Meet Your Mod Episode 24: Urichinan

This Week: Urichinan

- Why did you choose that particular handle, is there a story or reference you'd like to explain?

I actually came up with the name Urichinan (Ud-ee-chi-non) when I first joined Dustloop. As I was signing up I realized that I didn't have a handle, so I just started randomly punching in letters until I found one that I liked the look/sound of. And that's how I ended up with the title. However, a lot of people know me as WoZscreamer, which is an old PSN account that I shared with my brother-in-law, he named it after the band he was in (Wake of Zion) and eventually he decided to make a new account after I had added a lot of friends. Technically it wasn't even mine, but everyone had come to know me as WoZ, so I kept it. It wasn't until a few months ago that I decided to take Urichinan on as my handle.

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- What is your background with fighting games...Did you start with BB or are your OG like SFII?

I've been playing fighting games since I was a little kid. The first game I ever played was Mortal Kombat 3 with my dad when I was about 3 or 4, I played it everyday until I found a new game to play, which was Soul Calibur 2 and Tekken. It continued like that for years, I cycled through all the fighting games I could find, from Clay Fighters, Final Fight, King of Fighter, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear to Soul Calibur, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Smash Brothers, Killer Instinct, the Godzilla fighting game and more. I wanted them all. Even though I played all of these games though, I never took any of them competitively, because, well, I was a kid. I didn't find out about tournaments and competitive fighting games until I got BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, which is what started my REAL fighting game career.

About a month into CT's lifespan I met some players named Hellknight_10, Hitoshura89, ForTheBunnies, Gran-Turismo-Man (Bolverk-GTM) and KuroNoArcana (xkurotsukix) who I started regularly talking to and playing with, and they helped me start from the ground up at becoming good at fighting games. They tought me about all the terms, how matchups worked, what the different gameplay mechanics did and how to level up my game, they also told me about Dustloop, which is how I got here. If it wasn't for them and their support (As well as others like DinDragmire, MisterBadguy, ShinSyn, LokiRamza and NeoGio0o) I wouldn't have ever reached the point that I'm at today in the competitive scene.

Now though, I only play BlazBlue/Skullgirls/Soul Calibur competitively, I tried to shift my focus to only a few games that I really loved, and just try to help the communities for those games. I'm very interested in Persona 4: Arena though, and will probably be playing that as well.

- What competitive scene are you involved with? (Ranbats, Arcades, XBL, PSN, Reload Online etc.) Would you elaborate the benefits of this particular scene?

The only scene I'm relatively active in is Rock 'em Sock 'em in Concord/Charlotte North Carolina, but due to my age, I can't attend it often. However, once I get my license I hope to travel out to more scenes in the North/South Carolina areas, and possibly start a scene of my own.

Aside from that, I'm a die-hard PSN player, that's where I spend all of my time. Sadly, it's online, and online has it's problems, but you deal with it when that's all you have.

As far as being competitive goes, I practice day and night in hopes of becoming one of the top US BB/SG players. My parents have also been very helpful with buying me equipment for tournaments and driving me out to tournaments whenever there is one that we can go to. I try to make as many tournaments as I can, but my dream is to compete in a major, or play at EVO.

- How strong do you feel your nation is as a whole, what is the next step to strengthening it?

I think the fighting game community is strong, and this has become increasingly more apparent with new sponsors and tournaments coming about lately. (Such as CBS and MLG) But there's always more that can be done to support it. (More streams, advertising, merchandise, tournaments, etc.) I think the biggest factor in growing as a community is for more players to show up at tournaments, and for people to quit being so petty when it comes to the games they want to support. For me, that's what's hurting the fighting game community the most, the fact that players don't want to accept other games into the genre, and want to stay confined to what they like the most, instead of welcoming other communities and their games. If the fighting game cummunity as whole would come together, instead of being spread apart, then I think fighting games would be one of the strongest and most competitive sports out there.

- Which player(s) give you the most trouble and why?

Nineball_Infininite, SuperKawaiiDesu, howling-_-moon, LostSoul and OmniScythe are the players that give me the most trouble. Their level of skill and understanding of BlazBlue is just frightening, and I suffer every time that I fight one of them. They're my goal, I want to be able to beat all of these players on a regular basis.

Why they give me trouble though, is because they have the perfect mix of patience and offense, something I do not have yet. My issues are that I crack under pressure, I can't handle unpredictable setups and I try to rushdown too much, which they know, and they abuse. So that's what I know I need to work on, but each of them have helped me improve my game, offering tips and practicing with me every once in a while.

- What has been the most helpful tool while growing stronger in BB?

Practice, and friends. A lot of people underestimate what good friends can help you acheive with their support. If I didn't have a good set of friends who play BB competitively, then I would never have been able to get decent at the game. They were the ones who helped me get better, and are still the ones who help me when I need to practice, or have to level up my game.

Practice is the most important aspect of getting better though, and I'm not just talking about training mode, but keeping at it with matches, and not giving up when you don't succeed. That's the worst thing you can do, give up, and it's what most players do, which is why they've never reached the level they want to be at. You have to practice, practice and practice!

- Is there anything you'd like to share regarding your respective character or Dustloop in general?

Painwheel is a tricky character, Skullgirls has only been out for a week, so there is still a ton of time for the game and Painwheel to grow. But as it stands right now, Painwheel is the highest risk/reward character there is in the game. She benefits from making the other player take an offensive approach, because she has a lot of super armor on her attacks, and she absorbs the damage she takes, then deals it back on top of her attack's base damage. Knowing this, a lot of players choose to be patient against her, which is where her heavy mixup/reset game comes in using her flight mode.

Although Painwheel has a lot of tools, resets, mixup options and good damage, she is severly unsafe and she's very slow. Her ability to approach the opponent is weak, and the range on a lot of her quick attacks are very short, making it difficult to be effective without assists.

Assists is another thing Painwheel is weak in, she doesn't have much to offer a team with her attacks, because she it primarily an airborne character. So she's at her strongest when used as a point character, with good assists backing her up.

Overall, I think Painwheel is one of the best characters in Skullgirls, but you have to focus your team a lot on what's good for her, which makes it hard to use her correctly. Aside from her complex gameplay style and odd movement, I feel that Painwheel is a very natural character for most players coming from a MvC2 or Guilty Gear scene.

Litchi though, will forever hold the key to my heart, I'll never quit playing BlazBlue because of Litchi, even once the series ends, I'll still play it, just for her. She is without a doubt, my favorite character in history.

Even though I mod a SG character, BlazBlue will always be my main game, but that's not to say Skullgirls won't always be there too.

I love Dustloop, I've been here for 3 years, and it was a dream come true the day I became a mod. (On my birthday too!) I'll always be here on Dustloop, supporting the community and players, as well as the games. I spend most of my time here answering questions and trying to provide as much information as I can, because that's what Dustloop is all about, and that's what I want it to always be about.