FGC Weekly Roundup - April 29th, 2016

We're back with another edition of FGC Weekly Roundup. The past weekend's tournaments were a real megaton dropped onto the scene especially with the scorching heat of Red Bull Kumite still felt even as we enter into a new round of events. This weekend fight game fans will have a bit less on their plate in regards to things to watch, but there was no shortage of news to sort through. Back to the salt mines, scrubs.

Fists will fly at this location! World Warriors will descend upon Highline College at Des Moines, WA (south of Seattle) for a Capcom Pro Tour Ranking tournament known as Northwest Majors. There will be plenty of games, ranging from Street Fighter V to SkullGirls, and lots of big names making their way out to go for Gold and those sweet Capcom Pro Tour points. Some of the killers trekking to the West Coast include EG|Justin Wong, UA|Bass, RB|SnakeEyez, Glty, Chris Tatarian, PG|FChamp, EG|PR-Balrog, PGTV|Jiewa, Flux, Alex Meyers, TeamLiquid|NuckleDu, Julio (winner of last week's Texas Showdown), EG|Ricki Ortiz,  BE|KaneBlueRiver and many more. All the action, starting today (Friday the 29th) can be seen and throughout the weekend, can be found at TeamKhaos and KhaosGaming2. 

Panda Expansion

PandaGlobal, an FGC squad that already has Ryan "FChamp" Ramirez, Eric "ESAM" Lew and Robert "Wobbles" Wright, expanded further this week by adding a few more big names to their roster. Raynel "RayRay" Hidalgo and Kyohei "MarlinPie" Lehr are best known for their exploits in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (with multiple EVO Finals appearances to their credit) though MarlinPie is one of the best Guilty Gear XRD players outside of Japan. RayRay is still a dominant force in the UMvC3 scene and coming up in the Street Fighter V as well. It wouldn't be a shock to see Panda Global's squad all over the scene in the coming months and on the main stage at EVOLUTION 2016 (which I will be in attendance for). Good acquisition for Team PG and good luck going forward, fellas.

Guile, RageQuitting and You

It's no secret that Guile is coming and, as of publication of this FGC Weekly Roundup the character will be available for folks to take into the lab, get good and make freedom ring. The April Update that comes along with the character, though, also implements a number of bug fixes, balance changes, matchmaking refinement and an automated system for dealing with rage quitters. 

Capcom was, well, a bit slow in implementing this system thus far and the details aren't plentiful as of yet regarding just what the penalties are "as they will be refined over time" according to Harrison of Capcom-Unity. The bug fixes though are numerous and worth a look to see what might have changed with your fighter of choice. My condolences to Zangief players, though, as it seems no changes were made to Zangief with this pass by Capcom. It seems Chief Gief is just fine and doesn't need any adjustments? I'm sure RB|SnakeEyez would agree if he could see through his tears about it. Seriously. Zangief needs some love in a major way from the dev team.

Another addition to the incoming game update I have tentatively titled "CAPCOM SETS THE WORLD FREE: FREEDOM STRIKES AGAIN-Guile Edition" came from the CapcomFighters channel on YouTube. A character introduction video, narrated by Capcom Community Manager Matt Edwards, gives an excellent rundown of the character, his changes and why to play him.

Mira and Patch 3.1 

Killer Instinct is, if I can get on my soap box for a second, the sort of the game that does nearly everything right, has improved patch after patch and has introduced a diverse cast of characters that clearly implement the lessons learned from working on fighting games for decades. The fact that this game is not as popular in the tournament scene or garners more attention is still hard to fathom. The console exclusivity of it certainly didn't help though adding PC as another platform should bring more into the fold. One of the latest additions, originally showcased last week, is the vampiric Mira. No additional tease at the end as is customary with most of their character trailers but, nonetheless, another exciting addition to the already stacked Killer Instinct roster. 

The biggest news, though, is that Patch 3.1 which includes Mira is rolling out to Xbox One and PC users as of Wednesday (27th). The notes for the patch, which included some system fixes along with nearly every character getting at least one or more changes, are extensive. Iron Galaxy has, yet again, done a good job of explaining why the change occurred as opposed to just listing them down with no real rhyme or reason. The full notes, with explanatory text highlighted in blue, can be found at Ultra-Combo's page. 

Bring on the Anime

Steam is running a sale this weekend on a whole heaping helping of anime-related games. There is an abundance of visual novels but also plenty of fighting games for a great price. Guilty Gear XRD -SIGN-, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, and King of Fighters XIII are among the prime picks available ranging from thirty to seventy percent off their normal prices. Get them while they're marked down, folks! That combined with the Sony PSN Golden Week sale should give you fight fans plenty of bucks to spend on your favorite sugoi anime fighters. 

Mysterious Neo Geo Fighting Game Revealed

The Neo Geo was a system known more for its fighting games than perhaps any other genre and there were no shortage of them. One such title has finally been revealed after many years of languishing inside a dusty bin. Brian Hargrove, also known as NeoTurfMasta, bought a Neo Geo arcade board at auction that had no name assigned to it. Just a lot number. It was strange in that it was the first time the long-time Neo Geo archivist had come across a developer board that had the flash cards installed. Flash forward to this week when, per Mad Man's Cafe, it was confirmed that this long-lost Neo Geo fighting game was called DarkSeed. 

The game's creator, Kengo Asai, worked with a lot of former Technos Japan staffers to work on DarkSeed. Many of those same staff worked on Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer as well. The name was later changed to Dragon's Heaven due to potential problems with copyright on the former title. Asai mentioned that the game was in parallel development with Gowcaizer back in 1995 to 1996 at some point. The unfinished title made use of a Neutral, Lawful, Chaotic alignments as a means to change gameplay with choices made after battles were fought. It also had stages that were played during the morning, day or evening that offered advantages and disadvantages to characters depending on alignment, etc. It ran into funding trouble multiple times and was ultimately shelved. We'll never see it finished which is too bad considering some of the interesting ideas at play here. Thanks to NeoTurfMasta, however, we do know another piece of the Neo Geo's fascinating history. 

Tournament Entrant Caps for Street Fighter V

Just a brief mention that after ComboBreaker (May 27-29th) announced it would be capping the number of entrants for Street Fighter V it appears that Dreamhack Austin will be doing the same. It seems the Texas Showdown crew will be helping with TO duties at the event (May 6th-8th). A newly released list of players for DH Austin has also been released, and there are already some big names lined up for the Texas tournament. Not every tournament can be like EVO with 4000+ entering the SFV brackets I suppose.

Street Fighter V, for all its failings, certainly has kept the scene captivated and more new World Warriors are joining the fray every day. A strong surge as we roll on towards EVO 2016 and the Capcom Cup. 

King of Fighters XIV

Our first official trailer for King of Fighters XIV dropped this week along with another trailer and a whole slew of information regarding the full roster, future DLC, move lists and more. SNK invited the press over to Akihabara to drown in a veritable sea of information regarding the upcoming fighter which launches in the US on August 23rd, 2016. Orochinagi's correspondent broke down the event fairly well and for those interested will find a wealth of information about the upcoming title. Some footage of the game in action can also be seen below.

The game, in action, looks leagues ahead of where it was when it was first revealed last year. This looks and sounds like a KoF game and, hopefully, will deliver the sort of leap forward that King of Fighters XIII did for fans of the franchise. SNK (formerly SNKPlaymore) has pledged to fully commit to making video games again. No more pachinko mines for you developers! They're continuing to resurrect older titles as well with King of Fighters 2000 coming to PS4 on May 3rd. First Last Blade 2 now KoF 2000? Neo Geo aficionados will be pleased.

PREDICTABO! That will do it for this week's edition of FGC Weekly Roundup. We'll be back on early next week with a recap of all the weekend's tournament action and back again on Friday the 6th to recap all the hype, salt and goings on within the fighting game community.