Developer Mane6 has announced that their bovine-themed fighter, Them’s Fightin’ Herds, is officially shooting for a February 2018 release date. The announcement marks a end to a journey few thought possible for a Fighter Maker-based project marred in legal threats early on in development.
Mane6 was saved by the unlikely support of SkullgirlsMike Zaimont and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic‘s producer Lauren Faust, not to mention a successful crowdfunding campaign. Them’s Fightin’ Herds features Faust’s colorful designs, chain-based combo system, and GGPO-powered netplay.
The team has chronicled the development process of their game over on their YouTube channel, for anyone curious about the behind-the-scenes efforts needed to make an indie fighter.
Rashid has been a popular character for breakout stars in Street Fighter V this season. Kanemori “Gachikun” Tsunehiro — despite being known for his Sagat play in Street Fighter IV — has been one such breakout star. Currently, he sits as the highest-ranked player in the CPT standings without a sponsorship.
Obviously, one can’t expect him to remain unsponsored for long — and doubly so, if he performs well at his first Capcom Cup appearance. What are the odds of that happening?
The Wind Always Blows in Your Face
One of the first things you notice about Gachikun is how aggressive his Rashid is. From moment one, he starts out with aggression. If you are not prepared for a relentless assault, Gachikun is simply going to shake you to your core.
This would almost seem like a stark contrast from play Street Fighter IV, given his character choices. However, if you look at his Sagat in the game, he put himself in far more aggressive ranges than Sagat players typically do. Whereas most players would rely on the zoning game and reactionary play from that, Gachikun was prone to playing a solid footsies game on top of the fireball game. He always likes to be in your face, within reason — obviously point blank doesn’t work with Sagat in SFIV, but it’s a range that Rashid thrives in. This character rewards his aggression well, and allows him to win a lot on rattling his opponents who would rather him be further away.
Rolling in the Thick of Things
In his breakout year, Gachikun has put together an impressive string of results. In a matter of seven Premier events, he placed in the top 8 four times, with two second place finishes. All of these strong finishes have put him in a great spot for his seeding at #15, after NuckleDu dropped out.
Further, he has done well off the circuit, with a second-place finish at Red Bull Kumite. He has consistently been near the top of the heap, and his results show that.
The Ceiling
But his consistency is also his sign of having difficulties winning it all. Second place is the best he has done in any event. Even during Esports Festival Hong Kong, Zhi remarked that Daigo said that he struggled against Gachikun, only to beat him twice on the way to the title. He was further toppled by Nemo at Red Bull Kumite, Infiltration at Manila Cup, and Problem X at EGX. He also lost to Yukadon and Fuudo at D3.
Several of these characters show a pattern. With Urien, Guile, and Ibuki, they have the ability to zone him out and keep him away from that range he loves to utilize throughout the duration of a round. Even if they aren’t able to, they have options to push him off relatively well.
With a character like Bison in Problem X, Bison loves to do the exact things Gachikun likes, but has even better spacing, which makes it more difficult to push him away. This forces Gachikun to be even more careful in his approach, and makes every knockdown difficult to deal with for him. Infiltration’s Juri provided much of the same frustration for him, including more mix-ups.
But while these individual matches can make life a veritable hell for Gachikun’s Rashid, the problem also stems from within Gachikun. His limited tournament experience on the international stage has definitely been the empty space in his toolbox, and it will take some time for him to adjust. Doing well in Topanga league is a far different experience than doing well in double-elimination tournaments. He’s finding that out, and will need to adapt to this in order to see his stock rise.
Final Thoughts
Gachikun is going to wow some people. His aggression is something that will blow some people’s minds. But the problem is he’s facing players who already know this — his first round is against GO1, who will know full well what he’ll see from Gachikun.
Western players will be far more taken aback, and for this reason, he stands to possibly make top 8. I just wouldn’t place money on him come Grand Finals, if he gets that far.
We’re just three days away now from the release of the final three initial DLC characters for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. In preparation, Maximilian recently went down to the Capcom USA offices to capture footage of the three new challengers, looking to break each of them down before their official release.
After covering a team-specific version of Winter Soldier’s Level 3, when he’s paired alongside Captain America, Max begins to move into specific individual character breakdowns, starting with undeniably the most anticipated character of this release, Venom.
For anyone who mained him in Marvel vs. Capcom 1 and 2 like myself, you’ll be pleased to know that he has avoided the overhaul treatment that Thanos received, retaining all of his classic attacks. His normals all appear to function similarly to older games, complete with his fantastic multi-hitting Jumping Heavy Kick, that will surely provide nasty cross-ups, and his Venom Predate Command Normal. Unlike his webbed counterpart, Venom gets full solo OTG combos off of his Web Throws, and new tools such as his Venom Glide, Venom Barrel and an Air Dash, providing him with unprecedented aerial mobility compared to past forms.
Though he doubts the utility of Venom Rush and the Death Bite Hyper Combo, Max feels that this is easily the strongest version of Venom. The addition of Venom Traps gives him a great deal of screen control, especially with the properties of Venom Web and the amount of things he can likely evade with it.
To close out the video, Max shows off a full match between two Capcom staff members, featuring Venom and Monster Hunter taking on Black Widow and Strider Hiryu, with both squads using the freshly nerfed Reality Stone.
Another week, another new character reveal trailer for the upcoming Dragon Ball FighterZ. This time, IKevinX turns his attention to the freshly-revealed Kid Buu, who served as the final villain to close Akira Toriyama’s original manga and the Dragon Ball Z era of the franchise. The purest from of Majin Buu before he absorbed the Southern and Grand Supreme Kais, this smaller incarnation knows only destruction, to the point he doesn’t care about or even understand anything else but the evil feeling of joy from causing untold havoc across the universe.
In terms of his Arc System Works incarnation, Kid Buu’s supremely unpredictable movements and usage of his lighter elastic body make him impossible to pin down. Taking chief inspiration from the final battle with Goku and Vegeta on the Sacred World of the Kais, Kid Buu retains his signature Mystic Attacks, including the Mystic Ball Attack, seen only in the anime, as well as his manga-exclusive candy beam.
We can also see his mouth-beam, Gack! and Majin Kamehameha. He appears to have inherited both Super Buu’s Humanity Extinction Wave, as well as his backwards Mystic Ball curl — perhaps deconfirming Buu’s strongest incarnation and tragically squashing any hopes for a full Team Buu.
Finally, his Level 3 is, of course, the Planet Burst/Super Vanishing Ball, which Kid Buu utilized to literally wipe the Earth from the map of Universe 7. You can see the full video, set to his DBGT Final Bout theme below, along with links to all of IKevinX’s previous coverage.
Dragon Ball FighterZ will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on January 26th, 2018 in North America and Europe in standard, FighterZ, Ultimate and CollectorZ editions. A Japanese release will follow on those same platforms on February 1st. An open beta will be held sometime in January, before the title’s full release.
Yesterday, the WSO Open saw some of Europe’s greatest Street Fighter V players competing in a special festive tournament. Along with top UK talent like Problem X, Packz, Hurricane, Afii and Infexious (to name but a few), some of France’s biggest threats journeyed across the Channel to fly the Tricolore.
Ultimately, it was an all UK final, with Problem X facing off against Hurricane in a 10-game Grand Finals. Hurricane’s time at Gfinity has really sharpened up his play, with him defeating Problem X 3-1 in Winners’ Finals, and then taking both Grand Finals sets to the final game. While Cammy did most of the work, Hurricane did use Abigail for certain matches in bracket — with the Mad Gear meathead earning him a victory against Problem X’s Zangief in the opening game of Grand Finals.
Problem X did bring home the crown in the end, eventually bringing out his Bison to win this Christmas edition of WSO Open. The Zangief pick must be in preparation for Capcom Cup next weekend, as his opponents will no doubt be expecting the Bison in bracket. Hopefully, the combination of both Muscle and Psycho Power will see Problem X taking the Capcom Cup back to London.
You can watch the entire Top 8 via the playlist below and for the whole bracket breakdown, check out the dedicated Challonge page.
“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!
Continuing its recent string of classic SNK tournaments, today’s game is Samurai Shodown 2 (known in Japan as Shin Samurai Spirits).
Arguably one of the most beloved fighters in the SNK catalog, Samurai Shodown 2 is a highly competitive and consistently run game at Mikado Arcade. Light on combos and heavy on smart poking, SS2 is a treat for anyone craving some simple and solid footsies.
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!
Gundam Versus will be getting a number of new DLC mobile suits this month. In addition to the GM Sniper II and Aegis Gundam, coming in a couple of weeks, the game will also be getting 2 new suits next week.
Hailing from the Level-5 co-produced series Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, the AGE-2 Gundam AGE-2 comes to battle piloted by second generation pilot Asemu Asuno. It fights by switching between different AGE-2 variants, such as the “Normal” and “Double Bullet”.
The RX-78-6 Mudrock Gundam on the other hand is an original design variation by original mecha designer Kunio Okawara, that was later revamped for the PlayStation 2 game Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front. Piloted by Agar, this suit expands on the armament of the original RX-78-2 Gundam, adding a pair of 300mm cannons and another pair of grenade launchers, at the cost of some mobility.
Both these mobile suits will be available for Gundam Versus in Japan on December 5 for ¥602 each (plus tax).
A new Twitter hashtag popped up recently: #格闘ゲームで一番好きな調整ミスを語ろう — which more or less means: “talk about your favorite fighting game tunings missteps” or, in layman’s terms, bugs. Japanese players got busy posting some hilarious videos showing either bugs or obviously overpowered things that were most likely fixed, eventually. And apologies in advance, but I can’t possibly explain every single one of them, so feel free to sound out in the comments.
Maybe this Guilty Gear clip isn’t funny at first, but once you know what the dynamic here is, you’ll feel sorry for Chipp. After taking Chipp’s regular throw, which has slow recovery, there’s enough time for Potemkin to get up and Potemkin Buster Chipp.
The clip shows a snippet from a UFC game, but the linked YouTube clip has more footage of funny bugs from various sports games.
The hashtag just started trending recently, so many more videos and memories continue to show up; if you want to see more, check it out on Twitter with this link for it: #格闘ゲームで一番好きな調整ミスを語ろう
It’s never a bad moment to get a little nostalgic when it comes to video games, and video creator Gamewisk agrees. He takes a look at Art of Fighting, a ’90s trilogy of games developed by SNK, initially for the Neo Geo, and then for various other platforms.
The video focuses on the SNES port of the Art of Fighting, which introduced the creator to fighting games. It was one of the first fighting games with Super moves, more balanced fireball zoning, and dashing. Some characters, like Ryo, were a reference to Street Fighter‘s Ryu. Fans are probably familiar with King, who hides her identity as a woman unless defeated in battle. The songs are important, too, and Gamewisk raves about his favorite pieces. You’ll get to hear about Geese Howard, too.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve played Art of Fighting, and give a shout-out to the creator for this new video series. His Twitter is Gamewisk.
Thomas “Brolynho” Proença has had a banner year. While he was unable to truly show off what he was made of at Capcom Cup 2016 — winning just one match — the drive to get better from that showing was obvious. He has dominated the Latin American region, and cemented his return ticket to Capcom Cup with relative ease.
Is the second time a charm for the Brazilian?
Devour
Last year, I commented on his well-rounded Necalli play. He was using every tool to the best of his knowledge, and made it work. He later found that at Capcom Cup, that doesn’t work out as well.
F3|Brolynho has clearly recognized how much Street Fighter V rewards aggression, and has turned that factor up a notch. He seems to be taking pages from Xiao Hai’s strategy and only giving up space to let opponents hang themselves. You often see Brolynho back up to bait players into making unsafe and desperate approaches, only to have the right button to stuff it. This kind of play makes you almost scared to do anything — which makes it an easy road to victory for him.
All He Does Is Win
Proença has earned his spot in spades this year. Having only really played in Latin America, he won a string of ranking events that can hardly be contested by anyone. In a staggering nine events, he has won five. Further, in all eight ranking events he played within the region, he didn’t miss top 8 in any of them.
While this speaks of his success in Latin America, the one international CPT event he played in was Evo, where he made top 32. This shows that he has the chops to play on the international stage. Further, he was just shy of making top 16 at Brooklyn Beatdown, again proving his mettle.
ISO Frequent Flyer Miles
The one thing that can nag you about Brolynho is just how little he has traveled this year. Given he has made it into Capcom Cup primarily off of being the best in South America, that isn’t necessarily the litmus test to say that he’s going to be a major threat in Anaheim. Sure, you’re the best in your region, but when your region doesn’t see that much international competition, that always puts the question of how ready you are to face the best in the world.
The best thing to do is see what his path was at Brooklyn Beatdown and Evo and how they stopped. His only marked victory at the ESL event was a win over Dieminion, but he soon after dropped to Kazunoko. This also means that he was put into Losers Bracket during pool play. He beat players like Brian_F and Smug at Evo, while losing to Bonchan and Yukadon. Of the international players he’s on the record of having beat, only one of them is currently in Capcom Cup, while the others are not. However, everyone that has beat them are potentially people he could face at Capcom Cup.
This isn’t something that you can say to dismiss him from having a chance. But there’s one more thing.
Everything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
Haitani has been travelling this year, and has done well with Necalli in his own right. Really, the two draw a similar parallel in their play this year, and thus people who would be ready for Haitani would also be ready for Brolynho.
While we could wonder whether Brolynho would have a higher seed than Haitani if he were to travel more, the fact of the matter is that Haitani has been facing the tougher players all year. Brolynho hasn’t. Not only will he have a chance to struggle against those better caliber players, they will also have a chance to show off more understanding of the Necalli match than he is prepared for.
Final Thoughts
Brolynho isn’t the only Latin American in Capcom Cup, but he is arguably the best in the region. While you could wager that MenaRD is better, the results in the region don’t lie: Brolynho is solid. The problem for me is that he’s a big fish in a small pond, and is about to be dumped into the larger one.
He’s been there before, but he hasn’t had a chance to do much to prove that he’s ready to deal with the bigger fish just yet. I’m almost expecting a repeat of his 25th place performance last year, but would love to be surprised.
(@nekosen_saki01) 
Haitani has been travelling this year, and has done well with Necalli in his own right. Really, the two draw a similar parallel in their play this year, and thus people who would be ready for Haitani would also be ready for Brolynho.