Fujimura's perfect finish, Nadeshiko's chair to the rescue and did Sako top himself? Topanga League 7 Finals highlights
Topanga League 7 wrapped up yesterdaywith the best players from Japan competing for over $13,000 for the first place prize, and boy was it a wild day.
FD|Fujimura, CYG|Fuudo, GRPT|MOV, Gachikun, FAV|Sako and OC|Gafro faced off in first to seven matches for the final time with two games each on finals day.
The Ibuki legend ended up taking home the grand prize in perfect fashion which you can read more about in our full break down of the last day of Topanga League, but here we're going to celebrate some of the best moments of the event finale.
We've got a small collection of highlights here courtesy of our old friend HiFight who has shared the clips online due to it being a bit harder to watch than a standard tournament that was on Twitch.
In the clips below, you'll find an assortment of crazy orb combos from Sako, comebacks, smart plays and even Nadeshiko coming in to save the day with her chair... and also missing her opportunity to help.
Let's start things off with the final showdown of the event where Fuudo and Fujimura share a crazy exchange in the corner where Ibuki's Fuma Shuriken appears to give him the round... but then Nadeshiko runs out with the chair.
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Talim's crazy combos, KO by tantrum and SonicFox's Geralt: here's a special highlight video for Soul Calibur 6 before the full game releases
Soul Calibur 6 is likely the most anticipated fighting game that has yet to come out this year for many players — if they don't care about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and now we're just over a week from the return of one of the most storied 3D fighting franchises.
To celebrate its upcoming release, LiangHuBBB has collected the best moments from Soul Calibur 6 matches at exhibition tournaments and the open beta for a fun compilation showing off some of the crazy tech this game already has.
Featured multiple times throughout the video is a player going by the name of Granmas_Got_Game demonstrating the devastating damage potential that Talim has in SC6 taking out over 60 percent of the opponent's life in a single combo.
We also get to see multiple instances of Kayane's Xianghua in action including a clip where she KOs her opponent by making Xianghua throw a tantrum on the ground after being knocked down, kicking her feet and ultimately taking down Kilik in comedic fashion.
FOX|SonicFox's play with Geralt from the Witcher series is also showcased in this compilation seemingly proving that the player can excel at any fighting game he picks up though Geralt himself seems to be shaping up to be a strong character in SC6 at the moment.
You can check out a crazy Talim combo, Kayane's Xianghua and a crazy Yoshimitsu in the clip below and the full Soul Calibur 6 compilation after the jump.
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Will the reduced input lag in Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition lessen the effectiveness of 'gimmicks' in the meta?
For those that somehow missed the big news earlier this week, Capcom announced that they will be lowering Street Fighter 5's input latency with a new update later this month which has the internet internet now wondering how much these changes are going to change how the game is approached.
Street Fighter 5 currently sits at around an average of 6.2 frames of input delay with many players hoping the new changes will bring it down to around four or five frames. One or two frames doesn't sound like much of a difference in a game that runs 60 frames per second, but it's a change that the community has been asking for in a game where the fastest moves come out in three frames.
VesperArcade is back with a new video discussing these upcoming changes and what areas of the game may be impacted most by dropping SF5's input lag down to around the levels of Ultra Street Fighter 4 and most other fighters on the market.
They feel that many 'gimmicks' that characters sometimes rely on could see quite the indirect nerf going forward, as players should be able to react faster to punish unsafe attacks. They note many characters who use command runs and dashes may very well have worse mixups and approaches for the likes of Ken, Ibuki, Laura, Karin and Kolin.
On the other end of the spectrum, anti-airs and throw techs will be indirectly buffed with better reactions becoming likely along with ways to deal with or stuff faster EX attacks in the game like Chariot Tackle.
If this update does impact those types of 'gimmicky' tactics in the meta going forward, VesperArcade foresees many changes needing to be made for characters in Season 4 since most of them seem to be tuned for that slightly higher input lag in SF5 currently. You can take a look at their full video after the jump.
Is he a redeemer or the evil incarnate? Street Fighter 5's composer on his approach to tackling G's theme; shares a remix of Sagat's theme
Music is something that won't inherently make or break a fighting game, but a great soundtrack will turn heads and can make a good game great with a solid collection of catchy tunes.
The Street Fighter series has been known to have some of the most iconic themes in the genre, and 5 carries on that tradition for most players it seems. With updated classics like Ken's theme to the bombastic theme for Necalli, Street Fighter 5 provides some great tracks to get pumped up for the next match — though there are some that are not as strong as the rest.
Composer Daniel Lindholm is responisble for themes in Street Fighter 5 for characters like Ed, Menat, Zeku, Cody and G. He previously revealed that Ed's theme was indeed based on Eminem's signature 'Lose Yourself' track.
Steven Mane, the voice actor who recently put together a very elaborate theory pertaining to G and Q's identities, decided he wanted to dig deeper into G's history, so spoke with Lindholm about what he knows about the character, his influences for creating these tracks and how much control he has in making them.
Lindholm reveals that he doesn't know much more about the president of the world than we do at home, but that his theme was created with the apparent duality of the character in mind partially represented by a connection to a Depeche Mode song.
"Who is he, and where does he come from? Is he a good guy or a bad guy?" said Lindholm. "The documents about him were and still are a mystery to me. Since he looks a lot like Mr. Lincoln himself, and since I saw his opening animation before the fight, I went with instruments of the Earth - woodwinds and viola and violin to represent that element... and I felt a trumpet and a trombone was an obvious choice to display his presidential ways."
With Armada's retirement, who do you want to see take down the remaining gods of Super Smash Bros. Melee? Nominations are now open for Smash Summit 7
Smash Summit is coming back for its seventh installment next month to pit the best Super Smash Bros. Melee players in the world against each other, but there will likely be quite the power gap felt with the absence of perhaps the best to ever do it. Alliance|Armada will not be at Smash Summit for the first time since it began in 2015 following his recent retirement from Melee singles events.
Armada as one of the Five Gods of Melee won the first four Summit tournaments and came in second place at the previous two, so the lack of his presence will present an opening for the other top competitors to step up their game and fill in the new gap left behind. The community can even get involved now to help decide who should take on the remaining gods at the event.
Twitter nominations for Smash Summit 7 are now open where five players from the community who have not already been invited to the event can join the other top players for tournaments and hijinks. The initial nomination process is open until October 16th where the top 20 players will move on to the voting phase. Those players will then be whittled down over the next week until the final five are decided.
10 of the best Melee players have already been invited by Beyond the Summit including previous winner FOX|Mew2King, Liquid|Hungrybox, Wizzrobe, PG|Plup, MB|Bananas, C9|Mang0, EVO 2018 champion TSM|Leffen,Tempo|Axe, PG|Zain and VGBC|aMSa.
Smash Summit 7 is a four day event running from November 15–18 in Los Angeles, California bringing 16 of the best Melee players together for competition and fun. Outside of just playing Melee, players will participate in other events like AMAs, hide and seek, photo shoots and more culminating in a singles bracket tournament to crown the new king of the Summit.
Not every player will be eligible for nomination, so you can check out the official page for Smash Summit 7 for the full list of rules and requirements along seeing how players are already sitting with votes. You can also check out the teaser trailer for the event after the jump.
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Update: Echo Fox cuts entire Tekken team along with Punk, Theo, Scar as their fighting game roster shrinks
10/11 Update: Top Tekken players JDCR and Saint announced today that they are also no longer with team Echo Fox. Both players are considered among the best Tekken 7 players in the world with Saint currently sitting at fourth place on the Tekken World Tour standings while JDCR is ranked fifth — they also came in placing first and second at EVO 2017. You can see their full statements on their release in the gallery below.
Update: Echo Fox has released a statement from President Jared Jeffries regarding their cuts made to their fighting game roster as well as the release of their Gears of War and Call of Duty teams stating the move was a strategic reorganization and refocusing of their current resources. You can check out their full statement in the gallery below.
Earlier: Team Echo Fox quickly broke onto the fighting game scene in the past couple of years snatching up a large part of the global talent with top players like FOX|Justin Wong, FOX|Tokido, FOX|SonicFox, FOX|Momochi and FOX|MkLeo joining their seemingly ever growing roster which is now seeing cuts being made to their fighting game team.
Punk, Theo and Scar all announced today that they and Echo Fox have parted ways meaning that some of the United States' strongest Street Fighter and Injustice competitors are once again free agents after Punk only joined the team less than seven months ago.
Victor "Punk" Woodley quickly rose to the top of the Street Fighter world for his exceptional Karin play in 2017 going from an online warrior to runner up at EVO that year though his sophomore year as a pro player has not been as smooth of a journey.
The Karin main gained everyone's attention after being picked up by Panda Global in 2017 and taking ELEAGUE that year for Street Fighter 5 over some of the stiffest competition the game had to offer. Punk seemed near unbeatable for a time, and after a bit of a slump to start off 2018, he appears to have corrected course having just won Thunderstruck this past weekend bringing him up to 25th on the Capcom Pro Tour standings.
Theo and Scar are no slouches in their games either with Theo making it to third place for Injustice 2 at EVO 2017 and Scar taking third in Mortal Kombat X at EVO 2016. Both players also made it to the final stage of the Injustice 2 Pro Series finals in 2017.
These changes will no undoubtedly shake up the professional side of the fighting game community and perhaps eSports as a whole since they have also reportedly released their entire Gears of War team and their League of Legends head coach.
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Photo credit: Stephanie Lindgren.
Super Smash Bros. series creator Masahiro Sakurai deliberately played bad games to get better at game development
Super Smash Bros. series creator Masahiro Sakurai is an impressive individual. His work ethic and attention to detail is that of legends, and the work he's accomplished in the realm of video games has earned him a unique and devoted fan-base — which is interesting to see for a single game developer versus an entire gaming company.
Though Sakurai got his start working on the Kirby franchise with Japanese game development company HAL Laboratory, it's Sakurai's work on the Super Smash Bros. series that mainstream fans recognize him and praise him for.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is coming to Nintendo Switch later this year, and already the game is shaping up to be the biggest and most action-packed entry the franchise has ever seen. Several feats fans never believed possible have been achieved by Sakurai and his team in Smash Bros. Ultimate, including making every single character ever on a Super Smash Bros. game's roster playable in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate — a task so crazy, Sakurai was met with complete silence from his team when he initially pitched the idea.
On top of that, we have newcomers to the series that fans have been dying to see make the cut for years finally joining the battle. Despite issues with size and scale, Sakurai managed to get Metroid antagonist Ridley and Donkey Kong Country's King K. Rool into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate — again, something people never thought would actually happen.
When you really consider how much Sakurai has done throughout his career — especially with Super Smash Bros. — you can't help but wonder what kind of methods to his madness (and I mean that completely complimentary) he utilizes. Fortunately, an interview with The Guardian from back in August gives us another peek behind the curtain of Sakurai's game development thought process.
When it comes to finding inspiration for creating, often times you'll want to indulge in things that are great or masterful — usually in hopes of emulating the success in your own way. For Sakurai, though, he learned much more by deliberately playing bad video games.
Watch one of Dragon Ball FighterZ's best players win a game with a perfect AND a Dramatic Finish for ultimate hype
Winning a game in Dragon Ball FighterZ with a perfect is already a rare occurrence. Doing it AND scoring the Dramatic Finish too? Now that's got to be a needle in a hay stack.
Despite the probability of pulling these two things off in tandem in a serious Dragon Ball FighterZ match, one of the game's best players managed to do so during a recent stream. FOX|SonicFox is back with another amazing Dragon Ball FighterZ moment.
Earlier this week, top-notch Marvel vs. Capcom series player PG|RayRay held a live stream on which he was joined by fellow competitive fighting gamers SonicFox, Dieminion, and Alukard. The guys sat down to run some Dragon Ball FighterZ matches, bringing viewers over three hours of exciting bouts.
In a match against Dieminion, SonicFox's new team of Beerus, Bardock, and Android 16 got the ball rolling with intense offensive pressure. He kept the pace up so much that Dieminion was unable to find an opening, resulting in a perfect for SonicFox.
SonicFox wanted to go the extra mile here, though, so using Beerus after a raw tag from Bardock and Sparking, SonicFox confirmed into a combo that ended with the right attack and position on screen to fire into the Dramatic Finish against Dieminion's Super Saiyan Goku.
The understanding of Dragon Ball FighterZ and ability to keep adapting from SonicFox is truly remarkable. We've seen him put Gotenks on the map in the past, and now it looks like he aims to do the same for Beerus — who he believes is high tier despite the general consensus believing the character is weak.
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Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu from Saint Seiya announced for Jump Force
Two new characters have been revealed as playable in Bandai Namco's anime/manga crossover fighting title, Jump Force. Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu from Saint Seiya enter the ring.
Known as The Knights of the Zodiac in the west, the characters in this series fight representing a constellation or Zodiac sign. Pegasus Seiya is the main character of Saint Sieya, and he battles as the Pegasus — he's the character in the trailer utilizing the blue energy.
Dragon Shiryu, as you might imagine, harnesses the Dragon Constellation. The Saint Seiya series follows five warriors called "Saints" that each represent different constellations, so it's possible that we could see more characters from this series in Jump Force.
In the new Jump Force trailer, we see Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu performing numerous large, flashy attacks in battle, including firing a giant arrow, attacking with a huge energy sword, and even armor power ups.
Seiya and Shiryu join the likes of characters such as Dragon Ball Z's Goku, Vegeta, and Frieza, One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy and Blackbeard, Naruto's Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki, and more. Most recently, we saw Yugi Moto of Yu-Gi-Oh! announced and Bandai Namco released the first gameplay of the character last week.
Jump Force is headed to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in February 2019.
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Morrigan looks more like Magneto in this crazy Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite combo, lands 30 Shell Kicks solo with no Infinity Stones
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite might not be in the spotlight much anymore, but one cannot deny the combo potential the Versus series game has. Marvel heads continue to explore the limits of Marvel Infinite's various combat systems, sharing clips on social media of their findings.
Every so often, I run into a combo or sequence that I feel obligated to share. Today we have a combo that uses Darkstalkers' Morrigan, and Morrigan alone.
Twitter user Ketsui_Storm posted a Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite combo yesterday that aimed to land Morrigan's Shell Kick command normal as many times as possible in one combo. Making things extra difficult, this combo does not use the help of Morrigan's partner, does not use any of the Infinity Stone power ups, and does not use Morrigan's Astral Vision super — that which sees a mirrored image of herself on screen resulting in double the attacks.
This is a straight up, raw solo combo for Morrigan, making it that much more impressive. Ketsui notes in the tweet that a whopping 30 Shell Kicks were hit in this combo, and the whole sequence has shades of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Magneto.
According to Ketsui, this combo requires hitting the HK button 37 times, so you might want to have a replacement button on hand if you try to replicate it.
Ketsui has lots of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite tech over on Twitter. Be sure to head over there if you're itching for more.
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Input delay reduction in Street Fighter 5 will change everything... or will it? We discuss the highly requested change's potential - EventHubs Podcast
The input delay change coming to Street Fighter 5 could potentially have a huge impact on the game — or not, depending on who you ask.
In the latest episode of the EventHubs Podcast we deep dive on this subject, exploring the input delay in contemporary fighting game releases, and how those games felt.
Titles on the PlayStation consoles have traditionally had more input lag in regards to fighting games. John and I explore this subject, as well as moves that are heavily dependent on being able to react to them, such as overhead attacks in Street Fighter 4 and SF5, to find some common ground on how this change might alter the game's meta.
Then we get into our final conclusions on how we feel this will change the game overall, and what users should expect when the input delay reduction hits on October 23, 2018.
Combofiend was confirmed as a Marvel staff member recently, and we talk about the implications of this, and other recent history, and how it may impact the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise.
Lastly, we're giving away a Razer Panthera fight stick to listeners of our podcast who leave a review. It's free and easy to participate. You can find more details on this below.
Here's over 30 minutes of new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate footage showing off the title's singles damage multiplier
The Big House 8 went down this past weekend where over 1,000 of the best Super Smash Bros. players in the world came together to compete in one of the year's biggest tournaments for the series as a whole.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's demo build was also available to play at the venue courtesy of Nintendo meaning that we have a bunch of new footage to look at online now for the new title with top players experimenting with the new possibilities and mechanics.
YouTube channel Most Valuable Gamer recently uploaded nine new videos of 1v1 exhibitions for Smash Ultimate at The Big House featuring matches between players like PG|Plup, Liquid|Salem and DMG|Tweek trying out characters like Ridley, Splatoon's Inkling, Ryu, Donkey kong, Solid Snake and Link.
These matches are played with items off meaning that the 1.2x damage multiplier that was added for 1v1 matches in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is in effect here to help offset the lack of other players and damaging items. Those looking to learn damage values of attacks in what will be the tournament standard should take a closer look at this new footage.
Mystearica and DarkShad's match also gives us a look at a major change that was made to Ryu in Ultimate which makes him always face his opponent on the ground like a standard fighting game. This change was made to help players better pull off the world warrior's specific input based attacks like Ryu's Hadouken and Tatsumaki.
You can take a brief look at Plup's Ridley in the clip below plus four of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate exhibitions from The Big House after the jump.
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Good news, ChunLuver420, you'll be able to change your name on PlayStation 4 soon; it may come at a price though
The PlayStation Network was launched almost 12 years ago for the PlayStation 3 and PSP to compete with Microsoft's Xbox Live online gaming offerings though would be considered bare-bones in comparison at launch. Both services today are nearly indistinguishable on the surface with Sony now finally implementing a feature users have been asking for for over a decade.
Sony announced today that PlayStation players will finally be able to change their PSN Online ID in the near future with an upcoming update. Firmware beta testers will get their hands on the long awaited feature this year while the rest of the player base will need to wait until early 2019.
Many of us in the fighting game community likely made our PSN names around the time that Street Fighter 4 came out in 2009 meaning we've been stuck with the same name for almost a decade — and titles we used to think were cool or clever in our younger / teenage years have become cringy relics of the past.
This means that we will no longer need to feel embarrassed to take our old names online in titles that don't offer their own player name system like Street Fighter 5's Capcom Fighters Network.
The first name change will be free of charge for PlayStation users and $9.99 USD afterwards like Xbox Live. They do offer a discount for PlayStation Plus subscribers though lowering the cost of changing your online ID to $4.99.
These benefits may come at a price beyond monetary value, however, as the name changes will not be compatible with every game on the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita and could cause a variety of issues.
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The perfect combo of sexy, adorable and cool can be found in Mememenome's Street Fighter artwork
Sometimes artists can fire on all stylish cylinders, and Mememenome is one of those artists.
We don't know much about the artist that goes by the name Gaa / Mememenome, but their work speaks loudly enough on its own blending / switching between different styles seamlessly.
They also appear to have a love for the ladies of Street Fighter in particular Juri and Menat for some easily understandable reasons plus others like Falke, Kolin, Laura and Chun-Li to a bit of a lesser extent.
We've collected 15 of Gaa's best individual works for a gallery showcase for a variety of Street Fighter related works with some focusing on the more sexual / attractive aspects of the characters, some on the puppy dog cute side of things and some making the fighters look downright cool / badass.
Mememenome's chibi Menat appears very similarly to characters from other works like Pop Team Epic, G looks to be taken straight out of a children's picture book, Juri is enjoying some candy in her Halloween costume in a semi-seductive manner and Kolin's wintry scene gives a sense of loneliness and feeling forlorn.
You can check out Gaa / Mememenome's artwork in the gallery below plus our previous collection of their works here. More artwork can be found on their Twitter account, but it may be more suggestive or NSFW than what we have here.
PlayStation 5 on the horizon? Sony's CEO speculates next generation hardware to release around time when support for Street Fighter 5 could slow down
While there's nothing set in stone at the moment, we're getting some new hints at where on the timeline gamers can expect the next generation of Sony's PlayStation console series.
Sony CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida, spoke with the Financial Times (via TechRadar) in a recent interview and addressed the subject. Yoshida referenced the concept of a successor to the current PlayStation 4, saying, "At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware.”
Every iteration of Sony's home console has been differentiated only by numerals thus far, but we immediately notice Yoshida specifically did not make any mention of a "PlayStation 5."
He also did not give a time frame in which to expect exactly when said next-generation hardware would be rolling out, but we do know that Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO John Kodera told Digital Trends in May of this year that the PlayStation 4 was in the final phases of its life, and that next three years will be used for prepping the next step.
This would mean Sony's next console would emerge some time in 2021, a timeline that bodes well with previously stated forecasts for Street Fighter 5's lifespan.
With Season 4 of Street Fighter 5 right around the corner, which characters are we hoping to see join the fight?
With the current competitive season of Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition drawing ever closer to its end, we're approaching the time where Season 4 might start to get hinted or revealed.
Since it's getting ever closer, my colleague Steven "DreamKing" Chavez and I decided it's time for another one of our collaboration pieces, where we look at which characters we're hoping to see enter the fray next year.
Typically, we get the proper unveiling of the first character at Capcom Cup, and although that is two months away at this point, hinting and such usually starts a bit earlier, with a big Sakura hint shown at the North American Regional Finals of the Capcom Pro Tour last year.
So with Season 4 rapidly approaching, naturally the question on everybody's mind is, what are we getting? While there may be gameplay changes or a second cinematic story mode or all kinds of things showing up, those are areas we can't really predict, but one thing we can be sure of is that we'll be getting new characters.
The nature of the characters is of course unknown — Season 1 saw nothing but familiar faces return, while Season 2 was almost entirely brand new characters (the highly demanded Akuma being the only exception), and this year we got a healthy mix of 4 old characters and 2 brand new ones.
Because of this, we didn't really impose any rules on our picks — we just go with what we're most hoping to see for Season 4, and elaborate on why. So then, without further ado, please continue below to see who we've chosen. To make it like a proper season, we did three picks each, for a total of six characters.
'The only people you can make fun of in this world is me' - K-Brad has a message for those talking badly about the players released by Echo Fox
Team Echo Fox was seen as perhaps the premier eSports team for fighting games bringing together a vast roster of the world's top talent which was why it was fairly surprising to see the amount of cuts they made yesterday.
Players like Punk, Theo and Scar were let go by Echo Fox along with the entirety of their Gears of War and Call of Duty eSports teams which has social media buzzing about the future of said players and the larger team as a whole, but K-Brad ain't having any of that.
K-Brad recently posted a Vlog style video following the release of the former Echo Fox players voicing his frustrations, calling on the internet to leave them alone and telling people to show some respect to these top players whose livelihoods have essentially been uprooted.
He says that "this is not the time to make jokes" and that these players "deserve better" from their former sponsors and the online community. The Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom player notes that he doesn't know why Echo Fox dropped them, but that it ultimately doesn't matter.
K-Brad is certainly no stranger to the world of eSports sponsors, as he was a part of one of the early big fighting game sponsors with team Evil Geniuses followed by Ghost eSports.
Echo Fox states that their move was a strategic reorganization and refocusing of their current resources for the company on their remaining roster. You can check out K-Brad's full video below.
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