Of Log Traps and Pride

Taro Ebine's victory at Final Round XV's Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tournament may have been a surprise, but it wasn't unheralded. By the time Ebine (or as most of the chatters on Twitch TV came to know him, “Kusoru”), made it to the Grand Finals match, he'd gone from novelty to underdog to favorite. He'd already defeated several of the Marvel 3 vets – Peter “Combofiend” Rosas, Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez, and Job “Flocker” Figueroa – on his way to the top 8 bracket without so much as breaking a sweat. Veteran pro player Justin Wong, who'd been eliminated earlier in the tournament, mentioned on Twitter that in a first-to-ten set earlier that weekend, Kusoru had defeated him 10-8. Justin's prognosis for beating him in a tournament set was grim.

But it's not just Ebine's remarkable skill that made the Marvel 3 finals so much fun to watch. To the Final Round crowd, he was in every way a foreigner; he was a Japanese player (not something you see often in the Marvel 3 tournament scene) and was using characters and tactics that few pro players were even aware could work. Both in and out of matches, there was a sense that he messing with both the players and the audience as he decimated the competition. After every match, Ebine went for the dramatic – cocking his hands like guns or doing bat-swing motions when he won a round with a Hyper Combo (which gave him enough time to do poses), and contorting his face in agony when he lost. Regardless of whether this was an act or common behavior, Ebine was a cheerful showman, which galvanized the online audience and polarized the tournament crowd. Players are usually cheerful between matches, but it's all business when sitting down to play at a tournament. A violation of that unwritten rule changed the atmosphere.

The narrative Ebine's presence both in and out of the game created also broke ground. The Japanese player's in-game team comprised of Viewtiful Joe, Frank West, and Rocket Raccoon, none of which are considered top-tier characters by most players (Ebine himself, though somewhat jokingly, doesn't regard them that highly, either). All three are goofy characters, which is at odds the rest of the top 8's character selection – high-tier, oh-so-cool fighters that take themselves too seriously. In that sense, the characters the players used reflected the attitudes of the players themselves – goofy and offbeat versus serious and conventional. And goofy won every time. From the moment Ebine defeated Ramirez's Dark Phoenix team in two equally spectacular ways, the baffled online viewership was with him (even Ramirez himself walked away from the match with his hands up in confusion).

He was showing players and viewers alike something they'd never seen before: top-level players being slaughtered by out-of-left-field tactics that didn't look like they should work. Between Viewtiful Joe's barrage of of dive kicks and Voomerangs, Frank West's general trickery, and Rocket Raccoon's now-infamous Log Trap assist attack, Ebine didn't just beat his opposition – he made fools of them. Log Trap specifically was his primary way to wreak havoc; a long-range attack covering most of the screen, it usually allowed Ebine a fatal combo every time it hit, regardless of what character he was using. Every match he played became a matter of when, not if, the Log Trap would hit, and watching people who are usually on top of their opponent scramble on defense fundamentally changed the game people were watching.

And much in the same way the trench coat and spandex-clad characters on-screen had to change behavior, so did the players using them. As the American players grew increasingly nervous about being ousted by someone who is both an outsider and, to some degree, mocking them, the tournament became about national pride. Before the US's last hope, Eduardo “PR_Balrog” Perez-Frangie, stepped up to fight him, players Ebine had defeated earlier engaged in huddle to advise Perez-Frangie on how to fight his strange opponent. The homegrown players had banded together to defeat the foreign threat. Even when Michael “Yipes” Mendoza faced off against Perez-Frangie after being defeated by Ebine to decide who would fight Ebine in Grand Finals, there was a clear camaraderie between the two, with a “give 'em hell” handshake at the end of the match.

During the Ebine/Perez-Frangie match, you could see that Perez-Frangie had indeed taken the advice he'd been given and adapted. He knew the Log Trap was coming, and towards the end of the set, he was properly working his way around the attack. He even utilized some tricks of his own, landing a powerful X-factor infinite attack a few times against Ebine's team. As soon as that happened, the crowd and even the commentators became excited at the chance of a comeback. It never truly came, though, and as Log Trap after Log Trap hit, it was more and more clear Ebine had the match in the bag.

But as soon as Ebine won the final round, both competitors became people again. Perez-Frangie went to shake Ebine's hand with a smile on his face but was overtaken by a mob of Ebine's teammates rushing to congratulate their friend. Whether Perez-Frangie was happy for his opponent or amused by his antics and fatigue wasn't clear. Ebine, for his part, did a tired gun-cock gesture one last time before throwing his head back in exhaustion, retiring his usual cheery self to just take in his victory. After leaving his home country for the first time (something he's apprehensive about doing again), he'd made the trip worth it for him and his team, financially and emotionally. But most importantly, he'd blindsided the Marvel 3 scene. But the local players will be back next year, no doubt with a new few new tricks of their own. And you can bet they'll have practiced their log-hopping skills.

You've read the book, now see the movie.

Better Living through Fusion

Despite being as gobsmacked by Metroid Prime as the critics were back when, I hadn't dared to venture to the Metroid side of the 2D “Metroidvania” sub-genre, sticking with the DS Castlevania games and Symphony of the Night until recently. As it turns out, Metroid Fusion's ambient running and gunning is more up my alley than recent Castlevanias' RPG upgrade systems and overwrought plot. A guide character still points you to your next goal within the game's more structured map setup – six sub areas versus a large single one – but between story snippets limited to bookends for each area, you're left to your own devices, which can be as frustrating as it is liberating. I'll confess to using a FAQ more than once, but I'm glad the game doesn't resort to the gaming equivalent of baby-talk.

So that's the setup for my run through Fusion, but here's the kicker – Metroid: Other M, most recent Metroid title, has a distinctive smell, so to speak, and there are hints of it in Fusion. Rather, it should be the other way around; the divisive aspects of Other M had their origin in Fusion. Specifically, Fusion began the dangerous task of fleshing out Samus, a main character who before was a cipher for the player, albeit a non-traditional one (I didn't find out Samus' gender until a paused a Super Smash Bros. screen of her being electrocuted). She exposits the introduction of Fusion, her thoughts as the story develops, and her history with Adam Malkovich, who in Fusion leads Samus around as he did in Other M. In the former, it's through an AI program designed to replicate him, but I'm splitting hairs. He also has the same knack for telling Samus when she should and should not use her weapons, though in Fusion Samus still has to find all of her upgrades instead of being told to do so.

In fact, after finishing Fusion, it's hard not to see that Other M is to Fusion narratively as Ocarina of Time was to A Link to the Past – a retelling with a few twists. Allusions to Samus' military past, the return of Ridley (though that one's a running theme of the series in general), the hint of a “mysterious new threat.” Mostly, though, it's the exposition. Odd, really, since intricate backstory seems at odds with Metroid's desolate, quiet exploration. Metroid, from my experience (the Prime trilogy, mostly), benefited from the era of its inception, when 8 and 16-bit graphics didn't do any sort of proper narrative justice. When most games either emulated arcade rulesets of trial-and-error or went with grandiose, sweeping narratives, Metroid and Super Metroid, whether they aimed for it or not, were something in between; the gameplay focus and wordless play of the arcade crowd and the consistency of the narrative group. That's where the series' trademark isolation comes from – being an arcade game with a lifespan longer than a few minutes. The dark backgrounds and eerie tunes also help.

Both Fusion and Other M tamper with that balance of game and enviorment. But surprisingly, Fusion comes out a winner and Other M a wreck. Why? It's a simple matter of placement. Most of the cutscenes in Other M are placed in a scattershot fashion; before, after, and during fights and other checkpoints. They interrupt. They're frequent. They're long. In Fusion, they're commercial breaks. Taking place mostly during elevator rides and in briefing rooms, where a rhetoric of waiting is already established. Even when the scene makes an elevator ride go on longer than it should, the expectation of downtime is there. Fusion takes advantage of its natural flow, while Other M meddles with your actions at times. Other M's haphazard mechanics and control scheme didn't bother me – in some ways, I preferred that simplicity – but its dull and intrusive narrative did. When all the melodrama of Other M sticks out more than any of its design decisions, the foundation almost seems besides the point.

Samus is a character interesting enough to flesh out. She's more than a blank slate, and I'm fine with losing my sense of immersion for the sake of getting to better know someone I'm familiar with. But only when done right – as punctuation, not intrusion. Premise is important, but method matters more.