tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71968138307080361592024-02-18T22:00:48.368-08:00Miserable Pile of SecretsHenryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10826787550676541006noreply@blogger.comBlogger697125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-29456992156300443122022-12-28T22:59:00.002-08:002022-12-28T22:59:58.313-08:00My "Favorite Final Fantasy" Rankings, 2022 Edition<p>The <a href="https://blog.nicovideo.jp/niconews/182888.html" target="_blank">results of a recent <i>Final Fantasy</i> popularity poll</a>, held in honor of the franchise's 35th anniversary, were being passed around the Internet recently, with most discussion homing in on <i>FFX</i>'s <a href="https://www.thegamer.com/wakka-somehow-japan-second-favourite-final-fantasy-character/" target="_blank">Wakka ranking as voters' second-favorite character</a>. The poll, conducted by Japanese streaming service NicoNico, with a small sample size and clearly influenced by memes of the moment, was no more authoritative than any of the numerous other surveys routinely run by gaming publications and fan forums. But it did remind me that <a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2010/07/distant-worlds.html" target="_blank">my personal rankings have not been updated in over 12 years</a>, during which time I have played a few newer entries, while some of my feelings on older ones may have changed or evolved. I've also decided to do away with separate lists for "story" vs. "systems," acknowledging that one cannot practically separate the experience of the one from the other. Which brings us now to my 2022 edition of "Omega Warzard's Definitive Ranking of Numbered <i>Final Fantasy</i> Games":</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b><i>IV</i></b></li><ul><li><i>Final Fantasy IV</i> is always the one I hold up as the ideal entry point into the series. This is because it exemplifies the qualities I personally have most enjoyed in any <i>Final Fantasy</i>: a well-paced narrative, a dramatic story, and battles that challenge me just enough to give me pride in my victory. The last time I did a ranking, I considered <i>IV</i>'s story dated. It is not deep, but neither do more recent <i>Final Fantasy</i> games feel written for adult audiences, and the layers of convoluted nonsense they have added instead have actually helped <i>IV</i> age better by comparison. The gameplay, at first glance, might also seem the simplest in the series—it's the only <i>Final Fantasy</i> with almost no party customization options—but the satisfaction comes not in augmenting your units into godlike killing machines, but in puzzling out how best to play the hand you've been dealt to overcome the most thoughtfully designed boss battles.</li></ul><li><b><i>IX</i></b></li><ul><li>While earlier games tried to push things forward, <i>IX</i>'s combat deliberately regressed to a simpler form of the ATB system, and in that aspect felt more dated than all the older games. The frequency of the fighting made the journey a bit of a slog, so if you play one of the more modern ports that offers boosters to trivialize or even bypass battles, don't feel too proud to take advantage. Because the rest of the experience is essential—from beginning to end, one of the cleverest and most consistently compelling stories and most lovable casts of characters in any video game. Perhaps the only other negative about the experience is that, because the quality of the writing is so high, you'll feel obligated to play with a guide at all times, for fear of missing out on anything.</li></ul><li><b><i>VII</i></b></li><ul><li><i>VII</i> is a lot closer to the earliest games in the series, both by release date now and in the feel of its gameplay loop, than it is to <i>XIV</i> or <i>XV</i>, or to other modern RPGs. In its own time, both convention and comfort abounded in exploring its dungeons, flying across its overworld, and cutting down foes via its menu-based combat. Yet its world felt like something truly new and original, boldly ambitious in its art direction and subject matter. The story was not merely escapist fantasy, but treated games as a legitimate medium for its creators to earnestly express philosophy and spirituality, albeit it also opened the door to, and itself set one foot in, the pseudophilosophical nonsense that would later pervade and all but sink the JRPG genre.</li></ul><li><b><i>VIII</i></b></li><ul><li>It's less an opinion than a matter of historical fact now that <i>VIII</i>'s torpid narrative was the biggest stumble in the series up to that point. In contrast, its fast-flowing combat, accentuating almost every onscreen action with a timed button press, was the ultimate expression of the ATB system (at least perhaps until <i>FFX-2</i>, which I've never played and which doesn't count). And the journey did wrap up a lot stronger than it began, with the most exhilarating final boss theme and then the most satisfying ending cinematic in the series.</li></ul><li><b><i>VI</i></b></li><ul><li>In hindsight, this was 2D <i>Final Fantasy</i> "Endgame"—the culmination of all that had come before. After <i>IV</i>, the series was the recognized leader in video games as a storytelling medium, and expectations were at a fever pitch for the next step forward. <i>VI</i> more than lived up, with a story that was bigger and writing by far more mature than its predecessors. At least, that's how I would have described the first half. The back half took a huge swing, quite literally wiping out everything that had worked so well up to that point, and it remains, to my mind, one of the great unfulfilled promises in gaming.</li></ul><li><b><i>XIV</i></b></li><ul><li>This is a hard one to rank, since it continues to grow and evolve, with each major expansion almost but not quite a full story unto itself. The current base game, <i>A Realm Reborn</i>, is tedious and uneventful, and would probably rank closer to the bottom of this list. <i>Heavensward</i> (which is as far as I've played) is what earns <i>XIV</i> its place here. It offers possibly the weightiest climax of any <i>Final Fantasy</i>, though it cannot be properly appreciated in a vacuum apart from <i>A Realm Reborn</i>.</li></ul><li><b><i>I</i></b></li><ul><li>Dated, certainly, but still elegant in its simplicity, largely because the original classes were so well and purely defined. No subsequent tank or DPS classes or characters have so wholly embodied their roles as the original warrior and monk respectively. It's fun even just to theorycraft about how different party compositions can be made to work in this game. And if it is perhaps a tad grindy, well, it probably still takes less time to get through than every other entry on this list.</li></ul><li><b><i>V</i></b></li><ul><li>The job system was certainly more robust than ever, and there was great satisfaction to be found in mixing abilities from different classes to yield lethal combinations. But quite a lot of jobs were quite frankly redundant—too much the same as or worse than other jobs. The bloat makes it less accessible than <i>I</i>, and the story, while passable, is fairly generic JRPG, lightyears behind its immediate predecessor's diverse cast of heroes and antiheroes.</li></ul><li><b><i>X</i></b></li><ul><li>The introduction of voice-acted and motion-captured cutscenes was both thrilling and jarring, as Tidus and friends presented as more starkly cartoonish than, ironically, the super-deformed characters I had grown up with. But the story still delivered some signature emotional highs, bolstered by composer Nobuo Uematsu's last major contributions to the series. The battle system was immaculately tuned and strategic, to the point of being exhausting.</li></ul><li><b><i>XV</i></b></li><ul><li>Grand and effectively moody but nonsensical in its plot. The systems and mechanics were too numerous and complex for how unrewarding it felt to ever stray from the main road.</li></ul><li><b><i>II</i></b></li><ul><li>Some later remakes/remasters made the notoriously unbalanced leveling system a lot less grindy. Freed of its punishing aspects, it becomes a serviceable JRPG of its age, with a just compelling enough story, though nothing to warrant a detour but for series completionists.</li></ul><li><b><i>III</i></b></li><ul><li>I played about 20 percent of the 3D remake before hitting a wall. It had some charm, but ultimately felt like a bitter intermediate stage between <i>I</i> and <i>V</i>—less elegant than the former, less flexible than the latter.</li></ul><li><b><i>XII</i></b></li><ul><li>I only sampled a small portion and found it grueling. I do know the characters and story, though not with fondness.</li></ul><li><b><i>XIII</i></b></li><ul><li>I have not played this yet, nor am I very familiar with the characters or story. What I gleaned of it via <i>Final Fantasy Record Keeper</i> seemed senseless and convoluted.</li></ul><li><b><i>XI</i></b></li><ul><li>I will likely never play this archaic MMORPG.</li></ul></ol><p></p>Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-54026971440822407992021-11-14T18:55:00.003-08:002021-11-15T09:54:56.598-08:00The New Old Taylor<p>The venerable (read: old and stale) video game <i>World of Warcraft</i> has in recent years enjoyed some renewed interest, ironically, by releasing a "classic" version that recreated the state of the game circa 2006, prior to all the additions and streamlining introduced in subsequent expansions. Each expansion can be thought of as an era in the game's life, and the prospect of traveling back in time to the first age has proven appealing both to latecomers wishing to experience some storied legacy content for themselves, and also for nostalgic veterans wanting to return to the game as they remember it from its peak. And it's not just a frozen moment in time. The classic version of <i>WoW</i> is now starting to progress through those subsequent eras, so its players may very well get to relive, at an accelerated pace, the entire history of the game, before it ultimately catches up to and converges again with its modern incarnation.</p><p>To be clear, <i>WoW</i> did not pioneer the idea of classic or "progression" versions of games. As it has since its conception, it just copied an existing game and did the same thing with a larger budget to much greater success. And classic versions of <i>WoW</i> specifically were something its players had been requesting for years, and had in fact already created unofficially on their own. But though the concept had been around, it had always perplexed me as, in essence, an exercise in willful regression, whose charm was lost on me. That is, until now that Taylor Swift is essentially doing it in the music industry with her "Taylor's Version" re-recordings of her first six studio albums.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vwp8Ur6tO-8" width="320" youtube-src-id="vwp8Ur6tO-8"></iframe></div><p>Officially, the impetus for the re-recordings was Swift's desire to produce master versions of her back catalog that she would fully own, as a way to get around having to play ball with whomever has possession of the original recordings. With the goal of supplanting the originals, she has kept the re-recordings indistinguishable from them to all but the most scrutinizing ears, which at first would not seem the most artistically exciting prospect for listeners not invested in her ownership saga.</p><p>For the two thus-far-released re-recording albums—<i>Fearless </i>and <i>Red</i>—Swift has seized creative opportunities to dig out of the vault previously unreleased songs from each era. Indeed, even if the re-recorded tracks held no interest, there is enough added material to make each album feel substantial and worthwhile.</p><p>The most publicized addition, actually a bit of both a re-recording and a vault track, has been a 10-minute version of <i>Red</i>'s "All Too Well." Although the original version of the breakup ballad has come to be regarded by many as Swift's magnum opus, I could barely recall it when "All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) (From The Vault)" intriguingly appeared atop my Spotify Release Radar playlist last Friday. I enjoyed Swift's music when <i>Red</i> released in 2012, but not to the extent that I ever purchased any records or listened to an album straight through, so "All Too Well" was easily overlooked as a relative deep cut, compared to high-charting singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," "I Knew You Were Trouble," and "22."</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nJr_8l0AEWE" width="320" youtube-src-id="nJr_8l0AEWE"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Ashamedly, I think my initial reaction to seeing the words "10 Minute Version" was to scoff at the notion of doubling the length of a Taylor Swift song to contrive out of it some pop "Free Bird." But this song IS freaking epic! By around the 4-minute mark, it had humbled me as few works of art ever have. By the end of my first listen, it had cemented for me Swift's place as one of the all-time singer-songwriter stars.<p></p><div>But more than any single new discovery, the real treat of these re-recordings is having an occasion to revisit and reexamine these eras in Swift's career. <i>Fearless</i> was the album that elevated her to mainstream chart-topping superstardom back in 2008, so she has been a force in music for over a decade. She followed that with a string of three albums, including <i>Red</i>, against which one would have to be cognitively on another planet to argue for anyone but her as <i>the</i> artist of the 2010's.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nevertheless, in some circles, it would not be until the surprise mid-pandemic release of the experimental <i>Folklore</i> in 2020 that Swift would produce an indie record cool enough to legitimize her songwriting chops. In the post-<i>Folklore</i> world of enhanced estimation for her as an artist, and apart from any distractions in her public life and persona that might once have motivated a less enlightened generation of critics to want to take her down a peg, now with her back catalog suddenly topping the charts again, the cool kids can finally unironically appreciate the music of those earlier works for what it has always been—be it the impeccable hooks and pop melodies of "You Belong with Me," or the lyrical command and masterful narrative imagery of "All Too Well" that prefigured 2020 Swift.</div><div><br /></div><div>For many longtime fans, meanwhile, these albums represent peak Taylor Swift. We didn't need the reminder, but we're glad for it anyway. And I think I get now why <i>World of Warcraft</i> players wanted a classic version. Even in cases where past content might still have been accessible (just as Swift's back catalog has remained readily available to listen to at any time), it wouldn't have been the same experiencing it through the modern version, where successive generations of shiny new things have rendered the old trivial and obsolete. No, when people share stories of "back in the day," you want to experience it as it actually was back in the day. Most of all, you want to recapture the thrill of when the old was new and exciting, and everybody was talking about it. That's the feeling I get whenever one of these "new old Taylor" releases takes over Spotify, SNL, and every culture and entertainment blog I follow.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, now I wish Swift and other artists as well would start doing this as a regular feature. <i>World of Warcraft</i> has begun to progress the classic version onward through different eras of the game, but it seems likely this will be a cyclical thing, with new doors to the old world opening up for more tours of the past. There will always be people wanting to go back to the original, after all, either because they missed it the last time around, or because the newer stuff just doesn't compare for them. Similarly, after Swift finishes taking us on this journey through her past eras, I would not object to starting it all over again at some point.</div>Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-33254824052483095762020-12-31T22:52:00.007-08:002021-01-05T22:58:29.991-08:00Final Fantasy XIV Online: A Realm Reborn (Square Enix, 2013)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLVZefUE8xuZcCPgE1BWbAjK8yqqmg6ITk6zWyKwYzPV8jL8rLvx4DzCSiFtfnOrVMf5PZDYxJNmppGyU_mIx6nZrAnacMxMkxTVmJXJxBAD5n8yKuZ0ZvUdKBtkTtttTZaYsI3_mZV1P/s560/Final_Fantasy_XIV_A_Realm_Reborn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="560" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLVZefUE8xuZcCPgE1BWbAjK8yqqmg6ITk6zWyKwYzPV8jL8rLvx4DzCSiFtfnOrVMf5PZDYxJNmppGyU_mIx6nZrAnacMxMkxTVmJXJxBAD5n8yKuZ0ZvUdKBtkTtttTZaYsI3_mZV1P/w400-h250/Final_Fantasy_XIV_A_Realm_Reborn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>As the world burns, I am playing <i>Final Fantasy XIV</i>.</p><p>Indeed, for the better part of the year 2020, I played the Square Enix MMORPG—my first MMORPG ever!—almost to the exclusion of all other leisure, the unplanned consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic shutting everything down. My adventure actually began a little before that, however, with a more earnest interest.</p><p>When my online <i>Final Fantasy</i> game of choice, <i><a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2015/04/final-fantasy-record-keeper-dena-square.html">Final Fantasy Record Keeper</a></i>, started including characters from <i>FFXIV</i>, they were strangers to me and most of my fellow nostalgia-baited <i>FFRK </i>players. But the handful of Redditors that existed in the overlap between the two games’ audiences were more than happy to explain at length what Y’shtola and Thancred’s stories were, and invariably they would expound further into full-on impassioned discourses arguing why <i>FFXIV</i>, supposedly every bit as engrossing a story-driven adventure as the favored classics represented in <i>FFRK</i>, was a must-play entry for all longtime series fans. Best of all, most of it could be experienced single-player!</p><p>Having now completed <i>A Realm Reborn</i> (essentially, “Book 1” of <i>FFXIV</i>, not including an earlier version of the game that failed and was shut down) I can say that this MMORPG has so far indeed been a story-driven experience, in the sense that there is a single linear “main scenario” that makes up the bulk of activity in the game (at least until you start shooting for the endgame, which would likely take a non-hardcore player years to reach and also would not be of interest to them anyway). The <i>A Realm Reborn</i> portion of the story is roughly the length of a standard <i>Final Fantasy</i>: about 50 hours for me, though that included a few hours of side quests (most of which I undertook accidentally while figuring out how to differentiate side quests from main quests), some errant wandering, and some “away from keyboard” time (when I would take a mid-session break but leave the game running in the background). And as with any good <i>Final Fantasy</i> of the last three decades, you can proceed almost straight through without any grinding (though you may have to do 2-3 non-story dungeons, along with one set of class and job quests, which are worth doing anyway).</p><p>The active experience of the main scenario, however, bears only superficial resemblance to the single-player <i>Final Fantasy</i> classics. Series veterans longing for a return to the 16-bit glory days may welcome the high fantasy trappings and crystal motifs, but otherwise <i>FFXIV </i>satisfies no better than anything else post-<i>FFXIII </i>in bringing us home. Pitting it against <i>FFXV </i>specifically (<a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2019/10/final-fantasy-xv-square-enix-2016.html">since that was the last <i>Final Fantasy</i> I played</a>), the two differ widely but ultimately trade blows about evenly. <i>A Realm Reborn</i>’s plot is far more comprehensible, which is not to say that it’s straightforward—there are myriad nations and deities to keep track of—but if it ever becomes hard to grasp, it is from the game saying too much rather than too little. The former means I sometimes get names mixed up (e.g. which member of the imperial royal family is which, when none of them have yet appeared on camera). The latter results in me not having any idea how or why Noctis in <i>FFXV </i>arrived at any given moment, nor what the meaning of his next plan is, such as there is one. So <i>FFXIV </i>looks and sounds more like my traditional conception of what a <i>Final Fantasy</i> should be.</p><p>Where <i>A Realm Reborn</i> falls short of expectations for the series is in the drama of the narrative. There is almost no rising action through the entire main scenario. This is why it was so hard initially for me to distinguish the side quests from the main quests: the actions of both felt similarly humdrum and inconsequential. More often than not, even the main quests would simply entail trekking back and forth between the same couple civilized zones within a bland overworld to fetch and/or deliver some MacGuffin. Sometimes the characters sending me on these errands would even acknowledge the tediousness of the tasks, which only aggravated me more. If you know your system is badly designed, then don’t just shrug and perpetuate it. Do better!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqL6u1mQyBDUjS2lEVj8pe4vpXGEjngxVQpTPSZu692WBV4oV3oKqAW9tx1JPL48Bqh1OtJMBMdK9-4exdXY5XRGtOUxpsSATe_tuvGJGdQnY-nGXuQnON3PA_A1VfULV7kjB0Vke9W7v/s1280/ffxiv_arr_1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqL6u1mQyBDUjS2lEVj8pe4vpXGEjngxVQpTPSZu692WBV4oV3oKqAW9tx1JPL48Bqh1OtJMBMdK9-4exdXY5XRGtOUxpsSATe_tuvGJGdQnY-nGXuQnON3PA_A1VfULV7kjB0Vke9W7v/w400-h225/ffxiv_arr_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I kept waiting for my heroic journey to begin in earnest, and there were many false starts—a new character making a grand entrance, or a lengthy cutscene containing some bold speechifying—when I would get excited that events were about to be set in motion, only to be treated to yet another fetch quest. The characters and their speeches almost never amount to anything. To those Redditors who tried to sell me on how awesome Y’shtola and Thancred are, I say it would have been more accurate to sum them up thusly: “These are nobodies.” They barely rate as supporting characters, as their appearances are so brief and sporadic, their contributions to any action or dialogue so trivial. The only consistently significant narrative agents are Minfilia and Alphinaud, supervisory characters who exist to tell you what to do, since the player character does not have a voice to call their own shots. The choice to feature a silent and solitary protagonist is typical of MMORPGs, though fans of the SNES and PS1-era <i>Final Fantasy</i> games may find it a harsh break from the developed leads and party dynamics traditionally associated with the series.</p><p>Potentially more interesting than the main scenario are the class quests, depending on what class you select when creating your character. Technically optional, but required if you want to unlock core skills and abilities for your class, these are short stories that you can intermittently progress through alongside the main scenario. Perhaps because they are smaller in scope, they feel a little more intimate. By the time I completed the class quests for my gladiator character, I knew the supporting characters in that story a lot better than I ever got to know Y’shtola and Thancred through all of <i>A Realm Reborn</i>.</p><p>I think the narrative is further constrained by the persistent nature of the MMORPG world. Since it must be shared among many players who are at different stages of the story, nothing ever seems to change in it, which further undermines any sense of stakes beyond your immediate skirmish. By contrast, one aspect in which <i>FFXV </i>lived up to the <i>Final Fantasy</i> standard was in the grandeur of its set pieces. Looming threats turned to cataclysmic clashes that sometimes permanently altered the landscape. You could feel the end approaching through the darkening of the world, both figurative and literal. The only moments in <i>A Realm Reborn</i> that come close to that epic quality are the very final battles, which also happen to be among the worst moments, because the requirement that you experience them alongside other players creates a situation where randos end up photobombing all over your climax.</p><p>Yes, most of <i>A Realm Reborn</i> can be experienced single-player. Since quests are assigned to individuals and not groups, there is in fact almost no way to even try to work with others to clear the fetch quests together. For most of the main scenario, the other players are just passing through the background of your story, running their own errands or waging their own battles on the overworld. It does break the spell a bit when you’re trying to get through a quest dialogue, and then some dude playing weaver class decides to set down their spinning wheel right behind you to crank out a couple robes. But the fantasy was not that immersive to begin with. The real bubble-burster, for those weaned on the antisocial adventures of Cloud and Squall, and already leery of <i>Final Fantasy</i> going multiplayer, is when it comes time to tackle the dungeons, where players are required to party up with one another.</p><p>Most dungeons in <i>A Realm Reborn</i> are just long caves full of monsters, with a big boss monster at the end. There is no in-game explanation for why you must join forces with other players, only contrived reasons for why Y’shtola and Thancred can’t back you up instead. If your own mute hero is a practical nonentity, the other player characters might as well not exist at all, as far as the story is concerned. Only the most passing mentions are ever made to “your allies,” but nothing is ever said of where they come from or why they are as strong as you, despite your being a supposedly uniquely powerful warrior touched by the gods. So as a baseline, the narrative in most dungeons is thin. From there, points can only be deducted from the experience according to the degree to which the other players disrupt it.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHPeq5X5jREZ4abWIcC-_Fn6PdIIjKmDXGrvlmZxMpRwjPo7nE63QOgoKagMEDjHpK6aqJ0KMc1wiKOhwHgXzBLmEaH9i-oHRKBvw1fsSLpqEH2rl9dwqqeTd5LrAz_XVnjlcRbEfisSEG/s1280/ffxiv_arr_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHPeq5X5jREZ4abWIcC-_Fn6PdIIjKmDXGrvlmZxMpRwjPo7nE63QOgoKagMEDjHpK6aqJ0KMc1wiKOhwHgXzBLmEaH9i-oHRKBvw1fsSLpqEH2rl9dwqqeTd5LrAz_XVnjlcRbEfisSEG/w400-h225/ffxiv_arr_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Truly malicious behavior (e.g. bullying, offensive talk, deliberately sabotaging the group effort, etc.) is not something I have ever personally encountered in <i>FFXIV</i>. The more innocent kind of disruption is when some members of the party simply don’t perform well. They struggle to keep up with a boss, resulting in the entire group dying and having to restart. Sometimes it happens repeatedly, until the flailing player or another member so loses faith in the effort that they quit out, leaving the rest of the group in the lurch. I can’t entirely blame them.</p><p>The main scenario is generally well balanced for a more casual level of player, meaning that most battles can be successfully completed on the first try without ever having to grind for levels or even buy any items or equipment. Losses are almost never due to being underpowered, but rather from being underinformed about the mechanics of a boss’s gimmicks. Even in routine dungeon battles, the amount of briskly updating information to keep track of is absurd to me: health, positions, buffs and debuffs of all allies and enemies; timers telling me when each of my abilities is ready to reuse; who or where enemies are targeting (as marked by glowy shapes on the ground). Bosses add further mechanics that you might be seeing for the first time up to that point. There might be objects you have to interact with. Enemy attacks might be telegraphed through obscure text or subtle animations instead of the usual glowy shapes. When glowy shapes do appear, they might mean something different from what you’re used to them meaning. In one fight, a circle signified refuge. In the very next fight, a similar-looking circle was something to steer clear of—unless you were a tank, that is. And these things can change in the middle of a boss fight, so you have to be ready to adjust and adapt.</p><p>This can all quickly become overwhelming if it’s your first time attempting a given dungeon. Some gimmicks I’m convinced are impossible to grasp without having already experienced them once before, and I think that’s intentional to contrive comradeship through knowledge-sharing. The first players to figure out these dungeons can perhaps be thought of as pioneers, and then when they repeat them, they can share their wisdom with any newcomers in the group, and maybe the knowledge continues to get passed down that way. That’s fine in theory, but the strangers I group up with almost never give me any warning about what to expect.</p><p>When playing with strangers, I find that almost nobody ever talks, period. I get it, because I don’t talk either. It’s not what I play <i>Final Fantasy</i> for. But sometimes the failure to communicate is not a matter of being asocial. The worst players I’ve grouped with have been the veterans playing a dungeon for the umpteenth time, who would gladly disregard your presence, as they try to rush through as quickly as they can. The final dungeons of <i>A Realm Reborn</i> have been fairly ruined by the mentality of these players speeding through without giving first-timers the chance to really savor the climactic battles. (The battles probably also need to be rebalanced at some point, as the bosses are too weak now even for casual playthroughs.) But this is a problem that the designers created, and it shouldn’t be the players’ responsibility to sort it out on their own. This is also a problem, mind you, that simply doesn’t exist in the single-player <i>Final Fantasy</i> games I favor.</p><p>The multiplayer experience I’ve described is of playing in “pick-up groups” with strangers, since that’s nearly the only option when on the free trial. If you can manage to group with friends or family members, then the experience is certainly different. The pressure to keep pace with strangers’ unspoken expectations falls away, as does the diplomatic cautiousness of whether to give advice to someone who hasn’t asked for help but needs it. What’s left is a decent cooperative game that reminds me a little of the joys of questing with my siblings back in the day in <i><a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2008/11/essentials-4-final-fantasy-crystal.html">Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2013/03/dragon-quest-ix-sentinels-of-starry.html">Dragon Quest IX</a></i>, albeit without the full immersive context of being able to do anything together other than fight. At least the complexities of the combat actually become a boon, as they make for a less monotonous experience than those games.</p><p>At its best then, what <i>FFXIV </i>offers is something completely different from what I would traditionally seek from a <i>Final Fantasy</i> game, but it can be fun, if treated as a cooperative experience with friends. The fetch quest material in between each dungeon, at least in <i>A Realm Reborn</i>, is kind of a drag, but I have heard that the story picks up quite a bit in the next installment, <i>Heavensward</i>. I’m not sure all of my issues—silent protagonist, thin supporting cast, rando photobombers—can ever be resolved within <i>FFXIV</i>'s MMORPG framework, but I’ll stick with the free trial for a while longer, and perhaps report back in a year on my <i>Heavensward </i>experience.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiJuLj0aryFa9JgewjCjj46BMXmGAIXefUffr3_16pnILD5AqtVyyD-PjmUf1vgaM72E5Y1moXMcNAIOwtCpJrhNNYk1ORVxHuV2AYX7TXF2XKMlxVQoIimxAcgrlTn7K5WKWc80dAV0L2/s1440/ffxiv_arr_completion.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiJuLj0aryFa9JgewjCjj46BMXmGAIXefUffr3_16pnILD5AqtVyyD-PjmUf1vgaM72E5Y1moXMcNAIOwtCpJrhNNYk1ORVxHuV2AYX7TXF2XKMlxVQoIimxAcgrlTn7K5WKWc80dAV0L2/w400-h225/ffxiv_arr_completion.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-52893371575300381562019-10-20T23:57:00.000-07:002019-10-21T20:05:11.712-07:00Final Fantasy XV (Square Enix, 2016)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8Dv47S8F-KESiMiFKJpR-_xi07dd8t8SNucIkx3omI9PXw36iks3Fdw0ycJ8Ojh0sbJfN4kbJleyOFnst3yWCGBd8aWokl9HPD8a88M0MbmxLebQRTqHuKPnTUSX7v7QdzV6ABTl9yng/s1600/Final_Fantasy_XV_cover_jp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1380" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8Dv47S8F-KESiMiFKJpR-_xi07dd8t8SNucIkx3omI9PXw36iks3Fdw0ycJ8Ojh0sbJfN4kbJleyOFnst3yWCGBd8aWokl9HPD8a88M0MbmxLebQRTqHuKPnTUSX7v7QdzV6ABTl9yng/s400/Final_Fantasy_XV_cover_jp.jpg" width="345" /></a></div>
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It took me two years on-and-off (mostly off) to slog my way through the first five chapters of <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>, about a month of intermittent play to plow through the middle four, and only a single day to sprint through the last five. It’s a JRPG with a split personality, to a degree I haven’t encountered since <i><a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2009/08/essentials-43-xenogears.html">Xenogears</a></i>.<br />
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Many players bemoan the unrealized potential of the open world, which midway through the campaign becomes closed off and gives way to a rigidly linear experience. In the case of such a story-driven JRPG as <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>, I personally feel that leaving players to explore at their leisure undermines the alleged urgency and high stakes of the characters’ situation even during the earlier part of the game, and would make zero sense once things shift into high gear later. For me, <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> becomes much more interesting after it narrows its focus. This despite the story not being very good.<br />
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Following a one-line prophecy and an intense but absent-context flash-forward, <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>’s story begins with the protagonist prince and his party setting out to rendezvous with his fiancee, while the king prepares to host “guests from Niflheim.” The loading screen for Chapter 1 clarifies that this is a political marriage you’re off to, but then your car immediately breaks down, and you find yourself consequently steered toward a series of detours and quid pro quo errands for the bumpkins you meet on the road.<br />
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During those first 2-3 hours, the party’s tedious on-screen activities became so disconnected from the sparsely detailed plot that very quickly I lost sense of either—the former because I could hardly become invested in fetch quests, the latter because I never knew it to recognize it from easily overlooked bulletins and overheard conversations. Thus, when—SPOILER (but not really, since it’s the first significant event of the story)—you receive word that your home has fallen to Niflheim, your father slain, your bride-to-be gone into hiding, the very existence of this evil empire felt like news to me, so long had it been since I’d heard the name “Niflheim.” (And having not read the lore guide in the optional tutorial, I did not recall ever being informed in the first place that we were at war.) In the wake of these calamitous tidings, you are shortly invited to resume hunting marks and selling your services to the yokels who remain cluelessly unaffected by the geopolitical turmoil.<br />
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This is a game whose narrative is another casualty of the inexplicable and insufferable arms race toward inscrutability that has overtaken Square’s storytelling since the PS1 era. In the SNES days, getting the latest <i>Final Fantasy</i> was like receiving a stylish new pair of pants. Then <i><a href="https://www.fraggincivie.com/2009/07/essentials-38-final-fantasy-vii.html">Final Fantasy VII</a></i> was like a pair of one of those "distressed" jeans. You scratch your head at the frayed ends and pre-ripped holes, but then you see staged photographs of some hot-yet-cool model showing you the “right” way to wear them, and maybe you’ll grant there is something to the look that works. Unfortunately, Tetsuya Nomura and Kazushige Nojima decided that that “something” needed to become everything, and so by the <i>Kingdom Hearts</i> sequels, we were getting only bags of tatters, and paying full price for them.<br />
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<i>Final Fantasy XV</i>’s mess of a plot is not as wantonly opaque as <i>Kingdom Hearts</i> (insofar as the basic laws of its reality do not feel moment-to-moment fluid), and the manner in which it tells or doesn’t tell its story deserves less credit, because there's not even a sense of calculated elusiveness to its disjointedness. When pivotal events or major character deaths occur off-screen, or when proper nouns are mentioned for the first time yet treated as though they should be common knowledge, these don’t read as considered creative decisions. Instead, it just feels like, over the course of the aforementioned generations of escalation toward increasingly obscure storytelling, even the editors can’t keep straight anymore when the writing is being deliberately enigmatic, versus when they are simply forgetting to mention things because their blind spots have blotted out their vision.<br />
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Cynics might posit that the flimsiness of the story is because <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> was intended to be a multimedia product, and the main game’s many holes were intentional to force audiences to seek answers through the companion movie, anime webisodes, and post-release DLC, among other projects that never materialized. (And this is without even taking into account its complicated origin as "Final Fantasy Versus XIII" and attendant murky connection to the <i>Fabula Nova Crystallis</i> mythology.) I watched the atrocious <i>Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV</i> movie, and while it helps a little to set the scene and clarify the roles of figures who are allegedly major to the plot yet scarcely appear in the game, mostly it is just more of what is wrong with <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>: underdeveloped characters, nonsensical lore, and action that suffers from a lack of properly discernible beats because the ceilings of these characters’ abilities are never elucidated.<br />
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A microcosmic example of the game’s fundamental storytelling inadequacies: At one point the party receives word that a minor character has died. Everyone acts devastated by the news, but my immediate reaction was “Who?” As if hearing me, the game then cut to a few sepia-toned flashes of the character from when they were introduced. But that flashback didn’t exist when the game launched. It was patched in later, precisely because players couldn’t remember who the hell this character was. And you know what? The addition ultimately doesn’t fix anything. Yes, I remembered now who this one-scene nobody was. But I still did not care!<br />
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That was the stages of me processing <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>’s story in a nutshell. First would come exasperated confusion: <i>I have no idea what anybody is talking about. Why won’t they just explain who/what this is?</i> Then in my foolishness, I would look up the extended lore on the wiki to try to find answers, only to arrive at hollow resignation: <i>I now know what they were talking about, and yet it all still feels as meaningless as when I did not.</i> When I eventually learned to skip straight to resignation, the experience became more enjoyable. Although the story never came together in a coherent (or competent) way, I found it worked on a primal level, becoming oddly compelling through its absurdly high stakes and relentless momentum during its later chapters.<br />
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Many of the details actually echo <i><a href="http://czardoz.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-wore-mummers-motley-well-whatever.html">Final Fantasy XII</a></i>—political marriages, imperial backstabbing, treating with gods, legends of hero kings—but that’s all dressing in <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>. Once the story finally picks up steam (around Chapter 9), all one really needs to know is that it's good guys against bad guys in a literal fight to save the world. The layers of nonsense over top of that never amount to anything meaningful, but the base level still has some draw, especially as few other games would even dream of going as big as <i>Final Fantasy</i> has and here does so again in depicting the end of everything. A major point of tension straining willing suspension of disbelief in <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> is how modern the world feels—cars, smartphones, consumer culture—while still maintaining a high degree of arcane religiosity, with oracles being the most discussed public figures of the day. But it does make for spectacles of fearsome grandeur, gods sundering cities, and a potent mood of bleakness, as things continually go from bad to worse, and civilization’s total collapse seems to take all of a few hours.<br />
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I haven’t discussed the gameplay of <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> at all yet, because that was never the appeal of a numbered <i>Final Fantasy</i> for me even in the heyday of the series, and now in my mid-thirties with limited gaming time, I can hardly feign interest in learning a whole new set of complex RPG mechanics. Stupidly, I’ll admit in retrospect, I even took as a point of pride that I was not going to try to learn to play <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>. I would instead just set it to the easiest difficulty and cruise through the main scenario. (Which did not really work out, by the way, because the only thing that makes “Easy” mode easy is the fact that, every time your party gets wiped out, Carbuncle will resurrect you for free, allowing you to die and die again as you chip away at enemies out of your league.) This I regret, because the game was actually kind of fun once I finally grasped some of the systems toward the end of my playthrough.<br />
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If I could offer my past self some advice, here are the pro-tips I wish I’d figured out much sooner:<br />
<ul>
<li>There is no traditional white magic for your characters to learn, so get used to relying on other means of healing.</li>
<li>You don’t get money just for winning battles. Instead, you collect junk, and that junk can be sold for cash. Seriously, unless you sell that junk, you won’t have enough funds even to buy basic potions or pay to rest at inns.</li>
<li>If Noctis gets low on HP, you can warp to nearby ledges. While hanging from them, he’ll automatically heal at a fairly rapid rate.</li>
<li>The skill tree screen has multiple pages. On the “Recovery” page, each of Noctis’s allies can learn the “First Aid” ability. Additionally, Ignis can learn “Regroup” on the “Techniques” page and “Regenerate” on the “Teamwork” page. These abilities by themselves should suffice to get the party mostly self-sufficient with healing on Easy mode.</li>
</ul>
I won’t say exactly how long it took me to realize each of the above, but you can infer that, for a significant portion of the game, my potion stocks were stuck in the single digits, and I basically could never heal myself during combat. Once I learned these basics, Easy mode went from “getting resurrected three times by Carbuncle is about par for a boss fight” to “now I’m cruising.”<br />
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The very first screen that loads when you boot the game is the message "A Final Fantasy for Fans and First-Timers," a clear statement of the development team's intention to restore the brand to relevance after it fell so mightily the previous generation. <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> is the first numbered <i>Final Fantasy</i> I’ve beaten since 2001's <i>Final Fantasy X</i>, so I can see myself a bit in both demographics, and I don't feel it serves either. It recalls the classics only in its lack of subtlety, but between its narrative deficiencies and mechanical density it also doesn't feel like a game of modern sensibilities or mainstream accessibility. I still don't think I've fully processed that it's over. Part of that is me not comprehending what was happening at any given time—either the story or the combat—but I also feel some genuine mixed emotions. I can't say with confidence whether I ultimately liked it, but I won't deny that the second half was at the very least engaging. In keeping with the pattern of senselessness, I really don't know anymore what it means to be "A Final Fantasy," but I suppose <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> does just enough, albeit through terrible means, to live up to the name precisely by keeping the franchise identity hard to pin down.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I beat Final Fantasy XV, and all I have to show for it is this photo of a Tonberry going in on Gladiolus’s crotch.</td></tr>
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Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-22546286513861594752018-12-31T21:48:00.001-08:002018-12-31T22:03:29.242-08:00The Theory of Everything (James Marsh, 2014)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I didn’t realize until the end credits that this biopic of Stephen Hawking was actually based on the autobiography of his first wife, Jane Wilde. That explains why the film seems so much more interested in their domestic drama than in his seminal insights toward the pursuit of a “theory of everything,” or in the breakout success of his own book, <i>A Brief History of Time</i>, which established him as the most widely recognized scientist of his generation. And I can appreciate, certainly, that her memoir, about the trials and tribulations in courageously holding together a marriage and family through his unrelenting physical deterioration, must have proven far more adaptable to a mass-appeal, Oscar-baiting motion picture than might have any of Hawking’s non-narrative publications.<br />
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It is an admittedly affecting film, buoyed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score, and by Eddie Redmayne’s Academy Award-winning performance as the male lead. For better and worse, this was the part that inspired the actor’s pivot from period drama role-player to the creature of extreme and constant physicality and theatricality that now headlines those <i>Harry Potter</i> prequel movies. I find him rather like a loaded gun in the hands of his agent and casting directors. The weapon itself is conscienceless and indiscriminate, tragic when mishandled. But when he is attached to the right projects, the results are astonishing. Though I’ve heard praise for Benedict Cumberbatch’s turn in 2004’s <i>Hawking</i> TV movie, it’s hard to imagine another actor inhabiting the role as Redmayne does here, transforming incrementally over the course of the film to vividly depict a man afflicted by rapid physical decline yet still possessed of brightness and mischief. Granted, as the movie goes along, there is arguably less and less demanded of Redmayne, and obviously he doesn’t do the signature voice (though I don’t doubt he would have been happy to try).<br />
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Even without knowing that the film was based on his first wife’s book, I was most curious to see how it would handle the end of their marriage. Every account I’d heard of this episode in Hawking’s life had portrayed it as one of his more ignoble chapters—basically, as his celebrity grew and attracted hordes of flatterers and groupies, he meanwhile grew weary of his long-suffering saint of a wife. The movie does not contradict any of that, though its politeness invites skepticism (and this is a point on which the film apparently diverged from Jane Wilde’s book). Elaine Mason, his nurse-turned-second wife, is charming as played by Maxine Peake, though not explored in any depth here.<br />
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Hawking’s celebrity is mostly incidental in this telling of his story, and science only slightly less so. The result manages to both humanize and dehumanize him. Certainly, Felicity Jones as the tirelessly self-sacrificing Jane Wilde, persevering by love and faith through circumstances that would topple most men, makes for a more readily moving story than lectures on theoretical physics that most of us would scarcely understand and never apply. And it’s not as if a person needs to be famous and/or a scientist in order for their story to be worth telling. Still, so much of the movie is concerned with questions of how Stephen and Jane cope with his disability. <i>How will he take to having to use a wheelchair? How can he be her partner in parenting their children? Who can they turn to to relieve her from having to be both spouse and sole caregiver?</i> I can’t help but feel that all reinforces the average moviegoer’s notion of Stephen Hawking vaguely as that scientist who is really really smart, but mainly as that guy leaning back in the wheelchair with the robot voice.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-48047275720876909882017-12-27T18:12:00.000-08:002017-12-27T18:12:39.425-08:00My Top 10 Most Hated Star Wars CharactersHere it is. As of <i>Episode VIII</i>, these are my "Top 10 Most Hated <i>Star Wars</i> Characters."<br />
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Note: This is a serious exercise, so only significant characters from the live-action films were eligible—no <i>Clone Wars</i>-only characters, no obscure extras, no non-speaking Jedi created purely to sell toys. I debated with myself whether to include <i>Rogue One</i>, but after trying to do this without it, I realized that I am not naturally a hateful person, and I would not have been able to name 10 characters I despised from only the saga films.<br />
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Also, the order is from "No. 1 Most Hated" to "No. 10 Least Hated of the Most Hated." I'm not gonna drag out the suspense. Starting from the top:<br />
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<ol>
<li>Poe Dameron</li>
<li>Cassian Andor (the Rebel captain from <i>Rogue One</i>)</li>
<li>Chirrut Îmwe (the blind Donnie Yen guy from <i>Rogue One</i>)</li>
<li>Maz Kanata</li>
<li>DJ (the stuttering Benicio Del Toro from <i>The Last Jedi</i>)</li>
<li>Young Anakin (Jake Lloyd version)</li>
<li>Bodhi Rook (the pilot with the aviator goggles from <i>Rogue One</i>)</li>
<li>Bail Organa</li>
<li>Vice Admiral Holdo</li>
<li>Chancellor Valorum</li>
</ol>
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This is a living list. It is subject to change as new movies come out, or as my mood changes. Snoke contended for that last spot, but I realized that it was not so much the character I hated as it was the way he was handled.</div>
Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-50016116681715006602016-10-15T21:52:00.001-07:002016-10-16T09:59:16.886-07:00A Final Fantasy Renaissance?After a decade spent in development, <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> is due for release finally in just over a month. Another new console <i>Final Fantasy</i>, <i><a href="https://youtu.be/QNMey5SKKkc" target="_blank">World of Final Fantasy</a></i>, will be arriving even sooner at the end of October. A little further off, the long-demanded <a href="https://youtu.be/QLYyWAqTTAo" target="_blank"><i>Final Fantasy VII</i> remake</a> is at last going to be a thing too (maybe?). After some pretty fraught years when the series was clearly relegated to B-tier status, we may be coming upon a <i>Final Fantasy</i> renaissance. Or if <i>Final Fantasy XV</i> underperforms, this may be a last gasp for the series, the developer, and the JRPG genre.<br />
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Personally, I already know I won’t be playing <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>. I’ve watched the trailers with the Japanese male model protagonists, and the image they’re pushing with this game just has zero relevance to me.<br />
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By no means am I implying that I've outgrown the series. The truth is, I’ve been playing a ton of <i>Final Fantasy</i> lately. It just so happens that all of that gaming has been on mobile platforms, where I would say <i>Final Fantasy</i> truly is experiencing a renaissance.<br />
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<h2>
<i>Final Fantasy Record Keeper</i></h2>
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I recently updated <a href="http://www.fraggincivie.com/2015/04/final-fantasy-record-keeper-dena-square.html" target="_blank">my blog post about <i>Final Fantasy Record Keeper</i></a> to better reflect how awesome the game has become. Read my full review or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmp8pVD8K4Rhzpf6RaSMI15h24s6qRgJs" target="_blank">check out some of my videos</a> for a better sense of how it works, but, in short, imagine one of those JRPG coliseums—one where you can team up all of your favorite <i>Final Fantasy</i> characters to take on classic battles from throughout the series. From the gameplay to the visuals to the music, it’s a veritable best-of edition of <i>Final Fantasy</i>, and, more than anything else bearing the name in the last decade, it has helped to remind me that, once upon a time, I loved this series. No, there isn’t much of a plot to <i>Record Keeper</i>, but, through the battles, longtime fans get to relive some of the best moments of past stories, which is probably better than having to slog through a new, terrible story.<br />
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I’ll add that right now is also a great time for newcomers to jump in. A recent update to the game made the <i>gacha</i> lottery mechanic far more generous. Now, any time you spend 50 mythril (or, alternatively, about $30) to enter the 11-item drawing, you are guaranteed to pull at least one 5-star relic. Furthermore, there is currently a beginner-themed banner offering enhanced odds to pull the most useful weapons in the game, and, on top of that, you get to select an extra 5-star armor to go with your 11 other items. This means that, for the price of 50 mythril (which can be earned in about a week or less), you’re guaranteed to receive at least two 5-star items, with a pretty good chance that one of them will be among the best in the game. The game now even starts you off with one 5-star item completely free. When I started playing, it took me about a month to obtain my first 5-star, a Danjuro dagger from <i>FFXII</i>, which carried me a long while after. If you were to start now, you could pretty quickly have an entire party armed with 5-star gear and be able to tear through the early-game content.<br />
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<h2>
<i>Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius</i></h2>
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Pretty much everything <i>Final Fantasy Record Keeper</i> gets right, <i>Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius</i> gets wrong. My understanding is that <i>Brave Exvius</i> is essentially a <i>Final Fantasy</i>-themed re-skin of developer A-Lim’s hit free-to-play mobile RPG, <i>Brave Frontier</i>, and its origins in that unrelated franchise may explain why it doesn’t feel very much like <i>Final Fantasy</i>.<br />
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Like <i>Record Keeper</i>, the big draw of <i>Brave Exvius</i> is its inclusion of a ton of <i>Final Fantasy</i> characters to collect and rotate into your party. The difference is that, in <i>Brave Exvius</i>, you can only obtain these characters via the <i>gacha</i> lottery, and the odds of pulling your favorite are slim. <i>Brave Exvius</i> further dilutes the pool by including a bunch of characters that would not be on anyone’s radar. Maybe some fans will be mildly pleased to finally play as Giott from <i>FFIV</i> or Lani from <i>FFIX</i> (though probably not after you’ve pulled your third useless Giott). But the lower ranks are populated primarily by generic “original” characters created just for this game. Unless you have a ton of real money to burn to bypass the odds, chances are you’ll be spending weeks, if not months, playing with a garbage party of no-name commoners before you finally win any of the famed heroes of <i>Final Fantasy</i> lore. Before long, you’ll wonder why this game even bears the <i>Final Fantasy</i> name, except to tease you.<br />
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Even once you acquire some name characters, the actual experience of playing with them is disappointing. In <i>Brave Exvius</i>, the weak characters (which includes most of the name characters) are hopeless and interchangeably so, because what they all have in common is that they can’t use the few key abilities that make the strong characters good. And the strong characters still are not fun to use, because these good abilities are merely better versions of the numerous crap abilities in the game. Basically, you just hope you get a strong character (which may not be a character you otherwise like), and then you use the same ability over and over again. Everything else is a waste of space. The battle system itself is turn-based, not taken from any previous <i>Final Fantasy</i>, but simplistic enough to feel familiar to any JRPG veteran. It’s not inherently flawed, but the game balance so far has not been conducive to tactical depth or tension.<br />
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In its favor, one could point out that, unlike <i>Record Keeper</i>, <i>Brave Exvius</i> actually includes most of the elements of a full-fledged standalone RPG. There are dungeons and towns to explore, and there is a story and lots of dialogue. I personally find that these things bog down the mobile experience. I don’t have time to go on fetch quests, and I don’t enjoy wandering around using clumsy touchscreen controls and getting caught in random encounters en route to a dead end in a dungeon. As for the story, it’s laughably poor and nowhere near worthy of the <i>Final Fantasy</i> name. A mix of dull cliches and asinine banter between the two dimwitted male leads, it feels like any random uninspired C-tier JRPG from the 32-bit or even 16-bit era.<br />
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The only bright spots to <i>Brave Exvius</i> are the music and the hi-res graphics, which are all brand new. The art style is colorful and cartoony. It doesn't do much for me personally. It doesn’t offer the nostalgic appeal of <i>Record Keeper</i>’s SNES-style sprites, and it also bears no resemblance to the art of Yoshitaka Amano or Tetsuya Nomura. Basically, Edgar and Sabin in this game don’t really look like Edgar and Sabin to me, which further contributes to the perception of <i>Brave Exvius</i> as an “impostor” <i>Final Fantasy</i>.<br />
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<i>Mobius Final Fantasy</i></h2>
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Unlike <i>Record Keeper</i> and <i>Brave Exvius</i>, <i>Mobius Final Fantasy</i> is developed internally by Square Enix, and immediately it comes off quite a bit more ambitious than the other free-to-play mobile games. The 3-D visuals, evocative of <i>Final Fantasy X</i>, are perhaps of the caliber of last-gen console graphics, though lacking the variety of a full-budget release. There are also fully voiced cutscenes. Perhaps what really sets it apart, though, is that, unlike <i>Final Fantasy Record Keeper</i>, <i>Mobius Final Fantasy</i> actually has a story and, unlike <i>Brave Exvius</i>, that story actually feels like a real <i>Final Fantasy</i>, albeit stripped down.<br />
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The plot could be considered a very loose reimagining of the first <i>Final Fantasy</i>. The amnesiac player character in <i>Mobius Final Fantasy</i> is referred to as the “Warrior of Light,” and there is also a Garland, a Princess Sarah, and a Chaos. There are also numerous references to other <i>Final Fantasy</i> titles, but the game doesn’t lean on nostalgia. <i>Mobius Final Fantasy</i> feels like a new addition to the <i>Final Fantasy</i> canon, and that is something I can respect. Mind you, I’m not saying it’s an especially interesting tale, but the telling, in keeping with the rest of writer Kazushige Nojima’s oeuvre, is gloomy and introspective, and there are elements of mystery and intrigue that are at least more compelling than anything in <i>Brave Exvius</i>.<br />
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The battle engine is also mostly original, and, as with the story, I respect the ambition, though I don’t love the actual experience. The combat is quasi-card-based. You can equip up to four ability cards to take with you into battle, and these will cover your spells, healing, special techniques, basically anything other than regular attacks. Once in battle, these abilities in turn are powered by elemental orbs that are randomly drawn each time you perform a regular attack. When it works, it can feel quite strategic, and you’ll pat yourself on the back for knowing when to play which card to win a round in the minimum number of moves. At other times, it will seem like the game just refuses to deal you the right orbs, and you’ll curse the randomness of it all.<br />
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Currently, the game’s undoing is that the battles take too long and occur too frequently. The pacing, in terms of both the plot and the leveling system, is plodding. Your gameplay progression can be measured in the number of job classes you’ve mastered. To even unlock most jobs, you have to pull from the <i>gacha</i> system. One positive is that there are no “doubles"; the <i>gacha</i> will never deal you a job you already own, so you’re guaranteed to eventually get the job you want. Honestly though, unlocking a new job class just isn’t as exciting as unlocking a new character, so this isn’t all that enticing to begin with. Then, even once you get a new job, in order to level it up, you have to grind through thousands of tedious battles to gather the right materials.<br />
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I’m still keeping one eye on <i>Mobius Final Fantasy</i>, understanding that it just came out and might take another month or two to get going, but right now the story is too limited and the gameplay far too repetitive for me to actively invest my time in it.<br />
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Evolving Together</h2>
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Three free-to-play mobile games may not seem like much of a renaissance, especially when only one of them comes recommended. But, like I said, <i>Final Fantasy Record Keeper</i> has helped to remind me that I really do love this series. Some of that is nostalgia, true. But a large part of what makes <i>Record Keeper</i> work has to do with how it departs from the <i>Final Fantasy</i> games of my youth. I have outgrown the series as represented by <i>Final Fantasy XV</i>, but it isn't because it has become overrun with sullen pretty boys. At least, that isn't the only reason. At my age now, I can't see myself ever having the time to invest in another console <i>Final Fantasy</i>. And that's why I'm so pleased to find the game evolving, in its better mobile incarnations, into something more considerate of my circumstances—something I have on hand at all times but can play in short bursts without it taking up all my time. Even just five years ago, the idea of one of my favorite video game series going mobile is something I would have fought. Now, I find that <i>Final Fantasy</i> on mobile is the <i>Final Fantasy</i> comeback I'd been waiting for, and I'm excited to see more.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-5432712967617954802016-07-12T12:13:00.000-07:002016-07-12T23:20:35.922-07:00Evo 2016 - Street Fighter V Preview<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s that time of year again. This weekend, July 15-17, thousands of fighting game players from around the world will gather in Las Vegas to compete at Evo. This year, however, we will have a brand new game as the main event. After a good seven-year run, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has been retired, with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> taking its place.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-9d092747-e06a-b351-ac12-a65b6f7cfa71" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the game only just having been released in February, the competitive scene is yet in its infancy, many of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> veterans still struggling to find their way with new characters and new mechanics. On the one hand, this means we may not see the same high level of polished play and depth of competition that we saw the last two years with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Ultra Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> at Evo. On the other hand, a new game is more exciting to watch for the simple reason that the competitors themselves are more excited. There’s much more room to grow as a player at the beginning of a game’s life than at its end, so it’s more fun and not as much of a grind.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Evo is especially exciting this year because 2016’s season so far has provided a real narrative heading into the tournament. For the first time since—well, since </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s worldwide debut in 2009—we’ve had a serious rivalry brewing, with two players, Japan’s Tokido and South Korea’s Infiltration, clearly ahead of the rest of the field. Four times these two players met in grand finals this year: three times in Premier events (next to Evo, the highest tier of tournament on the Capcom Pro Tour) and once in the prestigious Red Bull Kumite invitational.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 21.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Road to Evo 2016</span></h2>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve said before that, nine times out of ten, the fittest player is the one who wins. Pretty much from the moment he made his </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tournament debut at Final Round in March, Tokido has looked like that guy. Immediately you could see that he was playing much more cleanly than anyone else. With his immaculate Ryu, he was the only guy who seemed to arrive at Final Round with a complete game, as meanwhile other players were still kind of just mashing their way through with Ken. And, just like Momochi in 2015, like Bonchan in 2014, he had that gift of seemingly being able to make his opponents move in slow motion. Usually, this is the effect you get when one player has been playing the game a crap-ton more than his opponents. He has become so familiar with myriad scenarios and has honed his perfect responses to be instinctive, such that he can basically play the game without having to think. That’s why his opponents, who are thinking hard, look like they’re moving so much slower. Alternatively, you could say it looks like this player can see into the future—a phenomenon that players back in the day used to describe with the term “psychic DP (Dragon Punch).” In my experience, the only way to beat someone like that is to show them something they haven’t seen before, something they can’t just process automatically.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infiltration did exactly that. Repeatedly. As far ahead of the rest of the field as Tokido was, Infiltration seemed just that much farther ahead of Tokido. If Tokido was playing as though he could see one second ahead, then Infiltration looked as though he was playing from two seconds into the future. Playing Nash in a way that the game’s designers never conceived of, and that opponents and spectators alike were at a loss to follow—patternless back-and-forth dashing, random standing jab checks, springing forth with the offense unexpectedly but always at the perfect moment—Infiltration blew Tokido away at Final Round to claim the first ticket to the year-end Capcom Cup. A week later, at NorCal Regionals, he was not eligible to win a second ticket, but he decided anyway to once more deny Tokido that Capcom Cup spot (it will instead, at season’s end, go to the ninth highest-ranked player without a Premier championship).</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At that point, there had been two Premier events so far on the Capcom Pro Tour, and the same guy, Infiltration, had won them both, both times beating Tokido in the grand final. When the two met again a month later at the Red Bull Kumite exhibition, first in the winners final and then in the grand final, it looked like we had ourselves a story. If only the rivalry weren’t so one-sided.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the season progressed, Infiltration, having secured his Capcom Cup spot, cut back on most of his traveling. Tokido, meanwhile, seemed to finally be losing ground to the rest of the field. At the next two Premier events, Stunfest in May and Dreamhack Summer in June, with no Infiltration to stand in his way, Tokido was instead foiled by his fellow Tokyo players Momochi and Fuudo.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, at CEO, traditionally the biggest tournament before Evo, Tokido and Infiltration were both in attendance, as was Momochi, who, in addition to beating Tokido in multiple tournaments, had managed a stunning perfect record against Infiltration over the course of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter 5 Crash</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> team competition.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure enough, the tournament would come down to these three duking it out for supremacy.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, Tokido battled Infiltration in the winners semifinal.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(If you don’t have time for the whole video, just skip to 12:27 for the highlight.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Xn757mHXR34/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xn757mHXR34?feature=player_embedded" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It looked like Tokido had studied hard for this match, as he confidently won the first game. The scary thing about Infiltration, however, is that not only is he hard to read in the first place, but the moment you think you’ve figured something out, he adjusts very quickly to make sure the same trick doesn’t work on him a second time. Once again, Tokido looked lost, as Infiltration won the next three straight, including one ridiculous sequence of four throws in a row. Was Tokido’s mind completely shattered at this point?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, in the winners final, Infiltration got his chance to redeem himself against Momochi.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(You don’t really need to watch this one. The two videos after this, however, are the two best matches of the year so far.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cx32Ig9y9cQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cx32Ig9y9cQ?feature=player_embedded" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe people got a little carried away crowning Momochi the new No. 1-man after he won a few games against Infiltration in a three-on-three off-tour weekly event held for Korean television. Or maybe this was another case of Infiltration learning and adapting with a vengeance, because he convincingly 3-0’d Momochi this time.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the losers final, it was then Tokido and Momochi in an all-Japan Ryu vs. Ken classic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7jY58e1jFWU/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7jY58e1jFWU?feature=player_embedded" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With that amazing comeback in the third game (6:00), Momochi certainly appeared the mentally tougher, more confident player. Yet somehow Tokido managed to compose himself after that dispiriting collapse to stage an even more remarkable recovery from down 0-2 to winning three straight.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once more, it was Tokido vs. Infiltration in a grand final.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TRBEWQsd4LI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TRBEWQsd4LI?feature=player_embedded" width="560"></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Coming from the losers bracket, Tokido needed to win two sets in a row against the guy who had had his number all year—indeed, the guy who had just a few matches ago beaten him here. How did Tokido do it? With style, for one thing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s hard to account for how Tokido adapted so dramatically to turn things around. Partly, that’s because I could never account for anything Infiltration was doing in the first place. I’ll say that those parries, besides being incredibly hype to witness, may actually provide key insight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The parry, when it was introduced in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter III</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, altered competitive </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in a fundamental way. It was a tool that could literally beat every attack in the game, which meant attacking suddenly became the riskiest play at all times. If you could just anticipate your opponent’s next move, the parry gave you the power to turn the tide in an instant. That’s what Evo Moment #37 was all about. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter II</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter Alpha</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—almost any other 2D fighting game up to that point—Daigo would have been a dead man for sure. But because of the parry, all it took was one godlike read (and some tremendous execution) to turn what once would have been assured defeat into the greatest comeback in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> history.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As amazing as that moment was, the parry itself remained a divisive mechanic, and it did not return in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, however, Ryu has a parry, yet it has not affected the game in any fundamental way. It hasn’t even really been a factor. Everybody seems to forget it exists and just plays the game as though it were </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter II</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. At least, that was the case up until this grand final.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Analysts have been reluctant to directly tie the outcome of the match to the parries, cool as they were. Each of Tokido’s three moments (2:06, 9:31, 12:26) did lead into victorious rounds, but they didn’t really come at tide-turning junctures. But remember that, at high levels (not for scrubs like me, who occasionally just guess right), parrying is principally about anticipating your opponent’s moves. It’s about reading the other player and the situation. It’s about being psychic, in other words. And here Tokido was pulling it off against an opponent who, for so long, had seemed unreadable. There could be no more emphatic way for Tokido to assert that, at long last, he had well and truly ascended and figured Infiltration out. As I watched the turnaround in that grand final, returning to that idea of Infiltration playing from two seconds into the future, I now visualized Tokido catching and outrunning him mid-race.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 21.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Path to Victory</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what does this mean for Evo? Well, it would certainly suck for me to have written all that only for both Infiltration and Tokido to crash out early. I mean, it could happen. This is Evo, after all. But is Evo really so different from all the other tournaments these guys have dominated?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The difference between Evo and every other tournament is the scale. No other fighting game event draws multiple thousands of entrants to compete in a single game. Before this year, even a thousand competitors at any other tournament was unheard of. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> at Evo has over 5,000 people registered—more than double </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Ultra Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s record-breaking number from last year.</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That doesn’t mean, however, that Infiltration has to beat 5,000 other players. The minimum number of matches for any player to win Evo this year is fourteen. That’s if they can stay in the winners bracket all the way through. Fourteen matches sounds easily doable for a player of Infiltration's caliber, right? But that’s not all.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Compared to a regional major, the larger number of entrants at Evo traditionally means that it’s longer in the beginning (because of all the extra no-names to wade through in pools), tighter in the middle (because ALL the name players are present, including people who don’t usually travel), and pretty much the same once in the top 8 (i.e. mostly Japanese guys, plus a few other East Asians and maybe one or two lucky Westerners who drew easy brackets).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With 5,000 entrants this year, that beginning stage will be longer than ever, but I have my doubts about the tightness of the pack in that middle stage. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> being still such a young game, I don’t think, frankly, that there are even thirty-two elite-level players in the world yet. (Unless there are a bunch of super-good Japanese guys we’ve just never heard of. There are a bunch of random Japanese players registered....)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you look at it from that perspective—Infiltration only has to win fourteen matches, and the opponents don’t start getting serious until maybe eight matches in (when he might potentially have to face Sako)—then it doesn’t seem like such a mountain for a clearly superior player to climb.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thus, I’d say Infiltration and Tokido are pretty much locks for the top 8, and I’ll throw Momochi’s name in there too. (I mean, just check that guy’s expression when he plays. He’s not in this to lose, and you can bet he’ll have done his homework since CEO.) I would consider these three to be the co-favorites. Between the three of them, it’s much harder to call, but I’ll say that, after CEO, the ball is in Infiltration’s court.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<h2 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 18pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 21.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standing in the Way</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Assuming the current brackets hold (and it sounds like they’re pretty much final, as of this writing), Infiltration and Tokido are actually in the same half of the draw, which means they would likely meet at the start of the top 8 on winners side. Momochi, meanwhile, is in the other half, with Fuudo being his likeliest opponent in top 8 winners.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’d consider Fuudo to be right behind the three co-favorites. His character, R. Mika, is not as steady, and he hasn’t won a major tournament yet this season. But he has definitely shown himself capable of beating Tokido and Momochi. These guys play each other all the time in Tokyo, so they’ll all know what to do against one another.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For that same reason, I’d consider the other big Tokyo players, Mago and Kazunoko in particular, as threats, not to win Evo, but to potentially spoil Tokido’s run. They’d have to get pretty deep into the bracket before that can happen, but Tokido could be running into random Japanese players as early as his second pool (his fifth match, supposing he doesn’t lose beforehand), and he could potentially face Daigo in the second round of the quarterfinals (ninth match).</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Besides Infiltration, Momochi, and Tokido, there are actually two other guys who have won Premier events on the Capcom Pro Tour this year. Phenom of Norway, the highest-ranked player in Europe, won Dreamhack Summer. There’s not enough data to say with certainty where he stands in relation to the rest of the world, but that tournament was attended by pretty much all of the Japanese name players, none of whom seemed prepared for his Necalli. Necalli is not at all a rare character, and Phenom’s did not have any special tricks. It was almost the opposite; he just dispensed with the mind games and kept nailing the Japanese with wakeup uppercuts (the most obvious option, which at high levels is among the least expected). We’ll see if that will hold at Evo.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">China’s top player, Xiao Hai, won G-League, his home Premier, which was actually the most recent Premier event, taking place just this past weekend. For some reason, those Asian tournaments almost always have crazy results, so I wouldn’t read too much into Tokido and Momochi’s shockingly low placings at G-League. I don’t know how it went down, because the garbage Chinese stream was garbled or worse for most of the event. All I heard is that, at the end, Xian brought out Ibuki, which is crazier than all the rest of it. Xiao Hai still took it 3-0, though, which is not a huge surprise. As was the case in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Xiao Hai can beat anyone in the world but will just as likely fold to second-tier players. Either could happen at Evo.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">About that Ibuki from Xian, it’s crazy because that character was only added to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a little over a week ago. One of the exciting things about the Capcom Pro Tour this year was that the game was expected to continuously evolve, not only because players would be learning a new game, but because downloadable characters would be added every month. Capcom couldn’t quite maintain that monthly schedule, and, so far, the downloadable characters have been designed more conservatively to be fairly mid-tier. Still, when it was announced that Ibuki and Balrog (boxer) would be legal for use at Evo—a decision met with cheers from spectators, grumbling from competitors—the fear was that, with the community not having had time to adequately vet or practice against these characters, some mountain man might show up to Evo and bust out some totally broken secret Ibuki tech to score a major upset.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Xian, a former Evo champion, has been fairly quiet in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and most blame that on his character of choice, F.A.N.G., being among the worst in the game. But if he’s discovered something with Ibuki (and he is exactly the sort of player to find and exploit these things), that could be a game-changer. Sako, the Capcom Cup 2013 champion, is another player that comes to mind. He lives in Osaka, which is more on the fringes of the Japanese scene, so he hasn’t been seen much in tournaments. He has an affinity with the character of Ibuki, having used her in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Super Street Fighter IV: AE 2012</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And he’s known to be one of the most technically skilled and innovative players in the world.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the US players, there was some optimism before the season began that this might be the Americans’ year. There would be no arcade release for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which cut out a significant chunk of the Japanese competitive scene. Evening the playing field, everybody got their first looks at the game at pretty much the same time via the worldwide beta test. A handful of California players even managed to get their hands on the final version of the game before anyone else. And the game itself was simpler and more streamlined than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter IV</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It was closer to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter II</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which the US used to occasionally win at Evo. All that optimism faded quickly, however, after the top four spots at the first US Premier event ended up going to foreign players.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet it probably is true that the chances of a US champion at Evo are higher than they’ve been in years. That is, one specific player has an outside chance to win. Through a string of victories in second-tier Ranking events, Justin Wong has actually risen to the top of the Capcom Pro Tour leaderboard, ahead of Tokido and Infiltration. Outside of Premier events, which have all been gobbled up by foreign invaders, he has been clearly the best player in North America, almost as untouchable as Tokido and Infiltration. He even extended his dominance to South America, doing in Brazil much the same thing that Japanese players have repeatedly done in the US: making their top local players look like rank amateurs. His character of choice, Karin, suits his methodical style of play much better than Rufus ever did. At NorCal Regionals, he came within inches of beating Tokido, and, while he’s yet to get a crack at Infiltration, many believe he matches up stylistically very well against the South Korean. The problem for Justin is that his local competition is nowhere near good enough to prepare him for the depth of foreign experience he’ll eventually have to fight through if he progresses far enough. As the No. 1 seed thanks to his ranking, he does at least have a favorable bracket. He won’t run into any real contenders until the top 32 (tenth match, assuming no losses), when he’ll likely face either Hong Kong’s HumanBomb or NuckleDu, the next-best player in the US.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After NuckleDu, the rest of the US is pretty free. For a minute, it looked like SonicFox—the teenage LeBron James of fighting games, who has been completely dominant in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Mortal Kombat</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Injustice</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (and random other games nobody cares about)—might become both the worst nightmare and the best hope for the US </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> community, as he promised to finally bring his talents their way in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Street Fighter V</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Unfortunately, his skill in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Mortal Kombat X</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hasn’t quite translated. Still, the kid is a fighting game genius who thrives on the big stage, so I wouldn’t count him out entirely.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<h2 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 18pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 21.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Evo Factor</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other factor that makes Evo different from smaller tournaments is Evo itself—just the gravity of the event. Over the length of the three-day tournament, the tension is only going to build, and then, once the finalists are on that grand stage competing for the most storied trophy in all of fighting games, anything can happen. You could argue that the big names have all been through this before, but the reality is we’ve seen that professionals across all sports and at every level still experience nerves. They’re only human. That’s kind of what makes it great.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh wait, Tokido’s a god. One of Japan’s five gods of fighting games, isn’t that what they say? I guess we’ll find out this weekend.</span></div>
Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-43119490306186757852016-02-29T21:00:00.000-08:002016-03-01T01:33:39.894-08:00The Vision of Escaflowne – Funimation's Kickstarter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYJ2en6iGe6Odn7VOgCxqZIxc9binKbxO1fUcXiq20w9Cs2osl53ZJJZ9tN6_WW-9_xChzzYOl_HJgzxgWvdyxwoZPhNh3K7HqkdvOt9oUSQPQhTbtjlRs-iMW3OpM3v0EwGHpoiBuMgfa/s1600/escaflowne_new_dub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYJ2en6iGe6Odn7VOgCxqZIxc9binKbxO1fUcXiq20w9Cs2osl53ZJJZ9tN6_WW-9_xChzzYOl_HJgzxgWvdyxwoZPhNh3K7HqkdvOt9oUSQPQhTbtjlRs-iMW3OpM3v0EwGHpoiBuMgfa/s400/escaflowne_new_dub.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This April will mark twenty years since the original broadcast of <i>The Vision of Escaflowne</i>, which premiered on Japanese television on April 2, 1996. Probably not actually conceived as an anniversary project, but well-timed nonetheless, <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/funimationprod/the-vision-of-escaflowne-a-new-hd-dub-for-the-clas" target="_blank">a Kickstarter campaign went up two days ago</a> to fund the creation of a new English-language dub for the upcoming release of the HD extended cut. The project is on pace to crush its $150,000 goal; as of this writing, with twenty-nine days to go, already $136,388 has been raised by 882 backers pledging an average of $154.63 apiece. That’s pretty cool, if only because it attests to a persisting, modestly sized but clearly passionate, fan base for what remains one of my favorite shows of all time.<br />
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Created by Shoji Kawamori (<i>Macross</i>) and directed by Kazuki Akane, <i>The Vision of Escaflowne</i> was, in many ways, the sum, the apotheosis, the quintessence of anime up to that point. The Sunrise production featured giant robots in a medieval high fantasy world, and, maximally broadening its appeal, it centered around an ordinary Japanese schoolgirl as its point-of-view character. The series successfully blended mecha and shoujo like no single anime before it, even as it evoked so many of its predecessors across genres. Far more than a stew of tropes, <i>Escaflowne</i> brought together nearly everything about the art form that so captivated anime fans of the ‘90s, particularly those emerging enthusiasts in the West. Full of action, romance, and drama, the tightly serialized production possessed enough imagination to deliver a hand-drawn otherworld sufficiently removed from reality to be enticing yet mature enough in tone and content to feel relevant and even, at times, profound. Topping it all off, the series was elevated by an incomparably epic score from Hajime Mizoguchi and Yoko Kanno, along with production values that far outstripped just about any television anime prior.<br />
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In North America, <i>Escaflowne</i> was one of Bandai Entertainment’s first releases (originally subtitled-only on VHS in 1998) and <a href="http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/bandai_downsizing_ken_iyadomi_interview" target="_blank">ultimately one of its all-time bestsellers</a>. It was an immediate hit with the hardcore sect, but it actually took a few more years before an English-language dub was produced for the new DVD format. The dub, handled by Vancouver-based Ocean Studios, first debuted on TV, with a heavily edited “Saturday morning cartoon” version airing on YTV in Canada and (briefly) on Fox in the US in 2000.<br />
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Even without a wide-reaching Cartoon Network run, <i>Escaflowne</i>’s success with Western audiences was enough to encourage Sunrise to adapt the story into a theatrical film in 2000, but the series has since largely faded from the spotlight. That’s nothing so unusual, given how quickly the anime industry must move on, with more and more new shows being released every year. For all its quality and broadness of appeal, <i>Escaflowne</i> was probably never unique enough to endure alongside, say, <i>Neon Genesis Evangelion</i>, roughly its contemporary and one of the singular works to still grip audiences’ imaginations long after its run. It probably also doesn’t help that <i>Escaflowne</i> never had much in the way of tie-in merchandise. Even the many DVD releases and re-releases are now long out of print in the US, so I don’t imagine most anime fans of the last decade have ever seen the show.<br />
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That brings us to this Kickstarter. With Bandai Entertainment now defunct, Funimation has picked up the <i>Escaflowne</i> license and intends to release the series and movie on Blu-ray. What’s more, this will be the English-language debut of the show’s extended cut.<br />
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As the story goes, when the crew was early on still finding its feet with the production, episodes were coming out overlong and then had to be trimmed to fit into the allotted Japanese broadcast minutes. The deleted footage was later restored for the Japanese home video release, but for whatever reason, Bandai’s English version was based on the broadcast cut.<br />
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I’ve never seen the extra footage, but from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t amount to more than a few minutes in the early episodes. In any case, the complication is that, if Funimation were to dub those additional scenes in English for this new release, the likelihood of them being able to maintain continuity by bringing together the original English-language cast is probably quite low after all these years (supposing anybody would even want the original actors back). The old DVD audio also probably would need quite a bit of enhancement to make it suitable for an HD release today. It would be easier to record a brand new English dub for the entire series. Of course, it would be even easier just to release it with no English-language track at all, as has become common in the North American anime market. So, basically, Funimation is turning the fate of the <i>Escaflowne</i> English dub over to the fans via Kickstarter.<br />
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The whole campaign is a bit sketchy, and it’s certainly not helped by the evasive answers given by Funimation’s representatives in the <a href="https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-02-27/exclusive-funimation-launches-kickstarter-to-dub-escaflowne-tv-anime-director-cut/.99141" target="_blank">exclusive <i>ANN</i> interview that introduced the project</a>. Two points: 1) the $150,000 that Funimation has set as its goal would certainly not be enough to fully a fund a new dub, and 2) regardless, Funimation surely has enough money to budget for a new dub without having to call for direct funding from the fans. Rather, Funimation basically admits that the Kickstarter is more to measure consumer interest (i.e. Funimation already has enough money, but it needs to know whether it’s worth spending on a feature people might not care about) and then, supposing the goal is met, to serve as a pre-order campaign. I don’t doubt that the Kickstarter will succeed and that Funimation will come through with all the rewards promised to backers, but I must say, the $155 reward tier for the complete series and movie would be a ridiculous price for the same product at retail. So there’s clearly a lot of extra money going to Funimation, which they probably don't need as funding.<br />
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But hey, I’m happy to know that I’m not the only one that still loves this show, and as long as this dubbed extended cut is getting made anyway, I’m looking forward to experiencing the series anew. Actually, I haven’t watched <i>The Vision of Escaflowne</i> in about fifteen years, so I can’t say for sure if it holds up, but I’ll gladly take this release as an occasion to revisit it!<br />
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Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-68870781990455872182016-01-11T22:58:00.000-08:002016-01-11T22:58:01.877-08:00Ashes to Ashes, Funk to FunkyI've said it before, and I'll say it again: If I could choose any song to be my entrance theme, it would be David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel."<br />
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And when I pass, I want "Space Oddity" playing me out.<br />
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Goodbye, Starman. You blew our minds.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-16438374613762326422016-01-05T20:11:00.000-08:002016-01-05T20:11:08.810-08:00I'm BackWell, sort of.<br />
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After three years of attempting to run my own Wordpress site, I no longer had the time nor the inspiration to regularly write new content. And with my being so unproductive, I could no longer justify the expense of the web hosting and what all. So here I am back on my old Blogger blog.<br />
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I do still have my FragginCivie.com domain, and I simply merged all my Wordpress posts into my Blogger blog, in a sense unifying my two sites. The imported posts were all formatted for my Wordpress site, however, which means that a lot of stuff is broken now (pictures, embedded videos, links to my other posts). But many links and videos broke on their own over time anyway, without my ever fixing them, so I can't see myself bothering now to go through and check every old and outdated post. If you see anything that you would specifically like addressed, feel free to leave a comment. Otherwise, it is what it is.<br />
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Thanks again for reading. Until we meet again.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-10348976529912614062015-12-05T01:01:00.000-08:002016-01-05T17:39:01.320-08:00Capcom Cup 2015 Preview<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Capcom-Cup-2015.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-3420 size-large" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Capcom-Cup-2015-1024x470.jpg" alt="Capcom Cup 2015 Preview" width="576" height="264" /></a><br/><br/>Tomorrow is the day—the culmination of not only a season of Capcom Pro Tour battles, but of seven years and five editions of <em>Street Fighter IV</em> competition. Capcom Cup 2015 on Sunday, December 6 in San Francisco will represent the series finale.<br/><br/>The field is deeper now than it has ever been, the level of play at its peak. 32 of the world's most elite players, including six out of six Evo champions, will be vying for an unprecedented life-changing first-place prize of $120,000, as well as the glory of being, in essence, the end-all champion of <em>Street Fighter IV</em>.<br/><br/>Here is a rundown of all 32 competitors in the order that they have been seeded, according to their rankings on the 2015 Capcom Pro Tour:<br/><br/><strong>1. Momochi</strong><br/><br/>The defending Capcom Cup champion and Evo 2015 champion, Momochi was the player to beat at the beginning of the year, and he’ll enter Sunday as still the player to beat.<br/><br/><strong>2. Infiltration</strong><br/><br/>The only player ever to win both Evo and the year-end Capcom world championship in the same calendar year (2012), Infiltration can beat anyone in the world, and he knows it. A matchup nightmare for any opponent, Infiltration used over a dozen characters en route to winning five Capcom Pro Tour events this year.<br/><br/><strong>3. Bonchan</strong><br/><br/>Bonchan won two Premier Tournaments this year and continues to be the most consistent performer in the most stacked region in the world. But his character is definitely weaker than those of other top players, and nobody outside Japan is going to be intimidated by a Sagat.<br/><br/><strong>4. Xian</strong><br/><br/>The Evo 2013 champion was the only player to win three Premier Tournaments in 2015, and he has a history of finishing the year strong. There have been two Capcom Cups to date, and Xian was the runner-up in both.<br/><br/><strong>5. GamerBee</strong><br/><br/>The greatest player to never win Evo, the big trophy still eludes him, though GamerBee came damn close this year. Although famous for putting Adon on the map, having used the character to bully Momochi’s Ken many times over the years, these days it is GamerBee’s uber-cheap Elena that sees the most action.<br/><br/><strong>6. Luffy</strong><br/><br/>The Evo 2014 champion was without rival in his home continent this year; he won five Ranking Tournaments in Europe, while no other European took even one. But the Premier Tournaments were humbling for Luffy, as Asian invaders repeatedly shut him out.<br/><br/><strong>7. Tokido</strong><br/><br/>It took some time for Tokido to adjust to how much Akuma has been defanged in this edition, but he came back strong this year and has been a fixture in Premier Tournament top 8’s. He hasn’t had as much success closing out tournaments, but he’ll still be a major obstacle for anyone whose path he crosses.<br/><br/><strong>8. Fuudo</strong><br/><br/>The Evo 2011 champ still has the best Fei Long in the business, but the proliferation of Elenas has made his character far more vulnerable. To combat the Elena counterpick, Fuudo has added a pocket Seth, which is about as far as you can get from the patient style Fuudo is famous for.<br/><br/><strong>9. Mago</strong><br/><br/>Mago was the hottest player on the tour for about a minute, winning two Premier Tournaments and entering Evo 2015 as the No. 1 seed. His character, the nimble Yang, has proven the perfect counter to Akuma, which isn’t worth as much as it would have been in previous versions, but he also still keeps Fei Long around as a backup.<br/><br/><strong>10. Daigo</strong><br/><br/>The Beast is still the king of long sets, and he also won two Premier Tournaments this year. Momochi has owned him pretty hard through most of their 2015 encounters, but Daigo did win their most recent contest in the 5th Topanga A League.<br/><br/><strong>11. Kazunoko</strong><br/><br/>The irrepressible Yun master was the next-best player behind Momochi through the early part of the season, and he finished the year by taking seven straight games off Daigo in the 5th Topanga A League.<br/><br/><strong>12. Snake Eyez</strong><br/><br/>The most marketable player in the US was recently picked up for a sponsorship by Red Bull. The pressure on Snake Eyez will be huge, as he has been made the subject of an ongoing documentary web series that is set to culminate at Capcom Cup.<br/><br/><strong>13. Nemo</strong><br/><br/>The No. 1-ranked player in Japanese arcades, Nemo plays a relentless Rolento. He just never stops attacking (except when he does and then loses). With a full-time job and no sponsor, he doesn’t make it out to the States that often, but the Japanese players all know to fear him.<br/><br/><strong>14. Xiao Hai</strong><br/><br/>Xiao Hai is China’s top player. Sometimes he looks like the best in the world, as when he beats Daigo in the Evil Ryu mirror match. Other times, he looks like a second-rate mediocrity, as when he went 0-8 in the Topanga World League 2 invitational.<br/><br/><strong>15. Justin Wong</strong><br/><br/>Justin had to grind his way into Capcom Cup this year. Playing Elena in recent tournaments, he showed glimmers of his former self—the supreme turtle, who so frustrated Daigo in <em>Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike</em>. If he falls back on Rufus at Capcom Cup, he will not get far.<br/><br/><strong>16. Poongko</strong><br/><br/>In the past, people have sometimes regarded Poongko as more of a showman than a competitor, just slightly outclassed by the more “serious” pros. But when “The Machine” is on, his Seth can make any opponent look like a helpless training dummy, as happened memorably to Daigo at Evo 2011. And Poongko has <em>really</em> been on in the last few events leading up to Capcom Cup.<br/><br/><strong>17. Itabashi Zangief</strong><br/><br/>There are those who say Itazan is not even the best Zangief player in Japan, let alone the world. He’s definitely the most seasoned and internationally accomplished, however, and he cruised through the True Challengers Costa Rica tournament, even against two of America’s best in PR Balrog and 801 Strider.<br/><br/><strong>18. Tonpy</strong><br/><br/>Tonpy is the top-ranked C. Viper in Japanese arcades (or at least was at some point), which does not mean necessarily that he is the best. He did well at a bunch of smaller Asian events, and he has the right character to potentially pull off some upsets on a good day.<br/><br/><strong>19. NuckleDu</strong><br/><br/>Pretty clearly the best in the US in 2015, yet still a long shot to take Capcom Cup, NuckleDu is a fan favorite, in part because he is the only top player with the chutzpah to taunt (repeatedly) during real matches. Expect the crowd to go nuts if he does this against a top international player.<br/><br/><strong>20. Dashio</strong><br/><br/>Japan’s best Seth player. Some think his Seth is more complete than Poongko’s, although Dashio certainly doesn’t have as much international cred. He is capable of beating anyone in Japan, but his lack of experience at the global level may limit him.<br/><br/><strong>21. Keoma</strong><br/><br/>Keoma of Brazil did what no US or European player was able to do this year: he defended home turf against Asian invaders at a Premier event, earning his way into Capcom Cup by defeating Haitani at the Capcom Pro Tour Brazil qualifier. He followed that up by traveling to Europe, where he steamrolled the best the continent had to offer, including a win over Luffy. The guy is a beast—maybe the best Abel player in the world.<br/><br/><strong>22. 801 Strider</strong><br/><br/>Or maybe 801 Strider is the best Abel player in the world. He was the runner-up at a stacked Premier Tournament earlier this year, when he was playing the best he’d ever played—the best any US player has played all year—yet still he lost decisively to Kazunoko.<br/><br/><strong>23. Dieminion</strong><br/><br/>The “King of New York” and the best pure Guile specialist in the world, Dieminion has scored wins over several Japanese players this year. Weirdly, he probably stands a better chance against top international players than he does against any of the other US players at Capcom Cup.<br/><br/><strong>24. Dark Jiewa</strong><br/><br/>An under-the-radar Ken player from Chengdu, Dark Jiewa is good, but he kind of snuck into Capcom Cup early by winning the sparsely attended Abuget Cup in Indonesia. To his credit, he did win it by defeating the rather better-known player seeded right below him….<br/><br/><strong>25. HumanBomb</strong><br/><br/>At different times the best player in Hong Kong and the best player in Australia (also the only top player either region has ever had), HumanBomb now competes for Canada Cup Gaming for some reason. He is probably the best Sakura player in the world.<br/><br/><strong>26. Shiro</strong><br/><br/>The original Japanese Abel player, Shiro is still around, but I don’t think he had a winning record in 2015 against any of the other players qualified for Capcom Cup.<br/><br/><strong>27. Problem X</strong><br/><br/>Problem X has been one of the two best players in the UK (Ryan Hart being the other) for nearly the life of the game. Unfortunately, his first-round opponent will be Luffy, the undisputed best player in all of Europe. Also, scratch what I said about Shiro not having a good record against the other qualifiers; he was 2-0 against Problem X this year.<br/><br/><strong>28. Gackt</strong><br/><br/>Who says Fei Long isn’t top tier anymore? All three of the great Fei Long players made it into Capcom Cup. Though not as famous as Fuudo or Mago, Gackt has at times outperformed them with his comparatively more aggressive Fei Long.<br/><br/><strong>29. Valmaster</strong><br/><br/>Still the strongest Chun-Li in the world and the strongest white guy player in the world, Valmaster is now also the strongest member of Team YP (YouPorn). He’s a great competitor, but, as with Luffy, he was constantly blocked in his own region’s majors by players swooping in from Asia this year. Also, he couldn’t beat Luffy.<br/><br/><strong>30. Misse</strong><br/><br/>They call him “Wanchan-taro” (literally, “One Chance Boy”) in Japan, because all he needs is one chance with his Makoto to take any round in the blink of an eye. Of course, to win Capcom Cup, he’s going to need a lot of rounds and a lot of chances….<br/><br/><strong>31. Dakou</strong><br/><br/>Dakou used to be known for his ability to play nearly every character to a tournament level. Nowadays, he mostly just uses the same cheap characters as his training partner, Xiao Hai (Evil Ryu and Cammy), though less effectively.<br/><br/><strong>32. RB</strong><br/><br/>The wildcard, RB qualified for the 32-man tournament without actually ranking in the top 32 on the Capcom Pro Tour. He ended the season ranked 42nd, but claimed a direct entry by finishing 3rd at a Premier Tournament behind two already-qualified players. Still, he made sport of Europe’s best, and, with a Rolento, a Guy, and a Hugo in his arsenal, he could be a tricky first-round opponent for Momochi.<br/><p style="text-align:center;">***</p><br/><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Who You <em>Won’t</em> See at Capcom Cup 2015</strong></span><br/><br/><strong>Sako</strong><br/><br/>The Capcom Cup 2013 champion hasn’t been around much the last two years. As the winner in 2013, he probably should have gotten an automatic invite into Capcom Cup 2014 (as Momochi received this year), and who knows how that might have impacted things. As things are, he’s been too busy with real life to try to qualify. Still, his shadow looms over the tournament. He basically pioneered both Evil Ryu and Elena as they are played in today's game.<br/><br/><strong>Smug</strong><br/><br/>If Capcom Cup were an invitational produced for maximum entertainment value, Smug would for sure have been included. The only Dudley player of consequence, Smug is an artist with his character, and, more than any other US player, he has the explosive power to knock out the Japanese players. He just doesn’t have the consistency to actually win Capcom Cup, nor indeed to qualify, sadly.<br/><br/><strong>Ryan Hart</strong><br/><br/>The first player to qualify last year for Capcom Cup 2014 struggled all of 2015 and could not scrape together enough points to make the cut. His best shot came at Milan Games Week, where he only needed to finish 3rd and was one win away from doing so. Instead, he lost badly to RB. It’s a shame, because his matches against Momochi last year were the highlight of Capcom Cup 2014.<br/><br/><strong>The Rest of Team EG</strong><br/><br/>Before the game switched to <em>Ultra Street Fighter IV</em>, Team EG’s four US members—Justin Wong, PR Balrog, Ricki Ortiz, and K-Brad—were the four best players in the country. All of them, frankly, fell off somewhat after the version switch, and, this year, they couldn’t stand up to the Asian invaders or even really to NuckleDu and Snake Eyez. Only Justin could still pull out the rare win here and there, which is why he’s the only one at Capcom Cup. The hard truth is that none of the others deserved to make the cut this year, but PR Balrog at least will be missed. He is America’s best big-match player.<br/><br/><strong>Latif</strong><br/><br/>When Latif was living in the US, he was the best player in the country. Then he moved back to Saudi Arabia, and we never saw him anymore. This year, he made top 16 at Evo, and, in his only other appearance on the Capcom Pro Tour, he was, just like Ryan Hart, one win short of qualifying for Capcom Cup. He might still have the best C. Viper in the world, but we won’t see it at Capcom Cup, or probably ever again in meaningful competition.<br/><br/><strong>Any M. Bison (Dictator)</strong><br/><br/>Bison did a lot of damage this year, with SD Pnoy, Tampa Bison, and Jeron Grayson all notching wins against top international players. Unfortunately, no single Bison player performed well enough to represent at Capcom Cup. Phenom of Norway came the closest; he was another player who was one win away from qualifying.<br/><p style="text-align:center;">***</p><br/><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>What to Expect on Sunday</strong></span><br/><br/>Japan’s current “Big Four”—Momochi, Daigo, Kazunoko, Bonchan—have been, without a doubt, the country’s best, both within Japan and in international competition, and will figure to be major contenders to win Capcom Cup, with Momochi the odds-on favorite. Aside from one another, their fiercest competition will likely come from the other East Asian powerhouses—namely, Singapore’s Xian, Taiwan’s GamerBee, and South Korea’s Infiltration.<br/><br/>The lower half of the draw is notably more shark-filled, as that is where Daigo, Kazunoko, Bonchan, and Infiltration have all been seeded. Momochi, Xian, and GamerBee will have one another to watch out for in the upper bracket. That works out especially well for Xian and GamerBee, since they have struggled somewhat against Daigo and Kazunoko.<br/><br/>Expect to see a lot of Elena and Evil Ryu. These two are now widely recognized as the dominant characters in the game. The former controls the ground game like no one else, while the latter is an offensive powerhouse and also versatile with no obvious counters. To give you an idea of their significance at the top level, Capcom Cup 2014 champion Momochi, who last year won going with Ken all the way, this year needed both Elena and Evil Ryu to close out his matches in the top 3 at Evo. Daigo, with his Evil Ryu, is the only “pure” user of either character, but, among the many players who have picked up secondary characters to cover their weaknesses, these two have been cheap, popular choices.<br/><br/>The other character meriting consideration as the final member of the top 3 is Seth. Three Seth players—Poongko, Dashio, and Problem X—qualified for Capcom Cup, and a few others came frighteningly close. Even Fuudo now has a pocket Seth. Except for maybe Xian, nobody has really had an answer for dealing with this character’s blistering offense. Instead, they mostly depend on Seth players making costly mistakes with this volatile “glass cannon” of a character, but even his infamously low health is actually higher now than in any previous version.<br/><p style="text-align:center;">***</p><br/><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>Early Round Matches of Interest</strong></span><br/><br/><strong>Daigo vs. Dieminion</strong><br/><br/>This is a classic US vs. Japan matchup between two players who have each been the very best in their respective countries. History favors Daigo, but Dieminion is a studious player who will not go into this first-round match without a plan.<br/><br/><strong>Snake Eyez vs. Keoma</strong><br/><br/>This will be a very tense first-round match for Snake Eyez, who will be shouldering much of the burden of the crowd’s hopes for a US champion. Facing the almost freakishly stolid dark horse from Brazil, he will have to draw confidence from his strong record against the other two Abel players at Capcom Cup, 801 Strider and Japan’s Shiro, versus Keoma’s more limited experience playing top-level Zangiefs.<br/><br/><strong>Kazunoko vs. 801 Strider</strong><br/><br/>801 Strider is one of the hardest-working and most scientific players in the US, which he showed in matches where he systematically dismantled Momochi and Daigo this year. He will surely have a game plan for this first-round runback against the player who denied him a Premier Tournament title earlier in the year. On the other hand, Kazunoko has shown time and time again that strategy means little to him, and, unless it’s Momochi, he really doesn’t care who his opponent is.<br/><br/><strong>Momochi vs. Poongko</strong><br/><br/>If Momochi makes it past RB, his likely 2nd-round opponent will be Poongko in potentially a pivotal match. Poongko is legitimately a major threat to Momochi, having beaten him 5-1 at Topanga World League 2 this year. He’s also coming off a huge win at the Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals in Singapore last month, where he made sport of Nemo and Bonchan, among others. I can’t quite call him a favorite to win it all—his placings this year just haven’t been consistent enough—but if he beats Momochi, he could definitely go far.<br/><p style="text-align:center;">***</p><br/>This is the toughest <em>Street Fighter IV</em> bracket that has ever been put together, or that ever will be. The results will be impossible to call past the second round, and expect some upsets even in the first round, especially since the format will not be best-of-5 until the top 16. Unlike other big tournaments, such as Evo, there will be no pools for top players to "warm up" against no-names. From the get-go, every competitor will be thrust into a treacherous best-of-3 match against one of the proven strongest players in the world. And, since most of the seedings have been set in stone for over a month now, every player will immediately be facing someone who has game-planned specifically to beat them. Whoever takes home the cup on Sunday, the amazing assemblage of talent should ensure a grand finale and fitting sendoff to <em>Street Fighter IV</em>.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/7ZipEruHw9MHenry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-9768401060399260742015-11-14T07:05:00.000-08:002016-01-05T17:39:01.285-08:00The Fandom AwakensA teenager asked me the other day if I liked <em>Star Wars</em>. She wanted to show me this book of <em>Star Wars</em> sheet music she had just purchased.<br/><br/>“Of course,” I said.<br/><br/>I was more surprised, though also heartened, that this youngster counted herself a fan. <em>Star Wars</em> is one of the biggest properties on the planet, obviously, but I was not certain how truly cross-generational its popularity was today.<br/><br/>I am too young to have experienced the original trilogy in theaters, but I watched those movies dozens of times on home video as a child. Growing up in the ‘80s, I didn’t have as many options as kids these days. There was no Internet (my family didn’t even own a computer), not nearly as much TV (certainly not as much current-run television), and not nearly as many movies (neither in theaters nor in my family’s limited VHS collection). So I would end up watching the same couple of shows and movies over and over again, most of which were older than myself. Regardless, I loved <em>Star Wars</em>—the epic space battles and lightsaber duels, the operatic drama, the heroism and hopefulness, the R2-D2 and, of course, those adorable Ewoks.<br/><br/>Later, I would try to share my love of <em>Star Wars</em> with my younger sister, a child of the ‘90s, but, although she found some of the mascot characters cute, somehow the sci-fi medievalism and dashes of Eastern philosophy never quite captivated her imagination the way they did mine. I resigned myself to supposing that it was a generational thing. Although <em>Star Wars</em> seemed to be growing more lucrative all the time, the average age of its fans was also skewing older. Maybe the fans were really just the ones who had been there all along. They were simply older now and thus had more disposable income through which to exert their influence on the market, as well as a broader forum, the Internet, on which to geek out together. Younger generations, meanwhile, had different interests.<br/><br/>Another twenty years later, the kids and teenagers of today seem far more interested in things like <em>Minecraft</em>, Snapchat, joke memes stolen from Black Twitter, and, the flavor of the month, <em>Minions</em> (that spin-off from <em>Despicable Me</em>). They’ll watch the Marvel movies, but only the very young will have anything to say about them. The prevailing attitude toward <em>Star Wars</em> seems much the same; everyone is going to watch the new movie, but only because <em>everyone is going to watch it</em>. At the individual level, hardly anyone under the age of eighteen seems to feel much one way or the other about it. Or so I thought.<br/><br/>“It’s my favorite movie of all time,” said this teenager.<br/><br/>“Which one?” I asked.<br/><br/>“<em>Clone Wars</em>.”<br/><br/>Well, that was a new one on me. I don’t usually even remember that the 2008 <em>Star Wars: The Clone Wars</em> animated film is one of the choices.<br/><br/>“That was the first movie I ever saw in theaters,” she said.<br/><br/>Ah, that explained it, I thought. Doing the math in my head, I calculated that she must have been about four years old at the time <em>Revenge of the Sith</em> came out. Although I, along with most critics, regarded <em>Clone Wars</em> as the "seventh-best" <em>Star Wars</em> film to date, what was that against this child’s nostalgia?<br/><br/>She said that she had seen and enjoyed all the other movies, but she preferred the art style of <em>Clone Wars</em>, as well as its characters. For her, when she thought of Obi-Wan Kenobi, she did not picture Alec Guinness or Ewan McGregor. This was her Obi-Wan:<br/><br/><a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Clone_Wars_Obi-Wan.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3401" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Clone_Wars_Obi-Wan.jpg" alt="Clone_Wars_Obi-Wan" width="640" height="512" /></a><br/><br/>She said she really loved the <em>Clone Wars</em> TV show too, and it occurred to me then that, indeed, there must have been another entire generation of <em>Star Wars</em> fans that was raised on <em>Clone Wars</em>, a series that I myself mostly skipped. I had considered myself a huge <em>Star Wars</em> fan, and I had thought that the kids today had arrived too late to “get” <em>Star Wars</em>. But maybe I was the one who was born too early, because, actually, this teenager had seen more <em>Star Wars</em> than I had.<br/><br/><em>Clone Wars</em> was axed so abruptly after the Disney acquisition that it’s easy to forget now that the show was massively popular with kids, even up until the end, its demise having nothing to do with its level of success. I think back and can remember now that, for a good while there, the animated incarnations of Anakin and Obi-Wan were basically the lead versions being pushed by Lucasfilm. I would see that art all the time in the toy aisles, on lunch boxes and backpacks, and in video game tie-ins. And how many years did we have full of short clone troopers going door-to-door at Halloween?<br/><br/>That merchandise is all gone now, but the <em>Clone Wars</em> show did what it was supposed to. It cultivated a generation of new <em>Star Wars</em> fans, who, when they take over this world in about ten or twenty years, may prove as vocal and obnoxiously precious about their <em>Star Wars</em> as today’s thirty- and forty-somethings are about the original trilogy.<br/><br/>“Are you looking forward to <em>Episode VII</em>?” I asked her.<br/><br/>“I guess,” she said. “I just know that Disney bought it, and I hope they don’t ruin everything.”<br/><br/>Yikes. I wasn’t sure if this was her “too cool for Disney” phase, a more specific anti-imperialist sentiment toward the Disneyfication of their acquired brands, or just the cynicism that accompanies young adulthood. For the record, in addition to being a <em>Star Wars</em> fan, I also love Disney’s worlds, and I generally approve of what they’ve done with Marvel. And I’ve never had much use for pessimism, so I remain guardedly optimistic about <em>The Force Awakens</em>.<br/><br/>“Well, have you seen <em>Rebels</em>?” I asked, referring to the current <em>Star Wars</em> animated series, which I enjoy and consider a positive indicator of where Disney is taking <em>Star Wars</em>.<br/><br/>“Yeah, that’s why I’m worried,” she said. “It’s too kiddie and Disney-like for me.”<br/><br/>Christ. I guess the <em>Clone Wars</em> animation style was decidedly not “Disney-like,” but it was still a children’s cartoon. To scorn <em>Rebels</em> for being “too kiddie” compared to <em>Clone Wars</em> is simply not rational. It’s like someone my age accusing <em>The Phantom Menace</em> of being too kiddie compared to the original trilogy, apparently forgetting that these movies were always meant to be kid-friendly, and that we probably loved the old movies largely because <em>we</em> were kids when we watched them. (Don’t even get me started on the old dudes who hate <em>Return of the Jedi</em> because it has Ewoks. Yes, to each generation its own image of <em>Star Wars</em>, but please shut up, old dude.)<br/><br/>“And they got Ahsoka all wrong,” she added.<br/><br/>And so continues the cycle of hating the new version of whatever thing you liked when you were a kid….Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-46111252962610037212015-10-11T08:49:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.266-08:00The Walking Dead (TV) (Season 5, Part 2) (2015)<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/The_Walking_Dead_Season_5_Part_2_Poster.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3391" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/The_Walking_Dead_Season_5_Part_2_Poster.jpg" alt="The_Walking_Dead_Season_5_Part_2_Poster" width="720" height="555" /></a><br/><br/>In recent years, <em>The Walking Dead</em> has primarily used the back halves of its seasons to decompress and transition to the next arc, with the more dramatic movements and climactic showdowns to follow in the subsequent fall season. Thus, after the <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2015/02/08/the-walking-dead-tv-season-5-part-1-2014/" target="_blank">explosive midseason finale</a>, the remainder of Season 5 sees the group finally leaving miserable Atlanta behind them, making new friends(?), and settling into a new environment, while the new big bad lurks in the background. That said, the second half of Season 5 does contain a few major moments for the series.<br/><br/>Episode 10, “Them,” sees the main characters at a low point, starving and withdrawn from one another, as they trek on foot toward Washington, D.C., recent losses to their party having taken a heavy toll on the group’s morale. There’s a telling shot where we see the survivors trudging onward, listless to the likewise oddly apathetic zombies in the background merely keeping pace with them. This all culminates in a speech where Rick finally name-checks the title of the show: “We do what we need to do, and then we get to live. No matter what we find in D.C., I know we’ll be okay. This is how we survive: We tell ourselves that <em>we</em> are the walking dead.”<br/><br/>Of course, anybody who has really been paying attention surely figured out a long time ago that the title was referring, not to the zombies, but to the hollowed-out survivors. Still, it feels a momentous milestone for the series. One also gets the impression that, with the characters just now figuring out who they are, the show might still only be getting started, with no end in sight nor any clear destination.<br/><br/>This is then followed by one of the strongest moments in the season, as the group, having taken refuge in a barn, has to mass together to brace the barn door against a horde of zombies, all while a storm rages around them. It might even be the most powerful image in the entire series. So far, I’d say it’s between this and that time Rick ate a guy in Season 4—two moments that strike very different notes emotionally, but which both serve to prove just how fearsome is their will to survive.<br/><br/>The rest of the season focuses on the group trying to integrate into the Alexandria Safe Zone, and here we get the tantalizing twist that, after all the times the main characters have been the hunted, they might now be entering this peaceful community as the predators, the danger, maybe even the straight-up bad guys. When Rick suggests to his team that they might have to take the town by force, because it is going to waste in the hands of its weakling citizenry, it’s an unsettling callback to the debates Rick himself had with Shane back on Hershel’s farm in Season 2, only now Rick seems to have come around to Shane’s way of thinking.<br/><br/>The other great moment of this half-season comes when, Rick, the newly appointed sheriff of the Alexandria community, after having to be pulled off the wife-beating scumbag he was pummeling in a public spectacle, responds by drawing his gun on the unarmed civilian leadership, and delivering his most deranged speech yet:<br/><blockquote>“You still don’t get it. None of you do! We know what needs to be done, and we do it. We’re the ones who live. You!—you just sit and plan and hesitate. You pretend like you know, when you don’t! You wish things weren’t what they are. Well, you wanna live? You want this place to stay standing? Your way of doing things is done! Things don’t get better because you want them to. Starting right now, we have to live in the real world.”</blockquote><br/>Yep. If they’re not already on CafePress, I hope someone will get to designing some “Shane was right” T-shirts.<br/><br/>In fact, it’s basically a variation on the “we are the walking dead” speech that Rick gave to the group in the barn. But, whereas the barn episode, which rallied the group’s will to survive, was, I think, meant to be inspiring, this incident casts a lot of doubt on the soundness of Rick’s leadership. On that note, I should say, it feels like Rick has been crazy more often than not through these first five seasons, so I don’t know why the Alexandrians were so eager to invite him into their community to begin with.<br/><br/>But things follow a predictable course, when Alexandria quickly begins to unravel internally, just as Rick called it. If Rick (and, by extension, Shane) is not wholly vindicated, nevertheless the demurring Alexandrians are proven to be totally wrong and complete idiots, who, like every other non-predatory survivors on this show, were only surviving by dumb luck. And so it falls to Rick to browbeat them into submission, in order to prepare them for the real threat we know to be coming—the mysterious “Wolves,” who, so far, seem like every other predatory gang the group has crossed paths with.<br/><br/>Will the arrival of the Wolves help to remind Rick and the viewers alike what separates our protagonists from the depraved evils the group has faced, or have our “heroes” merely become another gang?<br/><br/>Rick seems to appreciate the distinction between living and merely surviving—hence how he is able to survive while being “dead.” But Rick and the rest will die someday, as shall we all. As they die, will they, as Tyreese did, contemplate how they lived, and wonder if they went about it the right way? Perhaps such philosophy is a luxury left to the dying. While they survive, such thoughts are quickly set aside.<br/><br/>What else happened in Season 5? Well, even with Tyreese’s death in the midseason opener, the show was apparently still over its self-imposed “black guy quota,” so naturally recent addition Noah had to come to a brutal and senseless death, which also rendered Beth’s death the previous half-season all the more senseless. On the bright side, Morgan is back, and it looks like he will be joining Rick’s group. Personally, I thought this character had run his proper course ending with his reappearance in Season 3, but I guess the show wasn’t done with him. And I know it’s an awful thing to say, but I hope the addition of Morgan as a regular means that the preacher man is next up on the chopping block, because, brother or no, that dude is seriously the worst.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-12530935799775800962015-08-18T04:24:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.231-08:00I'll only watch 99 percent of the comic book movies ever made<em><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fantastic-four-blame-game-fox-814764" target="_blank">The Hollywood Reporter</a></em>:<br/><blockquote>Days before <em>Fantastic Four</em> opened, director Josh Trank sent an email to some members of the cast and crew to say he was proud of the film, which, he wrote, was "better than 99 percent of the comic-book movies ever made."<br/><br/>"I don't think so," responded one castmember.</blockquote><br/>A while back, someone asked me, “Have you seen the latest <em>Fantastic Four</em> trailer yet?”<br/><br/>This was, I believe, the final theatrical trailer for Josh Trank and 20th Century Fox’s <em>Fantastic Four</em> (2015). No, I hadn’t seen it. I hadn’t heard about it. I wasn’t interested in it or in the movie. I had seen the first trailer, and it had looked lame, which was what I had expected. I knew early on that this was never going to be the Fantastic Four movie for me—basically, ever since they cast a Mr. Fantastic that was younger than me (I’m in my early thirties), though that was, as it turns out, the least of the production’s problems. (I mean, what could this <a href="http://www.ew.com/article/2015/08/07/fantastic-four-josh-trank-tweet" target="_blank">man-child director</a> know of heroism—this brat who allegedly defaced the family photos of his landlord, whose house his dogs wrecked? In retrospect, doesn’t it make total sense that the most monstrously powerful character in <em>Chronicle</em> was the loser kid with the camera?)<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/AAgnQdiZFsQ<br/><br/>So, anyway, I watched the new trailer, and the movie still looked lame, which was what I expected. My question was, <em>Why do people keep directing me to these lame </em>Fantastic Four<em> trailers, as if I should have some special interest in this crappy superhero movie? </em>It made me wonder, <em>Am I </em>supposed<em> to watch this movie? Is that what is expected of me? Am I now the guy that goes to see every last superhero movie (based on a Marvel or DC property)?</em><br/><br/>I actually had to stop and think to recall the last time I had missed a theatrical release based on a Marvel or DC superhero comic. There was 2014’s <em>X-Men: Days of Future Past</em>, but I had passed on that one for reasons unrelated to the content of the movie. The last one before that was 2012’s <em>Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance</em>, which was more than three years ago. (And that character exists somewhat outside the mainstream of the Marvel universe anyway.) The last DC superhero movie I skipped was <em>Green Lantern</em> in 2011. Since then, I had watched every MCU release, every <em>Amazing Spider-Man</em>, every Batman and Superman, and even the clearly second-rate <em><a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2013/08/05/the-wolverine-james-mangold-2013/" target="_blank">The Wolverine</a></em>. Using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_Marvel_Comics" target="_blank">Wikipedia as a reference</a>, I can count 19 (of 24) Marvel and DC universe films that I had watched in theaters, dating from 2008, the year of <em>Iron Man</em> and <em>The Dark Knight</em>, through to this year’s <em><a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2015/08/11/ant-man-peyton-reed-2015/" target="_blank">Ant-Man</a></em>, the last major superhero movie before the new <em>Fantastic Four</em>.<br/><br/>So, yeah, I definitely seem to watch a lot of these—a majority, even. <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/category/movies/" target="_blank">It’s all over this blog, too.</a> They’re, like, the only movies I watch, right? I mean, seriously, yeesh! I overwhelm myself looking over the embarrassing quantity of words I’ve spent blogging about what are, at the end of the day, rather simplistic escapist fictions for teenage boys. And, having already dug myself in so deeply, I do feel an almost inescapable sense of an obligation to carry on and have an opinion on every new Marvel or DC superhero movie.<br/><br/>Then again, 12 of those 19 superhero movies I saw were part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is sort of a single series. Is it a given that I’ll see every new movie in that series? Maybe. But all of the MCU movies thus far have consistently looked pretty good, and indeed <em>been</em> pretty good, so I’ve never had to consider not seeing one.<br/><br/>Basically, since Marvel really stepped up to take proprietorship of its own movies, and arguably of the genre and maybe even the whole entire film industry, there have been 1) a lot more superhero movies coming out (hence why I’m watching so many), and 2) much higher expectations for each release, effecting a level of “quality assurance” to protect the investments of studios and moviegoers alike. Up until <em>Fantastic Four</em>, it had been a long time since we’d had an <em>Elektra</em> or a Pitof-directed <em>Catwoman</em> slipping through to a single-digit Rotten Tomatoes score. Well, <em>Green Lantern</em> was lousy, and, sure enough, that was a case where I had enough self-respect not to pay money to see it.<br/><br/>So, no, I don’t go to see every single comic book movie that comes out. Only maybe 99 percent of them.<br/><br/>(Yes, I did go to see <em>Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer</em> in 2007, and, yes, it was the worst superhero movie I ever saw in theaters. But that was a weird summer, after I had just quit my game tester gig and started a new job, which, while providing me with a steady income and work schedule at last, also left me momentarily with an identity crisis and no idea how to spend my suddenly abundant free time, except by going to the movies almost every weekend.)Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-30703969119873610762015-08-11T06:02:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.205-08:00Ant-Man (Peyton Reed, 2015)<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ant-Man_Poster.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3337" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Ant-Man_Poster-202x300.jpg" alt="Ant-Man_Poster" width="202" height="300" /></a><br/><br/>Marvel’s original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, is a character whose most famous story arcs concerned mental illness and domestic violence. These are, now as ever, delicate issues, which any film adaptation would have to handle with extraordinary care in order to pull off without inciting a storm of angry blog posts in this day and age of holier-than-thou finger-pointing and overeager content-policing in the name of social justice. Indeed, for as much as a generation of teenage (or otherwise developmentally arrested) male readers heralded the original stories for tackling these serious topics, the old comics would not likely impress today’s audiences, and might even kind of disgust. At the very least, it’s questionable how well they have aged. It’s not surprising that, for its first cinematic take on Ant-Man, Marvel Studios has chosen to sidestep these most infamous chapters in the character’s history, presenting instead the more straightforward origin story of Scott Lang, the lesser-known second Ant-Man.<br/><br/>For fans of the Hank Pym character, it’s disappointing perhaps that Disney’s <em>Ant-Man</em> isn’t the definitive cinematic adaptation of the character we know from the comics. It also isn’t the Edgar Wright Ant-Man film that was so long dangled before admirers of the <em>Hot Fuzz</em> (2007) director. So geeks could already count two strikes against the movie before filming had even begun. But, whatever it isn’t, what <em>Ant-Man</em> is is a pretty great movie, both taken on its own and as an addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.<br/><br/>As a solo superhero origin story, it’s fairly straightforward, yes, but also refreshingly light. Director Peyton Reed, faced with what had seemed an impossible situation, having to step into the shoes of a true auteur, nimbly toes the MCU line, ticking all the boxes (references, cameos, the overall look and feel), while not getting bogged down in shared universe lore or superhero excess. In fact, it’s a movie that almost feels more Disney than Marvel, with obvious similarities in concept and content to <em>Honey, I Shrunk the Kids</em> (1987). It also reminds me a bit of some of the old Robert Stevenson fantasy-comedy films, including <em>The Absent-Minded Professor</em> (1961) and <em>The Love Bug</em> (1968), which featured stories ostensibly set in the real world but each with one core fanciful element, sold partly through special effects, but even more so by appealing to the audience’s innocence and imagination shared by the movies themselves, together with charming characters, gentle sensibilities, and mild family-friendly thrills bordering on the slapstick.<br/><br/><em>Ant-Man</em> does possess some nifty special effects and clever visuals. When characters shrink down, reality itself seems to warp, as they adjust to the unfamiliar and initially overwhelming sense of scale. Unlike other superheroes, Ant-Man is not ideally suited for combat, so the set pieces in this movie also necessitate more creativity. The one thing that a miniature hero might excel at is infiltration, so much of the picture takes the form of a heist film, our tiny protagonist navigating through grates and water mains to bypass security. Naturally, he must also be backed up by a crack support team, including both human misfits and endearing ant companions.<br/><br/>It helps the movie that Marvel had a stellar cast already in place before Peyton Reed was brought in. Although Hank Pym is not the titular Ant-Man of this story, he is nevertheless the central figure in its mythology and still very much involved in the action. And Michael Douglas gives a shockingly great performance, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but it had just felt like a long time since I’d taken the guy seriously, whether in his movies or in the celeb rags. As the self-appointed custodian of the potentially destructive science his genius wrought, he brings more depth and genuine pathos to the role than we’ve yet seen from Robert Downey, Jr. or Mark Ruffalo. Evangeline Lilly, as Pym’s daughter and seemingly the surrogate for Ant-Man’s traditional partner in the comics, the Wasp (who is probably even more significant in Avengers history than Pym himself), also impresses, bringing to the role all the qualities of a winning superhero—strength, charisma, humanity. Paul Rudd, as the Scott Lang Ant-Man, is not the obvious candidate to don a superhero costume, but he’s a nice change of pace from the Avengers we’ve seen—a more ordinary guy, with more ordinary friends. And he wins us over without seemingly having to do very much, because Rudd is so naturally likable. The biggest letdown of the movie is Corey Stoll as the villain, Yellowjacket, who is really kind of an underdeveloped and generic bad guy.<br/><br/>In the comics, Yellowjacket was none other than Hank Pym himself. It was his fourth identity (after Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and Goliath), and the popular interpretation is that all the constant reinventing of himself took a toll on his psyche. Something had to give, and so finally he snapped, yielding the deranged Yellowjacket, who introduced himself by claiming to have killed Hank Pym. The movie offers a slight nod to this with the suggestion that exposure to the size-changing particles have driven Stoll’s character to derangement, but this is not quite convincing, because 1) we never get to know what the character was like before he went nuts, and 2) honestly, he doesn’t seem remarkably insane by superhero movie standards, but rather just run-of-the-mill evil and ambitious, like any number of other bad guys already in the MCU. It’s too bad we won’t get to see Pym as Yellowjacket, because I always thought the personality disorder angle was a clever play on the reality that Marvel’s writers were continually struggling to find ways to keep the character relevant alongside his fellow Stan Lee-created Avengers.<br/><br/>Stoll’s character tries to sell the idea of an ant-sized soldier as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, but truthfully the idea remains unintuitive. The power to turn small seems highly situational in its usefulness, no? Good for espionage, but maybe not so great for evacuating an island falling from the sky. Like the Hulk, Ant-Man was not originally conceived as a superhero. Early Marvel had comics spanning many genres. Ant-Man made his debut in 1962 in the science-fiction anthology <em>Tales to Astonish</em> (which is also where new Hulk stories were published for a while), and somewhat inelegantly transitioned to superhero, once it was determined that that was all the industry had room for.<br/><br/>The movie does do a good job of making Ant-Man’s powers seem totally awesome, as he zips around weightlessly and untouchably and knocks down full-sized grown men, who look as though they’re just flailing about and collapsing for no reason. But his coolest power is his ability to command the ants, which are truly the best thing in the movie. They assist him with transport and combat, and, giant from his perspective, there’s a touch of Harryhausen to them, even if the computer-generated effects in this movie are much more sophisticated. Of course, it raises the question: if Pym’s shrinking technology works, as explained, by reducing the distance between atoms, where in any of that does the ability to telepathically communicate with ants fit? One can only conclude that, in his heyday, Pym was so weirdly, obsessively committed to the whole “ant” theme that he developed multiple otherwise unrelated revolutionary technologies specifically for the purpose of concocting a complete “Ant-Man” persona. And, even with all those abilities, still one wonders, what could Ant-Man add as a member of the Avengers, dealing with cosmic-level threats the likes of Thanos or Korvac?<br/><br/>Well, as mentioned, the original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, in the comics also could become Giant-Man, who might be marginally more useful in a brawl. In the movie, Pym has these red and blue discs used for shrinking and unshrinking objects remotely. At least, I assumed they were for shrinking and unshrinking. But then, toward the end of the movie, Ant-Man uses the blue disc to enlarge a normal ant to giant size. The movie never addresses the implications of this, but it would seem to mean that Pym has already cracked the science behind Giant-Man as well.<br/><br/>I really do hope that <em>Ant-Man</em> gets a sequel, not only to explore this Giant-Man question, but also just because I’d like more fun adventures with these characters. Failing that, I look forward to seeing Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man in a future Avengers movie, and I really hope Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly join him.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-25222700866298919122015-07-23T22:00:00.000-07:002016-09-12T20:18:26.353-07:00Evo 2015 – Ultra Street Fighter IVThe 2015 edition of the Evo Championship Series, the largest gathering of fighting game players from around the world, continued the trend of each year being bigger than the last. The <i>Street Fighter IV</i> tournament, for the seventh and assuredly final time the main event, again set a new record with over 2,200 entrants.<br />
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Last year’s event, which saw big names and past champions, including Daigo Umehara and Seonwoo “Infiltration” Lee, knocked out on the first day of competition, proved the futility of trying to pick an odds-on favorite in today’s game. The field is simply too deep, and, in the best-of-three format, almost anything can happen. Even the most decorated player can potentially run into an opponent they just aren’t prepared for and quickly find themselves sent to the losers bracket. Never mind trying to pick a favorite to win it all, I’m not sure any player coming into Evo 2015 had even odds to make top 8. Rather, with almost every name player in attendance, there were probably at least thirty or so competitors with roughly an equal shot at making it to the money rounds.
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Quarterfinals</h3>
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Evo’s sheer scale is part of what makes it one of the hardest tournaments to win, but, in the early rounds, that size just means that the seeded players have to endure a greater number of pool matches against nobodies before progressing as expected. The quarterfinals are where the action really begins, as big names face off against one another just to crack the top 32.<br />
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The most intriguing matches are those pitting top players against competitors from other regions. In one such case, reigning Evo champion Olivier “Luffy” Hay faced off against Guile specialist Kevin “Dieminion” Landon, one of the best players in New York and in the U.S.<br />
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When Luffy won Evo 2014, it was a bit of a blow to the U.S. community’s ego. When the Americans were losing to the Japanese, they could always point out that the U.S. was playing with a clear handicap, since the Japanese tended to receive the games earlier and benefitted from both healthier arcades and faster internet to develop their skills. What excuse could the Americans possibly offer for falling behind the Europeans, who arguably had to start from even further back?<br />
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Top U.S. players had a lot to prove, not only against the Japanese, but now also against Luffy, who entered Evo 2015 with a target on his back. They had had to wait quite a while for their chance, as Luffy doesn’t generally travel to the U.S. except for Evo, nor do U.S. players very often travel to Europe. But Dieminion was someone who, as it happened, had traveled to France multiple times, so he was well-prepared take on the European players.
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Luffy would subsequently lose off-stream to Japan’s Hiromiki “Itabashi Zangief” Kumada, who became, for the second year in a row, the man to eliminate the previous year’s Evo champ.<br />
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The most exciting quarterfinal match had to be that between SoCal’s Alex Valle and last year’s runner-up, Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi of Japan. Although semi-retired now, Valle was the best U.S. player of his generation back in the days of the <i>Street Fighter Alpha</i> series. Traditionally a Ryu player in every game, Valle had been playing casually a lot of Hugo, ever since the gigantic grappler was added to the roster in <i>Ultra Street Fighter IV</i>. Hugo is a character that still isn’t much represented at the highest levels, but, almost every time a Hugo does make it onto a major tournament stream, something crazy happens.<br />
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Grapplers are traditionally mismatched against Sagat, whose projectiles can be hell to navigate for the slow-footed titans. The difference between Hugo and Zangief, however, is that Hugo has some surprisingly quick far-reaching attacks, some of which also advance him forward, allowing him to maintain pressure as he pushes opponents toward the corner.
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<h3>
Semifinals</h3>
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Both the defending champion and the previous year’s runner-up were knocked out before the top 32, but other favorites remained, including former champions Daigo and Infiltration.<br />
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In the round of 16, Infiltration would have to face Taiwan’s Bruce “GamerBee” Xiang, the very player he previously defeated in the Evo 2012 championship match. So much has changed for these two competitors since then.<br />
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In 2012, the “Year of Infiltration,” the South Korean was the dominant player using the game’s dominant character, Akuma. In 2015, with <i>Ultra Street Fighter IV</i>’s new Delayed Wake-Up mechanic having severely nerfed Akuma’s offense, Infiltration has become known as the most versatile player in the world, having scored tournament victories with nearly a dozen different characters. Against GamerBee, he would go with Evil Ryu, the character now considered by many to be the strongest in this edition of the game.<br />
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GamerBee, long the world’s preeminent Adon specialist, has now also become the top Elena player in <i>Ultra Street Fighter IV</i>. Opinions on the tier placement of this character have varied and shifted considerably in the short time she has been in the game. Without high-damage combos or tricky mix-ups on knockdown, she is not dominating in the ways that <i>Street Fighter IV</i>’s most notoriously powerful characters have been. What she possesses instead is a superior neutral game consisting of quick pokes with those long limbs of hers, angled in ways that make her very hard to approach directly. Her unusually diminutive profile while crouching further stymies opponents’ offenses, since many ordinarily reliable setups specifically will not work on her. This peculiar design, which allows her to effectively control the ground using only basic attacks, has led many frustrated players to declare her a cheap character, albeit not an overpowering one in the conventional <i>Street Fighter IV</i> sense.
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For the most part, Infiltration doesn’t try to approach with his Evil Ryu. That may have less to do with the particular threat Elena poses than with Infiltration’s personal style. He’s always been a cautious and conservative player. The problem is that, if Infiltration isn’t going in, he isn’t taking advantage of Evil Ryu’s main strength—his explosive burst-damage combos. Sure enough, his Evil Ryu looked maybe not ready for prime time, as GamerBee handily took the first game.<br />
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As mentioned, Infiltration is a man of many characters, however, as well as one of the tour’s savviest minds. His decision to switch to Chun-Li shows just how deeply he has studied this game. For a long time considered among the least potent characters in <i>Street Fighter IV</i>, Chun-Li had not been brought up as a potential answer to Elena (or to any character, for that matter, other than grapplers). The character’s one strong point, her great ground control, had never seemed to matter in previous editions dominated by top tiers that could deal so much more damage than her in so much less time. Against Elena, however, this strength would be key. Elena is tough because she is a foil to so many conventionally powerful characters, but Chun-Li is one character who excels in the same area and can therefore fight her on equal terms.<br />
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Interestingly, although this contest of footwork and poking would be considered unconventional by <i>Street Fighter IV</i> standards, it is a more broadly exemplary <i>Street Fighter</i> match for precisely that reason. With no crazy combos or vortex setups to turn to, the participants end up relying on their mastery of the fundamentals that have been at the core of fighting games since <i>Street Fighter II</i>.<br />
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GamerBee was still alive in the losers bracket, but, in order to qualify for the top 8, he would have to win an elimination match against the Evil Ryu par excellence, Daigo Umehara himself.<br />
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In this match between the top Evil Ryu and the top Elena, each character’s strengths are clearly on display. Daigo, a much more assertive Evil Ryu than Infiltration, is determined to advance on Elena, and we see just how hard that is to do, as he repeatedly runs into Elena’s kicks. On the other hand, while GamerBee may land far more blows with Elena, Daigo only needs a few openings to more than erase any life deficit with his destructive Evil Ryu combos.<br />
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Daigo takes the early lead, but he ultimately falls due to his continued lack of caution (he never stops running into those kicks) and his failure to respect Elena’s Ultra Combo I: Brave Dance, which can blow through Evil Ryu’s fireballs to punish on reaction.
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<h3>
Finals</h3>
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Last year saw some of the most successful competitors in <i>Street Fighter IV</i> history crashing out early in an Evo tournament that was held, some argue prematurely, on an edition of the game that had been available to the public for barely over a month. I would never try to diminish Luffy’s victory a year ago, considering the list of players he had to beat to get there. But this year’s results aligned much more closely with expectations of a mature competitive scene with an established order in its player rankings. Both Infiltration and GamerBee reached the Evo top 8, each for the fourth time in their <i>Street Fighter IV</i> careers, and they were joined in the final 3 by Japan’s Yusuke Momochi, the reigning Capcom Cup 2014 champion, still considered by most the man to beat.<br />
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At the beginning of 2015, Momochi carried the momentum from his Capcom Cup victory into a truly dominant run, where it seemed no one else in the world could touch him. Once the 2015 Capcom Pro Tour got fully underway, Momochi was unable to score any major victories at the Premier level (the highest tier of tournament, next to Evo), but the results don’t tell the full story. Anybody who watched him play would surely agree that he was clearly the strongest player. In the matches he won, it would often appear as though his opponents were moving in slow motion. He would swat them out of the sky or otherwise catch them in situations where the data suggested it shouldn’t have been possible for him or for any human to react in time.<br />
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Part of it has to do with his devious “throw tech uppercut” option select, whereby he can manipulate the game engine to read three inputs simultaneously (guard, Shoryuken, throw tech (breaking a grab)) and automatically output only the most advantageous of the three options in any given situation. But Momochi’s form and conditioning are also second to none, likely because he puts in more training than almost anybody else. That means he has the experience to recognize a wider range of scenarios more quickly than anybody else, and he has honed his responses to be instinctive. Basically, he can operate at a faster speed because he doesn’t have to think about what to do.<br />
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The players who beat him in 2015 did so by showing him things he couldn’t have trained against, whether it was Bryant “Smug” Huggins’s one-of-a-kind Dudley at CEO, Gustavo “801 Strider” Romero’s patented anti-Momochi tech at NorCal Regionals, or Daigo Umehara playing out of his mind at Stunfest. The idea is to get Momochi thinking by confronting him with situations he can’t just process automatically. When top players start thinking, that’s usually when they lose.<br />
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In the Evo 2015 winners final, could Infiltration bring to the table something Momochi hadn’t seen before?<br />
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Leading off with Evil Ryu was probably not the best decision for Infiltration. This was not a character he had used very much on the Capcom Pro Tour, but, against the strongest player in the world, perhaps he felt he needed the edge of the strongest character. Unfortunately, as powerful as Evil Ryu is, many people believe he actually loses head-to-head against the other Shoto characters (Ryu, Ken, Akuma), the problem being that his longest-range pokes are just slightly slower than their equivalent attacks, meaning that he tends to lose neutral exchanges. Even setting that aside, Momochi was clearly playing more cleanly and confidently.<br />
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Infiltration’s switch to Abel was a desperate move but, in classic Infiltration fashion, also an inspired one. Perhaps he remembered how 801 Strider had beaten Momochi with Abel at NorCal Regionals.<br />
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It was a great call, but a little too late. Responding to Infiltration’s response, Momochi in turn was allowed to switch characters going into the decisive game, and, of course, with so much on the line, he went cheap with Elena.<br />
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Now in the losers bracket, Infiltration would have to face a runback against GamerBee. Their last match showed off Infiltration’s ability to quickly regroup to counter a formidable tactic from GamerBee. Given two days to revise his game plan, how would GamerBee answer back?
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It was a match that truly showed the game at its best and its worst. In what was quite probably the longest best-of-five match in <i>Street Fighter</i> history, both players pushed themselves to their own limits and to the breaking point of the game itself.<br />
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What GamerBee remembered this time was that Infiltration is, by nature, a low-risk player. Infiltration’s strategy had been to hang back and, instead of dealing with Elena’s stifling defense, waiting for her to come after his Chun-Li, who was capable of turning the tables on Elena with her even better control of the horizontal axis. On review, the problem with that strategy was that it amounted to countering a counterpuncher with a better counterpuncher. What happens if nobody actually threw a punch? That was the question that broke the game.<br />
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In a lot of sports, two sides take turns switching between offense and defense. One player strikes first, and then the other player must respond or risk falling behind, and the rest of the contest all proceeds from that. But what if nobody takes that first turn? You actually see this situation a lot in combat sports. Instead of immediately going at one another, the two fighters dance around one another for a bit (or a lot). It’s called respect. Not respect for your opponent’s quality of character, mind you, but for the threat they pose. If you attack them, then you’re not defending yourself, which puts you at risk. If you see that they’re not attacking, it tells you they’re on defense, which means that they’re safe. When the stakes are high, everyone would rather be safe than at risk, so nobody wants to attack first.<br />
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There’s always been an element of this to the “footsies” in fighting games, but never to this degree. Maybe the stakes had never been so high. For most of every round between Infiltration’s Chun-Li and GamerBee’s Elena, neither side would assertively engage. In many respects, it was probably the highest-level <i>Street Fighter</i> match ever played. There’s a reason that Floyd Mayweather is the most successful boxer, the richest, and frequently praised as the smartest, even if spectators can’t stand watching him do the opposite of fighting. Now just imagine two Floyd Mayweathers squaring off against one another. Boxing aficionados would wet themselves at all that insufferable brilliance.<br />
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It was like a game of chicken in reverse, where each side was daring the other to start, and nobody knew for sure what would happen if neither did, but one side was a little more terrified to find out. In this case, Infiltration was the one cracking. He was the more naturally conservative player, therefore the one in the more unfamiliar position, faced with an opponent who, for once, was at least as risk-averse as himself. He would fire off projectiles, theoretically one of Chun-Li’s key advantages over Elena, in a desperate bid to make GamerBee move. But GamerBee wouldn't budge. He simply absorbed the temporary damage as fuel for Elena’s Ultra Combo II: Healing.<br />
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Healing is the other part of Elena’s game that makes her so demoralizing. Even though it heals Elena instead of damaging her opponent, it has the same net effect as other Ultra Combos: it adjusts the health differential in her favor. But, while other Ultra Combos are best used to punish opponents not being careful enough, Healing alone has the ability to punish someone for being too careful. With Infiltration staying in his own corner, GamerBee could perform Healing repeatedly almost with impunity, effectively giving Elena limitless health.<br />
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I’ve said that GamerBee’s strategy here was about avoiding risk, but, in another way, I suppose it was a huge gamble. The clock was still a factor, which, with neither player gunning for the KO, would eventually decide the outcome of each round. That meant every round would come down to a last-second scramble to finish with the life lead. GamerBee was betting on himself to win most of those scrambles. He was betting his Evo life on the chaos of a few seconds. But this was the plan he had settled on. Confident or not, he was committed, and that gave him the edge.<br />
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In fact, the players traded games, and, had they persisted in this manner, it could have gone either way. But Infiltration didn’t have GamerBee’s faith or his commitment. He needed to try something else. He needed to pull out one of his signature momentum-shifting plays, instead of continuing to play along with the dynamic imposed by his opponent.<br />
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Returning to the character select screen, he hovered over Decapre, the closest thing he’s had to a main in 2015, but he must have realized this would be a bad idea. This was another character based around sitting in the corner. Infiltration next considered Rolento, which the crowd strongly urged him against. Maybe it was because they had just one match earlier seen GamerBee dismantle Naoki “Nemo” Nemoto, the top Rolento in the world. I think it’s more likely they didn’t want to see Infiltration’s dry style of Rolento. After the longest timeout ever, the former champion ultimately assented to the crowd pressure. As tense as this match had been, Infiltration went against his own better judgment and selected Juri, proving himself forever the people’s champion.<br />
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At a glance, GamerBee was the one ruthlessly working to win by any means, while Infiltration was willing to play to the crowd and entertain. But the Juri pick probably only worked <i>because</i> of the crowd. At first, she certainly looked like a downgrade from Chun-Li, gaining better projectiles that made no difference in this matchup, while losing the ability to go limb-for-limb against Elena. But, whenever he activated Juri’s unpredictable Feng Shui Engine, the crowd’s cheering basically willed the guesses to go in his favor, so that he could land those critical combos that finally put Elena down.<br />
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Just as it was against Momochi, however, Infiltration’s opponent would get the final word on character selection. At last, GamerBee brought out his signature Adon. After his Evo 2012 grand final loss to Infiltration, GamerBee would never again play Adon against Infiltration’s Akuma. Despite conventional wisdom that Adon actually had the advantage against all Shoto characters, GamerBee had zero confidence in that matchup and would (usually unsuccessfully) try to counter Akuma with Yun instead. But with Infiltration himself having mostly dropped Akuma, now was Adon’s time to shine once more.<br />
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In an almost tragicomic finish to the most grueling match in Evo history, after Infiltration finally managed to force GamerBee to switch away from “most disgusting character in the game” Elena back to his usually honest and aggressive Adon, still the final round would end in a time over, and with GamerBee’s scummiest play yet at that. He blatantly robbed Infiltration using the “timer scam” technique, whereby a player activates their Ultra Combo during the final seconds of the round, exploiting the canned cut scene animation that momentarily freezes the opponent in place but doesn’t stop the clock from ticking down. Thus did GamerBee book himself a place in the grand final against Momochi.
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<h3>
Grand Final</h3>
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It’s a credit to the reputation GamerBee has built for himself as a fan favorite that, even after what he just pulled on Infiltration, the crowd was now fully on his side in his match against Momochi. They understood, certainly, that GamerBee was coming from the losers bracket, and they wanted him to reset the bracket just so they could witness more action. But, beyond that, GamerBee is simply that kind of player you can’t help but root for. That was true from the moment he made his Evo debut as an unknown Adon player in 2010.<br />
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I spoke before of Momochi’s conditioning. Without question, the Japanese player was the fittest competitor going into Evo 2015. Nine times out of ten, it is the fittest competitor who wins, but he’s not the guy that people cheer for. Though famously hard-working in his own right, GamerBee is a different kind of player. True to his name, he’s a gamer, and I mean that in the sporting sense. Lacking perhaps the analytical mindset or the resources to replicate Momochi’s training regimen, GamerBee has learned to match the geniuses of the game through mettle and sheer determination, along with a touch a shrewdness and guile (no, not that one). He overcame Infiltration by fully committing to a strategy that even the hungriest of competitors would have had a hard time stomaching. No player had ever pushed the game to that brink before. Perhaps nobody had ever wanted it so badly. Nobody had ever cared so much as GamerBee.
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I’ve painted GamerBee as the underdog in this match against Momochi, and indeed he was, going by the player’s respective records in 2015. But I should also point out that, historically, GamerBee has always been Momochi’s hardest matchup—his demon, if you will. GamerBee won his first major <i>Street Fighter IV</i> championship, Season’s Beatings: Redemption in 2010, by trouncing Momochi in the grand final. In the Capcom Cup Asia Finals in 2013, GamerBee demolished Momochi in a seven-games-straight shutout. Just a year ago, GamerBee also defeated Momochi at Evo 2014. The Momochi of 2015 is a different animal, but, even so, GamerBee dominated their most recent match at NorCal Regionals in April, doing so through repeated use of basically just one button, Adon’s standing heavy kick, which happens to directly outclass Momochi’s favorite entry tool, Ken’s step kick, at the same range.<br />
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At Evo, GamerBee would lean on this one button again. Momochi would manage to win some of the exchanges just by being the cleaner player, but GamerBee stuck to his guns and ultimately came out ahead to reset the bracket, overcoming Momochi’s immaculate Ken through unwavering commitment to a simple but shrewd tactic.<br />
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After such a mentally taxing marathon match against Infiltration, you had to wonder if GamerBee would have anything left in the tank. But now, suddenly, he even looked like he had the upper hand in the grand final against the best player in the world.<br />
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Momochi, once upon a time known for his skill with multiple characters—a rarity among top Japanese players, who are typically character specialists and loyalists—finally broke through last year to win Capcom Cup 2014 while sticking with Ken the entire way. Here at Evo 2015, against GamerBee’s Adon, it seemed we had reached the limit of Ken. If Momochi was going to cross that finish line, he would have to leave his signature character behind. And if he was at all disappointed about that, victory would surely help him get over it. His opponent clearly had no shame about exploiting character matchups, and Momochi himself had already had to switch to the game’s dirtiest character, Elena, to beat Infiltration. Now he would turn to Evil Ryu, the game’s strongest.<br />
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GamerBee, although he too had the option of switching characters for the second set, opted to go the rest of the way with Adon. It was a bit of a surprising decision. After all, GamerBee had beaten Infiltration and Daigo’s Evil Ryus with Elena. Maybe he felt Adon was the better matchup against Momochi the player. Or maybe, on the cusp of his long-awaited Evo victory, he was feeling sentimental and wanted to ride or die with the character that brought him to this same stage his first time at Evo.<br />
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Either way, Adon, as stated, is generally considered to have the advantage against Shoto characters. One major factor is his Ultra Combo I: Jaguar Revolver, which can blow through projectiles at long range. It’s not Adon’s preferred Ultra Combo in most other matchups, since it has less reliable damage potential than his Ultra Combo II: Jaguar Avalanche, but the threat of it serves as an effective deterrent against projectile characters, shutting down one of their key options.<br />
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Against Momochi’s Ken, GamerBee actually didn’t even bother equipping Jaguar Revolver, probably because Ken’s fireball is slow enough that GamerBee didn’t feel the need to respect it. Evil Ryu’s fireball is much better, however, and that surely informed Momochi’s strategic switch. In a way, there’s a deterrent on both sides. When Momochi has a projectile option that demands GamerBee’s respect, GamerBee must forgo his own biggest weapon in favor of Jaguar Revolver, which he’ll probably never even use. Thus, Momochi doesn’t get to utilize Evil Ryu’s long-range option when Jaguar Revolver is in play, but GamerBee has to give up Adon’s combo into Jaguar Avalanche. One could say that both characters were having to fight at half strength, which was kind of poetically representative of how drained the players too must have been by this point. And this final match would yet ask a lot more of them.<br />
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GamerBee could no longer as comfortably spam standing heavy kick. The risk would be too great, because Evil Ryu’s high damage meant the punishment for any misplaced kick would be severe. Without any other cheap tactics left to game the game, GamerBee had to fall back on his oneness with Adon, a character whose every facet he was sole master of. When we analyze in relative terms at these highest of levels, we usually think of GamerBee as more of a grinder than a technician. It’s easy to forget that GamerBee is still more technically skilled than 99 percent of all players. That gave him a fighting chance even against the best player using the best character.<br />
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It also helped that Evil Ryu was not Momochi’s main character. When I say Momochi is immaculate, I suppose what I really mean is that he is immaculate when using Ken, the character he has poured most of his training into. His Evil Ryu was a lot rougher, and suddenly he looked more like a really good but still mortal player, who was even maybe succumbing to the pressure of the moment. On match point, in the third round of the fourth game, he would fail to complete a combo that would have sealed it. Then, almost immediately after, he would get another chance, only to drop it AGAIN and have GamerBee steal the round and the game back. That’s the price of Evil Ryu. Those combos are devastating, but they’re also the hardest to perform. Nobody, not even Daigo, can nail them with more than 75 percent reliability.<br />
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What’s extra amazing about that sequence is that, when you review the footage, you can see that Momochi thought it was all over. He exhales deeply, looks momentarily lost, then raises two fingers at GamerBee to confirm that the score was only now 2-2. He had thought the score was already 2-2 in the last game and that he had just lost Evo on a twice-flubbed core Evil Ryu combo. But it turned out Evo wasn’t done with him or GamerBee yet.
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<h3>
“Not Like This”</h3>
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As amazing as all of that preceding action was, including a match I earlier called the “highest-level Street Fighter match ever played,” Evo 2015 will likely be remembered for one unfortunate moment above all else: the pause.
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More accurately, it was a stick malfunction triggering an automatic pause (the game's way of letting you know that your controller has turned off), which the tournament rule book treats the same as any pause. Whoever was responsible must forfeit the round. They can’t just unpause and resume, because the round’s natural rhythm has been compromised. Without some penalty, unscrupulous players would just pause every time they felt a need to interrupt the opponent’s momentum.<br />
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What makes the ruling so harsh, in the case of a stick malfunction, is that the player really has no control over that. You can argue that a competitor must take responsibility for their own equipment, but, beyond making sure that your controller is officially licensed and hasn’t been dropped on the floor a bunch, what measures can you really take to ensure that it won’t fail on you?<br />
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Even worse, Momochi actually didn’t even have full control over what stick he carried into tournaments. His sponsor, the eSports team Evil Geniuses, had been in turn sponsored by Razer. All of their <i>Street Fighter</i> players had been contractually obligated to use the Razer Atrox arcade stick. Now, EG’s partnership with Razer did terminate just a month before Evo 2015. The team’s new peripherals provider is SteelSeries, which doesn’t manufacture arcade sticks (or any console stuff). I suppose, as of a month ago, Momochi has been free to switch to any other stick of his choosing. But why would he have? The Razer Atrox was officially licensed, highly reviewed, and built with literally the same exact joystick and buttons as pretty much every other Japanese-style arcade stick from any other manufacturer. There was no compelling reason whatsoever for him to switch from a stick he’d already been using and winning with in favor of any other basically identical stick.<br />
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But, ultimately, it <i>was</i> Momochi’s stick that crapped out, and he was the one responsible for it, even if he kind of wasn’t. (Is there anything in the warranty about Razer being liable for winnings lost as a result of equipment failure?) If you never imagined both sides in a competition could get robbed by the same ruling, well here it was. I don't blame the judges, mind you. It was an impossible situation. No proposal could possibly have turned back or rectified a cosmic unfairness that had been created by a freak occurrence.<br />
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The only consolation you could take from it was that at least this didn’t decide the game and match. It handed the round to GamerBee, tying up the game at one round apiece, taking us to the final round of the final game of the final match of the biggest tournament in <i>Street Fighter IV</i> history. Of course, that didn’t happen right away. To scrub the lost round as cleanly as possible, the judges couldn’t allow either player to build extra meter after they unpaused. Once the stick issues were sorted out, they would have to sit there and wait for the round to end in a time over.<br />
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As the clock ticked down, the seconds felt both interminable and yet insufficient, the tension building and building to a slow crush. And then, finally, after all the work these players had put in, it would all come down to a single round—a single round that they were going into cold. It felt wrong, and it sucked.<br />
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When Momochi won it by wiping out about a third of Adon’s health in one single Evil Ryu combo, the new Evo 2015 champion barely even celebrated. He must have felt pretty good in that moment, but only from a tremendous sense of relief, not triumph. There would be none of the latter for anybody this day, though GamerBee at least got to hear the crowd chant his name.
Five years earlier, when a theretofore unknown Adon player defeated Justin Wong to qualify for top 8 at Evo 2010, the crowd chanted GamerBee's name as though he'd won the whole damn thing. Now they were chanting it again after having just seen him lose the big one. It was the definition of bittersweet.<br />
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If you want to look for a silver lining, I suppose it was in the small ways that even rivals pulled together to deal with that difficult moment. When they realized Momochi’s stick was faulty and needed to be replaced, Infiltration’s was available. It was also a Razer Atrox, but, as it turned out, a personally customized one, because Infiltration famously prefers the bat-shaped Crown joystick (“eggplant,” the Japanese call it) over the more typical Japanese Sanwa lollipop. On to plan B (or was it C?), Momochi had to instruct his nearby girlfriend and EG teammate, Yuko “ChocoBlanka” Kusachi, to run and seek out his friend Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi (whom he had beaten just a few matches earlier in the top 8), who would provide (courtesy of his own sponsor) the MadCatz stick that ended up winning the day. Most interestingly, with oddly no designated Japanese translator on hand from either the Evo staff or Momochi’s own people during that crisis, it fell to the apparently trilingual GamerBee to interpret the judge’s directions, given in English, and translate them into Japanese to let Momochi know what was going on. Perhaps the true beauty of the game is how shared passion unites competitors into community.<br />
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At the end of the day, as disappointing a finish as that was, it was also definitely a one-of-a-kind Evo moment—an unforgettable way to close the book on seven years of <i>Street Fighter IV</i> at Evo, which I suppose is all we could have asked for.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-38408842498441070232015-07-18T11:36:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.171-08:00Taylor Hicks Called ItWhen Bill Trinen, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Nintendo of America, made known he would be entering the <em>Super Smash Bros. for Wii U</em> tournament at Evo 2015, the question on everybody's mind was "Will he place higher than Taylor Hicks did?"<br/><br/>Hicks himself answered on Twitter, "Doubt it."<br/><br/>https://twitter.com/TaylorHicks/status/617025620967448576<br/><br/>Shots fired!<br/><br/>For reference, the former American Idol allegedly competed in <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> two years ago at Evo 2013, <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2015/07/05/how-well-did-taylor-hicks-really-perform-at-evo-2013/" target="_blank">where he placed...</a> well, it doesn't matter, because Trinen never showed and won't even get a last-place "participant" badge. Turns out, he canceled in light of the passing of Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata.<br/><br/>https://twitter.com/trintran/status/621360923702235136<br/><br/>A fair enough reason, I grant. Anyway, looks like Taylor Hicks was right. Somehow he knew.... (Not to start any conspiracy theories.)<br/><br/>But what vastly more famous person <em>did</em> make it out to Evo 2015? None other than silver screen scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis!<br/><br/>https://twitter.com/EvilMrWizard/status/622508286009479168<br/><br/>https://twitter.com/jamieleecurtis/status/622500719954800640<br/><br/>The star of <em>Halloween</em> and <em>True Lies</em> <a href="http://www.myfoxdc.com/clip/11047065/fox-beat-jamie-lee-curtis-stars-in-new-film-spare-parts" target="_blank">alluded in an interview way back in January</a> that she would be taking her total gamer son to a "fighting game convention" for his high school graduation present. She didn't mention Evo by name, but she did assure that she played <em>Street Fighter</em> "more than you will ever know," even going so far as to name Cammy as her character of choice.<br/><br/>For <em>Street Fighter</em> fans, it was a cute story at the time, but I don't think anybody truly believed she would show (not at a grassroots, nerd-filled event that might even have furries in attendance!), especially considering she mentioned in that very same interview how hard it was for her to go anywhere in public because of how recognizable she is.<br/><br/>But she was clearly three moves ahead of all of us, as she figured it out and followed through, arriving with husband Christopher Guest and the rest of the family, all in costume as various fighting game characters (not obvious ones, either!). She may not have competed, but clearly she deserves the award for "coolest mom on the planet."Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-27524666513178504092015-07-16T05:01:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.152-08:00Top 5 Street Fighter IV Moments in Evo History<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Evo_Street_Fighter_IV_One_More_Time.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-3299 size-medium" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Evo_Street_Fighter_IV_One_More_Time-242x300.jpg" alt="Evo_Street_Fighter_IV_One_More_Time" width="242" height="300" /></a><br/><br/>This weekend, July 17-19, is Evo, the biggest fighting game competition in the world. The event only gets larger every year, but Evo 2015 may well end up being the biggest <em>Street Fighter IV</em> tournament there will ever be. Next time this year, we can expect the upcoming <em>Street Fighter V</em> to take over as the new marquee game. Given that we will have had seven years of <em>Street Fighter IV</em> at Evo, I can imagine quite a few players and spectators alike will be glad to finally send it off into retirement. Of course, Capcom Cup 2015 is still coming at the end of this year to provide a more final capstone to the years of grueling <em>Street Fighter IV</em> battles. But Evo has always been the grandest open-entry tournament, drawing hundreds and even thousands of competitors—world warriors from far and wide, some for whom Evo might be the only trip they take outside their home country all year, flying out on their own dime to “quarter up,” as it were, against the best of the best, not for cash prizes but because this is what they are passionate about—and where theoretically an unknown could inscribe their name into legend by taking a game off Daigo “The Beast” Umehara himself. In honor of what Evo means to the fighting game community (FGC), and of the game that has headlined its years of most significant growth (so far!), let us reflect on some of the greatest <em>Street Fighter IV</em> moments in Evo history.<br/><br/><strong>#5 - Poongko Tames The Beast</strong><br/><br/>Evo 2011 was kind of an odd year for <em>Street Fighter IV</em>. Fools that we were, some of us actually thought the competitive scene for the game was winding down. <em>Street Fighter X Tekken</em> was looming on the horizon, and, although Capcom had <a href="http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2010/04/09/street-fighter-4-games-to-end-with-super/" target="_blank">reneged on its promise not to milk <em>Street Fighter IV</em></a> with any more revisions after 2010’s <em>Super</em> upgrade, the eventual <em>Arcade Edition</em> seemed a hastily assembled, mischievously conceived, even deliberately broken release designed just to shake things up, not to meaningfully extend the game’s life.<br/><br/>Two-time Evo <em>Street Fighter IV</em> champion Daigo Umehara of Japan seemed to be thinking the same thing. Having won back-to-back championships with his Ryu, perhaps he felt he had little left to prove in the game. It was time for him to just have some fun, ditch Ryu and go straight top tier with new addition Yun, a character that producer Yoshinori Ono basically admitted was purposely designed to be overpowering. What would happen when the strongest player in the world used the most juiced character in the game—the best playing the best? In other words, what would total domination look like in <em>Street Fighter IV</em>?<br/><br/>As it turned, a lot of things didn’t go according to plan. <em>Street Fighter X Tekken</em> never caught on. <em>Street Fighter IV</em>, not even halfway through its competitive life, would see several more major and minor revisions. And Daigo? Well, he ran into “The Machine.”<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/LR58SKj6uKE<br/><p style="text-align:center;">(Video uploaded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/FightersMixHD" target="_blank">FightersMixHD</a>.)</p><br/>The ending to this match is a clip that the Evo organizers subsequently tried to manufacture into an “Official Evo Moment,” dubbing it <a href="https://youtu.be/6rAVrwRwbio" target="_blank">“Evo Moment #13,”</a> as if to suggest that it was as amazing as the famous <a href="https://youtu.be/KS7hkwbKmBM" target="_blank">“Evo Moment #37”</a> Daigo parry.<br/><br/>In fact, there isn’t much to analyze in this match. Daigo’s opponent, Chung Gon “Poongko” Lee (AKA “The Machine”), was a <em>Street Fighter IV</em> Korean national champion. The two had faced off previously in one of the earliest <em>Street Fighter IV</em> international meets in 2009, and <a href="https://youtu.be/ENYI5bsVILA" target="_blank">it had not gone well for Poongko</a>. Of course, back then they were both Ryu players. Poongko, the consummate showman of the FGC—who readied himself for this Evo 2011 match by flinging his jacket into the crowd and chugging a can of Red Bull right there on the main stage (and who has also been known to take his shirt off, when on the ropes, as a way to “power up”)—had since switched to Seth, a character whose volatility perfectly reflected Poongko’s own personality. <em>Street Fighter IV</em>’s ultimate “glass cannon,” Seth was the game’s most fragile character, but also one that could have the opponent seeing stars (or birdies or skulls) in short order, blitzing them in a few nutso sequences of attacks from all angles. Win or lose, it would happen quickly with this character, and in one-sided fashion. That’s what happened to Daigo. Poongko was all over him, and the result was a perfect round, where Daigo never got a chance to play. In other words, it played out like a typical Seth win.<br/><br/>Still, it’s true that this moment has persisted in people’s memories. Although it was not the highest-level, most substantial match, it was one of the hypest, in large part thanks to Poongko’s theatrics. And hype and theatricality have always been essential to the FGC and to Evo. Meanwhile, hardly anyone remembers now that Daigo was still alive in the losers bracket after this loss, and it was actually Saudi Arabia’s Abdullatif “Latif” Alhmili, a C. Viper player, who <a href="https://youtu.be/92LKuApzFlU" target="_blank">finally eliminated him</a>, thus ending his Evo reign.<br/><br/><strong>#4 - East Meets West (Not the Coasts)</strong><br/><br/>Grinding his way through the losers bracket with his patented Rose play, and doing so with his signature original PlayStation digital controller, France's Olivier "Luffy" Hay became, in 2014, the first European ever to make it into Evo’s top 8 in <em>Street Fighter IV</em>, but he wasn’t going to stop there.<br/><br/>Like GamerBee's Adon and Xian's Gen, Luffy's Rose was a character that most had never seen played to such a high level before. Nobody seemed to have figured out yet how to deal with his use of Rose's alarmingly quick dashes or his mastery of the Soul Satellite technique. Always, the orbs were a momentum-killer that threw opponents off their game and set them on the defensive. Against Luffy's nerves of steel, any such instance of hesitation or passivity would prove costly, and the Rose specialist slowly but surely carved a swath toward the Evo 2014 grand final.<br/><br/>After two years straight of Evo grand finals contested between players from different eastern parts of Asia (South Korea vs. Taiwan in 2012, Singapore vs. Japan in 2013), it was a breath of fresh air for the Evo crowd to see a finalist representing "the West," even if it was an Asian Frenchman. Indeed, as Luffy faced off against Japan's Masato "Bonchan" Takahashi, the world's strongest Sagat, it was the "East vs. West" dimension that made this the most electric <em>Street Fighter IV</em> grand final since the early days of U.S. vs. Japan bouts, before the Americans fell so hopelessly behind the Japanese and even players from other parts of Asia. A partisan U.S. crowd didn't seem to much care that Luffy proudly hailed from a different country and continent; in that moment, they were behind him all the way.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/Wp0cHgXw1Bw<br/><br/>On review, the match was maybe not the prettiest. We can see that Bonchan really was quite lost on how to approach Rose, and, even if he had had more experience playing against the character, that matchup is terrible for Sagat (as Luffy has shown by <a href="https://youtu.be/vn0OhFgb-bU" target="_blank">beating Bonchan even more badly</a> in multiple encounters since). So maybe Luffy had his opponent at a bit of a disadvantage in that grand final.<br/><br/>Of course, it wasn’t as if Bonchan was the only player Luffy beat on his way to victory. In all, Luffy would have to go through no fewer than eight Japanese players (as well as top talents from the U.S. and Singapore), including such stars as Tokido and Mago, who had had experience facing Luffy’s Rose in prior events. Truthfully, the gauntlet that Luffy had to run through was probably the toughest path any competitor had ever taken en route to the Evo championship. And it was definitely the longest, since he spent more than half of it in the losers bracket. So let there be no doubt that he earned it the hard way.<br/><br/>Once the dust had settled, one more point became clear. Luffy had not "won one for the West." Rather, the U.S. had been put on notice, as another continent claimed an Evo <em>Street Fighter IV</em> trophy before they had theirs.<br/><br/><strong>#3 - Infiltration Wins the Crowd</strong><br/><br/>The winner of Evo 2012 was one Seonwoo “Infiltration” Lee of South Korea. This may have been the least exciting Evo for <em>Street Fighter IV</em>, but that is only because Infiltration was so untouchable throughout the tournament, not dropping even a single game during the entire top 32 at least (I don’t have the data for the earlier rounds, but I’d be shocked to learn that any of his early-round opponents took a game off him). It was the most impressive tournament performance, and part of the most successful season, by any player in the history of <em>Street Fighter IV</em>. Words almost do not suffice to convey how amazing Infiltration was during that period. And yet the response was not always one of appreciation for the quality of his play. Rather, his sheer dominance, even against the likes of Daigo Umehara, sapped Evo 2012 of much drama, and an almost resentful crowd (mostly, spectators not actually involved in the “community” part of the FGC) found it easy to cast him as the heavy.<br/><br/>Part of it may have been because he never had much to say, seeming to let his coldly efficient play style do the talking for him. (The reality, of course, is that, at the time, he knew barely any English, and was shy besides.) People were also maybe sore that he slew their hero, Daigo, and crashed the longstanding U.S. vs. Japan rivalry. And there were those who genuinely just didn’t like the way he played the game. First of all, he used Akuma, who, besides being a gross-looking villain in the actual in-game story of <em>Street Fighter</em>, was also regarded as the best character in that edition of the game (<em>Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition Ver. 2012</em>). Going top tier may get you wins, but it doesn’t always earn you respect. Infiltration’s style was, as stated, efficient, but arguably uninspiring, built around repetitive and hard-to-escape vortex setups that sometimes looked downright unfair. And, beyond the action on the screen, Infiltration employed tools theretofore unheard of. He would consult his phone between games, presumably looking up notes on his opponent or their character. He would have his friend/coach, Ryan “Laugh” Ahn, sitting right next to him during matches, advising him and strategizing with him between rounds, such that, for opponents, it was almost like having to play against both of them at the same time. Nowadays, these techniques are commonplace in tournament settings, but, back in 2012, they suggested, together with Infiltration’s fierce brow, an excessively serious, even ruthless, approach to the game.<br/><br/>Thus, in 2013, when Infiltration entered Evo as again the favorite (though not quite so prohibitively this time, as Singapore’s Ho Kun Xian was also having a banner year), spectators were inclined to root against him. And when NorCal-based Puerto Rican Balrog (boxer) player Eduardo “PR Balrog” Perez stunningly <a href="https://youtu.be/VuMJDFIVRq0" target="_blank">sent Infiltration to the losers bracket in the top 16</a>, the chants of “U-S-A” and the roars of approval were the loudest heard all night that Friday. When Infiltration and PR Balrog ran into each other in the brackets again in the top 8 on Sunday, the crowd was ready for their boy to do it one more time.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/7XKYAayVY48<br/><p style="text-align:center;">(Video uploaded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/PS3GamingHD/" target="_blank">PS3GamingHD</a>.)</p><br/>An at-times streaky player, PR Balrog was still feeling it two days after his first upset win over Infiltration, and sped ahead to a 2-1 lead with momentum on his side. This was it. The defending champion was on the ropes, facing match game and elimination, and the crowd couldn’t be happier to see him taken down. How would Infiltration respond?<br/><br/>By switching from top-tier Akuma to Hakan, the game’s most bizarre character, as well as one of its least represented, most poorly understood, and arguably weakest!<br/><br/>Infiltration was one of the few players in the world <a href="https://youtu.be/fKWMcsOkgsM?t=5m30s" target="_blank">known to have a Hakan in his pocket</a>, but, certainly, he had never tried his Hakan before in such a high-pressure situation, with so much on the line as at Evo. On its face, this seemed like a crazy move. And that is precisely what the crowd appreciated. Infiltration, a reputedly ruthlessly efficient player, now with his tournament life on the line, just bet it all on what was perceived as the most insane gamble short of picking Dan. And, with that one brilliant stroke, not yet having performed a single move with Hakan, the South Korean instantly transitioned from “dark lord” to “people’s champ,” and completely won over the crowd to his side, even against their American favorite. So stoked to see a Hakan on the Evo main stage, they were going to cheer for every blow Infiltration landed.<br/><br/>As impressive as his Evo 2012 victory was, I honestly feel it was <em>this</em> moment, a year later, that made Infiltration as we know him today—a crowd favorite, who plays for the joy of the game. His English and Japanese have progressed rapidly, to the point that he can now even commentate in those languages. He is as much a performer as he is a competitor, often picking unexpected characters for fun and for hype. And, beloved by fans, he has even had people offer to crowdfund his travel expenses, in lieu of an official sponsor.<br/><br/><strong>#2 - That Adon Player</strong><br/><br/>In 2010, Bruce “GamerBee” Hsiang of Taiwan was a 30-year-old multiple-times <a href="https://youtu.be/jjg-tpzuxs4" target="_blank"><em>Virtua Fighter</em> national champion</a>, who was no slouch at <em>Street Fighter IV</em> either, having as recently as a year prior qualified for Japan’s prestigious Super Battle Opera tournament. From Taiwan, he was able to train online against top Japanese players, and replays of some of his matches against Daigo had even caught the attention of hardcore enthusiasts trawling YouTube for any and all Japanese <em>Street Fighter IV</em> footage. But, as far as most anyone at Evo 2010 in the U.S. knew, GamerBee was just “that Adon player,” an unknown entrant using a rarely seen character that conventional wisdom assured was among the least threatening in the game.<br/><br/>It was probably a cute sight at first, seeing this no-name foreigner frustrate opponents with his novelty character and his jump-happy style. By the time he got called up to the stage for his top 16 match against Justin Wong, however, everybody knew who “that Adon player” was (even if they still had no idea <em>who</em> he was), and there was nothing quaint whatsoever about his play. He had already gone on a tear through some known contenders, <a href="https://youtu.be/RNFYJwkJXOY" target="_blank">including J.R. Rodriguez and Japan’s Hiroyuki “Eita” Nagata</a>. Though little was known about him, clearly this GamerBee guy was a master Adon specialist, who had honed his execution to a razor-sharp level to elevate his character far beyond what anyone had considered realistic.<br/><br/>The key was his mastery of the “instant Air Jaguar Kick,” a technique that allowed him to perform the aerial version of Adon’s signature slashing kick just barely off the ground to increase its speed and recovery. It required incredibly deft hands, but, once harnessed, it allowed GamerBee to spam the move to harass unsuspecting opponents almost with impunity. Adon with the instant Air Jaguar Kick was simply a different character from Adon without. Nevertheless, his next match was against Justin Wong, America’s top player, whom many had expected to make it all the way to the grand final at least.<br/><br/>For Justin, this must have been a nightmare made real—this deep into the tournament having to face a strong player he hadn’t had a chance to properly scout, and who was using an unfamiliar character to a level Justin had never encountered before. He had massive expectations to live up to—basically the hopes of the entire American scene riding on him—whereas his opponent had upset all predictions in making it even this far, and was now basically playing with house money. It was the final match of the night, meaning all eyes in the room were now on them. And it was an elimination match, meaning whoever lost would be done for the tournament. The pressure on the American was enormous. And this wasn’t even top 8 yet!<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/Zh1fzwJeaEI<br/><br/>In the end, GamerBee prevailed in what was then considered a stunning upset. Justin Wong, America’s greatest hope for an Evo champion in <em>Street Fighter IV</em>, was eliminated before the top 8. Nobody was even mad about it, though! No, instead the entire room was chanting “GamerBee!” (they sure knew his name now!), the applause the loudest any non-finals performance at Evo had ever received. Other players were raising GamerBee up on the main stage to soak in this spontaneous mini victory ceremony, as though the tournament weren’t just pausing to resume two days later. That was how momentous this was. Back in Taiwan, it was such a big deal that it was <a href="https://youtu.be/sYdu1J3-TXQ" target="_blank">reported on national TV news</a>, and Gamerbee was <a href="https://youtu.be/ya3qf0Y0PpA" target="_blank">met at the airport</a> with a veritable hero’s welcome.<br/><br/>Five years on, of course, GamerBee is rightly recognized as having long been one of the best <em>Street Fighter IV</em> players ever, and any time Justin Wong (or, frankly, any U.S. player) beats him, <em>that</em> is considered an upset.<br/><br/><strong>#1 - ‘09</strong><br/><br/>The very first Evo grand final for <em>Street Fighter IV</em> still ranks as the most exciting match in the game’s history. It was not the highest level of play necessarily, as strategies and tactics were far from fully evolved, the game having only been out in arcades for a year at that point (and the console version, which added eight characters, having only been out a few months). International representation was also still low at Evo, with the only notable entrants being special invitee Daigo Umehara and his plus-one, another Japanese Ryu player named Takashi “Dan” Hukushi.<br/><br/>But that first year or so is also, in a way, the true prime of any popular fighting game. That’s when a game’s mainstream profile, as a new release, is at its peak. It’s when the competitors’ enthusiasm tends to be highest, since the game is fresh, wide open with things to discover, and top players can level up at a rapid pace, the dreaded wall still far off. And it’s when the tournament hype is greatest, as talents from different areas are not yet certain where they stand in relation to one another, but are eager to find out.<br/><br/>At the inaugural Evo championship for <em>Street Fighter IV</em>, the grand final came down to Daigo Umehara vs. Justin Wong of New York. These are two players who should require no introduction, but, anyway, to give some context, Daigo and Justin were, in 2009, the most famous players from Japan and the U.S. respectively, and also legitimately the best.<br/><br/>Their rivalry began way back in <em>Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike</em>, and they looked ready to take it to the next level in <em>Street Fighter IV</em>. At an international round-robin exhibition three months prior to Evo, Justin had proven his world-class prowess at the game, with victories over the Japanese and Korean national champions, Iyo and Poongko, only to ultimately <a href="https://youtu.be/bpJzPR5LVEw" target="_blank">lose in four straight rounds to Daigo</a>. With a few more months to train, Justin was determined to learn and rebound from that defeat. A climactic rematch at Evo was what everybody was anticipating, and neither player disappointed.<br/><br/>Curiously, Justin and Daigo ended up in the same half of the draw at Evo 2009, and so they actually had to play one another at the start of the top 8. Justin, who had used Rufus in his previous match against Daigo’s Ryu, and also throughout this tournament thus far, had decided he was none too fond of that matchup, and so he had prepared a secret weapon just for Daigo: a surprise character switch to Abel.<br/><br/>Usually, these sorts of “secret weapons,” not uncommon among U.S. players back then (“Save that @#$% for nationals” was the maxim of the day) were held back until the last possible moment, because you didn’t want to reveal your whole hand to the rest of your competition, and also, since the surprise factor was such a large part of it, you didn’t want to leave the opponent time to process the gambit and adapt (or “download,” as per FGC parlance).<br/><br/>Unfortunately for Justin, his Abel pick didn’t work as well as he had hoped. An unperturbed Daigo <a href="https://youtu.be/NGEFFcy6HKI" target="_blank">brushed Justin’s Abel aside</a> and then progressed easily to the grand final. Justin was able to fight his way back from the losers bracket to meet him in the grand final, but how would he approach the rematch? Plan Abel had proven a dud, and he still wasn’t confident in his Rufus against Daigo’s Ryu. Was there a Plan B (or was it C now)?<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/RrE7BF-KdO0<br/><p style="text-align:center;">(Videos uploaded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ShaolinSoccerV2" target="_blank">ShaolinSoccerV2</a>.)</p><br/>In a surprise even to the commentators, Justin dug deep into his arsenal to bring out Balrog (boxer), a character he was known to have some experience with, but not one he regularly brought into serious competition.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/NPyEvGujWMQ<br/><br/>Amazingly, Daigo didn’t seem ready for it. Justin’s Balrog was basic but consistent. He didn’t go for max-damage setups, but his grasp of spacing and timing in the Balrog-Ryu matchup actually appeared superior to the Japanese player’s, and he seemed to be the one that had successfully downloaded Daigo’s fireball game, as he just kept catching Ryu with simple but effective combos. Instead of playing to his revered opponent, and instead of playing "theory fighter" with unproven secret weapons, Justin was playing simply <em>Street Fighter</em>. And it was working!<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/4zwldKS1-Rk<br/><br/>It was everything a world championship of <em>Street Fighter IV</em> should have been. Far from rolling over for the Japanese guest, Justin actually edged him out to 3-2, thereby sending Daigo to losers and leveling the bracket to force a second set. With momentum suddenly on his side, it looked like Justin might actually pull this off.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/TTZWV16sCUU<br/><br/>It went back and forth and nearly the distance, with Daigo ultimately knuckling down to take it in straight rounds in the final game, although he surely had to admit that the American had pushed him hard. It still stands as the closest-fought and best <em>Street Fighter IV</em> final in Evo history, certainly the nearest a U.S. player ever came to winning it.<br/><br/>Capcom Cup and Topanga League may be where the pros can make their living. But Evo is where unknowns can make their names, champions make their legends. What will this year, most likely the last year of <em>Street Fighter IV</em> at Evo, bring?Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-77040730653826428582015-07-12T08:49:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.118-08:00(Euro) White Girls Can Dance (Street)Last week on Season 12 of <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em>, the judges finally whittled down this year’s crop of contestants to select their top 20 who will be performing in the live rounds. The final selection came down to a decision between Czech krumper/animator <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/JAJAvankova" target="_blank">Jana “Jaja” Vankova</a> and French popper <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/mariepopping" target="_blank">Marie Bonnevay (stage name “Marie Poppins”)</a>, both of whom should have been quite familiar to avid followers of the street dance subculture.<br/><br/>Jaja was previously a <a href="https://youtu.be/HwzEzXUyd18" target="_blank">winner on <em>America’s Best Dance Crew</em> in 2011</a>, where she teamed with renowned popper Phillip “Pacman” Chbeeb (whose <a href="https://youtu.be/d4EP8n2-YCA" target="_blank">Season 3 audition</a> for <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em> still rates as my favorite in the show’s history). Marie Poppins is a commercial dancer who has appeared in <a href="https://youtu.be/1JI8KCU2Frs" target="_blank">advertisements</a> and music videos with <a href="https://youtu.be/nAI_xI9wQnE" target="_blank">Justin Bieber</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/j6SSTMpIRFI?t=2m25s" target="_blank">Tiesto</a>, among others.<br/><br/><em>So You Think You Can Dance</em> viewers likely remembered both women from their auditions the previous year. At the time, I thought they were far and away the two best female street dancers the show had ever seen. Neither of them was able to assimilate the other styles of dance well enough to make the final cut, although Jaja came very close.<br/><p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Jaja Vankova - <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em> Season 11 Audition</strong></p><br/>https://youtu.be/KbdgAo-e7YY<br/><p style="text-align:center;">(Video uploaded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/CDplayABDC6" target="_blank">CDplayABDC6</a>)</p><br/><p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Marie Poppins - <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em> Season 11 Audition</strong></p><br/>https://youtu.be/MN6b21EI528<br/><p style="text-align:center;">(Video uploaded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ravenmikhail84" target="_blank">Terry Byrd II</a>)</p><br/>This season introduced a new format, however, splitting the top 20 equally into stage and street teams, opening the door for a greater number of street contestants than any previous season (apparently at the expense of standard ballroom representation, hence why judge Mary Murphy is absent this year).<br/><br/>Jaja and Marie both returned this year to try for a spot on the street team. In her audition, Jaja looked, in my opinion, considerably sharper than even just a year ago, having trimmed any lapses of inspiration from her choreography, as she melded mesmerizing animation poses with fierce whiplike krumping motions. Marie’s audition, meanwhile, was relegated to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clip within a montage of judge-pleasing routines. With these early episodes being taped and edited well in advance of broadcast, usually when a known contestant gets montaged, it’s because they auditioned to music that Fox didn’t get the license to. At any rate, it’s disappointing that we didn’t get to see Marie’s Season 12 audition, but she was still named and briefly spotlighted in subsequent rounds, where her fluidity and rhythmicality remained superlative.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, although the new format meant the show could accommodate a larger number of street contestants, it also meant that auditions drew more (ladies especially) than ever before, and so there was simply too much competition for both of them to make the cut. Personally, I might still have taken both of them over some of the other dancers who made it onto the street team, but that’s probably just because I love to watch that robot-like style of dance. Perhaps, with both of them also being white Euro females (and the street team, as a whole, being already 60 percent female with the addition of just one of them), they were too similar stylistically and demographically for them both to be on the show at the same time.<br/><br/>Interestingly, although the show never mentions this (even though it probably would have made for more dramatic TV), Jaja and Marie were actually well-acquainted with one another before they ever appeared on <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em>. In fact, by the later cuts, many of the contestants are people who have crossed paths before in the world of street dancing. Another contestant this season, Mexico’s Lily Frias, as far as I know the first waacker ever to make it to the live rounds, has collaborated with <a href="https://youtu.be/L5tBqeF7US4" target="_blank">both Jaja</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/KoOO_sAV9JQ" target="_blank">Marie before</a>. It makes sense. The dancers who audition for this show are, after all, often masters already in their chosen disciplines. You don’t rise to that level without others in your field noticing.<br/><br/>There are several videos online of Jaja and Marie Poppins performing together, perhaps most notably the “White Girls Can’t Dance” video they made together.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/eUlGfCd9ZKk<br/><br/>And, of course, as both ladies came up through the world of dance battling, it’s inevitable that they would have battled one another at some point. Earlier this year, they appeared together to put on an exhibition at Urban Street Jam 2015. Not a serious battle, as there were no judges nor any real winner or loser, but still both women brought out some sick moves.<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/-IN23QDsr5Y<br/><br/>Ultimately, for Season 12 of <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em>, it was Jaja that got the nod for the top 20, where hopefully she'll go far. Who knows whether there will be a Season 13, whether Marie Poppins will get another chance, but I’m sure she’ll continue to have a successful career in dance regardless.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-70791846824366326282015-07-05T12:46:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.092-08:00How well did Taylor Hicks really perform at Evo 2013?The competitive <em>Super Smash Bros.</em> community was <a href="http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2015/jul/03/bill-trinen-interpreter-shigeru-miyamoto-and-senior-product-marketing-manager-nintendo-america-will-be-competing-evo-smash-4/" target="_blank">abuzz last week with the report</a> that Internet-famous Bill Trinen, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Nintendo of America (and also Shigeru Miyamoto’s interpreter), would be at Evo 2015 next month competing in the 2,000-player <em>Super Smash Bros. for Wii U</em> tournament.<br/><br/>Trinen will be the most notable quasi-celeb to compete at Evo since <em>American Idol</em> Season 5 winner Taylor Hicks placed 257th in <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> at Evo 2013. Speaking of which, although it’s uncertain whether Hicks has any idea who Bill Trinen is, he was nevertheless moved to respond on Twitter at the suggestion that Trinen might perform better than Hicks did two years ago.<br/><br/>https://twitter.com/TaylorHicks/status/617025620967448576<br/><br/>Evo 2013’s <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> tournament <a href="http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2013/jul/01/early-entrance-numbers-evo-2013-game-ssf4-ae-v2012-umvc3-smash-sfxt-and-more/" target="_blank">reportedly drew approximately 700 entrants</a>, so many news outlets that picked up the story saw Hicks’s 257th-place finish as quite respectable. <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/american-idol-winner-places-257th-at-evo-smash-bros-event/1100-6411496/" target="_blank">As GameSpot observed at the time</a>, “Hicks finished better than most.”<br/><br/>But did he really?<br/><br/>Many reports seemed to misunderstand Hicks’s placing to mean that he outperformed 443 out of 700 competitors, which would, indeed, be impressive for a non-pro player at the world’s biggest fighting game tournament. But that’s not what the results actually mean.<br/><br/>In an elimination-format tournament, every competitor does not play against every other competitor. Rather, they are paired off, so that, for example, 32 players are distributed into 16 one-on-one matchups occurring simultaneously (maybe not literally at the same time, but in the same round, at any rate). The winners move on to the next round, while the losers are eliminated, effectively halving the field after each round, until the final two are left to compete for the championship. For any fan of professional tennis or anyone who follows team sports playoffs, this should all be very familiar.<br/><br/>The key point here is that all of the players eliminated in the same round finish with the same result. In other words, there will be ties—not for 1st or 2nd place, no, but for the lower ranks, and more and more the further down you go. Most fighting game tournaments utilize a double-elimination format, as opposed to the single-elimination format common among professional sports. The relevant difference is that double-elimination tournaments produce fewer ties, but there are ties even so. Two players will tie for 5th place, four for 9th place, eight for 17th place, sixteen for 33rd, and so on.<br/><br/>Do you begin to see what this means for Taylor Hicks’s 257th-place finish? It means he tied with a crapload of other players. But let’s actually do the math and get more specific. Below are the number of players that tie for each place in a double-elimination tournament:<br/><br/><a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/adjusted_tournament_rank.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3286" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/adjusted_tournament_rank.png" alt="adjusted_tournament_rank" width="521" height="839" /></a><br/><br/>As you can see above, I also noted the total number of players accounted for, top-to-bottom, at each placing. Thus, with his 257th-place finish (tied with 127 other people), Taylor Hicks finished in the top 384 out of 700, behind 256 players and ahead of 316. So it’s not exactly accurate to say that Hicks finished “better than most.” That would be like someone placing 4,097th in a 6,000-person tournament and pretending that meant they finished ahead of some 2,000 people, when the reality is that they tied with those 2,000 for dead last. But you also can’t say Hicks finished in the bottom half either. He was in a broad middle range, which is unfortunately as precise as we can get with the double-elimination format.<br/><br/>That’s still pretty respectable, right? Well, in the rightmost column above, I also included an “adjusted rank” that I feel more intelligibly conveys each placing’s relative position in the overall order. In a 700-person tournament, there are 19 possible placings. Out of those 19, Hicks’s 257th-place finish was 17th best, or third-to-last. That’s pretty close to the bottom, but, again in fairness, the lower ranks are considerably fuller than the higher, so he was in plentiful company.<br/><br/>Or maybe the most sensible way to put it is to say that, in order to have placed 257th, Hicks needed to have progressed through two rounds. That is, he must have won two matches. And, since this was a double-elimination tournament, he must have lost twice. So his final record would have been 2-2. For a tournament the caliber of Evo, I’d say going 2-2 is definitely respectable for any amateur participant, let alone an easy-to-ridicule middle-aged full-time musician with no documented history as a gamer.<br/><br/>Except that, even after Evo 2013, there exists virtually no record of him ever having played <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em>!<br/><br/>You won’t find his name on any list of final tournament results. Partly, that’s because ordinarily nobody would ever bother to report results beyond 49th place (because who the hell cares?!). (I mean, in the real world of professional sports, nobody even cares who finishes 3rd, which is maybe why the "tied for 17th" concept may seem a bit foreign even to avid followers of sports playoffs.)<br/><br/>Hicks’s name is also not listed anywhere in the <a href="http://evo2013.s3.amazonaws.com/brackets/index.html" target="_blank">official tournament bracket</a>. It’s known that the online bracket is not 100 percent complete; the posted bracket initially did not include day-of on-site registrants (which is why we don’t have an exact count for the number of entrants), so maybe some names in the first round were never posted. Some of those “Byes” listed in the brackets were definitely filled in with actual players by the time the tournament began. Maybe Hicks, who was working a residency at Paris Las Vegas at the time, just stumbled into the Evo ballroom at the same venue, and decided, on a lark, to request a last-minute entry into the <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> tournament. If it was that spontaneous, that would also explain why there was zero buzz before the event about an <em>American Idol</em> winner registering to compete at Evo.<br/><br/>But if Hicks really did go 2-2, that should have been enough progress to have been reflected in the brackets somewhere. Yet there is no unnamed player anywhere in the bracket who ended up going 2-2. The only “Byes” who made progress through the tournament were in pools B60 and E62, but those unidentified players both went 3-2. Every other entrant with two wins or more was named and accounted for. If Hicks was somewhere in there, it would have had to have been under an alias, which admittedly is not outside the realm of believability.<br/><br/>But then there’s also the matter of there not being any footage anywhere of Hicks competing, no photos, no anecdotes whatsoever from anybody who played against him or even just saw him play. It is possible that Hicks’s demographic is simply too far removed from the sorts of people who would go to Evo to play <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em>, so maybe nobody there had any idea that he was anybody famous. Still, in this day and age of everybody having a smartphone to take pictures or live-tweet their experiences, this total lack of any record is just strange. The only proof anywhere that Hicks was there is this tweet by Seth Killian, which every other report on the topic can be sourced back to:<br/><br/>https://twitter.com/sethkillian/status/356565201589526528<br/><br/>Sure enough, that’s Taylor Hicks with an Evo badge around his neck. So why didn’t anybody else spot him during the tournament?<br/><br/>Keep in mind, Seth Killian is someone with ties to the production side of the video game industry (he was a lead designer at Sony Santa Monica at the time, and had worked on <em>Street Fighter IV</em> before that) and even deeper ties to Evo (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/seth-killian/3/8ba/885" target="_blank">on his LinkedIn page</a>, he lists himself as a founder, and, to this day, he still does commentary for the <em>Street Fighter</em> tournaments). My only point is that publicity would actually be a consideration for Killian; this wasn’t just a "Soul Patrol" member randomly running into Taylor Hicks at Evo (although Killian might have been that too). Maybe Killian caught Hicks after a show and was able to convince him to wear the Evo badge and pose for a picture, then afterward made up (maybe as a joke) the story that Hicks entered the tournament.<br/><br/>Finally, even supposing Taylor Hicks really did enter the <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> tournament, we have no idea the quality of the players he beat. Remember that Evo is an open-entry tournament. It attracts the strongest players from around the world, yes, but also any rando can put up the entry fee and register. I don’t follow the <em>Super Smash Bros.</em> competitive scene that closely, and I didn’t watch any of the tournament in 2013, but I’ll just guess that the top 128 players were probably all very strong. At Evo 2013, the round of 128 was when the quarterfinals began; everything before that was qualifying pools (and, at least in <em>Street Fighter</em>, which I’m more familiar with, there aren’t ever more than two pro-level players in the same Evo pool). I’ll go ahead and guess also that players 129-256 were good journeymen Smashers—non-pros who nevertheless understand high-level mechanics and would dominate the vast majority of people casually playing <em>Super Smash Bros.</em> at home. Below that, though, I’d guess that the skill levels vary widely. When I watch the Evo pools for <em>Street Fighter IV</em> and <em>Marvel vs. Capcom 3</em>, I always see at least a few people who clearly had no idea what they signed up for. Maybe Taylor Hicks got lucky and was matched up against toddlers, and that’s where his two wins came from. Of course, it’s also possible that he beat two really good players, and is himself really good, and he only lost because his pool was stacked. There’s no way to know for sure, so, while the luck of the draw is a factor, I'll maintain that, on average, going 2-2 at Evo is pretty good.<br/><br/>It’s also possible that, even if he was technically entered into the tournament, he never actually had to play anyone. Doubtless, some registrants failed to show up to their early-round matches and became byes for their scheduled opponents. Maybe Taylor Hicks’s two wins were actually two byes. Of course, it’s also possible that Taylor Hicks, a grown-ass man who was in Vegas for work, never actually lost to anyone, but rather himself became a bye when he had to leave the tournament early. <a href="http://taylorhicks.com/events/event/listUserEventsByDate?user=10umxubbtse6y&date=2013-07-12" target="_blank">Hick’s calendar for that weekend</a> indicates he was performing during the first two days of Evo 2013, and was free on the last day (but, going by his placing, he would already have been knocked out of the tournament by that third day). (Bill Trinen, by the way, is scheduled to get a first-round bye, according to the not-yet-finalized <a href="http://evo2015.s3.amazonaws.com/brackets/ssb4_d46.html" target="_blank">Evo 2015 bracket</a>, so he'd only have to beat one other player to match Hicks's alleged 2-2 record.)<br/><br/>If Taylor Hicks really did compete in <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> at Evo 2013, he went 2-2 for 257th place. That’s a mere two rungs up from last place (out of 19 places). Still, I’d say two wins is pretty respectable. Unfortunately, other than the one photo, there’s no evidence that Taylor Hicks really competed at Evo 2013. To my knowledge, even Hicks himself hasn’t ever acknowledged these reports… until this recent tweet at Bill Trinen, which is the only reason I’m inclined to believe that he really did enter Evo 2013! If nothing else, it suggests that Hicks at least knows what <em>Super Smash Bros.</em> is, knows what Evo is, and cares enough to respond to a random tweet that did not specifically name either of those things and gave hardly any context besides (and, no, Taylor Hicks does not just respond to every tweet that mentions him).<br/><br/>I've dug and conjectured as far as I can, and I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions based on the evidence or lack thereof. Me, I'm going to believe that Taylor Hicks beat two people in <em>Super Smash Bros. Melee</em> at Evo 2013, finishing 2-2 and ahead of 316 other competitors. Again, for an amateur player, that's very respectable.<br/><br/>Still, he'll never be <em>my</em> Season 5 <em>American Idol</em>! Nor my preferred <em>American Idol</em> contestant-turned-<em>Smash</em> star! <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23McPheever" target="_blank">#McPheever</a><br/><br/>https://youtu.be/yQ0YzMGOIk8Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-26094932675734094822015-06-30T04:45:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.037-08:00Kingsman: The Secret Service (Matthew Vaughn, 2014)<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kingsman_Poster.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3265" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Kingsman_Poster-203x300.jpg" alt="Kingsman_Poster" width="203" height="300" /></a><br/><br/>Matthew Vaughn’s <em>Kingsman: The Secret Service</em> adapts a comic book by Mark Millar, who also wrote the source material for Vaughn’s similarly wantonly violent <em>Kick-Ass</em> (2010). I remember liking <em>Kick-Ass</em>, but <em>Kingsman</em>, although admirable in some aspects, kind of just made me sick. An early scene depicts a James Bond-esque secret agent getting sliced in half lengthwise, and right off you know this is going to be <em>that kind of movie</em>—devoid of restraint, good taste, or a moral center, a movie that tries to sell you on the notion that graphic violence without context is something pure and fun.<br/><br/><em>Kingsman</em>’s most remarkable sequence features Colin Firth, in a hypno-induced mad rage, single-handedly dispatching about fifty likewise crazed civilians in a little over three minutes. Although not actually filmed in one take, the sequence employs some slick editing, camerawork, and stunt-doubling to seamlessly stitch together footage to transform the former Mr. Darcy into an unstoppable badass killing machine. But, even though the brawl is exquisitely shot and choreographed, and it should be cool to see Colin Firth going on a rampage, I really couldn’t applaud a scene that seemed to revel in the massacre of a bunch of innocent non-combatants. The movie does tell us that these are bad people, but, even so, in this moment at least, they are in an altered state and not acting of their own will. The Firth character, once back in his right mind, remarks on how horrible all that killing was, but there is no sense of conviction that the filmmakers share this sentiment. They clearly mean for the audience to be exhilarated and to cheer Colin Firth on through the slaughter, and any lip service to the contrary is simply insulting.<br/><br/>Obviously, the movie is not to be taken seriously. But an irreverent tone doesn’t automatically entitle it to a laugh either. Another scene has hundreds of people’s heads exploding into fireworks, including that of the president of the United States, among other world leaders. Is this one of those “British humor” things that I’m just never going to get?<br/><br/>Certainly, I’ve enjoyed other, perhaps no less violent movies before, but something about the violence in <em>Kingsman</em> just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s that the context is so threadbare, so the violence feels blatantly for its own sake. The characters are all woefully underdeveloped, giving viewers little reason to root for any of them, the charismatic Firth aside. The earlier part of the story focuses on a bunch of young Britons competing for an opening in the Kingsman agency. After the candidates’ tests concluded, I wondered if the movie could have done without that subplot altogether, because the trials were so predictable, and the protagonist’s would-be rivals and friends alike so nameless and faceless, that it just felt like a waste of my time. Except, in hindsight, that “subplot” may have been half or more of the movie’s running time, so I don’t suppose there would have been much left without it.<br/><br/>The bits that I sincerely enjoyed were the scenes where Colin Firth was schooling his apprentice on how to be a gentleman. I have no idea if any of the stuff he says about signet rings going on the left hand and whatnot is real, but he sells it all with such quintessentially English dignity that I was almost inspired to take notes, because, after all, who wouldn’t want to be as cool and classy as Colin Firth?Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-50041823198543832432015-06-09T16:08:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:01.020-08:00Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Mad_Max_Fury_Road_Poster.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-3260 size-medium" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Mad_Max_Fury_Road_Poster-194x300.jpg" alt="Mad_Max_Fury_Road_Poster" width="194" height="300" /></a><br/><br/>There were things in <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em> that I’d never seen or even imagined before. Things that made me seriously wonder about the people responsible for this film. And when I learned that <em>Fury Road</em> director and <em>Mad Max</em> co-creator George Miller also did <em>Babe: Pig in the City</em> and both(!) <em>Happy Feet</em> movies, I really started to wonder how this guy’s mind works. Never mind that it is the fourth installment in a series, equal parts sequel, reboot, and remake. <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em> is, at once, a more-than-worthy successor to 1981’s <em>The Road Warrior</em> yet also a singularly visionary work, whose like we’d be lucky to encounter even once a generation. It is a film that makes me fall in love with film itself.<br/><br/><em>Fury Road</em> follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, <em>The Road Warrior</em> especially, delivering a crazed and, some might argue, depravedly violent post-apocalyptic vision. In some ways, it plays out almost as a remake of <em>The Road Warrior</em>, which took the thrilling car chases of <em>Mad Max</em> (1979) and evolved them into full-blown running car combat with a climactic action sequence that was inventive and classic in its own time. Of course, I’m too young to have seen <em>The Road Warrior</em> in its own time, but that is its reputation. Regarding the movies now, as great a leap as <em>The Road Warrior</em> represented over <em>Mad Max</em>, <em>Fury Road</em> is yet greater. It’s an experience truly like nothing before in film, and as fresh as anything released in those intervening decades—almost a continuous, end-to-end chase movie that never lets up or lets down.<br/><br/>Once again, Max Rockatansky, our cynical point-of-view character wandering the desolate junkyard that is the future Australia, crosses paths with a band of vulnerable idealists hoping to better their lives in a world that has already ended. Once again, he finds himself dragged into helping their cause, escorting a massive vehicle transporting precious cargo, while being dogged all the way by an unrelenting gang of demented S&M freaks.<br/><br/>What follows from this bizarre premise is one jaw-dropping sequence after another, any one of them already a contender for “most ingenious set piece in film history,” yet <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em> has no shortage. Max actually spends the entire first leg of the pursuit as an unwilling passenger—the living masthead bound to the front of one of the pursuer’s cars. Then there’s the canyon claimed by motocross maniacs performing jump tricks to firebomb our heroes’ armored truck from above. There are the hooligans who board the truck by pole-vaulting onto it—a callback to the first <em>Mad Max</em>, perhaps, only this time they’re doing it from one fast-moving vehicle to another. This all does not begin to describe the extent of the genius that this film contains.<br/><br/>The vehicular spectacle is rivaled only perhaps by the Wachowskis’ <em>Speed Racer</em> (2008). But, whereas <em>Speed Racer</em>’s action visuals were almost entirely animated, some <a href="http://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-graphic-tale-the-visual-effects-of-mad-max-fury-road/" target="_blank">incredible before-and-after shots at fxguide</a> reveal that <em>Fury Road</em>’s unbelievable car sequences were achieved, to an impressive degree, through practical effects. I don’t suppose it should matter a great deal to the viewer how it was made, only how they experience the finished product, but, in any case, <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em> is a monumental achievement. Indeed, it might be the modern cultural equivalent of the ancient civilizations’ pyramids and monolithic moai heads—testaments to the human capacity to commit labor both unreasonable and ungodly toward the creation of some insane thing to baffle far-off future societies.<br/><br/>Even if we can see documentation on how it was made, we may never be able to fathom the <em>why</em> of it all. The action set pieces are ridiculous, but so is everything else around the action. There is the wagon hauling the massive sound system into battle, and fronted by some autoerotic creep providing a live soundtrack, with his fire-breathing guitar, to accompany the War Boys’ convoy. Yes, “War Boys.” There’s something familiar about them, to be sure. They follow in the tradition of the bondage bikers from <em>The Road Warrior</em>, whose peculiar spiked leather aesthetic has been inexplicably adopted by so many other post-apocalyptic wasteland-themed products since. But, like everything else it evokes from <em>The Road Warrior</em>, <em>Fury Road</em> doesn’t merely repeat, but pushes further beyond what audiences might once have considered too far as it was, ratcheting up the madness to about the millionth degree. And so we end up with the War Boys—manic fanatics, who basically pray to steering wheels and gleefully spray-paint their teeth chrome as they ready themselves for suicide runs that they believe will carry them to Valhalla. The movie is full of these things that are, frankly, shocking, and yet never out of place, so fully committed is every element to the creator’s unique vision.<br/><br/>The only possible point of compromise, one might contend, is in the casting of Max. There’s nothing to concretely indicate whether <em>Fury Road</em> is a sequel, prequel, or reboot. Even the first three movies were only thinly connected, with <em>Mad Max</em> being the clear origin story. There’s nothing to <em>Fury Road</em>’s story that should have precluded Mel Gibson reprising his most iconic role. Well, it’s doubtful that he would have been up for the physical demands of this movie, but who knows. And maybe Miller was not interested in doing an “I’m too old for this” take on the character, a la the newer <em>Indiana Jones</em> and <em>Die Hard</em> movies. The truth is, whether or not Gibson is too old now to play Max, he is for sure too old to come back from the embarrassment that he has become. However many years he had left in him as a viable leading man, he pissed them away through too many bouts of bigoted lunacy. It’s unfortunate, but the world—both ours and that of <em>Mad Max</em>—has had to move on.<br/><br/>Tom Hardy, our new Max, gives a performance unlike Gibson, who played Max as physically vulnerable but with a subtle yet indomitable madness in his eyes (which, we know now, was just Gibson’s own madness sizzling beneath the surface). Hardy is much more a beast physically, engaging more often with his bare hands than from behind the wheel, while his insanity seems more repressed yet also much deeper. Compared to everyone else in <em>Fury Road</em>, he’s almost subdued, except when he’s being haunted by the ghost of some unidentified little girl, which is a constant presence—not so much a part of this movie’s plot as it is an immutable part of the character of Max himself. It is his cold detachment (by his own admission via moody monologue, he tries to keep the world’s problems at an arm’s length) that allows him to make the hard pronouncement, “She went under the wheels,” without another glance back. And it is his good samaritanism, whether driven by conscience or by guilt, that assures us he would not make such a call unless it were true.<br/><br/>It’s a truly sensational film in every way—not just an exhilarating delight for the eyes and ears, but one that strikes as intensely at one’s core. It cuts so deeply so swiftly, and so effortlessly that you almost don’t realize that it’s doing it. This is a film that cast a bunch of supermodels—women persistently treated as objects (as are all women, the difference being that these have arguably made their careers off it)—to have them confront those gazing by directly stating, “We are not things.” Or how about Rictus Erectus (played by former professional wrestler Nathan Jones) proclaiming, “I had a brother! A little baby brother! And he was perfect! Perfect in every way!” If ever there were a moment to chuckle through one’s tears….<br/><br/>I haven’t even touched on Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, the co-protagonist of <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em>. She’s awesome, obviously. Theron has always been a great actress—one of a small number who should always be either the lead or the heavy, never a supporting character, because that would just be a miserable waste and a misuse of her talents. I loved her on TV's <em>Arrested Development</em>, but it is only fairly recently that she has become my favorite with such films as <em>Young Adult</em> (2011), <em>Snow White and the Huntsman</em> (2012), and <em>Prometheus</em> (2012). Her best performances have always been in roles that played to her hardness, her unapproachability, her real-deal mean streak. In <em>Fury Road</em>, Furiosa is not mean, but she is fearsome. She is not bitter, but she is righteous. And she seeks not destruction, but the creation of a better life for her female charges and their unborn children. As with Max, the movie reveals little of her backstory (although we do learn that “Furiosa” is, improbably enough, her actual birth name), but one can imagine it is quite the tale. What happened to her arm? How did she rise to become Imperator? She’s certainly a compelling enough character that I would love to see another Furiosa film, perhaps a prequel to answer these questions.<br/><br/>Of course, I would welcome anything more by George Miller set in this universe. I have no idea where he could take <em>Mad Max</em> next, but that’s actually a nice feeling. <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em> is the rare film that I wanted to watch again as soon as I walked out of the theater. Forget “thumbs up” and “thumbs down,” this is a film that, on a single viewing, merited immediate consideration on my top all-time list. Hell, even given two whole weeks of sober reflection, I’m still asking myself, “Is this the best movie I’ve ever seen?” Because I honestly can’t compose an argument against that conclusion. I cannot begin to conceive of what Miller might do next to follow up <em>Mad Max: Fury Road</em> (what could possibly top the best thing ever?), but I can’t wait to see it.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-47270859652051171712015-05-31T08:01:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:00.986-08:00The Music of the DeafWhen I was a student at UCSD in the early 2000’s, I took a linguistics course on "Sign Language and Its Culture." This was an introductory linguistics course, which I was taking only to fulfill a credit. I had no real expectations for the class, but the course title alone contained an idea new to me. For whatever reason, I had never before then even considered that there could be such a thing as a distinct culture of sign language.<br/><br/>I could only imagine how great a loss it would have felt to me personally, if ever I were to lose my own sense of hearing, and that would lead me to thinking how unfortunate it must be to be deaf. Unenlightened as I was, I pictured a hypothetical deaf person being basically like myself (an American male, let's say, with whom I might have many other things in common), only they would be "missing" that one sense, consequently rendering them an "incomplete" version of me. I never quite articulated it in those terms, but that was, if only subconsciously, nevertheless how I perceived things, even gifted as I was with my full five traditional senses.<br/><br/>In my ignorance, it never occurred to me that this attitude of mine was shallow, insensitive, perhaps even offensive. The professor of that class, David Perlmutter, didn't hold it against me, nor against, indeed, the majority of students, who simply didn't know any better. That was why he was here, after all—to educate us.<br/><br/>Perlmutter's most memorable lesson for us was an anecdote out of his conversations with the deaf community. Suppose there were a magic pill that could instantly make a deaf person able to hear. As Perlmutter recounted, when asked if they would take such a pill, one deaf individual, rather than answering, turned the question around and asked, "Would you, as a hearing person, ever take a pill that would make you deaf?" And he continued: "Or, as an American, would you ever take a pill that would make you French?"<br/><br/>Their position was clear enough: they did not regard their deafness as a condition in need of a cure, any more than being French could be considered an affliction. Being deaf did not make them less able, in most every way that counted. If there were certain things they could not do that some hearing people could, well, there are a great many things that <em>I</em> can't do that some hearing people can, or, for that matter, that some deaf people can—compose a symphony, for example, or compete in the Olympics. Deaf people are no less able to enjoy community or to produce culture and art. And if the culture particular to the deaf community ever seems unconventional to outsiders, is it any less the case that, say, French cuisine might seem strange and foreign to someone from Kansas?<br/><br/>Not everyone was entirely convinced by Perlmutter's lesson, as there was some audible scoffing coming from the back of the lecture hall. I should mention again that this was an introductory course; the material, easy and intended for general consumption, leaned toward politically correct feel-good answers over relentless challenging inquiry. Although I say I came out of that class more enlightened than I went in, and certainly more knowledgeable, still there were many fair questions raised and not answered.<br/><br/>Setting aside the magic pills, some saw a flaw in the reasoning put forward by that proud member of the deaf community. Was their culture truly "deaf culture"? Or was it rather, as even the title of the course suggested, "the culture of sign language"? If it was the latter, then the deaf person would indeed seem to be at a disadvantage. A determined hearing person could eventually become fluent in sign language, and thereby assimilate its culture, but a deaf person could never appreciate sounds in the same way that a hearing person could.<br/><br/>Professor Perlmutter himself seemed to be the case in point, a hearing person who was the resident expert on the culture of sign language. He had studied sign language, engaged with the deaf community, and developed an appreciation for their art. Perlmutter did take a step back to remind us that he was <em>not</em> deaf, and that he in no way fancied himself qualified to represent the deaf community. Still, he was the one here gushing to us about how beautiful was “the music of the deaf." What could he know of it, without being deaf himself? And if he, a hearing person, <em>could</em> appreciate it well enough to find it beautiful, didn't that only undermine the deaf person's position that there might be something to lose in becoming hearing?<br/><br/>For me personally, there was no concept in that class more difficult to grasp than this idea of “the music of the deaf.” Beyond mentioning that it existed and insisting that it was beautiful, Perlmutter did not oblige us with a demonstration or even a video. I suppose it was somewhat outside the scope of that linguistics course.<br/><br/>I thought of Beethoven, of course, although he was never mentioned in the class, and truthfully probably was not relevant to a course on the culture of sign language. Beethoven began to lose his hearing as an adult, only becoming mostly deaf toward the end of his life, after he was already an accomplished composer. He continued to produce brilliant works during that later period, but I don’t think this was the “music of the deaf” that Perlmutter was talking about. Beethoven knew what it was to hear music. I imagined he could still use his knowledge and memory as a reference for his later compositions. He would be able to “hear” a note in his mind, even if his ears no longer served.<br/><br/>I wondered, what was it like for someone who was <em>born</em> deaf? They might still be able to appreciate music, maybe even be able to compose. They could experience the vibrational variations of the sound, and perhaps they could process the math in their minds to produce… something unknowable to me. I did not think I could ever know what a deaf composer’s music “sounded” like to them, nor could they know what their compositions sounded like to me. (To be fair, I don’t think I could ever know what a hearing composer’s music really sounds like to them, either, only what it sounds like to me.)<br/><br/>But I think what Perlmutter was really talking about was song—not deaf composers writing “hearing people’s music,” but deaf musicians singing lyrics through sign language, perhaps unaccompanied by any sound at all, primarily for the appreciation of deaf audiences. This was a vastly more difficult concept for me to grasp, because, to me, music could not be separated from sound. You could sign the lyrics to a song, but, without the music, it was just words, poetry. Hearing people had poetry too, but a poem was not a song. I just didn’t get it.<br/><br/>A few weeks back, however, I was attending an OK Go concert (House of Blues San Diego, May 1, 2015), and I noticed there was a woman, not on the stage but next to it, who appeared to be interpreting the show into sign language. She was standing on a small platform off to the side, in front of a party of concertgoers, who, I observed, were conversing with one another through sign language. Transfixed, I watched her for a couple songs, and thought at last that I understood this “music of the deaf.”<br/><br/>https://youtu.be/vN2mduEBsPE<br/><br/>It’s not just signed lyrics, not just words; there’s a musicality to her every movement. You can contrast her performance of the song against the middle portion of the video, where she’s interpreting the band’s non-musical banter with the crowd. When she is interpreting speech, her signing is still expressive, of course, but there is not the same rhythm, not the "melody," that accompanies her interpretation of the music.<br/><br/>So, there we have it?<br/><br/>Honestly, I still have no idea. This was not an original deaf composition but an interpretation of a hearing song, so I don’t know if it counts as an example of deaf music. Also, I was fully capable of hearing the live band, so I was not appreciating the sign language performance on its own. I also don’t know if the interpreter herself was deaf, though I’m guessing not. She actually switched off every few songs with another lady, who I’m sure was hearing, because I saw her speaking with the venue staff. The woman in the video? I just can’t say for certain. In any case, I’m obviously not qualified to assess her fluency. I don’t even know if it matters.<br/><br/>Maybe I’m just not capable of appreciating deaf music. Maybe that’s something I’ll just have to resign myself to missing out on because I’m not deaf.<br/><br/>One final observation: the group that the interpreter was performing for was cheering and dancing and drinking, and overall seemed to enjoy the show just like any other concertgoers. In the middle of one song, however, two ladies started signing to one another, and it became a rather drawn-out conversation. It was clear that they were not paying attention to the performance, until finally another of their companions seemed to call them out for being rude. Seeing them conversing, I was actually a little envious, because I can’t usually even hear myself speak under the loudness of the music at these shows. Of course, I guess I’m not supposed to be talking anyway, because the whole point is to hear the music, not myself. It also made me think, maybe these distracted ladies just weren’t that into the performance. So maybe it wasn’t that great an example of deaf music.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7196813830708036159.post-74695331726250367892015-05-11T16:59:00.000-07:002016-01-05T17:39:00.968-08:00Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon, 2015)<a href="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Avengers_Age_of_Ultron_Poster.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-3244 size-medium" src="http://fraggincivie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Avengers_Age_of_Ultron_Poster-203x300.jpg" alt="Avengers_Age_of_Ultron_Poster" width="203" height="300" /></a><br/><br/>The most glaring issue with the first <em>Avengers</em> (2012) was, of course, its failure to account for War Machine. As Loki and his Chitauri army descended upon New York, I very nearly stood up in the theater and asked aloud, “Where is War Machine? Why isn’t he helping out?” I’m sure many, if not all, of my fellow moviegoers were wondering the same in that moment. They didn’t even actually need to include War Machine in the action. But they needed to address why he <em>wasn’t</em> there, perhaps with a few simple lines explaining, oh, maybe how there was too much bureaucratic red tape to cut through before the Air Force could deploy War Machine. It was almost a fatal oversight that severely dampened my enjoyment of that movie, which I had been so anticipating for years.<br/><br/>Marvel and Joss Whedon must have realized how badly they screwed up with the first film, because the most applause-worthy moment in the sequel by far is War Machine’s triumphant entrance during the climactic battle. I very nearly stood up in the theater and yelled out, “It’s War Machine! He’s helping out!” I’m sure many, if not all, of my fellow moviegoers felt the same in that moment. In fact, although the overwhelming sense of elation left me rather senseless to everything else around me, I’m almost positive that the entire room was applauding. This was the moment we’d all been waiting for, not only for the three years since the first <em>Avengers</em>, but indeed for most of our lives.<br/><br/>(Hmm, I feel like I was trying to be facetious when I started writing that, but now I can’t tell if I actually mean it. Ahem. Let’s move on.)<br/><br/><em>Avengers: Age of Ultron</em> may well be a messier, more deeply flawed film overall than its acclaimed predecessor, but I honestly feel it’s a much more satisfying <em>Avengers</em> movie. More nimble than the first <em>Avengers</em>, <em>Age of Ultron</em> zips along from spectacle to spectacle, avoiding the moments of drag that made the previous movie sometimes a chore to get through. Director Joss Whedon manages his players’ minutes more effectively this time around (except for Thor). Thus, although <em>Age of Ultron</em> features a greater number of superheroes, each one (except for Thor) actually gets more moments to show off than they did last time. And that was really the essence and appeal of the <em>Avengers</em> comic at its conception—the promise of a large number of superheroes uniting to show off in spectacular fashion.<br/><br/>Nowadays, both Marvel and DC like to structure the bulk of their superhero comics around all-encompassing and status quo-shattering crossover “events,” but, back in the day, a comic like <em>The Avengers</em>, which brought together a bunch of characters who were already individually stars of their own titles, was kind of a treat and a bonus—the superhero equivalent of a team sports all-star exhibition. If you wanted to follow the ongoing dramas of these characters, you would read their monthly solo titles. What <em>The Avengers</em>, originally published only every other month, offered was a cover-to-cover action story, where the heroes would be in costume from page one, no time to waste, as they scrambled to take down an indiscriminately menacing enemy of transcendent power.<br/><br/>For me, <em>Age of Ultron</em> manages to capture the experience of those classic <em>Avengers</em> comics, or, even more so, some of the older “event” crossovers, such as <em>Secret Wars</em> and <em>The Infinity Gauntlet</em>—fluffy but fun stories, which were little more than thinly plotted excuses to gather all of Marvel’s heroes together for one big brawl against an ultimate villain, after which the characters would disperse back to their separate arcs, as though the crossover never happened.<br/><br/>The reason this doesn’t work as well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it did in the comics is because even the solo pictures are already summer blockbusters, so it is less certain where the team-up movies are supposed to stand in the overall scheme. Is <em>The Avengers</em> to be a fluffy but fun diversion from the character-driven solo melodramas, or is it the culmination of all those individual stories? The first <em>Avengers</em> was positioned as the latter and felt grand for that reason. <em>Age of Ultron</em> definitely is not the culmination of anything, as it arguably doesn’t progress any of the characters’ individual arcs at all, and so, massive as it is, it comes off inconsequential, even compared to most of the solo pictures.<br/><br/>Still, that can be a blessing as much as a weakness, depending on your perspective. I think <em>Age of Ultron</em> can be more easily enjoyed as a standalone experience than any of the other Phase Two movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far (excepting <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2014/08/19/guardians-of-the-galaxy-james-gunn-2014/" target="_blank"><em>Guardians of the Galaxy</em> (2014)</a>, which is, right now, kind of still in its own self-contained corner of that universe). That might seem counterintuitive, considering <em>Age of Ultron</em> ties in threads from every other movie and even the <em>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.</em> TV show. But, honestly, the majority of its references are more akin to easter eggs (little things that might slightly enhance your viewing if you get them, but otherwise can be shrugged through with no great loss), and are entirely immaterial to the experience of the film. <em>Age of Ultron</em> is a direct sequel to the first <em>Avengers</em>, written and directed by the same man, Joss Whedon, with Loki’s scepter from that movie reappearing as a major plot device. <em>Age of Ultron</em> also advances my least favorite subplot of the relationship, begun in the previous film, between Black Widow and the Hulk. The only post-<em>Avengers</em> movie that it would help to have seen before <em>Age of Ultron</em> is <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2014/04/14/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-review-anthony-russo-joe-russo-2014/" target="_blank"><em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</em> (2014)</a>, which covers what happened to Nick Fury. The events of <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2013/05/13/iron-man-3-shane-black-2013/" target="_blank"><em>Iron Man 3</em> (2013)</a> and <a href="http://fraggincivie.com/2013/11/25/thor-the-dark-world-alan-taylor-2013/" target="_blank"><em>Thor: The Dark World</em> (2013)</a> are pretty much ignored.<br/><br/>None of this is to deny what a giant mess <em>Age of Ultron</em> is. Never mind trying to deliver on other movies’ setups, <em>Age of Ultron</em> raises questions all its own that it is never prepared to answer.<br/><br/>Right off, when the Avengers are storming some Eastern European stronghold to retrieve Loki’s scepter from HYDRA, I wondered, why is this Iron Man’s problem to deal with? If I’m not mistaken, Tony Stark is still a civilian, so it’s not like anybody can order him to take on this mission. With S.H.I.E.L.D. gone, who is there to give orders anyway? Did Thor or Captain America just text their pal Iron Man, “Hey buddy, could use some backup on this one”? I guess I could believe that. It’s harder to buy that Bruce Banner would be at their service as the Hulk. And what about Hawkeye and Black Widow? Weren’t they just agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. working for Nick Fury? Is Tony Stark the one signing their paychecks now? (Stark does hire Maria Hill after <em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</em>, and the idea of him directing his own version of S.H.I.E.L.D. could have nicely set up next year’s <em>Civil War</em>, but <em>Age of Ultron</em> doesn’t explore that in any depth.)<br/><br/>Later, when Iron Man has to take down the Hulk, even though it was the most awesome fight in the movie, I had to wonder, if Iron Man has a suit powerful enough to beat up the Hulk, why doesn't he just wear that suit all the time? (By the way, the notion that Iron Man could ever build a suit capable of coldcocking the Hulk is ludicrous. As awesome as that fight was, the resolution was disappointing.)<br/><br/>Those are minor details, I'll acknowledge. The less forgivable plot holes all revolve around the character of the Vision, who just shows up in the middle of the movie without any proper justification. What are his powers, and how are they to be explained? In what ways was this body supposed to be an improvement on the one Ultron already had? (When Ultron and Vision later do battle, Ultron clearly seems more powerful.) What's the deal with the yellow gem? Does it have a mind of its own, and is that now the Vision's mind? What became of J.A.R.V.I.S.? Is he just gone? Wasn’t he kind of essential to Iron Man’s operations?<br/><br/>Speaking of which, even though it obviously wasn’t the plan when he first signed on to do <em>Iron Man</em> (2008), how nice for Paul Bettany that he has been able to parlay his disembodied robot butler role into playing an actual Marvel superhero. That said, I preferred him as the robot butler.<br/><br/>His evil counterpart, Ultron, I think is a marginal step up from Loki, who was a likable villain, certainly, but not a credible threat to “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”<br/><br/>I loved the original Ultron story from the comics, and I found the character in his debut to be very effectively unsettling. Part of it was the way they built up deliberately to the reveal that Ultron was a machine; for most of the story, everybody, even his own minions, assumed it was a human mastermind underneath the hood he wore. In the 1960s, the idea of an artificial intelligence sophisticated enough to dominate human beings was probably only just becoming conceivable enough to be legitimately the stuff of nightmares. Also reflecting the exponential rate at which technology was advancing (perhaps beyond humankind's capacity to command it), the Ultron of the comics had already redesigned himself four times before revealing himself to the Avengers.<br/><br/>Almost none of that makes it into <em>Age of Ultron</em>, alas. I suppose, given that J.A.R.V.I.S. already exists in that world as a super-advanced AI, there wasn't all that much new to say about Ultron. At least he cuts an imposing figure (although I find his visage to be lacking some of that spark of menace of the original comics version—odd that even a robot character's face should be such a challenge to translate to live action).<br/><br/>The other new stars, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, core members of the Avengers for decades in the comics, make their way to the movies with some compromises, though not as many as might have been feared. Originally mutants in the comics, these two are unique in being equally associated with the worlds of both the Avengers and the X-Men. Readers and writers alike have always interpreted an allegorical dimension to the X-Men, so it’s not a great leap to recast these former mutants in a slightly more real-world context as orphaned children of an oppressed people in a fictional war-torn Eastern European country. In <em>Age of Ultron</em>, these new Avengers suffer, not so much because rights issues have robbed them of their origin story, but more so because, as with Black Widow and Hawkeye last time, they haven’t had their own films to develop them outside the mayhem of this mega-movie.<br/><br/>Technically, they never had their own solo titles in the comics either. Rather, <em>The Avengers</em> became a smaller, more character-driven comic, once Thor and Iron Man left the team and were replaced by characters who were never individually stars. The ending to <em>Age of Ultron</em>, where we see the new Avengers lineup, composed of Captain America leading a bunch of supporting players, might indicate that the movies too will settle down a bit with the heavy-hitters gone. But, of course, we need only look over Marvel’s future release schedule to see that they have no intention of going smaller, and they are surely bluffing with the suggestion that Thor and Iron Man might not be part of a third <em>Avengers</em> movie.<br/><br/>My biggest complaint with <em>Age of Ultron</em> has not to do with the new characters, but rather with some of the established heroes, specifically Captain America and Black Widow. It wasn't something I was wholly conscious of while watching the first <em>Avengers</em>, but, between <em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</em> and <em>Age of Ultron</em>, it strikes me now that the Joss Whedon versions of these characters are a little off. Well, I suppose they are no less canonical, so I'll say instead that they feel like different people from who they are in the solo movies.<br/><br/>The Captain America of the solo films is moral but not moralizing, noble but not proud, firm but not an ideologue. The Captain America of Joss Whedon’s <em>Avengers</em> movies is didactic, and, in his seldom-if-ever-constructive debates with Iron Man, he too quickly devolves into shaming instead of leading.<br/><br/>The Black Widow of <em>Winter Soldier</em> (and, to a lesser extent, <em>Iron Man 2</em>) is an artful master of the game, always thinking five moves ahead, "comfortable with everything," and takes pleasure (if not pride) in being the best in the world at what she does. She has the measure of every man and super-man, while being herself impenetrable. In the <em>Avengers</em> movies, she is more exaggeratedly compartmentalized, "Black Widow" being more clearly a role she plays, rather than a facet of herself. She is effusive when off the clock, and her dialogue is more often subject-oriented, rather than object-focused.<br/><br/>If it's not clear, I prefer the versions of these characters that we saw in <em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</em>, as I suppose I preferred that movie overall. <em>Age of Ultron</em> is a different experience, and one that I did enjoy, but I am ultimately glad that Joss Whedon's run on the <em>Avengers</em> movies is now ended.Henry Funghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14520920056894208976noreply@blogger.com0