Alex receiving Red Earth crossover Leo costume in Street Fighter 5
Street Fighter 5 is going into its second year of doing free crossover costumes since launching Arcade Edition, but there's still a good number of characters who have yet to receive their time in the spotlight.
Capcom announced today that Alex will be receiving his first crossover costume in Street Fighter 5 in the form of Red Earth's Leo including his signature sword and shield.
This new costume will be available in SF5's Extra Battle mode with missions set to kick off on March 15 when Balrog's Guts Man crossover missions come to an end meaning that players will not be able to use the grappler's lion-headed outfit until April 5.
Leo is one of the main characters of Capcom's fighting game Red Earth, or War-Zard in Japan, where he was a king cursed to have the body of a beast. Red Earth never earned a sequel, but Leo did show up in Capcom Fighting Evolution and had a cameo appearance in Hawkeye's ending in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
To obtain the first Red Earth-themed costume in Street Fighter 5, players must complete four weekly missions in the game's Extra Battle mode to collect pieces costing users 2,500 Fight Money per attempt or at least 10,000 FM to complete.
The publisher released a trailer for Alex's Leo set alongside the announcement, so you can check out the costume in motion in the clip plus in the gallery below.
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Jump Force's first DLC characters to launch in May; patch coming soon to fix bugs and add skippable cutscenes
Jump Force came out at the tail end of last week, and while critical reception for the game has been lukewarm at best, the developer and publisher plan to support the crossover title for many months to come.
Nine currently unannounced characters will be joining Jump Force as DLC, and we now know that we should expect to see the first one around May thanks to the latest edition on V-Jump magazine in Japan.
No further details have been released by Bandai Namco about what is coming in the game's Season Pass, but we do know that more avatar customization options will be coming for free at some point in the future.
Bandai Namco's European branch took to Twitter after Jump Force officially launched to announce that an update will be coming to the title in the "coming days" that should rectify or improve a number of some of the technical complaints lobbed at the arena fighter.
Though it doesn't have an official launch date yet, Jump Force's next patch is said to include improvements for load times and the ability to skip the game's questionable cutscenes along with some stability and bug fixes.
The publisher also confirmed that the crossover Shonen Jump fighter will receive more patches in the future. You can take a look at Bandai Namco's official update announcement below.
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Source: Ryokutya2089.
Blade Strangers appears to tease new DLC character from 1001 Spikes
Blade Strangers originally released at the end of August 2018, but the title has yet to receive any post-launch support for DLC which may be changing in the near future.
The game's publisher, Nicalis, recently posted a screenshot for Blade Strangers including a character who currently is not on the playable roster likely as a teaser to show that more content is coming to the fighting game.
Aban Hawkins from the game 1001 Spikes — which was also published by Nicalis — can be seen fighting Curly Brace from Cave Story along with the caption "Aban performs a perfectly timed Counter vs Curly in #CrystalCri--wait, what!?! This isn't #CrystalCrisis!"
Crystal Crisis is an upcoming crossover game from Nicalis that appears to take much of its inspiration from Capcom's Puzzle Fighter series of games where Aban was revealed during its initial announcement.
If the 1001 Spikes hero does join the roster of Blade Strangers, he will become the game's 15th character and represent its seventh crossover tie-in with other series including Shovel Knight, Code of Princess, The Binding of Isaac and Cave Story among others.
We quite enjoyed Blade Strangers when it came out last year, so go back and check out our review for the fighting game with simplified controls and loads of style. You can see Nicalis' teaser for Aban below.
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All of Jiren and Videl's anime and manga references in Dragon Ball FighterZ
Dragon Ball FighterZ recently added the first two characters of the game's official second season. Dragon Ball Z's Videl and Dragon Ball Super's Jiren joined the fight as DLC and are available for purchase now.
It is no secret that Arc System Works and Bandai Namco have filled Dragon Ball FighterZ to the brim with references to the source material, and they have not slowed down any with Videl and Jiren.
IKevinX has returned with two recent videos that walk us through where inspiration for these characters' moves come from.
Each video provides a side-by-side look at where the various attacks and mannerisms for these two fighters likely came from within the anime and manga. For Jiren, we see the source of some of his Ki blasts, as well as his counter that sends the opponent spinning incredibly fast into the air.
Videl's video acts as a two-for-one, with Great Saiyaman also seeing his references explained.
Below are just a handful of screenshots to get you started. You'll find all of the references in IKevinX's videos after the jump.
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When will we get our next Street Fighter 5 DLC character, who will they be and how many more are coming? EventHubs staff offer round table opinions
Kage was simultaneously revealed and released on December 16th of last year, and that was the last time we received any official news in terms of Street Fighter 5's DLC for 2019.
Since EVO Japan has come and gone without any further announcements or reveals, the community is left to continue to speculate as to how many new characters will be coming, who they'll be, and when they'll start being revealed.
The next most logical date is probably March 17th as it will see the end of Final Round, the Capcom Pro Tour's inaugural event, but we've seen Capcom skip such opportunities in the past.
We here at EventHubs have gone around the horn to speculate some answers to the questions posed above, and have collected the opinions of Nick "MajinTenshinhan" Taylor, Jon "Catalyst" Gray, Steven "Dreamking" Chavez as well as myself.
Each of us offer ideas as to "when, who and how many?" in terms of DLC characters this year. Give us a read and then chime into the comments with your thoughts when you're finished.
SonicFox already has his paws on Dead or Alive 6 and has figured out how to lop off about 80% of your life in one combo
Dominique "FOX|SonicFox" McLean already has his name on the ballot for greatest fighting game player of all time, but while he's currently more known for NetherRealm Studios titles and Dragon Ball FighterZ, he's also shown quite a bit of ability in the Dead or Alive franchise.
Surely no small part of why Sonic is so well versed in the DOA series is because his brother, Kristian "Kwiggle" McLean, is known for his domination in the series' competitive scene. In any case, Fox has gotten his hands on the upcoming Dead or Alive 6, (which is slated to release to the public on March 1st) and has been live streaming game play.
The younger of the McLean brothers has taken to Marie Rose and is quickly looking more than competent with her movements and attacks as he takes on a friend's Eliot, a character he deems as "broken-ass."
As of the writing of this story, the multi-time EVO champion is still live streaming. Even when he's done, though, you can check out his Twitch archive videos here.
Before going live, Sonic spent some time in the training room so as to get a handle on Marie and be able to show off in those special ways only he can.
Here are a pair of quick clips from today's stream wherein Sonic demonstrates just how devastating Mario Rose's wall combos can be:
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Photo credit: Stephanie Lindgren.
Could you actually freeze and shatter a human head like Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat 11? Because Science recruits UFC's Daniel Cormier to find out
Could you flash freeze and smash a human head a la Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat 11? The question we've all been losing sleep over finally has an answer thanks to the wonderful YouTube research of Because Science.
Like the rest of us, host Kyle Hill and his "minions" have seen the Lin Kuei ninja freeze and subsequently smash more than a few heads over the years, but aren't all that sure if NetherRealm Studios has been feeding us vicious lies about the potential of this particular means of destruction.
The team heads to the lab to find out the particulars of how fast it would take to fully freeze a human head (don't worry, they use a ballistics gel head dummy) and if a human could generate enough force with a punch to shatter it.
Despite what you might think because of the name, "flash freezing" is not an instant process. Hill and his team use liquid nitrogen for the fastest freeze possible, but even that takes a good few minutes.
From there Olympic wrestler and current reigning champion of UFC's heavyweight division, Daniel Cormier, lends his incredible punching power to science as he blasts the frozen dummy head with a full force punch.
For those of you who are interested in seeing the entire set up, hypothesis, explanation and the like, you can view it all in the full video after the jump. Those of you that simply want to see Daniel Cormier punch the crap out of a frozen human head replica can click the clip here:
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Leffen has updated his Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tier list and my how things have changed
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is now a good two and a half months old and the community has had some ample time to become acquainted with the game's 75 characters through general experience as well as watching professionals duke it out at majors such as Genesis 6.
Processing all this new information, TSM|Leffen has created yet another tier list wherein he orders the cast into five different groups (six if you count Charizard's "alone at the bottom of the barrel" tier) as he attempts to determine overall potential.
The Swedish player did this recently on his personal stream, and so those that want can go back and watch him create the list one character at a time with explanations. (Be warned there's some NSFW language and text on said stream.)
This is not the first time the revered Smasher has done this, and this current ordering looks significantly different than previous ones. Some interesting takeaways as we observe the evolution of Leffen's lists, his day one arrangement saw seven characters in the highest tier and none of them have retained that top status. Richter is the only one of the seven in the second tier now, with everyone else falling even further than that.
We would expect about as much from a day one tier list, but it is interesting to see just how quickly perceptions change even when you're talking about one of the most qualified people in the world to talk on this subject.
You'll see Leffen's most current tier list as well as his previous thoughts after just one day and one week with Ultimate in the gallery here. In the clip below Leffen articulates why he feels the top tiers have earned their placements. You'll catch his YouTube video after the jump.
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Tekken 7 ver. 2.20 patch notes translated
Bandai Namco has released the list of patch notes for Tekken 7's ver. 2.20 update. This update is set to bring a batch of character balance changes, add some general tweaks, and will add new DLC characters Julia and The Walking Dead's Negan.
The company shared the list of changes over on their Japanese Tekken website, so English-speaking readers might have a little trouble sifting through them. Thanks to the efforts of our very own Nicholas "MajinTenshinhan" Taylor, however, we have the full translated Tekken 7 patch notes for you to read over.
In the upcoming update, players can look forward to some changes to certain Rage Arts when they strike airborne opponents. Additionally, a handful of quality of life changes have been introduced, including the ability to change characters without going back to stage select.
Ver. 2.20 will add DLC 8 and DLC 9 — Julia and Negan, respectively — and we'll also see the "Last Day On Earth" The Walking Dead stage added to the game, as well as new versions of existing stages.
You can check out everything the next Tekken 7 update has to offer in our patch notes below.
Ronda Rousey entered WWE Elimination Chamber match as Mortal Kombat 11's Sonya Blade
UFC champion turned WWE superstar Ronda Rousey is the voice of Sonya Blade in upcoming NetherRealm Studios fighting title, Mortal Kombat 11. At the WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view event this past weekend, Rousey paid a little tribute to the classic Mortal Kombat fighter by entering the ring dressed as Sonya.
Currently the RAW Women's Champion, Ronda took to the ring last night to defend her title against Ruby Riott. When she first appeared, fans quickly noticed that she had ditched her leather jacket for an outfit that more closely resembles Sonya's Mortal Kombat 11 model.
Decked out in a tactical vest and military-style hat, Ronda hit the walkway with her Women's Championship belt slung across her shoulder. The official WWE Twitter account shared a screenshot of Ronda as Sonya, which you can see in the gallery below.
In Sonya's official trailer, Ronda Rousey spoke about her role voicing the character. She noted that Sonya was the first "kickass girl" she looked up to and tried to emulate growing up.
Now Ronda gets the opportunity not only to voice Sonya in Mortal Kombat 11, but bring the character further to life in the ring.
For those wondering, Ronda Rousey won her RAW Women's Championship match by way of Armbar submission, retaining her belt. You can check out a quick clip of the match after the jump.
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Sent in by iShoryucant, Exclusive23, and alexlexus2000.
Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono currently in hospital for polyp removal surgery
Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono in currently in the hospital. Early this morning, Ono sent out a tweet letting the community know that he will be undergoing surgery to remove a polyp.
According to the tweet, Ono will be away from work for the next two days. He apologizes for any inconvenience this might cause.
"I have an operation to remove a polyp," Ono's tweet starts. "I'm a little anxious about it. I’ll take two days work leave, [and will be] back to office in day after tomorrow to connect to my work. I’ll be not able to take communication until a day after tomorrow. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause."
A polyp is a small, abnormal growth that is found most often in the colon and large intestine (according to WebMD). These growths can also appear in the ear canal, the sinuses, and in other areas, and are usually noncancerous.
Considering the timing of Ono's tweet and operation, this is likely the reason he was unable to attend EVO Japan 2019 this past weekend. Ono did not say so specifically, but it seems likely that the "various circumstances" he referred to in his initial tweet about his EVO Japan absence was alluding to the surgery.
Several prominent fighting game community members and fans everywhere jumped into the comments of Ono's tweet today to share their well wishes. We here at EventHubs send our best to Ono-san and hope he'll see a speedy recovery.
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Photo credit — Ono on Twitter. Thanks to SnakeX and Bushinryu025 for sending this in.
Mortal Kombat action figurines hinted by McFarlane Toys — what could this mean for Spawn in NetherRealm's upcoming title?
Ever since Freddy was a huge success as a DLC character for Mortal Kombat 9, NetherRealm Studios has traditionally used guest characters in the Mortal Kombat and Injustice series.
Mortal Kombat 9 had Freddy Krueger, Injustice had Scropion, Mortal Kombat X had Jason Voorhees, the Predator, Letherface, and the Alien while Injustice 2 got Sub-Zero, Raiden, Hellboy, and the Ninja Turtles.
For many years now, fans have been hoping that Spawn would join the fight in one of these two fighting game franchises. Signs seem to be indicating that this wish may be fulfilled for Mortal Kombat 11 as Todd McFarlane — Spawn's creator — mentioned that he believes that "he's on his way..."
In any event, it does appear as though some sort of partnership may have been formed between NetherRealm Studios and McFarlane Toys. They recently hinted at this on Facebook with the iconic image of the word "Finish Him" (complete with blood splatters) with the words "what's coming to McFarlane Toys" sitting underneath.
There's a good chance that McFarlane Toys has acquired the license to manufacture action figurines of Mortal Kombat 11 characters for the upcoming title. A business relationship between these two companies has nearly been confirmed at this point.
Spawn's odds of performing a fatality on opponents is looking more and more likely. As of right now, we don't know anything about the DLC for Mortal Kombat 11 aside from the fact that Shao Kahn will be available as a pre-order bonus.
We'll probably receive more information (and possible confirmation about Spawn's inclusion) as we approach the game's April 23, 2019 release date.
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Source via: Game Informer.
Anime Ascension 2019 results
Update: This story has been updated with final results.
This weekend is hosting the 2019 installment of Anime Ascension, which is taking place in Irvine, California.
First, I'd like to note my regret at not being able to post this event sooner than finals day, which is simply because of how many resources EVO Japan took up this weekend.
However, the best part of the event is still to be seen, so make sure to tune in for the hype finals of the main games which all had around 60 entrants each.
The main titles being played are BlazBlue: Central Fiction, Under Night In-Birth EXE: Late[st], BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2.
Some of the notable players attending include Jona, PG|SKD, KidViper, PG|MarlinPie, UYU|KizzieKay, BxA|Blaze, LPT, BrkrDave, Hotashi, KPB|JDR, Betadood, CATPION|Daymendou, Clim and UYU|BeautifulDude, though there are many more as well, of course.
Streaming is being done at LevelUp Live.
Here's a recap of everything that was announced over the EVO Japan 2019 weekend
EVO Japan 2019 ended up making this a particularly busy weekend. The tournament has been wrapped up and champions for each game played at the event have been decided.
Of course, there were also a number of announcements that may catch the interest of fighting game enthusiasts. It appears that developers are using this as an opportunity to build up hype about specific events for their games.
Although Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition was one of the main tournaments with over 1,000 entrants, the competition was actually not part of the Capcom Pro Tour. As a result, Capcom had no announcements to reveal over the weekend.
Likewise, Nintendo also had no presence at EVO Japan this year. Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate were not played. Still, it is worth noting that a 3.0 update for Spring 2019 was announced a few days prior for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Not surprisingly, there were no signs of NetherRealm Studios titles either as Mortal Kombat and Injustice don't tend to be very popular in Japan. Jade's announcement should tide us over in the meantime.
Let's take a moment to recap everything that was announced at EVO Japan 2019 for those that may have missed them.
Tired of dropping combos? Justin Wong offers two practical ways to sharpen up your fighting game execution
The road to consistent execution can be both arduous and demoralizing, but it's one you'll need to brave if you want to stand a chance in most any fighting game.
The process is something like: you can't perform the combo at all, then you can do it in Training Mode but not against a moving computer, then you can do it against the AI but not in a casual match, then you can do it in a casual match but not in tournament, soon tournament becomes routine but you can't do it on stream, but if you forge through all this, you'll eventually have mastered what you're trying to do.
VP|Justin Wong is no stranger to this concept, and has produced a quick video wherein he offers some advice in the way of building your abilities to consistently hit your combos no matter what the situation.
Justin breaks things down in two distinct ways, the first of which deals directly with getting your fingers and brain on the same wavelength so that you can do your combo at all.
From there the professional fighting game player explains a secondary series of exercises that will get you well on your way through the aforementioned process of execution sharpening.
Give the video a watch below and let us know if you have any tips or tricks (such as the one mentioned from the legendary Gootecks) that have helped you level up your combo consistency.
Negan's Tekken 7 trailer has him breaking the fourth wall and paying a couple of homages to game director Katsuhiro Harada
Late last night, it was announced that the final two characters of Tekken 7's Season 2 — Julia Chang and Negan — would be releasing on February 28th. Initially, it was only revealed that Julia would be released by this time but Tekken 7 game director Katsuhiro Harada was... "pressured" by Negan to release him at the same time.
Needless to say, Negan's time in the spotlight might be one of the coolest fighting game trailers I've seen in the last few years. Somewhat fitting to Negan's character, he was breaking the fourth wall and paying homages to Harada himself.
As a famous game designer, Harada is known for poking fun at his fans. In particular, you might be familiar with an image of Harada wearing a shirt that says "Don't ask me for s---."
During the trailer, Negan was speaking with Master Raven while using walkie-talkies similar to his conversations with Michonne in AMC's Walking Dead program.
Before stomping on the communication device in a fit of rage, he screamed "don't ask me for s---" while paying no mind to what Master Raven was saying. Clearly this is referencing the meme with Harada.
At the very end of the cinematic, we see Negan walking up to the camera and speaking to an unknown figure.
"You the developers?" asked Negan. "The ones that pull that s--- releasing characters one at a time? You going to put me in the next update, right Harada?"
Indeed, during the middle of Negan's lines, we pan to an in-game version of Harada on his knees. Hilariously, Harada responded with a defeated thumbs up. There obviously wasn't an alternative here.
Be advised of NSFW language in the clips below.
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Fuudo busts out Birdie, but Momochi just couldn't be stopped: EVO Japan highlights for Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition
EVO Japan has come and passed with no new information regarding what comes next for Street Fighter 5 as a game, but it gave us some of the most exciting matches we've seen in months.
Finals day wrapped up earlier this morning where Victrix|Momochi, Liquid|Nemo, YG|Jyobin, Powell, REC|Punk, UYU|OilKing, CYG|Fuudo and Crusher faced off for their first EVO Japan title.
We previously covered the highlights for Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, Tekken 7 and BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, so now we're here to do the same for Street Fighter 5's finals.
Momochi would end up sealing the deal against Fuudo in grand finals, but we saw some unique stuff from almost everyone in top 8 with half of the players busting out multiple characters during the event.
We got to see more of Fuudo's Birdie, Momochi's Zeku and even Nemo bust out Kolin, who all managed to pull off some wild punishes in their matches.
Let's get things started where Punk looked to be losing ground in his match against Jyobin, but one shimmy would turn everything around. They'd stay evenly matched until game five where Punk was able to interrupt Necalli's block string with Critical Art unexpectedly to send Jyobin home.
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