Casuals are a word for clothing, not tournaments. - DSR, SPF2, youtube

DarkStalkers Resurrection Double Elimination 07/07/2013

Great overall bracket despite the knowledge handicap most of us have for this game. Even since the updated release for this I couldn't find the usual colors I want to pick for Morrigan until the final match, if that gives you an idea of how little I've put into the game. (Which is Mid Kick for the more saturated purple / green palette by the way, hopefully I remember it now haha.)

One of the hilarious things about the newish age of gaming are the stalker-ish notifications when people show up online. We were playing on the stage "Fetus of god," when fellow SF4 player "Deformed_Fetuss," popped on PSN while we were doing the bracket. Fate truly conspired to make the following screenshot a reality lol:

Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Double Elimination 07/07/2013

Another game to file under "keep practicing!!" is this bracket for Puzzle Fighter. While the game is super simple (we didn't even need to do button checks!) this is more 80% player matchups and 20% character in regards to how your gem pattern will fall down on the other side. I really wish we had a player side camera capture some of the later matches, believe me when I say they were hype. The players in the Fighting Game Community take everything seriously, including the matches without prizes or trophies.

Something else to take away from this bracket is the 20% character matchups still have an impact though, I think my standby choice for Chun-Li didn't do me any favors as opposed to who else chose Hsien-Ko. Other characters fell just as hard too. The proof are the numbers, seriously, nerf Hsien-Ko lol:

I was very very glad to be able to record these as they happened live rather than depending on netplay to do so. Every so often I catch myself wondering how "serious," I am about playing fighting games and capturing fighting game footage, and while I've tried to record matches previously, either the technology wasn't readily available to me at the time, or the learning curve to successfully edit matches was pretty steep. These brackets also mark a step further for me with regards to editing, and have been better compressed to accommodate normal and mobile YouTube. The filesize for these have been more on target with what I had in mind for awhile now (raw captures ~200-800 MB, compressed edits: 45-150 MB) with minimal artifacting. If anyone's had problems with my previous videos before now, that should be remedied after this point.

It's a bit strange reflecting on these videos now, EVO happened this weekend and while these videos are only 8 days old it feels like they're ancient history now. I sadly was only able to watch EVO via streams but already I want to do many things differently, or have them be more improved than they have been in the past. The compression marker is only the beginning for me, and I can't let 'life' or 'time' lock my improvement down.

Plate spinning - Youtube, SFxT, SSF4AE, DSR, TTT2

Guile Theme Comebacks #4

My only regret about this installment is that Sakura's theme isn't as widley remixed / redone as much as Guiles theme. It would also ruin the meme-ish quality of of these style videos. I'm doubly glad to have picked up Sakura now because before I did I only had the Darkstalkers Resurrection and Super Turbo match for this.
I'll keep the apologies about not posting to a minimum. Much of this is resultant content of 1) Picking up Sakura in AE and SFxT. 2) Attempts to make a newer Replay/Review but with delays on research. 3) Trying to break any plateaus I'm on skillwise for the stuff I play. 4) Other stuff like the stick project I've been working on for months, and have no good excuse for its delay.

SFxT Kuma Megaton Claw Uncounterable?

I've been putting this video in front of other people on the internet to figure out just wtf is going on with this move of Kumas, and why his melee move is busting through counters. I was hoping I'd find a quick answer but I've heard everything from it being considered a projectile, to having airborne frames. I was ready to cry to the heavens that this was a glitch and I could cross off a personal achievement of being an amateur bug-hunter. Perhaps next major fighting game release...

SFxT mrojthe1 (Nina x Christie) vs TSK Hikaru (Cammy x Chun Li)

This fight was so much fun to play. If you had an 'ideal,' match that would exemplify what the creators were going for in SFxT, I think this would be really close to what they want players to experience. Massive meter burns, pandoras, dinosaurs and crazy stuff all over. It's too bad all the nuttiness takes a back seat to all the baggage this game carries.

SFxT totty63 (Kazuya x Ken) vs TSK Hikaru (Sakura x Lili)

I try hard to refrain from gg-no-re-ing / taking my points and running after this match. However this was the final match of the evening and it really couldn't get much better/luckier than this for me considering I'm back on the decline again in ranked points. I'm really enjoying the more complete swap cancel (Lili, Sakura, Lili again) you see at 0:21. It's scaled to hell and back because of the launchers but being able to re-order who I need in the fight like that was necessary and awesome. The EX counter that Lili has at ~2:28 is amazing too, it covers more offensive reads like this if the opponent is likely to go ham after a knockdown, especially if I'm low on health like that with Lili. I shouldn't rely on it too much though, I've tried and failed to raw tag in after the counter, and the move is just too long to swap in my other character. It doesn't push the opponent far enough, nor cause a hard knockdown to safely raw tag like an alpha counter would.

I started an art project for a stick mod sometime in March and I'm nearly done with it. I'm more angry at myself for not keeping up with it all this time, especially since I'm nearly hours away from completing it. So much for having it done by my birthday in April. I've taken a daily hour-allotted approach to it now considering it's at a point where I'm dealing with mere pixel widths on a canvas that is at least a thousand times bigger than the detail stuff I'm trying to cram out and be done with. I really can't just let Life and whatever else just body the momentum that creative things like this require anymore. 

~Hikaru.

Days gone by and days ahead. -SF4, Taisenkai, YouTube

Taisenkai Fight Card

If you haven't seen the new show, please do check it out. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out, especially for the higher level of interactivity and discussion we're having with the show. I'm not giving up on Replay/Review at all, but overall Taisenkai Fight Card has offered more dynamic avenues to explore, and some better / current 'take home,' lessons for me as a player.

Older Taisenkai Events

It is amazing where your data ends up going after losing 2 computers and shuffling hard drives. It wasn't six months ago I was talking to @Surrealiumum about these videos, then promptly losing track of the folder again (go me). If I were to be 'shoulda/coulda/woulda,' about this set of videos, is that I wish I were more on top of match recording technology / documentation / formal tournament structure.

At the time of these videos we were still recording off a PS2 with an SD video capture device. After the release of the next generation of fighters both the console and my display upgraded, but not my recording stuff. Additionally, even though it's SD quality, the setup was probably unnecessarily ghetto to the point of picture degradation, you'll notice a slight purple tinge on the captured footage. I hadn't even seen many pro-level tournaments when we had these events, but I always wanted to have like documentation / match recording. Equipment-wise now, I'm still short cameras and a mixing board, thankfully now at least I'm not working against my own technical ability or hard space.

In all seriousness, major shoutouts to everyone who attended these older events, even with what little I have recorded / documented, the events were a blast and these videos and other photos don't do those times justice.

Character Amnesia

Leading up to, and after my matches for Fight Card Ep 01 I was a bit tired of Cammy. For a change of pace I fought some matches with Sakura instead and for whatever reasons the matches felt way more fun / easier. Partially because the pressure was off of me now for the recorded fights, but more to the point I feel like I regained a fair amount of memory to actually play her again. While I lose the match with TimeAppl3, the combo / reset that happens at ~1:50 felt almost gdlk. I don't taunt in my matches but I felt like that was necessary after that combo. I still have a lot of improvement to go with Cammy as a sub character, but I'm sure glad to have my Sakura tech back now.
I meant to shamelessly post these sooner, but these came forth from that space back in February.
~Hikaru

"Video concentrate from red ripe tomatoes and natural flavoring," - YouTube, SF4, SFxT

Replay / Review Episode 4
I've missed video editing so it felt pretty awesome to come back to some familiar territory. Like the video states, I've been experiencing a rather large rough and longish losing streak from about October to January. The "Yakety Sax" montage at the end of the video is summary attempt at what's happened. (If I included all of my blowups I'd probably have exceeded my upload limit, but moving on...) I don't think I ever found the answer to 'replicating,' the best of mindset for fighting games, as much as I'd like to romanticize that it's a Jedi-like approach, I'm very likely mistaking "reaching out with my feelings," for crappy autopiloting.

Guile Theme Comebacks #2

Not sure how I missed posting about this, but as the title says it's another installment of Guile Theme Comebacks / Trollbacks.

Now we're thinking in memes

Another one of my resolutions for 2013 is an attempt to reduce meme-talk. My rule is: if I'm not going to make an image macro of the meme I am saying, then I shouldn't make a meme-reference. If I am going to make a macro out of it, I should do it and be done with it. 

The Uncertain Future

I caught a thought-provoking episode of The Fray this week. Much of the discussion had to do with the future of arcades, models of business and sponsorship in the Fighting Game Community. Anyone that's watched a stream, is thinking about competing, or wanting to do something more than stream monster the chat should listen.

But what had me stop (playing ranked matches) and actually listen, was the was the section about the importance of creator driven content at the last part of the show. I've been kicking around the stuff I've been making/posting. I've enjoyed the 'exploratory,' process that Replay / Review has been, but I still feel like it's been lacking. The prospect of changing focus has been truthfully, unwelcome. But hopefully I can refine what I want to do and have the result be something a bit more unique.

~Eienhikaru