Day 1
Just got back from Shinjuku Carnival. Had a good day! Win score: UK 1 – Japan 25!
I pretty much stuck with my Kyo, Clark, Iori team.
The machines were probably Sega Lindburgh cabinets, very low screen latency, but only two had the layout switch, which interestingly had 3 options including the HK set. People were using Beni, Kim, Kyo, Vice, Mr Karate, Saiki… to note the Mr Karates I’ve seen are not quite impressive yet, but Vice… we will get to that later…
The player level is much higher here than in Kyoto, judging at least from the videos of the KP Cup. My first opponent used Saiki, Athena and Kyo and played an excellent zoning game. Saiki was nothing we haven’t seen before, beating everything I had in the air using jump bk or fwd with B or just A or B. The real problem was Athena, who stayed in perfect range to irritate with cr C > hcb P which I could not roll past and kept getting DP’d or NEOMAX’d when trying to punish, lots of stand B as anti jump (not anti air) plus the good old hop and crossup qcb D into reflector juggles in the corner. Got to see this guy’s Kyo once, only to eat the 2 stock HD combo; you can judge the skill level as he was doing DP A xx RDP B cancels rather than DP A xx QCF B (which of course are miles easier because you just have to hold down the B button). After 5 matches he left, interrupting the download lol. I then completed the game, allowing me to get 1st on the scoreboard lol
My next opponent used Kim, Hwa and Vice.
Kyo’s a good match up for Kim, or I’m just good :p as this Kim wasn’t too much of a threat as long as you don’t jump, and block the crossups, which were very annoying as I struggled to standing A or anti air but nothing was coming out; Kim’s game is becoming more predictable but mistakes would cost me dearly, his reflexes were top tier, any counter was converted into a combo or DM.
Now Hwa was a completely different matter. I’ve played quite a few Hwas, but this one was reeeeeealllly strong. One mistake and say goodbye to 85% minimum. I know Hwa’s patterns well, but this guy would take crazy risks and use any and all stocks, for example if I did qcf A with Kyo from across the screen, he would SDM and hit me, if Hwa caught me with a counter in the air, he would follow up with DP K across the screen and drive cancel it into another, which then left me in the corner to take more jaguar heel abuse. The heel seems to have an extra hit, forgive me if this is actually old, but I couldn’t easily punish it with Clark because I kept anticipating it to finish before it actually did, which meant Clark would do nothing and Hwa would do another heel or jump away. You should all know what happens when Hwa drinks and catches you with one heel…
Saying that, Clark’s ambiguous roll crossup still works, one incorrect guess and it’s a nice big combo for me. Hwa is still very tough, this guy would run under my hops and just hit stand D to hit me in my back. Lots of cr B combos into HD juggling till it depleted then SDM. Ouch.
His Vice was standard, as in, if she has 3 stocks and HD, you must never jump, or get hit by her CD, or her sweep, or her overhead, or her HCB P… One thing I did see that was new to me, was that this player would hit the jump CD, then do stand D while the opponent was still airbourne, and then do the EX HCF K… etc etc.
We messed around a few times with other characters, Ryo patterns are becoming predictable, although effective… took me a long time to get going, a few close ones but Vice is arghhhh and then when I finally got my win, he stopped, probably bored of winning lol. We exchanged greetings and will probably meet again, nice guy!
During my last few games, I noticed the machine next door had some dude practicing combos, and it seemed was trying the Joe stun combo… heh, I thought, this guy is trying to copy Haregoro or something… so after my opponent left, I gave him a challenge.
He used Joe, Hwa and Shen. Sheesh, I thought.
So I play his Joe…. and I can’t bloody move. If you thought Hwa was annoying, just imagine he has a tornado upper and pretty much no way round it, most attempts receiving rapid A or EX DP > rapid A > and then… next thing I know, Kyo is dead, and Clark is dizzy. I honestly can’t even remember what happened to Iori, my conciousness has locked it away somewhere deep to prevent permanent mental scarring.
Slapped myself, stopped jumping like an idiot and blocked like crazy; even though Clark got juggled to death, Iori clawed his way back, all the way to Shen. One swift boot from Shen was inevitable and I had to stop for the day.
So, as he was practicing with Mr Karate, I asked for his name.
-Player name? He says
-Er yeah er hai
-Player name… eetoo…. Haregoro
DOH
So we’ll be meeting again, not sure if he’s coming to Spot 21 on Saturday because Carnival is 50 yen a go. Should get some footage soon hehe don’t expect HD stuff though.
See you on Saturday…