I recently reached Kongokensai.

11 months after starting Virtua Fighter, after about 2,450 matches,

I finally achieved the rank that felt like a fantasy.

Recently, the difficulty of ranked matches has risen sharply due to the influx of cross-play newcomers,

so I feel even more thrilled to have broken through that wall. ㅠ

In the final Tenma King section, I got a tournament runner-up reward from half gauge.
I was going to use it like a coin in preparation for losing streaks... but I kept winning, so I had an easier time getting there.

I feel a little regretful that I might have climbed faster if I had used tournaments a bit more before,
but if I had, I don't think I would have felt as thrilled as I do now, and I think it might have been detrimental to my already lacking experience, 

so I'm glad it turned out this way.

...But seeing the server reject 80% of attempts, it's not like I can do it even if I want to, lol..........................

My top goal for the first year was Daima King.
Somehow, I took a rocket above the high point.

To commemorate this, I'm going to organize my thoughts and experiences over the past year.

I know it might be a very low rank for the pros, but......

I also want to look back on my VF career when I have more experience,

and more than anything, I want to record my gratitude to all the people who have helped me.

I would appreciate it if you could read this with the feeling of a cute newbie
"Oh, so that's what he's been doing for the past year."

(Long post warning)

1.

I was one of the few remaining arcade kids.

Around 1st to 3rd grade of elementary school, I really liked Tekken,

The arcade in front of my house was Gusang Arcade, but at the time, I didn't know it was a place where nationwide famous users gathered.
I started playing the game by watching and learning from the older players in the arcade, so I was quite skilled for a kid.

The older players found it amazing and cute that a kid smaller than the arcade machine was watching with sparkling eyes, asking questions, and playing fighting games,
so they spent money to let me play and kindly taught me. I still remember that clearly.

The evenings when we played games together all day, ate Korean stew together, and talked about various things on the way back

were just happy memories in themselves, apart from any emotional meaning like a sense of belonging.

Maybe that's why I became more addicted to arcade games.

For me, who didn't have any siblings, the older players in the arcade were people I followed and a kind of role model.

Around that time, I spent the most time with Master Keidong from morning to evening.
It seems like my game style naturally matched his.

Playing like him was the standard, and I wanted to be like him.

It makes me laugh to write this,
but the way I used to run up and ask, "Why is this like this?" is not much different from now.

Once a master, always a master...

The only thing that's changed is that I'm now much older than the older players were back then.

On days when they taught me things

I reviewed them in my head on the way home and at school the next day.

It was much more difficult than school lessons in terms of difficulty,
but it seems that pain has no place in the face of pleasure.

I also really liked being praised by everyone for mastering it.

2.

It would have been nice if every day had continued like that,
but the arcade population decreased rapidly with the advent of the PC bang era.

I also entered middle school and my friendships widened,

and as my horizons broadened, I started to see more things,

Arcades and fighting games gradually faded away and were eventually completely forgotten.

I sometimes remembered them, but I never went back to the arcade.

The fighting game category was just something to joke about during social life when someone would say,
"I used to be the best at Tekken in the area?"
I would just think lol... and prepare for a joke.

Until before COVID.

One day, a plague broke out and work was paralyzed,
and I spent more and more time blankly in the office.

Unable to bear the boredom, I tried various hobbies,
but none of them filled my heart.

'What did I enjoy most purely?'

At the end of that question, old memories resurfaced.

I hurriedly looked for the new Tekken... hmm... uh... this isn't it...

And strangely, what came to mind right after that was Virtua Fighter.

Most people my age remember Virtua Fighter as
"A classic game that the computer technician installed when they came."

I knew a little more because of my environment.

I happened to have a VF3 machine within reach,
(I experienced the difficulty of Su Pai Kou's 3-hit combo on my first try and gave up... there was no second try...)

I also briefly saw the heat of the VF4 scene.

Even for me, Virtua Fighter was
"A game that adults play, where it's hard to even use one technique."

I don't know why it came to mind right at that moment.

Maybe it's because I became that 'adult' too.

By chance, a Virtua Fighter release announcement popped up on Steam,
and it felt almost like a revelation.

'Okay. I'm going to try Virtua Fighter.'

It was a decision as if I was possessed.

3.

And the long-awaited release date. 

I don't usually play games, so I didn't have a desktop at home, so I ran to the PC bang.

The irony of running to a PC bang to play an arcade game................

I set up the installation and sipped on a drink while turning on YouTube to study in advance

but most of the search results were VF2 videos.

(I should have sensed the hardship here already...!)

I searched again in English and barely found a few videos and
domestic friendly match videos to learn the characters by eye.

I didn't think there would be any situations or techniques I could understand... 

^0^...

The game opened

I chose practice mode, which is the rule for the first menu in fighting games...

I tried out several characters and was shocked for the first time that the commands I had guessed while watching didn't sync at all.

I opened the table and found that there was no playback function for each command,
so I had to repeat the process of opening → closing → trying it out → opening again...

I was shocked for the second time by the system.
(There's no combo guide, of course)

A roundhouse kick that can't catch sidesteps?
Why is it so hard to see grabs?
Why do I get hit if I sidestep in advance?

I went in and out dozens of times in a question mark loop and finally came to my senses.

I thought again.

'Okay, I'm from the arcade
Isn't it natural to learn by body?

I'm not playing an RPG game??????'

Leaving all the question marks behind

I narrowed down the characters whose commands synced relatively well to
Akira, Jeffrey, and Kagemaru.

Originally, I'm the type to unconditionally choose a male power character, but

Akira's instinct screamed.

"Don't touch it. Remember Su Pai Kou's 3-hit combo."

Jeffrey is... something... something about pain being reserved???????

(I was right)

So what was left was Kagemaru.
Even if his body is thin, ninjas are cool, so OK.

After finishing character selection and looking around the menu

I didn't know what room match was, but I felt like I wasn't invited, and there were no casual matches that weren't burdensome.

Then the only thing I can do is ranked match...

'Ah, Virtua Fighter.
It's a jungle of the survival of the fittest.'

That's how I took my first step.

4.

The strategy was simple.

Block when attacked.
Block when it looks like a combo or a low attack.
Attack when there seems to be a long opening after blocking.
Attack when they whiff.

.

.

.

Oh, come to think of it, those are things I'm still not good at.........................

It's not simple at all...!

Anyway, that's all I aimed for,
but it was so much fun.

It felt like something was filling up the senses that had been weathered for 25 years.

I spent 8 hours at the PC bang that day,
and I forgot the time and immersed myself in it all day on the following holiday.

The way I was humming and ordering a stick on the way home
was just like actor Lee Kyung-young himself.

After a 2-week business trip, I was burning with the conviction that I would rise through the ranks in VF once I had the new stick in my hand.

Without knowing that a foolish frog
was starting to wet its feet in the sea called VF...............................

...To be continued in Part 2.

The above article is by 프레디킹 on Ruliweb.