Famitsu Fuudo Interview 2

Famitsu published the second part of interview with Fuudo on September 14. (read the first part here)

Summary
- Evo's atmosphere: It's really fun. Foreigners were too hyped. (in a good way)
- He said there're 1,500 participants for SSF4AE and entrance fee was $70-80.
- He said the prize money was $10,000. Less than last year.
- He trained a couple hours the night before the finals.
- Unlike in Japan, you can drink alcohol at the pool so he drank a lot at the hotel's pool. He got a terrible headache next morning (1st day of Evo) But thanks to the 5-6 hours break after the first fight, he recovered on the next fight.
- He planned to play SSF2T (side tournament) but overslept. (Umehara won it.) He was impressed that Umehara can use many character such as T. Hawk, Boxer, Sagat.
- When asked about Tekken, he said he was interested in Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
- He thinks if a game isn't popular then it doesn't look interesting even it's fun.
- He'd like to play Virtua Fighter again some time. He said VF tournament is fun. It's not about winning since he doesn't win a lot and VF players are older than SF4 anyway.
- He wants players to participate more in a tournament, not thinking about winning. He felt that a few people joined SF4 tournament even there're many players. In the past, Guilty Gear and VF normally had 200 players.
- He didn't have any expectation for the Evo.
- He was surprised by the skill level of foreign players at Evo. He couldn't say he met a truely strong player in France 1 year ago, but there're many "A class" players at Evo.
- He said a Yun player and a Fei Long player from Singapore are quite strong.
- When asked about the top 8 opponents, he said he had a Viper counterplan for Latif, and Poongko and Umehara are not impossible to win, so he thought he could win the tournament.
- Compared to Japan, he said Latif has the best Viper because there're not many Viper players in Japan.
- Mago told him some Viper counterplan on the first day.
- Latif used EX Seismo a lot so he neutral jumped a lot, too. But somehow, Latif didn't use Thunder Knuckle>Ultra to counter him.
- He thought Umehara lost to "rock-paper-scissors" against Poongko. It's about reading (yomi) shoryuken or throw.
- He uses Ultra 1 because he wants big damage if he wins a reading, while Mago uses Ultra 2 because he wants to restrict opponent's actions.
- At the beginning of the match, he was surprised a bit by Poongko's reckless style.
- He ignored Poongko's throw because it does less damage and waited to punish shoryuken. And he thought you can't throw 6 times in a row.
- He joked that if Poongko did throw him 6 times in a row then he'd give up and drink Red Bull, too.
- He said being able to connect 3 Ultra helped him to win. Seth has 800 HP but the Ultra does 500 damage.
- He thought he's not an S class player yet judging from winning percentage, but almost.