Hey everyone, this is my first post, so I figured this would be a good thread to introduce myself.
I'm an Apharmd and Raiden player (in any VO game, from VOOM, to VOOT and even in that strange one called VO:MARZ), which is interesting considering both VRs are completely different.
I'm from Portugal, so unfortunately the VO scene is quite limited around here.
I played Virtual ON for the first time when I was around 16 years old on a local arcade and the first VR I used was Raiden. I loved the twin stick controls, at the time it really felt like you were in a big mecha-simulator causing everything to explode and firing massive lasers all over the place. Of course, technique wise, while I was playing it on the arcades, I was pretty poor, since my only opponents were the AI controlled VRs.
Some time later, VOOM was released for the Saturn, so I was overjoyed; I RAN to buy it the moment my local store called saying it had arrived.
I started experimenting with different VRs there, realising that I really liked Apharmd (curiously enough, a VR I never used when playing in the arcades), it was then that I started to try and learn the game's techniques with some friends of mine who were also VO fans (the very few people I knew that also had the game and even knew what it was about).
Time passed, I heard VOOT was released for the arcades, but it unfortunately never made it here to Portugal.
Enter the Dreamcast and news of its release as an upgraded version compared to the arcade revisions; I was overjoyed, but that joy didn't last long, it was announced the game would NOT be released in Portugal. I felt like hitting someone, really hard, with tonfas.
But I didn't give up, I started checking online stores and quickly imported the US version, along with a disc so that I could boot a different region game in my European DC.
Bliss, pure, bliss, that's what VOOT was for me.
Extremely tight controls, very responsive VRs, unprecedented complexity for a "mecha game", I just started playing the game non-stop, once again going through all the VRs, but realising that, just like before, my favorites were Apharmd-B and Raiden once again.
Fortunately I had some friends who also liked the game, so I didn't have to be limited to the AI VRs for opponents.
My friends, however, played it mostly for fun and not really to go "deep" in the game, unlike me. I tended to be the victor very very often, specially when using Apharmd-B.
I started practicing against the AI in training mode, but with inverted screens. As in, the screen I was seeing was the AI, not mine, I was "blind fighting", and I used only Apharmd-B to practice this blind fighting method.
Eventually I started playing with my friends like that, we'd set the "training dummy" to be controlled by Player 2 and I'd use that.
It may sound silly, but they didn't mind, they knew I wanted to try and improve, and didn't mind helping with that.
Eventually, it didn't matter, I kept winning anyway, going for infighting, circling them, then moving away, it probably helped that we used the same stage often, so I sort of started to know the entire arena without trully seeing it, so I knew where to dash to hide behind something, where to jump, etc, was pretty fun.
Eventually, I stopped having someone to play the game with, I kept practicing against the AI, but it wasn't the same.
I later bought the Japanese version of VOOT because I wanted to have the extras that were included, as well as for a collector's purpose thing.
VO:Force was never released outside of Japan, so that was a VO game I completely missed, like most of us here did most likely.
Along came VO:MARZ, no European release, so, once again, import was the way to go.
I got it, started playing it... ack... I'm stuck as TEMJIN? Oh well... why does it feel like I'm moving the VR through jello? Anyway... ok, where's the left turbo functions?
I made a REALLY big effort to like the game though, I played it quite a lot, started to enjoy it a little bit more the moment I unlocked Apharmd-J, the spiritual successor of Apharmd-B... but it felt like I was playing with an Apharmd with a big prison ball attached to its ankles AND one arm tied behind its back... suddenly I started to like VO:MARZ less and less. While I found the 2 VS 2 thing interesting, specially the moments in story mode where it was me VS 3 or 4 other VRs, it wasn't enough.
I stopped playing VO:MARZ due to pure frustration and went to several online sites, looking for a Naomi Board to purchase, and found one, with the goal of getting VOOT 5.66 with all the extras and tweaks that were included that were never brought to any home version of VOOT.
So, I got the Naomi, but never, EVER, managed to find a VOOT 5.66 for sale.
Along came the news of VOOT 5.66 for the 360, at the same time I managed to get my hands on the Japanese only VOOT Customization Disc 5.66 for the Dreamcast.
And the rest, is history, so here I am.
If some people wish to have a closer look at the extra VRs included in VOOT 5.66, I can take some screenshots of them (since they're in the VOOT Customization Disc 5.66) and posting here for all to see.
Edit: Jesus Christ, just saw how BIG my post was, sorry about that! XD
