| Aug. 24th, 2005 @ 04:06 pm My triumphant return! / and a not so triumphant end to an era |
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Yesterday, I finally went back to Taekwondo classes, after more than a year of not going. The short story is as follows: I was one stage below black belt and wasn't sure if I was ready to go for black belt. I'm still not completely sure, but I'm ready to give it another try and see.
Actually, come to think of it, that pretty much *is* the full story. (The whole story had me questioning if I was black belt material, and enough of a martial artist to go for black belt, and if I would be a good black belt, etcetera etcetera... I eventually figured if I was still stressing about it all, many months later, then I had to still care.)
So! I went back to Tae Kwon Do. One of the younger students is no longer so young, and is very very tall. That was a surprise. People have advanced; there are now more red belts in the class, and a couple are even at red-belt-with-black-stripe (my current rank). People have left. I remember classes being up to around twenty students; last night there were only eight, and one of them was coming along for his first time ever.
I did not do nearly as bad as I thought. Oh, sure, my form must have been absolutely terrible. I was expecting that. But I could remember a lot of the movements and a lot of the kata - though in Tae Kwon Do we call them patterns, or tul. I could remember a lot of the terminology, etiquette, and behaviour, and a lot of it came flooding back.
Though I did manage to fall over. We were doing repetitions of outer crescent kicks, never one of my strong points. On top of that, I'm nowhere near as flexible as I used to be. I went to do the kick, my left foot lost its footing, and down on to my butt I went.
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I have recently picked up Capcom Fighting Jam. I wasn't going to. I'd looked at in the shops and thought that it was another attempt by Capcom to milk their fighting game franchises for all their worth. I'd thought it was probably pretty bad. So I put it back on the shelf.
Then I heard it was Capcom's last 2D fighting game.
When I heard that, I had to get it. For curiosity, for nostalgia, and to see the end of an era.
As a fighting game, it's so-so. It's not bad, exactly, and definitely not terrible, unplayable and hideous to experience. But it certainly isn't great. It just doesn't seem like enough thought and effort has gone into it.
As Capcom's last 2D fighting game, it's sad and depressing. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Once upon a time I waited for their fighting games with bated breath. I hunted for the smallest tidbits of news, I read huge FAQs, and committed every little detail of the combo systems to memory. I even imported a couple of their games from Japan. And now we have this. A rehash of their past games, a rehash of their old characters, thrown together with little thought. Very little feels new or exciting about it. Ingrid is the only new character, and she's OK I guess.
It's not *bad*, it's just... average. And an era that should have ended with a bang ends with a whimper instead. It's very disappointing.
Plus points: Ingrid is very cute. Demitri's Midnight Bliss is always a hoot. And I *love* Zangief's ending sequence. It cracks me up every time. |
