Announcements from Evo Japan 2024

It’s again worth mentioning how Evo Japan 2024 would not come packed with anywhere near as much fighting game news as the main Evo events, which was indeed the case. There aren’t as many worldwide eyes on streams when the time zones are so different from some western countries, with the finals for games like Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6 happening when some of us were sleeping. It was nice to catch The King of Fighters XV’s finals live, but I’ve yet to catch up on the two previously-mentioned matches. There were still a few more announcements than I expected despite the lower volume.

It’s been clear for months that Akuma would be next character coming to Street Fighter 6, the final character for the game’s first season. Expectations were high for how he would look considering how great he’s been in previous games, a character with a robust move set with the (often minor) penalty of reduced health. Capcom, and I am not putting this lightly, exceeded expectations. These trailers always make the characters look spectacular, but Akuma looks like a boss here, easily maintaining the large move set he’s come with in prior installments. The aspect I love most is how the game now shows precisely what goes down during the Shun Goku Satsu (aka Raging Demon), and it looks spectacular. Whether he’ll still have a health penalty remains to be seen… or explained.

Akuma will arrive on May 22nd, alongside the new Enma’s Hollow stage. He’ll also come alongside balance updates, so be ready for those.

Bandai Namco showed how they’re not above providing free updates for Tekken 8, despite the ridiculous microtransactions-stuffed in-game store launched a month ago. The updates will include the “Seaside Resort” stage, a Photo Mode (which more fighting games need), and even a new chapter in the game’s story mode. You could consider this a form of damage control. The trailer also confirmed the next character coming in the summer: Lidia Sobieska. She’s still Prime Minister of Poland in this game’s story, and it’s nice that she won’t slave away as the final DLC character in Tekken 7. Being the second DLC character in Tekken 8 will give her far more attention.

This also means that one of the leaked lists from the last couple of months might have been bang on. If that’s the case, Fahkumram and Craig Marduk will be the last two characters of the season. That won’t impress a bunch of longtime Tekken fans who wanted the likes of Julia Chang or Anna Williams to be part of the first season, and I’m not just talking about me. Get ready for the next season, I guess.

Arc System Works didn’t bother with any subtlety when it came to teasing the next Guilty Gear Strive character as being Slayer, and delivered precisely that through a trailer. There are two highly remarkable aspects here: One is how Slayer still has the same limited move set he’s always had, but that particularly sticks out in Strive. Nearly every character is notably different from their previous incarnations in this game, but Slayer is old, which means he must be stuck in his old ways. He’s also old despite having an Overdrive attack that involves him losing his shirt. But you simply must show those incredible pecs off when you’re that old and that buff, though him being a vampire mitigates several issues.

Slayer will arrive on May 30th, alongside the “Amber Fest with Kind Neighbors” stage and new story content. Expect a guide on how to play him before then.

Marco Rodrigues was the newest character confirmed for Fatal Fury/Garou: City of the Wolves, the Kyokugen Karate student returning from the first game. Yes, that’s “Marco Rodrigues” and “Kushnood Butt,” because SNK is in the middle of discarding some of their more hilariously bad localization decisions from decades ago. This trailer shows off how good he and the overall game look, alongside how it’s retaining the tough combo system from the previous game. Look forward to having spaghetti hands after practicing these. Macro is shown fighting in Yuri’s Fitness Club, and it would be very nice if this led to Yuri being a playable character. She’d be in her 40s here, and I’m not sure if SNK is brave enough to add a fighting lady that old to the game. I’d love to be proven wrong here. Several more characters for City of the Wolves will be revealed before the game releases in early 2025.

Some news was provided before the event began. Illaoi was shown in action in 2XKO (sorry, I still don’t like that name), in a game that looks a lot like what Street Fighter x Tekken should have resembled in terms of its pace. Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact was fully revealed, which bears an incredible resemblance to Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, also developed by Eighting. It might resemble it a little too much, considering it’s even using similar attack and hit animations for some characters. It feels like Bushiroad wanted Eighting to make a game like their older Capcom vs. titles with a budget of less than a million dollars. It’s nice that we’re getting a game like this at all, so I won’t complain about the very low character count for a 3-on-3 title or the character model quality.

In smaller news: Cool-but-obscure 1990s fighter Breakers Revenge is getting an updated version called “Breakers Revenge Chicago.” The original Breakers’ Revenge is a lot of fun, and it would be swell if this led to more players experiencing it. It appears to only be planned for Japanese arcades right now, which explains why it’s so damned hard to find any info on it.

The tournaments are supposed to be the main attraction of these events, but you can’t blame me for not having watched all of them yet. I happen to enjoy sleeping, thank you. I’ll get caught up on them, and it’s nice that the matches have been properly archived through YouTube uploads. Consider all of this a quality appetizer for the main Evo event this summer.