While it’s certainly the most successful, NetherRealm Studios’ Injustice series isn’t the first time that DC Comic’s Justice League has had their own fighting game. Back in 1995, Sunsoft and Blizzard Entertainment worked together on their own take on a Justice League fighting game: Justice League Task Force.
In his latest combo video, desk celebrates both the past and the present of Justice League fighting games, showcasing combos for both Justice League Task Force and Injustice 2. As part of this, desk highlights certain moves and animations that are similar in both games, using them as a way to transition between the two titles.
Tekken 7 is entering its third year in the Evolution Championship Series, and this year should be the fiercest competition to date. Maybe that’s not a particularly bold claim to make, since the game has been closed off to the majority of the world until its console launch last month. But even with the game being in console infancy, high-level tournament play has already been full of intense nail-biters and hype upsets.
This Evo is also of significant importance for the defending champion, Echo Fox|Jin-Woo “Saint” Choi. Tekken has only had one back-to-back winner in Evo history: Christopher “Crow” Villarreal won both Tekken 5 events in ’05 and ’06. A back-to-back victory for Saint would be historic. But his biggest competition is his own teammate: Echo Fox|Kim “JDCR” Hyun Jin, a former Evo champion for Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
Looking forward to Tekken at Evo? Want to know the personalities you should keep an eye on? Well then, let me introduce you to…
The Spectator’s Guide to Tekken 7
There are a lot of components that make up a great Tekken tournament. If you’re completely new to Tekken at all, here’s some of what you’ll be in for:
The Neutral
Fans of advanced movement, spacing and teeth-grinding mind games should look forward to any top tier Tekken match. Check out last year’s Evo Finals between Knee and Saint: not just because of the players themselves, but as an example of the sort of character-specific footsies on display. Jack-7 is constantly working to maintain a range to where he can backdash or step a move, then whiff punish with his long range df+2/jabs/lows. While the big bot’s keep-out game is one of the more extreme examples of Tekken, space control is a central theme in Tekken play.
The Combos
Tekken 7 is notorious for its juggle system. While some characters in high-level play may not have generally difficult tournament combos, there is no way we won’t see some advanced conversions on the world’s largest stage. Remember that the longer a combo is in Tekken, the further the game sends the enemy flying away from you, making it harder and harder to actually connect with hits. There’s a reason why a video of JDCR’s hands has 18,000 views: the precision for high level play in Tekken is as mind blowing as it is crucial.
The Tech Traps
One area that will make this year’s Tekken significantly different is the impact of so many new players having access to the console version. We all know that when players get to spend time in the lab, they can cook up some wild stuff. There are a lot of traps in Tekken 7 based off the way you get off the ground or wall — I can promise someone will whip out a head-turning gimmick at some point on stream.
The Players
You can’t have a tournament without the players, obviously! Tekken is a legacy fighting game series with a wide variety of personalities. Over the last year, Korea’s cream of the crop Saint and JDCR have established themselves as the two to beat. Here are some of the players hoping to prevent yet another all Korea Grand Finals.
Speedkicks
Main: Hwoarang
Stephen “Speedkicks” Stafford is somehow a free agent despite winning 3 Tekken 7 majors in 2017 alone. He has a lot in his favor going into Evo 2017: Momentum, a rushdown heavy playstyle, and a difficult to deal with technical character in Hwoarang. The only thing really missing from his resume is a win over one of Team Echo Fox’s Korean powerhouses. It’s safe to say he’ll have some new ideas for dealing with them now that the game is out: but will he really be able to bring something to the table these pros aren’t ready for?
Tanukana
Main: Xiaoyu
Cyclops Osaka|Kana “Tanukana” Tani has been on a meteoric climb in Tekken 7. After traveling to a string of majors in the US, her most recent placement in 3rd at Combo Breaker has solidified her as a threat to anyone that runs into her. She plays a tricky, powerful character that requires advance awareness of her gimmicks to fight against. Tanukana herself is smart and agile, and she has shown that she’s not afraid to laugh and have fun mid-game: meaning you won’t be able to get under her skin.
Team ITS
Main: Read below.
Team ITS has positioned itself as the #1 North American sponsorship for Tekken players. The list of talent for Team ITS is borderline unfair to almost all other promotions in the country. There’s a lot of recognizable names: Spero Gin, JoeyFury, Crowder, Lil Majin, CuddleCore, MYK… you know what, just check out their website. It’s a laundry list of who’s-who in American Tekken. Team ITS has the claim to defeating the top Koreans, as well: Joey Fury beat both Echo Fox|JDCR and Saint at Final Round 20. At the same event, Spero Gin was the one to send Saint home. Final Round 20 was a good tournament for Team ITS, to say the least.
Knee
Main: Bryan
We cannot talk about major Tekken players to watch for without mentioning Jae Min “Knee” Bae. Knee has dominated in various Tekken games for a very long time, and his execution and skill with Bryan is the stuff of legends.
But a Tekken 7 major win has always been just out of reach of the taunting master. 2nd at Evo 2016, second at King of Iron Fist 2015. No one doubts his potential to get to the finals, but will he find what’s missing in his game so that he can get 1st?
Nobi
Main: Dragunov
Nakayama “Nobi” Daichi has somewhat fallen off the radar in 2017, but Evo could be the chance for this Japanese Tekken vet to re-emerge. He’s the winner of Evolution 2015, and one of Japan’s strongest all-time players. His lack of major wins this year only imply one thing: he’s probably going to be hungry for Tekken 7 championship #2.
GetNews|Pekos
Main: King
Kaichi “Pekos” Yota has been off the radar ever since his 5th place finish at Evo 2015. It doesn’t look like this King main will have any ring rust, though: he just got sponsored by GetNews, just in time for Evo. Will he repeat his magic from 2015?
Chikurin
Main: Jin
This elusive Japanese pro has only shown up at a few major events, but each time he proved himself to be a force to be reckoned with. He secured 9th in the King of the Iron Fist 2016 world tournament, and made it there by winning the Osaka qualifier. You know who else was at this qualifer? Nobi, who crumbled in 4th. Chikurin is a threat, and with his presence at Evo, this could be his year to emerge from the shadows.
And so many more…
For the first time EVER, Tekken joins the 1000 man club at Evo! Congrats! #Evo2017
Frankly, the amount of talent that the Tekken series has built up over the years is staggering. There’s a lot of strong players in the world, and there’s always the surprise factor of a off-the-radar player scoring a big win.
Evo 2017 is just around the corner, running from July 14th through 16th. Tekken 7 has officially broken 1,000 entrants, making this the largest Tekken tournament ever at Evo [it closed at 1278 registrants! – Editor]. In just a little over a week, we’ll know which one of these is the Tekken 7 world champion at Evo 2017!
It’s time for another entry in the TEKKEN TRAINING: Electric Wind God Vids series! This week, we’re covering Tekken’s most well-known launcher: the hopkick.
In last week’s video we explained the basic rock-paper-scissors of jabs, crouching jabs, and hopkicks. This week we’re focusing exclusively on the hopkick: what it is, how to use it, and what you can do about it.
For more TEKKEN TRAINING, be sure to subscribe to ShoryukenTube! And if you have any specific questions about Tekken game-play you’d like covered in a future video, let us know in the comments!
Square Enix has been pretty consistent with adding new content to Dissidia Final Fantasy with their monthly updates to the arcade version of the game. This month is no different!
The upcoming update to Dissidia Final Fantasy will bring with it a new stage, the Lunar Subterrane. Those familiar with the franchise will recognize it the area as the final dungeon of Final Fantasy IV (originally released as Final Fantasy II in North America). For those wondering how the stage will look like in Dissidia Final Fantasy, Square Enix has released a trailer for it — that can be seen below.
The Lunar Subterrane will hit Dissidia Final Fantasy in arcades on July 12. Meanwhile, the home console version, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT hits PlayStation 4 early in 2018. It will also be playable at Square Enix’s booth at Evo 2017.
Street Fighter V Season 2.5 is out, and I’m here with another character tutorial. I’m putting emphasis on characters whose combo options changed significantly between the updates, so today’s video is the teenage ninja Ibuki. This video contains all of her bread and butter punishes and confirms, counter-hit setups and damage optimization, tools against fireballs, frame traps listed by delay, meaty pressure, setups, and more. If you want to learn Ibuki, everything you need to know should be right here.
My own Street Fighter V bread and butter combo videos are by far my most popular YouTube videos. However, the vast majority of them were made during the third SFV public beta test. While almost no serious balance changes were made between that beta and release, certain damage values were incorrect and the players have had a lot of time to develop. The initial videos were made based on my own training mode findings and nothing else, and were fully featured around combos. I asked around, and have decided to flesh them into full character guides, now including a basic game plan I’ve summarized from watching a lot of pro matches. This is the full scope of my observations on Ibuki. As usual, I’ve included an enormous guide in the video description. This video is intended as a supplement to that guide, so make sure to check it out.
Currently I’m trying to release one of these tutorials every other week, until I’ve covered all characters. I originally intend to do the characters in order of most to least popular, however as I said, I do want to prioritize characters who were heavily affected by Season 2 and Season 2.5 balance adjustments. Remember to subscribe to the Shoryuken channel, and keep an eye out for future videos!
Ambassador is one of the signature NPCs coming in Ship of Heroes. In the latest video put out by the team, he is shown using his “Street Sweeper” powerset. The twelve abilities shown are, of course, subject to change but they show how the game is progressing in development so far.
As you’ve seen by now, Arc System Works and Bandai Namco Entertainment have been paying homage to the longstanding history of the Dragon Ball franchise by filling Dragon Ball FighterZ with a slew of references to the original anime and manga. IKevinX has been painstakingly correlating every character animation to its point of origin, and wraps up his coverage of the current playable cast by spotlighting two of the most treacherous villains of the entire series: Perfect Cell and Majin Buu.
Despite footage being limited, we can see many of Cell’s signature poses and attacks are depicted fairly accurately from the source material, though the standout has to be an attack originating from 1993’s Super Butoden 2, which closely resembles M. Bison’s Super Street Fighter II Turbo slide. As if having the DNA of Frieza, Piccolo, Goku, Vegeta, King Cold and others wasn’t enough.
Majin Buu’s jovial chaotic nature is also on full display, with his ability to weaponize his body into traps to ensnare foes, blowing out steam to float, and of course turning his opponents into cookies and gobbling them up — like he did to Dabura — are on display here. There is also a bit more Cell footage, including his victory animation. You can catch both videos below. That wraps all the fighters we have footage for so far, but Future Trunks should follow once more footage releases.
Interested in seeing more references to the source material? Check out IKevinX’s videos on Goku and Frieza as well as Gohan and Vegeta. Tell us what your favorite references were in the comments!
An in-depth discussion of the game that spirit-bombed the FGC.
VesperArcade spent considerable hands-on time with Dragon Ball FighterZ at E3; in this lengthy podcast, he’s joined by Killey and Mir to chat about their impressions from playing the DBFZ demo, as well as breaking down the gameplay systems (as they work in the current build). Comparisons to other Arc System Works titles, questioning the purpose and value of auto-combo systems, and confusion from Canadians over “zee” and “zed” — check it out below.
Generally, the fighting game community has leaned towards allowing glitches/bugs at first to see how they impact the tournament environment. Not every glitch is ban-worthy, practical, or even useful. However, when Tekken pro Reepal “Rip” Parbhoo brought up the suggestion for banning the recently discovered “infinite super” bug for Tekken 7‘s Eliza, it was hard not to see why it was bad for tournament play:
The Eliza bug should definitely be banned at Evo unless it gets patched out. Unlimited Supers #TEKKEN7https://t.co/AP78xls6a7
Note that the ban only impacts the use of super when you don’t have the meter for it! The character — and super when you have resources — are still allowed.
What do you think of the quick decision? Is Eliza just fine without it? Do you think we’ll see a patch from Bandai Namco before Evo?
Everyone knows that Balrog’s turn-around-punch is powerful. That’s no secret. But for those that would like to look beyond the surface, Brian_F has put together an informative tutorial on the Boxer’s signature swing.
In the video is exactly what, as a Balrog player, you need to link with after a different level of TAP hits. And for the opponent, there’s a breakdown on the exact invincibility each level of TAP possess. Knowing this will make you more prepared to go toe-to-toe with the Raging Bull.
