Hello everyone, I'm new here.
I may be new to the community, but I've been playing Melty Blood since '07... although, that's also the year I began fighting games in general. Yes, Melty Blood made me start fighting games. I have one hell of a story, so just kick back and have a nice read. SKIP TO THE "RED MARKER" IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR MY BULLSHIT
Before fighting games, I played bullshit like Marvel with my older brother and hated it. I thought fighting games were repetitive, had no depth and were really boring during my early 2000 years. I just never touched them.
Then one beautiful summer, I met this nice little Asian friend of mine named Andy. He showed me Melty Blood Act Cadenza and talked about Tsukihime. I didn't really know too much background about the Nasuverse, but the game was surprisingly fun. I went straight to netplay battle and faced him. It was fun! We were both newbies and we had a grand old time. I was somehow instantly drawn to Kohaku, picked her, and Andy got a little mad at my winning streaks. There was even a small little moment where I said I was going easy on him. In silent rage, he rematched, intent on me giving my all. And then I perfected him right then and there. That was hilarious. From there, he just told me to not do such things anymore and play honestly.
That moment with Andy really had a great impact on me... This was very new to me, so despite Andy playing or not playing Melty Blood later on in life, I continued playing against the CPU and tried to get other people to play with me. Occasionally, I hopped on IRC channels, but not too much. I spent a lot of time watching West Toast videos that blew my mind and I saw so many things that kept me tuned into Melty Blood for so long. As for Andy, he talked about the new game BlazBlue Calamity Trigger, which is suppose to be a better version of Melty Blood, apparently? I didn't have a PS3 or 360, so there was honestly nothing I could do there...
It was about 2 years that passed before I moved on to Touhou fighting games. It wasn't a pleasant experience... I guess I felt the same feeling Andy did back when we had our Melty sets. This online friend of mine "Len" introduced it to me. I didn't know much about the Touhou lore either, but I just played the game in the same fashion I started Melty Blood. I couldn't even beat one round of the CPU on Easy mode. It was absolutely exhausting. I just wanted to delete the game and never go back. But something compelled me to keep going. I don't know what it was; I was right there at the install files, ready to right click and delete everything. But I stopped and thought about Len, and how it would feel to just abandon him, whether or not he had other people to play with. So I kept playing...
From there on, that's when I expanded my horizon. I broke from my Melty shell and explored other fighting games. I got to experience challenges in not only Melty Blood, but from IRC Touhou players who showed me the ropes and generally taught me how to play. Apparently, I was good at the "Touhou" part of the game, but I was not good at the "Fighting" part. Which, I expect to be typical for non-fighters or newbie fighters that was just like me, at the time.
After playing more online hack n slash games, I met more people, miraculously, who also played fighting games. But these people played games like Third Strike.
I really didn't know what Third Strike was, other than that one moment from one of those unofficial EVO tournaments where this "bad commentator" (who was actually pretty hilarious) who talked about Third Strike being a really animated game. Often comparing it to Arcana Hearts (which I didn't know what was at the time. He kept comparing the game to other games like he wanted to watch something else) but he was funny to watch while at the same time, matches were great. But I'm talking about the past again...
Anyway, Third Strike. These guys played this on MAME and Kaillera. At the time, I didn't mind the four way games. The delay was almost nonexistent to me, since it really didn't matter to me, but I got a taste of more Capcom and SNK games. I didn't immediately jump to Third Strike because for some reason the game just didn't want to run. But these other games, unbeknown to me, were generally a lot like Third Strike's game play. I was bad to start off. Because I was so used to Touhou and Melty Blood, I started off playing the game blocking my ass off and these guys were telling me I had to get some offense going. I didn't really understand, but I eventually caught up, I guess. I mostly played SNK vs Capcom, The King of Fighters 2002, and Third Strike. I mostly had "fun" more than I actually had a learning experience, because all these guys sucked as much as I did.
So one day, I decided to show these guys the game I was raised on... Melty Blood Act Cadenza. At first, these guys said it was great. They played each other and had fun. And then when I came to face one of them, or both of them... they both rage quit and never touched it again, saying it was a shitty game, essentially. And for some reason, the other friend that I know as Brian actually looked into the actual Visual Novel. He didn't like the game, but I guess he figured he'd try out the story. At the same time, I didn't know anything about the story. It was nearly 4 or more years since I first played Act Cadenza and I still didn't know any lore. So simultaneously, me and Brian both played Tsukihime. We were both very into it. It was the first time both of us ever read a visual novel and we were surprised how much this could entertain us.
Things happened and time passed, since then. Brian eventually disappeared due to reasons in life, and I just stopped playing fighting games for a good while. I didn't know where to look, so I started going places to see if anyone would like playing against me. During the time, Act Cadenza was dead. Not even an IRC channel that was alive and kicking with AC players because everyone was playing Actress Again on PS2 emulator which I couldn't run on my PC. I was just kind of stuck until... I finally found this one channel, miraculously. I joined and there was actually people there who still played Act Cadenza. What a discovery that was. Still, some of them played PS2 Actress Again, but there were other people who could only play Act Cadenza just like me. And so it began...
I played and met against Grashi. We were evenly matched. It was REALLY fun facing his Warc with my Aoko. We played until we were as good as done and I made a new friend. Somewhere around that time, I don't really know when or what, but my brother had recently purchased a PS3 with wherever he gets his money from. We're generally a poor family, so I don't know how he got a PS3. But he had a PS3 and games to play on it. They were fun. I played them. Or at least the ones I liked. My brother's tastes and I kind of differs... he actually doesn't play fighting games as much as I did. He's more into RPGs like Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, Final Fantasy, and Tales of series. And he's too much of a weeaboo to buy any of the games in English. He has a Japanese PS2 and he actually... had the audacity to get the Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII. Just... why? This guy has a mountain of Japanese games. Mostly stuff you can only get from Japan such as Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, Keyboard Mania, Para Para Paradise, Pop n Music, Guitarfreaks, and Drummania. He's a Bemani fanatic of course, he's REALLY into that Bemani music. He even makes Bemani inspired songs on his iPad with whatever application and sometimes get family or friends to participate in music videos he directs. Really low production, but he seems to enjoy it, nonetheless...
What was I talking about? Oh right. Since my brother knows how to grow money on trees, he pulled out a Playstation 3 which is how I gained access to BlazBlue Continuum Shift. During the time, CSII was already out and it was already a few months before Extend. My good old friend Grashi actually bought the game for me AND Extend. I played the both games with him, mained Hazama, eventually tried out Valkenhayn and Mu-12 who I also liked, and it was a great learning experience. His Arakune can really body me. I learned a lot of important things... but there was still a ways for me to go with my skills.
Later on, something happened. My brother needed money and sold his PS3. I was stuck once again for a while, but then Current Code soon came out. I was wondering and hoping this game would come out because then I could actually catch up to the community and play the most recent version if it did come out. And my wishes came true. Current Code 1.07 for the PC which had multiple Rev updates and faulty netplay, but I instantly shared the knowledge with other people and found an IRC channel as soon as possible. It wasn't perfect, it was actually kind of bad, but I was still hoping that better netplay would come out eventually. Not to mention, Grashi's laptop couldn't handle Current Code. He's poor himself.
Even more later on, my brother flew out of the continent and went to Taiwan and eventually China. My brother always made unexpected trips to many places, and this isn't the first time he flew out of here, but this time he left, learned Chinese, and is almost living there. He said he went there to teach English or something. I don't know what he's doing to make money or how much money he's making, whether or not it's worth it, but... He seems alright. I guess I'm happy for him, whatever he's doing. He keeps in touch occasionally, so everything's alright.
A little bit before my brother's trip to Taiwan, it was last year when I met a Third Strike player. He literally called himself Barry fuckin' Burton. I love that guy, he makes me laugh. He didn't know about Supercade, but I showed him. He was like, this is awesome, and we played Third Strike. I actually learned a lot about spacing, frame traps, and resets from my entire experience. For a year now, we've known each other and played even matches. Salt here and there, but still good times. This is also around the time I got back in touch with Brian, although it seems he has migrated to Vampire Savior, otherwise known as Darkstalkers. He really likes the game and mentions that Third Strike is getting dull. He enjoys SF4 more, which I too agree is the better game even though I've never touched it and only watched it. I think I understand it enough from the amount of videos I watched. Street Fighter is generally easy to understand in my opinion.
Vampire was an interesting game that I gave a shot. Since I was straight from Melty Blood, the game had a few things that I was very familiar with. My first character was Jedah, and I eventually moved on to BB Hood which is now my main in Darkstalkers. I REALLY leveled Brian after playing him consecutively. He was actually surprised how much I caught up to him in such short notice, despite him playing the game long before me.
This was also a time to really reconnect with one another and catch up on times. Which we did, and I'm thankful for. He even gave Melty Blood another shot, but on Current Code instead. He makes... a lot of excuses, whether it be that he doesn't like anime styled games, or that he dislikes air combos, etc etc. He seems unable and unwilling to play Melty Blood even though I just tell him to get rid of it and don't worry about it, but he just keeps it on his hard drive, because why? Every blue moon he'd say "It's time to really learn this game" and then after an hour or two of playing, he puts it down again.
One thing you may notice is the lack of Melty Blood in my story. It's true. As much as I like Melty Blood, I really rarely ever played the game. The times I did play the game online were just short spurs. So why am I on a Melty Blood forum where Melty Blood fanatics hang around talking about a game that's nearly dead? The reason is... I want to get to know someone or some people. As much access I may have to IRC channels where there's quite literally a few hundreds that could possibly still play Melty Blood, I can't really enjoy a fighting game with randoms. Why, I don't know. It's much more fun if I knew the opponent like a friend. Sure, there were times where I got on an IRC channel and played matches (which was when the netplay was bad, actually...) but it didn't last long. I join, make a match, they fight, then it was good games. No connection. As sappy as I sound, any kind of online gaming is just much more pleasurable with someone you know. Am I alone on that thought? I even knew of these forums for a long time, but it didn't take me until a day or two ago to make this account and then just now make my first post. I have a big feeling that all of this just might be moot, which I don't mind, but I was taking this moment to just try the whole forum thing out and see if I like anyone. And please, just because I said this, I don't want anyone to "try hard" and try to be my friend. Just be honest, okay? I like that a lot more than sugarcoating and empty complements.
RED MARKER. Now to the point. I'm from the south, deep south. Louisiana. That's -6 GMT Central Time. Don't worry, I'm not an ignorant red neck. I actually kind of dislike this place and all the religious bible humpers, apologies to anyone who actually has faith. I don't hate religious people despite what I said. I think I play C-Ciel best, but as far as FUN goes, C-Aoko is my absolutely favorite. She's very tricky and I like tricks. I play her way more. Occasionally, I practice lightning loops on C-Roa which can get frustrating sometimes when I get close but can't do it anymore, but there's no way I can play a solid C-Roa in a real match and perform nearly as good as anyone. He's just way too hard, but I absolutely appreciate him and love watching him pressure the hell out of opponents when C-Roa gets on the offensive. I also cannot play as Kouma, but I understand his game very well and appreciate anyone who can play him. I even made two tutorial videos of him on my YouTube channel. I'm not giving it out here, but if you REALLY want to find it, it's... honestly not hard to figure it out.