Monster Tokyo, monster Evolution, monster post!!

wow, nice entry man! you can very well say that your Japanese vf4 experience has served as my cup of tea. At 4:30 AM, I'm more awake than ever...I couldn't be more excited about EVO in fact! I can imagine how it feels competing in team settings against famous players too; any account as vivid as yours definitely says a thing or two about your enthusiasm /versus/images/icons/laugh.gif .

What I'm most curious of is changes in music. The vf4:evo trailer played music that very well could be remixes of PE's (implied PE means "ver. C"?) existing soundtracks. The most obvious was the song that began right when the video introduces new moves for the existing characters. The heavy beat right off the bat sounded like what Jacky gets for his bgm now. I know the arcades in general are noisy and that evo is still in testing, but did you notice any difference in music? Cuz if the hard bassy tunes from the promo trailer are any indication of what's to be on evo's playlist, i'm stoked!

the detail you put in your post gives me a confident idea of the typical Japanese arcade, pretty scary considering I gathered this imagery all from your one post on top hehe. Glad you got to squeeze more than an adequate amount of sight seeing and general touring between all that experience and newfangled frustration you got from playing the best, hope you get to relive it soon! Thanks for the post man!

 

Ice , man great fucking report!!! I love to read it. and just as you, I sometimes beat a good player, but I just can not keep up with it. I mean 1 time I beat a windgod Lau, do not know what his name is, but after it he came back I got slaughtered by his Lau. also when I am trying to fight second till 10 dans. I lose some and win some, but I can not get a high winning streak, that is why I am still 4 th dan Akira haha. but really impressive that you beat that many high players, specially chibita. I would not have a chance in the world against him haha. anyway man keep up the fighting spirit and I am glad you enjoyed your stay in japan. I know I do, I am still here haha.

 

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

I was wrighting to Ice-9. Hey well your post did seem like the Japan trip was for Vf4 but now that i no you did a lot of other stuff besides play vf4 in an iscolated room just forget what i said. And yea maybe it was fun but anytime you are lucky enough to go to a foriegn country (especially Japan) you do learn alot about the food, culture and other interesting facts and that is an acoplishment in my book. Will you tell me ice-9 how long you have been playin Vf4 just for future reference no negative aspect. Sorry about the other post. /versus/images/icons/frown.gif . And whos your favorite fighter. Has to be Kage.

 

Whoa, thanks for reminding me, I can't believe I forgot!! You're right in that the arcades were extremely loud and it was hard to hear anything, (also, the sound effects were pumped higher than the BGM), but the BGMs were not just remixed, some of them were completely different! I can't say whether they were better or not, however. I had not paid much attention to the music, and only realized some of the BGMs seemed completely new in solitary flashes.

Hey guys, thanks for all the kind comments, it was a fun trip and I had a good time recalling everything.

 

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

Make sure you reply to that person's post by clicking the reply button in their post, as I've done w/ yours. I've gotten ripped for it to, so I'm passing out the rippings.

Ice: What's up w/ the BGM's? You know you can load VF1 & I think VF2 BGM's at the start, right?

 

Nice read.

Looks like you didn't get trashed too badly in Japan huh? /versus/images/icons/cool.gif Anyway, I think you are probably a little over optimistic in your assessment of current SG VF standards. I don't think anyone in SG can really hang with the good(not to mention elite) players in Japan currently. There's just not enough interest in VF4.

I've visited several arcades(some a couple of times) and I've only managed to find a handful of semi-scrubby challengers outside Bugis. Pathetic.

Besides, the machines are often old VF3(or VF2!) retrofitted cabinets with crappy sticks that don't work properly half the time. Looks like everyone in SG is into FPS nowadays and the arcades are unwilling to invest in new arcade machines... very disconcerting for avid video gamers in SG.

I think interest in VF(in SG) has dissipated since VF3. While I have no doubt that Bugis will be getting EVO(they got SC2 almost as soon as the japanese did) and some will still play the game, the VF scene in SG probably won't be as competitve/fun as it was in the good old VF2/3 days. *sigh*

Anyway, I got some stuff on EVO from some Japanese BBSes(mainly Jacky/Lau). I'll post them in the respective threads asap.

P.S
I heard from my friend(resides in Japan) that Japanese arcade machines are generally very well-maintained(I was told that some centres have staff going around to clean the machines/empty ash tray every few hrs). How does it compare to SG or US arcades? Pray tell?

 

The staff in Japanese arcades are fantastic. All arcades generally have someone emptying ash trays every 20-30 minutes (or picking them up off the ground in my case -- whoops!). But better than that, if you complain to the staff that the button or sticks don't feel right, they replace them on the spot and give you 100 yen back!

Also, there are basically two kinds of sticks for VF4. The first kind (that *ALL* cabinets) had. Only fall back is that the ball can unscrew pretty easily. This happened to me more than a few times while fighting. So, everyone makes it a habbit to do two turns or so when you or the opponent has fallen down. Quite funny to look at.

Sega upgraded with a new stick, where the ball doesn't screw on. Unfortunately, it feels a bit different, and not all cabinets in Japan were upgraded -- generally only those at Sega arcades.