Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster post!!

VF TOKYO IMPRESSIONS

First of all, I just want to say that...I BEAT CHIBITA!! Ya-taaaaaa!!! Muhahahahaaa!!!

Also, this post will read like a diary. If that is not your cup of tea, may I suggest sticking to coffee.

Oh boy, lots to say, and I don't think I'll be able to cover everything, but let me try anyway. As you all know, this was a family trip, so unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time playing as I did before, but I still got plenty in to realize some new things about the VF culture in Tokyo.

I arrived Tokyo in the morning and sleepy as hell. I had slept an accumulative 8 hours for the past two days, extraodinary since I'm still well into the vacation sleeping spirit. I was all but ready to check in, plonk into bed, and awake Friday night to attend Kanispo's famed weekly gathering. Alas, the cute but firm receptionist at my hotel informed me that check in is at 2 PM, and that there was no way I could check in early as the hotel was a full house (I had arrived a day in advance of my family). And so, I resolved to leave my baggage there and venture out into Shinjuku to while time away. In what is becoming a tradition, I AGAIN found myself hopelessly lost in search of Kanispo, as I can never seem to remember what the proper station exit is to find the place. Thankfully, my getting lost this time had a silver lining, as I accidentally stumbled upon Nishispo (West or Nishi-Shinjuku Sportsland) and the Spot 21 nearby. Spot 21 is an arcade highly famous in the VF2 days. Anyway, Nishispo had plenty of VF4 machines: probably 6 on one row and 4 the other for a total of 10 machines (at least). However, probably due to the early hour of the day, there wasn't much competition, and so I set out again to find the elusive Kanispo.

I finally remembered that Kanispo is from the East exit close to the My City depato. There was some competition there in the late morning/early afternoon, probably folks warming up for the night's event. On impulse I purchased a VF.net card, though I had previously decided not to use a card for the majority of playing time. In a most inauspicious start, I lost my first two matches to a low-level Lion; and to think I was hoping to beat Chibita! Anyway, fatigue is my excuse, and after a scant 20 or so matches (50%) I left early, had my lunch at a curry shop and returned back to the hotel a scant minute past 2. After checking in, I easily fell into a deep sleep.

I awoke at 8 PM refreshed and immediately set off to Kanispo. As expected, there were a ton of players there, with the usual suspects (Chibita, Segaru, Hakushon, Heruru, Mukky, etc.). I was determined not to make the same mistake as the last time I was there in December, and played anonymously without a card. I started off slowly but improved greatly as the night went on and the crowd thinned. I ended up very satisfied with the night's results. The last time I was in Japan, I had trouble beating 4-6 dans, and could barely touch 8-10 dans. This time, I was actually defeating name-ranked opponents! That night, I beat a Meijin, a Tetsujin, several Haohs, a Devil King, etc. After many tries, I also managed to beat Mukky once. He was a Ghost God when the night began, but I think he became demoted to Tetsujin (or whatever rank is above Meijin...I forget). After that, he went on an absolute tear and had 31-win and 24-win streaks. He was really awesome, and I couldn't stop him. I also beat what I thought was Gerira...he looked like the Gerira in the poster but his card was no-name (can't remember the rank, but it and the winning percentage was really high). Gerira is the one who had lost his card right? Ed's Lau was also there, but I didn't get the chance to play against them. Likewise with Chibita's Lion (who only played three times that night), Segaru, P+K's Akira, etc. I played against Heruru several times but just could not beat his Lei Fei. Pretty awesome. I think Hakushon was also there that night...does his Lau card have a "Garrison" in it? I could swear he's the guy from the Strategy Revolution DVD. Anyway, I thought about approaching him on account of his being aware of the existence of VFDC, but was too shy, heh heh. Hakushon didn't do that well that night and lost twice to Mukky's raging Akira. Hell hath no fury like an Akira demoted, I guess. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif One of my VF3 heroes also appeared that night: Skeleton Kage! He beat a lot of good players with his machi style of LP play and I thought...wow, the Japanese equivalent of Adam!!! I was excited and not the least bit intimidated, having been thoroughly trained against machi by Adam, and I challenged him. Yup, that's probably my best win of the night! It was only one match, straight up, Kage to Kage, mano-mano, and I emerged victorious! I could see in the reflection of the monitor the worried/bemused looks of onlookers, as I fought as machi as he did to throw his game. Skeleton Kage, who if I remember right, is a Ghost God with an 85% winning percentage. So Adam, this is good news; Skeleton is living proof that you can win at a high level with a slow, slow pace style of play. Of course, he IS fully versed in VF theory, is extremely experienced, and I must say that all the other high level VF players play with the opposite style of extreme aggression. My "best" streak of the trip was also at that night, when I beat the-rank-above-Haoh Akira, two mid-dan players, and an Haoh Shun.

The night proved to me that I am capable of beating these famous players, even if it took a lot of tries against certain players. In fact, excluding these famous players, I actually had a pretty decent record against name-ranked opponents...maybe 30-40%. Overall, of course, I doubt my winning percentage was over 10%, but I kept challenging certain players over and over again (Mukky and Heruru mainly). As Hiro pointed out in a previous post, there are definitely "weak" name-ranked opponents. The best way to distinguish the relatively strong from the relatively weak is in their winning percentages. Generally, any time you see a player with an 80%+ winning percentage, this player is VERY strong. If he/she has a high name rank to go with that percentage, you know this player is one of the VF gods. A 70%+ winnning percentage is also very high, and the name-ranked players with this percentage belong to the elite. Any time you see 70%+ dan-ranked players, they are most likely rapidly moving up, soon to be name-ranked (either because the player is on his n-th multiple character and is highly ranked with his primary character, or because as Paul pointed out a player is on his n-th card for the same character). When I see a 4-dan player with an 85% winning rate, I do NOT consider this player to be really 4-dan in skill. If the player has about a 50% winning rate, in most likelihood this player is relatively weak for his level and will have trouble moving higher. 50-60% players will probably indicate a slow but steady progress in ranking up. 70%+ players should be feared regardless of rank...heck, I would rather test myself against a 70% 4-dan opponent than a 50% 10-dan opponent. Can we say that (4 x 0.7 = 0.28) > (10 x 0.5 = 0.2)? Perhaps. If you see a Haoh player with a sub-50% winning percentage or few total matches played (less than 500?), chances are this person cheated to get his rank.

I was pleased with my night's accomplishments, but vanity got the better of me. While I did well against these high level players, I naturally assumed that I would obliterate lower ranked opponents. I was wrong, and the next day proved it. I had gotten in touch with Paul, GaijinPunch as he is known here, and my long time friend Chen, or Neogamer (one of the founding members of the ACPC), who unfortunately plays Gundam much more than VF now. There was a 5-on-5 tournament that Paul was participating in that day and I arranged to meet him in Sega GIGO in Shibuya. I've never been to any of the Shibuya arcades, so when I first went there I got lost and unwittingly found Sega High Tech instead (Kyasao's supposed hang out arcade and home to Evo testing). There wasn't much competition there but there were a few highly ranked players. I had a little trouble against a Meijin Sarah but persisted in playing him until I "got" how he played. Boy I was glad to have this experience.

I left and eventually found GIGO, and I arrived just when the tournament was about to begin. Just for fun, and not really expecting any success, I asked Paul whether it would be possible for me to join the tournament. To my surprise, there was indeed a spot for me on one of his teams! Understandably, I was extremely excited, agitated, and nervous, for I would no longer be just playing for myself but for other people. It was rather embarrassing too, because I had to use my 9-kyu ranked Kage card!! (Thankfully, I was able to rank up while warming up to 8-kyu). This was the first time my name (ice-9) was publicly declared in Japanese public, so it was truly unfortunate that I played very badly. Sigh...the tournament gives me fits every time I think about it. I don't know what it was: the crowds, the yelling, the commentator screaming at the top of his lungs, or the fact that I fell on my ass. The tournament machines were situated on this slighly raised platform, and the platform unfortunately wasn't very large. When it was my turn to play (I was second on my team), I wanted to adjust my chair backwards, only to have the whole thing topple off the platform!! Very embarrassing, neh! Anyway, my disposition was nervous, and my execution just wasn't any good. I missed combos, I forgot to watch for stance, and I mistimed a lot of my attacks/defenses. It's rather ironic, considering I just went through the E3 tournament...you'd think I would have more stability than this. My team lost in the second round. The first round was against a team of Sarah players, and I played against this sho-dan Sarah that I didn't think was that good. In fact, I was so confident in beating him that I sort of fooled around, going for fancy stuff. Big mistake, considering my execution wasn't even there. I ended up losing by a pixel of life...nothing to be really ashamed about, as the guy did take out a very good 8-dan Lei Fei before me in teammate Shinobu, but it bothered me because until I defeated someone I hadn't proven my worth to the team. Unfortunately, this redemption was not to come because in the next round as we faced a very strong 77% Tetsujin Jacky that pretty much wiped out the whole team. I simply couldn't adjust quickly enough to beat him. At the end of the tournament, my presence on the team was barely felt.

There is one silver lining...there is a 10-dan Lei Fei player on my team which was quite awesome. I forgot his name, but I recognize him by the "No So Fat" katakana in his ring name. He was truly the rock of our team in the tournament, and pretty much won the matches single-handedly. He won three in a row in our first round to carry us into the second, and he lost by the thinnest of margins against a highly ranked Jacky player in the second round after winning another three in a row. He had an 81% win rate, and I was quite frankly surprised he was only 10-dan, as I felt he was easily stronger than many of the name-ranked players I have played against.

So the tournament was rather disappointing, and my disappointing performance carried over to the rest of the day at GIGO, though I had a few good matches. One thing the day taught me was how ill-equipped I was against certain characters and certain styles. I just could not deal well with Vanessa, Shun, Aoi, Sarah, Lion and highly ranked Jackys. And boy were there a lot of Sarahs and Aois in that tournament. I was quite surprised, because in Kanispo I saw only one name-ranked Sarah, but this tournament featured two "Team Sarahs!" The team that eventually won the tournament was an Aoi team, featuring a very, very strong Aoi that I'm sure Paul as mentioned before, an Aoi I recognized as "Mekane" in the beginning of his ring name. He almost choked in a final, 5th player versus 5th player tournament final against this really awesome Vanessa player that nearly took out his entire team, but he prevailed in a very tight match to emerge the winner. I would see this Mekane Aoi a lot later on in other arcades wreaking havoc in Evo with his Aoi.

Anyway, I walked away realizing that I had serious deficiencies and flaws in my game. I may have the capability to beat famous players and players of high ranks and high winning percentages, but I could just as easily lose to lower-ranked players given the character match-up and style. This, I suspect, is a problem that every serious player outside of Japan and Korea will have...we simply do not get enough high level competition to give us the overall consistency and experience that highly ranked players in Japan have. For example, Shundi_05 is a strong Shun player here in Singapore, and I believe I know his style well, but Tokyo showed that what I understood of Zhi-feng's style of play is more Zhi-feng himself than Shun Di the character. In a way, my problem with consistency is compounded by the fact that actually I'm the type of player who, if I don't "get" my opponent or am unused to the patterns/strategies my opponent employs, I will lose a lot to that opponent before finally "getting" it and turning the win-loss rate around.

My third day of VF passed unremarkably. I had spent most of the day with my family and hopped over to Shibuya in the late afternoon in hopes of catching Kyasao. I stopped by GIGO first to see if any of the guys from the tournament were there, but the arcade was pretty much abandoned. So I went over to High Tech, where I played Evo for the first time, but mainly challenged opponents with characters that I felt I need to train against. There weren't any famous players at High Tech except maybe Mekane, and after dinner with the family I decided to go back to Nishispo to check out the scene there. To my surprise, they had two Evo machines on test there! The place was jam packed even to the time of closing. I actually did pretty well and beat several 85%+ players and their winning streaks, even though I knew nothing about how Kage, Jeffry, or any of the characters changed. It's very hard to test stuff out while playing competitively (machines are set only to 2 rounds, 30 seconds), and there was one additional single player only machine, but the line for it is long (and it's 200 yen per play). So I had to resort to very basic stuff to win. It was at Nishispo that I played against a very impressive Kage, ring-name Jin. He had a 77% Devil King in Version C, and played extremely flashy. And he wins too. He also turns out to be a monster in Evo, and definitely the best Evo Kage I saw, though I could only get a victory in Evo from him. I also had a great win that night and broke a Tetsujin Akira's 51 game winning streak, and on my first try. I defeated him pretty easily in straight rounds; as I was cardless, he probably underestimated me and lumped me together with the lesser-skilled players that kept trying to knock him off before.

On Monday, my family went to Disney Sea for much of the day, and I didn't get a chance to play until late at night. At this point, you must be wondering...so where did the Chibita win occur?? Well, that lucky day was that day at Nishispo. Chibita, Segaru, and Muscles were there to play. Regrettably, as I know it doesn't really "count," my much anticipated win against Chibita occurred in Evo, against his then 96% Lion. I think I am his 5th or 6th loss on his 2-dan card. I won in straight rounds too! My thinking is that he overestimated me as a good player. Anyway, I gave him a chance to get his revenge, and challenged him again later, only to be utterly, embarrassingly destroyed. Oh well, I guess we're even, 1-1, 50%, heh heh heh. I also played against Segaru and SHOULD'VE beaten him, but when I played I had not realized that the execution of Kage's kageyaiba had changed. GRR! Segaru was one + > > kageyaiba away from death, but instead that damned + came out when I attempted !! (More on Evo Kage later). Muscles' Sarah just destroyed me, as usual. There was also this one player there who I remembered from the old VF3 days when I visited Tokyo...an extremely offensively-minded Akira player called 1st Angel. Oh yes, this player also happens to be a very attractive female, but that's irrelevant. *AHEM* Overall, a very good day as I defeated (or SHOULD have defeated) two very strong players.

I got a lot more VFing in on Tuesday. I had gone to Nishispo early in the afternoon expecting few people and ample time to discover stuff in Evo only to arrive at an even MORE jam-packed arcade basement. I'm finding that it's simply impossible to sit down and experiment unless you were willing to brave the lines for the single player machine...which is what I did. More Evo impressions later. Towards the late afternoon, I decided to go to Akihabara in search of VF4 media, to no avail. This stuff is really hard to find! I checked out the LAOX Hobby store, several DVD stores, Softmap, no one carried these DVDs (or no one understood what I was looking for). Anyway, I didn't search that hard since, with Evo around the corner and being as different as it is, Version C media has become obsolete (though still interesting to watch and own).

I also checked out Club Sega at Akihabara. They moved all the VF machines down from the 5F to the basement!! There were still as many (if not more) VF4c machines, however; maybe a dozen or so. There were two or three very strong players there with high winning percentages. I had a lot of trouble, as usual, against an 8-dan 72% Shun player, though high ranked. By this time, every time I played Version C it had been to train against styles, patterns, and characters that I was weak against. I targeted both high ranked and low ranked players to ensure that I was getting the breadth of experience that could hopefully resolve my inconsistency. The result is that I am definitely above 5-dan! By the last two days I was in Tokyo, I was defeating 5-dan and lower opponents by about a 75% margin. Overall, I was break even to slightly positive against 6-9 dans, though that depended on opponents' winning percentages.

After dinner that night, I went to High Tech to meet up with Paul once again. Paul is a strong player and has an 8-dan Aoi, 7-dan Lion, 6-dan Lei Fei, 6-dan Shun, and 3-dan Vanessa (correct me if I'm wrong anywhere Paul). He probably considers himself an Aoi player first and a Lion player second, but frankly, I thought his Shun was the most scary, though that could just be a function of my match up weakness. I think his Shun has the highest winning percentage among all his characters. I had the pleasure of playing him a lot more that night, and was pleased to find that my training for the past few days had improved my ability to deal with Lion, Shun, and Vanessa. I am glad we have a player as skilled as Paul involved in the Japanese scene and an active contributor to VFDC. Cheers, and thanks for making me feel so welcomed in Tokyo!

After Paul left for the night, I decided to concentrate on Evo. A lot of very strong players were playing! Heruru, SHU, Jin, Mekane, and Bun Bun Maru were there playing. Jin's Kage in Evo, as I stated before, was extremely dominating (93%?), and I saw him beating Mekane twice (also 90%+ I think). I didn't see SHU's Shun that much, but it was of course quite good. Bun Bun Maru played Wolf and Goh, but I didn't see him dominating his peers. Heruru, of course, was just amazing, and he played a wide variety of characters and doing well with all of them. I was extremely fortunate to get a win against him that night, and I think he walked over to see whether it was a cardless Jin that defeated him, only to find ME, heh heh.

On my final day at Tokyo, Wednesday, I pretty much stuck to Nishispo. My flight was in the late afternoon so unfortunately I didn't have much time to play. I had my longest winning streak that day at 9 wins against a bunch of mid-level dans. Jin was there wreaking havoc as usual (this guy is everywhere!), but after watching him for so long I think I'm really beginning to know all his tricks. It's amazing how effective some of his patterns can be against lesser-skilled opponents, but I think he'd have to change up when matched against someone of equal skill. It was a good day for me at Version C as I was finally getting multiple wins (before it was pretty much one-and-done, or maybe two or three), and consistently. I also did OK in Evo, getting a few key wins, though I didn't play much due to the crowd.

Overall, I have to say that I was very pleased with the trip in terms of VF. I did not have VF burnout at any stage, and when I tired of Kage (or began to stagnate from playing him too much), I didn't hesitate to switch characters. My being cardless afforded me anonymity and cautious respect. There are serious flaws in my game, but my progress in the last few days showed that I only needed more experience to patch them up. My surprising success against the top tier also showed that I had the potential to upset and maybe even join the bottom of that tier had I lived in Tokyo and continued playing. I ended up never meeting Kyasao again, but I did get wins against Chibita, Mukky, Heruru, Skeleton, and Gerrira. The most unfortunate thing is in the timing: I came to Tokyo to play in Version C, but most of the top players have already moved on to Evo.

For those of you who have met me and are reading this, if you are wondering what dan level you would correspond to in Tokyo, I would say the elite players in the U.S. and Singapore are probably 5-8 dan (and one or two 10+ dans), but whether or not you can actually ACHIEVE that ranking and still maintain a decent winning percentage depends on your consistency, stability, and determination. All in all, there really is no comparison between VF in Japan and VF in the U.S./Singapore. Just reading some of the comments here on VFDC already makes me a little sad. There is such a disparity of knowledge, information, experience, and attitude. While memories of Tokyo are fresh in my mind, I have no doubt that subsequent gatherings/tournaments could be nothing but a let down. It's one thing to be part of a group in Tokyo practicing together and knowing the kind of competition one can get, it's another being part of a group here in Singapore or the U.S. and realizing that we're already the best the area has to offer.


FURTHER IMPRESSIONS

- There is a big difference between the visual quality of items in the arcade and the PS2. I never noticed it before, but items are much more detailed, sharper, and generally cooler-looking in the arcades than in the PS2. Kage's claws on the PS2, for example, are barely visible but look menacing, better-defined, and longer in length in the arcade.

- Tokyo arcades have this new interesting trend of transparent balls instead of the traditional green or pink. The transparent balls have this kind of streaky glitter from the center, like a bunch of snowflakes clustered around. Quite cool...all the arcades that I went to had them.

- SC2...looked interesting. Nishispo had a lot of SC2 machines, I think about half a dozen. I didn't see many people playing though, and most of the people I saw were playing against the CPU.

- Tekken 4...I didn't see people play at all. Then again, I was mostly in arcades better known for their VF scene. Then again, many of these arcades also had a very strong Guilty Gear scene. In fact, after VF4, I'd say that Guilty Gear was the second most popular fighter, whatever fighter comes after is a distant third. Personal observation.


EVOLUTION IMPRESSIONS

When I was in Tokyo, it seemed to me that the top players had already transitioned into Evo, hardly playing Version C at all. Generally, I have to say that Evolution seems like a wholly different game than Version C. I mean, we used to say that VF3tb was more like VF3.5, but according to that scale, Evo is probably closer to VF4.75!

As I watched people play Evo, I underwent the same kind of feelings that I had experienced as I watched videos of VF4 gameplay for the first time: "What is that move?? Whoa, I've never seen that before! Wow, cool new throw!" So many moves have been reanimated (and probably tweaked) that I was at times thoroughly confused as to what people were doing. Add in the two new characters and the updated/altered stages with all these animation/gameplay changes, and what you get is very nearly VF5, minus the same system and wholly new stages. It is no wonder that Sega is marketing Evo as a new game rather than just another version update, and hopefully arcade vendors around the world will recognize this and purchase Evo. With a home translation unlikely to surface for quite some time, I must say that any arcade here in Singapore that manages to obtain Evo will have my firm loyalty.

Seriously, Version C is already obsolete, and Version B in non-Japanese arcades laughably ancient to the point of nostalgia. My next Dojo will, no doubt, be based on Evolution.

A lot of my observations have probably been echoed in other threads, so I will fire what I think is new info here in my favorite form, bullet-style.

- Most of the stage updates received TB like palette changes. Generally, stages have been made to look darker and moodier. Frankly, my eyes usually got tired very quickly from all the bright colors in Pre-Evo VF4 (Lei Fei stage, Jeffry stage, etc.), and I thought the changes in Evo were for the better. That said, however, I hope Sega gives players the option of accessing the Pre-Evo (PE?) stages.

- I did notice one significantly changed (or new) stage. It is reminiscent of Pai's stage, with an acquarium in the background. However, unlike Pai's PE stage, the stage seemed more sparse and less straining to the eye. There wasn't much yellow or gold but mostly blue. I don't really know how to describe it. There is still a high fence surrounding the stage.

- As others have reported, for stages with low fences at least, the corners are not fenced and you can R.O. opponents through there normally. I think this is a good change and designed to eliminate unbalances in corner combos/tactics.

- In the single player mode, Brad and Goh used other characters' stages. I don't know if they will get their own stages.

- In the single player mode, CPU opponents appeared in random order, a la VF3.

- This is going to sound weird, but Evo felt slower to me. After I switch to PE from Evo, I actually feel like the game is moving faster. But that could just be because I'm not used to Evo and thus playing more cautiously, and because Evo has so many new animations that my eye is still untrained.

- It was impossible for me to tell if characters became stronger or weaker. There were certainly no moves like Version A's beatknuckle, or Version B's Akira's --as far as I know, at least. Players who won usually won because they were strong, not because of the character.

- Akira players who like the way Version C Akiras are played can relax. SDE and + still KDs on MC. Single palms does seem to have a shorter range, however, though ST > > still combos. However, I did see one Akira who's single palm completely whiffed after an ST. All in all, Evo Akira seems like PE Akira plus his new moves. FYI, Akira's shuffle step is nothing like Jacky's in terms of length or even utility; it is more like a slight sway backwards like say, Paul Phoenix's QCB.

- Didn't see much of Pai, but Evo Pai moves more and more like Ling.

- I didn't know Lau's elbow-palm is now throw counterable, though I'm not sure why as it was never that good in PE. Lau seems to have changed quite a bit. I don't think his single palm knocks down any more! He has a new throw that takes of a lot of damage (the double fist one that someone else mentioned previously in the Evo Lau thread), but this move may in fact be a replacement for his PE +, since I don't think I saw that throw at all. Also, his animation may have been changed to a single palm type of animation; otherwise, I suppose Lau's punches can be canned from his single palm.

- Jeffry is one of the most changed in Evo. Almost all of his moves seem to have been animated. Generally, he seems to have lost a lot of his reach, but he seems to be more of a nitaku machine now than he was before. There was one rather adept Jeffry player at Nishispo, a fellow named High Kick, and I was thoroughly confused when I played against him. Jeffry seems to have two or three 2-hit type of attacks in the fashion of the elbow-palm, ESK, elbow-knee, etc., except in Jeffry's case it's probably more like: elbow-stab, punch-stab, and, err, stab-stab? His elbow drop seems to execute slower and lost reach, but has the benefit of a canned follow-up after (middle). His (animation changed) still crumbles on normal, and (again, animation changed) still combos. His Threat stance is also now canned off several strings. Two that I know of is a punch-kick-stance string, and the other is his back handed slap + into stance. His stance moves seems to execute slower, however. Overall, Jeffry moves much more fluidly than he did in PE, and his Pancratium now looks like a real martial art than something mostly made up!

- Wolf is also heavily changed. First, his knee seems to have been nerfed. Wolf kind of lunges forward to knee the opponent in the gut; not sure if he is actually in the air while he knees. The opponent does NOT float, or crumble, or KD on normal hit, though surely Wolf is at a big advantage when it happens. On counter, the opponent crumples forward but it is not a KD, and Wolf can either combo with a SS or with one of his new ground throws (not sure if either are guaranteed, most most likely). A lot of Wolf's animations have been changed, and trust me, he is now SO much cooler in Evo. He moves and attacks much more like a wrestler. One really cool animation change is in his Frankensteiner. Wolf, upon lifting the opponent to the air, does a ferocious stomp on the ground before slamming the opponent to the ground. TOO COOL.

- Kage. Ahhh...poor, poor ninja. As far as I can tell, Kage is one of the least changed in Evo and probably weakened. He seems to have lost his PE , replaced by the new upper mentioned elsewhere. This upper is an extremely short- range move, quick middle (elbow-class?) attack that floats only on counter. However, the float is quite low, and I pretty much stuck to + and + > + for combos. I'm not sure if it's throw-counterable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Shrewd readers will notice that the execution of the kageyaiba ( in PE) has now been changed to +. Definitely a good change, since I myself often mis-execute a with a CD kageyaiba, though I lost quite a few matches because of this change (aargh! Segaru!!). Kage also gets a new canned string in Evo: +,,. It's a spinning type sidekick (at most half-circular), a JM jab, and the new upper to finish it off. It's not a critical move, but it is most definitely a welcome addition and particularly useful to Kage. The second punch is probably guaranteed if the first kick connects, but I doubt the upper is ever guaranteed. You can use the first two attacks to set up a nitaku situation, and I've gotten quite good results with it. Kage's last new move, as far as I know, is a moonsault type flip backwards from his back turned, executed with ++. It doesn't seem that useful. Kage's sidekick's animation has been changed, and he now switches stance after the sidekick. I'm not sure how, if not at least for it being a new animation and thus perhaps more difficult to guard against on reflex, but it does seem better than his PE sidekick. I can't be sure how or what, but he seems to have a new move in JM stance, but it looks awfully like a normal punch-kick. I saw it after a JM +, which leads me to speculate it's either a new JM punch-kick or Kage can now go back to normal stance quickly after the JM hop kick (!!! that would be sooo useful). However, I was unable to replicate it myself. Also, + seems to be at most half-circular. Finally, and most painful to me, cancelling out of JM with has been lengthened from Version C to the point where a lot of the Version C JM cancelling mind games no longer work, but probably still slightly better than Version B. Maybe. Oh yes, one last thing, Kage's has been improved. Kage now always hops over, ending up back turned after the move, instead of the sweat-inducing snails recovery time in PE. So, for all those people that practiced holding in a TFT knee, the practice is now made obsolete. Darn it! And after all the time I put into that technique!

- Sarah is now even more confusing than she was before in PE. A whole bunch of stuff in FL. Can't really comment all that much on her, unfortunately. Oh yeah, she does have a new throw that takes quite a bit of damage (~60?) from normal stance ;I'm hoping it's a new animation of an existing move, or at least escaped with either or .

- Jacky players...cool your guns. Really, there is no point fuming over what scant reports have come through. His elbow is indeed gone, but in animation only. In its place is a Jan Lee type mid-jab. Most, if not likely all, of Jacky's PE strings are still in Evo. Instead of elbow-backfist-crescent, for example, it's now more like mid jab-high jab-crescent. Functionally, he's much the same.

- Shun has a lot of new cool stuff in Evo. Like Akira, he has a lot of sway/SS back type of strings. One sway stance allows him to rush back in with a "hop on one kick mid-punch" type of move (looks kinda like that Tekken's sumo wrestler move...forgot his name) that KDs at least on counter, and a short-range version of Cammy's drill kick that grounds Shun. Fortunately, Shun recovers extremely quickly and seems to be virtually uncounterable after the move even when blocked. Basically, Shun has a bunch of new moves that seem quite useful.

- Lion has two new throws that seem to take good damage. At least one of them is QR/TR-able, and if you don't, Lion gets a guaranteed pounce for a ton of damage! Can't remember much else right now about the guy, unfortunately.

- I tried Vanessa once in Evo, and boy what a waste of money that was. She's had a lot of command execution changes, and you definitely can't switch into MT (if the distinction even still exists in Evo) with ++. However, from watching other people play her, she still has many of her MT moves. Also, I can't access her PE 270 throw in Evo, though the 270 is still there. She has a low kick-elbow type of move ( I think, and the elbow animation is like her PE backturned elbow) that knocks down. Seems like the same kind of combo opportunities that Vanessa's PE + gave.

- Lei Fei: the only player I don't really know in PE, so I'll refrain from commenting here.

- When Evo first came to Nishispo, Brad was used much, much more than Goh was. Some people commented that Brad's moves look like those out of Tekken, but to be honest, he seemed to fit well into the VF universe to me. I don't know how much to say, except a lot of his strings have high attacks somewhere in them. If you don't know this, he could be hard to deal with. He also has this knee in stomach throw (either or ) that takes a huge chunk of damage. If you don't QR/TR the throw, he has a guaranteed pounce that takes about 40% damage. This seems to be his only good throw, however, a la Lei Fei.

- Goh probably looks the most out of place amongst the VF4 cast. He's really the only character that, well, exudes an evil and supernatural aura. His hood is reminiscent of Jin's, but it's much better done, and comes off and on with far more frequency and fluidity. I didn't play Brad at all but played Goh a couple of times. I used his (his two-hit string equivalent of the elbow-palm, ESK, etc.) as a nitaku tool for his powerful throws. He also sidesteps and does a low kick with or +. From messing around, he doesn't seem to have many useful kick attacks, and his punch attacks are mostly short range. He does have this one shoulder ram type move that causes the opponent to butt-stumble to the ground (a la Jeffry/Wolf's ) for a nitaku situation; don't know the command of the move, however. I used his + for bigger damage, and comboed off it with . Right now, as far as I can tell, I would describe him as a nitaku setting-up, throwing type of character, with a bunch of dodging and hit-throw type tricks. Honestly, when I played him, I only used his , , , and his throws for the vast majority of damage inflicted. No doubt I had not explored his full potential.

Alright, that I think about covers all the characters (except Dural). If any of you have questions to ask about Evo or Tokyo in general, go ahead and shoot. It took me a few days to write this post, and I'm absolutely exhausted!

Postscript: I wrote a lengthy post back in December from my last trip. It might be interesting/useful to dig it up and give it a read, for those curious about the Tokyo VF scene.

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Oh yeah, I apologize in advance for the grammer and spelling mistakes, typos, and those weird symbols that keep popping up. The copy-paste didn't turn out all that well from notepad.

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Wow!!....sounds like you had a hell of a time....im jealous!!!

well congrads on your accomplishments

-ono-

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

yes i am one jealous bastard........ /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif im glad to hear you had fun. im going to need to take a trip to japan, not just for vf, but for the culture as its something ive always wanted to do since i was a child.......

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Nice post Jeff, definitely reminds me of what it's like to visit and play VF in Japan. Too bad most people won't appreciate how different it is playing VF there.

Pretty awesome trip, I'd have to say - especially the opportunity to join in that tournament on Paul's team.

-Jason

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Well, glad to have you. Don't feel back about the chair thing -- you're not the first person it's happened to. Lucky for me, someobody else at every V-Stage tournament has fallen down before I've gotten up there, reminding me to not screw with the chair. Remember -- I'm about 6 inches taller than the average Japanese guy, so my knees are generally pressed against my chest when playing.


As for the tournmant -- those are really just for fun...not all about winning. The guys would rather see a good match than anything else. The fact that you got beaten only buy guys that beat Chitose (Shinobu) kinda means they're good. His Lei is pretty mean (actually, a lot of his characters are mean).

But the anchor of the team (Mukoyoshi Ha Nonfat) is absolutely vicious. I think you're right -- his Lei Fei is better than most you see on the videos. I've only beaten him a few times (Shun & Lion only - never with my Aoi). I think he just lives so far he doesn't get to do same dan-level fights that much.

For the record, I beat Heruru's Lei Fei last night with Aoi on Evolution. Was quite proud, as he can incorporate the new moves in the 'dance' quite well.

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Well, damn...Awesome post. I happen to like journal style accounts. Wish I had the resources to go to Japan to play VF.

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!! *DELETED*

Post deleted by ETP

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Dude -- how could you assess that of Shadowdean when he wrote only two sentences?

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

LOL, I think he was talking about me. Kind of ironic too, since this trip ended up being more about sightseeing, doing touristy stuff, and spending time with family (though I realize it may not come across that way in my post!). And the food...oh, GORGEOUS. I bought a guidebook prior and made sure to eat at some of the most famous restaurants in Tokyo in tempura, unagi, soba etc...damn expensive though.

P.S. Don't know why people are seeing my trip's events as "accomplishments"...it was all really quite fun.

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

P.S. Don't know why people are seeing my trip's events as "accomplishments"

-Well I wasnt givin you credit for sightseeing(although i would like to do the same) , but for the victories over chibita, etc.

-ono-

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

Hey
I just wanted to say screw kage_emperor. He's just mad cause he cant afford to go to japan. And what the hell did he subscribe here for if all he is gonna do is try to make fun of the post's made. Well, anyways. I have been to japan once and it is awesome there. The thing is when i went there I don't think VF4 was out. That sucks, but the food is great and fireworks are legal. Oh yea, I have a question, Did you see the panosonic silver gamecube. I heard it is tight. Well, cya.
Peace!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

i envy you man, i've been to quite a few countries, but not Japan, its kind of wierd why i haven't gotten there, and its not just the gaming thats fun but also the sights there, man oh man, i really should try get enough resources to go there, i'll prolly enjoy the sightseeing more than the gaming as i'll prolly just get bitch slapped in VF, but still i'll learn from that bitch slapping, oh yeah and don't take Kage_emperor to seriously about his comment, he just doesn't quite understand the VFDC people or for that matter the gaming people, and if you're wondering how i know this its coz he PM's me and asks me questions about the game, he a bit young so its kinda preset in his mind that when you're a gamer you abandon your life and just sit in front of a game, no offense Kage_Emperor, while for most its just something to past time, others treat it as a hobby.

 

Re: Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster me!!

The trip in itself was an accomplishment, but it sounded like you enjoyed the experince, not went about it as a series of objectives in Shenmue /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif

 

Just another small voice here to say thanks to everyone that's contributed Evo info.

Just a couple general questions about my man Jeffry, my main character (feel free to ignore if annoying):

Is Jeff is the only character with the traditional knee? And is it the case that other characters' knees don't come out as fast, don't float as high, or don't have the same reach?

With one of Jeff's only real advantages (reach) being all but removed, do you feel that some effort has been made by AM2 to make him more dangerous? Also, does he still rely totally on traditional defense?

Thanks,
Æon

 

Myke:

Oh shit! And there I was trying to be clever. Sorry, my math skills SUCK at 4 am in the morning. When I read my post over, it did seem like something was wrong, but I didn't give it much thought.

As for your comment on skill corresponding to rankings and percentages...I think if there are a lot of matches played on a card it could be a negative indicator. Someone who's played 10,000 matches and is still a 5-dan is probably going to stay at that level, even if the winning percentage is high (preying only on the weak?). When someone only takes 200 matches to get to 5-dan, you just know this person is on their way up.


ono:

Of course, I'm trumpeting my own horn. I beat those famous players only one or two times, but they crushed me a lot more.


Aeon:

Like I mentioned in my post, Jeffry is more of a nitaku machine than he was in PE. He seems to have a lot of tools to force the guessing game in Evo.

As for the traditional knee question...I don't know if Akira and Sarah kept their's, but Sarah definitely still has the elbow-knee.


One thing I forgot to mention is that, and I could be mistaken, Kage's + takes less damage...maybe 40 points. He also makes this "hui" sound when he does his ground stomp.

 

I think you had it right the first time. Although there are different levels above Ha-oh, it's generally going to take someone well over 500 wins their first time. With Evo coming out, I'm sure it'll be a bit different though. Playing by the law of averages, you're pretty much correct when going to 'major' game centers in japan.

I've got a steady 60% average between my 5 characters. The lowest is Aoi (57%), and at her highest was 8-dan. 750 wins or so. This is the same Aoi that beat Mukki Akira last night... that streak of mine lasted until the next match when he came back.

On the flip side though, that meijin that used his 8-dan AKira card to knock me down (mentioned in my other post) I've heard is "weak" for a meijin. I obliterated him on Evo last night, as did a lot of people.

 

Several things I forgot to mention:

- In terms of characters played, it seems to vary from arcade to arcade. For example, during Friday night at Kanispo there were a lot of Shuns and Pai, to the point where at least one machine usually had a Shun or Pai playing. There were scant Sarahs and Jeffrys. Tournament day at Sega GIGO, on the other hand, featured a multitude of Sarahs and Aois. I would have to say that all characters were well represented in Tokyo when I was there with the exception of Jeffry, which is odd considering how easy he is to play. There were definitely fewer Jackys, Laus, Aois and Shuns since the last December.

- One new trend (for me) is how often people like to use a normal + throw when you have little life left. I suppose this could be wise since some people may escape everything but that, or are already conditioned to escape everything but that. However, this tactic was common enough everywhere that a stranger to the scene like myself would notice it.

- PE Akiras used + > quite a lot. The Fujin is used quite a lot in wall combos. I.e. what people would usually BC in Version B, Tokyo Akira players now use the Fujin. This makes sense. Mukky also frequently went for a Fujin after ; I think this was to get more of an advantage after okizeme.

- Many Evo Akiras started using the DLC again in their float combos. I'm not sure if this is because of maximum damage.

That's all I've recalled for now.

 

Well, there being a whole team of Aoi's, plus yours truly in the tournament probably helped. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

Also one of the teams was Team Sarah -- you can guess who they used.