Sheesh! I practically saw cobwebs as I logged back onto here! Hope everyone has been doing exceptionally well! Anime life for me has slowed down to a crawl ever since I have entered the job search since graduation. But I have been rewatching Yu-Yu Hakusho again! It’s always a pleasure when I watch the series. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. As some of you may know, I also have a strong love for fighting games; Street Fighter to be exact.
This past weekend as PAX was held in Seattle one of the local clothing stores held a SF5 tournament. At first I raised an eyebrow because I never really thought clothing stores would support such things but I do remember going to this store a few months back and saw some street fighter clothing that I got overly excited about! As I found out from a local facebook group that the clothing store “Bait” was holding a tournament I didn’t exactly believe it too much. That is until eventhubs.com had also made an article about it! So finally after some cross referencing I was ecstatic about it to say the least! The beautiful pacific northwest doesn’t really have that huge of a fighting game scene other than the regular folks at gameworks (local seattle arcade) the scene is pretty dead over here. But wait, once I found out one thing dawned on me …. I still have never played 5 yet. Back when SF4 first debuted there weren’t any beta codes for fighting games while they were in production (in my experience at least) at all so the only chance you had to play it were at the location tests and at major gaming conventions. But with the beauty of the technology of 2015 being able to play betas at the comfort of your own home in your underwear under a blanket or whatever else floats your boat. Nifty right?!
So, lets get back on track to what I was going to do without having any experience for SF5 yet. I was bummed out and thought I was going to get destroyed within the tournament in a matter of seconds. I didn’t have the funds to shell out $60 for a game right at that very moment because I’ve been playing Ultra Street Fighter 4 for so long and the release of SF5 is still a fairy distance away. But my little brothers told me a little trick where if I put down the minimum amount of $5 towards the game I’ll be able get the pre-order AND be granted access to a beta code! SWEET! So I did that and fortunately with capcom dropping the beta on friday (the tournament was on saturday) I would be able to have at least one whole day of experience! One whole day was more than enough to get familiar with the games and the mechanics.
As you first walk into the shop you’re greeted with boxed kidrobot figures of Dark Charlie and Dark Sakura followed by the Shadowloo figures right after!
So Saturday rolls along and I step inside the shop. I really love the layout of the shop (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the shop as I was walking in) as they have a very wide variety of clothing that’ll cater to a good amount of audiences. Most of it is dedicated towards the sneaker culture with brands such as 10 Deep, UNDFTD, and other brands that I can’t really remember off the top of my head, but I was still impressed with the amount of street fighter related items they had also!
Decided to purchase this shirt with the little money I had because I thought it was really dope.
Really was diggin’ the Evil Ryu figurine they had on display.
So as I do a quick walk around the shop I register and was able to take one of the last 2 slots for the tournament and was relieved because we were about 20 minutes late of the start time. After registering I joined the crowd to get a feel for how strong the people I would be facing were. I even got to meet Combo Fiend which was pretty cool. I didn’t leave with the best impression of him but it was a long day at PAX, maybe he was tired at the end of it all?
Honestly it was a pretty good turnout from what I had expected.
I remember as I got closer to the front I realized that it was fight sticks only. Just a heads up I am a pad player and I am GARBAGE on the fight sticks. A lot of people tend to look down on pad players for reasons on which I have no clue why but there are some really good pad players out there; NuckleDu who plays Guile and Decapre, and also Smug who plays Dudley are magnificent pad players that still manage to do really well in tournaments. So, a little bummed about the whole fight stick thing I tell myself to suck it up and just to keep going along with the night and see how far I can get with playing on the sticks, which wasn’t too far and I’ll explain why in just a little.
Combo Fiend in the flesh.
As the night wore on my turn was still a long ways to go so I decided to step outside for a moment. As I stepped outside to light up a cigarette I see a very familiar face that I see every Sunday, MIKE ROSS! I nearly had to do as much as I could to not fan boy at the moment in time but it was really dope. I stepped over to approach him and overheard that all the tournament slots were taken up and he seemed kind of bummed out.
Left: Mike Ross – Right: Gootecks
So, I offered my spot to him and he said he couldn’t take it, the guy next to him says “hey man I’ll take it!” and that was another familiar voice that I couldn’t put a face to for a little while since it was pretty dark. I let my eyes adjust and what do you know?! It was Gootecks! So I gladly give up my spot to him since I watch these 2 every sunday who are known for their Excellent Adventures on Youtube among much other video content they push out. I let him know that he’ll be under the name “The Rock” because well … my name sounds like that and the person taking names had the name mixed up. Duh-rot is how my name is pronounced, you could hear the confusion in it right?
So with now being out of the tournament I spent the rest of my time spectating matches and seeing how the newly announced characters play that aren’t in the beta (that you can play right now if you pre-order the game) such as R. Mika, Vega, Necalli, and Ken. Ken seems to be the only one to impress me as I didn’t really care for R. Mika back in the alpha days and I sure as hell never cared about Vega at all. I wasn’t able to stay for the end of the tournament to find out who won because it was getting pretty late and personally I can only be in one place for so long before my mind begins to get bored.
As the crowd got bigger the store got a bit more busy, and with bigger crowds means more business right? Of course, there were a ton of people sporting the new Street Fighter shirts that they had bought the same night. I didn’t get any pictures of folks wearing them at all since everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time and I didn’t want to ruin that for them.
This dude was able to buy (or win) the E. Ryu figure that was on display. To say the least, he was pretty damn happy about it.
My buddy sporting his new Bait x Chun-Li shirt that he had been wanting or awhile now. Be sure to follow him on Instagram! @Latiftanba
Another familiar face that has been on this blog before. Sarah Chaco! She made it up from PAX, it’s always a good time seeing her.
And what kind of SF event would it be if we didn’t have at LEAST one Street Fighter cosplayer?!
And that about wraps it up for this post everyone! What’re you most excited for about Street Fighter 5? What characters are you hoping to see and NOT see appear? Be sure to leave your thoughts in a comment!
PS.
With the lack of content I’ve been doing lately I was wondering if any other bloggers would be willing to share their ideas on how to keep motivated to keep writing. Any ideas are appreciated!
-Aniplays
Aniplays 