I'm a gamer, and while I'm not as hardcore as I used to be, I've always loved fighting games. I don't know what about pitting two characters against each other and competing with my friends was just so appealing. I mean, who doesn't like setting your friends on fire?
Well not in real life...
...not anymore.
They say the restraining order is only for twenty years anyway.
I decided to go to a tournament, a major tournament to test my meddle, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I am a humble guy, most of the time. I say this, in an effort to brag about how humble I am. Moronic I realize, but it serves to say before I tell you: I'm good at fighting games. Very good.
I can beat everyone I have known easily, no sweat. Some of the highlights of my rather illustrious career:
1.) I beat a friend of mine in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike with my eyes closed. (Killed him with Dudley's taunt.)
2.) I beat a girl in DOA, which normally would not be an accomplishment had it not been me playing wirelessly from the next room. (I beat her with a reversal, I could hear her attacks.)
3.) Winning a small DOA tournament (Back in the DOA 2: Hardcore days) using only counter and throw.
None of them fantastic things mind you, but it's less to show I'm the greatest, and more to exalt the fact that I know fighting games. I have learned fighting systems, can parry, crouch cancel, refly, etc.
So in my small pond I was just untouchable, in ways people could only wish they were. (Okay, maybe only in the ways little boys wish they were at Michael Jackson's house.)
My first tournament was coming up and I focused in on one game. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. It was my best game, and after playing with some of the tournament players from the area a week before the event I knew I wasn't over my head.
Or so I thought.
The event was bigger than I thought. Fighting games aren't really anything like FPS tournaments, not that I've been, but the numbers don't compare. Still, there were two hundred people packed into the ballroom of this hotel, all playing various fighters, tuning up for the tournament.
My main was Remy. For those of you who aren't into the game, or into fighters, Remy is not high on the tier list. He's regarded as one of the poorer characters in the game. I don't know why I took to him like I did, but I could just wreck people with him. I think people were not used to fighting him so much that they just didn't know the matchup, I mean who expects the american to pick the french character anyway? (I love the French, so no hate from me. I save my hatred moreso for people who have earned it...like the Amish.)
I had decided to go against my better judgment and switched to playing Dudley. He was much farther up the tier list and I thought it may help me eek out some matches against people who were technically more skilled than I was. I was still playing on pad back then, and was at first somewhat intimidated to see almost no one playing on pads.
My first match was against a guy I recognized from another forum. He wore a big navy shirt that said "I love hentai" (I didn't know they were organizing into a hentai movement complete with shirts) across the front. He was also playing on pad (a better one than mine) and we started up the game. He picked Q! Q is also really low on the tier list. So I started thinking, "Oh man, I can beat this guy, he's wearing a porn shirt and picked one of the worst characters in the game." I picked Dudley and the first round began.
Dudley, for those of you who aren't versed, is a boxing character who really is powerful up close and personal. You want to be in someone's face, and not let up until they were KO'd. I started the round with a tentative move, I didn't dash up. I didn't want to be careless and open myself up since I know Q is also strong up close, during a dash I wouldn't be able to do anything else and he may react to it. I was trying to estimate in my head how much better these tournament players would be than my usual competition so I was going to be twice as careful just in case. I'd quickly find out how good they were.
I decided I wouldn't dash in, but stick out a long poke. Dudley's standing roundhouse (it's a long punch he sticks out). It's good for pokes and keeps Q at a distance. Q parried it.
(In Street Fighter III if you tap forward the instant you're hit by a move you parry it and take no damage while getting a frame advantage that allows you often to retaliate.)
No sweat off my back, he saw it coming, it was my only move that could cover that distance and he merely guessed I was going to do it on the beginning of the round. My mindset was still good. So I threw out a second one, there's no way he'd expect me to do the same move twice after he parried the first one. It was ingenious! I started to think of what I'd do after the hit landed...
...but he parried it.
To my horror I realized he wasn't guessing he was parrying it on reaction! He was seeing the move come out and was able to react fast enough to nullify it. I had never played anyone with this level of skill. And this wasn't even this guy's main game!
I stopped using the roundhouse and dashed in. I was going to have to work a bit harder for my damage. We traded blows, and I felt vindicated when my jump in roundhouse connected and I was able to combo it into my super. I took the first round, barely.
"I can still beat this guy." Was all I was thinking.
The rounds would continue, and I would lose, narrowly, the next two. In most major tournaments the fights are best 2/3 games, so we had another set to play. Again, I barely lost, and stubbornly stuck with Dudley rather than opting for my Remy.
Yes, I lost to the guy who loved hentai.
I went and reported my loss, the guy was very friendly and I appreciated what was a very pleasant first tourney match appearance. (Other than the loss.) It was a double elim tournament, I still had another match.
I watched some of the other matches going on, and ended up waiting around forty five minutes to an hour for my next match.
Arturo Sanchez. The name sounded vaguely familiar. He was already sitting at the station waiting for me.
(I would later find out why the name sounded familiar. This guy is one of the top players in the country and represented the US in Japan for the international Arcana Hearts tournament. I was in for fun.)
Character select screen, he picks Alex.
...Alex?
Seriously?
I had never played anyone who actually played Alex in my life beyond my brother. Who played decently but was not a tournament player. I didn't know the matchup at all.
I picked Dudley, again hoping perhaps I'd luck into stealing a game or two. I dash in, and Alex grabbed me, as I flew through the air, having my spine rearranged into new and unnerving shapes, a single thought leaped through the few parts of my brain still capable of weary synaptic firing:
"I'm about to get the #(*#@ kicked out of me."
He proceeded to do just that, taking both rounds in fashions that were not even close. He looked distracted, like he was just going through the motions against someone who couldn't touch him. Nothing I did worked against him.
I switched to Remy, if I was going to get knocked out of the tournament I'm going to get knocked out with my best character. My confidence came back, Remy is an odd matchup too! Maybe he didn't know the matchup that well.
Around the third or forth time I landed on my head I realized that he did know the matchup, and he was about to play out all the stereotypes of American-French relations with a few absentminded flicks of his wrist.
My first tournament.
And I was two and out.
I hadn't won one match!
It was cool though, I wasn't upset. I hadn't gone in with a big ego, I knew these guys were largely better than me, it was just cool to be able to go and have fun and meet people also into fighting games. It's hard to get really good when you don't get to fight this level of competition much.
I left, knowing that I'd need a lot more work.
But first, I dropped the pad, picked up the stick and made work for next year.
And I'd do better!
But that's a story for next time.
Well not in real life...
...not anymore.
They say the restraining order is only for twenty years anyway.
I decided to go to a tournament, a major tournament to test my meddle, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
I am a humble guy, most of the time. I say this, in an effort to brag about how humble I am. Moronic I realize, but it serves to say before I tell you: I'm good at fighting games. Very good.
I can beat everyone I have known easily, no sweat. Some of the highlights of my rather illustrious career:
1.) I beat a friend of mine in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike with my eyes closed. (Killed him with Dudley's taunt.)
2.) I beat a girl in DOA, which normally would not be an accomplishment had it not been me playing wirelessly from the next room. (I beat her with a reversal, I could hear her attacks.)
3.) Winning a small DOA tournament (Back in the DOA 2: Hardcore days) using only counter and throw.
None of them fantastic things mind you, but it's less to show I'm the greatest, and more to exalt the fact that I know fighting games. I have learned fighting systems, can parry, crouch cancel, refly, etc.
So in my small pond I was just untouchable, in ways people could only wish they were. (Okay, maybe only in the ways little boys wish they were at Michael Jackson's house.)
My first tournament was coming up and I focused in on one game. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. It was my best game, and after playing with some of the tournament players from the area a week before the event I knew I wasn't over my head.
Or so I thought.
The event was bigger than I thought. Fighting games aren't really anything like FPS tournaments, not that I've been, but the numbers don't compare. Still, there were two hundred people packed into the ballroom of this hotel, all playing various fighters, tuning up for the tournament.
My main was Remy. For those of you who aren't into the game, or into fighters, Remy is not high on the tier list. He's regarded as one of the poorer characters in the game. I don't know why I took to him like I did, but I could just wreck people with him. I think people were not used to fighting him so much that they just didn't know the matchup, I mean who expects the american to pick the french character anyway? (I love the French, so no hate from me. I save my hatred moreso for people who have earned it...like the Amish.)
I had decided to go against my better judgment and switched to playing Dudley. He was much farther up the tier list and I thought it may help me eek out some matches against people who were technically more skilled than I was. I was still playing on pad back then, and was at first somewhat intimidated to see almost no one playing on pads.
My first match was against a guy I recognized from another forum. He wore a big navy shirt that said "I love hentai" (I didn't know they were organizing into a hentai movement complete with shirts) across the front. He was also playing on pad (a better one than mine) and we started up the game. He picked Q! Q is also really low on the tier list. So I started thinking, "Oh man, I can beat this guy, he's wearing a porn shirt and picked one of the worst characters in the game." I picked Dudley and the first round began.
Dudley, for those of you who aren't versed, is a boxing character who really is powerful up close and personal. You want to be in someone's face, and not let up until they were KO'd. I started the round with a tentative move, I didn't dash up. I didn't want to be careless and open myself up since I know Q is also strong up close, during a dash I wouldn't be able to do anything else and he may react to it. I was trying to estimate in my head how much better these tournament players would be than my usual competition so I was going to be twice as careful just in case. I'd quickly find out how good they were.
I decided I wouldn't dash in, but stick out a long poke. Dudley's standing roundhouse (it's a long punch he sticks out). It's good for pokes and keeps Q at a distance. Q parried it.
(In Street Fighter III if you tap forward the instant you're hit by a move you parry it and take no damage while getting a frame advantage that allows you often to retaliate.)
No sweat off my back, he saw it coming, it was my only move that could cover that distance and he merely guessed I was going to do it on the beginning of the round. My mindset was still good. So I threw out a second one, there's no way he'd expect me to do the same move twice after he parried the first one. It was ingenious! I started to think of what I'd do after the hit landed...
...but he parried it.
To my horror I realized he wasn't guessing he was parrying it on reaction! He was seeing the move come out and was able to react fast enough to nullify it. I had never played anyone with this level of skill. And this wasn't even this guy's main game!
I stopped using the roundhouse and dashed in. I was going to have to work a bit harder for my damage. We traded blows, and I felt vindicated when my jump in roundhouse connected and I was able to combo it into my super. I took the first round, barely.
"I can still beat this guy." Was all I was thinking.
The rounds would continue, and I would lose, narrowly, the next two. In most major tournaments the fights are best 2/3 games, so we had another set to play. Again, I barely lost, and stubbornly stuck with Dudley rather than opting for my Remy.
Yes, I lost to the guy who loved hentai.
I went and reported my loss, the guy was very friendly and I appreciated what was a very pleasant first tourney match appearance. (Other than the loss.) It was a double elim tournament, I still had another match.
I watched some of the other matches going on, and ended up waiting around forty five minutes to an hour for my next match.
Arturo Sanchez. The name sounded vaguely familiar. He was already sitting at the station waiting for me.
(I would later find out why the name sounded familiar. This guy is one of the top players in the country and represented the US in Japan for the international Arcana Hearts tournament. I was in for fun.)
Character select screen, he picks Alex.
...Alex?
Seriously?
I had never played anyone who actually played Alex in my life beyond my brother. Who played decently but was not a tournament player. I didn't know the matchup at all.
I picked Dudley, again hoping perhaps I'd luck into stealing a game or two. I dash in, and Alex grabbed me, as I flew through the air, having my spine rearranged into new and unnerving shapes, a single thought leaped through the few parts of my brain still capable of weary synaptic firing:
"I'm about to get the #(*#@ kicked out of me."
He proceeded to do just that, taking both rounds in fashions that were not even close. He looked distracted, like he was just going through the motions against someone who couldn't touch him. Nothing I did worked against him.
I switched to Remy, if I was going to get knocked out of the tournament I'm going to get knocked out with my best character. My confidence came back, Remy is an odd matchup too! Maybe he didn't know the matchup that well.
Around the third or forth time I landed on my head I realized that he did know the matchup, and he was about to play out all the stereotypes of American-French relations with a few absentminded flicks of his wrist.
My first tournament.
And I was two and out.
I hadn't won one match!
It was cool though, I wasn't upset. I hadn't gone in with a big ego, I knew these guys were largely better than me, it was just cool to be able to go and have fun and meet people also into fighting games. It's hard to get really good when you don't get to fight this level of competition much.
I left, knowing that I'd need a lot more work.
But first, I dropped the pad, picked up the stick and made work for next year.
And I'd do better!
But that's a story for next time.
