« Final Showdown: The Shirt Monsters »

The EVO brackets are finally up and I looked up me and my friends' placements in the pools. Along with the Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown side tournament, I also will be playing Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition Ver. 2012 and The King of Fighters XIII. The latter game is the one I am most interested in. By surprise, I am confirmed to fight the Korean Machine, Chung gon "Totalheads Poongko" Lee in my first match. The initial feeling was dreadful but gathered myself and thought it over and said to myself I will do my best regardless of winning or losing.

What I also noticed is that KOF's brackets rivals of that of AE2012 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. For a game that's not made by Capcom it seems be great on paper but as the months of registration passed on by and me surfing the internet instead of getting good grades in school, there is this unusual feeling. A conspiracy mindset. An aspect of the registration was that every registered KOF player attending EVO would receive a bonus shirt featuring SNK character Mai Shiranui with her attractive cleavage and minimal clothing. While it's cool and all, is it really the reason why people are registering for the game? Will players actually play KOFXIII at EVO?

Prior to the console release back in fall 2011, you would have to go to various arcade spots around the world with the exception of Japan and other Asian nations to actually get your hands on with KOFXIII. For North America, you had Southtown Arcade in San Francisco, Arcade UFO in Austin, Next Level in New York and various spots in the greater Southern California area. SNK Playmore along with various publishers were able to break the silence and announce the game for home release.

After some hype post-release, the status of the game was in a weird standstill. There were major tournaments like NorCal Regionals, Community Effort Orlando and the past two MLG events having it as a feature game. NorCal Regionals, stationed near a major North American KOF hotspot, for example though had much less players registered when compared to the behemoths of AE2012, UMVC3 and Street Fighter X Tekken. Then you look at EVO's pool brackets and that is somewhat close to what UMVC3 and AE2012 have. It's pretty big.

At first, I was thinking it was just everyone from around the world converging together at EVO to really play KOFXIII. I wished it was true so this conspiracy blabber can be discarded. The internet though made me think otherwise after seeing various forum comments or stream monster chat messages. I am not the best KOF player or a super fanboy of the franchise but in general, registering it for the shirt and not playing your matches is insulting and disgusting.

I am not going to have malice towards the Shoryuken/EVO crew though since they are not enforcing people to play their matches but still. Are some players really stooping this low just for an incentive? I am sure Mr. Wizard and the Cannon brothers intended the Mai shirt as a bonus and generally get folks interested in the game and compete but some people have said they won't play the game. What will make people play KOFXIII?!

What is preventing people from playing? Is it because it's not Street Fighter or Marvel? Do they suck at learning the inputs? Was it the online preventing folks to getting some practice? What was it?! This game is not hard and there have been many streams, match videos and tutorials for months. You can get a used copy of the game for cheap nowadays! Even if the online is not good, you can get a fundamental idea with KOF98 on GGPO. EVO was supposed to have people competing against each other in fighting games. Shirt monsters are being the antithesis of that. Maybe the shirt should have been something awkward like Ash or Saiki to troll people. Maybe Mai should have had a Bible Black modification to the design. In reality, there would have been less players registering for KOF if the shirt didn't happen but the competition in every bracket would have been more consistent. I guess the saying "No Mai, no buy" can apply here unfortunately.

If you registered for KOF for the shirt and won't compete, shame on you. You care more about an incentive instead of the game itself. Go enjoy being 0-2 on your Marvel brackets thanks to TAC infinites or touch of death combos while Bala easily goes through his brackets like butter and eventually win the whole tournament. No hate on the other games on EVO's lineup but I believe it's important that you play the games you registered for regardless of skill or whatnot. Be serious yet enjoy your matches in any game, beyond just KOF (if you registered for it). Being a shirt monster is scumbag mentality and nobody wants to be a scumbag. You only have a couple of days left, there is still time to learn it! After getting my shirt, I have plans to burn it in the coming future. Maybe not, but I will not wear it.

Like 3rd Strike, play KOFXIII. It's a good game. Hell, most of the games in the series are good. Play them. They are real honest.

You cannot find me on my Twitter @ThePhantomnaut.