SoulCalibur 1 Tournament Videos

[Mantis2K]

Please help expand this list of surviving SoulCalibur 1 tournament videos...

I remember when SC first came to London arcades in 1998 as a beta version, with a few selectable characters, and thus far remains undumped for the MAME arcade emulation project. Performing A+B attacks resulted in the screen turning dark - hence, originally, some significance must have been placed on those types of attacks!

As I know the first Nationals tournament was held in the US in 1998 (won by Srayer using Nightmare) followed closely by a tournament in London also in 1998 (won by a Taiwanese player named Sean/Shawn/Shaun using Mitsurugi). Sadly, none of these were recorded.

The original soulcalibur.com website and forum was run by this amazingly talented dude named Jason Arney who wasn't too dissimilar from Bruce Lee - he avoided fighting in Tournaments - but showcased his skills in a number of skill projects:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000817092726/http://www.soulcalibur.com:80/system.html

From Jason Arney in 2014:
"that era was well before the predominance of youtube so it was very hard to make recordings of tournaments"
"i did play many thousands of hours in the US and Japan"
"uh... i was very strong in 1, but there was strong people in japan. as for 2, i trained up the chicago scene because i couldn't enter the official events and chicago won the nationals
i won the first 19 chicago tournaments before retiring from fighting games"
"in the US it wouyld have been me, fetz, srayer
in france DTN, saitoh
in japan, fugu and dekacho"
"yea, i think fugu is the only unknown one to most people"
"i retired from fighting games in the late era of SC2"
"well, i enjoyed FPS competitive for a while, but i rarely touch games now... mostly photography"

The 2 aforementioned Japanese players can be seen in these recently surfaced 1999-2000 Beat-Tribe videos, which were most likely the earliest ones ever recorded - still using the arcade version (with the Voldo airgrab glitch) around the same time the Dreamcast version was released:
http://www.avoidingthepuddle.com/ne...nese-soul-calibur-3on3-tournament-videos.html
Incidentally, there's a nice FAQ that described the changes between SC1 arcade and SC1 Dreamcast:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/dreamcast/198705-soulcalibur/faqs/2725
Who can come up with something similar for SCIII vs. SCIIIAE...?

Anyhow, here's the only other SC1 tourny vids I could find - mostly featuring French players in 2001 and 2002 (I believe HAX might have been from the UK?):

KayaneSF channel

SC1 Kayane(Xianghua) vs Fetz(Taki) - YouTube

SC1 Kayane (Xianghua) vs Hax (Cervantes)

wolvied channel

2K2 Soulcalibur 1 DTN(Nightmare) vs Fetz(Taki) 1 2002
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGKvaZ-nCHY

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Taki) 2 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPyghgqydf0

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Taki) 4 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu0nrW1iCb8

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Taki) 5 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssi0edw83jU

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Yoshimitsu) VS Fetz (Maxi) 7
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vcg1nbZ0tw

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Maxi) 8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAlLGB4iOtg

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Maxi) 9 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ8o5Nv7WnU

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Maxi) 10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txC27029b24

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Dtn Dan (Nigthmare) VS Fetz (Kilik) 11
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPX08a6qOiQ

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Kilik) 1 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9NtSMqKPrY

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Kilik) 2 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgIr36zQ7Ug

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Kilik) 3 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2de-4LQFA3w

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Kilik) 4 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGpBNBQMGP0

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Ivy) VS Fetz (Sophitia) 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTieRbQhYuA

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Taki) 6 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHEI-ewHNt0

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Taki) 7
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Wyr_pzGFg

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Taki) 8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=waVuvrnbZq4

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Asenka (Cervantes) VS Fetz (Maxi) 9
www.youtube.com/watch?v=urCnxYJyyog

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Kayane (Xianghua) VS Fetz (Taki) 1 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dca-3TrTP84
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x467cn_sc1-kayane-xian-vs-taki-fetz-p-01_videogames

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Kayane (Xianghua) VS Fetz (Taki) 2 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iQADF9cRkc
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x46540_sc1-kayane-xian-vs-taki-fetz-p-02_videogames

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Kayane (Xianghua) VS Fetz (Taki) 3 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Mnp8CsGAU
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x467b9_sc1-kayane-xian-vs-taki-fetz-p-03_videogames

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Kayane (Xianghua) VS Fetz (Taki) 4 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr1mj7RxvYg
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x467d3_sc1-kayane-xian-vs-taki-fetz-p-04_videogames

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Mark (Mitsurugi) VS Fetz (Taki) 1 - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAPuQ11Ymg

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Mark (Mitsurugi) VS Fetz (Taki) 2 - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RF5wgXQg_4

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Mark (Mitsurugi) VS Fetz (Taki) 3 - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1FiFl1UcA8

2K2 Soulcalibur1 Mark (Yoshimitsu) VS Fetz (Maxi) 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGGIE1f2fEM

hayatesama2012 channel

SC1 Fetz at France April 2002 Hayate(Hwang) vs Fetz(Kilik ... 1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvCsz6OPAS4

SC1 Fetz at France April 2002 Hayate(Hwang) vs Fetz(Kilik ... 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QI1jGHd1Wo

Soulcalibur 1 Hayate(Hwang) vs Fetz(Kilik) 3 - YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxb0lcBswJI

SC1 Kayane(Xianghua) vs Fetz(Taki)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItfT3T0QxRE

SC1 Kayane(Xianghua) vs Hax(Cervantes) - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl8JhIy9Xfk

SC1 Kayane(Xianghua) vs Fetz(Taki) - MeFeedia
http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/67095759

SC1 Kayane(Xianghua) vs Fetz(Taki) - Dinovideo
http://www.dinovideo.org/watch/sc1-kayane-xianghua-vs-fetz-taki

Sc1 Kayane(xianghua) Vs Fetz(taki) watch | download
http://videoixir.net/watch/7659598/sc1-kayanexianghua-vs-fetztaki.html

SC1 Dan(Yoshimitsu) vs John(Cervantes) - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPfz1irWt-k

The following year in 2003, the SCII Nationals was held in Las Vegas and the Super Battle Opera (SBO/Tougeki) featuring Fetz from the US was held in Japan, but it seems that France was actually the first to hold an SCII tournament (as early as 2002) known as the World Cyber Games (WCG) tournament.

 

[Hayate]

I'am also researching old SC1 matchs.... unfortunetaly I got a lost a big DVD of it ...

 

[Mantis2K]

I found a couple more interesting vids:

This guy might have been the real expert behind the WCMaxi skill projects?
http://web.archive.org/web/20040404130452/guardimpact.com/skill/skillproject.php?edition=maxi

Here's a very interesting official promo video showcasing the game mechanics of the arcade version of SC1:

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be from that elusive beta/test version I'm trying to find...

Where's all the 1998-2002 USA tournament videos, guys??? There ought to be a ton of them!

 

[Master_Thespian]

I found a couple more interesting vids:

This guy might have been the real expert behind the WCMaxi skill projects?
http://web.archive.org/web/20040404130452/guardimpact.com/skill/skillproject.php?edition=maxi

Here's a very interesting official promo video showcasing the game mechanics of the arcade version of SC1:

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be from that elusive beta/test version I'm trying to find...

Where's all the 1998-2002 USA tournament videos, guys??? There ought to be a ton of them!

Interesting. Xianghua does a move that I've never seen before, Ivy has different versions of moves, and Astaroth causes some blockstuns on Voldo I've never seen before, and I played every arcade version of SC1 back in 98/99. Are you sure these aren't from the beta version? What's significant about the version you're looking for?

 

[Marginal]

Where's all the 1998-2002 USA tournament videos, guys??? There ought to be a ton of them!

There was no video hosting site at the time so all the videos were shared via downloads if there were any. Not a ton of people had capable capture equipment and since there was no viable streaming there wasn't a huge incentive to drag that equipment to tournaments anyway. A lot of it if it was recorded is probably on a dusty VHS tape somewhere.

 

[Mantis2K]

Here's a sample of some of those "lost" tournaments:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000831181824/http://www.soulcalibur.com:80/tourney.html
Unfortunately, Youtube turned up nothing for those keywords, alas.

This means... SoulCalibur 1 competition is preserved exclusively through Japanese and French videos only; UK and US is totally lacking in the historic video record except for WCMaxi's skill project videos (Fetz and Hax were merely visitors to foreign countries - recorded away from their home turf). That now makes me wish I had recorded those matches with Sean, the UK SC1 champion from Taiwan; a few of us even got together in August 1999 when I was the first to get the imported Japanese Dreamcast version. If only if only I had set up the VCR back then to record... :(

Hopefully, one day, something will turn up... Here's hoping SC6 gets the old fans back into this and encourages VHS tape excavations from way back when...

 

[Mantis2K]

Interesting. Xianghua does a move that I've never seen before, Ivy has different versions of moves, and Astaroth causes some blockstuns on Voldo I've never seen before, and I played every arcade version of SC1 back in 98/99. Are you sure these aren't from the beta version? What's significant about the version you're looking for?

Cheers for sharing the observations - could you possibly take some screenshots showing the timecode where you saw these?
This sounds like it could be in-between the beta version and the final version because the beta version only had a few characters, and the screen went dark during A+B attacks.

 

[Master_Thespian]

Cheers for sharing the observations - could you possibly take some screenshots showing the timecode where you saw these?
This sounds like it could be in-between the beta version and the final version because the beta version only had a few characters, and the screen went dark during A+B attacks.

EDIT: 8WR ate my time stamps...

X didn't have this move in the final game:
7:43
Ivy's whip-pull move didn't produce this kind of hit effect:
10:16
Ivy didn't do the kick before laying the whip down:
10:22
Astaroth makes Voldo stagger in a way I don't ever recall seeing:
12:12
and again at:
12:16

 

[Mantis2K]

Cool! How about these Mitsu transitions:
8:18 - 2KB into.... possible?
11:00 - does this move (BB?) usually transition into mist?

 

[Master_Thespian]

Cool! How about these Mitsu transitions:
8:18 - 2KB into.... possible?
11:00 - does this move (BB?) usually transition into mist?

Yeah, you just hit 6 after those moves to transition to Mist.

 

[Mantis2K]

Yeah, you just hit 6 after those moves to transition to Mist.

Right you are - I just checked an old command list! Both can indeed transition into mist in the arcade version.

 

[Mantis2K]

I was testing the MAME versions - VER A2 being the oldest - but it's not possible to do Voldo's 1K~6G+B air grab glitch, so I guess I must have been playing an even earlier version back in the day - I wonder if that contained X's move? So it seems we are missing a few earlier dumps of the arcade ROMs.

 

[Frayhua]

I was testing the MAME versions - VER A2 being the oldest - but it's not possible to do Voldo's 1K~6G+B air grab glitch, so I guess I must have been playing an even earlier version back in the day - I wonder if that contained X's move? So it seems we are missing a few earlier dumps of the arcade ROMs.

Maybe it's the beta version of 4A+B.

 

[Mantis2K]

I found out that Voldo's air throw is possible in MAME - but I had the command wrong - it ends in G+K not G+B:
"Air Grab
Like the fearsome man of action he is Voldo can actually grab airborne opponents just like Astaroth with his G+K throw. The throw is escapable with the standard A escape but it allows you to do some high damage combos such as these:"
https://web.archive.org/web/20000621092604/http://soulcalibur.com:80/systemtec.html"

 

[Mantis2K]

Perhaps something can be discerned here regarding X's lost move... this was published prior to even Yoshimitsu being time released in the arcade version.

 

[Master_Thespian]

If I had to guess, I'd say the missing move was removed even before this was published. It was a vertical 5 hitting move or series, and there's nothing in the move list that would fit that description or isn't something that remained in the game.

 

[Mantis2K]

Here's an excerpt taken from an article I wrote about concerning my life in 1998, covering the UK SoulCalibur arcade scene in a bit more detail:

"
1998 was probably ranked 2nd best year to 1994 (if not to the 2010 Massacre Survivor showings!) for one reason: SoulCalibur! This game came to Namco Wonderpark arcade in 1998 as a beta version - but the full version was soon released and spread to several arcades throughout London. This game was like the most amazing technical 3D fighter since Killer Instinct - for the more intellectual crowd, you might say! Like Tekken 3 it utilised the "time release" system where every couple of a weeks a new character would be added to the roster - beginning with Lizardman, Hwang or Yoshimitsu (I can't remember). The Internet was still relatively new and the official SoulCalibur website was an awe-inspiring achievement - way ahead of it's time - with a forum community of the first generation SC players from around the globe to boot. I would visit this website often together with emulation sites (very popular and progressive during the late 90s with now defunct sites like EmuNews) whilst on PCs in Bromley College town hall in Bromley North (they had a better computer room than in our main campus at Bromley South). One could visit the forum to check out strategies, frame data and other information, including secret moves like Voldo's air throw and Hwang's soul charge cancels. This whole SoulCalibur enterprise was forged by a man named Jason Arney AKA WCMaxi working for Namco who, through various system/advanced sections of the website and skill project videos, documented the underlying mechanics of the SoulCalibur engine with it's 8-way run freedom of movement and combos with names such as "Beautiful Rhythm" (for the Chinese girl character Xianghua). When you weren't playing the game the attract mode would show off the characters performing very realistic forms or katas based on real martial arts and weapons - a major step-up from the days of the Killer Instinct CGI videos and also playing my friend Hung on the prequel, Soulblade. Around this time I wrote a few guides for SC that were published on GameFAQs (a couple of years later for Guilty Gear X). My sparring partner was Mr. MG aka Mark Griffin who had opened a website named Fighters.NET and was writing his own FAQ for SoulCalibur. A tournament in Namco Wonderpark (London) had been announced for October 1998, and Mark had several months to train for it (I wasn't really competitive until the following year). Mark used to give me a lift in his flash, somewhat classic, MG car that he drove for his namesake, and used to park up opposite St. Thomas' hospital A&E department, not far from Westminster Bridge. The venue was Namco Station, County Hall, considered a somewhat secret location where other SC players did not tend to visit, though they certainly would have known about it. The best players were Waidat Chan working in Internet security (who was heavily into this game more than us) and a guy from Taiwan named Sean who wore sandals. They were all based at Wonderpark with a small Asian guy who used to attract all the girls on the Konami dancing game upstairs. There was also a perl CGI programmer named Kai (real name: Elliot Brooks) who lived in a very expensive flat in the West End as well as a Hwang player from Holland or Hungary whose name escapes me. I remember a short middle eastern looking guy with glasses who used Kilik. The machines were maintained and we were looked after by a charming young man who worked at Wonderpark and looked somewhat Jewish, named Cedric; I think it was possibly through his enthusiasm for Lizardman that we had about 2-3 big screen versions of this game and later 4 small screen versions in Wonderpark alone. At county hall, Mark was free to write his FAQ and study in peace. I was there as a spare part - not much use, really!

:) Mark became adept at all players - but only played against the computer and myself - a costly mistake! Come October Mark was ready to meet the others for the Wonderpark tournament (I think it was hosted by Derrick Lynch of Gamesmaster) using the generic character named EdgeMaster who took on a random character moveset each round; Mark thought he could surprise Sean and Waidat by being a good all-rounder. Unfortunately, he lost in the tournament quite badly as the others had gained more relevant fighting experience against other humans specialising in single or fewer characters. Sean/Shawn (I think Shawn was the correct spelling) took the championship with Mitsurugi, but there was no photos or videos. That was the last time I saw Mark Griffin - he had moved on from the County Hall arcade circle to being around the bar - now only interested in drink and women - reminds me of Prang from King of the Kickboxers. I heard there had also been a Nationals tournament in Japan (or USA?), where US Namco entrepreneur WCMaxi/Jarney was based (when he wasn't East Coast or West Coast USA based); Jason reported a guy named Srayer had taken that championship. There was no photos/videos for this either, but Srayer was later featured in the SC2 Nationals a couple of years later. Meanwhile, SoulCalibur was released on Dreamcast the following year, in 1999. I had the Japanese version with 2 arcade sticks before everyone else, and Sean, Waidat Chan, the blond/ginger headed European Hwang player all came to visit my Catford home for friendly competition. WCMaxi could have probably beaten everyone, including Srayer, but there was never any videos of him in match-up play - only exhibition matches in the form of skill project videos.
"

P.S. There was also a guy named Jason in the UK who used Yoshimitsu. Possibly another Chinese guy named "Chi". That's all I recall.

 

[WCMaxi]

Surprisingly recent thread... I guess, if there's some SC1 question I can tap my memory to try to answer. Fire away.