Quite Possibly The Greatest Moment In Fighting Game History

A fan of any fighting game (Street Fighter, Tekken, Marvel Vs. Capcom, ect.) has at least once in their gaming lifetime pulled off an unbelievable comeback. Whether it be against a human or AI, when the odds are so far up your ass that death itself is is standing beside your on-screen character - winning under such conditions deserves recognition. It gives us a sense of pride so strong in our abilites to precisely mash those buttons, that for a brief moment, we believe we are the greatest in the fighting universe. I'm sure fans of any fighting genre have experienced this. However, let me show you a video that will crush any future self confidence in any game you have played, ever.

Now, allow me to set the mood here as not many are acquainted with the entirety of the coming video - bare with me, it's totally worth it.

The year is 2004, at the infamous Evolution Championship Series Street Fighter III Tournament, one of the most prestigious fighter-exclusive game tournaments in the world (known as EVO for short). In the semi-final bracket the match-up was between two players: Justin Wong, a renowned professional gamer known for being one of the top consistently high placed Street Fighter and Marvel Vs. Capcom players in history. And Daigo Umehara, nicknamed "The Beast", the world's most famous Street Fighter player, holding the Guinness World Record for "the most successful player in major tournaments of Street Fighter".

Just from the above paragraph, any gamer can tell this was no ordinary showdown. Two legendary-level professional players face-off for a truly skill and pride defining battle. Now for those not familiar with Street Fighter, you need to know some Street Fighter basics to understand the gravity of the video you're about to watch, so again, bare with me.

Like in any other fighting game, there are special moves. In Street Fighter, even if you block these special moves (Hadouken, Sonic Boom, ect.) you will receive "chip" damage, however, there is an exception in Street Fighter III: parrying. If you parry a special move you essentially nullify the hit completely and not take any damage, you're also able to counterattack almost immediately after the parry. The exception to this is a Super Combo (or Super Move) that can produce multiple hits in rapid succession. In order to parry a Super Combo, you would have to anticipate how many hits that combo would produce and parry them all consecutively.

So what's the price to pay in order to parry? To parry a player has to go against all natural defensive instincts and push the joystick forward, rather than backwards (which blocks). You also have to time the parry at exactly the right moment. And by moment I mean frame, not second, not half-second, frame.

Okay, with that out of the way, it's time to watch. With Daigo playing as Ken and Justin as Chun Li, both players have one win each and this is the deciding round - things aren't looking good for Daigo.

                         

To do what Daigo did can only be explained as raw, unadulterated, god-like gaming genius. There is so much depth to those few seconds of gameplay even experienced SFIII players may not notice every ounce of emitting epicness. So, how about we do an in-depth analysis?

Firstly, lets take a look at the conditions. At the beggining Ken has roughly 10% of health, and Chun Li on at least 90%. All looks very much as though Daigo has lost the match, though in an excellently executed rush Daigo manages to whittle down Chun Li to around 50% of her health in a mere few seconds. That alone can be called amazing considering what little health Ken had left.

At around 0:20, the game resembles chess more than a fighter. Justin knows Daigo can no longer block any incoming attacks as that would result Ken's death, and with a Super Combo charged and ready, Justin could taste victory just a short button combination away. However, Justin is no amateur, he knows the only option left for Daigo is to parry, he is after all a professional player. So between 0:21 and 0:26 Justin is throwing faints (dummy attacks) by attacking and moving backwards/forwards to tempt and invoke a reaction from Daigo. With such little health Daigo knew he had no other choice but to parry the next attack, as blocking would result in his (in-game) death. This was the deciding moment.

Perhaps what makes it even more mind-blowing is that Chun-Li's Super Combo is 0 frames. That's right. 0 frames. That means each kick instantly moves to the next. There are 15 kicks in total. Daigo predicted the correct amount of kicks, and parried each kick exactly right. Adding to the amazement, Seth Killian, Capcom's Communtiy Manager said:

"What a lot of people miss is that you cannot parry that super art on reaction. If you see the super flash, then try to tap forward to parry, you're already too late, and will die. This means that Daigo was parrying that super before Justin did it. This is where the moment starts to get really incredible."

Daigo himself mentioned once during an interview that the only way he could recognize when to parry was by the sounds Chun Li makes moments before the initiation of the Super Combo. Looking back at the footage he mentioned how he really didn't know how he heard the sounds as it was so loud while playing. There is no possible explanation as to how he was able to predict the first parry moments BEFORE the attack even began without any notification. It truly was a unbelievable feat.

The amazement does not end there however, Daigo capatalized on the slight opening exposed as Chun-Li finished her move, and landed a combo that took away almost exactly half of her health - winning the match. Not to forget the high-stress levels playing at the EVO 2004 world championship semi-finals. The reaction from the crowd is proof of the feat he pulled. Any gamer, whether fighter experienced or not recognizes the power of such a moment. Is it surprising that he got a standing ovation and made fighting game history?

For the full match, with all the three rounds, check out the video below: