The players that made me play VF for more than ten years

Greetings, I want to post this publicly as an aknowledgement to some of the people that played me and helped me improve in this game and in life. It's an homage to these people:

- ChiefGutti
The first player whom I developed a VF relationship with. Back when I started playing in 2012, I first met in an online room and he was beating everyone quite easily. So I saved his ID and constantly asked him for matches and he accepted quite often. At the beginning I could barely win any games so I want to thank him for still investing time in me, seeing that I was hungry to become better.

- kingo
This guy is a scrub. But I played so many games with him, so many, too many. There is a saying that your behavior is the sum of the five people you most hang out with, and I think this is true for VF as well. His playstyle was and is one that dares the opponent, and by playing so much, it definitely shaped my own way of approaching matches as well.
One anecdote: we were playing once, and you have to know that kingo is someone that is not afraid to abare. So, it was a close set and he did a move that put him in Nitaku disadvantage so I threw him in a situation where I wouldn't risk it usually and he uttered: "HOW DAAAAARE YOUUUU!!!!!????" ahahahahahahah

- G0d3L
Probably the player whom I've played the most games with. And the person on this list with whom I shared the deepest VF conversations with. One incredibily astute thing he once noted while playing against me, he said "in this game, the player who thinks less wins". I remember at the beginning I took is an insult. But after thinking about it, this is one of the truest statements about VF. The player who just plays, wins. On the other hand, the player who thinks what he should do, who then overthinks and second guesses himself, loses. G0d3L is someone who has helped me grow a lot in a lot of ways, especially outside of VF. A very dear encounter thanks to this silly game.

- MakiLeSushi
Amazing dude. I played a lot with him, theree was a point when game was super dead and basically only played by us two in Europe. So many funny matches. MakiLeSushi was a very underrated player, but really he was creative and super smart. But one thing that I remember that made me laugh so much at the time is a stream of his where he was playing against G0d3L, and Maki was losing the set. So he said "Ok, now I'm going to play serious", G0d3L reacted surprised and then Maki said "Just kidding, I was serious from the beginning" and they laughed. That was so funny and is still funny today.

- Krye
A VF player, and also a musician. I talked with him a lot. He was one of the players that got me to keep playing when there was a spontaneous VF revival in Europe (revival that happened also thanks to the appearance of Blessy streaming the game). Krye is someone who is never boring to talk to. It's funny because he has a very advanced understanding of VF so he could play safe, but because he's an artist, he chooses to play however the hell he wants to play; which is super fast paced, trying to always make the match dynamic.

- AdamYuki
The face of VF. This guy is fucking awesome! I first met him when I played my first offline tournament in 2023, for which I flew to NYC. Adam had me crash in his hotel room. He's just cool y'know. And I'm lucky to have shared an great trip to Japan with him, Denkai and Myke.

Bonus mention goes out to my mate from down under, Myke. The founder of this website. I am very pleased to have met him in person, an incredibly wise AND funny person.

Other special mentions go to the NYC community, Brooklyn knights mostly, fun dudes.
To GentlemanThief, for being so much better than rest of the playerbase that he inspired a lot of the community outside of Japan. And also to the japanese community which I had the pleasure of interacting with (alongside Adam, Denkai and Myke) at the VF Party held in Tokyo, probably the best VF day I've ever experienced.

Please don't feel excluded if I didn't mention you.

I wrote this, because I'm grateful for the connections that VF allowed me to make. This game is a bridge, the real win is when you make friends through it. So I wish for you all to win.

"You may think a gold ship is valuable... but you know what the most valuable ship really is? Friendship!"

 

I see here very noble and inspiring words, great.

 

We need some sort of FT10 (or FT5 or whatever) events between these mentioned players.

I foresee great battles and great show.

 

I played Akai and Maddy many many years ago. Their skill set were so far above mines and the skills of our local scene, that it was truly inspiring.

I have Akai and Maddy to thank for inspiring me to go very deep into Virtua Fighter

These days I have very little left to learn from losing., I've lost hundreds of thousands of matches. So these days if I'm in a match and choose not to lose I don't.

So you all have Akai and Maddy to thank for the vicious, ruthless, murderous assassin monk that I have become. If it were not for the brutal beating at the hands of Akai and Maddy I would not have become the peaceful stone cold killer that I am today

 

What's going on with this post ? are you going to die or something ?
If no, shut up and play, and don't you dare talk about retiring ....

 

This sounded a bit dramatic, but Im happy you appreciate the journey and hope you are doing well.

Im sad that you couldn't travel to the Sega cup Europe where we could've met in person. On the other hand, I had bad flu so you woudlve just gotten infected.. Now its sadly much much less likely that I will travel anywhere to play VF.

 

What cut will you give each of these guys from the $100K?

 

Nobody got inspired by my proposal of FT10 matches? C'mon we need more courage