Who runs random obscure Dreamcast fighting game tournaments? I do. Last night was the first night of our (and by "our" I mean "Dubuque's") weekly ranking battles with two tournaments per night; one is for Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the other is a different fighting game EVERY WEEK. At the end of 12 weeks, I hand out sweet sweet prizes such as a copy of Ultimate MVC3 for the leader of the MVC3 standings, a Capcom art book for the leader of the random games standings, and some comics and gift cards and such to other top placers. Why do I do this? Because it's too fun not to.
The night started off with a little MVC3, done in our King of the Hill format. Each player (7 total this time) will face each other in traditional round-robin style, getting in a healthy amount of matches and placing everyone accordingly. But you know it's no fun saying, after two random people play, "and that means such-and-such won" when that person wasn't even part of the last match of the tournament, right? RIGHT? Of course that's right. I just said it. So, after everyone's seeded according to how they did, we THEN start knocking people out. Last seed will face the second-to-last seed, then the winner will face the third-to-last seed, and so on until finally whoever is left faces the 1st seed for the grand finale. Think of it like the Royal Rumble with more organization and less scripting. Possibly the same amount of swinging chairs, though. Rowdy group featuring myself, Alex "Keela", Olli "I'm Too Cool For An Online Handle", Jackie "Kintehr", James "DTJB", Stocks "Stocks is my last name and it's too cool NOT to say", and Iowa City gamer Blake "NGamer".
Everyone went into the round robin swinging, trying for a top seed and a better chance at a decent finish. My goofy team of Thor/Captain America/Ryu went up against Blake first and took a sound loss at the hands of Wesker/Storm/Chun. Mostly Wesker and his amazing ability to both zone and mix-up from across screen. Next up for myself was a lucky win against Olli as my lone Ryu activated Level 3 X-Factor both matches and barely came back through his entire team of Spencer/Wolverine/Taskmaster. Not my proudest win and not a good sign of things to come with one loss and one lucky win. My next two matches were sound victories against James and Stocks, but my match against Jackie was anything but guaranteed. Jackie, who pulled off a convincing victory earlier in the night against usual top-finisher Alex, made advancing difficult. Arthur and Shuma provided excellent assists for a runaway Dante, keeping pressure on and keeping me out all at the same time. Eventually, Thor made his way in to score a few hits before falling, and Captain America did the same. And again, it was my Ryu that did a lot of the work, winning the first round by time and the second by KO, putting me at 4-1. My last match of the round robin was against Alex and started off promising with a first round win in our normal Ryu vs Doom time-out fashion. Our second and third matches, however, proved heavily in his favor as Viper and Tron destroyed my team and did so slowly enough to time out with losses for me. I still ended up with a 2nd place seed, but not a confident one as we went into the second part of our MVC3 tourney: King of the Hill.
The first match of King of the Hill was new player and 7th seed Stocks against 6th seed James and his unique team of Deadpool/Sentinel/Skrull. Stocks' inexperience got the better of him many times throughout the match and couldn't close his rounds as James defeated his team of Viper/Dante/Trish to advance. Jackie's also-unique team of Dante/Arthur/Shuma, however, made short work of James' team, and Gold Armor Arthur assists sent James home. Immediately after, however, Olli and Jackie had two quick but close matches that flew by quicker than most character select screens with Olli coming out victorious and Jackie taking 5th. Olli would have to face Alex next. Olli's team relied heavily on spacing, assists and mix-ups to hopefully kill a character in two combos. Alex, however, prided his team on usually killing a character in one combo and a reset, if needed at all. Both players went back and forth, putting the series at 2-2. Olli started the final match strong with a dead Viper and a wounded Tron. However, a dropped combo resulted in Tron living and killing a character, and Wolverine coming in, hitting Tron, and dropping another combo to let Tron live. Finally, Tron died to Wolverine's unrelenting pressure, and an early hit looked like doom for Doom...until Olli's combos failed to finish again. In what was possibly the 8th opening since mid-round, Olli's Taskmaster closed the round and Alex went out in 4th.
I stepped up to the plate next for a rematch against Olli, hoping I wouldn't have to rely on luck (and a Level 3 Ryu) to finish the job. First match ended up close all the way through with character losses being pretty even until I sealed the match with Ryu. Second match went to Olli via superb pressure and mix-ups from Spencer and Wolverine. The third match was, again, close with our last characters both on the field and Ryu finishing the job, putting me at 2-1. The fourth match, however, was The Thor Show. A few shield assists and a couple hits and command grabs from Thor killed off Olli's Spencer AND Wolverine quickly, leaving everything up to Taskmaster against my full team. Thor proved that he could fire off beam projectiles with the best of them as he frustrated Taskmaster enough to eventually open him up, snag an air Mighty Strike, and combo for the victory for a chance to rematch against Blake in the finals.
Blake, who normally ran Wesker/Storm/Chun, surprised everyone with Wesker/Chun/Phoenix. I stuck with my team and banked on Phoenix being the weak link. Sure enough, Storm's absence proved to be a strain on the team, and a lucky opening let Thor in to kill Wesker quickly. Chun finished Thor off but soon died to a shield-happy Cap. 5-Bar Phoenix strutted in and, with nearly 50 left on the clock...I decided to try running. Normally a bad strategy, I gambled the first round on seeing how good Blake's Phoenix was. It paid off. Blake's Phoenix did simple ABCS BBCS combos and occasional teleports under cover of homing balls, eventually killing Captain America but not without taking the timer down to less than 15 and Ryu coming in with full health. Blake ended up using a super to try and kill Ryu off but coming up short, leaving me with an opening to kill Phoenix once Ryu recovered and take round 1. Sadly, however, this was all the good luck I'd have. Round 2 and 3 were lost to Blake's patience and Wesker's zoning, and round 4 ended with an accidental kill of Phoenix to activate Dark Phoenix and watch her finish Ryu off to end the match at 3-1 and give Blake the 1st place finish and me 2nd.
Immediately after, I ran the second game of the night, Dreamcast mech-fighter Tech Romancer. Think a 3-D Gundam fighter that revolves mostly around projectiles and spacing and you'll get the idea. Here's a video of one of the more rushdown characters trying to get in on a more range-based mech:
Only five total entered the $1 tournament (no Olli or Alex), but I'd like to think everyone enjoyed the game. We've had it out for casuals the last two weeks so no one went in completely blind. That said, few used any combos outside of an occasional launch to super from Blake and James or a few others from myself, so matches were pretty basic. But entertaining. In the end, Jackie took 5th and Stocks took 4th with jump-less mech Wise Duck (I can't make that up), Blake took 3rd with Dixon, and James secured 2nd after a come from behind victory against Blake using Voltron-style TwinZam and Tron Bonne-like Bolon. I walked away with 1st, using Dixon for a while until the night was getting late and I wanted to end the tournament quickly with my main Diana-17: a mech that uses bubbles to pressure and confuse the opponent. It's like Sailor Mercury all over again. Won with SMARTS.
Next week's secondary game, after a drawing where everyone suggested a game and I drew one out of a hat, is Guilty Gear XX Accent Core. A tournament favorite of old, we'll see if enough people get the rust out enough to make the game look fast and competitive once again. Tune in next Wednesday for the full report.
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