Though many were hoping for Tifa Lockhart, Final Fantasy 16’s Clive Rosfiled has become the first guest character of Tekken 8. Along with his release, patch 1.10.01 provided some minor adjustments to the roster.
It’s only been a short while, but TheMainManSWE is ready to talk about Clive’s Rosfield’s potential tier position in the current meta for Tekken 8. Signs are already looking good for Clive as TheMainManSWE believes he has potential to be a top tier.
Ultimately, TheMainManSWE ranks him as the tenth best character in Tekken 8. Although Clive doesn’t quite make it into the “top 5” category at the very top, it’s already looking like Final Fantasy rep will be very relevant at tournaments due to how powerful his sword normals are.
Of course, this means that Nina, Yoshimitsu, Jin, Dragunov, and Claudio retain their positions in the top 5. These characters are very strong, but even they’ll have to adapt to the new playstyle that Clive Rosfield offers.
Although Eddy Gordo was initially overpowered upon his release, he’s since been nerfed heavily. Heihachi and Lydia in the “strong” and “mediocre” tier categories respectively, Clive Rosfield already appears to be the strongest DLC fighter in Tekken 8 right now.
It’s still pretty early, so much of Clive’s tier position is still speculative. However, signs are looking very good for those that are devoting time towards playing the challenger as it’s apparently a rare thing for a DLC fighter to come across as being this strong after such a short period of time in Tekken 8.
Check out TheMainManSWE’s updated Tekken 8 tier list and Clive Rosfield impressions below:
It’s been a good month since Capcom dropped the latest balance patch for Street Fighter 6. Many are saying that Ed and Cammy were the biggest losers of the update while Ryu and Kimberly were among the major winners.
The FGC Place recently uploaded some footage featuring BST|Daigo Umehara’s ranked sessions. Just like before, Daigo is still playing as Akuma even though the character also received his fair share of nerfs.
With Kimberly looking especially dangerous after her buffs, Daigo ended up running into the fourth best Kimberly of the leaderboards, Ranndo. While Daigo is known for having immaculate pressure with Akuma’s fireball game, his usage of fireballs against Kimberly becomes more reserved due to her numerous anti-zoning tools.
In a recent video, Daigo appeared to be ecstatic about Cammy getting nerfed. “At long last… She’s finally obeying the law,” hilariously said Daigo about Cammy upon reading her patch notes.
Funnily enough, Daigo ended up running into Mizuha, the top ranked Cammy user online, during his recent ranked session. Though Cammy has been nerfed, her explosive damage output still forces Daigo to play very carefully around her options.
Finally, we also threw in a match featuring Daigo going up against Hibiki, the highest ranked Lily player online. Even though Lily did receive some buffs herself, they don’t really impact her gameplay that much, but this is still a player that requires Daigo to really lock in to defeat.
It’s been indicated by supposed insiders that plans for Mortal Kombat 1’s Kombat Pack 3 have been canceled due to the poor performance of the Khaos Reigns update. Needless to say, Mortal Kombat 1’s future seems especially uncertain at the moment.
However, there are now even more questions about what’s going on with Mortal Kombat 1 as an NRS artist has seemingly posted new shots for Kung Jin on Artstation. Though many fans have been hoping for Kung Jin’s return as a playable character, he is being labeled here as a Kameo.
As expected, Kung Jin’s model mostly appears to resemble his redesign in Mortal Kombat 1’s main story ending sequence rather than how the character looked in Mortal Kombat X. During this scene, Kitana is seen butchering the “Kombat Kids” — Takeda, Jacqui, Kung Jin, and Cassie — while ascending a flight of stairs.
Curiously, Kung Jin’s face is never shown throughout these posted images. This implies that Kung Jin is still a work in progress as he probably just has a default placeholder face for the time being.
Click images for larger versions
According to FateUnknown, a “verified insider” on Reddit, plans for Kombat Pack 3 and the second story expansion have already been canceled. Despite this, there still might be “a Kameo or two” released since they’ve already had work done on them.
This seems to be lining up with Kung Jin potentially being a Kameo character in the future. However, we have to wonder why an artist from NetherRealm Studios is posting these shots in the first place considering that Kung Jin has yet to be announced as a Kameo thus far.
Previous rumors have pointed towards Jade, Sonya, Cassie, and Kung Jin potentially being in consideration for Kombat Pack 3. It’s possible that Kung Jin could have been a character concept at one point, but was demoted to a Kameo due to a sudden change in plans for Mortal Kombat 1.
With Conan the Barbarian set to release on January 21 via early access, only the T-1000 will remain as announced DLC for Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns and its Kombat Pack 2. We’ll likely have a better understanding of what’s going on with Mortal Kombat 1 shortly after the T-1000 gets released.
As always, it’s best to take these rumors with a grain of salt as nothing has been officially confirmed by NetherRealm Studios.
The Cross River State capital, Calabar, came alive on Saturday as Miss Glory Tete of Akpabuyo LGA was crowned Queen of Humanity 2024 during the second edition of the Queen of Humanity Beauty Pageant. The glamorous event, held at the Calabar International Conference Centre, was a highlight of the annual Carnival Calabar Festival and celebrated the empowerment and potential of the girl child.
The pageantry, conceptualized by the State’s First Lady, Bishop Dr. Eyoanwan Bassey Otu, showcased the elegance, talent, and resilience of young women while promoting the values of equity, justice, and kindness. The First Lady, a staunch advocate for the girl child, described the pageant as a platform that goes beyond beauty and brains, serving as a catalyst for societal transformation.
“Our Queen of Humanity 2024 will champion transformative projects that align with our Humanity Without Borders Initiative,” Mrs. Otu stated. “Her reign will amplify voices, nurture dreams, and foster progress with humanity at its core.”
Governor Bassey Otu, his Deputy Rt. Hon. Peter Odey, members of the Federal and State Executive Councils, traditional rulers, and other dignitaries were in attendance at the grand event.
In her acceptance speech, Queen Glory Tete expressed gratitude to God and the First Lady for the opportunity to lead as a symbol of hope and progress. She pledged to use her reign to promote humanitarian values, inspire young girls, and uphold core societal ethics.
The star prize of the night included ₦5 million and a brand-new SUV, awarded to Queen Glory Tete. The first runner-up, Miss Deborah Aki, received ₦3 million, while the second runner-up, Miss Ritermiquin Odey, won ₦1.5 million. Each of the remaining 17 finalists received consolation prizes of ₦200,000.
The outgoing Queen of Humanity, Miss Margaret Ekpo, reflected on her impactful reign, crediting the initiative for boosting her confidence and shaping her worldview. “This platform has proven that the girl child can rise to any challenge with zeal and determination,” she said.
The contestants wowed the audience with appearances in swimwear, traditional attire, and evening dresses. The First Lady lauded their resilience and grace, describing them as “torchbearers of ethical values and symbols of virtuous living.”
The evening was capped with tears of joy from Mrs. Nya Ani, the mother of the newly crowned queen, who expressed heartfelt gratitude to the organizers. “This is a proud moment for our family and a dream come true for my daughter,” she said.
The Queen of Humanity 2024 is set to embark on transformative projects aimed at fostering inclusivity and creating a brighter future for girls across Cross River State and beyond.
There’s certainly no shortage of Street Fighter collectibles floating out in the world right now, but it’s rarer to see a high premium item get created for someone that’s not Ryu, Chun-Li, Cammy, Ken or Juri.
Prime 1 Studios recently unveiled a massive and gorgeously detailed statues for Street Fighter 6’s Marisa that range from really expensive to really, really expensive.
This big model of the SF6 newcomer features the modern gladiator standing on a base representing part of her stage with swords, daggers, spears and a shield dug into the ground around her with flower petals on the ground.
The base also lights up too.
Marisa herself is recreated in all her muscular glory blending her brawn and beauty that you can see her glossy lips as well as her veins from flexing.
The standard premium Marisa statue features her flexing with one arm held up though there’s also the bonus ultimate edition for those who want the extra customizable options.
Said ultimate edition includes three head parts including her helmet and kissing her fist as well as four swappable arm parts, two head stands, an effect wall and extra graffiti stand.
Since these statues are 1/4 scale, Marisa stands at a whopping 73 cm or 28.74 inches tall.
Her shipping package is going to be pretty darn heavy too with the standard edition estimated at 18.5 kg or 40.8 lbs. while the ultimate box is planned to be around a whopping 30.2 kg or 66.6 lb.
And that’s all going to come at a premium price too.
The standard Marisa is up for pre-order for 197,890 yen (or $1254 USD) while the ultimate version is 263,890 yen ($1,672), which makes it one of the most expensive statues we’ve seen for a fighting game character.
It seems the reception to Prime 1’s Cammy statue went over well considering they’re making Marisa next and teased Juri for the future too.
These Marisa statues are available for pre-order with an estimated release window of the first quarter of 2026, and those outside Japan will probably have to pay even more for her as well.
You can take a closer look at the premium Marisa statues below.
Tekken 8 was the big new fighting game of 2024 and managed to take home the prize for the genre at The Game Awards earlier this month, but there’s a lot more on the horizon for it too.
The lead developers over at Bandai Namco are now sharing some of their ambitions for Tekken 8 Season 2 heading into 2025.
Japanese publications Famitsu and 4Gamer are back again asking hundreds of game developers for New Year’s messages and updates on what they’re working on and looking forward to.
Like we did with Street Fighter 6’s Director and Producer’s 2025 messages, we’re back to translate some more about what Tekken Project Director Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken 8 Director Kohei Ikeda, and Bamco eSports lead Naoya Yasuda had to say about their fighting game’s upcoming year.
“Tekken 8 won Best Fighting Game at The Game Awards 2024 because of all of your votes, so thank you very much,” wrote Harada via 4Gamer. “We’ve already given out too much information about Tekken all over the place, so please go check those out.
“We’re planning to make some major updates and changes to the game, so please look forward to them.”
Yasuda provided some similar sentiments as well with the hopes to improve Tekken in the coming season.
“In the Spring, Tekken 8 will begin Season 2 after several updates, and the Tekken World Tour 2025 is set to start again as well to determine the world’s strongest player for the second year,” wrote Yasuda via 4Gamer.
“In order to ensure that players all around the world can enjoy a more fulfilling Tekken experience than Season 1, everyone on the team will chant the Tekken Project theme song “Every day is Monday” three times a day and work aggressively within the legality of the labor law standards. We hope you will keep a close eye on the development of Tekken 8 in its second year.”
And finally we have the Director’s statement to Famitsu.
“Tekken 8’s Season 1 development is coming to an end, and we are currently very busy making various preparations for Season 2,” said Ikeda. “We are planning a lot of things for this second year to provide new and exciting game experiences, so please look forward to them!”
This does back up what the Season 2 trailer teased following the Tekken World Tour 2024 Finals earlier this month.
There Bamco stated Tekken 8 was going to receive a major balance and system update in the Spring with the promise that every character is going to receive new moves and techniques with a few examples though that’s all we really know.
We’re seeing a number of players not exactly feel happy with the state the game is in now, but adding new moves and offensive options probably aren’t going to change that sentiment much when most of the problems people are complaining revolve around the lopsided offense and lack of neutral.
So hopefully the developers are looking to add more defensive and other properties to the experience that’s not rushing to get in the opponent’s face as fast as possible and combo them to the wall.
Since this isn’t coming until Spring, we’ll all probably be waiting at least a few months to know more about what to expect out of Tekken 8 Season 2, so things probably aren’t going to be changing much in the immediate future.
You can check out the full developer New Year’s messages to Famitsu and 4Gamer on their websites though they’re all of course in Japanese.
People showed up for Marvel and put their money on the table
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite is going through quite the fascinating resurgence at the moment thanks to the recent release of the big Infinite & Beyond mod, and that enthusiasm has carried over to the competitive scene and viewers too it seems.
Last night’s TNS Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite & Beyond tournament was one for the ages that’ll go down in the history books as presumably the biggest event for the game since the only Battle for the Stones Finals over seven years ago — and it’s all thanks to the FGC.
Tampa Never Sleeps and the strong Marvel players across North America put on one heck of a special show, which the audience was more than receptive to.
It wasn’t even clear at first how the tournament was going to perform since it came up a bit from reaching the 100-entrant goal where the mod’s Producer and top fighting game streamer Maximilian promised to give $1,000 to the pot bonus with the final count being 81 attendees.
There was still Max’s original bonus of $500, but the rest would come from crowdfunding through Matcherino, which sat at only around $55 when the tournament itself started.
That very quickly started to pick up steam and balloon, however, with donations pouring in big and small across the FGC.
By the halfway point of the event, the viewers had already donated over $4,000, and it only kept going up from there with over $5,000 by the time top 8 started.
The grand total ended up being a staggering $7,511 after the finals, and though we’re not sure if this set a record for crowdfunding at a TNS event, we certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
What a night.
Over $7,500 in the prize pool and thousands of people watching Marvel
Thanks to everyone that came through with the contributions for the prize pool, all the people that worked on MvCIB, Maximilian, and the TNS staff for such a great evening.
Maximilian would go ahead and still throw in $1,100 into the pot himself, and he wasn’t the only one willing to drop some big money to support these players either since there were 21 community members who contributed at least $100 each.
That equates to around $5,700 from said top donors, which is a ton, but also goes to show that almost $2,000 more was made up from the dozens upon dozens of other viewers chipping in.
In the end, the prize pool probably rivaled or eclipsed many fighting game majors with $3,154 going to the winner and over $1,500 to second place.
Even the seventh place finishers got $225.
We’re not sure what the average Matcherino looks like for a fighting game tournament these days, but most of them would probably be very happy to reach $225 total.
So everyone probably walked away from the Marvel Beyond event pretty darn pleased.
I had a lot of fun last night! It was great to play MVCI on the big stage again with a lot of entrants! Feels truly nostalgic. Shoutouts to @TampaNeverSleep and @maximilian_ for the giant raids! I’m glad I could put on an amazing show for y’all. Until next time and GGs! pic.twitter.com/CRt56YilM3
It’d certainly be really nice to see numbers more like this consistently for other online or even offline events, but we can’t really expect generous fans to tip $500 or $1,000 every week.
This does go to show there can be a lot of potential power in crowdfunding events for larger prizes to award to the players, and hopefully more fans realize any contribution can make a difference.
It of course wasn’t all about the money either, as more people tuned into this tournament than any other for Marvel Infinite since 2020.
According to Twitch Tracker’s data, Infinite & Beyond drew a peak of over 11,000 viewers though Max claims it reached over 15,000 likely when combining YouTube numbers too.
Yes, you read that right. $7,500 prize pool and 15,000 viewers for @MVCI_Beyond in 2024.
The matches were incredible. Congrats to @StealthTX_ for taking home the biggest MVCI payout since 2017. https://t.co/biwI9R5xx8
That’s still not enough to beat out a top dog in the FGC like Street Fighter 6, which hit almost 35,000 viewers on Twitch last night, but that was also split between around 300 different channels opposed to only around 30 streaming Marvel.
And those numbers were way more than enough to beat out what the likes of Tekken 8, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and basically any fighter that’s not SF6 this weekend.
In total, Max’s stream shows for the event shows it’s pulled in over 121,000 views on Twitch alone with the TNS video reaching over 25,000 views, which is higher than the most recent TNS Street Fighter tournament and almost 10 times more than this week’s Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 event.
We already saw the player rate jump over 2,000% when the Infinite & Beyond mod released this month, and though it hasn’t reached those heights again on Steam, MvCI is still pulling close to 500 concurrent users today — which is a massive increase over 21 average it was at just a month ago.
What this all means for the scene beyond the immediate future remains to be seen, but this performance and reception shows that people will show up for Marvel and are willing to support passion projects like this.
So we’ll be very interested to see how everything looks a month from now and beyond.
And if you haven’t already, check out the actual action from the Marvel Infinite & Beyond tournament too, which we’ve included below and should start around the beginning of top 8.
It’s been almost a full month since the latest patch for Street Fighter 6 was released. By this point, it feels like the meta is starting to settle down as players have had a good amount of time to explore all the adjustments.
XSET|iDom recently sat down with Kizzie Kay to discuss how things have changed since the big update. Of course, iDom is pretty adamant that Street Fighter 6 feels relatively the same even after the buffs and nerfs.
“I don’t think it changed that much of the meta,” said iDom during the video. “I think the tier list is still relatively the same, minus maybe like three or four characters.”
Overall, iDom believes that the biggest winners of the patch were Kimberly and Ryu. Meanwhile, Ed and Cammy received the most notable nerfs to their kits.
Though Cammy and Ed were significantly nerfed, iDom does note that Zangief was impacted a great deal due to the universal change that prevents jump cancelled command grabs from escaping throws.
Despite this, iDom doesn’t believe that anybody is going to be switching their main characters from before the latest patch, especially with Capcom Cup 11 on the horizon.
According to Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa, the Switch successor is slated to be revealed within this fiscal year, which runs through March 31, 2025 for Nintendo. Incidentally, Masahiro Sakurai recently informed fans that he’s been working on a secret game project since April 2022.
As a result, there’s been a lot of speculation about the next entry in the Smash series after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. While it will no doubt be difficult to create a sequel for the latest behemoth of the franchise, the next game will no doubt need new characters to fill up the roster, including those that were once considered before ultimately getting scrapped in previous titles.
Like with every title in the Smash series, Masahiro Sakurai considered a number of different challengers for Super Smash Bros. Melee, many of which have never been implemented. One such character is Ayumi Tachibana from the Detective Club series.
“Well, I was thinking about it during the Melee days, Famicom Detective Club… Ayumi even has her own trophy in that game. But in the end, there’s no way she’d work overseas, so… but I do like Famicom Detective Club.” — Masahiro Sakurai
Ultimately, Sakurai decided not to make Ayumi playable in Super Smash Bros. Melee as he felt she would be too unfamiliar to those outside of Japan due to Famicom Detective Club being exclusive to Japanese audiences.
“Well, I was thinking about it during the Melee days, Famicom Detective Club… Ayumi even has her own trophy in that game,” once said Sakurai (as translated by Source Gaming). “But in the end, there’s no way she’d work overseas, so… but I do like Famicom Detective Club.”
Ironically, this same mentality did not prevent Marth and Roy from Fire Emblem joining Melee despite also being from a Japanese exclusive franchise. In fact, it can be argued that Marth and Roy’s popularity in Super Smash Bros. Melee (mostly Marth’s) served as the catalyst that ultimately localized Fire Emblem to the United States.
However, it should also be noted that the Detective Club series wasn’t as relevant as Fire Emblem at the time. The first game is the Detective Club series was released back in 1988 with the prequel releasing a year later in 1989.
The remakes for both games (The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind) wouldn’t be released until 2021 on the Nintendo Switch. This also marked the first time the franchise was officially released outside of Japan.
It’s also interesting to note that the third game in the mainline series, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, released earlier this year on August 29, 2024. Evidently, the series has become more relevant than it’s been in decades.
Considering this, could Ayumi Tachibana end up joining a future entry in the Super Smash Bros. series? Since she effectively hails from a visual novel type game, it would certainly be difficult to design a moveset for her, but probably not impossible for Sakurai.
Should she ever become a challenger within Super Smash Bros., we could see her sporting a moveset similar to that of Phoenix Wright’s from Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. She might have to spend a great deal of time “collecting evidence” rather than fighting to stand a chance against characters who hail from games that actually feature combat.
At this point, however, that type of gameplay has already been implemented for Minecraft’s Steve who spends a lot of time mining for resources before going all out against opponents. As a result, Sakurai might see the addition of this sort of character as being redundant in Super Smash Bros.
Sakurai did at one point state that he does like the Detective Club series, so it’s possible that he’d try to go out of his way to make the fighter concept work out somehow. If he was able to make characters like the Villager and the Mii work despite initial reservations during the development of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, he’d probably be able to figure something out for a Detective Club rep.
Having said all of that, it’s unknown how well or poorly Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club performed sales wise. If the game ended up flopping, that might be enough to disqualify the character altogether.
Ultimately though, we’ll just have to wait and see if Ayumi Tachibana ever ends up joining Super Smash Bros. as anything more than a trophy.
ELG|Wraith recently posted an interesting clip featuring one of his matches against a Sub-Zero player during a Mortal Kombat 1 tournament. Shortly after the clip begins, Wraith, the Shang Tsung user, is able to get a hard read on his opponent with a Ground Skull when the Sub-Zero player attempts to create space by using the Ice Klone special.
As a result, Wraith is then able to convert into a combo for 272 damage, which isn’t much by itself, but it ended up leaving the opponent in a standing position. Thanks to Goro, the Kameo character, and his unblockable stomp, Wraith is then able to combo into his own Ice Klone after assuming the opponent’s form with Shang Tsung’s transformation ability.
Funnily enough, Goro ends up getting knocked down due to this interaction. You can only see it for a split second, but it was actually his stomp that caused the opposing character’s hurtbox to converge with the active Ice Klone.
From here, Wraith then converted into a simple combo which finished with Sub-Zero’s Fatal Blow. Thanks to the damage boost effect of the transformation, this combo ended up dealing 546 additional damage.
Against most character and Kameo teams, this will effectively result in a player’s life bar being depleted by about 80%. Of course, this sort of sequence will only work on Sub-Zero since he’s the only character that has access to the Ice Klone special.
Sub-Zero has generally been perceived to be on the lower end of tier lists since Mortal Kombat 1 was released (especially after receiving harsh nerfs from the beta test period). Needless to say, it’s especially impressive that Wraith has a sequence like this ready in his back pocket, even if it is for a low tier match up.
