The Mikado Chronicles: Part 1

When I first went to Mikado, it was a lazy Sunday morning. I had nothing but free time, so I figured it was as good a time as any to make my first trip up to Takadanobaba. I wasn't necessarily expecting the best competition, seeing as it was a Sunday, but I didn't care. I was going to pay my first visit to the greatest arcade on the planet, because, well, what else was I going to do?

I arrived at Takadanobaba Station at around 9:30 AM. Having already checked Google Maps for the location, I was feeling confident I would be able to find Mikado within minutes, seeing as it's right next to the train station. This was when I learned my first hard lesson about Japan: everything is next to the train station. I wandered around for roughly an hour before I finally found it.

You can tell just by looking at Mikado that it's no ordinary establishment. Most arcades in Japan are as visually loud as possible; Mikado, on the other hand, is relatively understated. It's not in a particularly busy part of town, and there's really not much else to the exterior other than the sign in front. Instead of trying to catch your attention with UFO catchers, neon signs and advertisements, Mikado dares you to walk through its doors.

Some people have the love for games Mikado requires; for everyone else, there's plenty of other arcades to choose from.

The first floor of Mikado doesn't have any fighting games at all; rather, it boasts a large collection of classic shooting games, with the Space Harrier cabinet catching my eye as soon as I walked in. In a small section to the right are the rhythm games, followed by the staircase that leads to the promised land.

Once you make your way up said staircase, you're greeted by rows upon rows of head to head cabinets. This floor is substantially larger than the first floor, which obviously means there's a hell of a lot more games. To your immediate right are yet more shooting games, though these are more modern titles (most of the Cave games are up here). In front of you is a row of mostly SNK fighters; to your right are doujin fighters and to your left are the Capcom fighters.

In the far right corner of the room, lies the main attraction: six head to head +R cabinets.

After purchasing my Aime card from the machine next to the +R cabs, I sit down and play +R for the first time. Against the computer. For about an hour.

I know it's a Sunday morning, but come on!

I decided to take a break and grab lunch at this amazing ramen shop down the street. It'd have to be busier after noon, right?

Sure enough, it was busier when I returned. What used to be empty rows between the cabinets were now filled with people. They were all playing Enein, a new 2D fighter made by the same developer that gave us Akatsuki Blitzkampf. Among them was a German exchange student, who ended up becoming my interpreter later on that day. We talked for a bit; about fighting games, being a foreigner in Japan, the works. Turns out, he used to play Guilty Gear in Germany! After becoming acquainted with each other, I excuse myself to the +R cabs, hoping that I'd be able to finally play someone.

It didn't take long for someone to show up.

This guy wearing sunglasses sits down at the cab in front of me and scans his Aime card. His name read "ヒ　ロ　P". Never heard of him. Of course, all that means is that this guy doesn't get his matches recorded. For all I knew, I was about to face one of the best players in the area.

I then notice that his cursor is hovering over Anji. I'd figured that every Anji player had fallen off the face of the planet by now.

Heaven or hell, let's rock.

Or get rocked, rather. I don't remember the first match, but it sure did end quickly. Determined to play against this guy as much as possible, I insert my 100 yen and play him again.

One thing I noticed immediately was that this guy plays super respectfully. After he scores a knockdown, he doesn't immediately go for a mixup. Most of the time, he places a meaty over you and waits for you to self destruct. That, and he has a really, really strong neutral game. He can anti-air any jump arc from anywhere on screen, and he definitely autoguarded more of my 5K/2S than I should care to admit.

This may sound like a troll playstyle (and it kind of is), but he makes it work because he's patient. I'd wager most Anji players would tire of this playstyle quickly and resort to a Fuujin based neutral game.

After the sixth or so game, I decided to take a break and play against this Venom player that just showed up. I beat him six times, then he left. I still didn't feel quite ready to face the Anji player again, so I waited for a bit and finished arcade mode. Feeling like I had enough time to reflect on what I did wrong, I go up to the cabinet he's playing on and try again.

I do considerably better this time around, managing to win some rounds. He's starting to use Fuujin against me now, though he's awfully specific about when he likes to use it; usually, he tries to bait a coin and then Fuujin on reaction. I catch on to this quickly and stop throwing coins, which ended up being a good decision (go figure). We now start playing a more complete neutral game, though I still end up coming short.

After our third match, this guy comes up and I get off to let him play. This guy plays Axl, and he's pretty damn good. Yet, he's losing to the Anji player, too. He hasn't changed his playstyle much, either.

That's when it hits me: this guy is nuts.

Needing another break, I went over to talk with my German contact. After 20 minutes or so, the Anji player walks towards us. Using my rather basic Japanese vocabulary, I get his attention by saying: "闇慈が上手”.

This is where the fun starts.

We start talking about Guilty Gear, though it's mostly him asking the questions: how long I've been playing, how I knew about Mikado, etc. When I mention that I learned a lot by watching videos on Nico and Youtube, he asks what players I know of. Naturally, I start listing Johnny players first. Satou, Suzume, DC, etc. He misheard DC as Dizzy, then starts asking about what Dizzy players I know. I then correct him (rather garishly): "No, DC".

He laughs, and says in English: "He's crazy".

We step outside to talk more (and so he can smoke), when he compliments me by saying I'm a strong player, and that I play similarly to DC. My sense of pride and ~10% win ratio both say otherwise, but I accept the compliment graciously.

Once he finished smoking, we went in to play a few more games before I left. We had all agreed to enter the team tournament that upcoming Saturday, so I had already set up my second visit to Mikado.

Back To The Lab

Back in 2009, I spent way too much on my first stick: a brand new HRAP 2 SA.

Over the years, it's seen some serious abuse. It's survived more than a few drops, some packed bags/trunks, a complete and utter failure of wiring on my part that ended up frying the PCB it came with (at least I got to see it arc before it became toast!), and most recently, the TSA.

Bearing this all in mind, I recently figured it was time to breathe life back in to it. Sure, it still worked, but it wasn't all it could be.

I ended up getting a (much needed) replacement JLF, OSBF-30RGs to replace the aging OSBF-30s (more on those at a later date), and a PS360+ PCB, so I could finally ditch my old Xconverter, and so I can use it with my recently purchased PS3.

Pictures of the finished project will come later. For now, enjoy looking at what four years of abuse will do to a stick.

The shaft was bent.

REALLY bent.

PS1 PCB, hacked to hell to work with the stock HRAP wiring harness.

Another Fucking Meta Post

I know what you're thinking: "Not another fucking meta post".

Well, sorry to disappoint. But this time, I'll at least get straight to the point.

As of right now, it's all but confirmed that I'll be living in Japan for the next few years. I have some lofty goals that I hope to accomplish while I'm there, both related and unrelated to gaming. So, what does this mean for this blog?

Rest assured, this isn't going to become a "Living In Japan" blog or anything like that. If anything, this will become a "Playing Games In Japanese Arcades" blog, since this blog is primarily for people who already know me through the gaming communities I'm part of (and secondarily, for people who don't know me, but happen to stumble upon this place anyways).

I'm going to be living in Yokosuka, which, according to Google Maps, is roughly a 90 minute train ride from Mikado Takadanobaba. If you're reading this and somehow don't know about Mikado, let's just say that it's the place to be if you play Guilty Gear. I'm going to try my best to make it to as many tournaments there as possible, since, well, it's fucking Mikado. It won't be easy with work and a personal life, but there's no way I'm going to be a stone's throw away from the best Guilty Gear players in the world and sit idly by.

But what does this mean for this blog? Right.

A large part of the reason I haven't finished the netplay article, as an example, is because I'm missing a critical element of it; to explain why it is necessary for players outside of Japan to play online, it is necessary to also explain why players within Japan don't. This means going arcade hopping to see what the typical Japanese arcade looks like on a weekday afternoon, and contrasting that with the days when an arcade like A-cho or Mikado is holding an event. To see just how easy it is to find competition for a game like Virtua Fighter or SFIV between train stops, compared to, say, Melty Blood or Guilty Gear. I could very easily finish the article right now without this valuable experience, but it wouldn't hold its weight over time, and I'd end up having to revise it as I learn more about how fighting games are played by those who play them best. So yeah, it's best to just hold off on it altogether until I know exactly what I want to say, and how I want to say it.

Of course, I'll also inevitably improve as a player. Which is kind of a scary thought, lol. That might mean revising everything entirely to reflect my newfound insights! But that is exactly what I should hope for, isn't it?

Unfortunately, none of this is happening any time soon. I'm going to be quite busy, you see, just getting on my feet and eventually settled in. So, it may very well be another eight months before you see a new post here. Waiting sucks, but trust me; it'll be well worth it.

THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS ENDS

Can't wait for +R!

Hindsight Isn't Upscaled

I was recently invited to play vanilla VF5 online. It had been awhile since I last played vanilla, so I figured; sure, why not?

Upon playing the game for the first time in at least a year, I immediately noticed something as soon as the first match started: this game looks like shit. Like, not even just a little bad, it looks fucking awful. In fact, if I had to guess, I'd say that this game isn't being upscaled at all.

How? How did Sega release such an awful looking port? How did nobody notice it sooner? I at least had the excuse of playing on various dying CRT monitors from the early 00's before now. This game was released in late 2007 for the 360, and as I recall, there were plenty of 1080p displays on the market back then. Even on a 720p display, I highly doubt it would look any better since the 360's internal resolution is lower than that.

Just to be sure, I checked the back of the case, and it does say it supports 1080p. If this was Sega's idea of support back then, I shudder to think of what other games of the time offered the same kind of "support".

Unfortunately, I don't have any capture equipment and my camera kinda sucks, so bear with me here. These pictures aren't the best, but if you look closely you can see where vanilla looks awful and where FS fixes it (Jacky's feet are a good example). It's much more prominent in person, obviously, so if you have both games, I implore you to see for yourself. This is almost as big of a difference as the PC port of Dark Souls, pre and post patch.

Sore Winning

This is something I noticed some time ago, but recently came to light thanks to this video:

As you can see, this was part of a set I played with this guy on XBL. As you can also see, I lost horribly. As you can probably see, it was very laggy. What you can't see: this was one of the few, if not the only, matches I lost in this entire set.

This isn't the first time someone's uploaded just the match where they beat me. Refer to the following:

That last one was from a Dustloop vs. GameFAQS online tourney, where I played against a guy who, prior to that set, I had pretty much bodied every time we played, lol. 

Now this isn't to say that there aren't some noteworthy quirks in these matches that make them worth uploading, but it's oddly suspicious that all of these matches just happen to be one of the few I've lost in their respective sets. It's also evident that in these videos, I'm playing pretty sloppily/greedy (though, if you notice, so are my opponents).

Is it that these people want to prove that they can beat a famous player? Obviously not, since I'm a nobody in the "eff gee see" (and would like to keep it that way). Is it that they want to learn from the mistakes of their playstyle? Perhaps, but only uploading the matches you win isn't going to be productive towards that. So what could the reason be that all of these people just happen to upload the one match where they manage to win?

It's pretty obvious to anyone with experience in this community: ego. To them, playing me is like fighting a boss; like a frustrating, hellaciously difficult boss that they can come within inches of beating at times, but continuously fall short against (think Dark Souls). Once they're able to beat me once or twice, they consider themselves accomplished. Let's of course ignore the fact that in all but the VF vid I'm on the receiving end of bad, even terrible matchups (Johnny vs. Zappa is at least 7-3, and let's not even talk about BBCT).

What makes this all the more amusing to me is that, especially when I play online (for reasons I'll have to explain in the yet-to-be-completed articles on online play), I don't care whether I win or lose. To me, it's all about getting stronger, no matter how many losses it takes to get there (or, in other words, taking losses today for the sake of winning in the future).

If you don't put your ego aside, you're never going to reach your full potential. Sure, you'll improve, and you might even get damn good! But as long as you hold the kind of attitude on display here, you're never going to reach a point where you can look at how far you've come and think: "There's no way I can possibly go further than this".

In conclusion: lol.

アニメじゃない〜

I did say I'd eventually post something not related to fighting games, right?

Now that I've moved in to a much better place than I was a few months ago, I'm enjoying amenities such as high speed internet. This would probably be much less of a big deal if it wasn't the first time I've ever had full, unabated access to it.

And what better way to take advantage of this newfound wealth of bandwidth than to download practically every anime series from the past decade you wanted to watch but never got the chance to, and many that you never previously cared about but are willing to give a shot?

Back when I was stealing wireless from my neighbors I had to pick wisely, because even a short series could take weeks on end to download. Likewise, I picked the series that stood out to me as being the most interesting (having a local library that stocked anime DVD's helped in determining this). Anyone who knew me back then will tell you that I was obsessed with anything and everything Initial D, because, well, I was. I definitely still stand by Fourth Stage as being one of the best anime ever made, but it's about time I found something at least as good to waste my time on.

So now I'm downloading pretty much every major shonen of the past decade (that I haven't already seen and already have a formative opinion on), a few of those slice of life shows, and a few shoujo/josei, even (I read a lot of shoujo manga back in middle school, lol).

In the meantime, my quest to (re)watch every UC Gundam will occupy me. I've already sledged through First Gundam (dear God, never again) and I'm currently well into Zeta, which is likely going to be a favorite of mine. I've only seen the first few episodes of ZZ, and it was a few years ago before I had watched any Gundam to completion, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless. Late UC is probably going to be tedious as hell if the few episodes I've seen of Victory are any indication, but whatever. It's not like I'm going to be doing anything better with my free time.

I promise I'll keep any further posts about anime few and far between, but maybe if I come across a funny screencap or something I'll post it here.

Oh, and I might post about my experience at NEC soon. It was kind of mediocre, but that's why it makes for a good story.