Last night, the very last match in the Reset Generation Invitational finally arrived. GameCyte, having battled its way past highly respected journalists Evan van Zelfden, Brandon Boyer, and Joe Blancato, stood battered, bruised, and rescue-weary on one side of the battlefield. On the other side loomed the mighty Chris Hudak of Evergeek Media, still bloodied from his victories over representatives from gaming media pillars like Destructoid, MTV Multiplayer, and PC World. Both of us had rescued half a dozen princesses apiece, and each cast a greedy eye towards the other’s castle. It was time to fight our final battle, and when all was said and done, one of us would be two princesses wealthier, proving once and for all who was the retro champion.
The match went the full three rounds, culminating in a bitterly-fought, back-and-forth struggle for dominance, with a number of near-fatal moves and an unexpected shift in power that, when the pixellated smoke had cleared, left GameCyte standing triumphant with the final princess safely in our castle. We salute Mr. Hudak for an excellent, nail-biting game, and we acknowledge him as our equal on the field of Reset Generation combat. Any princess would be lucky to have him.
Relive our triumph in a blow-by-blow recount of the final match, and watch the replay for yourself, after the break!
As we had in both of our previous games, both Evergeek and GameCyte selected the Monster Trainer as our avatar. Her ability to color blocks and inflict damage from anywhere on the map is like having a spare grenade and paintbrush all in one, on demand, making her an extremely powerful character, and we clearly both recognized it. Our roles were cast, placing Evergeek on the side of Yellow, while GameCyte took Red. Evergeek would get the first move in each round, but we would have a better choice of each round’s random item drops.
The match started cautiously, with each side playing a defensive game — both sides lay their blocks close to home, and jockeyed for position near powerful items while staying out of attack range. Then, without warning, first blood was struck by Evergeek in a fearsome triple-whammy:
Cannonballing a board-altering paintbrush next to us, Evergeek then proceeded to lay an offense-increasing combo that put his Trainer right next to ours, and gave us a powerful zap. Less than 90 seconds into the game, and we were already down to 60% health! Needless to say, we did what any stalwart warrior would do in the face of such an affront.
We ran like hell and grabbed a ring of invisibility like cowardly little cheaters. It would keep us from getting beaten to a pulp, anyway, but it would do precious little to improve our overall situation. Over the next three rounds, Evergeek would use a cunning combination of paintbrushes, BFGPs, and good old American knowhow to cover the board with yellow blocks while crippling every one of our combos, leaving us with only a meager wall of defense surrounding our own castle. A handily-placed paintbrush allowed us to try regaining some ground, but Evergeek was only too ready for this strategy.
With enough of our combos to fill his own special-move meter, Evergeek made a play for the win, running back to their own castle and deploying the Monster Trainer’s aforementioned Evil Dark Wizard. In one fell swoop, not only would the wizard disrupt our best combo on the board, but unleash a devastating attack on our already damaged character. Suffering a KO in combat automatically drops one’s princess into the attacker’s arms, and with Evergeek having returned to their own castle, such an occurrence would spell an instant loss for us. We grimaced and prepared for the worst… but when we opened our eyes, we were still kicking, reduced to a mere sliver of health. One more attack like that would finish us, and we scrambled to mount a new defense.
Teleporting across the board, out of the line of fire of any BFGPs, we started playing our cannons disruptively, making sure Evergeek wasn’t left with a clear path to run over and finish us by hand. Evergeek, in turn, watched and waited — one fortuitously dropped grenade, or summon box, or other offensive item, and we were done for. Unfortunately, this strategy of inevitability would prove to be their undoing.
As we claimed another paintbrush to color the board more to our favor, Evergeek removed themselves from our newly colored blocks and retreated to the safety of their own castle. Evergeek’s princess, however, was having none of it: Having already returned home earlier without our princess in tow, the charming Princess Evergeek angrily condemned their overextended stay with a declaration of “No camping!” and delivered a punishing kick to their character, punting them out of the castle by force. Evergeek’s own princess had given us the go-ahead, whittling down a portion of their health bar, and leaving them right next to our new combo blocks. And, after all of those combos Evergeek had laid earlier, our special power bar had just filled. It was time to turn the match around.
In as powerful an offensive one-two as we could muster, we dashed over and delivered a combo-powered zap, cutting their remaining health in half… and we called upon our Evil Dark Wizard to do the rest.
When the explosive move had finished, Evergeek had been sent back to their home castle, and we had their health-boosting princess in our clutches. A couple of spring-boosted homeward dashes later, it was all over.
We would like to thank Chris once again for an excellent and exciting finish to a long, challenging tournament. We couldn’t have asked for a trickier opponent, and we hope the seven princesses he rescued during his matches will take good care of him. To Nokia, to all of our honorable foes, and to all of you readers who cheered us on, thank you for a wonderful time. We’ll leave you with the video of our final triumph, so that we might bask in its insanely lucky glory.
See you on the playground of our youth!
September 17th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Now, for heaven’s sake, will someone get those princesses some coats? They’re going to get a frightful chest cold, the way they’re going about.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Congratulations Mr.Henning in your first video game tournament representing Gamecyte. Keep up the great work.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Way to go Jesse! nice write up