Another year, another awesome Evo experience in the rear-view mirror. It was an incredibly fun event as always, but particularly draining and exhausting this time around. Two weeks have gone by since Evo2k11 wrapped up – and in all honesty, i’m still recovering.
Somehow i managed to catch some nasty cold/flu bug (aka Evola, as jchensor calls it) which has taken its sweet time burning through my system. Having three meals and an energy bar over a 96-hour period with under fifteen hours of sleep probably didn’t help matters.
I’m not proud of that rookie mistake, but there was a lot to take care of during Evo weekend and throughout the day after i drove home. In hindsight, it’s probably a minor miracle that both the DAMAGE exhibition v.one and Balrog: Behind the Glory premieres went off without a hitch. Huge thanks to everyone involved with those projects for actually making them happen; although hopefully we won’t have to cut it so close next time.
The tournament itself was amazing as usual. There were countless clutch moments, upsets, comebacks, and unbelievably creative gameplay tactics on display. The SSF4AE top 8 lineup was surprising, but every single one of those players proved they belong. How crazy is it that Yun didn’t make top 3 and that there was only one mirror match in the whole top 8 bracket?
Witnessing Viscant finally winning Marvel at Evolution had to be the highlight of the weekend for me though. In my opinion, it was the best possible result. Everyone in the community respects that guy and he’s been a legitimate contender since the MvC1 era. Literally every oldschool player was cheering him on, and he came through in decisive fashion.
He certainly didn’t have an easy bracket either. He had to go through JWong and PR Balrog, clearly the two strongest challengers in the field on Sunday. Viscant beat them both rather convincingly. He was undoubtedly the best MvC3 player on the planet for the weekend of Evo2k11. Putting aside the fervent Phoenix hate, how can anyone argue that point?
Look, we’re talking about a CvS2 K-Geese/Yamazaki/Hibiki player here. He mained Blanka in SF4 and Dee Jay in SSF4. Personally, i’m proud of Viscant for not limiting himself with awful character choices like he always does. He believed Phoenix was the best option in MvC3 and he proved himself to be the overall best player with her.
It was not a fluke and Phoenix isn’t an automatic win button. This weekend’s Sin City Heat tournament had one Phoenix in top 4 who ended up placing third, and she never even went Dark. When things go wrong for Phoenix, they go all the way wrong in a hurry.
I’ve said before that adopting an underpowered fan-favorite character is a pretty reliable way to become famous in this community. That’s all well and good, but we’re seeing an alarming trend of sponsored players getting a little too image-conscious.
Everyone seems to agree that Fei Long and Yun are the best characters in SSF4AE. Can you name the top Yun or Fei Long player in America? Why is everyone suddenly backing away from the consensus strongest characters in the game? Is it just to look cool? Why doesn’t Japan seem to have this problem?
These are intriguing questions, and i look forward to watching their answers unfold as players settle into SSF4AE, and as MvC3 continues to evolve until UMvC3 arrives. If nothing else, the “Phoenix experiment” has been fascinating to observe. She should probably be weakened slightly for UMvC3, but i hope the game doesn’t lose its aggressive edge.
Last but not least, i want to thank everyone on Evo staff for hosting yet another memorable event and somehow setting the bar even higher. And thanks to everyone who attended for bringing the energy and the hype! See you all next year.
Btw if you haven’t seen them yet, check out Richard Li’s Evo2k11 featurettes:
Evo 2011 Hype | Community | Moments
All footage filmed in the tournament hall that weekend, and all awesome.
“Everyone seems to agree that Fei Long and Yun are the best characters in SSF4AE. Can you name the top Yun or Fei Long player in America? Why is everyone suddenly backing away from the consensus strongest characters in the game? Is it just to look cool? Why doesn’t Japan seem to have this problem?”
The US players in the top 8 are repping… Viper, Viper, and Viper/Gief (Latif, Wolf Crone, and Flash Metroid). It’s been pointed out to me that Viper is one of the characters that’s been changed the least from SSFIV to SSFIV:AE, and that US players largely haven’t had access to AE for all that long compared to the players from east Asia.
That’s true, but we certainly had access to Japanese match vids the entire time. And SSF4AE was available in a couple of arcades across the US since the very beginning. So we found out about Yun as soon as Japan did.
It seemed like even with all that evidence, everyone wanted to be the exception to the rule and nobody ended up learning Yun properly. Most of the American players who picked up Yun did it like a week and a half before Evo, and obviously that’s not gonna fly.
Don’t get me wrong, i’m happy that Valle stuck to Ryu. And i enjoyed watching Choi’s Sagat. But when all those individual cases add up to the US voluntarily handicapping itself for no apparent reason, it becomes a little puzzling.
No, Rufus is exactly right: we’ve never had the game long enough. Many players tried using Yun, but when it came down to crunch time, using their original mains was just more comfortable. No one here has built up the subtlety and the proper instinctual reactions using Yun. Many of them played him since the game dropped on console, but two months of using Yun wasn’t as comfortable as using a character you’ve been using for two years. Japan had 6 months +. That’s a LOT of time to build up a lot of experience with them.
Having it at the arcades didn’t help us either, because no one played it seriously in the arcades there because all the tourneys in the U.S., where all the money was to be made, was still on Super. So nobody took AE seriously until it came to console. So having it at certain arcades didn’t improve our Yun play at all because no one wanted to spend their time learning a game that wasn’t being played at tourneys yet.
With MvC3, while I love Viscant, even Viscant himself admitted not being the best player at Evo that weekend. After beating PR Rog the first time to put him into losers, he even said to PR Rog “I didn’t deserve that win at all” after he overhead PR Rog muttering at how stupid Phoenix was as Rog walked off the stage.
Unfortunately, despite the failures of Phoenix in other tournaments, Phoenix IS a win button in a lot of ways (not because Phoenix is broken, but because Level 3 X-Factor makes her broken). The problem is that Phoenix in most players’ hands elevates their skill. Bad players become average, average players become good, good players become deadly, and expert players become world class players. Even I would do a lot better in tournaments if I played Phoenix. I’d only have to learn two things: how to kill time when snapped in and how to hit L a lot once I’m dark. To be honest, you never really understand how frustrating Phoenix is until you play against her a lot. It’s just really, really, really frustratingly stupid. Die to Dark Phoenix a bunch of times after snapping her in 3 times in a game and never being able to kill her, and you’ll start to understand.
And at Sin City Heat, I got top 4, which probably tells you that the level of players there wasn’t the highest: I suck at the game. So stating that only one Phoenix made it in top 4 doesn’t really mean anything.
I respect everything you’re saying, but that’s the kind of logic that leads to Tokido winning MvC3 at Evo2k11 because all the American players would rather mutter about how stupid Phoenix is instead of actually playing her.
And props to Viscant for being modest about his win, but the fact is he won and it wasn’t close. Viscant knocked PR Balrog into losers and he had the first set of grand finals wrapped up until Tron busted out the equivalent of wakeup ultra and stole the match. Once Viscant stopped screwing around, it wasn’t close. It’s completely unfair to undermine his committment to MvC3 and his performace at Evo with all these kind of asterisks and veiled insults.
Yeah, there’s definitely a problem of not exploiting Phoenix enough for a lot of top players. Top 8 could have easily been 8 Phoenix teams if other top players didn’t “metagame” themselves to a disadvantage by avoiding choosing her. But it’s a common practice, and not something I think only American players are prone to. I think it’s just human nature. Case in point: the story of the first American group going to More Arcade in Japan and see that every ST machine had Ken vs. Ken on it or at least one Ken. Don’t forget that Japan is also the place where Vega (Claw) was soft-banned. People just enjoy using underdog characters that aren’t over powered, oftentimes, because it adds enjoyment factor. Yeah, when it comes to something like Evo, top players should get over that. But it’s hard to fight human nature.
In Phoenix’s case, enjoyment is hampered pretty badly because you literally have to play with only two characters for the majority of the fight, as calling Phoenix as an Assist (outside of combos) is too risky. So you’re actually playing two separate games: a self-limited 2 vs. 3 game where you can’t use Supers and can’t use X-Factor, and then an overpowered Dark Phoenix game (given that you still have that Level 3 X-Factor). There’s definitely something to be said about having trying to win but still having fun at the same time. For many people, Phoenix is not fun. That isn’t to say that no one can enjoy using Phoenix… Clockw0rk loves Phoenix and has great fun with her (well, he has more fun with Phoenix than Dark Phoenix). And I’m not downplaying Viscant’s victory: the most impressive thing about it was how often he DIDN’T need Phoenix to win, and killed people with mostly Wesker and Haggar.
And I’m not sure what the point of bringing up that Viscant won and it wasn’t close is. That’s more in support that Phoenix IS broken than it is that she isn’t. No, it wasn’t close, and, yes, it technically should have ended after the first set. And I’m not insulting Viscant at all… I spent a lot of time trying to defend him to other people, bringing up the fact that Wesker did most of the work (though people tend to argue with me that you ahve to adjust your play just knowing Phoenix is there, which is why people tend to die to the first two characters easily).
The part I have the most contention with is the following statement: “He was undoubtedly the best MvC3 player on the planet for the weekend of Evo2k11. Putting aside the fervent Phoenix hate, how can anyone argue that point?” It’s basically like saying, “Player 1 used Chun Li and defeated Player 2’s Remy. Discounting the character imbalance of that matchup, player 1 is obviously better than player 2.” It’s just not a fair statement to ask people to “put aside” the Phoenix hate. Phoenix hate, in and of itself, is a fair thing because she IS ridiculous (combined with Level 3 X-Factor). Also, I am worried that because you haven’t played against a lot of Phoenixes that it’s easier to want to discount her. Having personally fought Phoenixes in the past, I know where the frustration and hatred towards her comes from.
And keep in mind that I’m one of the biggest proponents that Phoenix isn’t broken (I believe Level 3 X-Factor is what makes her broken). I’ve said that on stream several times that she’s actually a really fairly designed character, just that X-Factor ruins it all. So I’m only pointing out that it’s just improper to just sweep any advantages Phoenix has under the rug. It was definitely a huge factor, and SHOULD be discussed.
Hey it’s cool with me if people hate Phoenix and want her nerfed to obscurity, but that won’t change what happened on July 29th-31st, 2011.
When you claim that the matches were only one-sided because Viscant had an unfair character advantage, you’re really making the implication that PR Rog and JWong are “better players” for not having picked Phoenix.
I’m sorry, but i disagree with the notion that they somehow would’ve beaten Viscant in Phoenix vs Phoenix despite having way less experience with the character. Not to mention, way more angry hate toward using her. Do you really see those guys magically coming out ahead if they tried to learn Phoenix two weeks before Evo?
I’ve known Viscant for years so i’m probably a little biased in terms of being happy for him, but i still think him winning Marvel at Evo was the best possible result. The bottom line is, he played MvC3 the way it was supposed to be played at that point in time. Why should that be looked down upon?
And it’s not like he’s copying anyone else’s strategies. He invented most of the Phoenix stuff he’s using, and he was one of the first people to see her true potential.
But really, who has done more for the Marvel community over the years than Viscant? I’d put a couple of people right up there with him, but nobody ahead of him. He’s paid his dues. And i love watching JWong play the hell out of Marvel, but seeing him lose sets up a “return of the king” moment next year. So i think everything worked out just fine.
Good convo here, but I wanted to add a little side point. Viscant winning has an effect on OG’s, either they’re super hype that he won, or they’re feeling like they should be able to win tournies after playing for sooo long too. I know that’s how he makes me feel, lol.
@jchensor
If anyone wants to hate on Phoenix or a player winning with Phoenix… is it really so hard to say “That’s the game?”
In jchensor’s defense, i think he’s more worried about how the game is perceived – because that directly affects stream viewers and tournament entrants. Being commentator at a billion tourneys per year, he’s a lot more in tune with the reality of those trends than almost anyone else.
For him to say “MvC3 is just Phoenix” would be surrendering a lot of ground and gaining nothing in return.
Also, i’m hella not trying to win an argument against James Chen, haha. We’re just having a casual discussion, and some of my points aren’t even directed at him. I just feel like Viscant is getting the short end of the stick, considering he’s done nothing wrong on the way to winning Marvel at Evo!
@Maj
But that’s what I mean… nearly every fighting game I can think of has some caveat conversation about “Well, this game is great buuuut… CBS CVS2/3S Chun-Yun/ST Hold Traps/MVC2 Cable.”
Is it so hard to just love what it is you’re playing? I feel like it’s this unspoken and open admission from some players that their game is really lacking something rather than them genuinely enjoying what they play, good and bad. Perception is a motherfucker.
Whoa, that’s a really complicated sentence sir. Haha not quite sure what you mean. In fact, none of those examples even hold true at high levels, except possibly 3S Yun.
@Maj
“This game is great… except sometimes you have to fight Dark Phoenix.”
Just those old sidebar conversations about how frustrating certain tactics/characters can be to deal with seems to apply to any fighting game. I’m not even trying to address the argument as to whether or not they’re really all equal or legit comparisons… the only thing that seems to stick at the moment is that some things in a lot of fighting games are not fun to face at all. If there are folks deadset on marketing this genre, I guess it’s a danger to look like you’re plugging your ears going “la la la I can’t hear you” if someone wants something patched. That or looking insane because of how saying “I think it’s fine/I can deal with this” might sound.
I certainly wouldn’t do it, but if someone genuinely loves Marvel 3 or wants to win, seems like that’s the kind of mindset it takes? Does that make a bit more sense?
yeah I personally think every game should have at least one seemingly-OP character; but I think it shouldn’t be too clear who it is. As an example, I play a lot of TF2 these days, and some people think the Pyro is a cheap class, but in higher level play, s/he’s completely useless while other classes, alone or working in tandem, are much stronger and seem to be more “broken”.
It can be fun to be the reason why people feel like an aspect of the game is broken…that being said, I think where they screwed up AE does not lie in Yun’s power; it lies in the fact that they made so many mid/high tier characters not fun to play with. Side note: Viscant, on WUSRK, said something along the lines of “to not pick Yun is to fail the IQ test,” and yet the top 8 doesn’t seem to agree with this statement. Viscant correctly predicted that he was a possible contender for MVC3 2k11 Champion, but was way off about the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” attitude people were supposed to take with Yun. (speaking of Yun, Maj: would you put 3sYun as brokener than O.Sagat?)
I don’t know much about MvC3 from the player-side personally, but I have friends who play in majors and their dislike for characters seems to rotate – usually Phoenix/Wesker/Wolverine… I think with any fighting game, on this issue, it really depends on the level of play you’re in. the easy-to-use/win with characters will have their way with you for only so long; after a certain point, it takes a great player AND a great character to consistently take home the gold. Decent Chuns and Yuns in 3s don’t scare me; it’s skilled players using the rest of the cast or Chun/Yun that do.
Tarnish: I get what you’re saying now, but you can’t quite treat Phoenix the same way as your other examples. She might be in CvS1 Nakoruru class at the moment, but it’s always hard to tell with Marvel.
My objection is that we weren’t giving Ricky Ortiz any crap for playing Nakoruru, so why are we giving Viscant a hard time for winning with Phoenix? Maybe because the current generation communicates via troll-bait, meme-based, one-liners instead of actually putting some thought into their opinions, so you end up with a lot of “lol phoenix” type noise.
Anyway she’s not even in the same ballpark as CvS2 Cammy/Blanka/Sagat because barely anyone who’s good plays that ghetto lineup anymore. They’re just an intermediate-level chore to overcome and there are lots of ways to get it done, whereas Phoenix is a true high-level end boss.
And ST hold traps? Good Rog/Sim players don’t even bother with that crap unless they’re losing by 80% anyway and got nothing better to do.
So yeah, Phoenix is a tricky topic, especially for someone in jchensor’s shoes because he’s the one who has to babysit everyone.
@Maj
Again, I wasn’t trying to argue the direct comparison… more state what you’re getting at to James. Why feel the need to apologize for Viscant winning? I refuse to apologize for John Choi winning with O Sagat in Super Turbo back in 2008. I understand clearly that Phoenix is a character that sets a bit of precedence when it comes to the kind of stuff you have to learn to deal with… but I say let the new generation forge new hatreds and overcome new adversity and things of that nature.
Stop trying to sell it to folks, this is what fighting games are. At least before we get something truly, truly broken.
onreload: Well, i think we were saved from Yun winning SSF4AE by randomness. Basically the entire top 8 bracket was Yuns and randomness.
I called it too. I kept telling people to watch out for Viper, because she’s constantly rolling the dice at every reversal and knockdown opportunity. With two and a half Vipers in top 8, that’s a lot of chances to win.
Seth belongs in the same category too. And let’s not forget that Daigo and Kindevu were forced to face off, so we owe one of the Yun losses to Yun.
As for ST O.Sagat vs 3S Yun, i’d put Yun ahead. ST is a game of matchups and O.Sagat loses to some important characters. 3S Yun loses to nobody.
But the bigger problem is that Yun warps 3S more than O.Sagat warps ST, because oldshool SF2 is already founded on dominant fireball-cannons. If you look at an ST matchup chart, O.Sagat’s numbers basically mirror Ryu’s and O.Ken’s – so all those players would just pick Shotos instead. Yun has divekicks and customs and doesn’t play 3S.
@Maj
I also want to say, I do feel some frustration. When due criticism is levied toward a play system or character or game… I hate the fact that someone could easily sling “Oh you’re just hating” and have it get perceived as a legitimate argument cause “Fighting gamers overcome adversity.” I hate to think in the back of my head that what I’m saying is going to get lumped in with that. The moments I take to put thought into what I’m going to say, and it can all be dumbed down by “lol Phoenix” or some stupid picture of Yun doing a palm with a red hitbox filling the screen.
I do think that it’s time for the new generation to face their own familiar but new challenges. What I don’t think it’s time to do is try to make excuses or troll with a dumber, more ruthlessly efficient form of communication.
Tarnish: In fairness, that’s because this is an inherently intense conversation. Every statement you make has to be clearly worded and strongly supported. The only reason i called it casual with regard to jchensor is because we’re already familiar with each other’s viewpoints and we’re so cautious of stepping on each other’s toes.
But when every statement basically boils down to defending your favorite game at the expense of someone else’s favorite game, what do you expect? Minefield, dude.
@Maj
It’d be nice to just stop then. It is part of the history of the scene, but throwing some game under the bus I guess is just gonna come with the territory for some folks. I can definitely say as a person who strongly dislikes SF4 and doesn’t feel much toward new games that it’s more than easy to plant a few landmines in a conversation. I know some folks seek to legitimize their game by saying “It’s just like yours”, and that’s just its own mess right there.
Viewing Seth and Viper as randomizers, I wanted to go back to that. It does seem hard to control a character with a metered side step and tons of reversal options. Doesn’t seem like much of a surprise that a guy who was great at Virtua Fighter was able to contain such a character. Julian Beasley told me this past Evo that you make those type of guesses in that game.
That’s an interesting take on Fuudo vs Latif; i hadn’t thought of it that way. Viper evolved into kind of a bizarre Makoto character, like all-or-nothing with heavy gambling.
But it definitely manifests differently with Viper than it did with 3S Makoto. Haha Viper is almost like a defensive Makoto, as crazy as that sounds.
Anyway what surprises me the most is the lack of Fei Long players in America. Because i can understand the argument against two-month Yun, but Fei Long has been around since SF4 and several top players learned him in SSF4.
@Maj
There was an American Fei Long player in top 32 who got eliminated by Vance’s Zangief and Steve H Sagat. Jason Harding, who I think would showcase my point a little more. In a game that seems to diverge from requiring just a “Street Fighter” mindset in some cases, the idea just clicked in my head when I was talking to Zass about Virtua Fighter. He did make the comment about Sirlin’s concept of Super Turbo Yomi being flawed in comparison to Virtua Fighter. I believe his words were:
“You make real, actual guesses in that game.”
It seemed to click to me based on fighting Viper because I know my mindset as a Street Fighter player is “X Move creates Y Situations”, in that I do one action to illicit a certain unchangeable/near unchangeable number of situations. Preferably 1 or 2 that I can control. Option Select and watered down pokes/projectiles does a bit to emulate that, but Viper definitely bypasses that defensively in a lot of situations unless you take away her lifebar/meter simultaneously. She’s so decent on offense it’s pretty hard to do that, but it can be done… with a large amount of variables/difficulty lol.
It just made sense to me once he said that and then I read Fuudo was a top VF player. “This isn’t [old] Street Fighter”, so I feel like players like Poongko and Fuudo bringing in different skill sets kind of allows them to set themselves apart from players like Arturo who played Seth in a defensive style and Rugal B (or that one dude with the headphones from the EC… can’t remember his name, but I’m not big on the not obvious SF4 names). It definitely feels like solid basics and then fundamentals from COMPLETELY different games provided players with some skills that aren’t really viewed or thought of in that way. There’s still this sense that “this is Street Fighter”, but it is still a widely different game in areas.
That’s just what clicked in my head going from dinner at some overpriced Indian restaurant talking with Zass, and then hearing Fuudo was a top VF player. He just really seemed to better utilize responses to the “randomizer.” I thought it was great, I love Fei Long and I’m glad a New Challenger character/player beat out the anime as I called it. Cheap shot but go new school SF2 character!
No doubt Fuudo played well throughout the tournament. I’d agree that his VF experience helped him stay focused through the guessing game madness. But i wouldn’t go so far as saying he was playing Virtua Fighter with Fei Long.
He’s been playing SF4 for quite some time now and he won Evo finals with superior Street Fighter fundamentals – simply adapting without taking too many unsafe risks. Like s-kill says on the commentary, Fuudo just figured out how to beat Latif’s reversal EX groundpound gimmicks and Latif didn’t have a good enough backup plan.
I mean, Fuudo wasn’t doing such a good job of blocking burnkick mixups. He just didn’t panic, even when he got lit up four times in a row.
I know you’re resisting the urge to blame SF4 for Evo grand finals ending up as a match between a Virtua Fighter player and a Guilty Gear player, but both of them put the time into learning SSF4. And i think that has more to do with SSF4AE’s wacky top tier. Let’s see what happens at SBO.
Wait a minute – there’s no MvC3 at SBO, huh? Bullshit!
@Maj
Nah, that’s not at all what I was trying to say about the finals. What I would outright say is that playing Virtua Fighter might have helped someone do well against someone who can be extremely random on their wake up (Viper). There were a few instances where I thought “Maybe he’s just option selecting some way I’m unfamiliar with, but I dig the neutral or back jumps for punishing reversals.”
Other than that, the fact a Fei player got to Grand Finals, to me, is what’s better for the “Street Fighter” side of the argument. Because Fei isn’t a randomizer. I think on a case by case basis, certain skills outside of just SF help in certain match ups… or you can be Seth? I thought it was pretty interesting when I saw some Arcadia interview a while back of top SF players and I don’t think many of them were SF natives. Itabashi Zangief is a VF player, for instance. They had some Arcana Heart player there too. I don’t think there’s a case for it because, really, there are still match ups where the characters selected neutralize a lot of what the player might bring outside of very certain abilities.
I think you could be a genius Zangief and it’d still be a hard ass fight vs Sagat, for instance.
So, no, my mind wasn’t set on how Fuudo blocked burn kicks. It was how he dealt with them on wake up that seemed to set him apart to me. Then again, I think that delves into other factors, like how Japan doesn’t always have to play for high sums of money in tournament play to get much of their game in.
SBO, though… yeah, I think it’s still too early in the game’s life to make any huge snap assessment. Shame that there’s a patch coming by year’s end or something lol.
Because I don’t think it’s clearly stated enough by me:
I don’t think how Fuudo played one match is how he got to Grand Finals. I think VF might have, might, helped him deal with Viper, who is clearly not a traditional SF character.
Yeah even though it sucks that Japan managed to win SF4 at Evo again, i gotta admit that Fei Long winning over Viper is a nice consolation prize.
And i’m actually looking forward to SBO this year because Evo2k11 was a pretty good sign overall. It’s a same that Latif had passport issues or whatever and won’t be able to make it. That whole situation is unfortunate in too many ways to count.
But yeah, i’m kinda disappointed in Japan for leaving out MvC3 just because they know they’d get rocked by literally everyone in Evo top 64.
@Maj
It really looks a lot like the O Sagat situation that the Japanese ran into during that whole ST international event. IE: What you brought up about Yun. There are, hopefully, enough folks sticking and evolving with Yun for the US to be prepared.
And, isn’t it more that there’s no Arcade version of MVC3 and that’s just what is keeping MVC3 out? Arcadia seems immovable on that point.
Hey, if Mike Watson can figure out how to put MvC3 in an arcade cabinet, i’m sure Japan could manage it too. But okay, i guess that’s a legit enough excuse – as much as it sucks.
@Maj
Fubarduck jammed it into an arcade cabinet too , I’m pretty sure an Americans dominating a bracket is out of the question for SBO lol
@Maj
Goes both ways with the US and Super Turbo, unfortunately.
Super Turbo is old though. We had to wait all this time for a brand new Marvel game, and Japan still won’t let us embarrass them at it. Not like i’m asking for MK9 or Killer Instinct at SBO.
In all seriousness, MvC3 at SBO would’ve been cool because it would’ve forced Japan to actually learn the game, so we could see how it would affect the skill gap that’s existed since … MvC1 at least.
@Maj
That would certainly be interesting. Their immovable Arcade wall seems poised to crumble like it’s the end of the Cold War, though. They’ll more than likely have to adapt sooner or later, my love of arcades aside.
The reason Dark Phoenix is perceived so much more hatefully than ST O.Sagat, 3S Yun, and any other character you could possibly throw into the mix is simply that, while Phoenix takes some strategy (to avoid dying), Dark Phoenix take relatively none. O.Sagat will not win you matches by mashing. 3S Yun will not win you matches by mashing. But Dark Phoenix literally will win matches by mashing. And oftentimes, trying to use her intelligently is what CAUSES Dark Phoenix to die (see: Clockw0rk). The most effective Dark Phoenixes are those that hit L and don’t stop.
Again, all of this is exacerbated by Level 3 X-Factor. Were it not for that, Dark Phoenix would actually have to put in work, given that her health drains. X-Factor countering that was a huge mistake, IMO. Her life should have drained no matter what. If that was the case, Phoenix would be 100% a fair character IMO.
And understand I LOVE the dynamic Dark Phoenix puts on the game, having to think about snapping in and such. The problem is that in many cases, once the opponent gets to 5 meters and Phoenix is still alive, they’ve won. Defeating Dark Phoenix is literally luck based, and very little skill is involved. I’ve almost never seen anyone “fight” Dark Phoenix and dissect the fight and win (Combofiend at one WNF was the only case, but again it was against Clock, who plays a smart Dark Phoenix and is, thus, prone to being dissected).
Level 3 X-Factor Dark Phoenix is literally unfightable. That’s why she’s so much easier to single out than Ricky using Nakoruru in CvS or Yun in 3rd Strike. Even in CvS, there were characters who can compete with Nako. In 3S, Chun and others can compete against Yun. Literally, there is not a single character who can compete with Dark Phoenix in MvC3 provided she gets the 5 meters and has Level 3 X-Factor. In all seriousness, Dark Phoenix with Level 3 X-Factor is a 9-1 match-up against EVERY CONCEIVABLE NON-PHOENIX TEAM in MvC3. That’s 1 vs. 3 I’m talking.
The real caveat IS the fact that you have to have 5 meters and Level 3 X-Factor to get to that point, so the game becomes that: kill Phoenix before she gets the pre-requisites. So at least there IS an option to fight her. Again, I love the dynamic, I just think Capcom messed up a bit allowing regular Phoenix to run away a tad too easily. I love that the SNapback mechanix comes into full effect in these matches, I just don’t like how it’s pretty simple to keep Phoenix alive. She either dies instantly (thanks to a mix-up from Wolvie or someone) or almost is guaranteed to survive by throwing a couple of tracking fireballs in the air and Hard Tagging. UMvC3 will be very interesting because 1) That strategy is gone. 2) She ISN’T being nerfed to obscurity, which is exciting.
And to Tarnish’s point, yeah, that’s the game. If you play MvC3, you deal with Phoenix. The reason I began this discussion is more because of the comment that we should just “put the Phoenix hate aside” and appreciate what Viscant did. I appreciate what Viscant did (go old men!) and am super happy Viscant can now be called an Evo Champion. But Phoenix MUST remain in the conversation and be a talking point. To just want to de-emphasize it is wrong, IMO.
– James
Fair enough. I certainly wasn’t saying that we should replace the word Pheonix with “manliness” whenever we talk about Evo2k11 henceforth. All i was saying is, it’s only fair to acknowledge that Viscant was the best MvC3 player at Evo that day.
What annoys me is how much of the “discussion” i’ve seen has literally been “lol Phoenix” which is 100% Phoenix hate, 0% Viscant respect. That’s all i was referring to when i said “put the Phoenix hate aside.”
As for Phoenix herself, here’s my take. I hated Cable with a passion in the early days of MvC2, because everyone either had to use him or “bravely” lose to him – including nearly all our SoCal rushdown heroes. How did that end? Cable is now considered the weakest of the top four and he barely makes one or two appearances in top 8’s.
When was the last time a Cable team won Evo? In hindsight, do you still feel any anger towards the Cable players who dominated the first phase of MvC2?
I hate to bust out the “We don’t know what the future holds” card because it’s irritatingly impossible to argue against, but Phoenix teams depend on a structured survival gameplan to win. In Viscant’s case, if you kill Wesker before he builds three bars, that puts his whole outlook in pretty bad shape.
Right now, Wesker is surviving a lot of combos by a few pixels. And people are dropping combos left and right in general. All of that works in Phoenix’s favor, since winning with her is all about outlasting a certain threshold. And Viscant is the most hitpoint-conscious player i’ve ever heard talking MvC3 strategy – whether he’s talking about combos, team order, whatever.
But as people get better at converting one mistake to full damage, do you think Phoenix will be able to cope? Like in six months from now, if Phoenix consistently comes in at four bars instead of five, do you think her win percentage will hold?
@Maj
I completely agree with your point on the state of game right now favoring Phoenix with people dropping combos and still not knowing how to get the maximum punish off of a given situation but I think one of the things that’s bothering me about the “we don’t know what the future holds” card is that we don’t know and we wont find out with vanilla MvC3. It’s not like MvC2 where we had literally years and years to break down every character in the game find out what works best against what, with MvC3 we have one character emerge as the best over the months its been out and then this fall its not really going to matter because of the release of a new game.
The problem with the argument is that games mature infinitely faster than they did back when MvC2 was brand new. Few people pushed the limits of games back then like we do now. With the prevalence of YouTube videos and Streaming and online play and immediate access to incredibly godlike Training Modes, I feel like MvC3, in the 6 months it has been released, has matured faster than the first 3 years of MvC2. Maybe more. So the 6 months argument just isn’t as valid as before.
I always give the example that Watson was still using Sourai Rengeki with Yun in 2002, a game 5 years old at that point, even though Mester, in that same tournament, came over and bodied us with Genei-Jin. If it were in this day and age, Genei-Jin combos would have been found in the 4th month of the game and a YouTube video would be already out, and we’d all know Genei-Jin combos and be using them, especially because Watson would be using them on stream to body fools. I mean, honestly, Vanilla SFIV was pretty well fleshed out in just over a year. The game still had things to learn for it, but it wasn’t gonna get that much crazier than what we had already found out thanks to the speed at which we learn things these days.
So, to be honest, yes I think Phoenix’s win percentage WILL hold 6 months from now. And that’s for a few reasons, actually, outside of the fact that I feel like the game has already matured pretty well. 1) Killing people quicker usually requires resources, resources needed for surviving Phoenix (such as early X-Factors and meters and such). If you fail to take out Phoenix after spending your X-Factor early, you are GUARANTEED to die against Dark Phoenix, who will chip you to death. 2) Killing two characters from your opponents guarantees they have at least 3 meters already. And that’s the perfect scenario. If you can somehow manage to perfect the first two characters, yeah, Phoenix will be in trouble. But as good as you’re getting with your characters, the Phoenix player will be getting JUST AS GOOD with their first two characters. So chances are, you aren’t perfecting the first two characters. Which is why it’s always preferable to take your chances and snap Phoenix in instead of trying to take the other two characters out quickly. And a failed kill after a Snapback means lost resources once again.
There’s definitely a lot more to MvC3 we could have learned. I, in fact, always say that we are only at about 25% with the stuff we can learn about the game. But I also joke that the other 75% we will discover will still probably lose to Wolvie and Phoenix. And it’s probably not even really a joke. There’s always all these technologies of “You CAN control it!” and all these other things, and yet you never see anyone pull them off in actual combat. Hahaha. I have this awesome almost unescapable trick to kill Dark Phoenix upon transformation with Shuma, but it requires having X-Factor, having 3 meters, and killing her with me on the ground.
Which is why, frankly, I’m HAPPY to get UMvC3 so fast. The nerf they gave to Phoenix sounds really smart (one action in the air). And with characters that can drain meter now (not counting counterable Snapbacks… I’m referring to Morrigan and Shuma, possibly among others), I feel like the game is going to gain an even MORE interesting dynamic.
– James
Not to be a grumpy old man, but MvC2’s combo system was far more complicated than anything MvC3 has to offer. We had practical touch-of-death combos in MvC3 way earlier than anything of the sort surfaced in MvC2’s timeline. People were figuring out major engine concepts in MvC2 all the way up until two years ago! Nothing like FSD or Y-Boost exists in MvC3.
Furthermore, the only reason Yun’s SSF4AE customs were figured out so quickly is because that version of the game only had two new characters (by way of four halves). There really wasn’t much else to explore in Arcade Edition, and we already had a decade of Genei Jin experience to fall back on.
If 3S was released tomorrow with all the u2bs at our disposal, it would still take longer to figure out Yun’s Genei Jin than it took to figure out anything in SF4. The bottom line is it’s still the same ten people figuring all that stuff out. Maybe some of them retire and new names take their place, but the numbers don’t change much.
Also, if Phoenix is as braindead as you say she is, then the other main advantage to adopting her is that you get to spend more time developing your Wesker or your Dormammu. Maybe that’s why Viscant has the most versatile and well-rounded Wesker on the planet.
That’s another advantage that’ll fade away as the “1char+Phoenix+assist” players start to plateu, while the “2char+assist” players gradually close the per-character experience gap. I’d say this game still has a long way to go in terms of players developing spacing and zoning and matchups. That’s not exactly the kind of thing that’s easily absorbed through u2b.
Plus there’s gotta be some undiscovered combos that cause tons of damage without X-Factor and without filling up the opponent’s meter. There has to be. Even if there are no unkown major engine concepts in MvC3, there are still tons of attack permutations that nobody’s tried before.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Magneto had some crazy buff combos/resets that are still hidden because oldschool players can’t quite let go of the MvC2 mindset when they pick him. Do you remember how long it took the MvC2 community to unleash c.HP -> sj.HP xx airdash DF simply because it was so damn counter-intuitive?
Anyway i agree with you – UMvC3 waiting around the corner a good thing. And i don’t think the expanded MvC3 player base has the persistence to work through Phoenix to the same degree the concentrated MvC2 player base worked through Cable. But if this was ten years ago and all we had was MvC3 with no patches or updates, i believe we could’ve solved Phoenix.
I guess I just don’t care for the knee jerk reactions of players calling for something to be nerfed into oblivion once it’s clear that whatever it is is overpowered, like Phoenix, I’d rather see players work their way through it than call for nerfs and rebalances. That said I’m also excited for UMvC 3 and I think this exchange between you and James has been the best read I’ve had in a while
and tarnish… cant forget tarnish
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with almost everything you said. :-( Which I hate doing, but it’s the way it is, I guess.
“MvC2′s combo system was far more complicated than anything MvC3 has to offer. We had practical touch-of-death combos in MvC3 way earlier than anything of the sort surfaced in MvC2′s timeline. People were figuring out major engine concepts in MvC2 all the way up until two years ago! Nothing like FSD or Y-Boost exists in MvC3.”
I don’t really agree. If MvC2 came out three years ago, we’d all know about FSD and Y-Boost two years ago. I’m not kidding. The amount of ridiculousness we discover these days is crazy because of sheer volume of players and replay channels and YouTube. If SFIV came out 10 years ago, we’d have discovered the unblockable Ultras only 2 years ago. It’s simply not a fair comparison at all anymore. The whole concept of not Hit-Stun Detrioration after Aerial Exchanges, the DHC glitch, the Aerial Exchange glitches used by Ammy and She-Hulk, etc. etc. would not have all been discovered and PROPOGATED so quickly. Nor analyzed so immediately. It’s just too different today than it was before. And the MvC2 community is KNOWN for being the laziest group when it came to system mechanics. The reason a lot of stuff wasn’t documented and explained is because no one bothered. Everyone knew about Y-Boost and such inherently. But it was just never documented and 90% of the MvC2 players who used it and knew it couldn’t explain it to you even if you asked them about it.
“Furthermore, the only reason Yun’s SSF4AE customs were figured out so quickly is because that version of the game only had two new characters (by way of four halves). There really wasn’t much else to explore in Arcade Edition, and we already had a decade of Genei Jin experience to fall back on.
If 3S was released tomorrow with all the u2bs at our disposal, it would still take longer to figure out Yun’s Genei Jin than it took to figure out anything in SF4…”
Vehemently disagree. Third Strike was an arcade game with no Training Mode. If you released Third Strike brand new today, with Training Mode, at home, guaranteed the Kara Palm Genei-Jin combo would be discovered in a few months. It wouldn’t even take a year. People mess in Training Mode like the devil, so things are found so fast now.
“Also, if Phoenix is as braindead as you say she is, then the other main advantage to adopting her is that you get to spend more time developing your Wesker or your Dormammu. Maybe that’s why Viscant has the most versatile and well-rounded Wesker on the planet.”
That’s definitely true. The other huge benefit to Phoenix is that it allows you to play much more freely with your other characters. Once you get to 5 meters, everything your characters do is bonus, and opponents are so fixated on the pending Dark Phoenix that your non-Phoenix characters are that much more powerful. Risks and gambles and such are practically free at that point, so you get away with WAY more stuff and can play far more recklessly. Tron is really easily handled, for example, and in a match I played in Vegas, just knowing Phoenix was coming caused my whole team to be killed by Tron because I was so fixated on saving meters to fight Phoenix and such. Phoenix affects a lot of things.
“That’s another advantage that’ll fade away as the “1char+Phoenix+assist” players start to plateu, while the “2char+assist” players gradually close the per-character experience gap. I’d say this game still has a long way to go in terms of players developing spacing and zoning and matchups. That’s not exactly the kind of thing that’s easily absorbed through u2b.”
True. But at the same time, it can’t hurt to nerf X-Factor and Dark Phoenix and the DHC glitch while adding a few characters. UMvC3 still plays 95% the same according to most people who have tried the betas. It’s not like CvS to CvS2, where a crap ton of new systems were introduced. In fact, the only new system introduced seems to be the meter draining Side Exchange. Otherwise, it’s still mostly the same game.
“Plus there’s gotta be some undiscovered combos that cause tons of damage without X-Factor and without filling up the opponent’s meter. There has to be. Even if there are no unkown major engine concepts in MvC3, there are still tons of attack permutations that nobody’s tried before.”
Meter gain is directly tied to life and damage. The only way to cause the least amount of meter gain is to kill Ammy and Akuma (who have the lowest health) with as many HIGH DAMAGE hits as possible. A meter is 1,000,000 Hit Points long, and you gain 70% of a move’s damage in Meter when struck. So if someone hits you with a 100,000 damage move, you gain 70,000 meter. Problem is, the amount you get is NOT affected by Damage Scaling. So if you hit someone with a combo that does 300,000 damage, likely they’ll gain 500,000-600,000 meter (especially if there are lots of scaled hits towards the end). There’s really no way to avoid it. Even with resets, you’ll gain the same amount of meter anyhow because it’s all tied directly to your health. It’s very mathematical. There is absolutely NO WAY a 1,000,000 health character CANNOT DIE without gaining 700,000 points for their Hyper Meter.
“And i don’t think the expanded MvC3 player base has the persistence to work through Phoenix to the same degree the concentrated MvC2 player base worked through Cable. But if this was ten years ago and all we had was MvC3 with no patches or updates, i believe we could’ve solved Phoenix.”
Perhaps. But I honestly think Cable and Phoenix are two completely different beasts. I mean, when you have players like Justin Wong, who know MvC2 better than anyone, complaining that Phoenix is ridiculous at levels beyond anything he’s ever seen, that has to mean something.
– James
The first person to post an SF4 unblockable on u2b was Desora, a CvS2 player and combo/tutorial maker who has always been one of the most friendly Japanese players as far as reaching out to us English-speakers.
Once the news spread, the vast majority of those unblockable setups were discovered by Xenozip and desk, both of whom have been around since the olden days of (emu) SFA3. What’s changed?
And as for MvC3, tragic of all people was the one who got to the bottom of the DHC glitch when it was discovered. You don’t get any more oldschool than that! Not to take anything away from the new players who are making awesome MvC3 videos. I’m extremely happy to see talented authors like Caj814 and jamheald stepping up to the plate.
But there really aren’t that many of them. If i asked you to name 15 amazing MvC3 combo makers, how far would you get? The “combo maker guild” is mayyybe twice as big as it was before? It certainly hasn’t exploded like Evo attendance numbers.
“And MvC2’s combo system is still more better than MvC3!” – Magnetro
As for Phoenix, i think we’ve reached a middle ground where we basically agree. She’s overpowered. I still think Viscant was the best MvC3 player at Evo2k11 in terms of overall gameplanning and judgement, especially when you consider how badly the other Phoenix players got rocked in top 8. But he may have put himself in a tough spot for UMvC3 by investing so much time into MvC3’s detached dark dimension.
Home versions with Training Mode, that’s what’s changed. If SFIV came out 10 years ago, and it happened once by accident in a random arcade, that’s the last you’d ever hear of it. And no one would ever bother trying to find it again.
Fast forward to today. Someone gets hit by unblockable Ultra and they are like, “WTF?!?” and immediately go to Training Mode for hours, use programmable controllers, Training Mode record/playback, and other tools and eventually figure out that it’s a real thing. 10 years ago, people would just pass it off as a broken joystick.
If MvC3 came out 10 years ago, the DHC glitch would happen and people would notice it. But none of the crazy experimentation that Tragic did would have happened. The DHC glitch first got noticed when a Japanese player made a combo video where the Hit Stun Deterioration seemed to be ignored. 10 years ago, only two people were making Combo Videos for MvC2: me and Mike Z.
Also, thanks to a proliferation of “techniques” and such, not only has the experimentation bar of Fighting Games gone up, so has the initial level at which we enter the game. Option Selects existed as far back as ST, but now it’s a “requirement” to play SSFIV:AE. Safe Jumps? No one tried those right away. But now, they are something people practice regularly.
So these days, with so much information and knowledge pre-existing, it’s easy to jump into MvC3 and “discover everything” and pass it off as a shallow game. But frankly, everyone comes into the game already with crazy concepts and strategies in mind. And this information is super prevalent thanks to YouTube and the internet. I mean, I knew about FSD combos since XvSF. But when I made MvC2 Combo Videos, I never tried FSD combos. Why? Because we didn’t really understand them. They were just “luck” in XvSF. Not only that, but if you read my XvSF FAQ, I have Air Dash combos from Chun and Rogue that are listed as “Possible, but no human can do them.” Flash forward to today where MvC2 players are doing Air Dash Down/Forward Roundhouse x n infinites with Storm. That means people are already jumping into MvC3 with crazy execution expectation levels.
It’s entirely different than it used to be. If MvC2 were released today, the dissection levels of that game would be enormous. Third Strike’s Juggle system would have been documented two months after the game came out. Crouch Canceling in Alpha 3 would have had a YouTube video by month 4. It’s just so different now, I honestly believe that. The level of experimentation and dissection of mechanics is at another level than it’s ever been.
– James
Ten years ago was 2001, as in Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millenium 2001. Both CvS2 and MvC2 were released within a couple months of their arcade launches. CvS2 had a better Training Mode than SF4 does. MvC2’s wasn’t as good, but certainly serviceable.
I think a lot of the “laziness” surrounding MvC2 had to do with its true combo limitations being mysterious and highly technical (as opposed to MvC3’s “hits go up, hitstun goes down”). And capture cards were rare back then.
But just because there were fewer combovids being made doesn’t mean there weren’t tons of people exploring the game engine and transcribing combos on SRK. It’s easy to downplay the “bronze age” of fighting games or whatever, but information spread pretty damn quickly back then too.
How long did it take roll-canceling to go from hushed rumor to full-blown insanity? Like two weeks? That ain’t slow. The news of SF4 unblockables didn’t spread any faster than that.
3S is the only game from that era which suffered from lack of a console version, only because Capcom took their sweet time releasing one. But even 3S’ juggle system is complicated in certain areas, and Genei Jin is right at the top of that pyramid. To this day, i still haven’t heard a solid explanation of how it actually works.
If anything, veterans like you and me and tragic have gotten better at figuring out combo systems. But i just can’t imagine breaking down CvS2 in six months, even if we had the entire SF4 audience behind it, with access to u2b. CvS2’s combo system is an order of magnitude deeper than anything in SF4. Let’s please not gloss over that detail.
And it certainly doesn’t help your argument that my SF4 Ken TACV was made 16 months after the game’s arcade launch and 9 months after its console release, yet nobody had the slightest idea any of that shit worked (at 0:47). We’re talking about relatively basic juggles here.
When was the first juggle guide written for SF4? Ten months after the console release!
Dude, things really haven’t changed all that much on the combo side. It’s still five or ten people making the wheel turn. Of course sometimes we need random inspiration like someone accidentally performing the first unblockable or the first DHC glitch, but that hasn’t changed a bit.
Before it used to be a random thread on SRK and now it’s a random cell phone video on u2b. It still always comes back to someone like tragic actually figuring it out, because the original finder still doesn’t bother to test it out for more than three minutes.
How did we even get on this crazy tangent? I’m not trying to talk down the new era at all. Things definitely move faster now than ever.
I just think there are a lot of reasons for that, like veterans becoming more experienced and more motivated – which is tough to categorize because it means the potential was there without SF4 or u2b. Plus i don’t think the difference is that pronounced. (Viscant still would’ve found Phoenix in 2001.)
I mean, we were doing pretty well back when we were “underground” too.
@Maj
I think you’re both right near “meeting halfway” on a lot of points here. I’ve been reading in the background and I just wanted to interject, I felt one huge factor is that… this is still a new generation. One that still needs to sort out their own variations of mental/competitive kinks just like the older generation had to. Be it “lol Phoenix” or “tick throws are cheap.”
I feel like saying the games develop so much faster is one thing… but to me, “the game” is more than just some frame data. It’s the players. The players mindset toward the game isn’t ever going to be any faster or slower than the previous generations, because the one baseline is that we’re all human. And with that definitely comes maturity and just how folks’ minds will develop when approaching a game of all things. At the end of the day, how fast something is to come out or the properties of a juggle won’t endow someone with intuition or character of mind, a mind that can stay sharp or accept things that can’t be changed.
I’m not sure how that reads, but hell, throwing it out there anyway. Very interesting read, you two.
I read all of that and I think it comes down to: given enough time would people find practical counters to phoenix and take her down a notch, or would she stay at the top even though more and more theory fighters come up with counters. And yeah we’ll never know the answer because of UMvC3 >_<. Honestly I think you could take either side with this one, we'll simply never know.
It’s funny. I’m reading the Third Strike review thread on SRK and it all sounds so familiar. In regards to whether or not it should have been rebalanced, people are arguing that you should take the time to figure out how to beat Yun and Chun instead of crying about it.
The thing that makes me angry about those posts is that you CAN’T beat Yun and Chun. Yeah, you can beat them with Q or Hugo if you are in the top .5 percentile of the game in terms of skill, but Evo results speak for themselves. In the long run, Chun and Yun WILL be the characters that win.
Listening to the 3rd Strike proponents berate those that would like to have seen Yun or Chun nerfed is starting to irritate me. There is nothing “fun” or “worthy” of taking a character who is totally overmatched and learning how to fight a character who is totally overpowered. Yeah, we’ve played Third Strike in tourneys for 12 years with no balancing… because we HAD to. Doesn’t mean because it was a good game as it is.
In this day and age, balance in super important. Especially if we intend to actually have games become mainstream. There’s no way a game like Third Strike would ever fly as a “pro gaming sport” if we only saw two characters ever win.
This is why I think balancing a character like Phoenix is so important. It’s just not the same as it used to be, where learning how to get around Cable was something we HAD to do. Maybe it can be seen as “lazy” to want Phoenix to be patched. But even though Cable is only 4th best in MvC2, he still invalidates 80% of the cast so that they are nigh unusable. So it doesn’t matter that we’ve figured out ways around him with 3 characters. It’s just not good enough.
This doesn’t even have anything to do with anything. Just had to rant about it. Third Strike proponents annoy me to no end.
– James
@jchensor
I’d probably be cool with balance if we weren’t trying to throw in 30+ characters in some games *cough*.
Good point about dealing with Phoenix, Chun Li, etc. being decidedly unfun. I don’t think anyone here is saying she shouldn’t be rebalanced for UMvC3.
Personally i’d be a little curious to see how the game would evolve if everyone were forced to cope with Phoenix for another six months, but that’s gonna happen anyway. And if given the choice, i’d definitely weaken her too. I don’t think anyone here would turn down that opportunity.
In fact, if it wasn’t for UMvC3 being right around the corner, i’m pretty sure Capcom would’ve nerfed her in a patch by now.
I heard SBO was a Yun and Yang team taking SF4? Well, either way, don’t care about that. How about that Super Turbo? I would never have imagined ShootingD being so outspoken lol. Such a fun team they had, Ryu/Dee Jay/Fei Long.