The 2014 Evolution Championship was a significant one for BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma. Before the game fell off the radar a bit, the top 8 for the Arc System Works title was one to remember. Even those who didn’t play the game (nor understand it very well!) witnessed an incredibly tense comeback from Ponos|Garireo (a.k.a. Galileo), whose Litchi tackled the menacing Azrael controlled by Cyclops Osaka|Dogura. Dogura is a fearsome opponent, skilled in multiple games, and now full-time pro-gamer, while most people haven’t even heard of Garireo.
BornFree sat down with Garireo to walk through those moments. They talk extensively about how Garireo felt in those moments, which included losing in winners finals, to then beating Dogura to reset the bracket, and eventually taking the win. They also move to talking about the current version, Central Fiction, and how he feels about the balance of that game. As for his greatest rivals and strongly respected players, Garireo considers Monster, probably the most-skilled Izanami and Nine player, as well as Fenrich, the Jin player who came second in Evolution 2017.
Check out the full interview (with translation) here:
AnimEVO takes the safety limiters off and gives us a great Gundam Versus event!
Many brave pilots offered their lives up in battle at Evo this year, as part of the combined efforts of AnimEVO and Bandai Namco to host the first Gundam Versus event in North America. What started as a side tournament became a full showcase for Bandai Namco’s new Gundam title, putting the game into the eager hands of both new players and seasoned series veterans, a few months ahead of the upcoming Western release in September.
I made a beeline for the Bandai Namco booth to try out Gundam Versus as soon as I could. As a complete newcomer to the series, I was actually surprised to find that the controls aren’t based on a twin-stick configuration like the much-compared Virtual-ON games, but a single arcade stick with four buttons layout. Should have done some research — but I wanted the experience of trying a new franchise totally fresh. My first fumbling attempts to play on the demo stations equipped with Dual Shock 4 pads did little to clarify this confusion, until I got a chance to try on an arcade stick — and then it started to make sense!
While the lever controls your movement (and changes some other input properties, based on direction), you have four command buttons: shoot, melee, boost, and search. Search controls what enemy you’re locked-on to, and adjusts your camera accordingly. Shoot is naturally your long-range attack, melee your close-up attack, usually a beam saber or similar weapon, and boost controls your jump and longer-distance dashing abilities. Combining button presses opens up different and special attacks, such as shoot and melee together for your sub-weapon, or shoot and boost to fire a more powerful ranged attack.
There is a massive assortment of different mobile suits from across the long-running Gundam anime franchise to choose from, and they each have unique properties and attacks. New to Gundam lore, I tried out a few suits I recognized from what series I have seen: I tried Sandrock and the Wing Zero from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, the Freedom from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, and the Exia and Dynames from Mobile Suit Gundam 00. I was pleased to find that signature attacks from each were faithfully recreated, and each had a very different feel in combat. I had the most success with Sandrock, due to its rapid-fire shot and some nasty melee attacks — but my inexperienced opponents at the time may also have been part of the reason!
Overall, once you start getting used to the basic controls, the game feels very comfortable to play — boosting around and blasting and slashing is easy to get an a handle on, and just feels fun. The game’s presentation, from menus to the graphics and sounds effects in combat are all quite polished, as I would expect from this project.
There are many factors that contribute to success — knowing what your machine can do, knowing the terrain, and having a plan of attack with your partner are all crucial. As total newcomers, my partner and I (as team “nanimo no bokketsu”) flailed our way to 17th place, falling to the much more experienced “Alfredo Sauce” team — that made it ultimately to fourth overall. But we had a blast trying the game out, and lots of fun despite our losses. You can see the final tournament standings on smash.gg.
I caught up with Brett Young, ongoing AnimEVO tournament organizer, who organized and ran the Gundam Versus side tournament. Here’s what he had to say about the event!
Zavian “mushin_Z” Sildra: Tell us a bit about yourself, and what you do for AnimEVO.
Brett Young: I’m a fighting game player with a long history doing tournament organization and community work for various games in the last decade (Guilty Gear, UNI, Persona, Koihime, etc). I also got into the Gundam VS series around 2010, and have been running the Evo Gundam side tournaments since 2012. For this year’s AnimEVO I was a streamer for Hokuto no Ken and Koihime Enbu, alongside running the Gundam Versus event. Outside of on-site work, most of my AnimEVO responsibilities involve being the main contact point for Japanese players, and communicating with some of the industry reps and sponsors.
mushin_Z: Was there a significant spike in interest in the Gundam Versus event at Evo, once Bandai Namco’s support was announced?
Brett: There was definitely a big spike in interest. I had been working with them on Evo for several months beforehand, so even before the official announcement, I had been hinting that this year’s Evo should not be missed as a Gundam Versus player.
mushin_Z: How did the official support come about?
Brett: I was contacted by Bandai Namco last year right before Evo. They seemed to have noticed our Gundam side-tournaments, and came to check it out at that year’s Evo. I touched base with them several times about Gundam, and I’ve been working closely with them on events leading up to the English release of Gundam Versus.
mushin_Z: Aside from the increased publicity and prizes, what other benefits came from Bandai Namco’s involvement?
Brett: They were able to provide almost everything at the event space, including some custom builds of the game which were able to function offline (the game doesn’t normally have offline LAN support). The builds also came with all the Strikers unlocked, which normally would require tons of hours to unlock manually. The space they provided us was great and definitely a huge step up from what we normally have to work with. Last but not least, we had our own internet line for streaming, which worked amazingly. Normally we have to rely on our own phone tethering or WiFi, so this was a huge relief for stream production.
mushin_Z: That sounds like it was hugely beneficial both for organization, and for the players. What were the spoils for first place?
Brett: Each player on the winning team walked away with a High-Resolution Model Gundam Barbatos, a Qanba Dragon joystick signed by the Gundam Versus producer, an exclusive Gundam Versus shirt, Gundam Versus poster, and Gundam Versus clear file. [The poster and clear file were also handed out as consolation prizes to less-successful competitors, such as my ill-fated team. – Editor]
mushin_Z: Were the competitors comprised mostly of series veterans, newcomers, or a mix of both?
Brett: It was definitely a mix of both. Most of the veterans who have shown up in previous years were present this year. We even had the return of top Japanese player Riri and his partner, the famous voice actor Kana Ueda. And we also had plenty of players who were only starting with Gundam Versus. Some of them hadn’t even touched the game until that weekend.
mushin_Z: Myself and my partner included, in that last category! Any gameplay moments that stood out, and were particularly memorable or impressive for you?
Brett: In grand finals game 2, team Gundam Force World Champion (AcidAce/Sunhawk) were extremely behind, but managed an amazing comeback with Sunhawk ending the match with a clutch Last Shooting super. Even despite that, there was no pop-off or sigh of relief. Sunhawk had a really determined look of a serious competitor who knew there was still a long road ahead for them.
mushin_Z: Even with a long arcade heritage in Japan, the Gundam Versus series is very new in North America, and somewhat tangential to “traditional” fighting games such as Street Fighter. Would you consider Gundam Versus a fighting game by definition, or something else?
Brett: I don’t really consider it a fighting game. In a very broad sense, yes, it has characters with health bars, there are combos, pokes, spacing, and neutral, etc. But if something like Smash was already debatable, I would say Gundam is still several steps more removed from your traditional fighting game.
Gundam Versus is basically its own genre. It’s most closely compared to Virtual-ON, but other than that I feel it stands on its own, especially as a contemporary game. Honestly, the closest current game I can think of that’s like Gundam is actually Rocket League. Final Fantasy’s Dissidia is obviously very similar, as is Rise of Incarnates, but both had gameplay that seems very much inspired directly by Gundam.
I would still say it’s definitely close to a fighting game, more so than other genres. A lot of fighting game players have picked it up, and the FGC has much more overlap with Gundam than other communities. If you can learn a fighting game, you can definitely learn Gundam Versus.
mushin_Z: Even though it wasn’t announced as one of Evo Japan’s game events, do you think Gundam Versus deserves to have been part of the Evo Japan 2018 line-up?
Brett: I definitely think it does. Especially in Japan, it certainly has a fanbase large enough to compete or even eclipse many of the other games on the lineup. That being said, I’m sure that the folks over at Bandai Namco JP have big plans for Gundam Versus. As I said, Gundam Versus is really it’s own genre, so I foresee them trying to create something special just for Gundam.
mushin_Z: Will Gundam Versus have a home at future AnimEVOs?
Brett: Definitely. I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.
mushin_Z: Straight talk — what’s the best Mobile Suit Gundam series, and the best mobile suit of all time?
Brett: UC is the best timeline for Gundam, and within that, Mobile Suit Gundam Zeta has the best arc. As for what the best MS is, you are a cruel man for making me choose only one. For now I’ll say it’s Gundam AGE-2 Normal, SP version.
mushin_Z: Are there any other franchises that aren’t well-known in North America yet, that you’d like to help introduce to the West at a future AnimEVO?
Brett: Koihime Enbu is definitely a modern game that I think deserves a lot more attention, and luckily we’ve been able to run it at Evo for the last two years now. There are some older games that I would like to see more of, such as Chaos Breaker, Bushido Blade, and Umineko Ougou Musou Kyoku, but I doubt there’s any room with so many games already out there.
As far as niche games that don’t have side tournaments go, I’m always down for the return of Akatsuki Blitzkampf and Fate/unlimited codes. Hokuto no Ken has started to gain a rebirth in the West with this year’s Evo, and the aforementioned two games both definitely deserve something similar.
And for non-fighting games, a lot of people have been asking me about Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, which is getting a console port soon. As someone new to the franchise and honestly still a novice, it’s hard for me to give a solid answer until I get my hands on the game. If I end up being passionate about the game, I could see myself helping to push for that game’s success as well. They definitely need to add Noctis before I even consider it, though.
You can watch the top 8 of Gundam Versus at Evo 2017 in the video below, courtesy of Bandai Namco. Enjoy! Maybe we’ll meet on the battlefield once Gundam Versus hits PlayStation 4 in North America and Europe on September 29, 2017!
Aside from interviewing established players, Mark “BornFree” Sheridan also took some time to interview some rising stars at Evo 2017. One of these stars is Korea’s Sandbag, the Master rank Akuma player that first made his name by eliminating Poongko and XYZZY during the Road to Japan Cup tournament.
In the interview, BornFree and Sandbag (with the help of Kevin “Burnout” Kim) go over Sandbag’s relative newness to competitive fighting games, having only started playing fighting games two years ago. As part of this, they go over how Sandbag deals with tournament jitters, including some of his rituals — such as not cleaning his stick, as well as pretending that his opponent is just some “online scrub.” Additionally, they also talk about the games he played, starting with The King of Fighters series, then Street Fighter V (his first Capcom game), and possibly playing Tekken in the future.
Adel Anouche, a.k.a. NASR Esport’s Big Bird, is a 19-year-old up-and-comer from Abu Dhabi, UAE, who first made his name towards the end of the Street Fighter IV series with his dynamic Guy play. He made an even bigger splash last year in Street Fighter V at Red Bull Kumite 2016 — defeating the likes of Alioune, GamerBee, and Xian with his aggressive Ken.
So far in the 2017 season for the Capcom Pro Tour, Big Bird has had strong results in CPT Europe events, such as Sonic Boom (2nd), The Colosseum (2nd), FFM Rumble 10 (4th), and DreamHack Summer 2017 (5th) with his lowest placings being at Ultimate Fighting Game Arena (25th) and Evo 2017 (33rd). He is currently 5th in the Europe rankings, and 25th globally overall in the CPT standings.
Shoryuken caught up with Big Bird to discuss his first Evo, the Abu Dhabi competitive scene, Street Fighter V, and more.
Marcos “El Cubano Loco” Blanco: How was your first Evo experience?
Adel “Big Bird” Anouche: Ah, what can I say… Evo was a magical experience for me. I never thought Evo could be this good, but I was wrong. I enjoyed every minute of it. The off-stream matches were hype, since there were a lot of big names fighting off stream. I just couldn’t get to watch all of them. I had to run around from station to station to be able to catch up with everything that’s happening.
I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be, since it’s my first time. I was just excited to finally be there! I loved meeting most of the Americans that I’ve been interacting with on social media for the first time since at least four years ago — that was probably my favorite part of Evo! It was a long trip, but I’d definitely do it all over because the experience is amazing. You just have to be there at least once in your fighting game career.
El Cubano Loco: You got 33rd in SFV. Who did you lose to? How do you feel about your performance at Evo and what do you need to improve and do better?
Big Bird: I lost to Moke in winners top 64 [Moke went onward to later menace the top 8 with his deadly Rashid. – Editor], and then I lost to Bonchan straight after in losers. I feel like I did well against them since I lost 2-1 to both of them, but I know I could’ve taken them out. I was just unlucky in some of the games. They played better than me for sure. I just felt like both of those sets could’ve gone either way.
To be honest, I don’t know what I need to improve on. Maybe match-ups? I honestly have no idea. I won’t blame my losses on me not knowing the match-ups, because I know Rashid very well and I have a good idea about Nash. I just wasn’t the better player that day. What I need to do is to focus on what’s in front of me rather than start making plans on what’s next. At every tournament I basically keep checking on what my path to top eight could potentially be, when I just need to take it one match at a time. I think that’s the most important thing that has been sticking out to me recently!
El Cubano Loco: How is the scene in Abu Dhabi? A lot of people don’t know about it.
Big Bird: There are quite a number of players who play the game, but if I had to count the number of players who actually take this game seriously, I’d say two to three including me. The rest either casually play the game or just play it on the side. We have strong King of Fighters players here, as well as decent Tekken players.
El Cubano Loco: How come you picked Ken as your main in SFV? What drew you to him?
Big Bird: Ken is the closest thing to Guy, I felt — he’s an in-your-face type of character, he has average normals compared to the top tiers, but once he gets in, he can potentially finish the round as he corner carries in one combo. He has a run which is similar to Guy as well. I feel like I can be different from other Ken players with hit confirms, anti-airs, etc. It’s like I have a little room to express myself (aside from throw loops, of course).
NASR|Big Bird (Ken) vs. LUP|Calipower (Kolin, Rashid) at the 31:25 mark.
El Cubano Loco: You made your name towards the end of the Street Fighter IV series. How was the transition to SFV been for you? Do you enjoy the game?
Big Bird: I honestly thought I was gonna be irrelevant coming from SFIV to SFV, but I guess I’m more relevant than I’ve ever been in SFIV. I won’t lie — I was scared for a bit in the beginning, though. I do enjoy the game when I play against high level players — I won’t deny that. But when I play against mid to low level players, I don’t really enjoy the game much, so I usually switch to other characters so I can learn them.
El Cubano Loco: What do you consider the positives and negatives of SFV? What would you add or change to improve the game?
Big Bird: The positives are the lack of crouch tech, it’s a fast-paced game, and it punishes you heavily for your mistakes, so you better be careful. I wouldn’t say it’s a footsie-oriented game, though. As for the negatives, oh, where can I start. First of all, the Crush Counter system needs to be adjusted. The risk/reward of throwing a crush counter normal is heavily skewed, it’s low risk/super high reward most of the time, and characters shouldn’t be able to get a full dash-in combo after a normal randomly crush countering in the neutral. There’s absolutely no need for that. Also, V-Trigger-canceled normals on block should always be minus no matter what. Heavy normals should be -4 or -5, mediums should be -2 and lights should be zero. I don’t care about the reward on hit. Just increase the risk. Let people be forced to hit confirm into V-Trigger.
Also remove anti-air jabs, or whatever needs to be adjusted in order for them to stop working. They’re so scrubby in my opinion, and sometimes it’s more rewarding than an anti-air DP. Also add more defensive options. I don’t like the removal of jump back OS. It honestly added layers of depth to both the offensive and the defensive gameplay, and made the game more fun, but that’s just me. There’s more, but this is all I can think of.
El Cubano Loco: Do you miss Guy? Would you want him in SFV? How would you want him to play in this game?
Big Bird: I do miss playing Guy honestly, he was really fun and my first serious main in a fighting game as well, so I’m kinda attached to him [laughs]. I’d want him to play the same as he did in SFIV. He’d honestly be strong that way.
El Cubano Loco: There’s a rumor that Guy’s master, Zeku, will be in Season 2. Would you drop Ken to play him, if he plays similar to Guy?
Big Bird: I wouldn’t say I’ll drop Ken for him, but I’ll definitely make an effort to learn him. I can’t drop Ken since I’ve invested a lot of time in him. It’ll honestly be a waste of effort if I did, but I’ll definitely give Zeku a fair shot.
El Cubano Loco: What are your initial impressions of Abigail?
Big Bird: I haven’t seen much of him besides the trailer. He looks like Hugo, as he’s big enough. I played Hugo in SFIV on the side, so I don’t know. I might end up trying him later. I’m honestly interested in seeing StormKubo, Infexious, and Alucard try him actually.
El Cubano Loco: What’s next for you in the CPT season? Any upcoming tournaments you’ll be competing in?
Big Bird: I’m going to Fight Club NRW in Germany in August. Maybe VS Fighting as well, depending on my visa. Esports Festival Hong Kong, EGX, SGB, and other European ranking events. I’ll go to as many events I need to go in order to make it. I have 450 points now, so I’m really close to making it to Capcom Cup!
El Cubano Loco: What drives and inspires you to compete in SFV? What are some specific goals you’re looking to accomplish both in and out of competition?
Big Bird: I’m just playing for fun — it’s still a hobby for me at the end of the day. I’m currently studying environmental health and safety at Abu Dhabi University, so that’s the priority. Since I got sponsored recently, I have a duty to fulfill to my team, so yeah, I guess that motivated me a lot to compete this year, since I barely showed up last year. I just hope I can do my team proud. If they’re happy, then I’ll be happy!
Grapht-sponsored Japanese gaming god Tatsuya Haitani had a busy week during Evo 2017. It wasn’t just because he traveled to the world’s largest fighting game tournament — a few days prior to his flight to the US, he got married!
This is just one of the many areas covered in the continuing Evo interview series by Mark “BornFree” Sheridan. Over the course of the 30 minute interview, the three (including translator @discovigilante) discuss Haitani’s training, his favorite player to watch (UK’s Infexious won him over!), his first fighting game, and more.
There are those who straddle both worlds — the East and the West — and the Evolution Fighting Championship is one opportunity to meet such folks. Andrew “Jiyuna” Fidelis has spent the last seven years in Japan teaching English, though that’s not all that he was doing. In between classes and exploring Japanese culture, we’ve seen his streaming and video work, which eventually led to collaboration with Twitch.Hx.CYG BST|Daigo Umehara. Furthermore, in between commentating for various titles, he also began contributing to the upcoming ARIKA game.
I had the unique chance to meet up with Jiyuna at the Anime Suite at Evo, which he graciously hosts every year.
Luke “Woocash” Siuty: Bring us up a little on what have you been up to lately. You’re producing for Red Bull?
Andrew “Jiyuna” Fidelis: So actually, I work for Daigo, who of course, is sponsored by Red Bull and Twitch, so I do a lot of work with those companies, but through Daigo. I also recently joined ARIKA, so I’m helping them produce their game, doing localization, promotion. Helping them run their social media, and stuff like that. I’m also networking with BEAST, which is an Asian streaming team, so I’ve been doing commentary work around Asia, helping them set up their streams. Then I also have my own brand, my own streams, and my own freelance interpretation work as well. So a little bit of everything right now.
Woocash: And you were a teacher as well?
Jiyuna: Yes, for seven years.
Woocash: And that ended. Weren’t you doing a bit of soul-searching after that, or did things not line up yet?
Jiyuna: Pretty much, I’ve been in Japan for seven years and most, I would say 95% of the teachers there, they don’t want to teach. But that’s sort of the entry way into the country. It’s hard to break out, you need to have enough lined up. Fortunately, these past few years, things have been coming together, so I was able to stop teaching this year and go full-time into gaming-related work. I wanted to stop teaching for a long time. Right now, I’m doing my dream job. This is what I wanted to be doing.
Woocash: How do you feel?
Jiyuna: Very happy, very grateful, but also tired. It’s exhausting, but in a good way.
Woocash: Sticking with the subject, tell me a little about the documentary series you’ve been doing in Japan.
Jiyuna: So really, [laughs] I don’t think they’re very good. I just bought a camera one day and walked around. I think it’s more that Japan is just so cool. I’ve been there for seven years and still, just walking down the street, wow, it’s such a cool country! I go out with my camera, film whatever, and like I said, it comes out pretty interesting. That’s not me, that’s just the country! I would like to make more, but they’re very time-consuming. I’m quite busy now.
Woocash: Let’s talk about Evo. You were performing a new role this year, and I don’t think we’ve had a “floor” commentator before, a different set of commentators. It’s a bit more “event” style.
Jiyuna: So this is the 15th Evo anniversary. The old Evos, I don’t know if they’re including “Battle by the Bay,” but, in the old days, that’s how they had it. They used to have the house mic. This year, they wanted to bring it back. They said, “We’re getting a little too esports, let’s go back to our roots.” It’s not a new thing, but it’s a thing they wanted bringing back. It was really fun for me, no one has done it recently, so there are some kinks we have to work out, but overall, I think it was a success. I think a lot of people enjoyed it.
Woocash: What difference do you think it makes?
Jiyuna: It’s hugely different, I would say. When you do commentary in a booth, you definitely feel like you’re blocked off. You are in your own little world, bubble, it’s you and your co-commentator, and the crowd is irrelevant. You’re only talking to each other and maybe each other. But doing the in-house mic, I really felt that I was down there, on the ground, on the floor, with everyone else in the arena. We’re all watching together, getting hype together. I felt like I was able to draw out some energy from the crowd, make them a little more excited than if there was no one there, and at the same time, they helped me get more excited than if I was doing regular commentary. I think it was a really good thing.
Woocash: Stepping into the games industry, as we’re heading into 2018, a lot of fighting game companies are eager to listen to fans and are more responsive about feedback. How would you say the spirit of fighting games is changing as companies seem to cater more to players?
Jiyuna: The big word right now, of course, is “esports.” There are some companies that are choosing to focus on esports and creating that league, and money, getting that exposure on television. And some other are choosing to just stick with what they have been doing, putting out a good, solid product. That’s the big divide right now, and you see it a lot between the east and the west. I’m not a competitor, I don’t play for money, so I’d much rather have a good product. Just at Evo alone, with all the announcements that happened so far, I think we’re in a very good spot. Late this year and 2018 look to be very, very promising.
Woocash: Tell me a little about this Anime Suite tradition.
Jiyuna: So it started about five years ago, I didn’t really think much about it. I was coming from Japan, it was my first Evo after moving there, and there were some other Japanese players showing up that I knew. Five years ago, the connection between Japanese and the US players wasn’t really there at all. I figured, since I know both scenes, why don’t I start this party thing. I expected like 40 people show up, and we had like 200. Ever since then, every year I’ve been trying to do it, and it’s been getting bigger and bigger. This year I had planned to have two of them, but there were some problems, so we were forced to do in the usual size. It was pretty cramped in there, but people had fun. I had fun. It’s good.
Jiyuna: We just released the announcements. There will be a playable demo later in 2017, it will release in 2018. There were many interviews over the weekend, and the big thing is, they don’t want to make a game by themselves, they want to make a game together with the community. During development, there will be a lot of reaching out to the community, getting feedback, and adjusting the game until they can put out a product they think everyone worked together to make. So I think this is a unique experience, most other companies kind of just do their thing and put it out. Expect to see a lot of changes in the upcoming months.
Woocash: What’s your drink of choice?
Jiyuna: The drink of choice of course is gotta be the Strong Zero. I feel bad when people taste it and seem a little disappointed, they say “Jiyuna, what are you doing?” But Strong Zero is more than just a drink. It’s something you can buy anywhere in Japan, you can drink it anywhere. A $1.60. 55 calories, no carbs, 9% alcohol. It’s everything. It’s perfect.
Citadel: Forged with Fire is ready to hit Early Access later this week. After a successful open beta last Saturday, we reached out to the team to learn more about the game that has many of our readers abuzz with anticipation. We spoke with Blue Isle Studios Creative Director Alex Tintor.
Flying all the way from Abu Dhabi, Big Bird is one of the Middle East’s strongest players. As this is his first Evo, talk naturally centered on the state of his local scene and the costs and hassles of traveling internationally. He also touched on his personal feelings on Street Fighter V, what he’d like changed (he provides a strong defense of the now-removed jump back option select), why he plays Ken, and his favorite fighting game player.
If you were tuned into the Evolution 2017 Street Fighter Grand Finals, there’s no doubt that you witnessed commentator James Chen burst into tears in response to Tokido proclaiming that “fighting games are great.” theScore esports caught up with James Chen post-Evo to get a grasp of exactly what he was feeling in that moment, and also to have an extensive chat about all things FGC.
Regarding Evo, James Chen expresses his love for what the biggest fighting game tournament in the world has become. Specifically, he appreciates how fans are easily able to interact with players and commentators without any red tape, and how such interaction is essential to the spirit of the fighting game community as a whole.
James also shared his thoughts on Dragon Ball FighterZ, which he believes will bring a lot of “new blood” to the competitive scene, and describes the game’s potential as “gigantic”. He also makes a good point of how the character recognition of Dragon Ball Z characters rivals that of the cast of Street Fighter and, with that more considered, it could potentially dethrone Street Fighter as the main attraction for tournaments in the future.
When it comes to fighting games, a community veteran such as James always has something valuable to add to the conversation. Check out his full interview with theScore below.
If there was one player who was conspicuous by his absence from the last day of Street Fighter V at Evo 2017, it would have to be Cygames Beast’s Daigo Umehara. The fighting game legend has missed his second Evo top 8 in a row and has generally not been as dominant in Street Fighter V as he was in the previous game.
At Evo 2017, Mark “BornFree” Sheridan (with Zhi Liang Chew translating) got the chance to get together with Daigo for an interview. In the video below, Daigo talks about a number of topics, not just limited to Evo. They even go as far back as ELEAGUE, where Daigo talks about his match with Eita. The latter’s style of Ken play really got under Daigo’s skin in that match which resulted in him dropping his usual defensive style with Guile in favor of going head to head with Eita’s Ken. He admitted to enjoying getting emotional in that match and that the crowd enjoyed it as well. Additionally, the match reminded Daigo of an old-school, man-on-man battle of wills from the arcade days, and he promised to himself that he would remember that feeling moving forward.
Moving on to other events and other players, he talks about his match with Echo Fox’s Tokido at Red Bull Kumite. Specifically, he mentions how he didn’t want to exit the event in an unsatisfactory manner, this is why he turned up the offense against Tokido in that match.
Daigo also moves even further back to the past, talking about Alex Valle with whom he had a legendary rivalry back in the turn of the millenium. Daigo considers Valle to be the strongest Ryu player he had faced at the time, and it was thanks to Valle showing him what Ryu could do that he started playing the character that’s now so closely associated with him.
Of course, this isn’t all that they talk about. Daigo also talks about the future, including which characters he wants to come back in Street Fighter V – specifically mentioning Gen, Rolento (who he played in Street Fighter Alpha 3), Evil Ryu, and Sagat, the last one of which he wants for Bonchan. He also talks a bit about other games such as Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Arika’s unnamed fighting game, and Dragon Ball: Fighter Z.
Overall, once you start getting used to the basic controls, the game feels very comfortable to play — boosting around and blasting and slashing is easy to get an a handle on, and just feels fun. The game’s presentation, from menus to the graphics and sounds effects in combat are all quite polished, as I would expect from this project.
![[photo by Magoichii]](http://i0.wp.com/shoryuken.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/brett-at-GV-Evo-2017.png?resize=622%2C414)
