Like the Air Force Base, Kanzuki Beach now sports some new background elements like boats and birds, but more significantly the “Judgement Girls” from Street Fighter III now will hold up signs to declare the winner of a Time Over.
VesperArcade also takes the time to describe the many additions to the Capcom Fighters Network functionality itself. It is now possible to ban specific stages from random stage select as part of your profile. He describes how the blacklist and friend list functions work, and shows us what the finally-unlocked information tabs on player profiles actually now display. VesperArcade also tries to test for any improvements to the rollback netcode–with inconclusive results that seem to indicate there is no improvement to the netcode itself. However, better matchmaking may mitigate lag issues once the new CFN launches. Check out the details in the video above!
In the 10th episode of their Smash News series, the Beefy Smash Doods cover what they thought were some of the biggest upsets from the recently-fought 2GGC: Civil War tournament. The highly anticipated Super Smash Bros. for Wii U showdown saw two teams, Team Ally and Team Zero, put the Smash 4 communities on their back as they faced off in a series of single and doubles events that proved more than worthy of the hype that preceded them.
Though the intensity was anticipated, many of these upsets were nothing less than unpredictable. Regardless of whose team you were rooting for, these upsets solidified this tournament as one of the greatest in Super Smash Bros. For Wii U history to date. For a thorough recap of 2GGC: Civil War, check out our official post covering the results.
Casting a spotlight on the villains playable in Injustice 2, NetherRealm have released a new trailer showing off Gorilla Grodd, Bane, Captain Cold and Scarecrow in action. Hinted as a playable character in a previous story trailer, this video shows off the first gameplay footage of Captain Cold, while acting as Scarecrow’s grand debut.
While Gorilla Grodd is roaring in peoples’ faces and Bane is flexing on his opponent, Captain Cold spends this trailer skating around his foes and shooting them with his freeze ray. As you can guess, most of his moves revolve around putting enemies on ice, before unleashing a barrage of blows. His super is quite the display, with Captain Cold skating up a frozen spiral before hurtling to Earth on a massive icicle.
Speaking of villains that will send a chill up your spine, Scarecrow’s design is pretty damn scary. Wielding a huge meat hook, Scarecrow has been taking lessons from Jason as he rips and tears at his adversary. His super is particularly spooky, pulling poor souls into a gas-induced nightmare before slamming them into their own grave.
We’ve seen “worst Street Fighter characters” videos in the past–but those have largely been compiled by people whose opinions and experience didn’t really align with the expectations of the FGC. As such, those lists tend not to be widely accepted–and are at most a reminder that we can be a very niche community.
One person who has been doing top 10 lists in this subject–and has FGC values at the core of his videos–is jmcrofts. In this one, he tackles the worst Street Fighter characters ever, as in under-powered, “dumpster-tier” fighters, just as he did a “most over powered characters” video a while back.
The Samurai Shodown series started with a very light-on-combos philosophy, which makes a lot of of sense for its weapon-based combat. Most of the games were focused purely on high damage pokes and footsies, and even today the majority of tournament matches for Samurai Showdown VI lean toward more pokes then combos.
There’s a lot of reasons for that–meter requirements, how rare combo-starting situations can come up, and so on–but that doesn’t mean that long, execution heavy combos don’t exist. In fact, SS6 has a number of meter systems called “spirits” that are specifically built to give you different ways to manage meter and play. There’s 6 in all (8 in the console version!), and a few of them are shown off here in MrBroken030’s newly-released combo video.
About half way through, the focus is predominately on combos involving the “Mu” spirit, a time-stopping rage mechanic that allows for even longer combos for the whole cast. If you’ve ever wanted to get an idea of just where you can take combos in Samurai Shodown VI and weren’t sure where to start, MrBroken030’s work here should give you some ideas!
An important component of Ken’s rushdown game in Street Fighter V is, of course, his Heat Rush V-Trigger. In the video below, World Warrior presents some setups utilizing V-Trigger activation off of a variety of blocked attacks to trap your opponent and tear into them with some heavily damaging combos. Newcomers to Ken will want to integrate this approach into their attack plans–and regular Ken mains might see a thing or two they haven’t tried yet. Check it out!
Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, taunting can do mental damage to players in a match, and is a legitimate attack strategy. Liquid|NuckleDu and Gllty have both acknowledged its usefulness as a tool. But why can such simple acts such as teabagging play such a powerful role in the game?
Gerald Lee explores this in his latest video with Core-A Gaming. In it, he discusses how it can be used to condition your opponent to feel humiliation–one of the most common fears on the planet. He goes even further into the psychology of the game, discussing how even character selection can influence a person’s emotions. He also talks about how you can condition your opponent can do exactly what you want them to, in order to further benefit you down the line.
This video could help you understand why you win, why you lose, and even how you can improve your chances of the former.
As Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 rolls out into Japanese arcades, there will soon to be plenty of new footage to look at. Until then, Arc System Works put up a pre-release stream that focuses on REV 2 gameplay and once again gives a detailed overview of the newcomers, Business Ninja Answer and the Lone Samurai, Baiken.
The presenter first shows off Answer by going through his move set. The presentation for Baiken is similar, but a little extended. In addition to her special moves, which include a Tatami mat and a mid-range chain, Kabari, she has a special guarding stance called Azami. The follow-ups to this stance can be used during combos as well. Baiken still has a Blitz Shield, but the command is different for her.
Post the one-hour mark, the stream gets some matches started. The new Daredevils face each other as well other members of the cast.
Arc System Works did a similar–though not as thorough–overview of Baiken and Answer previously at a weekend event.
In the coming days, as Japanese players get their hands on the Arcade release of REV 2, expect a lot of footage and analysis on the game to gear us up for the console release in late May.
VesperArcade continues his series looking at the changes that will be coming to members of the Street Fighter V cast in the upcoming balance update–set to be released in late April–by turning his focus to the final Season 1 DLC character, Urien.
The “Dominating Light” is currently seen as one of the most powerful characters in Season 2 of SFV, having received a large amount of buffs, with nary a nerf in sight. He made quite the splash when Alienware’s Nemo won TOPANGA League 7 with him, in appropriately dominant fashion. According to Capcom’s CFN website, he also has the highest online win rate of the entire cast for February 2017, and was the 4th-most-used character behind the Shotokan trio of Ken, Akuma and Ryu, with him being selected in 5.208% of February’s bouts.
Unfortunately for his plans for global conquest, Urien will be receiving some nerfs in this forthcoming patch, such as his crouching medium kick going from +2 to -2 on block.
This normal was initially changed in Season 2, it went from +1 on hit to +4. It means he’s now able to convert off of it. You can easily confirm into a crouching light punch, for example. You can even do better if he gets a counter hit, he can go into a medium for more damage. But that’s not the main reason why it was crazy. They also made it +2 on block from -2. This was one of the most requested changes for Urien, especially since there are so many long-range normals that were made minus on block in Season 2, like Karin’s st.MK, Rashid’s st.HK. I’m sure Capcom wanted Urien to have a threatening, long-range low that could convert when the opponent’s stuck in Aegis Reflector. I’m glad Capcom kept the +4 intact and just went after the block advantage.
Urien will also be getting a single buff in this update, as the hitbox of his jumping light kick has been expanded downward–it was reduced in Season 2.
Urien was given a cross-up in Season 2 with jumping light kick , but like most cross-up light attacks, the range is quite poor. So if I’m not jumping at the right angle, it’ll just miss entirely. But at the same time, I have to jump-in really deep as well, because the hitstun on light attacks is very low as well. But by expanding the hitbox downward, Urien doesn’t have to jump-in as deep as he does right now, which means I can hit the button earlier and get the hit, so it’s a better cross-up overall.
Urien’s final change is that EX Chariot Tackle will go from 0 to -2 on block, with reduced pushback.
This is a pretty bad number for Urien to be at in general, since he doesn’t have a 3-frame light attack. Urien’s fastest normal is 4 frames, so being -2 is worst than most characters. If he tries to challenge with a light attack, Urien can be beat by nearly anything from the opponent. If EX Tackle is blocked, Urien is on the defensive now and he has to be guessing what the opponent will do next.
In closing, VesperArcade gives his final thoughts on Urien:
My final verdict on Urien is, overall, nerfed. Even though Urien is definitely the hardest-nerfed character in all of the April patch notes, his V-Trigger, combo potential and damage output remains unchanged. He still has all of his previous setups, his combo potential is still much better than Season 1. I feel Urien still remains a top tier character and Capcom did a good job of keeping his core character intact and fun to play.
You can see the full Urien video above, as well as his prior coverage of the patch notes so far in the links below:
Bringing together gods from the pantheons of various world mythologies, PQube and Taiwanese developer Game Crafter have announced a new fighting game titled Fight of the Gods. Set for release on Steam this summer, this mythological fighter has figures like Zeus and Odin battling it out for the fate of the world.
So far, only Zeus and Odin have been shown off, but silhouettes in the announcement trailer hint at figures like Medusa and Athena also joining this clash of the titans. According to Fight of the Gods’ Steam page, it will be “a four-button fighting system with tremendous depth,” with players fighting in locations like the slopes of Mount Olympus, or the Garden of Eden.
From first glance, the art style is divisive–with Odin looking more like a generic beefy evil villain, instead of the knowledgeable and mysterious All-Father. The graphics also aren’t going to set the world on fire, currently looking more like an up-rezzed mobile game than something specifically designed for PCs. Hopefully, this is still alpha and Digital Crafter have some time to give these gods more of a polish befitting their divinity.
