Saitama shares his thoughts about Tekken play styles
Tekken, a fighting video game franchise created, developed, and published by Bandai Namco, has been close to the heart of Filipino gamers, casual or competitive alike, since its first edition hit local arcades.
In recent years, multiple Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Tekken 7 competitions showed the capabilities of Filipino players to rival against the world’s best players, ultimately establishing the local talent as world-worthy.
The Globe PPGL 2018, a nationwide esports tournament which features three major esports titles across multiple gaming platforms, is the latest and current Philippine ladder for Pinoy Tekken players of ambition. With the whole country involved, however, all kinds of playstyles and local metas are being revealed.
“The Filipino players are good at punishing. Their punish games are really strong but they also have the willingness to go all in and take the risks. They have strong playing style and its very different from Japanese playing style,” Tani “Tanukana” Kana, a Japanese professional Tekken player, commented when asked what she thought about the Filipino Tekken players’ style of play.
In the Mindanao Leg of the tournament’s Tekken 7 qualifier, Charlton “Saitama” Dodera, an experienced Filipino Tekken player, stated that there are some Tekken 7 players in Cagayan De Oro who are already adapting the world-renowned Korean play style of using more movement.
“There are a lot of game pad players in Cagayan De Oro, but those who use fight sticks are already emulating the Korean style of play, especially the back dashing and the wave dash of the Mishimas,” Saitama said.
Saitama is the second placer of the Globe PPGL 2018 Tekken 7 Mindanao Qualifier. In the finals, his King made no impact against the eventual champion Neil “Master Wong” Tan’s Lars. He highlighted how good Master Wong’s spacing is, which was almost similar to the aforementioned Korean play style.
“The only chance I could beat Wong is by using King, my main character, but sadly the outcome was a beatdown. Wong is just that good with Lars, and he utilizes Lars’ poking abilities very efficiently. He knows how to fight my King and he has very sharp reflexes. He was able to duck whenever I to grab for multiple throws, and he also knows almost all of my grab setups. His spacing is also really good,” Saitama recalled.
Saitama admitted that he never had any exclusive tactics prepared against Master Wong in the finals. Despite being undeniably outclassed, Saitama still doesn’t believe that maybe Lars is just a tier above King in the competitive Tekken 7 scene.
“Well, to be honest, I hardly believe on character tier lists because some of the characters placed on low tiers are good in the right hands. Tier lists, I would probably say, are for characters who have more useful moves than the others, but high-tier characters still don’t guarantee or have an advantage for you to win against a player,” he explained. “Any character can be used to its full potential low tier or not. That’s how I see it in Tekken, but other games, tier listing is different.”
Saitama shares the same opinion with Filipino Tekken star Alexandre “PBE.AK” Laverez regarding the Tekken character tier list. The Filipino wunderkind also disagrees with the notion of having tier lists or imbalanced characters.
This was also the same reason behind Saitama’s Gigas pick against Master Wong in the same battle. Despite acknowledging how Gigas is not one of the most well-rounded characters in terms of moves, Saitama would still play him in competitive matches, especially since some professional Korean players tried it already.
“Some say he’s the worst character there is, but I say hell no, I’ve seen pro Korean players who use Gigas and can go toe to toe against high-tier characters. Gigas is fun to play with and can kill unsuspecting players quickly with high damage combos. He has long arms and excellent bufferable throw, Gigas is sick,” Saitama justified.
According to Saitama, Gigas and Lucky Chloe were two of the most underused characters in Cagayan De Oro. This is primarily because Tekken 7 players from Cagayan De Oro would opt for the tournament favorite characters like Bryan, Paul, Kazuya, Jin, Heihachi, and Claudio (hop kick all day).
The city of Cagayan De Oro is just one of the country’s many cities with an active Fighting Game Community. Saitama even shared how their community of passionate old-school gamers and hungry young bloods got incredibly hyped for the Globe PPGL 2018 Tekken 7 Mindanao Qualifier.
Aside from bringing the Philippines’ best players closer towards their dream of becoming an esports athlete, the Globe PPGL 2018 also served as a medium for the Filipino Tekken 7 players to identify their own kind of play style. As for the city of Cagayan De Oro, Saitama and Master Wong’s play style, which was a mix of the Koreans’ and Filipinos’ style of play, were proved to be superior.
“I recently came upon a Mantra, ‘practice like you have never won, perform like you have never lost.’ I will give it my all and would love to put up a show and a good fight. I’m excited to meet the best of the best,” Saitama replied when asked if he’s ready to face the Philippines’ best Tekken 7 players.
Hopefully for him, that mantra rings true in the end because as the Globe PPGL 2018 progresses, he really will face the country’s top dogs.
