Don't know if you remember playing me online but I was thoroughly impressed with the way you handed my ass to me on a silver plate in soul calibur IV. I can't beleive you're that damn good at the game already...your Mitsurugi is BEEASTLY!!!!! You guard impacted the shit out of me and those strings were bloody deadly. I thought I was good at soul calibur iv because I can beat all my "button masher" friends easliy. Like you said in your SC IV review, button mashing doesn't really work in this game.

I liked how you called out IGN on their review because I also read IGN's review and that last part grabbed my attention in a negative way. I'll even quote him on it.....

"My last problem with Soulcalibur IV is a significant one, but one that can be briefly stated. Sometimes, button mashing can get people a long way in this game. Moves are just way too easy to pull off and timing is often irrelevant as certain characters can string moves together as smoothly as water (take Maxi, for example). I suppose this makes the overall experience accessible to beginners, but it can be discouraging for hardcore fighting game fans. This isn't always the case, of course, but when some of the most powerful moves can be executed just by pushing two face buttons at the same time, there's going to be plenty of mashing going down." -Ryan Clements, IGN

Timing irrelevant? I think I'm going to be sick. ;p

Duh, unskilled people mash in every fighting game, but that doesn't mean it works against good players... What a fool!  Two of my friends I would consider "Maxi mashers" and I always wipe them out with my Siegfried or Nightmare... Yes I consider myself a good player. unlike them I actually know some combos and ring out strategies. What's the gaming world coming to? I can't believe a game reviewer for IGN would be so skill-deprived to think that mashing works in a game like Soul Calibur IV. It pisses me off to think how many people read that IGN review and think that Soul Cailbur is button masher friendly. I'd like to see them try against my Siegfried or Nightmare. Thank heavens for sites like yours man, you tell em' like it is.

Thanks again Frank for the awesome site updates as usual, and I look forward to getting better at Soul Calibur IV so I can be a better challenge against you and other top players. I sent you a friend request, I want revenge for what you did to my Siegfried!!!

Peace,
~R3negade

   Button mashers might do fairly well against other human players when a new fighting game first comes out... But in no way does that mean it's going to work in the long run; and it sure as hell shouldn't work against "good" players; thus, it's not an issue or a problem, even though Ryan Clements seems to think so. He's obviously not a good player, but I would think a "well paid" mainstream game reviewer would realize that the game "just came out;" and button mashers will be destroyed once hardcore players got a litte practice in.

   He talks about Maxi's move strings like they're hard to deal with...  We'll, if you go through practice mode with Maxi, and get somewhat used to his basic moves and stances, they're suddenly not so foreign anymore. Maxi becomes a dangerous opponent when a skilled player uses creative mix up and combos, not when someone just mashes random buttons.  <---- Ryan gets a big rolleyes from me. Basically, if you want to get good at any fighting game; the more characters you learn, the better at the game you will be. You don't need to memorize everyone's moves, but if you're familiar with what each character can do, then you won't be as surprised when you get hit with certain moves; and ultimately will properly be able to block or parry.

   I wonder how many people out there might still think "Soul Calibur IV is button masher friendly," and I hereby open a friendly invitation to any "button masher" who thinks they can get 1 round on me in Soul Calibur IV... Send your requests if you're out there... PS3 Username = FYagami. If they get 1 round on me they win automatically.  I have to get 3 rounds to win of course. That shit doesn't work.

   Thanks for the compliments on my new and improved Mitsurugi. He's still "in training" believe it or not... And we'll definitely game again soon, you're Siegfried aint bad from what I remember... I just happen to be a halfway decent Siegfried player myself... Which, of course, helps at fighting against him.  Take care, and practice up!

~Webmaster of TFG

Love your site freaking awesome, also I added your banner/link to our blog
keep up the great work bro!

PEACE!

Mike " Maikeru Rocks! " Melendez
(Founder)

Jump Punch Kick Entertainment
(Co-Founder)

The Dreamcast Battle Network

-Everett, Massachusetts USA

~Webmaster of TFG

The profile information about Megaman on your site only applys for the Megaman you've seen in Marvel vs. Capcom (1 and 2). He is the original one and is only referred to as "Megaman". Megaman fans refer to his game series as the "Classic" series.

The Megaman with the red jewel-like ornament on his helmet is "Megaman X" from the "X" series. He is the only Megaman that wasn't featured in a fighting game, so I found it a little odd that you had artwork of him on your site, much less on the original Megaman's profile. You also have a single sprite of him on the first "Megaman Animations" page. There are 2 other artworks of him (technically, it's a "clone" of X) as seen in the "Zero" series, where Zero is the main character. If you're not sure which pictures I'm talking about, their urls end with "megaman-verycool.gif" and "megamanzerox.jpg" respectively.

The Megaman without a helmet is Megaman Volnutt from the "Legends" series. He is usually seen in artwork with his spiky brown hair. He is rarely seen wearing a helmet. As previously mentioned, he was recently revealed to be in "Tatsunoko vs. Capcom" and 2 other characters from his series (Tron Bonne and Servbot) were playable in "Marvel vs. Capcom 2". As you may already know, he was also in "Namco X Capcom".

The only other Megaman I didn't mention is the one with yellow shoulder pads and looks like he's wearing a body suit. He isn't a robot at all (he is actually a computer program.) His name is Megaman.EXE from the "Battle Network" series and he was a hidden character in the PS2 game "Onimusha Blade Warriors".

In case you were confused about all these different versions of Megaman, I hope I was able to clear things up.

-ElementGodX

Frank replies: Hi Sean, thanks for the run-down on Megaman. I'm honestly not a "big" Megaman fan, so honestly; I probably couldn't look at a picture and tell you which version of Megaman it was.  I did however know that there are a handful of different versions of Megaman, and for his profile; I thought it would be best to feature ALL of his "incarnations" under the sole Megaman profile. The reason I added different versions of characters (like Ryu and Evil Ryu), is that they appear as "playable" characters in different games. As you know, up until now there has only been one version of "Megaman" in a fighting game... So it's self explanatory why I didn't add a Megaman X profile, for example.

I also wanted to make it easy for my visitors to find pictures & animations of ALL of forms of Megaman... Why discriminate?  Like I did for Jack's profile (from Tekken), as Jack, Jack-2, Jack-5, and Jack-6 are all on a single profile. I figure if people are looking for artwork/pictures of a fighting game character, they should get what they're looking for all in one place... Some of the Megaman X and Megaman Legends artworks are quite cool; so I couldn't help but add them under Megaman's profile. I'm sure for a die-hard Megaman fan, it might be borderline "painful" to see all the different Mega Mans' on one page... So I understand where you're coming from. I'll probably keep the layout for the Megaman page the same, but I will continue to work on the "general" info for Megaman; and make sure people know there are many different versions of Megaman.

Thanks for the mail!

~Webmaster of TFG

Let me start out by saying I'm a big fan of your site.  In fact, I'll go so far as to say that you're the only really reliable website left when it comes to Fighting Game news and coverage.  Seriously, what happened to all the good Fighting Game websites out there?  What happened to Higher Voltage and Mad Man's Cafe?  I really think you're the only one who's keeping up with everything that is Fighting Games and for that I thank you!

I espically appreciated the fact that you came back after all those leachers kept direct linking to you pictures and kept sucking your bandwith.  You didn't give up, you overcame and persevered.

Out of all of the new Fighting Games that are coming out (Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur IV, King of Fighters XII, etc.), which one are you most excited for and why?

For me, it has to be King of Fighters XII but maybe that's because I haven't really heard any news on them.  Street Fighter IV is probably next yet I question their direction to make it feel more like Street Fighter II than anything else, especially with the production of SSF II Turbo HD Remix.

Is there a Fighting Game out there that you don't really feel excited for or just feel like you'll blow it off until later?  Does such a thing exsist for you?  You seem so hyped about every game that comes out.

Soul Calibur IV, just from what I've seen, is the game that I can't but feel less and less excited for as more news comes out.  All of the other, mainly female characters, that have been revealed so far look great but the other ones, the Star Wars characters, is what's gotten me feeling not so good about this game.  Darth Vader, his apprentance, and Yoda in Soul Calibur?  I'm sorry I thought this wasn't Soul Calibur IV not Soul Calibur cross Star Wars.  I'm probably in the minority here, and I probably should reserve judgment until I get my hands on it, but it just doesn't feel right to me.

In the past you use to number all of the feedback entries but then you stopped.  I know this was because you decide to post later feedback and come back later to the earlier feedback that you didn't do for those months but you have caught up now, right?  Why did you stop?

I know this website is your pride and joy but I was wondering if you would like feedback on what's wrong with the website or do you prefer to just work on the site by yourself?

Take for instance the Character page for Yashiro; the normal way to get there, via the character page, links to his profile alright but if you go to Chris's character profile and click on the link for Yashiro it leads to a dead link.  I guess the question I'm trying to ask is would you like people to e-mail you problems like these or do you prefer us not to?

I see you have Arcana Heart up for a game profile.  That's really cool; it's really good to hear your opinion about that game.  This leads me to wonder if you'll add similiar games to your website as well like Melty Blood, Big Bang Beat, or Akatsuki Blitzkamf?  Are these games worthing of being on your website or do you think it's in the same league as all those Naruto and Dragon Ball Z fighters?

Oh, btw, I also read that you might relent in the future and actually put game profiles for those games!  Please don't do that!  No matter how many people say you should I think you should just stick to your guns and reiterate you stance on why you'll never put those games on there!

Well, thanks for taking your time in reading this e-mail.  You are a great person and I can't thank you enough for creating such a great website for the Fighting Game fans.  Truly, one of the last vestiges of dedicated Fighting Game website.

Sincerely,
-LJ Talon

1. I'm honestly most excited about Tekken 6 hitting home on PS3... I can't wait. I'm also stoked about the home version of SF IV and KOF XII, but both of those games are simply too far ahead in the future to really get excited about them.

2. The fighting game that I'm least excited about is, of course, Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe... The animation and gameplay look rather stiff so far. Hoestly, if they don't do something drastic, I think it's going to "bomb" with the true fighting game fans. A bomb in a not good kind of way, that is. 

3. Yes, I stopped numbering the feedback simply because sometimes I went back and answered older mails, which would obviously mess up the numerical order... I decided that numbering the emails wasn't worth the extra time and work anymore, so I stopped. 

4. I appreciate and welcome any critiques / corrections on the site, and I absolutely would like to hear about any errors or broken links that you might find, that way I can fix them immediately! And yes, I always did prefer working on the site alone; but there are a handful of generous people who send me content, so I don't feel as alone as I used to!

5. Personally, I'm not a fan of the games you mentioned... But it's possible I'll add them. But don't worry, there's still no chance of Naruto or Dragonball games popping up on TFG.

~Webmaster of TFG

~Matthew V.

   These days; in the next-gen, I have found some appreciation, and almost love, for certain FPS's. There are actually three that I have enjoyed in the last 3-5 years. Resistance: Fall of Man, Call of Duty 4, and Warhawk (which I'd call more of a third/first person shooter)... Each of which I have put quite a few hours into. I must say I've spent many late nights having good old online multi-player fun with Warhawk and COD4, and I'm not a bad shot either. Even though these games are great, they still don't measure up to the level of fun that I had with the original quakte... Quad rockets were the original pwnage.

   At the end of the day, no, I'm not a "big" FPS fan. "Pointing, shooting, pointing, shooting, running, shooting" simply gets boring for me after a while. I like to "space out" my FPS experiences, as you can see... That way, when the "next gen" of FPS's come out; I should be blown away. Makes sense right? And in case you were wondering, no, I'm not a fan of the Halo series. I actually despise Halo for it's mainstream, and in my opinion, undeserved popularity. Halo 3 was on my damn drink cup from Taco Bell I believe...  it really made me sick. 

~Webmaster of TFG

Amnesia is a pretty good cover if you ask me.

-Master Melzas

Frank replies: Interesting observation!!! I totally missed that one... Yeah, Abel and the long lost Joe do look alike,  pretty much having the same haircut... Does Abel's Amnesia have anything to do with Joe? Is his middle name Joe?  It's definitely up for speculation now that you brought it up.

~Webmaster of TFG

-Daniel

~Webmaster of TFG

-Brandon H.

~Webmaster of TFG

I am going to be unlocking him (Starkiller) tomorrow, so if you've not played as him yet, I will let you know how he plays.

By the way, to unlock Starkiller, beat Arcade Mode with Darth Vader.

-J

Frank replies: Force-bombing her? That just sounds dirty... Ha ha.  Yeah, that bastard is pretty tough at first, but once you get used to his moves; believe it or not, he's not "all that"... In my experience at least. I hate to brag, but I did beat Mr. Apprentice the first time I fought against him in arcade mode, with my Mitsurugi. I did however spend quite a while in practice mode before I ventured out to arcade mode, and let me tell you, it helped. And just to brag some more (sorry), I've yet to meet anyone online who could beat me with the Apprentice. For some reason, I hate him so much; I refuse to lose to him. 

~Webmaster of TFG

What systems do you have?What do you recommend?I want a PS3 and Wii but I don't know which one to buy first,since I only have money for one now.Don't even say anything about Xbox360,my brother has it and it sucks!I mean sure the system has some good games like Dead or Alive 4 and Virtua Fighter 5 Online,but I just HATE the 360 controller.If there was a PS2 like controller for the 360 than maybe I change my mind but as of now my brother doesn't like to share it so I must get a system of my own.I want PS3 because I have PS2 and I want to play the new SoulCalibur(I'm sure we all do)but I'm on a tight biget and I feel like I won't be ale to get it or I can get it but it'll be the only game I'll have for a while,and It might get boring.I want a Wii because it has Super Smash Bros and I like it but I'm not that crazy for it you know.I also have a lil sister who might like it and enjoy playing it with me because she can't seem to understand some the games I play on ps2.She also like Soul Calibur 3,so thats a plus for PS3.I just can't seem to decide,I'm gonna get them both eventully but it's one that I need now for the summer.

Please help,I've always used your site as a resource for all my fighting game needs,I want to hear your opinion.
Thanks for your time,

-THE GREAT TEKKEN LORD

Frank replies: As far as the "newer" stuff goes... I have PS3, PS2, PSP, Dreamcast, and DS... My girlfriend also has a Wii so I have access to that as well (and it kicks ass). I never liked the original Xbox or 360, like you said, the controller is horrible; and there really aren't any games on the 360 that I want to play that the PS3 doesn't already have. So I'll be a Sony fanboy and  say go for the PS3!!!  I got it at the launch and honestly I've been very happy with it since... It's only been getting better and better since it came out. Also be sure to get the backwards compatible 80 gig PS3 so you can play PS2 games on it as well; it really makes them look better!

   As far as fighting games goes, PS3 owns the 360... Don't forget about all the awesome PS2 / PS1 fighters that you can play on your PS3! Not to mention the PSP exclusives!!! Playstation 3 FTW... (for the win).

~Webmaster of TFG

I just wanna say, I've been a long time fan of the fighting genre scene, and this is the MECCA of all fighting games known to man...'Cept for Brawl, but hey, you said it yourself it's not a fighting game, and that I believe somewhat, considering if you were to make a character page for Pikachu, I would see a very grave future for the TFG...a VEEEERRYYY GRAVE future. XD

Anyway, I was just wanting to get your opinion on a little sumtin'. Since you are quite the fighting game enthusiast, and Tekken player extraordinaire (Name's Mr. E. Mann if you ever see me in Arcade mode on the PS2 home version...by the way, is that even real? O-o) I wanted to get your opinion of EVO, which is just about the biggest fighting game tournament ever assembled.

Have you ever been there, and if you have how well have you done? Also, what's your thoughts on some of the more professional players, like Justin Wong?

And while I'm on that subject...

IS THERE NO FIGHTING GAME HE'S GOOD AT?!?!?

I mean, I saw Moment #37 back in 2004, but that only happened because he was facing Umehara, and you do NOT win against him in SF:III. But aside from that, he's a veteran of...lessee here:

-MvC2 (Not to mention he had the comeback of the year in the EVO World Finals)
-Guilty Gear
-SF:III
-SFII Turbo
-Tekken (Although, I dunno how good he is at that.)
-SF Alpha
-Vampire Savior

And get this...PUZZLE FIGHTER. I kid you not, good man!

Well, now that that's over with, I wanna know you're opinion on this man. Is he man, god, legend...or beast? If you've never heard of him (Which I doubt you have :p) then just know that all these games he plays in...he wins 99.9% of the time he plays.

With that said, may the future of TFG live on!

-Rory C.

   I've never had the honor to play against Justin Wong but I have played against the "MvC2 legend" Duc Do at several tournaments; in MvC2, Tekken 4, and Samurai Shodown 2. I must say, he's a cool guy... Here's one of my favorite Duc Do comebacks:

   The only EVO I went to was EVO2K5... It was a lot of fun. I played rather well in casual matches and got some streaks in several games, but when it came to competition I got beat pretty bad!!! Tough competition indeed... And unfortunately, I didn't get to play in the Tekken 5 tournament at all because I overslept after a night of unimaginable partying... D.D.D.Disquallified. 

~Webmaster of TFG