My best pal TruKuu travels to compete in or to host video game tournaments several times a year, and it's not all too uncommon for me to tag along with him. I can't always swing it, but whenever I can, it's a good time. I've written about a few of these trips before, and I've meant to write about more of them, but I just never got around to it. This time though, I came prepared. I wrote about the adventure as it was happening, so I had most of this article done before I was back in my own bed. Or, um, the hotel bed I was sleeping in at the time, since a small house fire which occured just a few days before the trip rendered my house ininhabitable for a little bit. That's also part of why it's taken nearly a month to get this article up despite it being written in real time. I'm getting off topic, though... Just read on to see how the weekend played out!
The day before the convention, most of our group headed towards Birmingham earlier in the day, but Iz worked a closing shift that night and he was my ride. We left town at around 9:30pm, but not before stopping at the Circle K for some hot dogs. Oh, and gas. The hot dogs were more important, though. The drive was pretty uneventful—I don't think we stopped even once—and we got to the Airbnb at around 1am. I wasn't that tired, but everyone was winding down at that point so I climbed in bed too. A few notes about the bedroom: I've noticed that a lot of Airbnb houses (meaning the two I've stayed in so far) have these weird bedrooms that are like EXACTLY the size they need to be. This room had 2 queen beds and a dresser between them, and if it was packed any tighter, you wouldn't be able to get the door open. Additionally, even with AC on relatively low and the fan on high, I woke up sweating several times, which as it turns out, is because there were no vents in the bedroom. What, was it a converted pantry or something? Anyways, thanks in part to that, I was up the earliest, so I got in a shower and played some Switch on the TV in the living room. I got in some practice on Katamari Damacy since I planned to enter the tournament. I figured I'd be pretty rusty, but I totally smashed my previous records on all three random levels I played, so maybe not.
We stopped for lunch on the walk to the convention center. One of the guys in our squad told Izzy about a place with some burger which he immediately fell in love with the idea of, but we went to the restaurant and not only did they not have the burger, but everything they did have was SUPER expensive. We made a dash for the door while they were grabbing our waters. Fortunately, there was a burger place called Mugshots in our price range just around the corner. It was a chain we actually have in my town, but the only time I'd been, it was a pretty poor experience. The burgers and service were ROUGH. Thankfully, it was much better this time around. Lunch was saved! Hooray! I got a fairly basic burger, since the last time I ate there, I got something with pineapple on it and it was pretty poorly executed. I'm a firm believer in pineapple going well with savory meats, but a big thick slice just slapped on a burger with juice getting all over everything, yet which also doesn't really deliver any pineapple flavor is gonna be a pass from me.
Once we got to the convention center, I signed up for the tournaments. I entered Street Fighter Alpha 3, Super Smash Bros., Katamari Damacy, Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix. They also had Super Mario Kart, Halo 2 and Super Puyo Puyo Tsu, which I didn't enter. Super Mario Kart has always been an intensely frustrating game for me, I've barely ever played any of the Halo games and puzzle games make me feel like my brain is the size of a cashew. Anyways, once I was registered, I sat down at one of the free play stations to get some practice in on Katamari, and upsettingly, I didn't do too great. I guess I'd never really played that mode all that much. Suddenly my chance of winning flashed before my eyes... I guess skill in the single player mode doesn't exactly transfer over. The Street Fighter Alpha 3 tournament was at 5pm and the Super Smash Bros tournament was at 7:30 and I lost both pretty badly. The controllers they had set out for Street Fighter were abysmal (3rd party XBox 360 controllers?? Seriously??), but I had fun and did vaguely okay in Smash Bros., which had pretty normal controllers at the setups.
Between the tournaments I wandered around the vendor room where the only things I really cared about was the vintage games, but everything I saw was like triple what it should cost, which really sucks, but it's always a toss-up at conventions like this. Either you can find some half decent deals or they want $50 for a loose copy of Super Mario Bros. 3. After the tournaments ended for the day, we got pizza from a local place called Rocky's, which had a boxing theme. Who could've guessed? The pizza was decent! Iz and I split a Rocky Graziano, which had a few different meats and roasted garlic. I'd usually get something with red onion, but Iz hates onions, and I don't like olives, his favorite, so we had to compromise on something. It was pretty good! Could've used onion, though. After that, we headed back to the hotel where I believe I was the first to crash. I had been running on fumes a lot of the night so the rest was much needed.
We headed to the con at around 11am after RizzyDizz shared her leftover pizza for breakfast. I had practiced Katamari a little more that morning so hopes were high. I'd only have an hour to brush up once at the convention before the tournament at 12. I felt even more confident after some practice rounds where I learned just how aggressively you can play. If you get a lead, you can continuously roll up your opponent, then when they break free, you can just grab them again before they have a chance to do anything. The only real option is to do a charge roll and either slam the attacker or dash away before they can get you again. So, the tournament began, and tragedy struck immediately. It was me against TruKuu in the first round. I tried my best, and we were neck and neck, but he gained the lead on me literally one second before the last round ended. I managed to knock out two or three people in the losers' bracket, but further tragedy struck when I went up against a guy dressed as the prince and got beaten handily. I guess I should've trained harder. Oh well...
After that, Iz and l headed back to the vendors. I found a vintage game shop that had actually half decent prices, so I grabbed 4 NES games: Commando, Videomation, Track & Field II and Wild Gunman. None of these were written on my want list, but I'd been wanting Wild Gumnan for a while. It was the last black box Zapper game I needed, so I'm glad to finally have it. It was also the only game I grabbed with any real value. Everything else was like a fiver. Videomation is a "game" I feel like I'd heard of, but hadn't ended up with. It seems to be a super basic art program you control with a NES controller, which doesn't sound amazing, but it does sound kind of fun to mess around with. Commando is... well, I don't know much about it, but it was basically free. There was no price on it, so they assumed it was $5 or less, and I haggled $5 off my total anyway, so yeah, we'll just say it was free. It's from Capcom, so it's probably pretty good! As for Track & Field II, I'll touch on that in just a moment. Iz and I wandered around and stopped by a few more booths, including one selling Mouthwashing charms. Iz loves that game, and though I haven't played it, he gave me one to wear since I work adjacent to it.
For lunch at around 2, Iz and I headed to the Subway across the street. I'm kind of shocked how expensive it is these days. I remember the five dollar footlongs and all their catchy commercial jingles, but now they're fifteen dollar footlongs... How sad. I only ever go to Subway when I have coupons, and now I see that's the right move. If you happen to have a good coupon and you want to try the G-Zone special, it's as follows:
•Italian herbs and cheese footlong
•Grilled chicken
•Provolone cheese
•Toast it
•Cheez Whiz, or whatever they call it
•Red onion
•Garlic aoli
•Sweet onion sauce
•Teriyaki
•A crapton of shredded lettuce
Hits the spot every time! We planned to get drinks at the vending machines back at the convention center, but when we got back there, for whatever reason, both machines thought they were sold out when they had like two dozen unpurchasable Coca-Colas between them. How strange. They were newer vending machines, and somehow, newer technology always seems to be the least reliable. A footlong is $15... Vending machines last 5 years... Dark times. We had good ol' H20 instead. Can't beat the classics!
While we were eating, I looked over my new (to me) NES games, and I remembered something. I bought Track & Field II because I wanted another game that uses the Power Pad. My family loves playing World Class Track Meet, but that's the only compatible game I have, so I wanted to add something else into the mix. However, looking at the cart, my memory was jogged—Track & Field doesn't use the power pad, and neither does its sequel. I also thought I had the first game, but I don't believe I do. I'm fairly certain I was thinking about the aforementioned World Class Track Meet. So, I went back to the booth, and after confirming with the owner, of course, I swapped it out for a game that DOES use the Power Pad: Dance Aerobics. A brief web search seems to indicate that it's like Dance Dance Revolution from the dark ages. Sounds like a good time! Or at least an entertaining time.
At 5pm, we kicked off the Budokai 3 tournament. I actually had a lot of fun and did pretty well, despite not having practiced, not having played the game in general in a while, not knowing any of the advanced tech and not even really knowing any of my moves. I played as Future Trunks in honor of my friend Bea. It was my goal to spill The Drink all over ‘em. I ended up placing 3rd, but unfortunately, they don't award medals for 3rd. I'll get one of those shiny medals and a photo with TruKuu one of these days... Anyways, that was my last tournament for the day, since I didn't enter Halo 2. Iz and I played a Bubble Bobble arcade machine for a while. We made it to stage 65 before I just couldn't take it anymore. Not to say I wasn't having fun, but my feet were killing me and I was just generally exhausted. Being up for 18 hours straight is not something I can do with ease!
We left the convention at 10pm and I was once again totally wiped out. The gang all met up at a place called Al's, but I ended up just sleeping in the car instead. Iz ordered me something to have the next day. I once again was the first awake, so I snuck out into the living room and played some Ace Attorney. Once RizzyDizz was awake, I checked out what Iz had got me from Al's; a giant plate of baked potatoes covered in cheese, chicken and bbq sauce. Yum! Rizzy insisted that it was one giant baked potato, but it looked to me like two more average sized potatoes stuck in the box side by side. I meant to call the place and ask, but maybe it's better to leave it a mystery. Somehow. I dunno.
This was the last day of the event, and the shortest as well, closing at 6pm. I was told that neither Gem Fighter nor Puyo Puyo had enough players to proceed, so I was roped into entering both. At 1pm, I got my butt handed to me in Gem Fighter, again partly thanks to those dog crap 360 pads. I'm choosing not to mention that TruKuu lent me his Sega Saturn gamepad to use, and that the real problem is that I'm just bad at the game. At 3pm, I was force-fed my own socks in Puyo Puyo. That one was just because I don't really play puzzle games. I don't have the foresight to set up combos or anything. My brain just isn't wired for it.
After I was out of the running for Puyo, I went down to the vendors one last time at Izzy's behest to see if they had a copy of the game I had just been murdered in, and I ran into one Mr. Mouse, who helped me find the booth with Super Famicom games again. They didn't have the game, and they probably would've wanted way too much for it anyway. I think the owner of the booth overheard me trash talking his prices, because he sounded really annoyed with me when I asked him something. Lower your prices then, dude! Not everyone was born yesterday! After that, Mouse showed me a booth with some really fun and silly designs on shirts and charms and such. The prices were a little too high for me, but I grabbed a card, which was pleasingly firm and sparkly. Not long after that, Iz and I said our goodbyes and walked back to the car, which we had left in the parking lot for a Topgolf driving range. We chatted with some other "golfers" holding bags of anime merch on the way there, then we hopped in the car and headed on home.
And that's about it from me, but I wanted to get a few words from some of the other attendees in our group, too. Let's see what they had to say!
Mr. TruKuu, what do you think was your best showing at the tournaments?
"That's tough to answer. I felt like there were obvious mistakes in my play for every game, but I had the most fun with Pocket Fighter. There was some engaging footsies gameplay versus TTOM. Getting those walk-up crouching sweeps really got me in a groove.
Sweet! What was the biggest surprise to you? Either in terms of your performance or anything else that went down at the tournaments."
"The biggest surprise was probably Street Fighter Alpha 3 and DBZ Budokai 3 getting more entrants than all the other games. Nothing against the likes of Smash and Halo, but they're really old hat at these kinds of events. It was great to see other games in the top spot for once."
That's true! This event was pretty packed all around I'd say, but there was definitely some hot competition in those two, and don't get me started on Puyo Puyo.
Lastly, what was the non-tournament related highlight of the trip for you?
"As cliche as it sounds to say: Being with my friends. I don't think any of this would be possible without their support."
Aww... Bring it in, brother!
Mr. Mouse, you weren't a part of the tournaments like most of the group was. What kind of things did you get up to at Kami-Con?
"I was in cosplay for most of it, I usually talked to people who wanted pictures."
Right, you were dressed as an SPC Foundation soldier. If I recall correctly, they wouldn't let you bring your non-functioning airsoft gun inside the convention. How sad!
I know you spent a decent chunk of time in the vendor hall. What was your best pickup?
"I got a figure of Holo from Spice and Wolf, the first anime I ever watched."
Very nice! What would you say was your favorite part of the convention, or of the trip as a whole?
"I usually go to cons to cosplay and talk to other cosplayers. I also enjoy walking the vendor room looking for deals. When they have boffer sword fighting, I usually do that way too much, easily my favorite sport."
That sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe I should try that sometime... Thank you for your time, you crazy rodent!
Mr. IzTyping, if that iz your real name, which tournaments did you play in? Did you have a favorite moment in any of your matches?
"puyo puyo was the main one. also katamari damacy. i realized at the beginning of my first match that i was playing someone who had spent hundreds maybe thousands of hours on puyo puyo. i didnt win but i gave him hell, so it felt pretty awesome for him to go 'damn you made that tough! gg!' "
I'm glad you got to show off your Puyo skills!
We didn't split up that much, but when we did, what kind of things did you get up to?
"checking out the different games! played a bit of everything. enjoyed watching the fighting game tournaments, lol. and i also went to the vocaloid concert! cool to see hatsune miku on the big screen"
Wow... the real Miku...
Last but not least, at the con or out of it, what was your favorite part of the trip overall?
"trukuu kicking butt. nah but seriously, i like having fun pals and games different stuff to do all in the same place. and seeing all the mouthwashing fans was really cool."
I agree. Hanging out with friends and playing video games; what's not to like? The Mouthwashing stuff was really cool, too. That game exploded in popularity FAST, and I'm helping with Gimmiko from the same publisher, so I kept counting all the cosplays as like, a second or thirdhand win for me. Is that weird? Maybe that's weird. Oh well.
Well, that's that! Hopefully I'll have more fun adventures to write about before too long. For now, though, that's all I have to say. Thanks for reading!