On The Scene 1: Norcal Regionals 10

A major... there's something special about them. Everything is better. Take your normal excitement for a local fighting game tournament and multiply it by 20. Norcal Regionals 2012 was in my backyard this time, at SF state University. So this time there was extra incentive to get hype.


I woke up Saturday morning feeling pretty good from a pre-tourney BBQ. My pool (competition round) started at 5pm so I was able to warm up before heading to sf state. The weather was rainy but there was a calm. A stable feeling of intense competition that blocked all experiences.

I got to regionals and was happy to see people setting casuals in the lobby (I was kinda bummed when kineda announced that he had no plans to have byoc stations.) Walked upstairs to the hall and thought three things ... Nice, this is pretty big. Damn it's hot. There is not enough space. Norcal regionals was like the biggest arcade. You could feel the serious vibe was in every patron. After hanging out and checking out the VF5 booth I got to my UMVC3 (Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3) pool. Pool J was on stream so we started a little early. My first match I went two and out. I messed up a pretty good lead and just didn't have enough defense to hold on. After the match I went to check out other matches. After about 20 minutes I checked on my pool and it moved. I was kinda confused at first because the people just changed completely but there were still matches going on at the table. Since my name wasn't called I asked a ref and she said that my pool moved and pointed me in a general direction. I found my pool in time but that experience was bad and it could have been really bad if I was DQ'ed (disqualified) from my loser's match. I went 2 and out on my second game , getting happy birthday'ed (when a player combos you and your assist character) left me with little chance for a comeback.

After my pool I stuck around to watch some matches. Luckily I found a seat and watched some of the VF5 on the jumbo screen. I went out of the hall and got some grub on campus. Nothing left to do but live vicariously through friends that made it to the next round and meet with people from other crews. All in all Norcal Regionals was what it has always been , top tier serious business fighting games. If you want to test your skill this is a good place to be.

Still I left thinking that I really should have paid earlier for the cheaper rate. The $60 late registration deal was worth it to me but I cant really argue the value for any one else. If I pay 60 dollars my pool should not move or it should at least always be easy to see my pool and assignment. Second I should have some space to spectate , need more space, either bigger hall or multiple rooms. Also BYOC ... every fighting game tournament host should make sure that there is a BYOC section... there was an unofficial one in the lobby but it should have been official and made known to the public. BYOC is a feature of fighting game tournaments that kills downtime , allows people to warmup and meet and brings out all the side games that we play but are not hosted by the main tournament. This makes the event worth more to a broader group. Norcal Regionals is getting really big. I hope it gets bigger and I hope the atmosphere stays as hype as it was this regionals and I hope there is a room big enough to fill that hype comfortably.