TAI-X

I knew it would happen regardless of what Team Ninja said, but they just kissed any possibility of DOA6 coming to PC goodbye.

Calling it now; we'll hear about a PC port after Season 2 finishes. Depends on how much of an asset MS considers it to the Xbone's library, though. Probably not much compared to Halo/Gears.

This crowdfunding shit was dumb when it started and it's dumb now. I have yet to see a single worthwhile original product emerge from crowdfunding, whether it's Kickstarter or whatever.

Called it. Nothing more will happen for the series besides occasional cameos, and MAYBE another round of ports for PS4/One.

He doesn't look anything like a Big Daddy, more like another lazy Todd McFarlane reject to match SC's Necrid. Pretty laughable that they're recycling Rage Art animations from BOTH SFxT and SCV, not to mention older Tekken games. I feel like this game is being treated as a prototype for TxSF. Is the arcade mode sub-boss just going to be Heihachi again?

They're trying to push the PS4 release of USFIV right now, because it's coming sooner and it's a more immediate money-making opportunity for them. This is how modern Capcom thinks.

SNKP announced 3 more games for PS2 Classics on PS3: KOF 2003, KOF MI2, and SS Zero. Japan only. Obviously, these are just emulations without online play. Didn't realize they had already released the Twinkle Star Sprites sequel as a download. I'm definitely getting it off the JP Store, and I'll do the same for MI Regulation A if they end up putting that up too.

Not sure what to make of the snippet of SFII's fight result screen jingle found on the game. It's incomplete, low quality and taken straight from the game audio instead of being re-orchestrated. My money's on it being a randomly selected DLC placeholder with no real significance, maybe from a developer who hoped Ryu or another SF character would make it in but had no actual influence to make it happen. Let's not forget that Brawl had tons of placeholder data that never ended up being used. I'm sure Roy was given serious consideration, but the presence of Koopaling Roy completely rules him out. We have more than enough FE fighters as is. I voted for Inkling, since he's/she's the best character who has any realistic chance of making it in.

Yeah, it's not very well known that the majority of their Xbox 360 digital releases were ported by a Chinese team. Probably because they left them out of the credits. I wouldn't read too much into it. SNKP will finally have more funding, for one thing. It just remains to be seen whether they'll be banished even deeper into the smartphone/pachinko ghetto, or if they'll continue to deliver occasional console/PC releases (especially KOF XIV). At any rate, SNKP's buyer is clearly aware of the company's history, pedigree and the value its IPs still hold. KOF XIII's difficult reputation is well deserved, though for artificial reasons. It probably has the most narrow and demanding input windows for advanced combos in any professionally developed fighting game, ever. 2002 UM has a similar combo system but it's more forgiving. Most of the Neo-Geo KOFs are easy to get into. It's mainly the Striker Trilogy (99/2000/2001) that tends to bewilder people, since KOF assists are far more situational and less self-explanatory than MvC assists - also, you don't have unlimited use of them. I don't hate strikers, but I fully understand why they've never returned to them since 2001. XI (my personal favorite KOF) has some pretty in-depth meter mechanics, but it feels closer to a Capcom fighter than your average KOF. With many characters, it's fairly easy to start pulling off crazy shit with Dream Cancels. I know it's commonly dismissed as an unfinished prototype of XIII, but KOF XII deserves credit for being the easiest game of the series to get into (excluding Maximum Impact), at least for modern players who can't acclimate to the stiff controls and chargeable super meters of 94/95.

There is now strong evidence indicating that SNKP may have been purchased by a Chinese holding company. Knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. Even Epic Games has Chinese overlords now. I expected it would also be Tencent who bought SNKP, though, since they already licensed KOF 98 UM to release an online PC version for Chinese markets.

God damn it, could those character portraits look any more bland and lifeless? The only character for whom a vacuous doll-like expression is fitting is Ruili, but it's still not creepy enough for her. They're really not doing enough to sell this as anything other than Generic Waifu Fighter Flavor of the Month #41827, when Nitro+ built its reputation on aggressively bucking the stereotype of visual novels as vapid waifu dating/screwing sims. There should have been instant kills/fatalities with Saya devouring the opponent, Taoluo shocking them to death (I know it's EMP, but he does it in Nitro Royale), Nano thrusting his arm through their chest Heidern-style, and so on. If they would have to censor them for the arcade version, so be it. I liked Aquapazza and I'm sure this will play at least as well, but what a tremendous missed opportunity on the aesthetic front. Aquapazza's atmosphere and tone were completely fitting for Aquaplus; Blasterz's isn't for Nitro+. The decision to go with only female characters was especially ill-advised, as was the use of several characters with only a tenuous link to the company.

It's too bad they presumably can't use Namco's new PS4-based arcade system (which Tekken 7 is running on) due to corporate rivalry. The versions would be identical.

The Master System was definitely released in the US, but like I said, almost no one here gave a crap about it. The NES completely drowned it out. Its Japanese equivalent, the Sega Mark III, didn't fare so well either. It was a big deal in Brazil and some European countries, though. Sega licensed it out to Tec Toy in Brazil, who were apparently very successful at marketing it there - there were still new Master System games trickling out to the Brazilian market until 1997(!), though they were all Game Gear ports at that point. I believe Yu Yu Hakusho also had an unusually strong following in Brazil. They even got the only localization of the Genesis fighting game.

I'd say Nitro+ has an equally strong infatuation with swords and blades. It felt like 75% of Hanachirasu's script was sperging out about katanas, blacksmithing, fencing techniques, the history of Japanese swordfighting, etc. At least it didn't actively try to push any common myths perpetuated by movies/anime, such as katanas being "the ultimate sword," Bushido being anything other than a latter-day quixotic ideal that was irrelevant in its own time; or folded steel supposedly creating the strongest blades.

I kind of associate Saint Seiya with the Sega Master System, because it's one of those things from Japan that never gained any traction in the US, but garnered a huge following in parts of Europe and Central/South America. It's guaranteed that this will get a Euro release on consoles. If it makes it to the States, they'll be doing it primarily for markets south of the border, not for the Yanks. Is Dimps developing again?

Looks like a PS Move + Navi controller, sans motion-tracking light orb. Pokken isn't the only current arcade fighter with unconventional console-style controls anymore. The grips seem to be locked in place though, I don't think you're going to be able to jerk them around like in Virtual On. I guess a PS4 port is pretty much confirmed at this point. Did not expect Team Ninja to be on board - they must not be doing anything else besides updating DOA5 LR right now.

And Lucas' PK Freeze clearly still sucks ass. Aside from the fact that he's coming back, disappointed. Mewtwo looks a lot stronger than in Melee, though. Definitely closer to his Project M incarnation. I can't say if it was an influence, but Sakurai and crew are almost certainly aware of the hack by now.

Man, that's pretty lazy. Harada's team should have held off on adding an Ultra mechanic until they were confident in their ability to create new animations for it. I could have forgiven it in TTT2 if that game had Rage Arts, but it's harder to overlook for a canonical main series entry, where they aren't just dumping in every last clone character who ever appeared in a Tekken game. Maybe it belies their unfamiliarity with the Unreal Engine, but ArcSys seemed to have no problem adapting to it.

Last-gen versions have been delayed to summer. Will be sure to piss off a few tourney operators. At least they're not canceled, which I kind of expected to happen. The game runs on Unreal 3 like Xrd, which is fully supported by 360/PS3.

Shouldn't we be getting the Leo ball soon, with the 1.1 arcade update having gone live?

Some people have pointed out that Josie's Rage Art animation is incredibly similar to Xiba's Critical Edge from SCV, and Devil Jin's is copy-pasted verbatim from his SCV custom character moveset. Jin's seems to be recycled from a move he already had in Tekken 6, just with fancy new camera angles. I wonder if Kazuya can still transform into Devil and back at will. In TTT2, it wasn't just a special tag animation like it had been in TTT. Also still waiting to hear about Lee Chaolan's return, my venerable main in every game since Tekken 4.

Most definitely TGS, since Sega America passed on the last two VO releases (Force 360 and VOOM 360/PS3). Still not willing to get my hopes up. At the absolute best, it'll probably be a PS4 port of VOOT.

I remember some controversy over EVO planning to black screen fatalities for MK9, until everyone found out you could disable them along with the blood.

JAST holds exclusive rights to all Nitro+ IPs in the US, except for the Science Adventure games that are jointly owned by 5pb. Considering that JAST is a skeleton crew with around 3 full-time employees, it would probably be a trivial matter for another publisher to work out a deal with them to localize Blasterz. The question is whether Aksys (and it would almost certainly be them) will consider it worth the investment - I don't think Aquapazza's US release was remotely a success. Examu was teasing the possibility of porting Daemon Bride to PC a while ago, but I doubt anything will ever come of it.

There's been an option to turn the jiggle down to "Realistic mode" since DOA5 Vanilla. Though I think any woman with a big enough cup size who's gone running in a sports bra can tell you that the default setting is the most realistic.