Author: dpugh007

Evo, the world’s largest fighting game tournament organization, has announced the lineup for its upcoming Japan tournament, and while it’s a solid lineup, the deals to have two of the fighting game scene’s most popular titles seem to have not closed, preventing them from being included.

The tournament’s main linenup, announced via Evo’s official Twitter, includes BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, The King of Fighters XIV, Soulcalibur VI, Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition, and Tekken 7.

You may have noticed two popular titles missing: Dragon Ball FighterZ and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, two of the most popular and well-received fighters of the year. According to Mark Julio, business developer for Evo, this looks to be because “we couldn’t get approval from the publisher/owner.”

For Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, this is likely a case of Nintendo of Japan putting its foot down about having its game included. For Dragon Ball FighterZ, the pushback most likely comes from Toei and/or Shueisha, the companies who own the rights to Dragon Ball as a franchise, since Arc System Works and Bandai Namco have both approved their other titles for Evo Japan.

Evo Japan takes place February 15-17, in Fukuoka, Japan.

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Granblue Fantasy is an enormously popular Japanese mobile game franchise, but it doesn’t have the cache in the West that it does in Japan. Publisher Cygames is hoping to change that soon with the announcement of a fighting game created by fighting game house Arc System Works.

First, Granblue Fantasy Versus is a fighting game featuring the developer’s signature anime-turned-3D style. The title is coming next year. According to the game’s official site, Versus will feature “original gameplay tailor-made to appeal to both Granblue and fighting game fans alike.”

Five characters (Gran, Katalina, Charlootta, Lancelot, Ferry) have been announced.

Cygames also released a new gameplay trailer for Granblue Fantasy Relink, an action-RPG set in the same universe and featuring many of the same characters.  From a gameplay perspective, it looks somewhat similar to Final Fantasy XII, albeit with more of a focus on action. You can watch several minutes of gameplay (in Japanese) below.

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For some schools and colleges, “Winter break” has already begun. But for most of us, there still a few regular work days left between now and the holidays. But you can make it! To help you pass the time, here are a few great events going on this weekend.

Capcom Cup culminates the year in Street Fighter V tournaments, and will be the place where one of the game’s best players cements their place in history (and gets a huge $250,000 prize). We can also expect some end-of-tournament announcements, as always. Will I finally get to play as Yun in Street Fighter V!? Probably not. (Streams and Schedule)

The US Nationals for Rainbow Six Siege is the game’s final marquee event for the year, so watch live from Las Vegas to see who will take the prize this year. (Stream)

You can also catch some Super Smash Bros. action for both Melee and Ultimate at this year’s Don’t Park on the Grass tournament, where we’ll continue to see how the game’s competitive play has continued to develop. (Streams and Schedule)

All your favorite Z Warriors are heading to Australia for the next saga of the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour at CouchWarriors Crossup! There will also be events for Soulcalibur VI, Tekken 7, and more. (Streams and Schedule)

The Hearthstone Championship Tour makes its next stop in Philadelphia, bringing with it the chance to score some HCT points and a first-place prize of $5,000. (Stream / Schedule)

There was going to be a Dota 2 tournament called The Summit this weekend, but it was postponed to next year. In in its place, however, is the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Summit tournament, which is probably just as good, right? (Stream)

That’s it for this weekend! Let us know if we missed an event, or if there’s a scene you’d like us to cover, in the comments.

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Over the three decades of Mario’s existence, he has gone from completely silent to voiced in periphery media by actors like Bob Hoskins and Captain Lou Albano to voiced in the video games by Charles Martinet. Martinet, a voice actor for things Skyrim, Resonance of Fate, and more, but by far his most famous role is the Italian plumber, and the two just got into the Guinness Book of World Records together.

Charles Martinet just attained the record for voicing the same character in a video game. Martinet has played Mario one hundred times, which was given to him as of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Martinet didn’t necessarily beat anyone for this title, the world record was created for him, but it stands to reason that no one else comes close. The only other characters that might come close are Luigi and Wario, who are also voiced by Martinet, so his legacy is probably safe.

The Mario voice actor also keeps a fairly active Instagram, as seen above, where he approaches people and talks to them in the Mario voice. It is not known whether Martinet will be playing Mario in the upcoming animated movie. For now, though, he can add World Record Holder to his business cards.

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It’s all about celebration this weekend for the Game Informer editors. We’re celebrating birthdays, upcoming holidays, endings (we’re finally wrapping up Red Dead Redemption II and our Top 10 lists), and starting something new. Many of us are getting closer to unlocking all the characters in Super Smash, while others are working on their backlogs before a new year of amazing games release.

Don’t just read about our plans. Join in the conversation and let us know if you’re doing something fun in the comments below!

Javy Gwaltney – I’ve snuck away earlier from the offices than my compatriots in order to spend time with family during my brother’s college graduation (congratulations Sloan!). I’m going to be getting caught up on the Western films (McCabe And Mrs. Miller) and books (The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) I’ve taken on to fill that Red Dead Redemption II hole in my soul. There will probably be a lot of Super Smashing and Diabloing as I make my way through the holidays. Hope you all have a great holiday and see you in the new year, friends.

Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard) – I’m very excited to see Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I like Spider-Man, but I love innovative animation and since the very first trailer I have been excited to see it. The fact that Phil Lord and Chris Miller are involved at writing and producing capacities make it all the more exciting. I will forever be sad that their Han Solo movie doesn’t exist. Otherwise it will be assorted Christmas shopping excursions, Smash Bros. character unlocking, and god I hope I can make it to the end of Red Dead’s main story. I am loving it, but it is taking me forever.

Brian Shea (@BrianPShea) – I’m continuing my quest to fully unlock the huge Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. I’m coming up on 60 characters, so I bet I’ll be pretty close by the time Monday rolls around. I’d also love to finally put a bow on the Red Dead Redemption II post-game, and then start Just Cause 4. I’ll also get in a few rounds of Overwatch a day and continue doing my dailies in Pokémon Go and Marvel Strike Force.

Ben Hanson (@yozetty) – This weekend I’ll be doing a little Christmas shopping and visiting family, but there’s no way I can resist the allure of playing even more Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. I overdid it last weekend and my fingers are still sore from slamming that shoulder button on the GameCube. Other than that… let’s see… I’m sure I’ll just play more Red Dead and Tetris Effect or something. Oh wait, I want to check out Gris on Steam! Have a good weekend!

Jeff Cork – I wrapped up Red Dead Redemption II last week, so now I’m going back – way back – to Greece. I kind of fell off Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, even though I was having a great time with it. That ends this weekend! I’m going to dive back into it and see if it makes my top 10 games of 2018 list. And, of course, I’ll be playing mystery heroes in Overwatch, because now there’s snow on some of the levels and I imagine it’s like playing a whole new game. Or something like that.

Imran Khan (@imranzomg) – It’s my birthday! Actually, yesterday was my birthday, but apparently adults can’t just drop everything because it’s their birthday, so I’ll be doing all the celebratory stuff during this weekend. I caught Into the Spider-Verse, which wasn’t the weekend but I am mentioning it because you should definitely see it if you have any affection for Spider-Man. Aside from that, this weekend I’m going to be playing more Ashen, make more progress in World of Light, and I might pick up Supergiant’s new game Hades, too.

Suriel Vasquez (@SurielVazquez) – Got a weekend retreat with the Van der Linde gang. Snake and Duck Hunt are along for the ride.

Andrew Reiner (@Andrew_Reiner) – I’m diving into Below and Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales. Come Monday morning, my Top 10 list for 2018 should be locked in stone. The year was filled with awesome games. Narrowing the list to just 10 was challenge, to say the least.

Jill Grodt (@Finruin) – I’ll be packing up and moseying along. I’ll finally be looking into my backlog and I can’t wait to dive into all the games I’ve picked up but haven’t finished this year. Listing them all would probably take a whole page, but the biggest time commitments are probably Red Dead Redemption II, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. It’s been great, and I hope everyone has fantastic weekend!

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After a recent announcement that Eric Barone has retained the publishing rights to his game Stardew Valley, there were still a lot of open questions about the future of the game and what Barone’s one-man studio ConcernedApe will be doing next. In a new blog post, Barone revealed those plans.

“As many of you know, I’ve been working on a new game for a while. I haven’t revealed anything about it, except that it takes place in the same universe as Stardew Valley,” Barone wrote. “I’ve been deliberately secretive about it because I want to be able to work on it without any pressure for the time being. I also want to make sure the concept is fully realized before revealing anything, because once it’s out there, I’m going to have to fully commit to it. I’m a pretty cautious person when it comes to this sort of thing.”

ConcernedApe plans to bolster their development resources for the game, but because that is a future plan and requires leaving Stardew Valley behind, Barone does not want to move on to it quite yet. Since he just got the rights to self-publish Stardew Valley, that is going to remain his main priority.

“In short,” Barone says, “what I’m saying is that I am going to keep making new content for Stardew Valley. In fact, I’ve recently put my other game on the back-burner and have been in the process of creating a new free content update.”

In the post, Barone explains that he wants to work on both projects at once, but it’s currently unfeasible to do so. In the meantime, he plans to work on the free update he alluded to, as well as the fixes to the current versions to make sure everything is up to par.

The multiplayer update for Stardew Valley just hit Switch and is expected to land on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One next year. It has been available on PC for a few months.

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