Week of June 15th to the 21st, 2015.
Fighting Games Weekly is a place for all things fighting games. News, game discussion, events, streams, videos, players, drama, everything fighting game related.
Don't know what to watch right now? Check the FGCPros Twitch Group or Jaxel's Stream Viewer. If you want to watch multiple streams at once, you can use Jaxel's customizable multiviewer as well. If you are looking to see what events are coming up past this week, check out the FGC Event Calendar that our own Malice215 put together.
New to FGC-GAF is the FGC-GAF Index which lists the fighting games GAFers plays as a neat reference with some rough statistics to boot. To add yourself to the index, quote this post and use the survey link below. Please remember to save/bookmark the "Edit your response" link so you can edit your responses if/when you buy a game already on the list or a new game that releases in the future.
Last week's thread. An archive of previous FGW threads is available here.
Fighting Games Weekly is a place for all things fighting games. News, game discussion, events, streams, videos, players, drama, everything fighting game related.
Don't know what to watch right now? Check the FGCPros Twitch Group or Jaxel's Stream Viewer. If you want to watch multiple streams at once, you can use Jaxel's customizable multiviewer as well. If you are looking to see what events are coming up past this week, check out the FGC Event Calendar that our own Malice215 put together.
New to FGC-GAF is the FGC-GAF Index which lists the fighting games GAFers plays as a neat reference with some rough statistics to boot. To add yourself to the index, quote this post and use the survey link below. Please remember to save/bookmark the "Edit your response" link so you can edit your responses if/when you buy a game already on the list or a new game that releases in the future.
Last week's thread. An archive of previous FGW threads is available here.
Last year, GAFer Shouta helped organize donations from various FGC-GAF members to send fellow member QisTopTier to EVO. Q suffers from Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy, but has always wanted to go to EVO and we're looking to double up this year and send him to EVO again!
If you want to help out, you can check out the details and pledge on this spreadsheet.
E3 is this week! What to expect?
Check out the E3 schedule below to keep up to date with the various press conferences:
- Street Fighter V is will be at Sony's presser and will have a ton of footage streamed all throughout the week. For more on that, see below.
- Nintendo has got seemingly all of their Smash Bros. stuff out of the way before E3 proper, but it has been a while since we've seen Pokken Tournament as well, and a console release announcement could be in the cards.
- Project Soul is hosting it's own character poll on their Facebook for the "future of Soul Calibur," and GAF insider Verendus listed a new Soul Calibur in a list of titles, around half of which will be announced at E3.
- Namco Bandai also is set to show a fighting (or wrestling!) game for PS4 and X1, which is probably Soul Calibur VI.
- With Phil Spencer trying to renew PC gamer's faith in Microsoft by appearing at the E3 PC Gaming Show and with Microsoft Studios informally noting that they are gauging interest in a PC port, it isn't so unlikely that KI could hit PC in the near future. Furthermore, with KI being pushed as a a long-term project with yearly updates, it's not too crazy to expect a third season for the project to be announced, perhaps in conjunction with a PC release.
- Rivals of Aether is scheduled to show a new trailer and reveal 2 new characters some time in mid-June, which would coincide with Microsoft's E3 press conference (where they also had their game showcased last year).
Check out the E3 schedule below to keep up to date with the various press conferences:
Street Fighter V at E3 [ Schedule ] [ Thread ] [ Tuesday ] [ 3PM EDT | 12PM PDT ]
- All throughout the week, Capcom will be hosting various events for SFV including: single elim tournaments, a Kumite with ComboFiend, character demos, exhibitions, team tournaments and free play.
- This event continues through Thursday.
- More information is available here.
- SEAM returns as a major battleground for the Asian continent as a whole leading into EVO and the Capcom Cup.
- Capcom Pro Tour Premier Event
- This event continues through Sunday.
- More information is available here.
Every week, FGW will spotlight one GAFer to get a better picture of their history with fighting games, their preferences, and much more. For this week's FGW Player Spotlight, we will be taking a closer look at perhaps the person with the greatest GAF handle, Snacks the sober sea lion!
What fighting games do you currently play, what is your all time favourite and why?
Ultra Street Fighter 4 and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
SFIV and Smash Bros. 4 are the ones I play the most, but having only ever played Third Strike for fun, it’s easy to call it my favorite. The art and animations are still really impressive, it has a good pace, and it’s always interesting to watch. Almost always. Not Chun-li mirrors.
What are your favorite mechanics from the current selection of fighting games and why? What are your least favorite and why?SFIV and Smash Bros. 4 are the ones I play the most, but having only ever played Third Strike for fun, it’s easy to call it my favorite. The art and animations are still really impressive, it has a good pace, and it’s always interesting to watch. Almost always. Not Chun-li mirrors.
Focus attacks are neat, because I am a casual. I know they can be sort of a crutch, but I like having one technique work so fluidly into countering, canceling, punishing, and defense.
Least favorite might be rage in the new Smash Bros. Even having won plenty of games I was losing because of it, nobody wants to lose from getting hit by a smash attack and dying instantly at 50%.
What got you into fighting games? Are there any other genre of games you play?Least favorite might be rage in the new Smash Bros. Even having won plenty of games I was losing because of it, nobody wants to lose from getting hit by a smash attack and dying instantly at 50%.
I had Melee and Soul Calibur II like a lot of Gamecube owners, but I didn’t get into fighting games as a genre until I played Capcom vs. SNK 2. For some reason I was really into combos at the time, and the game also had a ton of characters. I moved onto Street Fighter from there, although Street Fighter IV hadn't been announced and was nowhere in sight.
Stealth games, character action, certain RPG’s, whatever genre you prefer to put Dark Souls in. Used to play some shooters but lost interest in all but Team Fortress 2 a while ago.
What is your favorite fighting game character and why?Stealth games, character action, certain RPG’s, whatever genre you prefer to put Dark Souls in. Used to play some shooters but lost interest in all but Team Fortress 2 a while ago.
Dudley in Street Fighter. His design is silly but cool? sophisticated? and he has a unique, ground-based play style (not to say he doesn’t get anything out of jumping) completely different from Balrog’s. The first character I really learned in-depth, although his metagame has significantly evolved since then.
Describe your style of play, and how do you play (local, online, etc.).
I think I like to play, or at least do best with, characters who have a solid footsies/ zoning game but with good options to be aggressive, like the SFIV versions of Ryu and Evil Ryu. I like to play fast characters too, but I prefer to have something to fall back on rather than always needing to take the initiative, so I don’t usually main rushdown characters.
Right now I can pretty much only play online.
What do you feel are your biggest strengths and weaknesses as a player?Right now I can pretty much only play online.
I’ve never been particularly good at any fighting game, so I’m not sure. I guess I can be patient when I actually remember to be, and good reflexes. Sometimes.
Weakness would just be spacing out and playing on muscle memory or patterns. I learned not to rely on jump-ins a long time ago, but it didn’t exactly make me a footsies/ neutral expert.
Best and worst moments in the your fighting game career?Weakness would just be spacing out and playing on muscle memory or patterns. I learned not to rely on jump-ins a long time ago, but it didn’t exactly make me a footsies/ neutral expert.
Getting an arcade stick and being able to actually do links rather than fumbling around doing them with a thumb on a pad. I didn’t start taking any games seriously until I was already in college, where there are no tournaments or any scene of any sort to go to, so nothing really exciting.
I guess losing to some guy playing a terrible Pikachu in Brawl is one of the worst things I can think of. It was just for fun, not an actual tournament or anything, and I had no idea how to actually play Smash Bros. seriously at that time, but it was awful.
What do you want from future fighting games?I guess losing to some guy playing a terrible Pikachu in Brawl is one of the worst things I can think of. It was just for fun, not an actual tournament or anything, and I had no idea how to actually play Smash Bros. seriously at that time, but it was awful.
Definitely more of them on PC and with (obviously) good netcode.
Who should be on next week's GAF Player Spotlight?
The eloquently-named Captain Rage Quit 69 would be one.
Since Dahbomb strongly encourages pre-orders, what games do you plan to buy that have been officially announced?
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition, the new Mirror’s Edge
Code:
06/30 BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend (NA)
07/07 Yatagarasu: Attack on Cataclysm
SUMMER Skullgirls 2nd Encore
2015 Rivals of Aether
MARCH Street Fighter V
TBD Beast's Fury
TBD JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven
TBD Next The King Of Fighters Title (tentative)
TBD Pokken Tournament
TBD Rise of Incarnates
TBD Tekken 7
TBD Tekken X Street Fighter
TBD Yatagarasu: Legend of Raven
Super Desperation Radio [ 9:30PM EDT | 6:30 PDT ]
- Hellpockets and various other members of the KoF community discuss KoF and happenings in the FGC.
- Out of the ashes of The BOX Arena, comes the San Diego FGC's newest organized weekly for UMvC3.
- Weekly FGC show dedicated to match analysis, teaching, commentary, news, debates, and more! Hosted by UltraDavid and James Chen.
Kachitagari TV (JP) [ 9PM JST | 8AM EDT | 5AM PDT ]
- Bon-chan, Kazunoko and Fuudo's new show, focusing primarily on SSFIV AE ranked matches but is branching off into other games as well.
- Logan Sama, organiser of the old WSO weeklys in London, invites some of London's finest to Capcom UK HQ for first to 5 sets in USF4.
- NYC VF crew presents VF5:FS tournaments casuals out of The Next Level arcade in Brooklyn.
- New Jersey's largest weekly featuring UMvC3 and Injustice.
- JamessMK & DarKNaTaS host a raw and uncut weekly talk show discussing events in the FGC with various FGC personalities.
- Weekly FGC show dedicated to match analysis, teaching, commentary, news, debates, and more! Hosted by UltraDavid and James Chen.
- iPlaywinner hosts a weekly talk show featuring alpha stream monsters Harrison and Honzo Gonzo.
Game Spot Versus KoF Casuals (JP) [ 7PM JST | 6AM EDT | 3AM PDT ]
- KoF 1998UM, KoF 2002UM and KoF XIII C action from Japan.
- A weekly show featuring Mago, Tokido, and Momochi. They go over the tournaments they will participate and have participated in overseas and in Japan, as well as the general news in SF. For long periods of the year, there is a student-teacher session involving one of the 3 Topanga members taking a player under their wing and teaching them how to play SF. The show features rank matches (sometimes random char. matches) and ends with a 8 man online tournament featuring players around 4.5kpp such as Poongko, Inco, and more.
- NYC's biggest weekly at The Next Level Arcade in Brooklyn featuring SSFIV AE, UMvC3 and TTT2. If the Teamsp00ky link is not working, it is likely on the backup stream on Arturo's channel.
- Often, WonderChef will stream Injustice pools up until Top 4.
- SoCal's biggest weekly at Super Arcade in Walnut, featuring Injustice and SSFIV AE. Season details are available here.
Fraud City [ 7:30PM EDT | 4:30PM PDT ]
- Bifuteki streams tournaments for 4 games (UMvC3, USFIV, MKX and KI) in pairs on a rotating week-to-week schedule.
- Hold Back To Block hosts a weekly roundtable discussion of various happenings in the FGC.
- A bi-weekly Smash podcast discussing recent events, news and issues in the Smash community, hosted by Scar, Prog, Cactuar and Sheridan.
- Galloping Ghost Arcade presents an Injustice weekly out of Chicago.
- A weekly FGC talk show hosted by iPlaywinner, featuring a varying, ensemble cast of prominent members of the fighting game community.
- Aris' new weekly show, discussing whatever he wants to! The format resembles old ATP podcasts.
- A relatively new USFIV tournament out of San Francisco, hosted by ShowDown Entertainmnet.
- The UMvC3 and KoF XIII branch of Wednesday Night Fights also hosted at Super Arcade in Walnut, California.
The Smash Break Bi-Weekly [ 6PM EDT | 3PM PDT ]
- The Break hosts a new Melee bi-weekly to replace Rokunaya Bi-Weeklies which are ending.
- Arturo streams a BlazBlue and Guilty Gear bi-weekly out of Next Level arcade in Brooklyn.
- For those who know how to use Nico Live, also join the GODSGARDEN community page on Nico to know when Ura KaoTV! goes live.
- A bi-weekly Skullgirls event hosted by members of the Skullgirls development team, often featuring preview builds of the game.
Rebel Up [ 7PM EDT | 4PM PDT ]
- Super Arcade's anime bi-weekly, featuring GG, BB, P4A, SG, Gundam and older anime games as well.
GGPO VanBats [ 4PM EDT | 1PM PDT ]
- Weekly GGPO Vampire Savior ranbats streamed by GAFer Rotanibor.
- SuperDojo and Team OXY partner up to create a new weekly for the SoCal Melee community, featuring doubles and singles.
On GAF we have various members that stream fighting games from time to time too. If you would like to add your channel to this thread, send me a PM.
Often, some fighting games can seem intimidating to players new and old. Below are a bunch of resources that may be of aid to new players, or handy as references.
- Learn How To Play Fighting Games Free eBook from Shoryuken is a fantastic primer for new players to the genre.
- Footsies Handbook is a guide to the potentially elusive, but integral part of doing well in any fighting game.
- NeoGAF's Arcade Stick Thread is the place to go for questions about anything arcade stick-related.
- Step Up Your Game is an editorial series by Justin Wong that covers a multitude of topics, notably focusing on strengthening your mental game and playing smarter instead of harder.
- Tips for first time competitors will help you straighten out those nerves and expectations when you head out to your first tournament.
- Domination 101 is almost a cult classic article in the FGC, which has Seth Killian telling us how he really feels about the idea of "cheapness" in fighting games.
- Team-building Guide by our very own Karsticles, which helps make it easier to approach team-building in MvC games, and games with similar synergistic elements.
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If you have any suggestions for the OP, please do not hesitate to post in this thread or (preferably) PM me to let me know.