Commence unnecessarily long-winded story that no one is actually going to read!
Okay, so I just returned from a Soul Calibur 3 tournament not too long ago. It was being held in the game room at my university. It wasn't sponsored by a club or anything -- it was just a group of friends getting together and deciding that they wanted to hold a tourney. My roommate and I signed up about a week and a half ago, and we've been practicing with each other ever since. The rules were as follows: matches would be best three out of five, you had to use the same character for the entire competition (although you could switch out weapons if need be), and in the event of a tie, the next person to score a KO would win. There were 64 competitors and only two PS2's in the game room, so it took a couple hours to get through the whole thing. It was fun, though.
My character of choice was Seung Mina; my roomie chose Ivy. We ended up on opposite sides of the board, so the only way we would have fought each other would be if we met in the Finals...which didn't happen. But anyway, first prize was a $50 gift certificate to Wal-Mart, with the runner-up receiving a $25 gift card to Wal-Mart. For a poor college student like me, this was definitely something worth fighting for.
Okay, so in the first round I had to fight someone using Cassandra. And she was using the Valkyrie. Great. Just frickin' great. Looks like I was going to lose already. Well, first battle gets rolling and I get stomped. Whee. Second battle ends when she got a little too over-zealous, tried a sliding kick to knock me out of the ring, and I end up dodging it. Ring-out. Sweet. Next fight lasts all of ten seconds. I get her close to the edge and go for another ring-out with Seung Mina's triple side kick of doom. Cassandra blocks the first two, but not the third. Another ring-out and I'm up 2-1. Hey, I might actually win this. Next battle and I know she's going to be trying like hell to avoid another ring-out, so she's blocking more than usual and trying to stay away from the sides. I made liberal use of Seung Mina's twirling blade move (have I mentioned that I don't know the names of any of the moves?) and risked a few throws here and there. The risk paid off -- I ended up winning 3-1. Awesome. Off to the second round.
Up next is Siegfried. This guy actually gave me a lot of trouble. The guy playing him was very good at juggling, so I was doing everything I could to keep my feet on the ground and avoid being tossed up into the air (which is, of course, much easier said than done). He was also a pretty aggressive player, so I made sure to use Seung Mina's take-a-step-back-sit-down-and-twirl-her-halberd-at-the-approaching-enemy move often to maintain some distance between us. That and low attacks. Those seemed to work pretty well. Anyway, I get the first KO using this strategy, but he juggles the hell out of me in the second match and scores a KO of his own. Then in the third match he maneuvers me over to the edge and gets me with a ring-out. Bastard. Then I just played defensively, kept my distance and went for a couple guard impacts in the next two matches and somehow ended up winning those. I barely win 3-2. Phew. On to round three!
Next round was against Revenant. I never realized how incredibly cheap he can be. The guy controlling him spammed the same damn move over and over again in the first match and ended up getting the KO despite my best efforts. I don't know whether it was a throw or what, but he'd basically just walk up to me, slash me four times and then somersault away. Took a good chunk of my life away as well. Eventually I figured out how to block it and used the same old Seung Mina strategy that has been working so well for me thus far: keep your distance, poke him from afar, and use the triple side kick of doom whenever he gets close to the edge. I got him with one ring-out and KO'ed him the old-fashioned way for two more falls. I win 3-1 and move on to the Quarter-Finals. Hot damn! (Unfortunately, my roomie lost in this round. I forget who beat him, but I want to say it was Talim.)
Okay! Quarter-Finals are here and I'm fighting Mitsurugi. I had watched some of this guy's other fights and he looked pretty tough. Surprisingly, though, this was the least eventful match of the tournament for me. I get three straight KO's on him without too much trouble (although he brought me down to just a sliver of my health during the second battle). Now I'm...wait, what? I'm in the Semi-Finals? Seriously? Hells to the yes!
Up next was Raphael. I'd like to say that I busted out some awesome strategy and took him to school...buuuuut that's not what happened. I lost. Badly, might I add. The guy controlling him was really cheap; he kept spamming Raphael's triple-strike vertical attack, which naturally forced me to block, and then he'd hit me with a low attack and knock me off my feet. It also didn't help that he was using the Queen's Guard, which recovers health over time, recovers health every time he attacks, and recovers health every time he blocks. Basically, the only way to kill him is to hit him with high-impact, high-damaging moves, which is not something Seung Mina is good at. Anyway, he scored two KO's on me, and in the third fight I got lucky and hit him with a ring-out. I thought I might actually have a chance, but then he beat me for the third fall. He wins 3-1. Crap on a crap cracker.
He went on to beat Sophitia in the finals, though, so at least I can take some solace in knowing that I lost to the eventual champion. Even so, the semi-finals are nothing to scoff at. I did much better than I thought I would. And I made it further than my roomie, so at least I can rub that in his face for a while.
Good times overall. I'll have to keep practicing so I can continue kicking ass with Seung Mina when Soul Calibur 4 comes out.
