wow this thread has been ruined.
it sure did. when i came to SRK. i was suprised to see how much ST is beloved. in my experience, this certainly wasn’t the case after SSF2 dropped. i had never seen an arcade game cool off so fast after all the hype. furthermore, ST wasn’t compelling enough to bring back all those players who moved on to other games because that year was a bumper crop for FG.
you know, i could see how someone might reach that conclusion. there were no spoon feeding tools like youtube, Gamefaq, SRK, etc. so, how could players figure anything out especially without japanese players to emulate? there were no large tournaments like Evo. so, how would anyone know who’s the best?
personally, i never heard of Tomo (or Daigo or Wong for that matter) until SRK. was he the best WW/CE/HF player? i don’t know. the US is a big country and the player base was so gigantic compared to the anemic FG player base of today. it would be hard for me to imagine that anyone was the best considering the lack of organized VG tournaments compared to today. however, if he’s winning against all of the more well known players. i don’t see why not.
Very well said
Wow, this thread is the last place I’d expect to be hearing Tomo hate.
you misunderstand. I’m not saying that a player can’t reach excellence without being spoonfed or emulating another player. in fact, I’m trying to avoid all normalized playing methods by going a step further and creating my own.
what’s annoying to me is that he’s worshipped like a god and… people don’t even understand how he did what he did. For all you know it could’ve been ridiculously easy. for analogy’s sake, let’s say there are a bunch of sword wielding warriors who are the absolute best in the world. no one else on the entire planet could compete with them except another one of them. I come along and I shoot them all in the forehead with a gun. Am I an absolute beast, or should those warriors have upgraded to guns?
edit: this is not to say Tomo was using a gun. metaphorically speaking, it’s possible that his “mastery of swordplay” is perfected so much to the point that others can’t touch him. I’m just saying… KNOW what the fuck youre worshipping
ok. i stand corrected. sorry
can’t stress this enough
the game still plays 60fps. Its not like that 1 frame window suddenly becomes 10 frames.
jumping over fireballs is harder in HF than SF4. I’ve been trying it again on my cab and I used to be able to do it easy when I was younger, now this shits hard >.< Especially compared to newer games.
Case and point, he’s gotten over 100+ tournaments under his belt, there’s only a few times in which he’s not taken first within all of those tournaments. One from WW, his very first SFII tournament (took 2nd), one he lost to Watson in CE, one he lost to Jeff, and another, and I believe Kuni once.
He’s never been knocked into Loser’s Bracket, ever. Think about that, you go to that many tournaments and you’ve never been knocked into losers bracket.
You dominated both WW/CE/HF, and have every top player at that time stating you were the greatest player at that time.
I’m pretty sure most of us know whom we are “worshipping” in this category. My say to you is this, go find someone who competed against Tomo in his prime and see if all that is stated is “bullshit”.
Also, punishing moves such as a c.mk for Guile is HARD no matter the speed (Try to see if you can do it 90%+ of the time in a slow game like Champion Edition, or SSF2). Who today can do it? In fact, name a top player who can footsie like 94 Watson could in his videos (Watch how Watson out footsies with Ryu’s c.fk multiple times with amazing reactions, as an example, also watch his Guile and see at how great he was at dodging fireballs)? Even in SF4 where certain moves feel pathetically slow, and avoiding fireballs in SF4 is 10x easier then it was in SFII. Ryu’s Hadouken in SFII (CE/HF) was 11-39 for the fastest. That’s way, way faster then Ryu’s projectile in SF4, not only that, you have multiple ways of avoiding a projectile in SF4 that you did not have in HF (Ex-Options anyone?). This was one of the factors that pushed from being a dominant, to a super dominant player. Like I said, in a game like HF, if you can avoid projectiles 90%+ of the time, this helps to nullify one of Ryu’s, Sagat’s, Ken’s dominant game plans. People need to realize, that in a game like Hyper Fighting, play it again…it’s way hard to punish a c.mk from Guile, and if it was “this” easy, then the trend should have continued regardless of “speed”.
However again, poor footsies in SF games with things like supers, etc, etc, can be compensated, because you can shift the tide into your favor with easier access to damage…this is apparent in even the highest levels of gameplay in current SF…again, if I’m wrong, try to prove me wrong…however watch every Evo match up, SBO and see if this isn’t true. That’s why today, players aren’t punishing Guile’s c.mk with Ryu, because those types of play have been watered down, and is also not necessary to learn to do those things anymore due to the easier access to damage (why spend months trying to counter a poke with your poke for minimal damage, when you can land a 50-60% draining super/ultra, which is 10x easier to learn and do?).
In HF however, if you don’t know things like…you’ll get raped easily and handily, because getting poked twice is alot…however getting swept is huge, huge damage, and a significant advantage. Like, I said, I don’t know how much more is needed to be said, about the different mentality and how great these players were at the time along with their mentality, skill and reaction of play.
Also, explain to me in your own great detail of how the competitive scene was supposedly “weaker” at that time? That makes no sense, in a time period in which, everyone was playing SFII competitively. In contrast to today, where if you aren’t living a big city or playing within a group of dedicated friends, it’s pretty much a loss.
Competition in the early 90’s for SF was at it’s highest, because everyone was playing this game (No Fps, mmorpgs, strategy vs strategy that were competiting with SF for the same gaming players). Again, the strategy of true OG is devalued simply due to the way current SF games are made now. Like I said, winning by 60% life doesn’t mean jack, if you throw out a fireball and Balrog can blow through it with a 50-60% draining super.
I strongly disagree with your notion, because the fact is, you probably most likely never experienced that time of competition and thus “believe” that now was the highest point. However, today, there are many games that are being played competitively, and fighting games is definitely not the high end one of them. Back in 1993, Fighting games was the competitive game, and that was Street Fighter II.
There is nothing to lie about Tomo, and his feats, everybody who played competitively at that time was in awe of his skills and his abilities, not one top player who’s posted has stated he was overrated, however have vouched for his abilities (again, why do all of them need to lie?). Jeff who was 10+ years retired played a 2004 in his prime Daigo and still stated…Tomo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Daigo. If a 10+ year retired Jeff was able to beat out Daigo, and in some matches with pure perfects against Daigo’s best mains, while using a guy Jeff didn’t even main in his prime, imagined a HF Prime Jeff using Blanka…that would have been straight up rape. Yet this is the same Daigo who was able to compete and run crazy with our current top SFII players. Is this also a lie?
Again, people who don’t truly understand the OG SFII concept, and how it was played, really don’t realize why Tomo was such a beast, and is still now, untouched in his dominance to this very day. I’m not hating against you or anyone, however I feel, it’s more of lack of knowledge pertaining to that era which makes you question his gameplay and dominance.
I don’t question his dominance. if anything I’m questioning his worth
anyway, I’m gonna stop. maybe I suck at trying to get across what I’m trying to say here or something. by blind worship, I don’t mean that him not losing is a lie. what I was saying was more along the lines of understanding how he did it. but nevermind
We stated time and time again, how he did it, by explaining the concepts of OG SFII strategical play vs current SFII strategical gameplay. You keep saying “Well his competition wasn’t as good” or “At that time it wasn’t as high” or “Japan is better at SFII now”…however we’ve shown you how that was incorrect.
Really, I understand what your saying, it’s just that I don’t feel you don’t understand the old school form of strategy, to be able to comprehend, why so many consider Tomo the greatest SFII player of all time.
However, I’m done with this, I’ve said the same thing for practically 3+ pages already.
We understand the concepts of old school strategy and his superiority, but anyway, you’re speaking through the words of other people. That’s the way the myths are born.
Excuse any mistake in the text, english is not my main language.
This guy ruined the thread…
TrueSephirot said all the truth. now what we need is, some OG videos.
Just read most of the thread, and I can’t believe there are so many people willing to disregard Tomo’s legacy by examining current pros in different games. I second the need for OG vids, I would really love to see some since I was 8 and on the East Coast back in '93.
coulda fooled me. you said what I was thinking perfectly
could it be explained why there hasn’t been another player able to replicate his footsies and dominate using them like he did?
So all of the top players at the time who credit Tomo’s abilities and skills are all lying with myths? :wtf:
Because in current SF games, it is no longer needed to be on that level for footsie games due to what has been posted 10,000 times over. Again, Tomo wasn’t the only one doing this, alot of other top great players were, it’s just that Tomo having the highest skill, and reaction level pushed onward to a far greater level then the rest.
As for OG Videos, they are extremely rare, and I don’t know of any video’s pertaining to these players during tournaments like World’s Finest (If anyone does have some, please post it up…we need this seriously!). The reason being I would guess is that, the cost of owning one of those OG video cam’s would be quite expensive, considering at those times, players like Tomo were in their mid teen’s only. Not to mention, carrying that hunk of a clunk monster camcorder around. However, you can find some videos of the OG era, just go to Youtube and look up Mike Watson from the 1994 Super Street Fighter II Tournament, he takes on I believe one of Minnesota’s best, or was the best from Minn at that time, Jesse Howard (confirm this for me somebody, I’m just running off of memory here).
It showcases a demonstration of the zoning, footsies, and spacing mentality that went down at the time. Even EvilJ posted a great link with Norm vs Valle. Here you can see a real demonstration of OG vs NG style, because Valle is more of a 2nd Gen SF player whom emerged afterwards (The Unstoppable Alpha 2 Emperor, and mad mad respect to Valle, he was the #1 best player in the world in that game hands down), and not a true 1st Gen like Tomo, Wats, etc. Norm’s play of Chunli is absolutely amazing and showcases strong examples of how Pre-ST Chun would have been played like (If only they didn’t have Tech Throws…Chun’s game would be even more devastating in ST).
Alright, I still think this is a stupid discussion, but I’m going to say one more thing before I’m out.
The world was a different place back then. Tomo won all his tournaments, which, for the most part, meant he was the best in Socal. Norcal hadn’t quite stepped up their game yet when Tomo was still playing, and National tourneys were pretty much just a thing of the future. Japan was out of the picture. While he may have had a few experiences fighting people from elsewhere, most of those legendary tourney wins he racked up were just fighting the same people in Socal. The dude was an awesome player, no doubt, but you just can’t look at that and say “well he would have beaten these dudes too.”
Also, please, stop talking about people winning in AE, AE is retarded. Also, ST wins are irrelevant to the Tomo discussion too pretty much, so trying to say “so and so beat so and so at AE/ST and they lost to Tomo in HF proving he WINS!” is flawed logically on more different levels than you probably know. If you actually played these games seriously, maybe you’d understand.
I didn’t say that. I’m speaking of you and others. Of course, I could believe to jeff, watson, etc, but still I would have preferred to see it by myself before make any type of worship.
Argh! Why is it none of these links work? I wanna see some old school matches dammit! Anyone help me out? Please and Thank you 
solcal was generally considered the top spot in the us. This was vouched for when other players happen to moved to solcal for college and played their players. further vouched for by sol cals continued dominance in SF games until SF4. Even as far back as the MWC at nickle city back in 94 where papa watts came and cleaned house with no effort.