences to show off their gameplay.
Check these character trailers out below:
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT arrives on PlayStation 4 on January 11th in Japan, and January 30th in North America and Europe.
Here’s another batch of tech from the Fighting EX Layer beta!
Expanding on the Kara Skullo Dream found by NerdJosh in the last roundup, bea べあ shows off its synergy with his chain series and Shinobi Gougi.
Skullomania needs meter for his kara ‘”grab” though. Darun, as youhousan found out, is just fine using his command grab.
youhousan also has some nice Darun combos to show off. This is the first time I’ve seen someone’s air throw bounce off the wall, though it certainly looked like a glitch more then anything.
Quise B has a nice combo off of Gouga (HCF+K) for Garuda. Considering the combo after the super fireball hits, I wonder if this can be taken even further with dash-canceled normals?
This was inevitable: here’s This One 6uy‘s unblockable setup into guaranteed Skulloball.
It’s unlikely this dash link will remain, considering the infinite its a part of, but this combo from Tipsy Ruben uses the exploit in a flashy way.
ARIKA really likes the idea of a Raging Demon, with two of the demo characters being built around the powerful super throw. Thorasskicker has a great setup for Shirase that comes directly from a chain combo.
A character we haven’t seen a lot of tech from comparatively is Kairi. I know he’s disappointing to some, considering the creative ideas Kairi had in the past, such as his disappearing fireball and own Raging Demon. But don’t sleep on this incarnation either: here’s some combos from mariotaz to show why!
Y. Xiao has some very clever cross-up tatsu setups with Kairi.
And last but not least, be glad that this game dosen’t have stun. Because if it did, imagine what infinite Gougi Allen could do to you with this combo from Pigi86.
January 16th cannot come fast enough for Sakura fans. With her being the first DLC character for Season 3 of Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, people are eager to see exactly what she will be able to do in the game’s system.
While her trailer gave us glimpses into what she is capable of, VesperArcade took the time to break down what we are seeing piece by piece. With speculations into what her moves are — combined with the information given from Capcom Unity — we are able to see how combo-heavy and juggle-heavy she is. We also see how expansive her V-Skill is with triple follow-up, including her dive kick — which was a strong move in Capcom vs. SNK 2.
“Super Street Fighter Carnival 2017” marches on! SSFC2017 is the currently-ongoing Japanese tournament series at Mikado Arcade for a wide variety of classic (and sometimes, obscure) arcade titles. If you missed the first few tournaments from SSFC2017, there’s a lot to catch up on!
Today’s tournaments may both be 3D fighters, but they couldn’t be further apart in terms of mechanics: Sega’s Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, and SNK’s Buriki One.
If the Virtua Fighter series helped define the 3D fighting genre standards, then Buriki One is a complete rejection of them. Buttons are used for movement, the joystick is used to execute attacks, and ring outs simply return you back to the center of the ring. Also, yes, that’s Art of Fighting‘s Ryo Sakazaki you see guest starring in the roster!
Enjoying SSFC2017? You can follow the action by subscribing to Mikado’s official YouTube channel, or you can even try to catch Mikado Arcade when they livestream.
