HD Remix doesn't seem to be available in JPN on PS3 or 360, but since I have a Canadian account from when I was living in Canada, I was still able to buy it. The game is gooood, and the netcode is also very good, considering I usually have to play against Americans across the ocean. There's not too much lag in matches, although I can totally feel it whenever I can't get a reversal on wake up off. Still, it's a really fun game and the new changes made to my characters -- Ryu and Honda -- are really cool. I loooove using Honda against projectile characters now because getting around fireballs isn't stupid hard anymore, but it isn't brain dead easy.

Ranked matches tend to have a lot of pullers so I've been sticking with the tournament matches and player matches, and it's a lot funner since I can try to aim for the Master Of All Things achievement without worrying about my rank.

Me against some random Akuma player... the lag was bad in this match but I mainly took the picture to show some of my Japanese friends who aren't aware of the game yet.

Winning my first tournament two days ago... I've won about 5 or 6 tournaments so far with Honda. The man is a total beast!

Friend of mine went to the Tokyo Game Show since I couldn't because of work, and I got all this stuff back, woot.

First, the official Tatsunoko vs. Capcom t-shirt.

Here is the official SFIV wall scroll. They had a Ryu/Ken one but I opted for the Chun-Li one.

Totally geeky, but the SFIV Shadaloo badge, hah.

Last but definitely not least (because it's the most useful, of course!). A Godot (Phoenix Wright 3) mug! Definitely needed a new one to use at work, so this will come in handy. Unfortunately, I think doing the spittake that Godot does might get me fired, hah.

It feels kind of wrong to talk about non-Capcom games here, hah, but I guess those are the breaks. One of the great things about living in Osaka is that you get a combination of great food, great-looking women (!) and a lot of great places to play games in the arcade. I usually find myself at Monte 50, an arcade that offers games at 50 yen a pop, rather than the regular 100 yen ($1US) charge. It also boasts the best Virtua Fighter and Tekken players, and I hear that every Wednesday, the top 3rd Strike and Super Turbo players also gather there. Problem is that they won't be getting Street Fighter IV in the near future, but I can always head down a couple of stations to Namba and go to Avion, where they had all of the Osaka-based SFIV location tests. Over at Avion, you got Haitani, Umezono (2007 SBO winner) and Kusumondo (top ST Honda player) all playing there, so the competition is fierce.

So I headed down to Monte first to play some VF5R and I played a bunch against Anaguma, who is considered one of the top players in the country. Not just the area, the entire freakin' country. Needless to say, I lost 7 in a row before I could even get one win off of him, and that streak didn't last too long... it actually ended the next match when he played me with another character and destroyed me 3 - 0, haha.

Now, in 5R I use three characters: Lion, who I have used ever since VF2, Goh, who I started using in VF5, and Taka-Arashi, my new main character. I used to play Taka in VF3 and I was really disappointed that he got cut from VF4, but now he's back and I couldn't be happier. He's not as bad as he was in VF3 but he's about mid-tier in 5R, especially with the buffs that Jeffry, Aoi and Shun got for this upgrade. Still, he's really fun to play. I wanna start using Aoi because I have always wanted to use her in VF, but she's a pretty difficult character to use so I don't know if I'll have time to work on her. She's definitely my favorite female character in any video game though.

So after my VF5R matches I headed to Avion to play some SF4. I saw Kusumondo there playing Super Turbo and said hi to him, then I saw Haitani playing SF4 and decided to see how bad I was, considering i haven't played in three weeks lol. Got owned pretty hard, but I guess that's what I get for maining Honda and El Fuerte, two of the weaker characters in the game. Even though they're pretty bad compared to Sagat and Ryu, I think they're more fun to play, and that's all that matters.

Friday night is gonna be fun since Avion is having a 5R Open Battle tournament, so hopefully I do well enough to pick up some battle points and get some new items for my Taka. Anyway, here's the lone win I got off Anaguma in 5R last night. Enjoy!

I found this photo on my hard drive randomly while cleaning out stuff. This is 1st Angel, a Virtua Fighter player during VF3/VF4. I didn't take the picture, one of my friends did while he was visiting Japan and I was still in Canada. Funny thing was that once I moved to Japan, I had the honor of playing... and losing to her. =) She plays a pretty strong Akira, and is considered an above-average player by most, and I guess as far as female players go, she was one of the strongest.

I have no idea if she is still actively playing Virtua Fighter now, and if she is nothing about her has surfaced anywhere. Perhaps she goes by a different ring name now, or perhaps she has quit and I dunno... got married and had kids or something. Still, it would've been awesome to get my butt handed to me by someone as pretty as this again. ;)

I can't go to TGS this year which makes me sad, since there's a lot of games I wanna see. I'd love to see White Knight Chronicles, King of Fighters XII, Resident Evil 5, Monster Hunter 3, Street Fighter IV, Final Fantasy (well, anything Square-Enix really). The coolest part of going to TGS is just going with your friends, checking out the cool games and the awesome cosplayers that hang out in the concourse between the two main halls though.

It's interesting that there is an actual etiquiette to photo-taking though. Cosplayers will pose for you personally if you wait in line for them, and you can ask them to pose in any position you want, although I guess the more perverted ones would be off-limits, heh. However, should you take a photo without standing in line, they sometimes get pissed, hah.

According to the official SF4 blog, there's also an official tournament happening at TGS, which I really wanted to enter. Of course, I'd get owned but I enjoy playing in tournies. Thankfully for me, there are plenty for SF4 and Virtua Fighter 5R around the Osaka area. In fact, there's one for 5R on Friday, although it's an Open Battle tournament where you just play as much as you want for a set time, and earn points. The problem is that it's being held at the strongest arcade in Osaka, where guys like Fuumin (the first national VF5 champ) regular. D'oh!