One Day in Tokyo: My First Showdown

As some of you know, I recently went snowboarding in Hokkaido, Japan. While the trip didn't exactly have a happy ending, I can easily say it was the best snowboarding holiday I had ever experienced in the past 10 years. But, this post is not about snowboarding...

On my way to Hokkaido, I arranged for a one night stop over in Tokyo. My plan was to catch up with some old and new VF friends, and play FS for the very first time.

WARNING: this is a long post, approximately 7,000 words. If you're just interested in my actual impressions of Final Showdown, the scroll all the way toward the end to the section with the red heading "Impressions of Final Showdown".

0700 - Arrival
I arrived at Narita airport at something like 7am Friday, 11th February 2011. Unbeknown to me, that particular Friday happened to be a National Holiday in Japan. This lucky coincidence meant that most people I was hoping to catch up with had the day off work, so no excuses for bailing out!

I caught a bus from Narita into Shinjuku and got there around 9am. It was absolutely freezing and lightly snowing as I made my way on foot to the hotel. It was to early to check in, so I dumped my luggage there, borrowed an umbrella, then head out looking for a place to eat.

At this "early" hour, most places were either just beginning to open or not open yet. Eventually, I find a ramen place close to Club Sega in Shinjuku and took refuge from the cold and wet, happily slurping away at some delicious noodles.

Feeling comfortably acquainted with my ramen bowl, I started sending text messages to various people I planned on meeting. The general plan was to meet everyone at Club Sega by 12pm, but since I had a few hours to kill, I was letting people know that I'd be at the arcade a couple of hours earlier in case they could come earlier. Shou had warned me earlier that Adam was notorious for being late, but I had a feeling he wouldn't let me down!

0900 - Only for Japan
After finishing up the ramen, it wasn't quite 10am yet so Club Sega was still closed. I decided to kill some more time at a nearby Starbucks. Apart from being in desperate need of some caffeine, I was hoping I could leech some free wifi while I was there too.

I enter the store, grab a condom for my umbrella and proceed to the counter. I ordered a latte and asked if they had free wifi. The answer I received was, "Only for Japan", which I didn't quite know how to receive. I decide to dismiss it as something lost in translation, rather than contest the issue of wireless internet being able to discriminate the "nationality" of my networking device (iPhone). This thought lingered uncomfortably for the next few minutes while I waited for my coffee at the end of the counter.

"Gu-ran-deh lah-teh"

The latte was ready. I take it from the counter and look for a place to sit. The table I saw earlier next to these two hot looking babes was now taken. Damn. I'm now left with pretty much one option -- a free table close to the only other foreigners in cafe. Do I say hi as I sit down? Would a simple nod do? Wait a second, why do I feel compelled to reach out to something familiar in an otherwise unfamiliar environment? I sit down and don't acknowledge them, deciding I'll be just fine on my own.

So the next 45 mins to an hour involved quiet thoughts interspersed with sips of coffee, and obsessively checking the phone for messages. Apart from Shou nobody else has replied. Were they still asleep? Are they even going to show up today? These were just some of the thoughts I entertained and played-out in my mind that morning. Fascinating stuff.

Oh yeah. In amongst the quiet "me time", the hot beverage sipping and frequent phone checking, the group of "foreigners" nearby were engaged in conversation about, well, nothing. I say nothing in the Seinfeld sense, but it was neither interesting nor funny, and -- fuck me -- one particular guy had a lot of nothing to talk about. Who talks that much so early in the morning? He struck me as the type that is quite fond of the sound of his own voice and his other three companions did a pretty outstanding job of "listening". I don't know how they managed.

I'll admit that I may have been a tad on the grumpy side that morning, but after a 9 hour red-eye flight, arriving tired and hungry in a cold, wet city you gotta cut a brother some slack. Anyways, the hot chicks had already left so it was only fitting that I leave too.

1030 - First Showdown
Club Sega was now open, and was just around the corner. I leave Starbucks, pop up my umbrella and make my way there. On route, I consider stopping in Yodobashi Camera to check out the latest electronics and gadgets, but my feet had other plans. Seemingly on autopilot, before I knew it I was standing outside the arcade, closing the umbrella with a smile on my face and down the stairs I went.

Final Showdown. There it was in all it's lonesome glory. Lonesome because the arcade was near empty, but that's to be expected at such an early hour. Perfect, however, for my introduction to FS.

I dig out my three VF5 cards -- Kage, Brad and Jacky -- last used during my previous trip to Japan in 2008. Would they still work? Only one way to find out. Realistically, I expected to stick to playing my main character, Kage, during my one day with FS so as to maximise my chances of not totally sucking. But I did plan on trying out my sub characters just for fun even just for one game.

My first 100 yen into a machine was quickly followed by a card insertion. Not having my cards labelled meant it was going to be a lucky draw who I got to play first. But, the first card seemed to be malfunctioning as I got some kind of invalid card message. Fuck. The character select timer was under 10 seconds so I hovered the cursor over Kage as a fallback and hurriedly yet awkwardly tried to fish another card from my front jeans pocket while seated. The card is successfully read, and it's Kage! Phew.

Being last used during VF5 (vanilla), all my player data (win/loss) is reset due to the game now having migrated two versions since. Furthermore, since my old VF.net account is years expired, I've lost all my customisations too. In fact, the only thing retained was my ringname, intro movie and PR message. Oh well, that's something.

So now I'm playing Final Showdown for the very first time, and waste little time before I start figuring out/remembering new and changed moves. Digesting countless FS videos meant that some combos were, scaringly, almost second nature to me. The first few games felt kind of weird, and I couldn't shake this brief feeling of loss for never having played R. So FS was a surreal kind of reunion. It was like meeting a distant relative who you knew nothing about but were very familiar with their parents. The more I played, the more I kept discovering the new while being reminded of the old.

And I was loving it.

After I completing my first game with Kage, I wanted to try one of my other characters. I tried to use the dud card a second time, but it failed again so that card quickly became a souvenir. My third and final card went in, and as it was being read I was both hoping it would still work, and wondering which character it would be -- Brad or Jacky?

Luckily, the card worked and it turned out to be Brad. Yes! I was really excited to play Brad ever since he was revamped in R and even moreso in FS. But what i didn't expect was just how different he was. So much so that he felt like a completely different character to me, and as such, nigh on unplayable. Ducking and Slipping were totally new beasts which I found impossible to tame. I disappointingly decide to abandon that ship after the first game, and just focus on Kage for the rest of day.

So the dud card must of been my Jacky. While I could have played a card-less Jacky, the rough experience I had with Brad deterred me. Time was constantly running out, and I always thought it would be better to just focus on my (only) strength. Besides, friends were showing up any minute now and I wanted to have a character that could at least put up something that resembled a fight!

1200 - "12 pm TOKYO time motherf*cker"
After about an hour of continuous CPU play, I was starting to get the hang of things. I had some staple combos down, particularly with the TFT, and getting guaranteed followups from side counter hits. For some reason my success rate on the dragon punch combo was next to zero, when on the console its near 100%. This always happens when I go to Japan at first and usually takes a couple of days to adjust to the arcade timing. I also wasn't yet consistent with the new triple kick combo that requires on-hit timing for the last kick (similar to Eileen's). Both of these issues could be rectified in due time, of which I had none.

Midday came around and nobody has shown up, nor have I received any new messages. I decide to take a break, stretch the legs and get some fresh air outside, then visit the bathroom on the 2nd floor. When I returned back down to the basement, I find Shou talking to Miu who has worked at Club Sega for as long as I can remember. I think I first met him during Evo 2003, and subsequently kept running into him whenever I visited Tokyo. Cool guy.

True to his word, Shou was pretty much on time while Adam was running late. Shou and I have a short chat, catching up and just talking about my initial impressions on FS. A little while later Shou breaks away into some games. A couple of random people have showed up now, so Shou engages in a Sarah mirror match with some guy whose ring name I forget. The games were pretty close, with the wins and mini streaks going back and forth. I remember Shou commenting that this guy was doing new Sarah combos he hadn't seen before. All I remembered thinking was how much more I hated Sarah now

In the meantime I was just taking a short break and enjoyed watching these two battle it out. It was probably getting close to 1 PM when my friend Atsushi arrived and I re-introduce him to Shou (they first met a few years ago). Atsushi and I start to catch up as we all waited for Adam who was now running close to an hour late.

And it was at this point I sent Adam the following "friendly" text message reminder:

That was 12 pm TOKYO time motherf*cker

But still no reply. Since it was now 1 PM, I told Shou that I was going to go back to my hotel to check-in. Shou decided he'd do some shopping while Atsushi tagged along with me, and all agreed to meet back at the arcade later. Hopefully, Adam will have showed up by then.

So we do just that. On our way back, Atsushi and I detour for a light snack, where I once again unsuccessfully tried to leech some "free" wifi. Upon our return to the arcade, we finally find Adam standing alongside Shou.

As it turned out, I quickly discovered that Adam was in fact trying desperately to contact me, letting me know he'd be late. In fact, as far as his phone was concerned, he had successfully sent a number of text messages to me which I technically should have received, but didn't! I later find out that messages from Shou and Atsushi never made their way to my phone either, but everyone was receiving my messages just fine. I strike this up to international mobile phone roaming bullshit and quickly apologise to Adam for the motherf*cker message

Anyway, after the obligatory greets, intros, and small talk, we all start challenging each other, doing our best to hold the machine. It was around this point that something unexpectedly strange started happening to my Kage card. My costume was suddenly customised and my PR message changed to something like:

"myke, pls play with all
ur cards to activate..."

Then I remembered that prior to my trip to Japan, Ogi offered to link my cards to his VF.net account which still had some time on it before it expired, since he had already left Japan. So Ogi was obviously online at that time, and from game to game I was noticing subtle changes to my customisation. When I finally did play all my (working) cards to activate them onto Ogi's account, and once he finished messing around with the costume and items, he finally changed the PR message to:

"OK!
BANG! BANG! BANG!"

and I laughed out loud. The BANG! BANG! BANG! was an inside joke/reference we used to refer to Kage's new triple air kick combo.

The main intent behind using Ogi's VF.Net account was that it enabled me to save a couple of match replays as momentos of my first FS experience. I honestly didn't expect that I'd be able to produce a match worthy of saving, or viewing again. The countless bad inputs, forgotten commands and dropped combos was the theme of the day. But alas, I managed to save this match against Adam (hope you don't mind, man) which, at the time, felt pretty exciting as it was something of a see-saw battle.



At one point in the afternoon, Shou hands me his mobile phone and tells me it's Itazan. I go back outside where it's quieter and work out our next move with Itazan. He tells me that he and Kamaage will come to Club Sega at 5 PM. The plan from there would be to have some dinner, then head off to play in a 3-on-3 tournament at an arcade nearby.

So we have a couple of more hours to kill before Itazan and Kamaage turn up, and we spend this time playing more FS. By now, a couple of more people had entered the arcade to play FS, so the challenges were starting to heat up.

Shou points me to this one Lau player, who he recognised as being really strong, and I thought about challenging him. Call it a masochistic curiosity, I had a feeling that I'd be less challenging than a wet paper bag for this guy but I wanted to get slaughtered. I wanted to feel the power first hand.

He killed me so fast that I think I stood up off my seat only moments after sitting down. The first two rounds were Excellent, and while the third wasn't it may as well have been. HO-LY SHI-YAT Lau is a beast.

As I stood before the machine, still reeling from Operation Shock and Awe I reached into my pocket for another 100 yen, thinking that I might have another shot at him. But, something steadied my hand. As good as Shou and Adam are, I still felt I could put up a fight with them, but with this guy? I instantly knew without any shadow of a doubt that I was so fucking far out of his league that it would be bordering on an insult to challenge him again. Instead, I walked back around the machines, gave the guy a crooked "you're way too good for me!" smile while shaking my head side to side. He smiled back and gave me a nod.

Part of me hoped that I was staying in Tokyo for more than a day, if for no other reason than to have a respectable go at this guy. But, it wasn't to be.

After making my way back to where Adam was playing, I found myself playing against some Jacky player. He was pretty good, and surprisingly, I was managing to win a few games here and there against him. My faith in my ability was slowly coming back, which is just what was needed after the aforementioned Lau experience.

While happily challenging this Jacky player, I noticed two people were standing behind me watching me play, but I didn't bother seeing who they were and opted to focus on my playing. Perhaps encouraged by the anonymous audience, I manage to string together 3 or so wins in a row. It was at this point that I felt that FS was just starting to click for me. But, the moment I grew concious of this personal milestone, I promptly lose. Before I can turn around to see who was standing behind me, I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I turn to look up and it's Itazan and Kamaage.

1700 - Dinner with Mr. Udon and the Old Drunkard
For those that don't know, Kamaage is actually the name of a particular style of Udon noodles. When I asked Kamaage how he chose this ringname he told me something along the lines of being stuck for a name, but happened to see a packet of kamaage noodles on his desk, so he went with that and the rest is history! And obviously, the Old Drunkard is in reference to Itazan's Shun Di.

Right then. By now, it was a little past 5 PM, and the whole "gang" was together. Being the middle man, I helped with the intros and everyone was quickly acquatined, or reacquainted, as the case may be.

This was the first time I met Kamaage, and so I was eagerly awaiting dinner so we could sit down and have a good ol' chat. At this point, or perhaps it was slightly earlier, Shou decided to call it a day and return home to his missus.

To recap, the plan for the rest of the evening was to have dinner, then head out to this 3-on-3 tourney in Ogikubo. Itazan's dinner plan was to take us to some famous Ramen joint in Shinjuku, so after saying goodbye to Shou, the rest -- Itazan, Kamaage, Adam, Atsushi and myself -- leave the arcade.

Being a national holiday that day, it turned out that the Ramen place was unfortunately closed. Instead, we went to another Ramen place nearby and, after being outside in the freezing cold longer than I had cared for, I certainly wasn't complaining that it would be the second time I ate Ramen that day the moment we stepped instead the warm and inviting establishment.

To be technically correct, I ate Tsukemen, which is a ramen variation where the noodles and soup are served separately, and you dip the noodles into the soup with each mouthful. But there you go. Oh, it was fucking delicious and, unsurprisingly, a queue was rapidly growing outside eagerly awaiting vacancy at the bar/bench. Rather than take our sweet time and linger there, we wasted no time finishing our meals and leaving.

Now, with more time to kill before the tournament we went to another less busy place to sit down, drink beer and nibble away at edamame and other snacks. The next hour or so seemingly flew by with constant conversation around the table and of course, VF was usually the main topic. But we did digress to talk about our personal lives, careers and generally other stuff going on in our lives. Kamaage commented that he'd like to visit the US for an Evo-esque event should FS ever make it to console. We also learnt that Itazan is actually sponsored by some Game-related company in Japan -- the details of which I seem to have forgotten, but remember it being hilarious. He showed us the company's website where his profile was featured alongside other sponsored players, some of whom happened to be pretty hot looking ladies! What I remember standing out was Itazan's casual demeanour in his profile pic wearing a mono-coloured hoodie, which couldn't help but stand out against the model-like, airbrushed portraits of the others which wouldn't look out of place in the portfolio of a casting agency.

As the hour approached 9, we decide to finish up and head out. Back outside on the streets again, both Adam and Atsushi decide they will call it a night, and I bid them farewell for now.

And then there were three -- Itazan, Kamaage and myself.

2100 - In the Lion's den
We head to Shinjuku station for a short train ride to Ogikubo, the location of the 3-on-3 tournament. On our way, we had talked more about VF and the topic of famous players came up. I was asked who my favourite player was. My immediate tongue-in-cheek reply was "Kamaage and Itazan" which they thought was funny. But when I gave it serious thought I ummed and ahhed while trying to decide. In the end I couldn't single out any one player as my favourite, but I did mention that I held Homestay, Jin and Itoshun in high regard.

Then this set me off memory lane as I started to mention some great players from the past that I used to admire. Players who, for whatever reason, either don't play at all, or not so much. I mentioned players like Kyasao, Ohsu Akira, Yourou Kage, Fuuraibou, Haijin, and so on, and they seemed to be really impressed by the fact that I knew of these players. I explained to them that thanks to Youtube and similar sites, many of these former and current famous players are practically house-hold names among VFDC regulars, so to me this wasn't so much of a big deal! They disagreed!

Our train eventually arrives at Okubo, and we disembark. Itazan and I follow Kamaage's lead as he walks away with mobile phone in hand, confirming directions to the arcade "Ogikubo Adores".

We enter the arcade, and it's pretty cosy as far as space is concerned. At the far end is where the fighting games are at, so we shoulder our way over there. I notice two SSFAE machines, two TK6 machines, some other random pretty-looking 2D fighter (probably BlazBlue but I couldn't really care), and finally a row of three VF5FS lindbergh cabs. SSF4AE seemed to be particularly dead until Itazan started playing, but more on that in a sec.

As soon as we had arrived at the FS machines, Kamaage immediately introduced me to some players and then scurried off to unpack his bag which he had been carrying all afternoon. Which reminds me, I wasn't sure if it was a coincidence but I noticed a lot of guys around in Tokyo were "equipped" with a bag of sorts. Is this just a generally accepted, and expected(?), accessory for males in Japan now? Itazan, Kamaage, Atsushi and Adam were all sporting one. If I were overly self concious I'm afraid I would have suffered a mild case of sack envy. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

So from inside Kamaage's bag he took out a laptop, a bunch of cables and some interface devices. A couple of seconds passed before I recognised this as Kamaage's infamous stream setup! Kamaage was then throwing his hands behind the one of the FS machines, yanking at cables and connectors like a mechanic under the hood of a car, and had that sucker stream-ready in no time at all.

Meanwhile, one of the tourney organisers in the background was on the microphone announcing stuff. I later found out that he was Daibutsu -- a really strong Vanessa player some of you may know of. As names were randomly pulled from a hat in order to determine teams, I find that I'm "coincidentally" teamed up with Itazan. I didn't bother to ask if this was by chance or design, but I have a hunch it was the latter. I remember telling the guys earlier that I would be happy just to spectate at the tournament, because my skill level was not even in the ballpark of the others, and I would only serve as a disadvantage to any team I'd be on. Truth be told, I felt a little like Daniel stepping into the Lion's den.

But, being the great guys they were (a trait commonly shared among most VF folk), they reassurred me countless times that this was all just for fun. I still think though that pairing me with Itazan was an attempt to make me feel more at ease, and it did! Besides, if I'm gonna fuck anyone's tournament chances up it might as well be a friend's! Our third team member was Pon, who has a great Brad. (He can be recently seen in this awesome Otenamic Haiken AC match: Homestay (AK) vs Pon (BR)). Unfortunately, I couldn't really converse with Pon, but he was a really cool guy and was supportive of me during my tourney matches losses, offering me a consoling smile or pat on the back

So while the organisers were making final preparations, people were constantly challenging, and I was suddenly feeling really tired. A combination of the beers, the long day with hours of non-stop play, and the minor amount of jet lag started to kick in. So instead of playing more, I decided to keep whatever I had left in the tank for actual tourney play (like it mattered, heh) and stood back to watch the awesome games unfolding before me.

It was around this time that Itazan decided to play a few games of SSF4AE to kill time. I guess he doesn't need to warm up in VF, heh. I stood by and watching him easily rack up an impressive streak with his Zangief. Many of his wins were the result of near-impossible comebacks. I'm no expert in AE, but Itazan tells me that Zangief was nerfed somewhat, so he generally has to work much harder for the win. And work hard he did. For me personally, I simply cannot stand a fighting game where "run away" or "keep away" is not only a legit tactic, but a necessary one due to the character design. But Itazan seemed to excel in that type of challenge.

Eventually his Gief loses and he switches to Yun. When I watch his Yun, it's amazing. The wins seem to come with apparently less effort now, and he's racking up another win streak. Every now and then, I would just be mesmerised by Itazan's hands. The constant option select going on is staggering, and in a strange way the action on screen bares little to no resemblence to the pace and rhythm of button presses occuring off screen. But as amazing as it is to see, just like watching a half naked man suspend himself with hooks in his back, I'm immediately reminded why this game simply isn't for me.

I lose count of how many wins Itazan racks up with Yun, but they all pretty much followed a similar theme. Yun pretty much offensively overwhelms any opponent, builds meter fast, and can easily hit check into some nice damaging combos. Rinse and repeat. Like watching that man suspended with hooks, I can only watch so much before the novelty wears off and I'm left with no substance. My attention turns back to Virtua Fighter.

By now, quite a few famous players were there, probably around 30-ish in total. I already mentioned Daibutsu being there, but I saw a few other notable players like RODEO Akira, Aopai, and Wasokon to name but a few.

A short while later, Jin arrived. I'll be the first to admit that I have embarrassingly turned into something of a fanboy for Jin. This probably has something to do with the great, and exciting (to me) improvements Kage has received in R and FS. To be honest, I find him really boring to play in VF5 vanilla. But now, he just seems to have so much more potential in his striking game, and more opportunities to be tricky. He just looks like a whole barrel of fun to play.

Kamaage fittingly described Jin's play to be like a "real ninja", and indeed it was.

You know, reading or being told what it feels like to stand in the rain is one thing, but until you actually do it, and feel wet rain drops falling onto your face, you'll just never really know. So once again, call it my masochistic curiosity, but I was suddenly compelled to get a match against Jin. As I palmed a 100 yen coin and made my way to the challenger's side of Jin's machine, the start of the tournament was being announced. Crap!

BTW, was anyone on VFDC aware that this tournament was streamed, and if so, did they watch it?

The tournament kicked off proper, and before I knew it I was starting off my first match against RODEO Akira. Surprisingly I got off to a good start. My team mates were hai hai hai'ing along with my combos, and even the general audience seemed to be audibly impressed that this monkey was seemingly churning out the works of Shakespeare on the Lindbergh manufactured typewriter. Before I knew it, I was 2-0 up! And then, as it always invariably happens, I was both out of tricks and decided to get cocky By now, RODEO had pretty much seen all that I had to offer, coupled with the fact that I just started playing riskier all round, he effortlessly came back to win 3-2. Pon's then stepped in and took RODEO and the rest of the team out. We advance to the next round.

Our team wins the next two rounds, and proceeded in single-elim style to some kind of holding position. Incidentally, I didn't win an entire match all night, and in the last two rounds it took Itazan to come up with a reverse streak to get our team through. He is an absolute fucking legend of VF! For a guy who didn't play VF all day and instead chose to warm up playing SSF4AE, I'm just amazed at how seemlessly he transforms into this unbeatable force, wiping out entire teams consisting of super strong players like it was nothing. Fuck!

So now all remaining teams that had been knocked out then played off in some kind of round-robin fashion. The winner of that would then play us in the actual final. So for now, we took a short break and watched the other teams battle it out. Eventually, it was Kamaage's team that won the round robin. His team mates? They were none other than Jin and Daibutsu! The funny thing was, unless I blinked and missed it, I never saw Daibutsu play. Kamaage would always start their team off, but when it came to Jin, no team could get beyond him.

2230 - Dream Match
Time for the finals, and it was Kamaage, Jin, Daibutsu vs Myke, Pon, Itazan. As in their previous matches, I was totally expecting to face Kamaage first. But call it fate, call it desinty, or just sheer fluke, but Jin chose to play first and so I finally got my chance to play him:



As I had expected, it was an absolute demolishing. Sure, I had a moment here or there, I was visibly nervous, and unsure how to defend properly once near the walls. But no matter what action I took, it only prolonged the inevitable -- and as soon as Jin had one chance, it was pretty much round over.

As wrong as this sounds, being on the receiving end of such a battering was strangely liberating. I finally felt the rain drops falling on my cheek. I was awakened. This was FS, and it felt fucking great.

Jin made quick work of me, and Pon stepped up next. While things may have played out differently, the end result was the same, and it was down to Itazan to save us once again. As great as Jin is, and I don't know if it's a match-up issue in FS or if Itazan simply has his number, but Itazan took Jin out with alarming ease. In post tournament casuals I saw this happen repeatedly a few more times which indicates to me that it was no fluke. After Jin's knocked out, Kamaage steps up but shares in the same fate. This is the first time I see Daibutsu's Vanessa in action. He puts the microphone down and allows someone else to commentate the final match between himself and Itazan.

I struggle to recall specifics, but it was a really close match going down to the wire in the final round. In the end, Daibutsu pulled through for the win and and the tournament.

2300 - Time To Go
By this time, everyone is engaged in some freeplay casuals and as much as I wanted to play on, my tank was empty and I was now running on fumes. I approached Kamaage and informed him that I was thinking of heading off back to my hotel. I had an early check-out to think about before another bus ride to the Airport in order to make my flight to Hokkaido!

Kamaage kindly offers to accompany me back to Shinjuku, he informs Itazan and before I know it he has his streaming gear all packed and we're making tracks for Ogikubo station! Interesting enough, we have a third member accompany us, and it's none other than Aopai! He doesn't speak any English, but he asked Kamaage how to say "nice to meet you" in English and echoed it back to me. What a cool dude. Kamaage mentioned to Aopai that I already knew who he was (again, thanks to the internet, youtube, etc), and Aopai was really shocked. Incidentally, Kamaage also said the same to Wasokon (Lau player) during the start of the tourney, and Wasokon was equally surprised. These dudes are too funny!

We eventually get back to Shinjuku. I say my goodbyes and thank them for their generous hospitality, and we part ways.

0000 - The Price You Pay
I hurry back to my hotel, take a hot shower then finally collapse in bed. Moments before I pass out into sleep I'm aware of the faint smell of cigarette smoke. This is due to my smoke-filled clothes from having spent large parts of my day/night in arcades. I say the smell was faint because, thankfully(!?), my sinus was all congested (a personal side effect from being around smoke all day). But the discomfort was worth it since it meant not being aware of the full strength of the odour that filled the room.

This is the only thing I really dislike about arcades in the Japan -- the fact that smoking is allowed -- but as much as I dislike that, the experiences I always come away with far outweigh the inconveniences caused by the smoking. It's a relatively small price I'm always willing to pay.

There you have it, folks. The blog portion is over. I've tried to account for the 17 hours I spent awake in Tokyo as interestingly as I could. My only hope is that doesn't take you 17 hours to read it?

My Initial First and Finally Last Impressions of Final Showdown, Finally
I'm going to try to summarise my impressions of FS in this section. While I spent 99.9% of the time playing as Kage, I'm only going to discuss system specifc points. That is, the stuff that applies to everyone.

Now keep in mind that my experience was very brief, and not very well rounded meaning that I didn't get to play equal amounts against all the cast. I also run the risk of stating obvious stuff you most likely already know. Ah who cares, fuck the disclaimer, let's just get into it. I'm going to focus on two aspects that stood out to me the most -- Easy Throw Escapes, and High Damage Combos -- and what impact I felt that had on the game overall.

"Easy" Throw Escape
So we all know about the simplified, or easy, throw escape system. Many feared that it unnecessarily dumbed down VF and would ultimately be detrimental to VF's gameplay. Sure, the rules and execution requirements for throw escaping are greatly simplified, no doubt about it. But I came away feeling that when you factor this into the bigger picture of FS, the so-called "easy" throw escapes come with a lot of risk and can in fact be very dangerous.

The first risk is that it can lull you into a false sense of security. Knowing that you can stand guard with a throw escape primed sounds really good on paper. In practice, I found that my over reliance on this "easy" defensive technique made my offensive game suffer. I would find myself in a standing TEG, so focussed on defensethat I was essentially handcuffing myself. I would either miss, or be too slow, on guaranteed punishment, or not recognise and act quickly enough when an opening presented itself.

The other danger I found was how vulnerable this now was to low attacks. And, everyone knows how powerful a well placed low against a wall can be (just watch my match against Jin if you need reminding). So while you might think you're safe against the traditional nitaku of a mid or throw, you've got other probably more important things to be worried about now!

And lastly, handcuffing yourself in a standing TEG leaves you susceptible to side pressure. If your opponent OMs instead of applying nitaku and attacks from the side, you better pray you're not slow in reacting because side counter hits hurt like fuck now.

So yeah, people can cry all they want about how stupid the simplified TE system is now, but their mistake is looking at this one element in a vacuum instead of putting into the overall context of FS.

In my opinion, I think this was both a brave move on AM2's part as well as a stroke of genius. By downplaying the threat of one element (throws and throw escapes) but amplifying the threats of other elements (lows against the wall, and the side game), I came away feeling not only did they lower the barrier to entry to VF, but this new shift in focus with FS presents an exciting balance of gameplay mechanics. (Dear Sega, do I have that PR job yet or what?)

You may have mastered multiple throw escape with guard in past VFs, but if you think you've got it easy in the defensive department then you've got another thing coming. To put it another way, just because you finally worked hard and married that hot chick, you think you can let yourself go? You couldn't be more wrong.

It ain't over 'till it's over (high damage combos)
OK, so to start with the obvious, FS provides larger combo opportunities, and depending on the stage, more frequently too. One quickly grows accustomed to seeing half-life combos in FS now, and very satisfied when dishing them out. To put it another way, in past VFs, getting a 60-ish point damage combo from a 16f launcher was pretty damn satisfying, but now (strangely) it fills very unfulfilling, almost wasteful! But I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that I feel that the design decision of having high damage combos served two purposes.

The first, which I discussed with Adam, was that there was no such thing as a "safe lead" anymore. The effect this had was that it forced you to keep the intensity at a high level until you KO the opponent. The time for fucking around with a big lead is now gone, unless you really want to risk it, and you better work hard for that last hit because your opponent is working hard for that first hit which may lead to a combo that not only catches up to you, but KOs your ass.

Your 120 pts life advantage is no good here.

I can see that some people will hate this. But for me, I like that it maintains the pressure to see the job through. If this doesn't help hone the killer instinct in you then I don't know what will. But to make an analogy, if you've been playing VF all this time where the threat of a single RO can spell the end of the round/match, and it's something you not only accept, but adds to VF's appeal and you enjoy the thrill of, then this is just an extension of that same mechanic. So, I'm sure it won't be an issue for you in the end.

The second purpose one can derive from this, is AM2's attempt to appeal to high combo loving fighting game fans, perhaps even to "keep with the times". And so this also lowers the barrier to competitive play by allowing more for the possibility of a comeback during the round. To illustrate using an extreme analogy, it's somewhat like SF4's "ultra" mechanic where the purpose was to provide the losing player a chance at a comeback. But, unlike ultras, you don't get rewarded for sucking. In FS, you must earn that reward with clever play and crafty setups. Furthermore, it's not just a single successful input that rewards you with the entire comeback while you sit back watching animation for 5 seconds. All the single successful input nets you in FS is that critical launch/crumple/wall stagger/etc, but you still need to grind out the rest of the combo for your complete reward. OK, I'm probably trying too hard to disassociate from Ultras, but I think you guys get the idea that AM2 are trying to appeal to the masses.

Thanks!
Just some short words to express my gratitude and thanks to those who were part of my recent Tokyo experience:

Ogi, you're a fucking champ! Thanks again for your help and allowing me to use your VF.Net account! I hope that one day I can repay the favour! BANG! BANG! BANG! [LOL]

Shou, Atsushi and Adam, thanks for taking the time to hang out with me, you guys rock. It was great catching up with you all, and I hope we can do it again soon! Remember, if you're ever down under to let me know!

Itazan, thanks for arranging dinner and offering to help me out so much! Too bad there's no ero-karaoke in Japan! Hope to see you again soon!

Kamaage, it was great to finally meet you! I really enjoyed out conversations and love the constant innovations you're coming up with on your website! I really appreciate you looking out for me during the tournament as well, and I had so much fun! We'll be in touch!

Phew!
OK, time to post this son-of-a-bitch...

 

Great read. Thanks for the write up Myke!