KOFXI Sawakoro Festival 2024
Tournament Report by ATG
Preface
October 2024, once again a German delegation made its way to the Sawakoro Festival. This time, Sensei Enrique couldn't make it, but new player Antser joined us for the trip.
- ATG: Oswald/K'/Vanessa(L)
- Arit: Ralf/Clark/Jazu(L)
- AD_Ryan: Iori/Kula/Ash(L)
- Antser: Duck/Kyo/K(L)
Before we made our way to Nagoya, we had over a week to spend in Tokyo, meeting Ryoji & Ryuumi at Shinjuku Sportsland twice. As always, we had incredibly fun matches with them - their choice of characters is refreshing, with Ryoji playing Silber, Gai, Ash(L) and more, while Ryuumi used Terry, Yuri, King, Elisabeth and others.
We also visited Game In Good Day 21 in eastern Tokyo several times, aka the Castle of the Demon King (Yanjirou, jokingly called "Maou", Demon King, plays there). We were all incredibly tired and the other German players left, but I decided to play two ft10s that evening, the first one was against Akio. His patient style worked perfectly against me, I felt quite helpless. The second one was against Sho, famous for his strong Leader Oswald. I did a little better than against Akio, but overall wasn't too happy with my play on that day. During the ft10s however AD_Ryan suddenly returned and said he couldn't just leave without supporting me, which I was really grateful for.
We arrived in Nagoya during the evening and decided to relax a bit - it had been raining cats and dogs and Tokyo for days, and we were tired.
As is the tradition, our lunch was Misokatsu at the famous Nagoyan chain Yabaton to regain our strength. Later we went to an Izakaya for dinner, and afterwards we watched the good day 21 stream at our air bnb until we went to bed.
2024/10/11 - Sawakoro Festival Day -1
Sightseeing
Friday, day minus-one of the Sawakoro Festival had started.
We met Sawakoro, Toru and famous Taiwanese player & Tougeki Participant Yukito at a remote bus terminal at noon, near Aratamibashi station. The weather was great and other than us there weren't many people around other than a few seniors. Toru took us to an amazing Tsukemen Restaurant called Sugure that was, once again, Rukkora's recommendation (he is famous as the number one gourmet of the Nagoya KOFXI players).
We were then taken to the harbor by Toru & Sawakoro for some sighteseeing. We climbed the harbor tower for a scenic view and donned captain's uniforms for hilarous fotos (will definitely never been shown publicly). Afterwards we visited the icebreaker / science vessel Fuji, and finally the Aquarium. We took many pictures and had a great time with everyone.
Port24
Then, it was finally time for all of us to go to the holy halls of KOFXI - port24 in Yagoto!
3 Sets of KOFXI were already set up, with two of them set to free play, meaning we could pay a flat fee to use them for an hour. A good amount of local players was already there: my team's leader Miekazu, Hokuto, Sana, Rukkora, Zone, Arata and Yakimeshi. We each sat down on different cabs, switching with everyone from time to time. I had a good start in casuals and managed to get a few wins in against most of them and felt that i leveled up again, which was nice after the horrors I had to endure at good day 21.
Stream archive:
Welcome Party
The fun began a bit later though - Miekazu had organized a welcoming party for Yukito and us at a nearby Izakaya, with most players attending: the Germans, Yukito, Rukkora, Zone, Sana, Arata, Miekazu, Yakimeshi, Toru and Sawakoro. Only a handful of players remained at port24, with their thrist for battle stronger than their thirst for beer. Forgive the fact that some of the images are blury, there's a good reason - it was all you can drink and eat. To Antser's surprise, he was presented by Miekazu with a personalized mug with all his characters on them, just like the other German players received the year before. It also turned out that the only one of the entire German crew that liked Nankotsu (chicken cartilage) was me - it is my newfound love, especially if it's deep-fried & spicy, it goes so well with beer.
Miekazu's KOFXI history
Miekazu and me talked a lot, and I learned many things about how the KOFXI scene in Japan had developed.
Miekazu started playing KOF with 97 and 98. He had a side job during that time and mostly played in small game centers, all by himself, but eventually stopped. At around 2001, he started playing again, and eventually a good friend of his won the famous "duelling the KOF" tournament for KOF2002. It was through him that Miekazu was able to level up his gameplay and become more serious. He started playing XI when it released, but it wasn't until 2011 that things got more interesting. That was the year that Sawakoro contacted him and "reactivated" him. During that time, Sawakoro still lived in Osaka, and already played with U-rasia and Nori. Miekazu was able to win a tournament in 2012, the same tournament that was won in 2011 by U-rasia. This greatly motivated him and gave him confidence that the players from Mie prefecture (close to Nagoya, where Miekazu lives, hence the name) can keep up with all the other strong players. Miekazu's team around that time was Kula/Kim/Oswald(L). He then tried out K' after seeing how strong U-rasia's K' was, and realized how much fun the character is, eventually switching him in for Kim. He also picked up Vanessa, mainly because she was his main character in KOF2002, but also because Toru (no. 1 Vanessa Leader player) taught him how to use her.
Miekazu also told a bit about how the atmosphere was in he beginning, when everybody had to get to know each other still - TSR, Miekazu, Toru and Arthur (asa-p) played together on release, and didn't talk much with each other at first, but they all became friends once Miekazu organized a tournament to promote the game. Shingo on the other hand was a 98 player during that time, and only picked up XI a little later. He was incredibly fast in learning the game due to his strong 98 fundamentals and was at top level within one month.
Eventually our conversation switched to the present day, and Miekazu and me were contemplating the different styles of the strongest players. Miekazu pointed out that Nori plays a calculating style, Yanjirou plays without pause and U-rasia is a master of the quick shift system, to which I added that Sawakoro is a master of preserving his characters and exploiting the timer and judgement to the fullest. We both agreed that there is no clear best way to play that game, and this, among many other things, one of the reasons we love it so much - there is no easily identifiable "perfect" play.
Back to Port24
With most of us now feeling the effects of the party, I choose to switch to my patented Oswald/Duck/K' team, reserved for when I am drunk, and just like last year, did way better than I should have. Then again, this is no surprise considering how easy Duck is compared to Vanessa...
