Kuroda Interview by Shueisha's Weekly Playboy Magazine

gameinn2 · June 19, 2014, 7:19am

Who knows. You gotta think it is sort of suspicious though that he challenges the top Makoto player with his Q. To give the benefit of the doubt we’ll say the match is a 7-3. You’d have to be… suicidial (pardon the pun) to think you can win a FT10 with a 7-3 matchup (let alone 8-2 which most people will agree on). If not suicidal… dare I say it arrogant to think you can overturn that match up. Hopefully he chooses a 5-5 or even a 6-4 match if he does another FT10 to get rid of any suspicion.

Lance3rd · June 19, 2014, 7:25am

I kinda doubt strong players worry too much about what number people assign to a matchup

pherai · June 19, 2014, 7:52am

Yeah I think you’re putting too much importance in a matchup chart. While based on experience, they are just made up numbers. The difference between a 6-4 and 7-3 matchup can easily be attributed to opinion. Picking gachis based on matchup charts would seem pretty naive for a player like Kuroda imo. It’s safe to assume the majority of 3s matchup charts were made by people who are not as skilled at 3rd as Kuroda

ryan · June 19, 2014, 8:59am

First of all matchup charts are just a theory about two players who are the exact same skill (impossible btw).

Next… Picking gachi battles is NOT about calling someone out in Japan. I know I know…everywhere else if someone challenged a ft10 they’d say “what the hell did I do to you?”

Everything is for fun and Kuroda is the 3rd god.

Ryu24 · June 19, 2014, 9:01am

People seem to forget the matchup chart is designed for Best of 3 rounds. Since they were playing best of 5 rounds, it gives the Makoto player a lot more advantage, because instead of scratching out 2 rounds, Kuroda has to win 3.

It’s like Chun vs Alex. Can you imagine the misery if Alex has to win 3 rounds to win a game?

Makoto will always have some spare meter. Q basically puts all his basket on 1 large super and who knows if he’ll carry any in 2nd or 3rd round? Kuroda basically handicapped the shit out of himself.

You can even argue the 8-2 is now 9-1.
And Kuroda nearly won that 9-1 matchup in a FT10.
Godly.

pherai · June 19, 2014, 9:32am

^
good point!

HelloWorld · June 19, 2014, 8:53pm

Nobody’s going to argue that the matchup is difficult, but regardless of what anyone thinks the numbers are I don’t think Kuroda would have gone into a FT10 like that if he thought it would be a blowout or if he thought he couldn’t win. And the result of the match speaks for itself (last game, last round, last exchange); it was as close as it could have possibly been, a good display of 3s just as intended.

I’m more inclined to believe that Kuroda can judge well enough what character would put up a fight. I mean, if he had gotten absolutely wrecked by Tominaga, then maybe you could make a case of him being arrogant, overconfidently/disrespectfully thinking he could win at such a disadvantage. Instead, his character choice generated a contest that went down to the wire.
Of course he must have at least something of an ego. He’s arguably the best 3s player in the world, good enough to pick Q and compete in a long set with one of the best Makotos, and in all likelihood he knows it. But does that make Kuroda arrogant?

Tebbo · June 20, 2014, 12:55am

exactly. everyone seems to somehow forget this.
the entire concept is based on an impossibility lol. which is why its a stupid exercise to assign any kind of specific value.

gameinn2 · June 21, 2014, 3:47am

Well Kuroda just lost 10-0 at USF4 in Yun vs Hakan so there can be no argument if he is arrogant now. It’s good to know he isn’t!

hismit · July 4, 2014, 11:17pm

New one released!

Kuroda (Hugo) vs TM (Q) FT10 (best of 5 games)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63EEha5J7VM&hd=1&html5=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEsuZDlDPk4&hd=1&html5=1

gameinn2 · July 5, 2014, 1:27am

Made TM look helpless. That was quite a show.

NAP · July 5, 2014, 4:09pm

I hope he does one of those with his Ryu some time. From the little I’ve seen of it, he has a pretty sick Ryu.

Dander · July 12, 2014, 5:05pm

I want to have a beer with Kuroda and tell him all about how shitty my life is. Maybe it will make him feel better. Maybe he could give me some bold advice and I could take that lesson to heart. I would show him pictures of my son and ask him to autograph some toys for me to give my son when he is older. I would let him know that I am going to be putting my son to sleep to the sounds of his DVD series. Then I’d spark up a cigar for him and let him do all the talking.

Fran3S · July 14, 2014, 2:15am

part 3 of the "pivotal moments in kuroda’s 3.3 life"
translation lifted from eventhubs,as always
funnily enough,the ogawa story’s in there

original article

Weekly Playboy News has published another instalment of their “Kuroda Throws Down the Gauntlet” column. In this latest entry, Kuroda (Hugo) takes on TM (Q) in Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike.

In the interview part of the column, Kuroda recounts the days he spent playing the Guilty Gear series. He also shares a particularly salty story about how Ogawa, a top Guilty Gear XX player who happened to frequent the arcade Kuroda went to, had copied his play style and technique to win at Super Battle Opera 2005 – or so he claims.

But that story has a bit of an interesting twist at the end.

Before we get into what Kuroda has covered in this latest column, I’d like to take a moment to recap the previous instalment of the column, which was about Kuroda’s very first SF3:3S tournament.

The tournament was a 5-on-5 called “Cooperation Cup”, and Kuroda had entered it as a team with Inoue, Umezono, and two other members of the Japanese FGC (he doesn’t remember who).

At the time, Kuroda had been playing Yun, and so that’s who he decided to enter the tournament with. But after the tournament was over, he had regretted entering as Yun, and thought he should have went with Q.

Mostly because he was the only Yun user at the tournament who did not know about a particular Genei-Jin combo that did significantly more damage than the string Kuroda had been using.

“Every other Yun player at the tournament used this combo. I was the only person who didn’t know about it (laughs). It wasn’t something I was able to look up on the Internet, and my knowledge of the game had mostly come from older guides and from watching people play, so you could say that attending this tournament had been very rewarding for me,” Kuroda said.

In the first place, Kuroda wasn’t really that concerned with his performance at the tournament – it was his first tournament after all. His primary goals at Cooperation Cup was to learn about the latest combos, and to see Riki, the top SF3:3S Q player he had admired.

After losing at the tournament, however, Kuroda made up his mind in terms of character choice, and stuck with Q as his main in SF3:3S for the longest time.

But SF3:3S was not the only fighting game he had been playing at the time. There was a period during which Kuroda had been simultaneously playing SF3:3S as well as Guilty Gear – and that’s the topic covered in this week’s Kuroda column.

A friend, nicknamed Arisaka, had shown him the ropes to Guilty Gear X. But even before he had actually started playing, just from watching, Kuroda had found the game to be captivating.

“It had a high degree of freedom within the game. For instance, in SF2, if your opponent were to throw a fireball at you, your only options are to cancel it out with a projectile or your own, or to jump over it. And if you were to jump over it, your opponent could then knock you down with a dragon punch. To a certain extent, the game is grounded by its own rules or theory,” Kuroda explained.

GGX, on the other hand, was a game in which there were many mobility options you could take, Kuroda said. While in the air you could also activate your barrier which protected you from certain anti-air attacks; and on the ground there were more ways to attack in general too.

Kuroda was also taken to the character Zatoh (Eddie in GGXX), as he could attack with a shadow clone, that worked in a way like the “Stands” in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure did. That, to him, was a refreshing concept to play with.

He also liked that GGX had combos that went up to over 10 or 20 hits, and the penalty system in place to punish turtles.

And so Kuroda began learning GGX’s play mechanics. Initially Kuroda had picked to play as Ky Kiske. But because the character’s play style involved having to learn a bunch of mechanics, Kuroda found it to be a bit of a chore.

So he switched to Faust instead, who could throw out random items. And that was the point from which the game had started to get enjoyable for him.

But Kuroda did not make Faust his main. Instead, he went about trying out various other characters.

At one point, his main had been Zatoh (GGX) or Eddie (GGXX). During that period of time, he said that he disliked SBO Guilty Gear XX winner Ogawa – because he had apparently copied an original combo that Kuroda spent a lot of time researching to come up with. According to Kuroda, Ogawa would make his friend challenge Kuroda, while he stayed in the back to observe the matches, so he could learn Kuroda’s tech.

Ogawa would then go on to win Guilty Gear XX at SBO 2005 with a play style and combo very similar to the way that Kuroda played, he alleges. And the combo (which you can see in the video embedded below, starting from 1:05) subsequently became extremely popular.

So why was the combo dubbed the “Kuroda Combo” even though Kuroda himself wasn’t the one who popularised it?

Apparently, a number of members in the Japanese FGC noticed that the combo that Ogawa had used at SBO 2005 was remarkably similar to the one that Kuroda had shown off an SBO 2003 qualifier. Thus, even though Ogawa was the one who made the combo catch on, everybody in the FGC had come to call it the Kuroda Combo.

Eventually, however, Ogawa was the one to develop the character Eddie to its utmost – and that’s something Kuroda says he’ll admit to, in spite of not having a lot of respect for the man.

Kuroda himself had decided to switch to Potemkin at some point, as he thought it was unbecoming for him to have to rely on the Kuroda Combo to keep winning.

Kuroda and Ogawa never outright competed with one another, but at the same arcade that both players frequented in (also the arcade that FAB and Nemo went to), they would indirectly compete with one another in terms of racking up larger win streaks.

Ultimately, however, Kuroda quit playing Guilty Gear when the next update, Guilty Gear XX: Slash, was released. He felt that the new version greatly restricted the level of freedom you had in the past iterations.

From that point onwards, he played SF3:3S exclusively – and became the legend that you and I know of, today.

omake

Mitri_MF · July 14, 2014, 9:34pm

Maybe Ogawa is not a likeable person, cause the combo stealing reason alone is a bit silly.

Tebbo · July 14, 2014, 11:47pm

it’s known as the 'kuroda combo’
he left his mark regardless.

thanks fran.

Dander · July 21, 2014, 2:46pm

Kuroda the man.

What a guy. It’s funny that what he didn’t like was that people were giving ogawa credit for a combo he, kuroda, came up with. I think it’s funny because…nevermind.

Kuroda is a boss.

Also, I feel it’s interesting to note that Kuroda was able to reach such a high level of play by NOT relying on the internet to learn. I think much of my resentment for training mode styled play is that all training mode styled play almost directly mimics the organization of data you’ll find on the most popular site to do with the game. You literally lose all personality.

It’s like, how can you tell he works out?
He has big muscles.
Oh okay.

Versus

How can you tell he works out?
Because his shirt is too small.
Oh okay. wut.

Zerpest · August 1, 2014, 7:05pm

Kuroda (Alex) vs Kaeru (Dudley) FT10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiO14Rs8r_4&list=UUG9QGvMg993m9lCd-ZjtGPw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_mJBiHQlZE&list=UUG9QGvMg993m9lCd-ZjtGPw

Alexisdabomb · August 2, 2014, 3:02am

I’m watching the first Alex/Dud vid. Kuroda’s Parries are insane. But he got away with a lot of jHP and st.HP on that Dud’s wakeup. I’m not familiar with the Dud player so I dunno if the skill level is even or not but Kuroda did pretty much everything right against Dud.

Rochus · August 4, 2014, 2:04am

Kuroda needs to do a Gouki, Urien, or Denjin Ryu ft10 vs any char. (preferably bad matchups)