Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Fighting game inspire creativity beyond just playing and competing in them, and it’s always cool to see the love for the genre brought out in different ways and styles.

Japanese artist Click Burgundy has remained one of our absolute favorites for years now for his top tier fighting game portraits that seem to only be getting better.

It’s been a good number of months since we last featured the Hungry Clicker, so we’re putting together a small gallery of some of his latest works.

The artist also likes keeping up with the current events going on around the FGC, so of course JP got a special Capcom Cup 11 portrait for IBSG|Kakeru’s big win — and Akuma got one too.

That extends to one for Anna Williams’ recent reveal for Tekken 8 as well with her new redesign.

And then Mai Shiranui’s release in Street Fighter 6 warranted two pieces of gorgeous artwork.

Other characters featured are Faust enjoying some Cup Noodles, a bit of love for the original Guilty Gear Valentine, Juri and Akuma with a Hitbox controller.

You can check out a collection of Click Burgundy’s recent fighting game works below, and there’s of course plenty more fan and now professional works to be found on the artist’s X/Twitter page too.

Click images for larger versions

Some unfortunate news has recently caught our attention. Dave Mallow passed away on March 11, 2025 at the age of 76.

For those that don’t know him, Dave Mallow was the English voice actor for Akuma in Ultra Street Fighter 4, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Street Fighter X Tekken. This also meant that he did the English voice lines for Oni (Akuma after he fully embraces the Satsui no Hado) in Ultra Street Fighter 4.

Though Mallow’s role as Akuma would ultimately be replaced by Richard Epcar and Christopher Guerrero in Street Fighter 5 and Street Fighter 6 respectively, the voice work he did for previous games is still memorable to this day.

“Die one thousand deaths!” Even without playing Street Fighter 4 for so long, I can still perfectly hear the energy that Mallow put into his voice lines as Akuma. When I think of Akuma, that’s always the first thing about the character that pops into my mind, and it’s all because of Dave Mallow’s stellar voice work.

Outside of videos games, Dave Mallow also acted as the voice in the Street Fighter 4: The Ties That Bind. Funnily enough, he would also become the voice of Gouken in Street Fighter Alpha: Generations.

According to TMZ, Dave Mallow spent his final days at MonteCedro Senior Living Community in California in hospice care as he had been struggling with health issues.

Dave Mallow and his iconic take on Akuma will be sorely missed by fans.

To us Street Fighter fans, he was Akuma and Oni in the PS3/360 Era. So that means Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter X Tekken, and even Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

When you imagine Akuma screaming “DIE ONE THOUSAND DEATHS”, thats HIS voice you are hearing.

RIP Dave Mallow pic.twitter.com/CmHmfxvVOW

— C0MMS OPEN! The Spriter Punnysher (@Punnyshment) March 12, 2025

Elena’s release for Street Fighter 6 is just around the corner, but her Healing move is not only on the hearts and minds of the community, but the developers as well.

Most people remember this move because of the infamous decision by Ultra Street Fighter 4’s developers to make it use her Ultra Combo system, which effectively meant Elena could build the meter required to heal herself — by taking damage.

Numerous players in the Fighting Game Community have called out this decision back in 2014, and the subsequent years. As such, I wanted to discuss how this move may look with Street Fighter 6’s mechanics and talk about where its fit may be most ideal.

One of Elena’s Supers being her Healing move seems the most likely, with one particular level being the stand out candidate, but let’s cover all three.

Super 1: This option I consider to be the least likely of her Supers, as character’s Level 1s tend to serve a number of purposes for adding on damage and providing a reasonably invincible reversal. Not all characters have a Super 1 that functions in this way, however.

Giving Elena the ability to heal herself for the cost of a single Super meter may be way too strong, though, and I can see the developers heavily struggling with balancing this move if they were to implement Healing as her Level 1. As such, I feel like this is a fairly unlikely scenario.

Super 2: A number of characters have utility Super moves as their Level 2s, because of this I feel like Elena’s Healing falling into the same category is the most likely outcome. This may mean that Elena can heal herself twice per round, and we know that with a character like Rashid, the ability to get two Tornadoes out in a single round gigantically boosts his odds to win that round.

This may be the case for Elena’s Super 2 as well, if it ends up being her Healing move, which is the biggest case against making it her Level 2. Regardless, this feels like the most likely candidate.

Super 3: These attacks tend to be the highest damage options for the cast members of Street Fighter 6, and losing the ability to land this and end matches by cashing out your major resources may not be the best choice for Elena. However, considering how strong Elena’s Healing move can be, it may make the most sense to lock it behind a very expensive resource.

While I think Elena’s Healing being her Super 2 is most likely, this is the second most likely candidate given how strong this move can be.

It’s possible that Elena’s Healing move won’t be tied to her Supers at all, and instead use Drive Gauge in some way, which would heavily echo the decision Capcom made back in the Ultra Street Fighter 4 days, tying it to her Ultra Combo.

While I’d love to say this shouldn’t be a possibility for Capcom, we know that in the Fighting Game Community, history repeats itself, and the developers might try and get tricky with her this time around once again.

Drive Gauge is a constantly replenishing resource in Street Fighter 6, so how to balance this fairly could be a nightmare, but the developers could make it so that Elena only heals at a 1 chunk of life for every 2 Drive Gauge meters spent, or add quite a bit of recovery time when Elena attempts to Heal, or something akin to these things.

Also, pushing herself ever closer to Burnout for Healing could be a reasonable trade off, depending on how it’s implemented.

Regardless of these potential balance options, this is the setting that probably scares the Street Fighter 6 player base the most.

Limiting the amount of life restored for the meter consumed, adding a number of frames of recovery, or some other outside the box solutions are all possible here from Capcom.

The developers have stated they’re very familiar with Healing’s reputation and that fans shouldn’t worry about this move.

We’ll know a lot more when Elena is released as the final DLC character for Season 2 Street Fighter 6 in the spring time of this year.

Which option do you like the most for Elena’s Healing move in Street Fighter 6? Sound off in the comments below.

A number of professionals have described the moment they knew they had a hit product, and the development team at Midway, who created the first Mortal Kombat game, are no exception.

“It was our first weekend test, and the way we tested coin-op games back at Midway, we would do a prototype in a plain black cabinet, with a Xerox copy marquee [for Mortal Kombat],” said John Tobias, co-creator of the original game.

“There was a Street Fighter 2 machine just down the way, and a pack of players around it, and I just remember thinking ‘What are we doing here? How are we going to compete with this game?’,” said Tobias.

“They turned the Mortal Kombat machine on and there it sat alone with no one playing it, and then the first player walked over and put a token in, and then ran over and told his friend about the game,” said Tobias. “They were both playing it, and then slowly the crowd migrated over from Street Fighter 2.

“That’s when we realized there’s gotta be something special about this game,” Tobias stated. “We kind of felt that during development, people around the office were excited about it, but it was the first night [at the arcade] where we understood there was something special about the game,” Tobias concluded.

“When we took the game away, the arcade was saying they were getting phone calls, asking when they were going to bring the Mortal Kombat game back,” said series co-creator, Ed Boon.

“I remember watching the game and seeing where people’s eyes lit up, or sometimes worse, where they were confused about something,” said former Midway employee, Sal DiVta. “While we were watching games on test, we would notate that and go back to the office, sometimes that very night, and make fixes.

“We’d study the people playing Mortal Kombat, and we weren’t allowed to interfere either,” said DiVita.

This all took place back in the early 1990s at a Chicago, Illinois arcade called Times Square that was located on Broadway Street.

You never know when something you’re working on will blow up into a major thing, but when those moments happen, it’s something truly special.

If you want to go further, check out John Tobias and Ed Boon breaking down a cut Fatality that went too far, presumably for Mortal Kombat 2 and how Mortal Kombat is close to becoming a forever franchise, like Star Wars and Marvel.

You can scope out the full discussion with Ed Boon, John Tobias, Sal DiVita and Kerri Hoskins in this video from Tabmok99.

The Nintendo Switch 2 was finally officially revealed back in January. However, we still have to wait until that Nintendo Switch 2 focused Direct scheduled for April to get more concrete details about the system.

Leading up to this reveal, many of the rumors and leaks regarding the Switch 2 that were dropped were determined to be true. As a result, the Switch 2 could now be amusingly recognized as being the gaming industry’s worst kept secret. Even still, the fanbase is keeping a close eye out for additional leaks prior to the upcoming Direct.

As a result, fans have taken notice of a new FCC filing (via Pokemaniac on Famiboards) made by Nintendo. This appears to be for a wireless device associated with the label “BEE-021,” which is likely to be the product label.

It’s important to note that the Switch 1’s label prefix has typically been “HAC.” Since this is using a unique label prefix, it’s believed that this is specifically for the Switch 2.

Additionally, the awkward positioning of the label only seems to make sense when placed on the shape of a GameCube controller. Like with the original GameCube controller, it’s been placed on the backside of the C-Stick.

It’s important to note that the wireless aspect of the peripheral suggests that this is likely for the Nintendo Switch Online. In other words, the GameCube library might be coming exclusively to the Switch 2.

If this is true, then we have to imagine that Super Smash Bros. Melee will eventually make its way to the Switch 2 as well. This is due to how Super Smash Bros. Melee was the best-selling game on the GameCube, having sold 7.41 million units to this day.

Of course, this is the game that had Masahiro Sakurai working 13 months straight without a single day off. His typical work schedule had him working 40 hours straight, followed by just four hours of sleep, before returning to work for the next 40 hours. Needless to say, the experience eventually resulted in Sakurai collapsing and going to the hospital.

Regardless, this renewed focus on the GameCube controller is certainly interesting for fans of the Super Smash Bros. series. Typically, the rerelease of the GameCube controller for a new console has been the telltale sign that a new entry in the franchise is in production.

Prior to the announcement of the Switch 2, Masahiro Sakurai revealed that he had been working on a secret game project since April 2022. He apparently completed the requested game proposal “at lightning speed” back in July 2021 while he was still juggling the Kazuya and Sora DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Considering the success of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch (35.88 million sales thus far), it certainly seems like it would be in Nintendo’s best interest to have an entry in the series featured on the Switch 2. Could this be what Sakurai has been working on since April 2022?

We’ll just have to see what comes of all of this as things get officially announced.

The feature was dropped due to networking constraints

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is well known for its zany and over the top gameplay, so you can imagine the chaos that would have ensued if the developers of the game were able to make it so that 6 players could play the game at one time online.

If you played Marvel vs. Capcom 3 online, you’ll understand all too well how bad the online netcode was at that time, as this was in an era before developers regularly implemented rollback networking.

Having 6 players all online at one time in a single match, each controlling their own character, would have made for some spectacular moments, but it wasn’t meant to be back in 2010.

Fast forward a few years later, and Street Fighter X Tekken was able to implement a Scramble Mode into the game, where four players all played at one time on screen. Clearly if this was possible back in 2012, it’s a feature that Capcom could potentially roll out in a new Marvel vs. Capcom game.

2XKO, the upcoming fighting game from Riot Games, also features a four player mode, with each competitor taking the controls for a single fighter. This will work with the core gameplay of 2XKO, as the point person will control the action until they tag in another character, at which point the other player will take over.

While this isn’t four players on screen at once, it’s a standard feature in 2XKO for four people to be able to play the game together, with two competitors taking turns at one time.

If the next Marvel vs. Capcom game is a 3v3 fighter, you could see a similar system working as part of the core gameplay, with teams being made up of three people facing off against another three competitors, with just two players on screen at one time.

However, it might be fun to include a Scramble Mode where there are 6 people on screen at once. While this likely wouldn’t be balanced in any sort of way, it might be a very fun mode to explore and see what’s possible.

It wouldn’t be the first time the creators of the Capcom Versus series threw balance out the window and created a fun mode for players to enjoy for heavily outside the box gameplay.

Things changed heavily after Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was released

Scrubby. Not competitive. Only played for fun. These were some of the things said about the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise through the years before the Fighting Game Community started taking the series seriously, from a competitive standpoint.

Whether a fighting game is competitively viable comes down to many factors, including: Game and character balance, and if a title has easy to replicate tactics that lead to checkmate scenarios, as things of this ilk can quickly get a game dismissed as not being competitively viable.

The Marvel vs. Capcom series was initially placed into the not competitively viable category by the Fighting Game Community, likely due in part because the developers of X-Men vs. Street Fighter said they abandoned game balance due to time constraints.

Our community did a similar thing with the Super Smash Bros. franchise, also likely due to Masahiro Sakurai saying Smash isn’t a fighting game, although he would later discuss how Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a competitive game many years later.

Once your franchise had received the ‘not competitively viable’ tag by our community, it was hard to shake that reputation.

However, many Marvel vs. Capcom and Super Smash Bros. players took these games very seriously competitively, and with time both franchises would shake their prior reputations for not being strong FGC titles.

For the Capcom Versus series, this mostly began to change with the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 in 2000, and a little known player — at the time — by the name of Justin Wong, who started winning a bunch of Battle by the Bay/Evo championships.

Justin Wong was so strong and dominant, he earned the nickname ‘Marvelous’ back then, and allusion to his prowess in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

For some, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, released in November 2011, has been the pinnacle of the franchise from a competitive standpoint, as the game is still actively played to this day, and is seen as a very high execution and adrenaline rush fighting game. However, some would argue it’s still Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Regardless of where you stand on what the best competitively viable Marvel vs. Capcom game is, it wasn’t all that long ago where these games were easily dismissed by the Fighting Game Community at large.

But with time, and more understanding from the developers and community about what makes a strong title in the Fighting Game Community, some of these franchises are now seen as exceptional from a competitive standpoint.

Super Nintendo game would have added blood, new fatalities and more playable characters

An update to the fairly underwhelming port of the first Mortal Kombat on the Super Nintendo (SNES) was planned by James Fink, a former Acclaim employee, who showed a number of the design documents and a playable version of the unreleased game.

It was called Mortal Kombat Nitro Edition — and it was important that it made it out before the release of the Midway developed Mortal Kombat 2 hit arcades in November of 1993.

“There was one particular bug that bothered me, which was how the game played,” said Fink during an interview about the original Mortal Kombat port on the SNES. He added that they wanted to get rid of the blood sanitizing of the initial release, as both he and Ed Boon were not happy with how that version of the game turned out.

“I brainchilded [sic] the Mortal Kombat Nitro version, and from that I decided I could expand maybe, since there was a gap between MK1 and MK2,” said Fink.

“I figured it would go over great, but unfortunately it didn’t,” Fink stated.

“Midway pushed back against it, because they were releasing Mortal Kombat 2 in the arcades,” Fink said.

Fink goes on to explain that the characters in Mortal Kombat Nitro Edition would have two fatalities, new outfits, good and bad endings, and more.

“Reptile was playable and had both Sub-Zero and Scorpion’s move sets. Shang Tsung was playable had the sword put in as well all morph by performing fatalities, and Goro was playable,” wrote Fink on X.

He went on to document some of the gameplay problems with the SNES port of Mortal Kombat, which was released in September 1993, mainly citing the input delay and how it messed with the game’s combo system.

Fink also noted that Mortal Kombat Nitro Edition was just a release for the Super Nintendo, as no arcade port was planned, and that he only burned two sets of ROMs for the unreleased game.

You can check out the design documents below, along with a video of Fink and Tabmok99 playing the unreleased build of the game.

Click images for larger versions

Video from Tabmok99.

Capcom Cup 11 came and went, but despite many people expecting a teaser trailer for Elena, we didn’t receive any news about the final DLC character for Season 2 of Street Fighter 6, who’s scheduled to be released in the spring time.

Elena is one of the most infamous and hated characters in the entire franchise, and a lot of the reason for this revolves around her Healing move, which has been a difficult thing for the developers to work around for over a decade.

Back during the location tests for Ultra Street Fighter 4, held in Japan in late 2013, competitors left feedback on the game and how it was shaping up. This particular line stands out: “A lot of people were also worried regarding Elena’s Healing ability.”

“We’re still in the evaluation stage, but we’re definitely taking these strong opinions to heart, and not just thinking about balance, but also the fundamental abilities of each character during our development process,” wrote Capcom’s development team at that time.

Elena would later go on to become a character countless numbers of professional Ultra Street Fighter 4 players would use, and her ability to heal her damage became a heavy point of contention among viewers and players during the rest of that game’s major competitive lifespan, for its dominance in matches.

Ultra Street Fighter 4’s producer, Tomoaki Ayano, would go on to describe Elena as a tricky character with a lot of unique attacks that changed heavily between test versions.

“Elena’s normal attacks are all so unique that we’re trying put time into fine-tuning her accordingly. She was a character we changed pretty drastically between the location test versions, so we’ve gotten a lot of feedback for her specifically. Our current aim is to make her the same kind of tricky character she was in Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken,” Ayano said.

The fact that this character’s Healing ability can be a major nuisance isn’t lost on the developers of Street Fighter 6, as they specifically mentioned that they’re very conscious of this attack, and fans shouldn’t worry about it.

“During Ultra Street Fighter 4, I saw a tournament which had Rose, Yun and Elena and the matches became extremely long,” said Street Fighter 6’s director, Takayuki Nakayama. “We’re very aware of this in our development, so please don’t worry about Healing,” he concluded.

It’s worth pointing out that despite Elena possessing the ability to heal in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, she’s generally regarded as mid-tier in that game, and fairly rare to see in high end tournament matches.

So while Healing has the ability to be extremely dominant — it’s not always the case.

Previously, the developers of Street Fighter said they needed to put time into Elena to fine-tune her, and given Capcom’s awareness of how strong this move can be, it’s possible it’s causing some headaches for the current development staff as well, which could be why we didn’t see a teaser trailer for her during Capcom Cup 11.

However, given that every character has access to Drive Rush — the roster’s horizontal movement isn’t as limited as it was during the Street Fighter 4 era.

Regardless, there’s plenty of cause for concern when it comes to Elena. We have a lot of history to look back upon, and it’s not unusual for DLC characters to be released in states where they’re extremely strong.

Couple Elena’s unique ability to heal her life bar in Street Fighter, with her standard very strong leg-based attacks to frustrate the opposition, and you have a potentially high impact scenario unfolding.

While there’s been no direct word from Capcom, it’s possible that the combination of these things may mean the developers need more time to fine tune and balance Elena before she’s released in the spring time of this year for Street Fighter 6.

The Super Smash Bros. series has come a long way since it was first released on the Nintendo 64 in Japan on January 21, 1999 (and then on April 26, 1999 for America). Indeed, the latest entry of the series on the Nintendo Switch, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, features a roster consisting of 86 characters, mostly thanks to its “Everyone Is Here” theme.

Initially, Super Smash Bros. 64 was worked on by just three people. Masahiro Sakurai himself handled the design, animations, and modelling while Satoru Iwata, the then president of HAL Laboratory, handled the programming. One more unnamed individual was responsible for the sound design.

Once Iwata and Sakurai were able to secure permissions from Nintendo to use their video game mascots, development expanded to about 10 to 15 people. Regardless, Masahiro Sakurai credits the Super Smash Bros. series’ existence to Satoru Iwata in an interview with Hoshinogen.

“If Iwata hadn’t been there I may never have started at Hal Laboratories. If Iwata hadn’t created the prototype for Super Smash Bros. then the world would’ve never had Smash Bros. at all.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“When you applied for work at Hal Laboratories, your interviewer was actually Iwata himself, right? How did your meeting with Iwata affect your creativity going forward?” asked Hoshinogen of Sakurai.

Indeed, Sakurai first met Iwata during his interview for a position at HAL Laboratory. Despite Sakurai not having any experience in the field, Iwata saw potential in him and had hired him.

“Well, first of all, if Iwata hadn’t been there I may never have started at Hal Laboratories. If Iwata hadn’t created the prototype for Super Smash Bros. then the world would’ve never had Smash Bros. at all,” declared Sakurai. “When I decided to leave Hal Laboratories, if Iwata hadn’t asked me to make Super Smash Bros. Brawl, then it’s possible that the franchise would’ve ended then and there.”

Shortly after the release of Super Smash Bros. Melee in 2001 and Kirby Air Ride in 2003, Sakurai suddenly departed from HAL Laboratory and essentially became a freelancer developer. The future of the Super Smash Bros. series had never been more uncertain than that moment.

“When I decided to leave Hal Laboratories, if Iwata hadn’t asked me to make Super Smash Bros. Brawl, then it’s possible that the franchise would’ve ended then and there.” — Masahiro Sakurai

Eventually, Satoru Iwata became the president of Nintendo. Shortly after the announcement of the Nintendo Wii, Iwata and Nintendo polled fans on which game they’d like to see for the upcoming console. Super Smash Bros. ended up winning that poll.

Upon seeing this, Iwata seemingly “accidentally” announced that Super Smash Bros. would indeed be coming to the Wii despite development not having started yet. Even Sakurai himself was perplexed by this after having heard the news.

Afterwards, Sakurai was invited to meet with Iwata where he was then offered the chance to oversee the development of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii. Iwata would later admit that, without Sakurai, all Nintendo could’ve otherwise hoped to do would be to port Super Smash Bros. Melee to the Wii with online functionality.

Though Sakurai does acknowledge how much Iwata has impacted his life, he does also acknowledge his own abilities as being a key factor to his personal success.

“Whenever he threw a project at me, it seems that he was confident that I would be able to produce results. Iwata-san was truly a special person.” — Masahiro Sakurai

“What I’m trying to say is that there’s no doubt that his presence had a great effect on me,” continued Sakurai. “But when it comes to my creativity specifically, I feel like I’ve been mostly self-taught.”

Of course, Sakurai still appears to be incredibly grateful to Iwata long after his unfortunate passing. There’s no doubt that gaming would be in a completely different place without the impact that Satoru Iwata had.

“Do you think that Iwata-san understood all of these attributes you had?” asked Hoshinogen towards the end of the interview.

“That I don’t know,” admitted Sakurai. “But whenever he threw a project at me, it seems that he was confident that I would be able to produce results. Iwata-san was truly a special person.”

A special thanks goes out to Nicholas MajinTenshinhan Taylor for the translations featured in this article.