Momochi with some thoughts on EVO Japan

I posted a twitter thread today about Momochi’s review of EVO Japan, and thought it would make sense to capture that here on my blog for archival purposes. Here’s the tweet:

1 Momochi reflects on EVO Japan

And here is the text from the tweet:

Momochi always puts up interesting videos, this one is soon after EVO Japan. He talks about his match with Punk, it took over an hour and was a real struggle. He tried really hard, and feels a bit bad but relieved that it’s done.

Everyone feels the lag on PS4 compared to PC, so he really did a lot of practice on PS4 to prepare for that, and feels like he had good results based on that. Lost to the player who got 3rd, that’s not bad. After Capcom Cup he was really thinking about whether to enter EVO JP.

But lots of people wanted him to enter, and without a goal it’s hard to maintain your motivation, and if he was going to enter he definitely didn’t want to lose. So he practiced on the PS4 a lot, and developed some new Cody tech.

Different people might think of things differently, like “Oh, I’ll just enter and see how I do” and be happy with that, but he’s not able to do things casually like that. So he entered with the intention of winning, and feels bad that he wasn’t able to win.

But since it was on PS4, there is that, and he wants to appreciate what he was able to do, there were lots of good matches. It was also great to be able to meet people that he hasn’t seen in a long time at a large scale offline event.

He tweeted a bit about that, lots of fans talked with him, and he really appreciates the qualities of offline events. Online is convenient, but the passion and in-person atmosphere is great. He things SF6 will be even better in that regard.

He also says they want to run an SF6 TOP (Tokyo Offline Party – Shinobism run events that I’ve always tried to go to, and enjoyed when I do). Also, SFL was announced – but since he’s a team owner he already knew about that. Cyclops is a new team added in Japan.

(Side note: I was sure Dogura would be the anchor on Cyclops, but the other night he announced that he’s leaving the team – happy all around, it was in a Cyclops stream – so I wonder if he will solidify his ties with Good 8 Squad? I really should watch that stream.)

He also says he knew about that so he wasn’t surprised – he’s got me laughing here, his casual attitude about this stuff is very funny to me. It’s going to start in July, a month after SF6 comes out, which is a huge change from the current SFL.

Nobody knows who will be good in that situation, you just can’t predict it. That first qualifying round is going to be super crazy. (There are 2 qualifying rounds this time.) It will be really tough.

There’s also the change with leverless controllers where Up+Down needs to go to neutral, they have to get used to that. He plans to practice a lot for that. He says that Victrix almost sold out of (everything? Shinobism stuff?) on the first day. (I bought a BFG controller.)

(The lines for Victrix on that first day were crazy – I spent my whole break period waiting in line.) Must have been Shinobism stuff since he said they prepped 250 things. I wanted to, and should have, bought their SFL limited Takeya water bottle. End of video.

2 Momochi talks about his match with Punk

In this video, Momochi talks about his match with Punk.

A viewer asked if that was all Momochi was going to say about Punk (see notes from the previous video where Momochi said it took an hour and was really tough), so Momochi talked a bit more about that match. This stream was going to a wide audience – people outside of the normal SFV viewership in Japan, particularly because of the side stream and people like Shaka who mirrored the stream (he has 1.1 Million followers on Twitch) and other mirrors by well-known streamers (see also Jiyuna’s recent tweet). So people interested in other games were watching. For people that know SFV, this is a kind of common thing. I’m not sure if this is in reference to Punk, or in reference to lag being somethign that is known, and we have to deal with in fighting game tournaments – I’m inclined to think the latter. Momochi doesn’t want to stir up a storm here, but he did see Punk’s tweets later, and thinks that it wasn’t a complaint about the monitor but the controller.

On PS4 there can be lag on the pad. For PS4, for official controllers even when it’s connected with a wire it’s using a wireless connection. There were lots of people around, and so there was lots of radio interference at the venue with all those people, and so there was lag. That’s something that’s happened before, and Punk’s complained about that previously, maybe 10 times or more at other tournaments.

Here, Momochi pulls out his Victrix BFG (what a salesman!), and says “in cases like that – Punk are you watching? – this is what I use the Victrix BFG”. It has a wireless and wired mode, and if you use wired mode that won’t be a problem. He watched Tekken, and he doesn’t know if the monitor was a problem or not. In their match, the 2P side – Punk’s side – was laggy. Punk came to his side, and that monitor was ok, he said it wasn’t laggy. So they changed the monitor. Momochi was fine with that. Then they asked Momochi to check out the side that Punk was playing on, but he said he didn’t need to, he’s fine with whatever would move things forward. He thinks Punk wasn’t complaining about the monitor in the tweet, but doesn’t really know.

It’s tough, because it’s based on your feelings and perception of the lag, which is tough when it results in a delay. If that is what you feel, that’s how it is. Of course, the organization side was wrong, and that happens too. That’s been the case before too, so it’s tough. So why did it take so long? In this case, the organizers really put the player’s first. (Side note: great! I didn’t mind the delay.) Normally you wouldn’t delay things so much, they would talk about what the rules are and just move on. American tournaments wouldn’t take that long, right? I think it took so long because the organizers in Japan really wanted to do the right thing.

It’s completely valid for people to critize the organizers, but Momochi thinks it took so long because the organizers put players first. He also understand’s Punk’s complaint, he’s had it happen to him too. Like when a monitor isn’t set into game mode and he can feel the lag. Humans make mistakes. In pools, people would change the settings by themselves, that definitely happened this time. So different monitors were set differently for sure, and you can’t prevent that every time. It’s very important for players to let people know when there are problems, and that way the organizers can do something about it. You really have to look at things from both the perspective of the players and the organizers, they both have valid and good points. So it is a tough situation. He understands Punk’s position, and has no ill will towards him. He wants people to understand that, and also to understand how hard it is for the organizers too.

If organizers continually make mistakes though, or don’t put players first, you really feel like they don’t love games, or don’t care about gamers. So you really need to talk about those cases so things will improve.

Someone in the comments says that Hameko and Aru did a good job of holding things together, and Momochi talks about how he watched them on the stream while waiting. Someone in the comments said that Punk was really pissed, and said some bad things. Momochi says that he really likes Punk as a player, but he should try to improve how he handles tough situations, or skipping the awards ceremony. That’s a completely different topic though. You can try to understand and play the best you can in that situation. There were lots of people there cheering for Punk, and he should have gone to the closing ceremony.

It wasn’t a problem to complain about the lag or try to get that fixed. He doesn’t mind having to wait for that, he understands. Someone else then comments that if Punk really were to change and act in impeccably at all times, something just would be really lacking. Momochi does agree a bit, saying that you need all sorts of people to be interesting, but an hour really is a bit long.

He really didn’t expect Claw. That was still better than Karin though. Varoius other topics: someone asked what layout he likes for the Victrix pad, he hasn’t decided yet, and won’t until SF6 comes out. Shaka bought a Victrix stick, so he was happy about that.

3 Momochi’s secret EVO Japan Cody tech

Momochi posted another video about his “Cody tech” he prepared for EVO JP, but since I’m not a Cody player and not sure I could do justice to that video, I don’t plan on putting any English info out about it.

It is playing on my other screen though, so I might as well note down anything I find that is amusing.

He talks a bit about how getting 4th place is disappointing, but 2nd is even worse. Especially here, one of the last big SFV events. He says people looked like they had a relieved look on their face after losing. He’s not sure if he’ll watch back his loss on stream, but he’ll talk about his secret techniques.

Someone asked about techniques for getting level 100 Zonk, and he’s not there yet but he does think he had good Zonk usage in this tournament. He did a great job getting level 2 out. He was trying techniques for charging it, got good at it prepping for EVO Japan. His secret technique: press all 3 punch buttons. It’s super strong. He usually has all 3 punches held down. People always ask about the timing to charge Zonk, right? He says hold all punches for 99 seconds. Always. Why all 3?

Most people charge with light and heavy punch. That leaves medium punch to confirm into EX Zonk. That means you lose heavy punch for anti-airs. What this game does though, if you let go of heavy punch while charging two buttons (watching the video helps a lot here – he has a close-up of his sweet Green leverless Victrix controller) and continue holding jab, then Zonk doesn’t come out. That’s different from SF4 where normal Zonk (for the 1 button release) would have come out. In this game you need to release all the buttons you were holding for a Zonk to come out (and shows that a normal Zonk comes out on releasing the light punch.)

So for anti-airs he’ll let go of heavy punk and press again for the anti-air. For a normal character you just press the button, but when he’s playing Cody he has to let go and press, so you are a bit late, so you have to plan for stuff. He also does the same thing to break throws, or interrupt with light punch.

All of that is well-known. Non Cody mains might not know (I don’t!) but here is why he presses all three buttons. So if you charge with light and heavy punch, charged up to Level 2, then do the release press for an anti-air, now you are back to level 1. Normal Zonk will still be level 2 though from the light punch. So you have to wait another 300 frames once you start holding heavy punch again for another Level 2 Zonk.

If you always hold 3 punches though, you still have level 2 EX Zonk on light and medium punch. That’s super strong. For people that know the Cody matchup, when they see the anti-air they know that Cody’s EX Zonk level 2 is gone, but this way it is a lot harder for your opponent to know your charging status, making it strong. So he always charges that way.

Going back to anti-airs, he used a lot of crouching light punch for that. Against Gachi-kun, or interrupting with light punch and going into EX Zonk. He used a lot of light punch into EX Level 2 Zonk because he was using this technique charging with all 3 punch buttons.

When he was playing Sasamo-kun off stream, Johnny was behind him streaming, Sasamo got his twice by Bad Dust, and then he did light punch into level 2 EX Zonk every time and won that way.

Compared to just using two buttons, there isn’t that much difference since you are doing the release press thing already anyways, and the return is really good. You can use your thumb for light and medium kick. The hardest thing is getting through fireballs or V-Skills. He has his V-Skill button on the bottom right, taps it with his pinky, but that’s hard and he’s still working on it. When you see a projectile you need to release medium punch and hit V-Skill which can be a bit tough. If you hold medium punch and hit the V-Skill button you get a medium kick, so you have to let go. That one to two frame difference in letting go and pressing the V-Skill button is tough, if you are 2-3 frames late you get the kick. Practicing all that on PS4 was tough.


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2 responses to “Momochi with some thoughts on EVO Japan”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thanks for the translation!
    I wonder if Momochi is more sympathetic to the EVOJ TOs in this instance because he himself had to become one over the years and knows how difficult it is to plan and organize for a large-scale open bracket offline tournament.
    Either way, I hope EVOJ (and EVO itself) takes this instance to learn and improve. It’s really important to have a big offline tourney like this.

  2. FuguTabetai Avatar

    Shinobism has run a lot of stuff locally, and some larger events too, so I’m sure that has something to do with it. Running events is hard work, and I hope everyone that participates can see that point of view as well. I have good feelings about EVO JP improving; Rick was certainly listening, and Matsuda and others that are deeply involved really stress putting Players First, which should lead to improvements.

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