Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

In 1994, Capcom U.S.A. Inc. sued Data East Corp. on the basis of copyright infringement, seeking 623 million yen in damages. More specifically, Capcom claimed that seven characters from their Street Fighter 2 were copied into Data East Corp.’s Fighter’s History.

According to Capcom, a significant number of elements from Guile, Sagat, Ryu, Vega, Ken, Zangief, and Chun-Li were copied from Street Fighter 2 to create Matlok Jade, Samchay Tomyamgun, Makoto Mizoguchi, Jean-Pierre, Ray McDougal, Marstorius, and Fei-Lin respectively in Fighter’s History.

It turns out that a lawsuit exhibit video was recorded that goes over the case, seemingly in Data East Corp.’s. For example, while Guile is described to obviously be a solider from the United States’ military, Matlok instead has British punk rocker influences.

Funnily enough, Matlock is demonstrated throwing a projectile that’s quite identical to Guile’s Sonic Boom. Though there are obviously disparities between the two characters, there do appear to be elements borrowed or inspired based on Capcom’s Guile.

Ultimately, Judge William H. Orrick Jr. did conclude that there was strong evidence that Data East Corp. did set out to to imitate Street Fighter 2’s success, but Capcom ended up losing the case since many of the alleged copied elements were too broad or generic to technically be owned by Capcom.

The VHS tape not only goes over the designs for Street Fighter and Fighter’s History characters, but also broadly goes over how some of the mechanics differ between the two games. In particular, Fighter’s History has a unique system where character specific weak points can begin glowing. Upon being hit at this weak point, the character can be stunned.

Check it all out below:

HOLY FUCK I THINK I FOUND IT“It” being GameFan’s copy of one of the exhibit tapes that Data East produced for Capcom’s lawsuit again them over Fighter’s History.

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— Mollie L Patterson (@mollipen.bsky.social) October 20, 2024 at 5:56 PM

Good news / bad news.

Good is that I’ve captured the 16-minute segment comparing seven of Fighter’s History’s characters to those Capcom said Data East copied from SF2.

Bad is that I thought the second part—the special moves comparison—was also on this tape, but it isn’t.

For now, a teaser!

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— Mollie L Patterson (@mollipen.bsky.social) October 20, 2024 at 11:08 PM

The world of Street Fighter includes no shortage of villains and evil factions out to foil Ryu, Chun-Li, Ken and the like, but it appears some new actors are getting set to hit the stage.

Udon Entertainment recently teased a brand new line of Street Fighter comics that are connected to Street Fighter 6 and may indicate a different threat on the horizon in the future.

Street Fighter Prime is set to kick off in 2025 with a special #0 prelude issue written by Matt Moylan dropping in January with some interesting implications for the world and potentially game.

Chief among them is a new set of villains shrouded in the shadows.

Their name is Vortex.

We can garner a few details from the group from the official cover teaser and comic description:

“The next era of Street Fighter comics begins here! Zangief and Marisa make an ominous discovery in Italy! Brother-in-laws Guile and Ken come to blows! And Chun-li investigates the mysterious organization known as Vortex!”

According to the image, there’s likely five main members of Vortex, and they appear to be new characters entirely — though the one on the right almost looks like Ken’s Outfit 3 from the silhouette.

Click images for larger versions

What’s probably even more intriguing than their apparent shared interest in big hair, however, is Vortex’s armaments.

At least three members seem to be armed with weapons or instruments that they’ll presumably use in battle over their bare hands.

The guy crouching up front is holding what looks like two long batons, so perhaps he’ll have a similar style to Eagle.

And then there’s the person on the right putting what may be an ax over their shoulder and the girl on the right is holding what appears to be a guitar (but grabbing it by the body with the neck facing downwards).

Maybe the guitar and sticks indicate the group is influenced by music, which could be a cool twist for Street Fighter.

While long, blunt instruments have become more commonplace in the series lately with JP and Falke, sharp / bladed weapons are still rarer for main cast members outside of Cody, Ibuki and Sodom.

And since we’ve already seen guitars used the likes of Guilty Gear’s I-No, Darkstalkers’ Lord Raptor and Dante in Marvel vs. Capcom, a new character jamming out against the world warriors would be a welcome addition.

The cover art featuring Vortex is labeled as top secret, however, and won’t be revealed until release, so there’s not much else to know about them since the group isn’t featured on any of the other covers either.

As things stand right now in the Street Fighter 6 story, we’ve seen a multitude of factions including the Mad Gear Gang, Amnesia and Neo Shadaloo along with the remnants of Shadaloo.

Despite that, most of them haven’t really been up to anything relevant lately besides Shadaloo, so there would seemingly be room for a new group of baddies in town.

We also have some hope that Vortex will not have any concrete ties to the other evildoers because outside of Necalli and potentially G, all of the Street Fighter villains have basically been connected to Shadaloo, the Secret Society or Mad Gear in some significant way.

All of this is very interesting to think about, but we also don’t know if Vortex will ever show up in the Street Fighter games.

Udon of course doesn’t confirm whether Prime is canon to Street Fighter 6 or not in the brief description and teaser, but it does appear to at least be connected since they’re using the new characters like Marisa and modern designs for the returning cast.

Although much of their content remains fairly standalone, Udon has contributed to the main story as recently as the Street Fighter 6: Days of the Eclipse run from just last year, which served as basically a prelude to the events of World Tour in the game.

There was also Street Fighter 5: The Life and Death(s) of Charlie Nash, which set up the resurrection of the titular character before the main story.

So Prime may help set up the next directions SF6 could take after Season 2.

If any particular Vortex member or the whole group end up being a hit among fans, we would likely see them added to the games at some point.

Unless Udon and Capcom have been working closely together for some time now on Vortex, however, we probably still wouldn’t see any of them as actual DLC characters for likely at least two years considering how far out the developers have to plan additions now.

The group could also end up as part of the Street Fighter canon without making a full game appearance too since we still haven’t seen the other Neo Shadaloo main members like Baba Mwalimu, Cypher, Doberman, Amrita and Goliath outside of artwork.

Many of us would probably like to see what the heck happened with G next, but this could be interesting too.

It seems we’ll be learning more by the time January rolls around.

Via Bleeding Cool.

Despite being over 30 years old now, Street Fighter 2 remains one of the most influential video games of all time, and we still see its spirit live on through even other types of media like this.

The new Ranma 1/2 anime from Mappa just included a full short sequence dedicated to Street Fighter 2 references.

With the fourth episode of the new adaptation for the classic martial arts / romantic comedy manga dropping today, fighting game fans were treated to some surprise fun.

This particular episode kicks off with a recap of the prior events, but not of the usual variety.

Instead, the Ranma story thus far is quickly covered through the presentation of SF2 with a VS screen for Ranma and Genma Saotome done up with pixel art portraits.

On top of that, they even made a faux fighting game recreation of Ranma hitting his panda dad with a Shoryuken and striking Ryu’s win pose complete with the health bars.

The animators didn’t stop there either considering they did the same for Tatewaki Kuno vs. Akane Tendo with the young lady jumping up and down like Chun-Li after landing a grab too.

They continue to play with the format more and have some fun by showing Ranma and Akane arguing in the VS screen before the protagonist is splashed with water in the portrait window, revealing the secret that he can transform into a girl.

A new game / continue screen ends the segment with art of the other girls checking out Ranma’s now expanded chest size.

The latest episode of the ongoing Ranma 1/2 remake has a recap that depicts the current cast members in a fighting game format. pic.twitter.com/YxSLIHhRu8

— Fighting Game Anniversaries (@FGAnniversaries) October 26, 2024

This is pretty cool to see with the effort put in here for what is essentially just a short recap gag that doesn’t even last a full minute.

It’s also a bit funny because this would have technically taken place presumably years before SF2 ever released since the manga began in 1987 with the setting seemingly placed around the same time too.

Ranma is no stranger to fighting games already, however, with a multitude of titles dating back to shortly after SF2 kicked off the genre craze in 1992.

The first of which, Ranma 1/2: Neighborhood Combat Chapter, was even localized for the Super Nintendo as Street Combat funnily enough with swapped out characters and music.

Whether or not the animators had any of these extra layers in mind when creating this sequence can’t be known for certain, but we wouldn’t be surprised either way.

Mentioned by Punchsplosion.

Glitches have played an important role in the realm of fighting games that could unlock unintended new levels of techniques and abilities that were not just limited to the classic arcade era.

Even Street Fighter 4 throughout its life featured a bug that gave some characters frighteningly better options, but they were held back by the difficulty of actually taking advantage of the strict glitch.

TheoryFighter recently put together a very nice and fascinating video taking a deep look at Street Fighter 4’s frame-perfect bug.

Armor cancels in SF4 work in a similar fashion to kara cancels where one action can be essentially swapped out for another with added benefits during the initial startup frames.

It’s even harder to use armor cancels in most situations, however, because a character has to use a move that has armor properties from frame one while the opponent is hitting them at the same time.

TheoryFighter breaks down how there’s only a five frame window to pull off the cancel, which typically means you have to input the second move before the first one activates.

While most characters can’t take advantage of the glitch with Focus Attacks, it gives Rufus in particular a pretty nasty way to beat option selects.

Rufus can use back throw to armor cancel Focus, which allows him to hit option selects meant to beat his grab after his signature dive kick.

Even if they don’t hit the attack, Rufus can backdash and leave himself at only -11, hold Focus for a guard crush or go for a dash before the move comes out.

Gen can stance switch from the armor cancel that makes it more like a parry, but the one-frame timing restriction means the technique is difficult to use during a match consistently.

Armor cancels can also work out of certain EX specials and actually allows for options that shouldn’t be possible in SF4’s game rules.

Some characters can use armor cancel to go from an EX attack into a Super Art going EX into Super was possible because the small amount of time during the cancel doesn’t calculate the meter change on that first frame.

Balrog’s EX Dash Straight is good for this since he can go into Super, a different rush punch for more armor or just complete the move and stay safe on block.

There’s other interesting applications highlighted with Juri able to cancel her EX counter into Feng Shui Engine for big damage on a punish, Guy can do different options out of his run, and Gouken can cancel his EX counter into Super or Ultra if you’re an input god too.

TheoryFighter does include actual tournament footage of this tech being used in matches during the era too, so it was definitely around and something to be wary of despite the difficulty.

We highly recommend checking out TheoryFighter’s full video below for much more detail like all of the wild stuff the glitch allows Abel to do.

It’s been over seven years since the Nintendo Switch was released on March 3, 2017. Since then, the Nintendo Switch has achieved 143.42 million sales worldwide, marking it as the third best-selling gaming peripheral after the Nintendo DS (154.02 million) and the PlayStation 2 (over 155 million).

Needless to say, the Switch has proven itself to be a major win for Nintendo, especially after the Wii U which seemingly failed to meet expectations as it has only sold 13.56 million units since it was released on November 18, 2012. Will Nintendo be able to continue this momentum with the release of their next console, or will it end up flopping like the Wii U did?

Tons of rumors have been circulating over the years about what fans have now dubbed as the “Switch 2.” Just like this fan-made name suggests, this is supposedly a console that effectively functions as a direct upgrade over its predecessor.

Thanks to the T239 processor chip and Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology, we can apparently expect higher frame rates, bigger resolutions, and virtually no load times on this new console. It’s previously been reported that Nintendo at one point was showing off the Switch 2 behind closed doors, which featured an advance port of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and “The Matrix Awakens” tech demo.

It’s been a long wait since then, but Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed earlier this year that the Switch successor would be officially announced within this fiscal year, which concludes on March 31, 2025.

By many accounts, this led us to believe that Nintendo would finally make the big announcement after the 2024 holiday season. However, there have been some interesting developments that may suggest that the reveal could happen sooner than expected.

During the “special finale episode” of Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube channel, Sakurai casually revealed that he’s been working on a secret game project since April 2022. While Sakurai didn’t provide too many details about this mysterious game, he did claim that it could be revealed relatively soon.

“I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“I’m sorry I can’t share more about this project, but assuming we’re able to get it made, it should be announced sooner or later,” declared Sakurai during that video.

This wasn’t just a slip on the tongue as Sakurai also noted within that same video that he gets Nintendo’s approval for every video that goes live on his channel. This means that Nintendo was comfortable with him revealing this information.

“I then took the pilot to Nintendo and discussed it with them as well. Not only did they do an initial check of the scripts, they also looked over the videos as necessary,” said Sakurai. “Though, they almost never asked me to change things. Thank you for that!”

Of course, Sakurai never confirmed that the request for the proposal of the secret game project came from Nintendo in the first place, but it does seem extremely likely considering that only Nintendo could’ve known where Sakurai’s team was in terms of their progress of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s DLC development at that point.

The likeliest scenario is that Sakurai is developing a game for the upcoming console, which would explain why it hasn’t been announced yet despite being in development for over two years at this point. Whether or not this is the next entry in the Super Smash Bros. series is something that remains to be seen, but that is a possibility that fans are feeling particularly hyped about.

Notably, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at this point has achieved over 34.66 million sales worldwide since it was released on December 7, 2018. In other words, it’s the third best-selling game on the Switch after Animal Crossing: New Horizons (45.85 million) and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (62.90 million). Needless to say, it would make sense why Nintendo would have a vested interest in beginning development on the next Super Smash Bros. so soon after Ultimate.

Furthermore, a new trailer for Yooka-Replaylee dropped a not-so-subtle hint that the game was coming to the Switch successor. More specifically, the end part of the trailer declared that Yooka-Replaylee was coming to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC, and “Nintendo.” Fans immediately took notice of how it wasn’t stated that it was coming to the Switch.

On the Yooka-Replaylee website, the developers went a little further with the hint of what was going on here. Fans were told that there’d be more information revealed soon.

“Yes! Yooka-Replaylee will be playable on PS5, Xbox Series consoles and… Nintendo?” declared an interesting segment of the website. “Ooh mysterious. We’ll have more on that as soon as poss!”

Again, this is something that Nintendo would probably need to approve of before it could be said by this third-party. In other words, Nintendo could be gearing up for this big reveal.

While it might be crazy to think that Nintendo would want to announce something during the holiday season, it wouldn’t be unheard of for Nintendo to have a Nintendo Direct presentation premier sometime in November or even December.

Just to list a few examples, Nintendo has had Nintendo Directs play in December 2012, December 2013, November 2014, and November 2015. Needless to say, the reveal of a “Switch 2” that’s backwards compatible with the Switch (as the rumors suggest) would likely have a nice impact on Nintendo’s sales this holiday season.

We’ll ultimately have to see how things play out from here, but it feels like we’re beginning to see some interesting developments pertaining to the Switch successor potentially being announced very soon.

The Street Fighter 2 series is where competitive fighting games as we know them today were essentially born. Many look back at the series as housing the epitome of “real Street Fighter” and true honest play, but make no mistake, it also has some absolutely crazy stuff in it as well.

Despite the title originally being released 30 years ago now, people still actively play Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo competitively. As a result, the level of skill on display when it’s played in a real setting today is often incredibly high, and this clip that took place and was recorded this week perfectly encapsulates that sentiment.

Twitter user riz0ne uploaded about a minute of footage from a Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (known as Super Street Fighter 2 Grand Master Challenge for its Japanese arcade release) exhibition that featured a heated bout between a Dhalsim player and an E. Honda player.

The tweet shines a light on the Dhalsim player, Kawasim, who is an exceptional Sim player from Japan. The Twitter user highlights Kawasim’s abilities with Dhalsim’s Yoga Teleport in particular, saying they’re the best in the business — and the clip absolutely backs that up.

“Kawasim easily has the best Yoga Teleport in the business,” wrote riz0ne. “Matchups that are 7-3 can turn into 7.5-2.5 or 8-2 with such consistency. Also this is the best timer scam I’ve ever seen, lol.”

Indeed, the showstopper in this footage involves Kawasim’s use of teleport.

The Twitter clip captures the third and final round of a game between the two competitors that kicks off with Kawasim effectively zoning out the E. Honda player, cloiwan, for about 35 in-game seconds. Eventually, we see the Honda player begin chipping away at Kawasim’s life bar with Hundred Hand Slap trades and pressure before ultimately getting the Sim player cornered.

Before the final moments, the Honda player who now has an invisible magic pixel of health left is able to land a big super that brings Kawasim’s health down to just a tiny sliver as well. All the while, the clock is running down insanely fast, and on literally the last second of the in-game timer cloiwan attempts a chip out for the win.

Check out the full clip below to see how it ends and what has to be one of the most clutch Yoga Teleports and timer scams we’ve ever seen in competitive Street Fighter 2 play.

Kawasim easily has the best Yoga Teleport in the business. Matchups that are 7-3 can turn into 7.5-2.5 or 8-2 with such consistency.

Also this is the best timer scam I’ve ever seen, lol. pic.twitter.com/xmXpki6AYp

— riz0ne (@superloreboys) October 24, 2024

Pound for pound it doesn’t get much more advantageous than when you have your opponent’s back to the corner, (even more true in Street Fighter 6 than most other fighting game) but does it often feel like opponents weasel out of this precarious position more easily than they should?

It’s impossible to be ready for every potential defensive maneuver a foe might throw at you, but it is possible to be ready for most. What’s better, you can be ready for most while using the same input and Chris F explains how quickly and efficiently in his newest helpful video.

It sucks when you’re cornered in Street Fighter 6, and can often feel like your opponent is psychically aware of every move you want to make to try to escape. Curiously enough, what seems so simple when you’re on the short end can suddenly feel like the opposite when you’re the one on the prowl.

Sometimes it seems like when you go for a meaty, they wake up with a reversal or a super, but when you wait to bait a defensive flail out, that’s when they jump out to safety or wake up with a normal to steal the momentum. If your corner offense intuition is off, there’s a technique that will instantly up your success rate.

Said technique is the tried and true delayed normal. It’s nothing fancy (though being ready with secondary follow ups can bring the razzle dazzle) but it’s oh-so effective as it covers many options simultaneously while mitigating risk to you.

The training exercise asks you to set your training dummy foe to wake up in the corner with various, go-to options like wake up reversal, throw, forward jump, neutral jump, parry, and jab. Turn on all of these options so they cycle at random and practice positioning your character just outside throw range and pressing a delayed attack on your foe’s wake up.

If they immediately launch into a reversal or super, the delay will allow you to block. If they jump, you’ll have time to see and anti-air. Chris shows how this works against other possible actions and offers a visual guide on how to set up and execute the exercise.

The timing can be a little unintuitive at first, which is why it’s so important to simply take the time to do this a few times and train your fingers, as it’s a practice you’ll use incessantly and wonder how you ever played without it once you get it down.

Justin Wong was already known for Evo Moment 37, winning Evo a lot more than anyone else, and teaching kids life lessons in Mortal Kombat (plus a Wiki page’s worth of other notable accomplishments). In 2017 he added another line to this resume when he was comically photo-friend zoned by a cosplayer at an event.

Wong posed for a photo with the beautiful Rose Ma at Evo 2017 and made a half heart hand gesture for her to complete. The cosplayer did not see this, however, and simply went for a thumbs up, and thus the “unrequited heart” meme was born. While perhaps not as generally widespread as some, this meme wound up having enough cultural impact that Cygames decided to put it directly into Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising via their latest DLC character.

Here’s the original post from Evo Japan 2017 that started it all:

Friend zone @JWonggg pic.twitter.com/eTyKAlbEV5

— Rose Ma ローズ (@iamrosema) July 16, 2017

The unrequited heart meme had something of a slow burn, but flared up at Evo Japan 2024 when an attending Wong was asked “about 5,000 times” to mimic the pose in pictures with Japanese fans of his:

Justin Wong reveals that he was asked about 5,000 times to take a photo in the Unrequited Heart Pose at EVOJ2024
byu/ZaBlancJake inFighters

The talk of the town when it comes to Granblue Fantasy Versus right now is brand new DLC character Vikala, a mouse-themed character with a giant, sentient metal trap named Dormouse. Developers made a clever cultural marketing move by inviting popular Twitch streamer (and fittingly named) Ironmouse to voice Dormouse.

That would not be the end of their pop culture references, however, as Vikala also enjoys taking Polaroids with her opponents when she lands a particular throw on them. Guess what pose Vikala strikes in each and every one of these photos?

That fateful half heart is now immortalized in a game as Vikala mimics Wong, and though every opposing character has multiple poses they can strike, at least one of these poses is, of course, a thumbs up. Click this thumbnail to see a handful of examples:

Click images for larger versions

The fighting game community was quick to point this out to Justin following Vikala’s release last week, to which the pro player and content creator responded (we’re sure it’s tongue in cheek):

This is painful https://t.co/0Tex16IEcg

— Justin Wong (@JWonggg) October 25, 2024

Climax of Night 6 is happening this weekend in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, U.S.A.

Notable players participating include BigBlack, Mo.Sin, BBB|Defiant, ESFC|Mario, BNP|Knotts, Neffros, WASD|Lid, 2GB Combo, PT|RUric, KSPD|Silent, Rikir, Revert, BNP|Snappy, Psykotik, Moai, BLITZ|Kikoho, BLITZ|JurassicOri and many more.

Largely a celebration of French Bread fighting games, Climax of Night focuses mainly on four specific titles. The biggest one is Under Night In-Birth 2 [Sys:celes] which landed at more than 400 players followed by Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code almost reaching 200 signups ahead of its sequel Melty Blood Type Lumina which mustered almost 160 participants and finally rounded out by Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax: Ignition which sits at just over 80 entrants.

This is a Platinum Event for Under Night In Birth 2 [Sys:celes] on the Arc World Tour 2024, which is no doubt part of the reason why the main game managed to reach such a high entrant numbers, due to what’s at stake for competitors.

There will also be side tournaments for Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R, King of Fighters 15, Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers) and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle +R.

Streaming is being done at Team Spooky and MaxMode FGC.

Ready to go in depth on a game with a starting roster of 182 characters? We had some trepidation as well, but Diaphone has boldly undertaken the task of ranking each and every one of the character select screen figures for a full Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero tier list.

To help bring method to the madness, Diaphone welcomes Sparking Zero tournament player (and often winner) Voxelizing. Together they articulate what kind of specific tools and abilities make for strong, weak, and mid tier fighters in Sparking Zero, and spend a full three hours putting together a final ordering.

There are seven total tier categories on this list including: Broken (2 characters), top tier (15 characters), high tier (25 characters), full power (four characters), insta-spark (43 characters), afterimage strike (8 characters), viable (24 characters), and not viable (61 characters).

The two characters at the top of the pile are not ones you’d expect when it comes to general power levels or notoriety. Dr. Gero’s Androids 19 and 20 are considered the most broken characters in the game right now, and are even being banned from tournaments thanks to their obvious overpowered status.

The reason these two shoot up above the pack so rapidly is the fact that their ki gauges do not diminish beyond a certain point. Every other character must manage their ki with more attention and tact, but both 19 and 20 can spam ki abilities and manipulate the fight in ways that reduce the competitive aspect down to nearly zero.

It’s also worth pointing out that this list was compiled before the recent patch that nerfed Yajirobe. Somewhat similar to the aforementioned androids, the sword-wielding character wound up much more powerful than intended thanks in part to his Sensu Bean ability that grants full health.

Yajirobe was initially amid the “broken” category with 19 and 20, but has since fallen. Diaphone noted in the corresponding X post that he knows the character is worse, but he isn’t sure where he ultimately has landed.

If you don’t want to wait for three hours, you can see the end result (which is so large it’s divided into two images) by simply clicking on the thumbnails below. To hear reasonings behind any and all of the picks, check out Diaphone’s full video. The discussion is time-tamped to fairly detailed degree, so you can jump around to hear about the characters you’re most interested in first.

Click images for larger versions