It was back in early August that Vesper Arcade rolled out his season 2 tier list for Street Fighter 6, but since that time Capcom has added a whole new character and re-balanced a number of the cast.
Vesper has, in response, updated his tier list to include Terry Bogard and rearrange the roster. The end result is a tier chart wherein no character is in the same position as they were in the previous take. Continue on to see …
The Rivals of Aether 2 demo was made available online back on October 14 for a full week. This is being done in preparation of the full release on October 23, 2024 — tomorrow.
Needless to say, Rivals of Aether has turned out to be one of the more successful platformer brawlers that was seemingly inspired by the Super Smash Bros. series. In fact, the Super Smash Land “demake” acts as sort of a spiritual predecessor to the Rivals of Aether series, especially considering how Vaporeon from that fan game seemingly inspired Orcane.
Though the demo was only available for a brief period of time, Smash commentator Coney spent some time trying to understand which characters felt strong. It’s still early to determine a definitive tier list right now, but Coney has a few ideas on how the characters might be placed.
According to Coney, Zetterburn and Wrastor (the lion and bird) are potential candidates for best in the game right now. This is said to be an unordered tier list, so their power levels apparently feel roughly the same.
On the other hand, Loxodont and Forsburn (the elephant and hyena) are said to be noticeably worse than the rest of the roster, but Coney asserts that the game still feels relatively balanced so even these two still feel “good” in their own ways.
Of course, it should be mentioned that Coney was unsure about Orcane and Kragg’s exact positions. Needless to say, one of these characters could turn out to be even better than the best, or worse than the worst.
Check it all out below:
Click images for larger versions
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite hasn’t been officially supported in over six years after the game’s initial launch, but a talented and dedicated group of fans are aiming to breathe new life into the crossover fighter in ways that improve the experience top to bottom.
With months of work under their belt now, the team behind the ambitious MVC Infinite & Beyond mod project including Maximilian Dood are gearing up to present a big showcase of how far the fan development has come.
The MVCIB Direct stream is taking place tomorrow night, October 23, at 8 p.m. PT for a live presentation and demonstration of the changes and improvements made to the unofficial PC mod.
This will mark the second such Beyond showcase after the first took place in August, and the preview trailer is already revealing some more updates they’ve made since.
What started out as a fairly straightforward graphics filter and effects mod has blossomed into much more with us now being able to see things like brand new character portraits during battle and a more stylish user interface.
To celebrate MVCI’s 7th birthday, the Beyond team has a gift for you – the final layer of our visual update! Thanks to the efforts of @AngryangryD, select characters will be receiving all-new linework details.
Looking forward to sharing more in the near future! pic.twitter.com/k5IsnOODa6
— Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite & Beyond (@MVCI_Beyond) September 20, 2024
The team has gone so far as to create new textures and models as well for characters that need it the most like Dante.
And beyond the visual side, the MVCIB modders are testing out a fan-made balance patch as well as a four-player 2v2 mode for even wilder action.
It doesn’t sound like the mod is likely to be ready this year, but their progress after presumably thousands of hours of work collectively is pretty bewildering.
Strider’s MVCIB costumes were a throwback to MVC2, with several micro-details added by massive Strider fan @maximilian_ himself! Slice your way through the competition!
Line work: @AngryangryD
Textures: @moocartoons pic.twitter.com/vHzpjjoHFj— Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite & Beyond (@MVCI_Beyond) October 15, 2024
Streaming for the Infinite & Beyond showcase is set to be held on Maximilian’s Twitch and YouTube pages, and you can also catch the action here when it begins.
Plus, get a taste of what’s to come in the teaser below.
It may be time for horror and Halloween, but saving money on fighting games is never out of season.
Sony is currently running their PlayStation Fall Savings sale, which includes some nice deals on fighting games, though you’ll have to act fast to grab them goodies.
Some of the major highlights are Mortal Kombat 1 for half price (though you’ll still have to buy Khaos Reigns separately), King of Fighters 15 for just over $10 plus discounts on the first two DLC packs, and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Deluxe Edition for just over $20.
They are missing some more recent heavy hitters like Tekken 8, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Under Night In-Birth 2 and Guilty Gear Strive though those will probably make an appearance next month for Black Friday.
You can find Granblue Rising and its Deluxe Edition on sale right now for PC on Steam until November 5, which brings down the price to $25 and $37.50 respectively.
Street Fighter 6 is also sitting this one out, but you can still get into the Halloween spirit with Darkstalkers in the Capcom Fighting Collection or save a bunch of money on the Resident Evil games in the actual Halloween sale going on too.
You can check out the highlights for fighting game deals below, which are scheduled to end at 11:59 p.m. PT on October 23.
• Brawlhalla All Legends – $20
• Capcom Fighting Collection – $16
• Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Deluxe Edition – $13.50
• Fighting EX Layer – $8
• For Honor – $4.50
• For Honor: Ultimate Edition – $22.50
• Injustice 2 – $3
• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R Ultimate Edition – $29.74
• King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match – $3.74
• King of Fighters ’97 Global Match – $3.74
• King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition – $3.74
• King of Fighters 15 – $10.50
• KOF15 Team Pass 1 – $5.59
• KOF15 Team Pass 2 – $5.59
• Lethal League Blaze DLC – 35% off
• Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite – $8
• Mortal Kombat 1 – $25
• Mortal Kombat 11 – $5
• Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Add-on Bundle – $5
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl – $5
• Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Deluxe Edition – $21
• Phantom Breaker: Omnia – $5
• Soul Calibur 6 – $9.59
• Soul Calibur 6 Season Pass 1 – $9.89
• Soul Calibur 6 Season Pass 2 – $13.59
• Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection – $9.89
• Tekken 7 – $10
• Tekken 7 Definitive Edition – $19.19
• The Rumble Fish 2 Deluxe Edition – $13.59
• Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Legendary Pack – $3
Fans of Capcom fighting games were hit with quite the surprise recently when Street Fighter 6’s Director hinted that he worked on an unknown Darkstalkers project, which ended up being canceled.
But it turns out, however, that wasn’t the only nor apparently even the first time Takayuki Nakayama dropped some teases about a modern Darkstalkers — that now connects to Street Fighter 5.
The problem was most of the world didn’t have access to the required materials or even know of the media’s existence unless you were in Japan at a very specific time.
We were luckily able to recently get our hands on a copy of the 28th and final volume of the Capcom Secret Files, which we’ve now been able to translate a very interesting portion of.
These booklets were released in Japan dating back all the way to 1994 where Capcom would give fans special information about a particular game like Street Fighter Alpha 2 or X-Men vs. Street Fighter including developer interviews / stories, concept art and funny parodies.
Although the Secret File booklets were originally discontinued in 1999, they were brought back in 2010 for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and finally in 2020 for Street Fighter 5: Champion Edition.
That last one contains the secrets we’re most interested in today.
On the last page of the Secret File book, there’s a Q&A section with the development staff of SF5 where they were each asked four questions / prompts — and the second of which is the most important to look at for this.
“This is your chance to open up about a past failure or something interesting that happened during development, so please tell us whatever you’ve got,” reads the prompt as translated by our own Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor.
And the Director had a quite surprising response.
“Master F.A.N.G’s concept was actually a dropped design from a new ◯a◯◯◯◯ game as a character called ◯su◯◯, but this is a secret of secrets,” said Nakayama.
Obviously, he doesn’t completely spell it all out there plainly, but it highly suggests that the poisonous SF5 newcomer was originally planned for Darkstalkers.
The blank letters don’t match up with Darkstalkers of course since that’s the western name, but rather the word lines up perfectly with the original title Vampire — specifically in the Japanese spelling “ヴァンパイア.”
As for what the concept that would eventually become F.A.N.G was named, there’s too many possibilities to really offer a guess on that front.
If you would have asked us before which new character in SF5 was originally meant for Darkstalkers, we probably would have said Necalli given his ancient Aztec powers and ability to transform, but who knows, maybe they did have some similar ideas floating around back then for him too.
That being said, a wacky poison user would probably fit right at home with the Darkstalkers cast though we’d really like to see what his original concept looked like (if they ever had an appearance assigned to him at all).
The original design of F.A.N.G presumably would have looked very different than SF5 because he’d be too close in appearance to Hsien-Ko with their elongated purple sleeves and similar outfits.
From the SF5 concept art for F.A.N.G we have seen, there was a time when Capcom thought to make him more beastly with a tiger fighting style as well as a short and round design where he could roll himself up in a ball.
On top of that, some attack concepts also appear very much like Hsien-Ko by having a chain he could throw from under his sleeve attached to a claw or other weapons.
And now we have his apprentice in Street Fighter 6 with A.K.I., who does have individual claws she can extend.
So this makes at least two instances now where Nakayama has seemingly hinted at the short-lived existence of a modern Darkstalkers project without outright confirming it was real officially.
Nakayama responded in part to our original story that “maybe someday he’ll be able to talk about it,” and we’d certainly love to hear that story.
What do we know about the failed revival then?
Well, a new Darkstalkers project was apparently being worked on inside of Capcom beginning sometime between 2010 and 2012 around the same time as Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken.
It is unknown how far along the project was before it was canceled, but available information and discussions from people with knowledge suggests development was halted very early on — quite likely before ever leaving the concept phase.
Nakayama would have been on that team, which was then transferred to work on Otoranger, and at least some of them joined the Street Fighter 5 team shortly after that.
Many fans believed the “Darkstalkers are not Dead” trailer from New York Comic-Con 2012 was pointed towards something specific going on behind the scenes instead of just a nebulous teaser of what could happen in the future, and that was likely the case after all in some fashion though it doesn’t mean the footage was from the planned game.
The project would have been canceled likely before Darkstalkers Resurrection released in 2013, and that release’s poor performance was not going to help bring it back.
Former Capcom Producer Yoshinori Ono stated in 2016 he was still “striving hard to attain” the approval for a new Darkstalkers and later lamented how he was unable to achieve that goal when he left the company in 2020.
This new timeline of fighting game development at Capcom and information about F.A.N.G also has us very curious what other (if any) concepts or ideas from Darkstalkers were carried over or reworked into SF5.
Perhaps one day we’ll be lucky enough to learn the full tale of the Darkstalkers game that never came to be.
Contributions to this story were made by Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor.
Following his stellar silver medal finish at East Coast Throwdown 2024, XSET|iDom, sat down with Fighting Game Select to discuss the current health of Street Fighter 6.
The Capcom Cup 2019 champion has plenty of good things to say about SF6, such as that it’s the best modern game as a product and helps bring new people into the scene, but it’s also clear that he’s not nearly as happy as he could be with it. When answering the overarching question about whether or not SF6 is in a healthy place at the moment, iDom’s answer is actually quite clear: no.
To be fair, he puts it as “I’m kinda on the ‘no’ side of things… just a bit,” so it doesn’t seem as though iDom holds a burning hatred from deep within (and for someone who has stuck with one of the decidedly worst characters in the game since launch, that’s saying something).
Though he doesn’t exactly spit fiery darts for 15 minutes, the Capcom Cup champ does proceed to spend the time talking about the (mostly negative) effects of corner throw loops.
He feels throw loops simplify offense, and while this can be helpful in that it gives more characters viability (Ryu becomes comparatively scary to Ken if you’ve got your back to the wall) and makes it easier for newer players to see quick success, it ultimately turns the game into too much of a flowchart experience.
All that said, iDom also doesn’t see removal of throw loops as a very viable option at this point. He and Kizzie discuss potential alterations that might work in this avenue, but as is usually the case with the sensitive balance of fighting game mechanics, closing one can of worms can easily lead to three more springing open.
Check out the full discussion via the video below and give us your feedback on iDom’s thoughts in the comments. Do you think Street Fighter 6 is in a healthy place right now, or does it need a few tweaks to feel more balanced out?
Like many traditional fighting games, the typical method of opening up a defensive opponent in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is to simply grab them. Of course, it’s interesting to note that among these fighters, made up of a roster of 182 and counting, there exists a number of antagonistic character relationships that come straight from the source material.
Since Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is chock-full of charm, the developers went out of their way to animate special unique grab animations that trigger when certain characters interact with one another. Fans of the series will certainly be able to recognize many of these iconic moments.
During the first battle with Frieza on Planet Namek, Frieza at one point thought he’d be able to defeat Goku with his arms crossed the entire time. While he did initially have the edge even with this handicap, Goku was eventually able to get a hold of his tail before he swung him around for a big throw.
Needless to say, if Goku is able to land a grab against Frieza, you can see this scene play out. It will even be possible to note that Frieza’s arms are crossed, making it clear which scene this is intended to reference.
Similarly, Goku Black in his Super Saiyan Rosé form will be in a for a rough time if Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta is able to get a grab on him. Goku Black gets pinned to the ground, but Vegeta ends up “helping him up” by pulling him by his hair.
This eventually leads into Goku Black getting headbutted by Vegeta. Quite a painful scene, but it was probably even more damaging to Goku Black’s ego.
There are plenty more scenes just like these that can be found in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero. Check it all out below:
The celebratory special finale episode of Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games is now live on YouTube. During this video, Sakurai discusses the creation process of his YouTube channel over the past two years.
Needless to say, some interesting tidbits were unveiled throughout the broadcast. In particular, Sakurai revealed that he was tasked with the creation of a new game proposal befores the releases of the Kazuya Mishima DLC and Sora DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
“It was around July 2021. I was busy working on the DLC of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” declared Sakurai. “To be precise, I was putting together the video for ‘Mr. Sakurai Presents Kazuya.’ Sora was in development too, of course. While I was busy working on those tasks, I received a request to write a game proposal, which I finished at lightning speed.”
“While I was busy working on those tasks, I received a request to write a game proposal, which I finished at lightning speed.” — Masahiro Sakurai
Of course, this video was never intended to feature a reveal trailer or anything like that. As such, Sakurai was expectedly a little muff on the details of what was detailed within this mysterious game proposal.
Regardless, Sakurai ended up implying that the game was still in development at this point. Additionally, it might not be too much longer before it actually gets announced.
“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,” continued Sakurai.
“Then, in late October of 2021, Sora was released, and my work commitments were more or less wrapped up. There was, of course, that new game proposal I had written. I’d been given the OK to move forward, but it was going to take some time to assemble the right team. The target timeframe was April 2022.”
“There was, of course, that new game proposal I had written. I’d been given the OK to move forward, but it was going to take some time to assemble the right team. The target timeframe was April 2022.” — Masahiro Sakurai
This ended up being a unique situation for Sakurai as he was used to going directly from one job to the next. However, Sakurai actually had a few months of spare time before development on his next project would truly begin.
Sakurai apparently considered a few different options such as taking a trip or actually taking the time to “recharge.” Of course, Sakurai concluded that this was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for him, so he ultimately decided to plan out the creation of his new YouTube channel that was directed at teaching game development.
It may sound crazy, but Sakurai revealed during this special finale episode that he’s actually been overseeing the development of this secret game project and managing his YouTube channel since April 2022. Needless to say, the experience has left him with very little free time.
Still, Sakurai made sure to prepare as much as he could before the start of the mysterious game’s development. He indicates that it would be completely unrealistic to write the scripts and record himself while also overseeing a new game’s development process.
“As for why I wrote all the scripts at the start, it’s because I would never have been able to work on both the channel and a game at the same time.” — Masahiro Sakurai
“As for why I wrote all the scripts at the start, it’s because I would never have been able to work on both the channel and a game at the same time,” stated Sakurai. “If game development didn’t take so much time out of my day, or if either the game or channel were smaller in scale, it might’ve been possible — but that wasn’t the case.”
From this, Sakurai effectively told us that this was yet another massive game that he was working on. Of course, this isn’t too surprising considering that he’s been working on it since April 2022 and we’ve yet to receive an official announcement about it.
“If nothing else, I knew that for a director who produces games on the scale that I do, it would be a tall order to manage two projects at once,” continued Sakurai. “In order to increase my chances of success, I absolutely had to plan all the content in advance.”
When August 2022 rolled around, Sakurai’s YouTube channel was launched. Those that knew Sakurai was acting as a game director for a big game were surprised that Sakurai was also overseeing this channel.
“At the time, people were surprised to see an active game director starting up a channel of this scale. The game project I’ve mentioned had already started production, so as I’d prepare for, I had to work both ventures at once.” — Masahiro Sakurai
“At the time, people were surprised to see an active game director starting up a channel of this scale,” declared Sakurai. “The game project I’ve mentioned had already started production, so as I’d prepare for, I had to work both ventures at once.”
Needless to say, Sakurai lived a very busy schedule for the next two years. Essentially, Sakurai had to manage both his secret game project and YouTube channel at the same time.
“Now, I’d like to share with you what a typical day looks like for me,” stated Sakurai. “At around 8 a.m., I get out of bed, and immediately write a daily report to my game development’s team. At times, I’ll also catch up on checks that came in the night before. I eat breakfast, get ready for the day, then start working on my game project.”
Sakurai then continues to emphasize just how busy he usually is. Indeed, he even notes that he doesn’t even have time to take breaks.
“In any case, I don’t have time during the day to work on the YouTube channel, so I focus exclusively on my game project,” continued Sakurai. “If I can get everything done on time, I finish at 6:30 p.m. I try not to go too far over that since I have channel work to do as well, but I always finish my necessary tasks for the day before clocking out.”
From there, Sakurai notes that he’d effectively work on his YouTube channel starting at 8 p.m. If he had any spare time after working on his YouTube channel for the night, he’d either play games or exercise.
He’d do this until he retired to bed between 1 and 2 a.m. He also notes that he would typically get about six hours of sleep each night with this routine.
In total, 260 videos have aired on Sakurai’s channel. It’s mentioned in this latest video that it typically took about three months to create a video from start to finish. Even though these videos were intended to be bite-sized, they required a lot of effort.
Now, it’s worth noting that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s initial development period spanned from February 2016 and lasted until December 7, 2018, when the game launched. That’s not even including the post-launch development of DLC fighters. At this point, Sakurai’s new game project has been in development since around the same amount of time, but it hasn’t even been announced yet.
More than likely, Sakurai was tasked with creating a new game for the successor to the Nintendo Switch, similar to how he was tasked with creating a proposal for the new Super Smash Bros. entry for the Switch as post-launch development for Super Smash Bros. 4 (Corrin and Bayonetta specifically) was wrapping up.
Just earlier this year, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa confirmed that the Switch successor is slated to be announced within this fiscal year, which ends on April 1, 2025. As such, it seems likely that Sakurai’s new game project will be announced around then as well.
Whether or not this new title is a new entry in the Super Smash Bros. series or something else entirely (similar to how Sakurai was able to create Kid Icarus: Uprising between developing Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. 4) is something that we’ll have to find out when the game is finally revealed.
We’re back with your weekly does of fighting game fan art, this time featuring the excellent work of X_Chitch as he offers us some beautiful takes on the ladies of Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, and King of Fighters.
While most of these drawings are one-offs, there are a few that come as a series that tell little tales. Sakura Kasugano and Karin Kanzuki from Street Fighter and Rival Schools, for instance, pop up twice as they try their best to get some studying done.
Things kick off with Cammy in her Street Fighter 6 attire as she lounges in her bed with her pet cat. This is by no means the last time we see Miss White (nor her cat) as X-Chitch also draws her at her dinner table as well as in her old school Alpha gear.
Street Fighter 6’s Juri strikes a few poses for us as well, one from a low angle and the other from higher up. The fan favorite fighter is first seen eating a sucker, and then pulls out her phone to take a picture of her latest victim.
Morrigan and Lilith lay on the sensuality as they lay out across a bed amid a dark and smokey room. Morrigan is, after all, a succubus, so we’re used to her trying to lower our defenses.
Beyond these images you’ll find a few with Chun-Li and a few with King of Fighters characters in the full gallery below. Give it a look through and let us know what you think of X-Chitch’s artwork in the comments after.
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It’s that spooky season once again, and though Scream’s Ghostface is not yet available for Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns yet, they’re still getting into the Halloween spirit.
NetherRealm Studios have now launched the first wave of Happy Halloween Towers for MK1 that includes the ability to unlock a multitude of skins and other seasonal content for a limited time.
The action is already underway with Smoke receiving two new skins / palettes for completing the seven-stage Tower and you’ll only have to beat it one time to get both.
Smoke’s skins have a neat spiderweb accent added to the purple Insatiable Zombie and orange Undead Carnivore palettes for the fighter.
It seems Smoke is the only character available for now, but the promotion shows more are coming.
Mileena, Johnny Cage, Li Mei and Reiko also appear as though they’re getting in on the Halloween fun too.
We’re not entirely sure how that’s going to work at the moment, but it seems likely they’ll be adding a new character’s rewards to the Tower each day considering the countdown timer.
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Said timer has the clock expiring around 8 a.m. PT, so the new content should be available then.
It’s also a bit unclear if the particular skins for a given character will only be unlockable on that specific day, but considering NRS says Smoke’s is available from October 21–26, we presume you’ll have more than the 24 hours to get each.
On top of that, MK1 is also adding a handful of Halloween Kombat Kards as well to help liven up your player profile.
Halloween Kombat kards are also part of the rewards for the upcoming towers pic.twitter.com/BuDCwUKnBP
— iScream (@iScreamFGC) October 21, 2024
And so far, there’s been no word on another Halloween Fatality after the controversy the seasonal finishers caused last year.
We should be seeing more of the skins for the other characters in the coming days.