Super Smash Bros Ultimate

So the new Smash Bros came has been out for a little over a week. Its one of the greatest games I've ever played. A few months ago I was reading more than gaming but now I'm back gaming a lot, due in part to this game. Things have changed. This game is amazing. I'm going to copy a quote that I saw on the back of the Final Fantasy 7 Greatest Hits edition for Playstation back when I was in middle school: Quite possibly the greatest game ever made. The same could be said for Smash Ultimate. 

The freaking roster in this game is insane. There are 74 playable characters in this game. Which says to me that there's no way they can balance this game. Balancing is the process the developers do to make sure no characters are better or worse than others. I don't think there's any real cohesive way to do that in a game with almost 80 characters. But I ain't complaining! 

All the main heroes and villains are here: Mario, Bowser, Link, Samus, Ness, Kirby, Yoshi. And then there are tons of new characters too: Inkling, Ridley, Simon Belmont, Dark Samus, Chrom, Ken. Simply because of the 74 characters you can never get bored. If you lose with your best character you still have 73 other ones to try against your opponent, with endless possibilities with your combos. I play a lot of Ridley right now but I've also been playing a lot of Fox. 

The gameplay is your bread and butter smash. However, the physics in Ultimate actually seems a bit faster than its predecessor, Smash 4.  Perfect pivots seem easier to do. Characters run faster. Slow characters don't seem as slow as Smash 4. In Smash 4 Gannondorf seemed like an elephant. In Ultimate he's more like a rhino. The combos from the old games still work in this game and the strategy remains the same; knock your opponent off the stage and 1) KO them with an attack or 2) edge guard them so they can't make it back to the stage, resulting in them falling to their death. 

My friend's best character is Yoshi and he wins against me using the same tactics from Smash 4, usually a spike off the ledge. Some characters get new moves too. For example, Kirby got his fireball dash attack from Melee (Smash's Gamecube version). Using combinations of old strategies from the classic games and new moves from here you can create interesting new strategies and ways to play. Nintendo has made an art form out of kicking tail. 

The soundtrack to this game is pure bliss. It contains mostly every song from mostly every famous Nintendo game. You can change the music on every stage. The music grows on you. Once you play the game for about a week you start to memorize the music and it gets stuck inside your head (my experience). However, the music is so good here that I can hardly be upset, this music is great! 

There's only one bad thing I can say about Smash Ultimate. Its just the fact that you can clearly tell that Nintendo doesn't put much effort into their online systems. Sure, the online experience is 'free', but Nintendo's free means laggy servers. You can't play Smash Ultimate four players online because the game will lag and 'break' (lag so hard you can't do anything). 

Not only that but I've also heard bad lag stories with people even using the wired connection over wireless. This is 2018, wireless gaming is a norm. The fact that Nintendo can't get this right is a little pathetic. Yes, I'm being harsh. But you see, I'm a connoisseur who's been playing Smash since 64 days in grammar school. 

But that's not all. "The matchmaking process was further criticized for making it difficult for friends to join matches over random players, and not allowing multiple local players to join in online matches. Fans of the series had complained so much on Ultimate's Reddit page that the administrators forwarded all complaints to a separate thread." (wiki) 

But despite those negatives the positives overflow here. This game is so great that I've been playing it nonstop since December 9, when my friend got it. Because he has a Switch and I don't, I can only play it at his house. Even after playing it many hours almost two weeks straight, I don't feel bored. This game has a very good new car smell, so to speak. Its captured the zeitgeist, a moment forever trapped in time, in 2018, a golden age of video gaming. As a hardcore Smash 4 player who went to tournaments, I look forward to continuing my Smash tournament runs in this game. And although I'm too broke too afford a Switch this holiday season, I'll eventually get a Switch when the price goes down, and I'll own this fantastic work of art. 

You done did good Nintendo.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite Revealed

So we've all heard about it and seen the trailer. There's going to be a new Marvel Vs. Capcom game called Infinite. If you haven't seen it check it out here. In the gameplay trailer you can see Iron Man and Captain Marvel squaring off against Megaman (X) and Ryu. They do some cool combos and show off the power of the Infinity Stones, which will be featured in the game. The Infinity Stones are these gems that give the users God-like powers. They're from the Marvel universe and they're important in the comics as well as the movies. Thanos has like five of those suckers.

"Captain Marvel has the time stone, which gives her the ability to dodge attacks, while Ryu has the power stone, which bathes him in a pink light and makes his punches even punchier." (Kotaku)  So these different stones will give them different abilities to turn the tide of battle.

The game has more of a straight Street Fighter feel by the looks of it rather than a Marvel Vs. Capcom play-style. Marvel Vs. Capcom is supposed to be more like a flurry cluster of crazy attacks and combos but this looks more paced and balanced-like Street Fighter V. The matches will be played 2v2 and there won't be assist attacks or combos where other characters can do an extra attack.

I am a huge Marvel Vs. Capcom fan  but I am a little disappointed by many aspects of the game already. For one thing we know for a fact there won't be any X-men characters because of licensing issues. So that tells me already that they're going to focus more on Street Fighter, Capcom, and other non X-men related Marvel characters. Also, there's the fact that they've changed it from 3v3 in Mvc3 and 2 to now only 2v2. I prefer the triple comp teams that can be made, it adds a lot of spice and variety to the series. Lastly, the fact that there's going to be no assists in the game pretty much means its going to be a straight up normal fighting game. However, I could be wrong. It could be great!    

Its due to be released sometime late next year on pc, xbox 1, and ps4. 

Smash 4 player Abadango signed to Luminosity Gaming

Pro Smash 4 player Yuta "Abadango" Kawamura has signed to Luminosity Games. This was heard from an esports organization the other night. This news comes in the middle of the Big House 6 tournament that was went on in Michigan. It appears that Super Smash Bros players are getting signed by pro gaming teams left and right.

Is this the hype of Smash 4 finally hitting the masses and people love the game and want to see it bigger as an esport? I think so. It's pretty much the best fighting game I've ever played. I've played all iterations growing up but I think Smash 4 is just far out. I used to go to a lot of Smash 4 tournaments but I haven't been to a tourney in a super long time. I plan on changing that soon. But that's another story...

These pro Smash players are getting signed everywhere now.

"Just over a week ago, the recently formed BOXR, founded by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive commentator Mohan “launders” Govindasamy, signed Super Smash Bros. Melee player Julian “Zhu” Zhuand. Prior to that, James ‘Duck’ Ma was picked up by Denial eSports last August, and Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman joined Echo Fox, NBA player Rick Fox’s esports organization, back in May. Not to be outdone, G2 eSports went on to sign their own Melee pro with Weston “Westballz” Dennis being added to the organization in July." (Kotaku)

Abadango is an Smash veteran who came up in the Brawl era. He started off as a Wario main but then switched to Pac-Man, Metaknight, and Megaman in Smash 4. After patches 1.1.3 and 1.1.5 he found an epic Mewtwo style. Mewtwo's buffs weren't understand before he came along.

He won a big tournament earlier this year at Pound 2016. He's currently the 5th best Smash 4 player according to the ratings.

Luminosity Gaming’s founder, Steve Maida, said:

“We have always had our eye on the FGC community, and have been actively looking at players and possibilities in the scene. After meeting with Abadango, getting to know him and his history within the competitive scene, it was clear that he was someone we wanted on Luminosity. This is just the beginning of our journey into FGC and there is surely more to come. The community is unlike any other in gaming and one we hope to be a welcomed, contributing member of for years to come!” (Kotaku)

This North American esports organization also has Overwatch, League of Legends, and Hearthstone teams. Their CS GO team won the ESL ESEA Pro League Season Three finals-earning $200,000.

Smash 4 is finally getting professionalized. We knew that you could win tournaments and make money by defeating everybody. But to actually make a full time career of it is hard to do. I have many friends who all play Smash and a lot of them try to do something in the gaming industry. Some are great players who are trying to go pro or semi-pro, artists, casters, technicians, TO's (tournament organizers), and then some of them are like me-people who play for the love of the game but wants to keep getting better and experiencing more of the tournament environment.

Everybody wants to do something based around competitive smash. It's one of the most beloved games in SoCal and around the world. I think because of all these signings and esports associations the game will development into a more interesting meta as well as make the game more respectable in the fighting game community.

I'm pretty glad to hear this. I still love playing Smash 4 with my friends. We just played today. I rapid fire picked Cloud and my friend was all like,"Everybody has a pocket cloud..." And I was like,"Heh. Yep."

Funny

Fire and Dice sm4sh tournament, The road to Evo edition

So today I finally made a return back to tournaments after a hiatus. That was because of work. I usually never get Thursdays off but today I was finally able to make it. It was a great experience and I even played well. I've gotten so much better at the game even though I haven't been to any tournaments for a while and I don't get to train with anybody really good. My only training was an all night session I had on For Glory (the online mode), which is sort of frowned upon in the tournament community because they all think its bad because it trains you into playing with lag. There's my friends I hang out with on the regular but lately we haven't been playing smash. Instead, we've been going out to the beach, working out, playing YuGiOh!, and working our asses off to make money.

I got to the venue pretty early before doubles (2v2 matches) and there was already a good amount of people there. I started playing friendlies with this random guy with long hair and it turned out to be awesome. I got bodied sometimes but other times I completely wrecked him. Very even. He had a strong Ryu, that's for sure. Way more people showed up and eventually we found out there was like sixty people that signed up for singles. Needless to say, there wasn't any friendlies going on until late in the evening when a lot of people left. This tournament wasn't completely stacked but there was the usual PR (power ranked) Socal players like K9SBruce (Sheik), S2H (Metaknight), Aphro (Bayonetta), Zenyou (Mario), Rich Brown (Mewtwo), Zork (Bowser), and Nicko (Shulk).

I got called to play my first set right away once singles started. I played some young guy that went Kirby. He had good spacing but I overpowered him with Bayonetta. He switched to Robin and it was super close. I thought I was going to lose but he sd'd (suicide death). However, it was so close that he might've lost anyways. Plus, I was ready for whatever he had in store if he had won. It was a pretty clean set for me and I bodied his Kirby. It was great! I felt like I had more matchup knowledge than he did against Robin because one of my best friends has a super good Robin.

After some waiting I went to sit down against my next opponent. K9SBruce. One of the best Sheiks in Socal. However, he went Diddy against me. But he didn't hold back whatsoever. He was getting me in so many linked chain combos it was ridiculous. I lost fast as Bayonetta. Game two I switched to Fox and gave it a go. At first I was getting in a lot of good hits and some short chains. I even taunted! On accident of course lol. I lost but I went down fighting. I had him well over 100% which to me is an accomplishment saying since I'm out of practice and I was going against one of the best players in the area. The best part of playing K9 is that he gave me some great advice. What a guy! Later on I watched him play more of his tournament matches but he didn't do so hot today. Part of it I feel is that the nerfs hit Shiek hard but another part of it is that some players have to be "really feeling it" to play well and I think he's one of those players.

After more waiting around I played my last set against a Samus player. Game one he outplayed me but I still played well. Game two I played better but I sd'd after getting an early kill on him. He started to wreck me hard but then I figured out his style and adapted. We were both well over 100% but he got off a clutch charge shot that finished me off. I was a little upset because if I didn't sd I know I would've taken it to game three. But as the smashers say,"we take those".

Also, I almost got the Bayonetta zero-death combo on him where you take them over the top of the stage and kill them. Close but no cigar. This guy was like the first guy I played. He was a young guy that was good but probably not more experienced than me when it comes to tournaments. If only I didn't sd. Oh well. I can't see it as a bad thing because I almost brought it back after killing myself. It shows that I've improved despite not having good training partners. Kind of nice.

After that I got some Subway, came back to the venue, and watched some of the high level players duke it out on the big screen. My favorite set was grandfinals which was Zenyou (Mario) vs Nicko (Shulk). It was a great set. At first Nicko was bodying Zenyou with all these great Monado sword hits. Nicko's spacing was amazing and he was doing all these short hop fairs and nairs. It was so cool to see someone play Shulk at such a high level. However, Zenyou adapted. He started pulling off these amazing Mario chainlink combos that usually ended with Mario's up-B coin jump attack, even getting the final KO with it. Although Nicko lost the set he went down fighting, rightfully earning that second place finish.

I also enjoyed K9 versus Aphro. I'm a big fan of Aphro mostly because he plays Bayonetta and he's one of the better Bayo's in Socal. He has an interesting style that doesn't rely on the zero-death combo stuff or divekick. Instead, he relies more on spacing and a lot of backairs for his KO's.

Rich Brown (Mewtwo) had some great games versus Nicko (Shulk). They had a pretty good set where I thought Rich was going to take it but then Nicko switched from Marth to Shulk and it was like a whole different ball game. That was a pretty fun to see. 

After a bit I got to play a few more friendlies. Won some, lost some. It was a great time overall and it was great seeing all my sm4sh friends that I haven't seen in like two months because I've been at work on Thursdays. I might consider trying to get Thursdays off on a permanent basis to get back in the tournament scene like I was earlier this year. Something to figure out for the future. I look forward to doing better at the next one I attend. Here are the top players placements.

1st - ATRAKT | Zenyou [Mario]
2nd - FAD | Nicko [Shulk/Marth]
3rd - eM | Aphro [Bayonetta/Rosalina]
4th - NIPS | K9sbruce [Sheik/Diddy]
5th - PG FAD | Zan [Toon Link]
5th - 2S | SM [Corrin/Ike]
7th - A2 | Dynamo [Sheik]
7th - NxT JP | SoCalGohan [Mario]

That's all for now. Watch this space.

Vacation/Pokken Tournament

     

     Hey, how are you all doing? Life is good. Happy Easter and all that Jesus Christ jazz. I'm currently on vacation out on the ocean in this place called Cayucos here in California. Its a family vacation with my step-mother, my two brothers, my step-dad, and my step-mom's brothers and sisters (about 11 people all together). Right now I'm writing this at a hotel. Tomorrow we will be moving into a house that we'll be staying at the until April 1st. Things are looking up! I've got the Wii U hooked up and my bros are watching Netflix on this great hotel WiFi. We just came back from a great dinner at this seafood place called Dorn's. I had a seafood combination plate that came with fries, squid, calamari, and fish. It was terrific! I'm having too much fun for my own good. But you may have been wondering why I'm writing this on my vacation. I just want to keep up with the blog and keep it comin' with content. This time I want to focus on Pokken Tournament.
     So I got Pokken Tournament the day it came out, which was back on March 18th. I played the tutorial for a bit but I didn't really like it or understand the way the game played. After playing it with my friends I just got stomped on and still didn't get it. After some time I played the single player mode by myself and I'm finally starting to get it. The game isn't amazing by any means but its not a bad game either. It's somewhere in the middle if you will. My main problem with Pokken is that the roster is just crappy Pokemon that I've a) never heard of or b) don't give too shits about. The roster could've been so much better if a) they put more gen one pokemon in the game or b) put more interesting fighters in there or c) had a rotating roster that you could download like in mobas. They had endless possibility that they could've done with this game to make the roster better but they failed so hard. But I do believe that the game is very well made and plays great for a pokemon fighter, a first for the pokemon series. Namco done did good with this one folks. If I had to give Pokken a rating I would give it an 8 out of 10, which is being fairly generous considering that the combos can be rather generic.
     Also, people are trying desperately to turn Pokken into a tournament fighting game and I think that's just plain wrong. I don't think this game was intended to be a tournament esports game nor do I think it has that kind of potential as a fighter. The combos, as technical and theatrical as they are, are simple stuff that are basically Tekken cop outs. The SoCal Smash community have created a SoCal Pokken community page and there are tournaments all over SoCal for Pokken and I think that's a bit much for a game that just came out and doesn't have that much going for it yet. I might be wrong in the future and Pokken might turn out to become some kind of major esports game but right now I just don't see it. The game just isn't good enough in my opinion. Earlier I said that the game is an 8 but its a hard 8, like getting a C in a super difficult college course. If you have a Wii U you should buy this game just because its the first pokemon fighting game with combos and bad ass looking pokemon when they win a fight. However, I believe that they will make better iterations of this game in the future and/or patch the game until it becomes good. That's all I'll say about this game for the moment. I think it has untapped hidden potential (Gohan anyone?) for the future.
     Lastly, this past Thursday was a cool Fire and Dice smash tournament. I brought my friends along and they had a blast. They played doubles and singles and one of my friends won a set against this Lucario player. It was pretty cool seeing him annihilate this guy with Yoshi. My matches went okay but I didn't win any sets so things definitely could've gone better. I'll get 'em next time!

The competitive fighting game spirit

      This is something I've been thinking about the last couple days, the competitive fighting game spirit. What is it and how does it affect us? I would say its simply the will to win, get better, or just have fun. Everybody takes competitive gaming differently. For example, I aspire to be a great smash 4 player (get top ten at a local tournament) but my friend only cares that he can beat friends and doesn't think he has to go tournaments to prove himself. And a different friend of mine just enjoys playing the game when he gets the chance. I used to play a ton of 2D fighters on Playstation when I was a kid and I was pretty good but it wasn't until I started playing Melee on Gamecube that I became aware of the competitive aspect of gaming. I played my brother and all my friends and got really good at the game.
     Fast forward to today and I'm still a pretty good smasher on the latest version. However, my fighting spirit (ki, stand (ora ora ora ora!), mood, w/e you want to call it) has always been a bit lacking. I'm a very emotional player and that shows in my playing. Once I start to miss attacks and mess up I tend to become predictable and almost throw the match. Its happened to me countless times and I've got to find a way around it and/or just change. I don't like losing but it has occurred to me that sometimes I won't win unless I lose a lot first. It sounds stupid but not everybody started out being a great smash player. I just started playing Smash on Wii U in September 2015 so I can say that I've still got a lot of time and effort to put into the game before I can really consider myself 'good', and by good I mean tournament viable and able to take out good players in bracket. But yeah, Mew2King (pro smash player) didn't start off as a Smash god, and in smash 4 he definitely didn't start out being so great. It wasn't until recently when Cloud came out as dlc (downloadable content) did he really found his place in the big leagues with the likes of ZeRo and Nairo (other pros, the first and second best players).
      Its always hard not to be salty after I lose a match. I especially get upset when I lose to people online because they usually leave right away afterwards (can't get revenge) or they win because of lag (crappy Nintendo servers). I'm working on not taking it seriously and learning from my mistakes but it's easier said than done. The one thing that helps me from putting salt in the wound is the realization that I love playing the game. Just the mere love for the game can change your outlook on why you are playing, competing, and putting so much time into it. If you don't love it then what's the point?
     Also, I like the social aspect of being apart of the smash community. I know when every single tournament is happening because I'm in the SoCal smash page on Facebook and I know of all the players-big and small. In addition, I've met tons of cool new friends through tournaments at Fire and Dice. Meeting and playing against all these people has made me a better player, giving me different match-ups to learn and play styles to get used to.
     The one thing I would say that I need to work on in the future is to just remember that it's just a game. At the end of the day I'm playing a game that I enjoy playing. Nobody can change the fact that you're just there to have fun. If you're having fun then you've already won really. I know that sounds a bit daft but its the truth. That's the way I see tournaments. I go to a local, pay up $10, and get some great unlimited entertainment for the rest of the night. It isn't easy getting into a competitive fighting game that has like 56 characters and a ton of match-up knowledge but once you're in, you're set for life baby. Nothing compares to being apart of a great fighting game community. It will be some time before I really have that competitive mindset down for smash. Often times I'll go into a match worrying about whether I win or lose, and mid-match I just don't switch it up enough to compete with a good player from SoCal. Also, I'm still trying to find the best characters that I should use. I've got a long way to go as a player in the competitive scene but I'm already happy as a player. A year ago I didn't even know about tournaments for smash and I'd never gone to a gaming tournament ever before. You could say that smash changed my life. Lol, but seriously its been a blast!

"If you want to learn how to talk to lady, ask your mum." -Bayonetta
      

Update 3.0

      Things have been good lately. You might even say great. I've been getting fewer hours at work these last two weeks but I've been using that free time wisely, getting in some great guitar practice. I'm back on the guitar grind working on jazz standards and improvising. It's been fun. Today I was working on Wes Montgomery's Four on Six. I can solo through the changes pretty well on that tune. I've also been watching a ton of anime, sleeping a lot, and just relaxing in general, sometimes even hanging out with my buddies. Life has been so good! This past Saturday I went to a fighting game event at CSUN (local college) where we played Smash 4, Blazblue, and Street Fighter V all night. It was a great night and some of the guys that go to the tournaments at Fire and Dice were there. I got to show off my skills with Bayonetta and I was able to dominate some people that were there on a big screen classroom projector. I would say that I've definitely gotten better as a player, especially my spacing and my neutral in particular but there are still people who are just more experienced than me. Meaning they've just played the game longer than I have and they know the ins and outs of more characters than I do. There were some guys there who were super good with like every character, it was cool to see. I'm more of a two main characters type of guy. If my Bayonetta doesn't stand a chance than most likely my Zero Suit Samus will probably lose and I'm more the type of guy to stick to my guns and just play the same character I tried to fight you with first. It was a great event! I just randomly hit up the guy organizing the event on Facebook and asked him for a ride, and lo and behold I got a ride! It all worked out because he doesn't live too far away from me. He's become a friend of mine that I look forward to hanging out with more in the future.
     I'm looking forward to the the end of this month in particular because on the 18th Pokken Tournament comes out and also I'm going on vacation with my family out on the ocean. I'm going to bring my Wii U so I can practice smash when I'm not relaxing out on the beach. I've been getting in some good use of my Ipod at work on my breaks listening to a lot of Coltrane. The jazz fire is still within me. I haven't forgotten about music and jazz in particular. In addition, when I went into work yesterday I saw the cover of the new Guitar World magazine and it has Dave Mustaine on the cover. He's really come a long way since Megadeth broke up twice, and now he has a new killer album with a Brazillian guitar virtuoso named Kiko Louriea. A lot of good things are coming up and a lot of good things have been happening recently. I would like to get more hours at work but sometimes its good to just take some time off and chillax. I'm planning on going to the next tournament at Fire and Dice tomorrow so we'll have to see how I do there. My record at smash tournaments is such a bad numbers game (0-2, I've only beaten two people in tournament) but when I think about how I've evolved as a player you can see that I've improved at the game so much that its incredible. At the same time though I need to have those good tournament results otherwise its just all talk. See ya on the next post where I'll tell you all about the tournament. This time I'm going to stay until the end and see who wins. It'll be great to watch the grand finals set. I want to say thank you for reading the blog whoever you are. The blog has reached 7,000 views which is just insane for a no-name music/gaming joe that's just started up their blog. I want to become bigger and reach a wider audience but this is definitely a good start. I'll definitely find ways to keep the blog entertaining and interesting. One of the things I want to get back into is the jazz album review series I used to do back in 2015. That was pretty exciting for me as a jazz fan and I believe I could go far as a music critic. The gaming stuff has taken over most of my writing at the moment but I will write about other stuff as well in the future. Thanks for reading!

Fire and Dice Smash tournament 2/25

     Today was just one of those days where nothing worked out for me. Unfortunately that was what went down in my tournament matches as well. Before the tournament I was hanging out with my friends in the morning and we decided to go to some no name Mexican restaurant that wasn't very good. They messed up my order and then made me pay extra for the mix-up because my meal was more than whatever they gave me. Then later on when I got to Fire and Dice I went to this pizza place called Fretteli's and they messed up my order as well. I ordered a large pizza with bacon and pepperoni and instead they gave me a small pizza with bacon and pepperoni. In the end I guess it was ok because they decided to give me the small pizza for free and then make me my large pizza as well. I ended up sharing a lot of the extra pizza with my friends and some fellow smashers. This isn't really bad stuff but it really got to me because I was super hungry when I ate at both of those places. To put more salt in the wound, earlier in the morning my friend and I played smash and he's not better than me or anything and I just got bodied super hard, a lot of the time barely losing matches. In the last match he zero to death-ed me with Gannondorf and I just walked off the stage and left the room. I've never been that salty before to do that but there's a first time for everything. Today was just not a good day. But I digress.
      In my first set I played against Jinx, this really good Rosalina player that I saw playing doubles with Aphro. I just got bodied. He played a super campy defensive Rosalina, focusing on punishes. I don't think I played bad against him but I did sd (suicide death) in one of the games. I would say overall my neutral and spacing has gotten much better but there are sometimes when you can't do much against a more skilled player. I was playing Bayonetta in both games. It was a fast 2-0 for him.
     My second set was against Abyss, a random character player. He doesn't really have a main. He's a cool guy and we've talked before but never got to play until today. He played Lucina game one and kept breaking my shield with her side-B sword charge. I kept falling for it and getting shield broken and forward smashed. This happened three times in a row! Needless to say that game was over fast. Game two I switched to Zero Suit Samus and he went Game and Watch. This game was much closer but again, what can I do when my opponent is much more skilled than I am? I'd have to play a perfect game without any mistakes and pull a rabbit out of my hat, which didn't happen unfortunately. In the end it was another quick loss. I lost two sets in the blink of an eye. It was the worst I've ever played smash in tournament ever. I was pretty salty but I still said good game and stuff to the guys.
     My reaction to playing my worst day of smash 4? Just sitting down and taking it all in by playing some friendlies and talking to friends. This didn't help at all because I was in such a bad mood and funk that I just kept losing every game to dumb stuff. I kept doing dumb stuff and getting hit by dumb stuff. Everything was just terribad and I couldn't focus on the game at all. I'm thinking about listening to music when I play at tournaments just so I can calm down and focus. Today just wasn't fun. But there are going to be days like this and I need to accept the fact that people are just better than me at the game and that it might take be months, if not years to surpass them. I consider smash a big part of my life and I want to become good enough to get top ten at Fire and Dice but the more I go, the more I realize that it's becoming insurmountable.
     I watched a few games but I was kind of detached from everything. I saw my friend lose to a Sonic because he sd'd and lost his momentum. My friend Saladin played really well today although he sd'd in a crucial game three. One of my Simi Valley friends beat JeDi using Toon Link. I didn't really watch any of the high level players today but I saw Aphro pull off this sick Bayonetta combo where he took his opponent super high into the top of the stage and killed them. I've gotta learn how to do that if I'm going to seriously play Bayonetta. As far as all the salt goes today, after writing about it and venting I'm honestly not that upset. When I got home I played some matches on For Glory and did pretty well, until I lost a game because I was timed out by a Greninja that just kept running. In the end its just a game and there will always be players striving to be the best. Everybody has bad days. I just have to put in more hard work and effort, and just keep playing the game. Hopefully, I'll be able to take these guys out sooner rather than later. Thanks for reading, peace out. 

Fire Emblem Fates

      This was one hellova week for gamers. We got Street Fighter V, Fire Emblem Fates, and lots of games like the Division going online in beta for all users. I've certainly been enjoying Street Fighter V. Its become one of my favorite games and I actually get the combos and play-style of the game, a first for me in playing Street Fighter or any fighting games other than smash. It's so fun when you finally figure a game out. It's like taking an electronic apart, and messing around with all the parts, and crews and bolts, then you put it back together again.
      Now onto Fire Emblem. FE Fates just came out and there's two different versions; Conquest and Birthright. Conquest is about going with your adopted family and Birthright is about fighting with your real family. Both family's royals all have blood of dragons but you (Corrin, who's also in smash 4) can actually turn into a dragon and fuck shit up. Both families are at war. The real family are cool samurai type warriors and people who have tribes. The adopted family is more of a rich, evil, and war mongering than the other side. I gotta say that upon playing the game for like two hours that its an amazing game. I bought Conquest with a digital download for Birthright half off. So I only spend like $60 for both games, not too shabby. It was interesting because I couldn't just use the digital download code on the eShop. Instead I had to get past Chapter 6 and then go to this area where you can download dlc. I had to put the code in there. Very odd. That means that in order to play Birthright I would have to create a new file and then get past Chapter 6 again and then choose the option to go with my real family. Then the system will recognize that I have Birthright data installed and let me choose that option. Before that option would've been grayed out for me. A little weird that Nintendo's doing it like that but hey it makes you have to play the beginning of the game before you make a decision to play the other side.
      Games like this just aren't made that much anymore. By that I mean great rpg's on handheld devices. This is the first Fire Emblem game that I've ever played so I was new to the whole combat experience. However, I did remember that Fire Emblem on Super Nintendo had this same fighting style mechanic with a square grid and turn-based combat. Basically Nintendo never changed Fire Emblem and its always been a beloved series. I've always liked Fire Emblem as a kid because of Marth and Roy in Melee. Plus I swear that my brother and I had a Fire Emblem game on the Gamecube at one point. This game is like XCOM if it was more like Game of Thrones. The game-play is super tight and the fighting animations look polished on the 3DS. This is probably one of the best looking games on the 3DS. There are a lot of cut scenes in between chapters and you can really see the beauty of the game in those animations. I'm definitely happy with this game and I know I'll be playing it a lot. This might actually get me back into playing my 3DS. Ever since I got my Wii U I've just been playing on that and my PC. It would be cool to get back into playing the 3DS and finishing Xenoblade Chronicles and learning how to play better in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.If you have a 3DS do yourself a favor and buy this game!

Fire and Dice smash tournament 2/18

     Today was a sick smash tournament at Fire and Dice. It was a relatively small crowd this week and there were plenty of setups so I was able to get in a ton of friendlies before singles started. I met this guy named Daybreak (Falco main) from Michigan and he was pretty good. But I was able to beat him a couple times with my Zero Suit Samus. It was pretty good because he's one of those players that places top ten at locals in Michigan. Overall I played really well today although I still went 0 and 2. I can't be too upset because I played well in friendlies and I almost won my second set against my friend Fuzzballjones, a player who is way better than me. What an upset that would've been.
     My first set was against the best player from Simi Valley, DJDemon (Captain Falcon main). This guy just absolutely destroyed me. I haven't felt so helpless in a long time (lol). It was like the first tournament I ever went to and I went up against this guy Sean Pluto (another Falcon main) and he destroyed me in like twenty seconds. This guy beat me even faster than that. I'm exaggerating but he is a really good player. I can see him placing high at Fire and Dice if he keeps coming. His style is just so fast and aggressive that its hard for me to choose options to go for, and then suddenly out of nowhere I'm taking the knee to the face and losing a stock after a few combos. I don't even really know if there was anything I could've done against him that would've helped me. It was one of those sets. I went Zero Suit twice and lost pretty fast. I played him in friendlies before the tournament so I knew what to expect. I had confidence in myself because I've gotten so much better after only just a week of practice but this guy was on another level. This was really the first tournament I played in where I had a lot of confidence in my playing. It helped a lot during the second set.
     The second set was against my friend FuzzballJones. I thought he was going to go Roy so I didn't play Zero Suit because I don't like that match-up. So I went Bayo and he went Corrin. Corrin is his secondary. First game I beat him pretty convincingly. He was just getting hit by all my attacks and I just took the game. Second game he beat me with his Corrin but it was super close. Game three he decided to play Roy. He kept getting hit by pretty much all my attacks and it ended up being a close game with both of us over 100%. It was close but he ended up hitting me with some weird attack that took my jump. However, I do think I could've recovered back to the stage if I used Bayonetta's recovery a little differently. I was suppose to side-B then up-B then side-B again, I think. I'm not really sure but I still feel like I could've made it back to the stage if I had used the recovery in the most effective fashion. I don't know if I would've won but it would've been a big upset to beat Fuzzball because he's a super good player. I had it really close. I'll get him next time! He said that he thought he respected me way too much but honestly I think I've just gotten better at the game. I learned that Bayonetta is one of my strongest characters and that she's perhaps even better than my Zero Suit Samus. I'm not sure if that's true but for now I'm going to play a lot more Bayonetta at tournaments and see how I do.
     Lastly, it was fun watching the high level players duke it out. Grand finals was Zenyou versus K9 (Mario vs Sheik). At first Zenyou looked super good and was annihilating. But eventually K9 came back with a bracket reset and took the tournament. I felt like K9 was winning with the same kill move over and over again but somehow Zenyou kept air dodging and getting killed. I was secretly rooting for Zenyou but I really dig K9's Sheik style as well. Also, K9 versus Ahprho (Sheik vs Bayonetta) was a cool set. I would say that Ahprho is my favorite player that goes to Fire and Dice because he plays the same characters I do and he places high every week. I think that could be me someday if I git gud. I think today he got third. His Bayonetta took out Zork's Bowser and Zork is pretty much the best Bowser around. It was a nice little chill tournament today. I kind of prefer when there's less people because I can focus on the matches and play my best. I played really well today and I'm going to start playing more Bayonetta. I'm looking forward to next week for more tournament action!

SF V Launch Issues

     Street Fighter V launched yesterday and I thought it was going to be a great experience buying my first Street Fighter game on the day of its launch. But things didn't run as smoothly as I expected.
     First of all, the servers were going in and out constantly. One second you're on and the next you're disconnected. They sort of fixed that problem on day two (2/17) but there are other issues at hand. First of all, I can't create a room and invite my friend to play. When I tried creating a room it just kept giving me the same error over and over. Day one it didn't do this so this is a another newer issue that just came up. The other issue is that when I was searching for a match, it didn't find anyone for me to play. My friend told me that he waited a long time but eventually he got into two matches, eventually having to quit because it disconnected him. The other thing that's bad is that there is no story mode. I know story mode shouldn't be that important for a game but I'm new to the Street Fighter scene and I think having some background information on some of the characters would be interesting.
      They have an outline of that in what is in the game now. They have this thing called story mode which is just four fights with each character, with a basic anime style pictures and some text (although they speak too). This seems ok at first but when you realize you dropped $60 on the game it seems like everything done went bad with this game's launch. I'm not surprised because this happens all the time when a game is first launched. I'm sure that by next week all the issues will be sorted out and the game will run like smooth buttttta.
      In terms of the actual game-play the game is top notch. This is probably the best Street Fighter I've ever played other than Street Fighter II Turbo. I think the combos are much easier for me in this game than they were in IV Ultra. Maybe its my fightstick, a Qanba that is totally bad-ass. It's a pro gamer top quality type of fightstick. I'm still trying to learn most of the characters but I can do Ryu's specials no problem and I've got this one really good combo down with Ken. The other characters will take some work getting used to. I'm going to go into practice mode and learn all the specials for all the characters, hopefully that will give me some sort of foundation to learn on. My friend was going to teach me the basics through showing me and talking to me through the headset but since the lobby system doesn't work we haven't been able to play. It'll be more fun once they fix all the issues. This does tend to happen when games are first launched. Unfortunately it seems its turned into a trend.
Lastly, I got invited to a beta for this game called Gigantic, a free to play shooter MOBA coming to pc and xbox one. I'll give it a try because I'm definitely a fan of MOBA's. I'll let you know if they fix SF V. Until then I'll be labbing in training mode.

Street Fighter V

      So we're two days away from Street Fighter V being released. I'm planning on picking it up for PC on Steam. I couldn't get it on any other system because its only on PC and Ps4, and I don't own a ps4. I'm not sure if me or my brother will get an xbone or a ps4. However, fighting games on the PC have always been great fun. At one point I bought Marvel vs Capcom 3 and was really digging into playing fighting games (real fighting games, not smash). Later, I got Street Fighter IV Ultra (these are the xbox 360 versions) and gave that a try. Well, now I'm gonna play Street Fighter V. I hope its much better than IV Ultra was. I'm super hyped for this game and I even bought a fightstick (gaming pad with arcade buttons made for fighting games) just to get more into the actual feel of a fighting game. You really can't play a fighting game made for fightsticks with a regular xbox controller. Its just not the same. Plus the fight-stick is easier to play on than a controller, at least for me.
     A lot of my friends at work are all going to pick it up for ps4 and I'll be able to play with them because sf v is going to be a cross-over server game (ps4 and pc users can fight each other). This will be a first for the franchise and in my opinion will ensure that the game's community never dies. I can't wait till this game comes out! One of my friends said he will even help me out to learn the game and teach me how to play while giving me instructions via headset. It'll be great playing with friends and learning other fighting games other than Smash. I was playing Rivals of Aether and Skullgirls for a while but I haven't played Rivals in a while (since then they've released a new character). Also, I had to give my friend his fight-stick back and I don't like playing Skullgirls without it. I've heard that there's a little controversy in the community about Street Fighter V. Hopefully this one is better than IV. Definitely check this game out. It will be released on February 16.

Smash tourney at FAD 2/11/16

      Today's tournament ended up being hype! In the beginning it was very slow because there were very few setups but later on there were a few more added. I didn't really get to play too many friendlies because of the lack of setups but the friendlies I did play I did so-so in. I played this Mario that beat me in tournament last week and I almost beat him (taking him way beyond 100%). It was cool because a friend that I met through my brother showed up and brought two friends and we ended up hanging out, talking, and playing friendlies. My tournament matches were losses but they were to really good players. I'm proud to say that I played much better against them than I have in the past times we played. I lost to Fox players. There are a lot of Foxes in SoCal.You can check how stacked this tournament was here, take a look at the bracket-http://challonge.com/fad_WE6.
     The first guy I played is this guy Mattman (Fox). He's beaten me in the past but back then he two stocked me. This time I played much better but still lost. I just kept making bad trades, you don't want to trade with Fox as Zero Suit. After he beat me he told me all about how I can improve and what I did wrong. He said the biggest thing I need to work on is my neutral, which I think is what I need work on the most. In all honesty I don't think I played bad against him considering last time he two stocked me doing nothing but up-air shenanigans. This time I at least took a stock both games and at least put in some work with a few combos. Its funny because I was super salty when I lost to him and when I lost the first stock game one I was really upset. First time I've ever been upset at a tournament. I felt extra salty after that set. But it went away after I realized that last time we played I did much worse. I'm improving!
     The second opponent was Fox16, another Fox player. I've lost to him twice in tournament so far but I have taken a game off him with my Samus once in the past. Game one I was playing super well and he was missing all his confirms (missing a lot of up-smash). I feel that when Fox starts missing its easy to punish him and start up combos. I took the first stock game one and I was feeling super confident. Then, he did a back-air and it was tied up. You could say that I choked because even though I had a percent lead, (small as it was) he brought the game back and won. Then game two he switched to Wario and again, it was pretty even first stock. Then he took the first stock and I kind of just fell apart. Its one of my biggest problems in tournament that when I'm playing really well and have a lead I just panic and start going for bad options when I should be playing patient and switching it up. Again though, I can't be upset with losing to Fox16 because he's a great player and I actually played really well against him today. I'm proud of how well I played today but I know I can get better. Those two guys I played today were technically better than me but that doesn't mean that I can't pull a rabbit out of my hat and slay them. That's my plan in the future if we face again, and knowing how many times we've played I know we will play again.
     One of the guys my friend brought was this cool black guy that played Mario. In friendlies he went around beating like ten people in a row before losing. But when it came to his tournament matches he didn't play so well. Its weird how good players lose in a tournament setting but annihilate in friendlies. Maybe it was the nerves that got to him. I feel like he did a lot of random smash attacks and didn't really play much of a neutral game but he made it work so well that it didn't matter.
     Anyways, some of the high level sets were great to watch. My favorite was winners finals-K9SBruce versus Larry Laur (Sheik vs Corrin). Larry went all Corrin this tournament and I think in the end it was the reason why he lost. I really wanted to see his Fox when he was losing to K9. However, there ain't no shame in 2nd place at a local. But its not like Larry played bad or anything, he played great! I think in the end it was 2-2 and K9 won in game five. The crazy thing about it though was that K9 reset from losers, what a comeback! It was a great ending to the tournament and they both played well. At some points it looked like Larry was dancing as Corrin with all the combos he was doing. He made Corrin look a lot better than she actually is. I don't think I'll ever see a Corrin play that well for a long time.
     Then there was Aphro versus K9. That was a fun match-up (Bayonetta versus Sheik). I really dig Aphro's style because he's a Zero Suit main like me and I've been playing Bayonetta pretty much exclusively too. After my matches today I felt like I should have gone Bayonetta considering the fact that I've been playing her nonstop for like two weeks now. Too bad I didn't play her when I lost a match. Maybe I could've brought it back with her because she's still new and people aren't used to her combos and style yet. Also, my Bayo's pretty decent. I've been playing great with her on For Glory and against my friends. I even played a match as her against my friend with a level 9 on his team and I almost won! Haha, but seriously next time I need to bring her out and try my luck. Aphro also played an amazing set versus this young kid that's a friend of mine, named Dynamo (Sheik). It was 2-2 and in game three Aphro was like at 130% and Dynamo had one stock and was at like 60%. Dynamo was close to timing Aphro out (it was at like 22 seconds) but Aphro just got in these up-air combos and just brought the game back. He ended it with an up-smash. It was a pretty sick comeback but he got super lucky that the timer didn't run out and that Dynamo didn't camp him out hard enough.
     Also, there was a great battle with this guy named Exeed (something like that), some guy that came from the Brawl days. He played a good Corrin against Larry but he ended up losing. It was sick seeing a Corrin ditto in tournament. That's a first for me because I don't watch a lot of tournaments. I prefer to see high level players play in person but maybe I'll start tuning into more of the competitive scene from other places and see what their players are like. I know SoCal is one of the best regions. Fire and Dice is such a stacked tournament setting, especially for a player like myself who just started committing myself to the game. Zork, Rich Brown, Aphro, K9, Nicko, Jwest, Zenyou, and CharlieDaKing were all there. It was a great tournament and I look forward to going to more. The guys running the place said next month they are going to start doing tournaments on the weekends, which I am hyped for. They also said they're going to start a points winning system for how many wins you get at the tournaments, you will get your entrance fee paid to go to Evo. Not bad, Fire and Dice. Not bad at all.

Focus on Smash

     Until further notice, the only game I'll be playing seriously (competitively) is Smash. I'm already decent but I have a lot of work to do. I have to put in my 10,000 hours as they say and chip away at it until I've become great. By great I mean that I want to be able to place top ten (at least) at the local I go to. In addition, I want to start going to more local tournaments and trying my luck there. I think if I just keep playing everyday I will improve and just annihilate people in tournament eventually. My practice routine includes a weekly tournament, online with friends, and for glory. I also practice against cpu's and in training mode too. I'm going to focus on playing Zero Suit Samus of course, but also playing Bayonetta. I'm not sure yet if I want to pick her up as a secondary or if I'm just having fun playing as her all the time recently. It's a tough decision but the point can be made that Zero Suit and Bayonetta are very similar in their move-set and play-style, therefore it makes sense for me to play both of them. Don't get me wrong. I won't be completely quitting other games. I'll still play some PC games (on my laptop after work) like Heroes of the Storm and Diablo III but I definitely won't be as much of a PC gamer as I have been. I'm giving all that up for now. It seems like PC gaming takes too much time and console gaming just seems so much more 'natural', if that makes sense. I guess I've turned into a console guy and a Nintendo fanboy! It's been many a winding and twisting roads to have gone from being a PC gamer into a console gamer again. I believe in the end it will be worth it and better for me because I'm better at Smash than I am at PC games and the smash scene is so much more chill than the PC gaming community. I came to Smash 4 super late in the scene, I just got my Wii U in September 2015 and I didn't start going to tournaments until fairly recently. I'm tired of watching great players play on streams and YouTube. I need to be the one playing on there. Who knows maybe I can become good enough to play with a crew or team, or at least get noticed on a stream sometime when I finally become good enough to go toe to toe with great players. Time to 'git gud'!

How I see For Glory

     For Glory is seen as a horrible thing in the Smash community. The main reason for this is that Nintendo's servers can be laggy at times. However, I've had some times where there was very little input lag and it was almost like I was playing against the other player in person. However, no matter how little the lag is, it will always be noticeable and different from fighting person in a lan (local area connection) context (in person). For those of you who don't know For Glory is the online mode in Super Smash Brothers for Wii U. I'm one of the few people that actually loves playing For Glory. Normally I don't play Smash 4 unless I'm with friends but today I decided to hop on and practice some unfamiliar characters on 2v2 For Glory and it was like I just couldn't stop playing. For Glory can be fun if you just bare with the negative aspects of it. Sometimes there are lag spikes that can change the momentum of battle, but it isn't always there.
     For Glory is great for me because I don't always get to make it to tournaments and practice in friendlies against people in person. Also, I can't always play wifi with my friends because I work different schedules from them. My last option is to just play For Glory. I always have players to play with and sometimes I get to face great players in 1v1 matches. One of the best players I've ever played against was a guy (a Ryu named Edwin) I played on For Glory and he actually let me train with him in a ton of matches and I learned a lot from those matches. I guess the best part of For Glory for me is that its endless and I can play anytime I want with no prearranged schedule like training right before a tourney or something. It's just great. Sometimes you end up playing some really good players and it surprises you. People are actually good on For Glory and I bet the Smash pros all play online. Another great thing is that nerves don't really get to you like how they do in a tournament setting. It's very relaxed and if you lose your matches, its all good because these are basically the same thing as friendlies. Although Smash 4 keeps a record of your wins and losses in a records tab, other players don't get to look at it and see how good you actually are. Smash 4 desperately needs a ranking system because sometimes you'll end up going against someone who is a complete beginner, which is rare because the game has been out for a long time. But yeah, there should definitely be some improvements on For Glory mode in the last updates in February.
     For starters, they should create a ranking system where high ranking players get to face off against equal opponents. Then, they should allow players to look at stats of players after the match real quick. That way they know if the player is someone good that they should keep playing, or just leave if they know they won't be able to put up a fight. Basically they should make For Glory like how real fighting games are. That's all I want for an online mode of Smash 4. Nothing fancy. Just something for our efforts for playing the game online. I don't know if you get anything really for winning in tournament mode because I've never even played tournament mode yet. Eventually I'll have to give that a try. I know that a lot of the pro players like to play that mode on streams a lot. So yeah, For Glory ain't all bad. Sometimes the lag is minimal and I have a great time tearing people apart online. It's great when you start beating someone badly in 1v1 and then they try playing their main over and over again, and always losing XD. It's a great time and I can turn it on anytime I want.
     In other news, I'm in the beta for this new first person moba (massive online battle arena) called Paragon. I downloaded it today so I wouldn't have to wait tomorrow because the beta is only going to be open from 6am-6pm. I've missed the first two beta tests just because I was out with friends but this time I'm focused on playing it. It looks stunning and it runs on Unreal Engine 4 engine. I feel like the future of gaming is Unreal Engine 4. Imagine young game creators today getting something like Unreal Engine 4 and just creating some of the best looking games that we've ever seen to date. That's the power of Unreal Engine 4. I'm expecting big things from Paragon, as its a super hyped up game at the moment. Its everywhere online and they want everyone to sign up for the beta. So look out for news about Paragon, it'll be interesting to see if it takes off in the gaming community. Lastly, I'd like to say that I'm going to keep up streaming but I noticed that my twitch page hasn't been getting any views even when I was streaming for multiple days in a row earlier this week. Knowing that makes me feel super discouraged but I'm going to keep it up. Stay updated on my twitter https://twitter.com/fig_land for when I'm live.