It's a Good Time to Love Fighting Games

By Luiggi Cavanna

This year’s EVO’s final day of competition ended up with a series of announcements that blew my mind away, and made me so happy that I love fighting games. For those that don’t know, EVO, or “Evolution Championship Series”, is a yearly E-sport competition that mainly focuses on Fighting games.

It gets really HYPE!!

It’s not rare for video game companies to make announcements at EVO, but this year was great! All of us were caught by surprise.

Yep, it was like that.

Let’s start shall we. Tekken 7 is a beloved franchise from Bandai Namco that has made strong comeback, and with it, Tekken has given the 3D fighter genre it’s life back. Tekken 7 is not a stranger to surprises after all they gave a tremendous surprise when they revealed that Akuma, from Capcom’s Street Fighter series, was going to be in the game. This year people were expecting a new DLC character and the community was making some speculations, but we didn’t see this one coming.

Geese F’ing Howard!!!

Yes, Geese Howard is in Tekken 7! fine, guest characters have become pretty common now days, but Tekken 7 already had a guest character and that was Akuma! Unless it’s a “versus game”, like Marvel vs Capcom for example, you don’t get too many guest characters in your game, let alone from two different companies like Capcom and SNK. You could say this wasn’t “PREDICTABLE”, people is going to hate me for this joke.

Geese will be out later this winter.

Bandai Namco also showed the reveal trailer for Trunks in their new fighting game, Dragon Ball FighterZ, but we already knew he was in the game after a sneak peak in some Japanese magazines but they did surprise us with the announcement for the beta. Originally we were going to be able to signup on July 26th, but due to reception, they didn’t expected so many people to be interested in the game, they are going to expand the capacity of the closed beta to allow more people to join. This means that the closed beta signup time period was move to August 22, we are still hype though, especially since Piccolo and Krillin have been announced as well since then.

Dragon Ball FighterZ will be released on early 2018.

Arc System Works also worked on Dragon Ball FighterZ, as you can see with those graphics, but they also had announcements of their own, but nobody expected what was to come.

BOOM! Jubei is coming to Blazblue this winter!

Jubei is a character that a lot of people have been asking for, but Arc System Works was on the fences about putting Jubei in the game after all, lore wise, Jubei is the strongest character in the story. Here he is anyway and the fanbase went nuts, but they weren’t done yet.

No, you’re not wrong, those are Blazblue characters with

Persona 4 arena and Under Night In-birth Characters.

Yep! Arc Systems is making a tag team vs game called, “Blazblue Cross Tag Battle”. That include characters from the Blazblue series, Persona 4 arena, Under Night In-birth and somebody that came out of nowhere and blew everyone's mind.

Yeah, that’s Ruby Rose.

Ruby Rose is the main character from Rooster Teeth’s animated series RWBY. I don’t have any personal attachment to the series, but watching the hype reaction of the crowd was contagious, also my girlfriend is massive fan of the series, so having another game that we can share together is exciting.

 

Blazblue Cross Tag Battle will be release 2018.

Arika was also at EVO testing their new fighting game, that has no title yet, and everyone was having a blast with it. You might remember Arika as the video game developers that worked with Capcom on the Street Fighter EX series. Oh Street Fighter EX, you might not be the best competitive game but sure you were fun. I mean, the FGC has been asking for some of the characters from the EX series, especially Skullomania, to make a return in any Street Fighter game, but since they don’t have the rights it was impossible. If not in a Street Fighter game maybe in other fighting games, well guess what!

After so many years Skullomania is back baby!!

Alongside another returning character from the EX series, Darun Mister, Skullomania joins the cast of Arika’s new Fighting game. The game is in development for the PS4, and it will have a limited beta test at the end of 2017.

The game will have a simultaneous release in North-America, Europe, and Japan on 2018.

Capcom was also there, and showed things, I guess. Ok fine let’s talk about Capcom! First let me state that I don’t hate Capcom, my favorite fighting game of all times is Street Fighter 3:Third Strike, I’m not a fan of the Marvel vs Capcom series but I’ll play you on MvC 2, but Capcom’s decision lately have shown that they have become complacent, but let’s talk about it later. After the finals of Marvel vs Capcom 3 they showed us, in a somewhat staged way some people argue, a new character for Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, Jedah!

Did he just JoJo pose!!

Jedah, from Darkstalkers, joins as one of the coolest looking character in a somewhat bland roster of characters. Too bad we already knew about him thanks to the leaks, I can’t wait to see Monster Hunter. After the Street Fighter V finals, they had another reveal and it was, well, this.

Yep…

Abigail from the Final Fight series shows up, and we also knew about it. Ok, to be fair he looks way better than the announcement trailer led us to believe, and that’s not saying much because the trailer was awful. I don’t have a problem with Final Fight characters, I love Hugo, but the character design for Street Fighter V doesn’t go very well with him. I mean, the drawn still pictures for cutscenes make all the characters look good, but everytime I see Ken’s banana hair clipping through his shoulder, I die a little inside.

You didn’t notice the change at first didn’t you?

Capcom has ruled over the tag fighting games, with the Marvel vs Capcom series, unchallenged for too long, and like I said before, they have grown complacent. Now that we have strong competition like Dragon Ball FighterZ, that looks damn good and is only 20% done, I hope they get their shit together. I love capcom, I grew up with their fighting games, but it breaks my heart when I hear them talk about “functions” if you know what I mean. I just don’t want them to sleep on the sticks and loose this match.

We all know what happens when you celebrate way too early.

All and all, I gotta say that the future looks bright if you love fighting games. So much goodness coming our way that I just can’t wait. So! Are you excited, are you a hard core fighting game fan or just love to smash those buttons? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Good-bye for now my friends.

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Bad Boys of summer!!! Villain report cards.

By Corey Floyd

Well we are just about at the end of the Summer and we’ve had our fair share of comic book movies. But today I’m not gonna talk about the heroes. Today will be about the bad guys of these films and how good were they. It’s a Good, Bad and the UGLY on this summer's baddies. If I missed one let me know . Mind you I’m judging the villains not the film

EGO  Guardians of the the Galaxy Volume 2 introduced us to EGO the living planet. Played by the always charismatic Kurt Russell. In the beginning of the film we see a CGI younger looking EGO with Star Lord's mother and think all is well as he planted something on earth. We seem him later in the film looking like a handsome caveman as he welcomes the gang to his planet. Since Loki  has been considered the standard for a good Marvel (at least to fans) so far he meets that criteria. Then its gets too dark too fast. As we get into the third act we find out EGO has had hundred of kids by different species. But none of them could harness his power the Star Lord did so he killed them. On top of that he reveals that he gave Starlords mom Cancer cause he he loved her so much that if he visited earth again to see her he would have abandoned his mission of spreading himself across the universe. Thats is pretty  SAVAGE grade A !!

1. I’m gonna talk about Logan’s reaper team and X-24.

In Logan we meet the Reapers. Mercenaries that have cybernetic enhanced limbs. Who work for a company that has weaponize the mutant gene. Kidnapped kids and gave them powers with the intent to sell them to the highest bidder as child soldier. When they realized that Logan was still around there was only one option to counter him with

a younger angrier Wolverine. That’s what we get from X-24. A soulless machine like mutant whose only designed to carry out orders. Most of the orders involve killing. Grade C.

3.  In Wonder Woman we have Doctor Poison.

She worked for the Germans in WW2 perfecting toxins and …….. Poison. I guess we should talk about her face. Since no one else has wanted to touch the subject. There is no explanation for what happened to her face. Perhaps it will be revealed in another film. But what I can say is the mask she wears is actually very common for the time. Ceramic mask like these were made to help war wounded people integrate into society.Overall she was okay but her motives were a mystery. C

Then there’s Ares  who was the making WW 1 happen so he could keep his power. It was interesting because we were meant to believe it was this German guy (because WW1+

German = bad guy) but it ended being this dude . Also the fight he had with WW was lackluster and he threw so much lighting I thought he was Zeus. For the God of War he could have been better . D

4. In Spider-Man's third reboot in 10 years we have the Vulture.

Just like our new Spider-man this was a refreshing take on this campy character. If you look here http://amerimemedia.blogspot.com/2017/07/casting-choices-whos-next-continued.html you can see that the Vulture original look was absurd and the bad guy looks like Monty Burns. In Homecoming they went with a more techno savvy look. They had Michael Keaton play this character and it was great. He was a blue collar guy that got screwed over by big business to be more accurate Stark. He was in charge of the New York cleanup from the first Avengers movie. Since he’s lost his job he gathered the alien tech he already has and made weapons to sell and support his family. Which we later find out his daughter is dating Parker and he figures out that he is spider-man and give a chilling monologue in the car.

He was funny and menacing and relatable. Hope to see him again. B+.

5. In the latest Pirates of the Caribbean they have a new adversary.   

Captain Salazar was a hunter of pirates all his life. He came from a legacy a pirate killing captain’s. That is until he came across Jack Sparrow. They show in a flashback how Salazar killed Jacks captain and Jack fooled him and thus causing his to crash and die. That when he became Captain Jack. That’s also when Salazar  became a ghost who wanted to hunt him down and kill him. The character did not have any depth to him and Javier Bardem wasn’t given enough to work with or he just didn’t care. Furthermore the series only has two great villains one being Barbosa who is a protagonist in this film and Davy Jones who (SPOILER ALERT!!!!) is coming back in the next film because to be honest he's the best villain in the series to date Salazar is forgettable just like Ian McShane’s Blackbeard. Two great actors playing crappy characters in very weird franchise. Grade F

 Well that wraps it up for me make sure you guys subscribe to our YOUTUBE PAGE  because we will start giving out clues so you can win a copy of Destiny 2 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0IdIjfKgte3_dQ44neE5Yw

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What An Awesome Night To Have A Curse: Castlevania Review

By Luiggi Cavanna

Not long ago, I wrote a blog about anime live action adaptations, you should check it out if you haven’t, but you know who has it worst? Video games to, well, anything! This video game curse is well known but we might’ve broken that curse thanks to the new Netflix animated series Castlevania.

Castlevania, for all of you that didn’t have a childhood, is a series of games from Konami starring a lineage of vampire hunters known as the Belmont clan and their battle against the lord of darkness himself, Dracula, throughout different time periods.

There are a lot of Belmonts….. Is that JoJo reference?

There are a lot of games, Belmonts and time periods to choose from, ranging from 1094 up to 2036. That’s not counting the rebooted timeline, Lord of Shadows, or how I love to call it, “the timeline I don’t give two craps about! The Netflix original takes place during the events of Castlevania 3 Dracula’s Curse.

A trip to Dracula’s hometown!? OH BOY!

To me, it is the perfect place to start. Chronologically, Castlevania 3 is the first time that Dracula decided to unleash his evil on humanity, and it was the first time he faced a Belmont in combat. The Netflix original is tremendously faithful to the source material, despite Castlevania 3 being a Nintendo game without too much of a story, but they managed to pull elements from other games in the series.

Like Dracula’s motivations for his hate of humans.

For example, the death of Liza, the catalyzer for Dracula's rampage, was pulled out straight out of Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

The only difference is that we get to see the whole gruesome scene.

If you are a fan of the series, you will be delighted with all the references and attention to details in the show.

I mean, look at this!!

Castlevania, to set the story in motion, did something interesting and dedicated the first episode to introduce Dracula. It fleshes out Dracula's motivations for what he's doing against humanity, and it made us sympathize with him. Given the situation, most of us will say “Yeah! Kill the bastards”, but at the same time the episode does a great job showing us the consequences of Dracula's wrath, with the mutilation of the Innocents, children and babies alike, and it makes us think “This is too much”. 

You would be pissed too.

This was a fantastic episode, and it gave us a great villain, one that doesn’t do evil for evil’s sake but because of the pain that humanity caused him. Also, it introduces our second antagonist, the church. The Bishop of Gresit is indisputably responsible for what has befallen upon the land thanks to his thirst for power. In his quest to cleanse the land of unholy things he burned the wrong person at the stake. Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he promptly found scapegoats to pinpoint the blame, like the speakers, I will talk about them later, and the Belmont family

.

This guy!

The following episodes are dedicated to introduce our heroes and to set the events of the next season in motion. Trevor Belmont is our reluctant hero, he spends most of his time just trying to get drunk, trying to forget how his family has been treated despite their service against the forces of darkness, but at the end, he can’t let the suffering continue and accepts the call.

And he just got kicked in the balls

Sypha Belnades, a spellcaster, and granddaughter of the elder of the speakers, who are a group of nomad scholars that only pass their knowledge through oral stories. Finally, Adrian Tepes, also known as Alucard. The son of Dracula that wishes to protect humanity to honor his mother's memories.

Hmm.. something is missing...

 The fight choreographies are excellent and the fact that they recreated fights from an eight-bit game and they managed to adapt them to animation so well show the love they have for the franchise.

Bullseye!!

In the game after fighting a cyclops, you free Sypha from a statue, and that is recreated perfectly here. Before Alucard joins your party you had beat him in a boss fight. If there’s anything that fans love it is when their adaptations are faithful to the source material! This is a video game adaptation, and even though they took some liberties with the story, they gave us what we always wanted.

Alucard literally uses moves from the Symphony of the night in this fight.

I can spend days nerdgasm-ing over the series, but it does have some flaws, but all of my complaints bring me to one point. The fact that we only see Dracula for one episode or that we don’t see much of his relationship with his wife before the tragic events of the series. The lack of character development for Alucard. The fact we haven’t talked about the legendary whip the “Vampire Killer”, and missing characters from the game like Grant. All of these complaints come down to time, the first season if you wanna call it that, is only four episode long!

Hello, there magic user! I guess I don’t need this silly wall climbing pirate anymore.

This show will leave you wanting more and with a bunch of unanswered questions and that’s not good. Fear not my friends because a second season has been announced and let's just hope that it meets the expectation that this first “season” left us with.

Four episodes though!?

Well, there is one complaint that doesn’t relate to the length of the series and that’s the music. Castlevania is known for its amazing soundtrack and you mean to tell me you couldn’t get a single classic in this show? Come on man! Despite those shortcomings, the series was enjoyable, and if you're a fan of Castlevania this show is just going to be awesome for you! So what were your thoughts on Netflix’s Castlevania series? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Goodbye, for now, my friends.

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