Now that the Injustice 2 beta is over, all that’s left for most players is to wait on the full game to drop in May. Not everyone is idly waiting, though: some are hard at work sifting through their beta gameplay for highlights and combo videos. Here, we have some of the former.
ETCChile has been pretty consistent at creating content for NeatherRealm Studios games, having published a lot for Mortal Kombat X. They’ve moved onto Injustice 2, and here we see some of the moments deemed most worthy from their Batman play.
After Nu-13’s dominance in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend, the character has fallen somewhat from the limelight in Central Fiction, where Carl, Arakune, Nine, and a few others are the biggest forces to reckon with. That said, everyone’s favorite bipolar sword thrower still has plenty of damage to dish out and lots of setups to catch the opponent off-guard.
Monarch offers a new combo video of the rarely-seen character. A lot of the combos start off as counters to Kagura’s pressure or Tsubaki’s Distortion Drive, offering a practical way to punish. There’s also a creative cross-up in the corner, and many combos that–if they don’t finish off the opponent–show creative ways to mix-up the victim for more sword action. Will Nu-13 best Ragna in the end?
For more BlazBlue action, check out the footage of Fenrich and Dogura from the Japan E-Sports League.
Back in late 2014, a very interesting fighting game was funded on Kickstarter. This game promised a retro look and feel, specifically a Neo Geo Pocket aesthetic. Developers have been plugging away at the game ever since, and while it has been playable before as Steam Early Access, it now appears to be largely complete and its finally getting an official release for Nintendo’s upcoming platform.
This is a two button fighter with simplified inputs, boasting 8 characters with drastically different playstyles and a unique health system. The health bar consists of sectioned blips and every attack inflicts the same amount of damage, but multi-hit moves and combos will get you more damage by dealing one blip per attack.
You can pick the game up via Early Access on Steam right now, but the game will also be coming sometime in March for the Nintendo Switch.
When For Honor was announced, Ubisoft made the bold claim that the game would change the way fighting games are played. With mechanics like this, they clearly weren’t kidding:
It would appear that every character in the game has to go through a set amount of lag time between switching guard stances. This is particularly brutal for some of the characters with slower switches, as they may be forced to guess–instead of react–to some moves and strings. Surprisingly, this decision seems to have been done with a knowing hand: nearly everyone that suffers from slower switches also has strong, relevant defensive options to compensate. Nobushi has range, Shugoki has passive armor on attacks, Conqueror has All-Block stance, and so on. Even the routinely-claimed worst character in the game, Raider, saw a massive high-level tournament win with Vitraxx defeating odds on favorite iSkys in Panda Global’s 256 1v1 tournament, despite his 22-frame switch.
Still, this seems like incredibly important information to apply to in-game strategy.
In his latest video, VesperArcade takes a look at characters he believes could be “secret” top tiers following Street Fighter V’s impending March balance update. He feels these five characters–if left untouched, or buffed–will rise to the top, if Capcom nerfs the current top tiers.
He begins with Ibuki: the plucky ninja received an extra 50 health, had her Dash sped up to 16 frames to improve her pressure, as well as her massively improved St. MK, which gives her safe Critical Art confirms and new pressure options with shimmies and EX Kunai. Her Crush Counter St. HK also gives her full combos, due to increased hitstun. In a “bold prediction,” he believes Ken to be the strongest Shoto, despite the nerfs to EX Tatsu. He’s still armed with throw loops, high damage and corner carry off of stray hits, as well as a new Cr.MK link into Critical Art and better overhead conversions on crouching opponents with Thunder Kick. For his third pick, Vesper couldn’t decide between Karin or Rashid, citing recent competitive success from the likes of ANBU|Punk, John Takeuchi and Mago. For his final pick, he looks at Zangief: with many Japanese players now considering him to be one of the strongest in the game, citing Detonation Gaming’s Itabashi Zangief making it to the Final Stage Group of TOPNAGA League 6.
Check the video below for more details–as well as reasons why Necalli and Akuma didn’t make the list.
You can also take a look at which fighters Vesper thinks should be nerfed, and who should be buffed.
While Game Developers’ Conference typically focuses on the business and technology of creating games, a surprise announcement for consumers occasionally surfaces. NetherRealm Studios Senior Producer Erin Piepergerdes took to the stage yesterday to present a mobile version of their upcoming superhero fighter, Injustice 2.
The fights take a 3v3 format, and look faithfully recreated from the console version thanks to Unreal Engine 4 support. Similar to the full game, the mobile version will also have equippable gear that changes the base statistics and abilities of every character. Playing the game unlocks more items to further customize the fighters and improve their strength. The footage below shows off a first look at Scarecrow’s super move.
Check out the image gallery–as well as the GDC presentation video–for a closer look at the Injustice 2 mobile game. The company didn’t specify which platforms will host superhero battles nor give a release date other than it’s “coming soon.”
Shortly before Street Fighter V’s second Season Two character Kolin was released into the wild, Chris Bratt and Wesley Yin-Poole sat down with Capcom UK Community Manager Matt Edwards at the London offices to get some new gameplay footage of “The Phantasam of Snow and Ice.”
They note that she’s the first character in Street Fighter V to have a true counter-special: her Frost Touch, which allows her to punish an attack’s active frames, whereas Ryu and Zangief’s V-Skills allow them to punish recovery frames. However, she has different versions for high, mid, and low attacks, making her one of the more technical characters on the roster. Though, if you are successful, you are rewarded with a hard knockdown off all versions. They also spend some time discussing her unique ability to freeze opponent’s Stun Gauges with her V-Trigger, and also compare her Hailstorm mixups to Akuma’s usage of his air fireballs.
In summation they feel that, “Overall, she’s a technical character. Relies heavily on setups, mixups and resets. She’s got decent damage potential, but not a huge amount. For a female character, she’s got a good amount of health. I expect she’ll end up with some really flashy combos that will look really great in competitive matches. I doubt she’s going to be as popular as the likes of Akuma, but in the right hands, she could be a lot of fun.”
Ryu isn’t the only fighting game character with a parry! In The King of Fighters XIV, Ryo Sakazaki can parry attacks in a similar manner to how parries work in Street Fighter, by pressing towards and light kick (or B, in KoF parlance).
In a new video, Gato Ray showcases some of the things that Ryo can parry and punish. This includes special moves, EX moves, and even Desperation Moves, to create situations similar to the famous “Evo Moment #37” from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. It’s more than just a showcase though: the video below shows the timing on how to parry these moves, as well as some effective punishes for them.
He’s loud, he’s brash, and he’s also one of the best players on the planet. Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez–formerly of Panda Global, now signed on with Splyce–has been one of the most prominent players in Capcom’s fighting games. First making his mark by beating Daigo Umehara in Super Street Fighter IV at SoCal Regionals some years ago, FChamp went on to become one of the so-called “gods” of Ulimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, before transitioning into one of the top players for Street Fighter V.
In this new mini-documentary, Last Stock Legends takes a closer look at FChamp, his penchant from taking “energy” from the boos of the crowd, and using that to win. In addition to this, they also go over how he got his name 0f “Filipino Champ.” He also talks about Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and his history with the game, and as with the game has declined, he began to feel that it’s part of his responsibility to help keep the scene alive, even if its just with his showmanship. Of course, he also talks about his win against Daigo Umehara at SoCal Regionals all those years back.
Kolin is joining the cast today, but Season 2’s first addition to Street Fighter V is still proving a fearsome opponent. Here’s a few tech tidbits Akuma mains will want to take note of.
As powerful as the Shun Goku Satsu is, its unusual input command can be tricky to work around if you don’t want to telegraph your intentions to the opponent. In this video, World Warrior looks at “instant” Raging Demon input methods for pad players:
In the same vein as these Zangief punishes, ThePrince demonstrates countermeasures to Urien’s Aegis Reflector on wakeup (as developed by Javits). A bit of a zap to the face can’t slow the Master of the Fist down.
ThePrince also has something a bit stranger to show off, in the videos below: an apparent glitch that allows Akuma to perform a grounded crossup against Necalli. Check it out:
