Last year’s SBO and evo were played on AE. I’m sure you’ll agree that this game is way different than ST, for obvious reasons. And no top player plays it in japan anymore, they played it last year only because it was the SBO game (this is what they said, not an assumption).
I don’t think there’s a huge gap between japanese tops and us tops, but there is definitely one. And again this is just my opinion, not an insult or anything else.
That said, I honestly respect your skills and your achievements as a player. Your match vs otochun at SBO was great, you clearly outplayed him and it was no fluke.
Yup those years me and alex weren’t playing either, we came out of a 10 year retirement from sf2 in 2006. 10 years of not playing the game is quite some time. As for AE my match vs Otochun was with st vega vs his st chun, no ae involved. What you might not know is we went to their arcades and they installed pure st and we played for over 4 hours after SBO vs them. We won significantly more practice games in that version since there was no ce guile to counter my rog so i actually used him and had 10 and 15 game win streaks numerous times as well as my brother doing the same, against their top players. Players like Mattsun, Gian, Kusumondo, Pony, Otochun, Yuuvega, Yaya, Komoda, Muteki guile, Kuruhashi, Nekohashi etc etc. The biggest thing we had to adapt to was using japan’s speed as well as their sticks since we only used american, whats funny is we opted to use japanese sticks for SBO, they were quite shocked but all our matches were on those.
In either case you have a right to your opinion on who is better. I know what the japanese have told me on the subject so I don’t think i need to continue this argument.
Not aiming to upset anybody here, but the only really heavy weight stuff US has done in ST is getting 4:th place in SBO last year (AE not ST tho) and Graham + Alex racking up 10 - 15 streaks in a four hour session in a Tokyo arcade.
If that qualifies as US being in the same league as Japan in ST, I personally would be rather suprised.
High ranks in Evo is heavy, but not really heavy due to the fact that it has always been on console plus the fact that just a small number of japanese ST pros has showed up on them.
We actually spent over 4 days playing ae/st in japan and won many games vs them in their ‘most competitive arcade’ because all players from japan had been staying in tokyo at the time for sbo/hypermania. This isnt just some arcade, this was the one that professor got stomped in, no offense professor, this is where the best of the best play. To get win streaks like we did was something they were very impressed by. Gian was actually telling my brother who each person was as he faced them. An example Gian said ‘This is the #1 gief in japan, this is the #1 honda, this is the #1 blanka’ as my brother tore through them. Us getting 5th in SBO is the furthest a US team has gotten at SBO. We defeated the #1 seed team considering the same guy won SBO 2008 and has consistently made the finals of many SBO’s as well as won many tournaments in japan.
Not only this but this year’s evo John Choi defeated the winner of last year’s Evo, Tokido, as well as beat Nuki the winner of 2007 SBO. Valle defeated Tokido too, actually without his victory I think John might not have known Tokido’s weakness.
In 2007 I defeated Gian, Nekohashi and Nuki at Evo as well, this was right after Nuki had won SBO in japan.
I even entered Hypermania cause they were having it the night before SBO, Its funny because though it might not seem like much our team won first round, and if i didnt botch my match vs yuuvega we woulda won second round too. First round we faced a team with Naka cammy, he is the best cammy in japan, as well as other players on his team who were amazing, we beat them. Keep in mind throughout any AE tournament I used nothing but ST characters. I dont play older characters.
Making excuses like console is silly since I am not a console player, I only recently adapted to it, myself as well as my brother are arcade players. We even lug around this huge table thing so my brother can mimic the feel of an arcade.
I am not trying to brag but just saying american players can play this game at the top level and it should be very obvious to anyone after these results, you dont win evo or defeat all those people on a fluke.
I think it is funny that we still carry on this arguement… Jap Vs. USA.
We’ve seen many different players (US & Jap) lose on many different occasions. Once you get to a certain level, any top player can beat any other top player on any day, regardless of nationality.
One could argue there are more (sheer # of quantity) expert ST players japan. I don’t think many will debate that. But, that has nothing to do with our experts being any less of a caliber than their experts.
Totally agree. And plus… at least in Japan you don’t have to pay over and over to again to learn matchups. I think this is a really important factor in learning ST or any experience-intense fighting game, unless money is not a factor for you! GGPO = free
Hey Graham-sensei, is claw laying down across the picture in your avatar? Hella homo!
I wanted to add more stuff, but everything that I wanted to say has already been said by everyone else.
