Euro Fantasy Strike Players Series: #2

This is the second post in an on-going series where I’m going to interview and find out more about the European members of the Fantasy Strike community. (see #1 Nok here)

This time I wanted to talk to a much newer player I didn’t know much about, but who had already impressed me with his really strong play when I’d faced him online, and also commentated his matches on my stream: Kingheim.

My real name is Sébastien. I play as Kingheim on Fantasy Strike and on Steam, and I also play Fantasy Strike on the Switch as Switchheim. The name Kingheim comes from a concatenation of two Tekken character’s names – King + Heihachi Mishima, (King + Hei + M). Tekken was my first competitive fighting game since 2002-2003. I’m from France, born in North of France, I’ve lived 3 years near Paris for work and just came back in the North since this week.

I actually bought Fantasy Strike during Steam Early Access, as I like to try a lot of different fighting games, but I only played it for an hour or so back then, and I had a few issues with my controller, so I left the game for a while. However a few months ago, I had a holiday and some free time, and the game had been fully released – so I tried it again and I had no issue with my controller any more, so I just checked the in-game tutorials and then went online!

Remy: You’re the first French player of Fantasy Strike that I’ve known of – do you know any other French players of FS?

No, I also haven’t heard of another French player. There is a small fighting game scene in my new city though, so I hope to meet them. I know some Smash players and BlazBlue players, so maybe some will play Fantasy Strike.

My favourite FS character is Midori – it’s very satisfying to learn to use the parry and the Dragon. My close 2nd favourite character is DeGrey. The character I least like playing against is Geiger as his reversal is so good. Grave I also don’t like to play against, but he’s a little less annoying for me. Also, Argagarg is not a fun matchup for Midori.

I’m not very familiar with the FS world and storyline (Yomi is in my Steam wishlist however), but there is a sort-of ‘evil Midori’ who appears in arcade story mode and speaks of forbidden techniques and he seems cool, so he could become my favourite character one day possibly in the FS world. If FS is able to add any new characters, I’d like to see him (Remy note: this is Menelker), and Persephone.

The Ranked team I run currently in FS is Midori, Argagarg and DeGrey. I used to use Midori/DeGrey/Rook before, but I felt it was a too melee orientated team so I wanted a more balanced team. I think I will end up changing my team again in the future though, I don’t feel Argagarg is definitive in my team. Whilst I like him, I don’t really consider him to be one of “my” characters yet, so I will have to train more to find my third character. I did make Master Rank in Fantasy Strike though, so I think that was a good achievement to finally not always lose to those evil numbers guys!
(Remy note: Kingheim is referring to other Master Rank players who in FS don’t just show their league ranking level, but an actual number of their overall rank on the server in the current season).
I’ve also had a good experience of playing vs the FS developers, and I learnt that the devs can definitely play!

In terms of other video games, I mainly play fighting games. I really like Virtua Fighter, but unfortunately the game is dead – but I think it’s the best 3D fighting game; not too many characters, good balance, and a deep but good learning curve. Tekken is my main game now however. I’ve won some local ranking events in Paris for Tekken 7, and placed 5th at a tournament in Italy, which was nice, although I still feel I could do better. As I’ve played a lot of other fighting games, I think my skills transferred well to Fantasy Strike, as it asks the same thing as other FGs, and feels very natural if you’re used to a fighting game – however you cannot hide your lack of fundamentals in FS by doing execution heavy things. I like that. You still need to train match ups, but it helps to already understand meaties, frames, etc.

I like ArcSys games too, I’ve played Guilty Gear and Blazblue, but I don’t have enough time to play everything. Other than fighting games, I also also played WipEout, and I had some world records on HD/Fury back around the PS3’s time. I also play Tetris99 on the Switch, and I enjoy DragonQuest for some old-school RPGing. I also played chess when I was younger, and I’ve been into online poker before too. I’m also a fan of the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead, and that’s where my Steam avatar is from currently.

I like that FS doesn’t have an ‘artificial difficulty’ so you can truly get to play quickly. In other games that can take a really long time, and it can be really frustrating to lose for several months because you don’t know things. For tips and advice for FS I’ve got a couple of things:
1. Don’t try to attack on your wakeup, unless you have an invincible move.
2. Don’t only think about what you want to do, but try think what your opponent wants to do too.

I have a couple of technical things on my “wishlist” for FS too:
1. Allow a ‘string cancel’ by using the jump button. For example if you want to do a A, A string, or A, fA string, rather than a AA chain, you could do an A, then J in recovery frames, then another A. You can do these strings without using the jump button too, but it would make life easier I think! You can do a similar thing in Virtua Fighter or Soul Calibur with the Guard button. A useful example would be with Midori A on a meaty counter hit, to more easily be able to combo that to a fA for 3 damage, rather than AA for 2 damage
2. Add a “just defend” mechanic that would avoid chip damage if you block in the last few frames. It would still be a simple mechanic, but it would be hard to master.

Right now I’m living with dirty WiFi, but I hope to be back online soon! I want to enter Euro Strike and I hope to see all the European players. I’m still learning Fantasy Strike, but I’ll try to do well. Prediction – I will be happy to finish in the top 5, and anything can happen on a tournament. As I’ve not played everyone yet, I’m curious to see who will win.