Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds Message Board

I found my journalistic skills put to the test earlier this week. No one taught me how to interview an 8-year-old.

I start my conversation with Noah Solis, the 8-year-old who surprised everyone by ranking in the top 48 at the Evo Championship Series 2011 this year playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, on simple footing. How'd you get into fighting games?

"It was fun," he responded. The phone goes silent, as I wait for something more. Nothing. It's quiet.

Okay, maybe we're just getting warmed up. How did you decide you wanted to be competitive?

"I beat everybody!" he said definitively.

This back-and-forth continues for another minute or two.

Were you always playing against your friends and beating them? "Yes!" Is Marvel vs. Capcom 3 your favorite fighting game? "No!" So, what is your favorite fighting game? "Super Street Fighter IV." Who's your favorite character? "Bison." How come you like Bison? "His purple hand." What was it like to go to Evo and play against all these people who were older than you? Was that fun? "Yes!"

The questioning halts when I ask Noah what it was like to finally lose in the tournament. Instead, Noah's father, Moises Solis, speaks up.

"I've seen Noah cry," said Moises, a 38-year-old single parent taking care of Noah and his two older brothers, ages 15 and 18. "When he wins, he kind of cheers up, but I see the passion he has for it as a sport. He would cry just like any pee wee division would cry if they lost the Super Bowl, you know what I mean? That's how I see Noah."

The family's located not far from Los Angeles, where Noah got his start in the competitive gaming circuit. Noah was playing fighting games with his brothers when one of them told Moises that Noah wasn't just good, he was really good.

"My two oldest just keep passing back and forth the controller," said Moises. "Growing up, when you passed the controller, you lost! [laughs] So I asked my oldest son and I'm like 'is he winning?'"

The family started considering the idea of bringing Noah to a local tournament. With three growing mouths to feed, however, deciding to jump in the car and enter a tournament wasn't an easy question to answer. Such trips cost money.

"The way the economy is, I lost my job," he said, "but I had a nice set of rims on the car, so I sold my rims and said 'Let's go, let's see what he's got.'"

Noah made his first appearance at the Level Up SoCal regionals in 2010. He was just 7-years-old.

"He did okay, I think he was more nervous," he said.

Noah kept making appearances on the local circuit, generating buzz. At one point Noah ended up "perfecting" someone (read: he didn't get hit), which caught the eye of the community. He was young, but Noah was no joke.

The successes convinced Moises this was a worthy path, even if he doesn't have a solid grasp how the games his son is playing actually work. In his youth, Moises wasn't much of a gamer, focusing instead on sports.

"If you look out your window," he said, "the things kids are doing nowadays...I have options here in my home. There's reading, there's math, there's gaming. I can either let him go outside, smoke pot, run around with gang members--if this is what he wants to do, this is what I'll support him in."

Noah's biggest splash came at this year's Evo tournament, finishing in the top 48 playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with his combination of Hulk, Wesker and Sentinel. The trio caught some off guard, especially Hulk. Edward "RoyalFlush" Valdez was just one of the players who lost to Noah.

Valdez entered Evo 2011 playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Tekken 6 and Mortal Kombat--a mix of old and new. He described himself as an early adopter, willing to jump into the competitive scene of a new game, even if it hasn't really proven itself yet. Tekken 5 was his original gateway drug into everything, but he eventually received the most attention for playing the Wii-exclusive Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

He'd heard of Noah before Evo, but he didn't bother to look at this pool of contestants, so squaring up against Noah was a surprise.

The thing you notice watching videos of Noah's Evo matches is the crowd's role. When Noah's winning, the crowd cheers like crazy. If he's losing, they vocally dogpile with boos. It's lose-lose for anyone against Noah. Valdez figured he had part of the crowd on his side thanks to his odd lineup of Viewtiful Joe, M.O.D.O.K. and Thor.

Approaching the stage, Valdez sized up his surprising opponent.

"He was really quiet, actually," he laughed. "All I asked was what was his name and how old he was. That's all I got. Even after the match, I always give a handshake, but actually gave me a fist bump instead!"

The match was going Valdez's way at first, allowing him to secure a first round win.

"I won the first match, so I was feeling good about myself," he said. "Usually, when that comes around, like the second match, I feel like I can take more risks because I'm on that high, that boost of morale. That totally fell apart in seconds."

Valdez described the experience of playing in front of a crowd as much different than messing around with your friends. You're here to show off, take risks and showcase the skills you've been honing. Doing so means that sometimes it won't work out.

Eventually, Noah was able to turn the tables.

Describing Noah's play style as "surprisingly patient," Valdez eventually lost. The crowd went wild.

"I didn't feel bad about it," he said. "There's some people that get really mad after they lose. I was psyched that he won. I don't really know how I would have acted if I'd won the match. It's always a good feeling when you win, but when you lose to someone good or it's not like you got randomed out."

Getting "randomed out" is losing to someone who doesn't have a real strategy--like a button masher. It's similar to poker--if you're playing against someone who's just acting randomly, it's impossible to employ a credible counterstrategy.

Struggling with the feeling of defeat is a lesson Moises is working hard to teach Noah. Try to remember what it was like when you lost something you really cared about as a kid. Those losses are crushing. It's hard to tell your young self to just chin up.

"In a football game, when a crowd boos on you, you try harder," said Moises. "You don't let the crowd [get to you]. That's what I taught Noah because I used to be a pitcher, and I explained to him 'There's gonna be crowds yelling and all that and all you do is tune 'em out and just focus.' You just have to teach your kid what's right, wrong. Noah, when he loses, you know what I say to him? 'This is what it's called, son. You take a licking and keep on ticking.'"

Valdez's real regret is a consequence of Evo's growing popularity. Thousands watched the Evo matches all weekend long, which means his defeat to an 8-year-old has been archived for eternity.

"I have to live with that for the rest of my life," he joked.

His loss is Noah's gain, with his performance at Evo prompting all sorts of random offers and phone calls to his father about Noah's skills. Coming to grips with his son's rising fame has been a struggle for Moises, a task he deals with on a day-by-day basis. Moises promised an "announcement" of some kind was coming for his son in the near future that would shed some light on how he plans to pivot in life after Evo.

"This is a whole other level for myself," said Moises. "It's including my son, something that I care about, something that is a part of myself and something that I don't want to screw up! I can't."

Even though Noah didn't win this tournament, Evo did recognize his talents, sending him a "Rising Star" trophy to celebrate his valiant efforts.

It will probably be the first of many.

Evo Photos by Kara Leung

Karaface.com

Capcom’s fighting-game renaissance surges forward like an EX Hadoken. This August sees the long-awaited PSN release of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, followed by Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 in November and Street Fighter X Tekken in 2012. I caught up with Capcom’s Strategic Director of Online & Community Seth Killian at EVO, the world’s biggest fighting game tournament, to get the latest updates on all three games.

Killian did me one better, discussing Capcom’s evolving view of community engagement and sharing his analysis of Noah “The Prodigy,” the eight-year old Marvel vs Capcom 3 competitor who captured the imagination of EVO attendees when he outmatched much older players to place among the competition’s top 64 finalists.

PlayStation.Blog: Street Fighter III was famously a huge departure from Street Fighter II, earning it a fair bit of controversy. How does it hold up today?

Seth Killian, Strategic Director of Online & Community: For me, the essence of any great fighting game is learning how to read the mind of your opponent. If you can do that, Street Fighter III gives you the ultimate way to show that off — you can deflect any move that your opponent can do using the Parry mechanic, where you tap forward or down to deflect attacks. The Parry is at the center of SFIII; if you use it correctly, you can get out of any situation. That’s why it has this enduring legacy.

As for its reputation, there’s no question that SFIII is an incredible game. It has a huge tournament legacy, particularly in Japan. It’s one of those games where the execution bar is a little bit higher: it took everything that had come before and built and built upon it. Particularly with the Parry, which is a bit harder to learn — you need to be familiar with the kind of attack that is coming, knowing how it hits and how many times it hits. With Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, we’ve added a new mode to specifically help people understand that Parry, practice it, and get comfortable with it.

PSB: Aside from the training mode, what else is Capcom bringing to SFIII: 3rd Strike Online Edition?

SK: We wanted to preserve the integrity of the game, so we used the arcade code and removed a few minor crash bugs. Otherwise, the core gameplay is untouched. We did add a few extras to the online and single-player modes, including the ability to unlock items though in-game challenges. It brings a little bit of that Call of Duty, carrot-on-a-stick incentive but it’s purely optional.

Online is a key focus. We’ve added new netcode developed by the EVO organizer, who happens to be a programming genius who created a piece of middleware called GGPO. It’s extremely popular with fighting fans because it’s a great online experience; it was designed by hand for 2D fighters. It has some very crafty ways of getting around input lag. It doesn’t defeat the speed of light or anything, but it uses a fixed frame setup. It will skip frames of animation to hide latency, which makes an attack finish at the same time as it would if we were playing offline. I’ve never heard a piece of middleware get an eruption of cheers at a panel, so that’s how seriously this is taken among fighting-game fans.

We also have online tournament and spectator modes, plus YouTube uploads that enable you to share your favorite matches with your friends whether you’re on your PS3 or off it.

PSB: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 comes this fall. Other than the new characters, what new features will be included?

SK: They’re going back to the drawing board with some of the netcode, and adding a spectator mode — a major request from the North American and Japanese fans. It’s particularly challenging for a hyper-busy game like Marvel vs Capcom 3, but the team did manage to figure it out.

There will also be some additional single-player surprises, some new graphical elements, and of course re-tuning for the existing characters. There are little changes to certain moves, and sometimes all-new moves, animation tweaks…it’s a complete package and coming in at a lower price point. If you missed out on Marvel vs Capcom 3, this is the perfect time to dive in.

PSB: Tell me about this eight-year old kid, Noah “The Prodigy,” who fought his way into the top 64 players in the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 EVO world finals. Is he as good as they say?

SK: He was finally eliminated, but he took down some of the best players in the world. His brother is in the competitive fighting scene, so this kid has grown up with this stuff. The thing that distinguishes Noah is, here’s got skills, but he’s very composed. He’s got this weird calm for an eight year-old kid playing on stage in front of hundreds of thousands of people. We’ve had 12- or 13-year old competitors who have done some damage, but Noah is unprecedented. He took out real players. I think he’s got an amazing competitive career ahead of him.

Once he develops more agility and insight he’s got a lot of room to grow, even using his existing gameplan. He also played some slightly unusual characters, and his opponents may not have been ready for that.

PSB: Let’s shift to Street Fighter X Tekken, one of the more unusual fighters to come out of Capcom in recent memory. How much of Tekken’s gameplay made the cut?

SK: It’s set in a Street Fighter world on a 2D fighting plane but, at the same time, we’ve tried to preserve some of the Tekken elements. For me, the essence of Tekken is getting in your opponent’s face and forcing him to guess between your high, low, and mid mix-up attacks. Not only are the Tekken characters performing some of their signature moves, they’re able to do it in the same sort of style. They have a more fluid ability to execute those kinds of mix-up attacks. The Street Fighter characters are a little stronger at a range with their projectiles. The other nod to Tekken is that many of the traditional Tekken combo strings will still work.

PSB: How can the Tekken characters get past those projectiles? It seems like a major disadvantage.

SK: I feel like, in many ways, there’s less difference between Tekken and Street Fighter than people often think. In Tekken, you have sidestepping — moving into the third dimension to dodge attacks. In Street Fighter, you have a similar concept: Cammy, for example, can use her Spinning Backfist move to flip around an incoming projectile if you time it correctly. From a game design perspective, it’s quite similar — she’s briefly moving into the third dimension to dodge that fireball. The Tekken characters have moves that work much like that, where they spin, dash, or slide around projectiles. So the Tekken characters are very adept at passing through projectiles if you read your opponent correctly.

PSB: Explain this new “Tag Assault” move, where you call out both of your characters to pummel your opponent.

SK: Street Fighter X Tekken is a tag-centric game, an homage to Tekken Tag Tournament, so you can tag normally or cancel a special move into a tag. With the Tag Assault technique, you can bring in both of your teammates at the same time — you control them both simultaneously. Then you can do all sorts of dirty tricks like creating a sandwich so you can ping-pong your opponent between both of your fighters from both sides. It’s actually really strong right now — we’ll probably tone it down a bit as we move forward.

PSB: We’re surrounded by some of the best fighters in the world here at EVO. What are they saying about Street Fighter X Tekken? What’s the feedback been so far?

SK: I get worried, because this is the toughest audience in the world. If these guys are good at anything besides fighting, they’re good at complaining. [laughs] They will let you know exactly what’s wrong with your game. The worst complaints we’ve had to date has revolved around certain UI elements and the lifebar being hard to read. Ono-san has already gone back to the drawing board to re-tool them.

In terms of gameplay, people seem to be walking away with a smile on their face. Which actually just makes me nervous! I want to say, “Guys, this is the time! Let us know what you love and what you hate.” So far, it’s sort of a half-step between Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

So right now, the EVO crowd is digging in and finding the worst possible things they can do to each other.

PSB: Fighting game creators haven’t always been hugely receptive to their fans. But Capcom has clearly led the way in terms of enabling community feedback. What’s the philosophy there?

SK: It’s been a learning process. Capcom is a traditional Japanese company, and Japanese companies tend to engage in one-way communication. You know: “Here is what we are doing. Please enjoy. We’ll see you again in a year.” [laughs] There wasn’t a lot of back-and-forth there.

But today’s social media tools have changed the game. Capcom, I think, has led the pack among the Japanese game publishers in adapting to that — though obviously, PlayStation is no slouch either! Capcom has been aggressive with community interaction and they’ve seen the power of it. I’m proud to be a part of it because I came from this very community, the EVO community. It’s how I got my start at Capcom.

It’s not a matter of being bound by the demands of fans. You know, “well, fans voted to put a clown wig on Ryu, so that’s what we have to do.” It’s about good ideas, and fans have some of the best ideas in the world. Being able to bring those ideas forward and presenting them to the right people who can evaluate them is what it’s all about.

The games are all here at EVO for a reason: the designers want to hear feedback from the fans. As a business, you need to be responsive to the concerns of your fans, or you’re doing it wrong. It’s smart business to have a real dialogue with your fans.

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