Category: Videos

First the PGR, then SSBMRank and now the Japan Power Ranking! With Evo coming up on us fast, Japanese statistician haruki has finally released the country’s full Smash 4 Power Ranking. Larger than most Western variants, their ranking lists the country’s 200 best players, with the top 30 having their achievements memorialized in video form.

The videos showing off the top 30 are truly something–with each player getting a breakdown of their best wins, a map showing where they have competed and even a special end-card which relates to a memorable moment from their Smash career. I’d love to see haruki and editor cooder collaborate with the PG Stats team for the PGR v4, as the editing in these videos really add some personality to the whole affair.

As for the actual rankings, KEN has held onto the title as Japan’s best Smash 4 player, with 2GG’s komorikiri retaining his second place position. LG|Abadango has moved up from seventh to third place, while former bronze medalist Shuton has dropped down to sixth. You can find last season’s list here, if you want to check how the positions have changed.

Out of the top 15, only four–Choco, Shuton, T and Hikaru–are not attending Evo this year. With Japan fielding so many heavy hitters for this year’s event, I’d be surprised if you didn’t see at least two or three players on this list making it to Sunday finals. You also have to note the huge character variety in Japan’s ranking, when compared to the West. Every top 10 player mains a different character and the only repeating characters are Bayonetta, Rosalina and Luma, Pit and Duck Hunt.

Source: Harukisb

David “UltraDavid” Graham and James Chen are the hosts of the aptly named UltraChenTV show. This livestreamed series is a weekly discussion of the latest news and chatter in the FGC, and there’s no FGC topic bigger right now then this weekend’s Evolution 2017.

The two renowned commentators break down the game lists, rules changes, stats, and what their expectations are for the event.

There are also special guests to discuss various major tournaments. For The King of Fighters XIV, Giby “Dr KOF” Zia gives his predictions for the top players. Since his 2014 predictions were 100% accurate, it’s worth listening to his analysis!

To talk Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, they bring on the one and only Steve “Tasty Steve” Scott.

UltraDavid happens to be a strong follower of Injustice 2, so he leads the way in this NetherRealm Studios discussion.

To discuss Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Nintendo’s favorite commentator D’Ron “D1” Maingrette was brought on board.

Circa ESports manager Brandon “Tuboware” Brockman sings the praises of Tokido for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

James “XiePlus” Xie thinks this year’s BlazBlue tournament is too close to call, citing the unprecedented number of champions attending for the first time.

Reepal “Rip” Parbhoo of Level Up Your Game thinks top 8 will be all international players in Tekken 7.

And, of course, as Street Fighter experts, Team UltraChen tackle Street Fighter V.

And that’s every main-stage game broken down for your listening pleasure! Hopefully this Evo preview tides you over ’til Friday.

Source: UltraChenTV

Teased by SNK earlier today and then revealed on the PlayStation Blog, an uncut version of Samurai Shodown V Special is coming to PS4 and PS Vita. This port contains all the blood and gore from the arcade original, with a beta version playable at Evo 2017.

SNK are working with Code Mystics for this port–the company who handled the recent PS4 and PS Vita rerelease of Garou: Mark of the Wolves. As a result, this version of Samurai Shodown V Special will feature Trophies, online multiplayer and a special Gallery mode where players can unlock artwork and other behind-the-scenes bits and pieces.

If you want to try out the beta build of the SNK classic, it will be playable at the Sega/Atlus booth on the Evo show floor.

Source: PlayStation

Since the week of E3 and CEO 2017, we haven’t really seen much in the way of new gameplay footage for Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. This is something that has left more than a few disappointed, considering that the gameplay is the best thing about the game in its current state. But now we finally have some new, direct feed, gameplay footage.

The new footage comes from Sony’s own PlayStation Underground. The footage in question (which seems to have been shot at E3) goes over both the publicly downloadable Story Demo, as well as the versus demo that was shown at E3 and CEO. Capcom’s Peter “ComboFiend” Rosas chimes in on the latter, where he shows the PlayStation Underground’s Ryan Clements the ropes and tries his best to not beat the him up too hard.

At over 20 minutes long, there’s quite a bit of footage to pore through here. Alongside explaining the game’s systems such as the Infinity Surge and Infinity Storm, as well as the optional easy combos, we also get to see some characters we didn’t get to see much of in previous footage, such as Ryu and his new moves such as his new Evil Ryu banishing level 3 hyper, and his Sen Hadouken beam special. Additionally, we get to see just how much the damage difference between auto combos and regular, manually performed, combos is (it’s a lot).

Source: PlayStation Underground

After doing a series of videos covering the changes of some of the Injustice: Gods Among Us veterans heading into Injustice 2, PND|Ketchup and Mustard have decided to make videos looking at any patch changes that come to the game, starting with the title’s most recent update.

Though it was more about fixing bugs and providing some quality-of-life improvements to the game, the patch did impact several characters by fixing a bug that allowed several heroes and villains to get full combos off of throw techs while there traits were active. These included the likes of Atrocitus, Batman, Dr. Fate and Brainiac.

In the case of Atrocitus and Batman, this removes some extremely high-damaging combos that they could get off of restands and certain Interactables that was unintentional. However the one seemingly hit the hardest by this change is Dr. Fate, who can no longer combo off of his throw midscreen with his Traited ankhs, though he can still combo off of Final Judgment and Final Punishment in the corner as intended.

Brainac’s Beta Strike will now be destroyed if it is out after a Throw Escape, but the Collector Of Worlds can still combo off of drone calls with some tight execution. You can see the full video below and read the full list of patch changes here.

What do you think of these changes? Do you appreciate NetherRealm’s more conservative approach to patching as we head into Evo? Let us know in the comments.

Source: PNDK&M