My head's been all about KOF lately. In fact, ever since it was released, all I did was KOF. I did the Arcade Mode, I finished the Story Mode, I finished about 6 characters' worth of (dear god in heaven) Missions. I'll admit, I love this game. It doesn't play like a lot of the other KOF games, but I think it's a needed step forward if SNK intends to compete with the bigger FG titles.
But it's because I love this game so much that it really set the bar on the difference between this game, and Street Fighter IV. When I first stepped into the FG scene, I was all about SFIV, because that's what pulled me into everything originally. But as time wore on, I kinda grew tired of it. There were a lot of things about SF that I really didn't know anything about, but when I played KOF, it was as if I was merely shaking off the rust on a game I practically knew everything about.
One thing that's new when I play KOF is that, well, I'm using an arcade stick. I used to play on a pad, and even now I feel like my inputs now were not as accurate as I was on pad. But there's that rush you get when you land an HD Combo on an arcade stick. It just feels all kinds of awesome.
Unfortunately, as much as I love to rave about KOF, the topic today was that I was losing a lot of interest in SFIV. Part of the reason was because of the original Arcade Edition that came out last summer. I wasn't necessarily feeling the game despite Ken getting a great buff with his sweep combo. It made me veer towards other characters like Ibuki and Vega, but lack of willpower just stopped me from really bothering. Was it laziness? Yes. Absolutely. Somewhere last year I reached a point where going to training mode in SF felt like a chore, and honestly, it should never be like that. The factor? Love for the game.
In the end, I stopped liking it. So I took what I thought would be a make-or-break decision, and decided to not play for a while. I didn't practice for a whole month and, obviously, I got blown up at my local weekly session. I think out of the 10 months stretching all the way back to when I started going to the local sessions, I only won a handful of sets. I won't even go as far as to say I won 5+ sets. I remember each match, and even though it's come close a bunch of times, my win-loss record was never there.
So I stopped playing altogether. I kept saying "I'll definitely practice this and that" but I was only fooling myself. I wasn't going to touch this game in my house until I got back the spark to do so. In the vicinity of my break from AE, I played KOF and I developed a kind of fondness for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I began competing in weekly local tournaments at Local Battles, too. If there was a time to realize that I really loved this scene, this would pretty much take the cake.
Yesterday, however, was different. The KOF tournament being held was cancelled due to low attendance. A part of me wasn't surprised since everyone was either at Winter Brawl, or just lack of interest. There was, however, an SSFIV AE 2012 Tournament (Wow, look how freakin long the abbreviation of that game is). So in order to "support the community," I asked Sam (the cool guy who handles the brackets for these tournaments. Shoutouts to him.) to just transfer my entry money to AE and I'll play the AE tournament. I didn't touch AE outside of sessions, so I wasn't expecting much. I got 0-2ed, but...
...I wasn't blown up. lol
Hell, I'll go as far as to say that, if I practiced, I would've blown that Boxer and Abel for free. Not to take anything away from them, but not once did I really feel like I was getting destroyed. Instead, I felt this nice rush that I haven't felt for AE in a good while. I really thought that maybe this was the spark I was looking for.
Then I watched Chris G and EMP Santhrax play Winners Finals with E.Ryu and Oni, then Grand Finals with Sakura and Rose, and I just didn't really feel like watching. Those guys are godlike, but it was the same old shit. And I think that's the other thing about AE that's turning me off.
It's been 4+ years since Vanilla SF4 came out. In the duration of those 4 years, 3 new versions of the game out, along with a bunch of tweaks in between. Super came out and was revered for its great balance. There's a lot of outcry because some characters were just ass, but the game was solid all-throughout its lifespan. Then Arcade Edition came out, and it just became, what I feel is, a disaster. The Chinese Triad was just too strong, and in the end, EVO Top 8 was surrounded by 2 things; The Chinese Triad, or gimmick/cheap/whatever you wanna call it characters like Viper and Seth. Flash had a Zangief there, but that got blown out of the water.
Now, we're in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition ver. 2012. What in the fuck is that name...?
The balance of this game, however, is good. So far, nothing to complain about. But honestly, I only played 3 out of the 4 versions of this series and I'm already tired. But outside of just me, I think the constant huge updates took a toll on the SF community. Not as much as, let's say, the Mortal Kombat scene who gets a huge update every 2 months, but 4 versions of a game, especially when you had to pay for 3 of them, just gets tedious and unnecessary.
To me, the game is now reaching that downhill slope. I'm not saying it's dead. It's far from it, but the interest level has definitely dwindled due to a lot of factors, most recently the fact that 3 characters were just that damn good over the rest of the cast. But also because of the interest in new games. UMVC3 is insanely hype, and thankfully Capcom only took 2 tries to get it right. KOF is getting insane props from a lot of top names in the community. There's finally a 3D game to take over Tekken with Soul Calibur V. Street Fighter x Tekken is looking pretty damn solid. Skullgirls is nearing release. Capcom just re-licensed Darkstalkers. Atlus, after successfully releasing KOF, will be releasing Persona 4: Arena soon. And there's even talk about a new Guilty Gear. Just how insane is that?
But, a part of me really wants to return to SFIV and try my luck again. Hopefully, this little need of mine sticks with me until SFIV's end.
Now watch me get bodied by this AE player. Lose. Option-Select. Win.
~FullMetalSway
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