Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

Street Fighter is celebrated by a growing but relatively niche crowd in the West, but it’s such a big deal in Japan that Capcom is opening a pop up Street Fighter 6 themed cafe in Tokyo.

Capcom Cafe Ikebukuro is set to open its doors on Friday, December 20 and will offer guests Luke’s Hamburg Steak, Ed’s Chocolate Mint Ice Pancakes and a Psycho Cannon Cola. You can see real life images of these dishes below.

Here is an image of a handful of the menu items that creators clearly went out of their way to make as recognizable as possible. You’ll notice Juri’s horns in a few of the items, as well as a reference to a familiar red headband and other Street Fighter trademarks:

Click images for larger versions

Below is a list of the menu items, their descriptions, and prices. The transition to USD comes out to about $13.86 for most plates, and $6.16 for most drinks.

Juri’s Yangnyeom Chicken and Rice Ball Plate – ¥1,980 (tax included)

A dish inspired by Juri, featuring spicy Yangnyeom chicken and adorable rice balls wrapped in seaweed and Yukari seasoning.

Luke’s Hamburger Plate – ¥1,980 (tax included)

A hamburger plate inspired by Luke, complete with a hamburger steak, fried shrimp, and mashed potatoes for a satisfying meal.

Ed’s Choco-Mint Ice Pancakes – ¥1,980 (tax included)

Enjoy fluffy pancakes topped with choco-mint ice cream, inspired by Ed, and served with plenty of whipped cream.

Jamie’s Strawberry Milkshake – ¥880 (tax included)

A drink inspired by Jamie, served with a side of strawberry syrup to adjust the flavor. It also contains coffee jelly for added enjoyment.

“This Is My Full Power” Blue Soda – ¥880 (tax included)

A refreshing soda inspired by Luke, offering a cool and vibrant look.

Psycho Cannon Cola – ¥880 (tax included)

A cola inspired by Ed, served with cassis-flavored ice that evokes his Psycho Cannon move.

Feng Shui Grape Yogurt Drink – ¥880 (tax included)

A cute grape yogurt drink inspired by Juri, with an appealing visual presentation.

Additional menu items include:

Jamie’s Wonton Noodles – ¥1,980 (tax included)

A.K.I.’s Sandwich and Soup Set – ¥1,980 (tax included)

Li-Fen’s Xiao Bing Parfait – ¥1,650 (tax included)

Bosch’s Nayshaal Pie – ¥1,650 (tax included)

Will you be making it out to Capcom Cafe Ikebukuro while its up and running? Let us know what looks best to you, and even if you’re not going to be able to try this interesting cuisine, share your fantasy order in the comments.

After Tekken 7 opened the door starting with Street Fighter’s Akuma and Fatal Fury’s Geese Howard, it was only a matter of time before guest characters started appearing in Tekken 8 though nobody probably had who they actually picked first on their bingo card.

Clive Rosfield from Final Fantasy 16 just dropped as the last Season 1 DLC character for Tekken 8 this week, and maybe someday he’ll have more company from his home of Square Enix.

To coincide with the new update and fighter release, Tekken 8’s lead developers including Director Kohei “Nakatsu” Ikeda, Producer Michael Murray and longtime Tekken Project Director Katsuhiro Harada sat down with IGN to talk about Clive’s arrival and how the collaboration came about.

Even before the announcement came, Square and Final Fantasy were near the top of many fans’ lists for who could show up in the fighting game considering Bandai Namco previously worked with them to bring Noctis Lucis Caelum to Tekken 7 from Final Fantasy 15.

And though Clive was the newest protagonist for the franchise like Noctis was at the time, much of the attention and anticipation was aimed at a different icon.

Final Fantasy 7’s Tifa Lockhart seemed like a shoe-in pick for Tekken because of her martial arts based fighting style, popularity, release of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth this year and amount of requests the teams received about her.

But obviously that didn’t happen, as it was Clive who made the surprise appearance at The Game Awards 2024 and not her.

This unsurprisingly led to a lot of mixed emotions from basically all corners for both fandoms.

Clive is the one who was chosen and is now here though he may not stay totally alone forever.

IGN asked the Tekken devs if there was any considerations of other Final Fantasy characters besides the FF16 rep like Cloud Strife, but Tifa is not mentioned specifically.

Harada does not fully answer that question, but he does give a response that does leave the door open for hope (and maybe some cope).

“It’s not like we’re limited to one character from Final Fantasy,” replied Harada as translated by Murray.

“It’s not like we’re limited to one character from Final Fantasy”

“It might be cool if we had two. Who knows? It’s not something we can decade alone.”

So at the very least the developers don’t sound opposed to having multiple guests from a single franchise in Tekken 8. We just only know about the one so far though.

Square Enix being on board for giving out multiple Final Fantasy characters to a single title does already have some precedent too with Cloud and Sephiroth both appearing in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Sure, they both technically debuted across two different entries, but Square did still provide Smash Ultimate with 2 DLC characters with Dragon Quest’s Hero also in the mix.

And those Smash games were also co-developed by Bandai Namco and some of the same people working on Tekken 8 now, so those bridges have already been long-since built.

As for why they went with Clive over someone else in the first place, it sounds as though things quickly progressed in large part due to the Tekken team starting their talks with Final Fantasy 14 and 16 Producer Naoki Yoshida as their Square contact.

“We had heard that YoshiP from Final Fantasy 14 was going to be making 16, and we thought it’d be great if we could talk to him and gauge his temperature on [collaboration] subject,” said Murray.

“So then Harada began talks with YoshiP as the main contact, but then they were thinking we should really be playing the game and get all the intricate details before creating our side of it. Harada and Nakatsu actually met with the dev team early in-development build of the game to get a handle on it.”

Perhaps then if the Tekken team instead started their contact with the likes of Yoshinori Kitase or Tetsuya Nomura at Square, things could have taken a route towards FF7 and not FF16 though there’s no way to know for certain of course.

And nothing is going to stop people from asking for Tifa.

Final Fantasy 16’s Creative Director has also been requesting that Clive be made a more permanent addition to the Tekken roster moving forward.

As for what the future holds for Tekken 8 now that Season 1 content is wrapped up, it looks like Anna Williams is being teased as the first new addition of Season 2 next year.

But beyond that and some of Bamco’s early update plans, things are fairly up in the air though the game is very likely going to be supported for multiple years to come just like Tekken 7 was.

And that probably means at least a few more guest fighters will come spread across Tekken 8’s lifespan.

DC launched its first official Superman 2025 teaser trailer Thursday morning. Do we need another Superman movie? That’s like asking if we need another Batman or Spider-Man movie. The answer to all three is: ‘Of course. Every so often, one really stands out as pretty darn decent, and this might be one of the good ones.’

While history suggests the film is more likely to flop than to fly, there are some things in the teaser that proffer hope, curiously enough encapsulated in the fact that The Man of Steel is initially presented in Yamcha’s iconic death pose from Dragon Ball Z.

We’re not saying Director James Gunn is purposefully making reference to the iconic anime property (despite the never-ending Goku vs. Superman internet debate) but rather only pointing out that the fetal-like pose might indicate a much-needed fresh approach to a tired superhero formula.

We’re all well aware of this general formula that has widely caused the superhero fatigue we’re all regularly reminded of as studios continue to pump out this exhausted genre, but already James Gunn has promised Comicbook that the 2025 film will not be an origin story. That doesn’t get it out of the woods by any means, but it is a promising start given how film creators have relied on using the origin story template ad nauseam.

John Williams’ iconic theme from the Christopher Reeve films clearly echoes in the slowed-down, more rock-and-roll theme that plays throughout the teaser. Even this choice has us wondering if we’re looking at an intelligent evolution or a mere modern rehash that’s wholly dependent on success from the past.

Just as is the case with the opening of the teaser, Gunn also promised that the film will feature an “in media res” middle of the action approach where characters are already familiar with one another. Lois and Clark have a thing going on, Lex and Superman have bad blood, and we don’t have to wade through the common lessons and themes we’ve already seen.

The character’s traditionally overpowered status has often been an obstacle to writers as his godlike powers can easily erase stakes and therefore interest. As the trailer proceeds, we see blood spurt from the wheezing Superman’s mouth, suggesting the film may focus on humanizing the Man of Steel more effectively than previous iterations.

Director James Gunn has a mixed but relatively strong history in this avenue of superhero movies, inspiring some faith that he’ll find the balance between action, comedy, and drama we saw in his higher tier endeavors.

David Corenswet has big boots to fill as the successor to Henry Cavill’s Superman (a comparison impossible not to make). With this being his biggest role to date, we’re optimistically open about how Corenswet will do in the role, but are also not exactly leaning forward in our seats as the actor still has some proving to do.

Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor may be the film’s most intriguing casting choice as the accomplished actor has shown quite the range in his previous roles. A character like Luthor offers tons of freedom of expression, and though we don’t expect it, we wouldn’t be all too surprised to see Hoult come through with a surprise take on the villain akin to the Heath Ledger/Joker masterpiece from back in 2008.

Supporting supers include Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho, María Gabriela de Faría’s Engineer, and a CGI take on Krypto, Superman’s super-powered dog.

The teaser does the job of getting our attention as we celebrate and then speculate, but as we’ve seen many times now, familiar faces mean little without strong execution and a well-told story.

The Man of Steel’s prominence in fighting games is undeniable as we quickly recall his appearances in Midway’s Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, NetherRealm Studios’ Injustice and Injustice 2, and most recently, Player First Games’ MultiVersus.

Should this new film stick the landing, it would bode well for any future fighter featuring Superman. With rumors that NetherRealm Studios is closing up production early on Mortal Kombat 1, perhaps an Injustice 3 could benefit from a success here.

Despite the fact that Mortal Kombat 1 still feels relatively young, it did release in 2023, and NRS’ previous Injustice/Mortal Kombat pattern did see them release major titles every two years starting with 2011’s Mortal Kombat 9 and ending with 2019’s Mortal Kombat 11. With that in mind, a late 2025 or early 2026 Injustice 3 comes across as more than feasible.

With just two minutes of teaser footage and a few words from the Director, time will tell if this movie fulfills its promises to stand out as an inspired take on the old character that offers us something new and worthwhile.

It could also wind up being an obligated, assembly line movie with a recognizable logo slapped on, but at this point, we’re cautiously hopeful—with a capital ‘S.’

Check out the teaser trailer here and let us know your thoughts in the comments:

Superman is slated to hit theaters on July 11, 2025.

There was a major update to Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero back on December 11 to attend to a number of issues, and then another update on Wednesday to remedy a rage-quit oversight, but Bandai Namco isn’t done yet.

According to an X post from the official Dragon Ball Games account, yet another update is coming on Friday evening to fix additional bugs that have been plaguing Sparking Zero players.

Servers are slated to yet again go down at 12:00 a.m. PST on Friday to fix a health regeneration glitch, alter stuns from Smash Ki Blasts, and fix an issue that causes players to be unable to follow up after knocking enemies back in certain scenarios.

“We will implement a server update to make the following adjustments on December 20th at 09:00 CET / 00:00 PST.”

• Fix an issue where switching a character under certain conditions causes the character entering the battle to have their health completely healed.

• Adjust the conditions to trigger a stun from Smash Ki Blasts that cause stuns.

• Fix an issue where you can’t follow-up attack an enemy that is sent flying downwards.

To all DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO players,
We will implement a server update to make the following adjustments on December 20th at 09:00 CET / 00:00 PST.

Fix an issue where switching a character under certain conditions causes the character entering the battle to have…

— Dragon Ball Games (@dragonballgames) December 19, 2024

Bandai Namco has been working to clean up the Sparking Zero experience widely since its launch back in October, launching its first emergency update two weeks after hitting shelves to nerf an unexpectedly overpowered Yajirobe among other things.

Developers worked to attend to additional issues in a patch one month later, the most pressing of which was a game breaking bug that allowed players to effectively spam evasive maneuvers indefinitely until 10 minute round timers expired.

With over 180 roster members available at launch, Sparking Zero is one of the boldest Dragon Ball gaming endeavors to date, and fans seem to have retained a certain amount of patience as developers tidy things up in these initial months. The Sparking Zero experience continues to become more engaging and honed in with each update, and we’d love to know where you’re at with the game in the comments below.

It was about three weeks ago when unfortunate potential news for Mortal Kombat 1 fans surfaced through an alleged leak claiming plans for a Kombat Pack 3 were cancelled following the poor performance of the still-releasing Kombat Pack 2, and it was later alleged that fan favorite Jade was slated to be part of this ill-fated update.

Earlier this week Mela Lee, the voice actress who portrayed Jade in her most recent appearance (2019’s Mortal Kombat 11), did a Q&A with her Instagram followers during which she had some seemingly relevant things to say about her character, starting with the fact that she’s in talks with NetherRealm Studios.

One fan posed a question regarding the aforementioned cancellation of Kombat Pack 3, asking if Lee could confirm or elaborate on the matter, which, of course, she could not. Miss Lee did have some information to offer, however.

“I can tell you that NetherRealm took me out to breakfast and we have plans,” she starts with her response. “…There are more storylines for Jade, I just don’t know where they will be or when they’re coming,” she finished.

Speculation is the best we can do from here, and it could be that NRS is planning on working with with Lee on ventures outside of Mortal Kombat 1 (we’ve seen quite a few animated Mortal Kombat films roll out in recent years) but a meeting about a cancelled Kombat Pack and potential plans for the future with a voice actress who was part of it would fit the bill.

Because the footage of Lee was captured via Instagram Story, it was not archived. You can view it, however, at the 1:30 mark in this video from True UnderDawg Gaming as he discusses the issue and shares Lee’s words directly.

What do you suppose is next for Jade and the Mortal Kombat franchise? Will we see any more content from MK1, will NetherRealm Studios try again with another franchise entry in hopes of forgetting this one, or will Mortal Kombat be on hiatus for a while? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Today we’re sharing with you the absolutely jaw-dropping artwork of Kittymiya, a freelance artist whose work is actually being featured in Tekken 8 itself.

Kitty is clearly a fan of illustrating the ladies over their masculine counterparts, and that’s just fine with us as we’ve rounded up a gallery showcasing the likes of Reina, Lili, Jun, Julia (in Jaycee’s costume), Zafina, Alisa, the Williams sisters, and a special Final Fantasy guest.

The Final Fantasy guest in question is indeed fan-favorite Tifa Lockhart, though she’s cosplaying in Asuka’s outfit. This piece does just as good a job as any highlighting the artist’s skill when it comes to giving characters gorgeous skin.

Most all of these images have some clear effort put into getting lighting and texture just right in this arena. All the figures look like they’re in perfect conditions for presentation as though they’ve even been misted or oiled up to look as good as possible in front of the camera.

The image that’s headed into Tekken 8 is the one of Alisa. This wonderful presentation of the robotic fighter will be used as a character panel having been selected during the Tekken Fan Campaign.

New fan favorite Reina kicks off the gallery with one of Kitty’s most popular drawings, and then returns shortly thereafter with yet another super popular pic, this time in a much more revealing outfit.

Check out all of our selection from Kitty’s wonderful artwork in the gallery below, and be sure to check out their X page for more character illustrations. Share your thoughts and your favorites in the comments below.

Click images for larger versions

Although it’s only been about a week since Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero received the game’s first notable balance and system update, there’s apparently another on the way very soon.

Bandai Namco has revealed new details about the incoming Dragon Ball patch along with server maintenance happening later tonight.

The new Sparking Zero update is aimed at punishing rage quitters more and rewarding their opponents.

It seems the previous approach of increasing timeout penalties for players with high disconnection rates last month was not enough of a deterrent, so now they should at least also lose their points like they would have if they stayed too.

“Regarding rage quits, we will adjust points accordingly (increasing points for the disconnected side and decreasing points for the side that disconnected),” reads the official post. “Please note that it may take some time for the points to be reflected.

“Additionally, we have confirmed that connection errors and online matching issues have been improved.
We hope you enjoy the game.”

It’s not stated if any other changes are planned to be made in the upcoming patch.

The server maintenance for said update is slated to come later tonight / early tomorrow morning starting at 12 a.m. PST / 3 a.m. EST on December 19 though it’ll only last around one hour until 1 a.m. PST / 4 a.m. EST.

During this time, Ranked Matches and Custom Battle: World Library modes will remain unavailable until the maintenance is complete.

Due to this update, maintenance will be conducted on December 19th from 09:00 to 10:00 (CET) / 00:00 to 01:00 (PST).

Unavailable modes:
Custom Battle: World Library
Ranked Match

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and…

— Dragon Ball Games (@dragonballgames) December 18, 2024

Funnily enough, another Bandai Namco fighter in Tekken 8 just implemented some very similar rage quitting penalties in their latest update this week too alongside Final Fantasy 16’s Clive Rosfield.

Last week’s big update to Sparking Zero changed up a lot of the arena fighter’s skills and mechanics nerfing things like Afterimage Strike and increasing the meter needed to use abilities like False Courage and skills that instantly put you in Sparking! Mode.

Android 19 and Dr. Gero were also notably nerfed so that they can no longer perform their infamous infinite ascend and descend gimmick, which was causing problems during actual tournaments for the game.

Stay tuned for the full patch notes and future updates when they become available.

If you traveled back just a few years in time, it almost felt as though if fighting game developers could just implement rollback netcode and launch a game with an exciting base roster and respectable gameplay, we’d have everything we ever wanted. Fast forward to 2024 and we find that despite the fact that developers have widely attended to many of these issues, the fighting game community is clearly still not happy.

In the latest video from Fighting Game Select, Kizzie Kay and JM Crofts discuss the biggest misses of 2024. Some of these are more global while others fall on specific franchises, but perhaps there’s a common thread that the FGC would benefit from gaining a better understanding of.

The latest and (potentially) greatest Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken are all still relatively new in that there’s an expectation that ongoing DLC content should still be an exciting facet of each. That said, all three franchises have seen more turbulence than you’d expect.

Capcom’s Street Fighter 6 has had its ups and downs, and while it seems to retain a decently large and enthusiastic player base, a combination of poor choices and poor luck put a massive damper on the game’s competitive scene during what should have been a climactic conclusion to Capcom Pro Tour’s regular season.

The Tour itself has been noticeably less hype than in recent years already, as updated rules and scheduling approaches have made following it feel more difficult than its worth.

It’s also a given that Mortal Kombat 1’s rocky journey comes up in this discussion as despite NetherRealm Studios’ latest having a few notable wins, it has widely failed to capture and maintain audience attention enough to meet expectations.

Kizzie and Crofts take turns offering talking points and fleshing them out in the full discussion below. Give it a watch and then let us know in the comments if you think they missed anything.

It’s somehow already been seven years since Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite was released and then subsequently largely abandonned by the crossover’s creators, but a dedicated group of talented fans banded together pick up the pieces and build it anew.

The big Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and Beyond mod project is set to release later this week, and anyone who hasn’t picked up the game before can now do so for cheap (but only for a short while longer).

While the Infinite & Beyond PC mod itself will be free to download and use, you’ll still need to buy / own at least the base game itself to take part in the fun.

As if perfectly timed for this occasion, Steam is currently running a steep sale on the standard and deluxe editions of Marvel Infinite, which is set to expire in a matter of hours.

Both versions are marked down by a whopping 80% that brings the base Marvel Infinite title to just $7.99 USD while the Deluxe Edition is just $11.99.

Said Deluxe Edition also comes with the game’s first and only Character Pass containing six more fighters between Black Panther, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Monster Hunter, Sigma and Venom.

Those who already own the base game can still get the pass for 80% off as well for $5.99.

The deal is set to expire tomorrow, Thursday, December 19 at 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST, so there’s not much time left.

This is going on at the same time as the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection’s first official sale too in case you were looking for more MvC action — and that one isn’t limited to just Steam.

Marvel Infinite’s price is pretty much as low as we’ve seen it go, and though it goes on sale fairly often, there’s no telling when it’ll be this cheap again.

As for the Infinite & Beyond mod, the project has expanded far beyond the original scope of changing the characters’ graphical style and shading.

Now, the mod being worked on by almost 40 developers, animators, artists, musicians and more are upgrading basically every aspect of the MvCI experience.

Can’t wait for #MVCIB to launch? Ultron’s newly re-arranged theme from @alex_moukala might help tide you over! pic.twitter.com/3N6InDWVzJ

— Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite & Beyond (@MVCI_Beyond) December 9, 2024

That includes some improved character models, new UI, new color palettes / costumes, new music, upgraded stages with more fun callbacks to the series and main menu.

Even the gameplay is being shaken up with a fan-made balance update including some new moves like Thanos accessing the full Infinity Gauntlet at all times plus a 2v2 tag team mode.

The Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite & Beyond mod is scheduled to release this Friday, December 20 as a free download to anyone who owns a PC version of the game.

Ever since fighting games obtained the ability to go online, players have been rage quitting and leaving matches early by any means necessary while developers have tried to come up with ways to keep them in check.

Rage quitters or “pluggers” have continued to be an issue in Tekken 8 from the time it released at the start of the year, but now it seems those types of players are starting to see some more immediate consequences for ruining the experience for everyone else.

Although Final Fantasy’s Clive Rosfield was the biggest addition to the game this week, the latest update to Tekken 8 also brought in something that probably made some players even happier.

The official patch notes state that a new disconnection penalty has been implemented for Ranked Matches.

According to the description, disconnecting during a match will now result in a loss of rank points by the offending player, and a notification will appear on the main menu screen when it happens.

This tactic is something that has existed in other fighting games for quite some time, but it isn’t always standard or available out the gate still since it can be difficult for developers to always determine who was at fault for a match disconnecting — so they often times stay on the cautious side to not punish innocent users.

Before now, Tekken 8 largely seemed to go after pluggers by handing out suspensions and bans, barring them from playing online at all for a period of time once reported by other users and / or receiving a high enough disconnection rate — and presumably also putting them in “jail” where they’re more likely to fight other rage quitters.

That apparently wasn’t enough of a deterrent, however, as those types of individuals continued to want to hold on to their precious ranked points they didn’t fully earn no matter what.

Now those points should drop if they do try and close the game, unplug their router or chuck their console out the window.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to ascertain how soon and often these penalties are applied and how many points are lost since rage quitters are not likely to rat themselves out online by sharing that info.

And we’re not really willing to risk messing up our own account in perfect standing to find out at the moment.

We’re also not sure if that means the other player will receive those match points too.

There is still going to be some players who may not be actual pluggers who end up getting punished as well by this new system.

The game has crashed 5 times today and everytime i get the message for the disconnect penalty…..
@tk8_report @TEKKEN

— Mohammad Mishima (@Mohammad_Tareqq) December 17, 2024

We’ve seen some reports of users getting docked points after the game itself crashed on them.

So if you’re having issues with crashes and / or poor connection quality, it may be best to avoid Ranked Matches until that can be resolved on your end.

Hopefully, this leads to a healthier online experience where people are less willing to dip out to try and maintain their fake win streaks and ranks (but it’s probably near impossible to stop them entirely).