By John Choi

December 7, 2000 |

Well, the Japan trip was a very memorable experience. I learned a lot of new stuff, got to see plenty of fun places, and best of all, made lots of new friends. David Dial, aka Gunter, covered a lot of the social stuff we did in Japan so I won't repeat those things. Instead, I'll talk mainly about the gaming stuff that everyone has been asking me about over email and IRC.

First of all, what you heard about the abundance of arcades is true. Although we only played in like 4-5 arcades while we were there, we passed by probably 100 arcades in just the few small cities we visited. There is literally an arcade every other block. Fortunately, our hotel was close to "More Amusement Arcade" which happens to specialize in most Capcom games and good competition in Alpha 3 and Super Turbo can be found at all times of the day. This is where we got the majority of our practice. Unfortunately, we did not have access to US joysticks here so we had to play at less than full capacity (I can dragon punch like 1 out of 5 tries) I got to see many new Variable Combos (VCs) here from random Japanese players. One thing I remember well is being there like at 2 PM on a weekday and seeing a pair of V Akuma players that were doing the OTG (off the ground) demon grab combo (BAS combo) with 95% accuracy. The combo is just too deadly. I also saw many crouch cancel infinites with characters like Vega and Cody, and many variations on the standard VCs we knew about. A good example is V Sakura. In the corner: Fierce, whiff FB then when timer is about to run out, jumping towards fierce, jumping forward kick out of corner, jumping towards fierce back into corner, jump straight up fierce, low fierce, RH triple hopping punch. That combo like many others utilized Crouch canceling which allows characters to tack on several more hits of any VC. OTG VCs with Karin, Akuma, and Zangief were also very popular. Perhaps the most advanced and useful technique I saw was players taking hits on purpose and causing a major counter so that they can tech and bounce to safety. Players were doing hurricane kicks with Sakura as they were getting crossed up, so that they can bounce to safety instead of dealing with the potential death combos following a crossup. An example of this is when I had Karin down to almost no guard meter and knocked down on the ground. I went for a crossup wiowing up with fierce into fierce DP to crush guard. The Karin player did a DP+K upon wakeup, which caused a major counter and popped Karin air born. Then Karin would then PP tech away to safety. If an A-ism character is going for a crossup and you fear a combo that leads to super, you can take the hit from the crossup using a variety of specials so you can bounce to safety. Of course, you can counter this by following up with an appropriate counter to the tech flip on your own but you must keep a sharp eye out. Very useful versus characters with deadly crossups such as Sakura, Ryu, Akuma, and Karin.

At some point during the week, we all went to Newton arcade, which is managed by Mr. Matsuda who was one of the main organizers for the international tournament. His arcade specializes in SF3 3S and several of the 3S Japan team members were there. Mr. Matsuda was kind enough to install US switch joysticks and buttons in one of the cabinets at his arcade. We were glad to have US sticks and buttons but both were really stiff and everyone thought they were only slightly better than the Japanese setup. We only had a few days before the event so breaking the stick and buttons in was out of the question. Luckily, we anticipated this and also brought over 360 joysticks that would be installed for the tourney on Sunday. We then unanimously voted to use Japanese buttons instead. We got to see lots of new 3S stuff that night. Urien's unblockable Aegis combos were very scary. I had heard about the unblockable aegis trick a long time ago, but didn't get to see it in action till that day. It simply requires shooting an Aegis out past the opponent after a knockdown and then crossing you up. There are several advanced ways to set this up properly and I will need some time to review the footage we got to provide a clear explanation. Perhaps our next game feature article. And yes, if we make a Japan vs. USA tape, this will be included. Oro can also do this by using the green ball super. Mr. Matsuda later informed us that there was actually a revision to 3S that was released specifically to fix those 2 unblockables. But the US will never see that revision since only a few selective locations in Japan have this. (The tourney 3S board was not the revised version. Luckily, no Urien or Oro was on their team) We also got to see their robotic Chuns that would sit back and charge up and then add on the kick super after ANY connected low forward kick. I later watched the Chun player from his side and noticed he was doing the super motion after every low forward. Whether he was doing low forward on offense while poking or on defense while trying to avoid throws, he would always be doing the super motion. This is very tiring but very effective. You just need fast reflexes and some arm endurance to press the kick button again in order to give Chun a 60% low forward kick. We also saw 3S team member, Mester get streaks with his Yun using a variety of supers. The shadow super made Yun seem like a V-ism character. Any connected chain leads into a longer combo with the super and any time you manage to block, he would mix up overheads and low attacks getting virtually free damage. Other things to note were an Akuma player doing dashing raging demon with no other animation coming out and Hugo doing walk up 720 supers. The walk up 720 super is a kara cancel super. Scary stuff.

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