The fighting game community (FGC) has grown from holding local events to smaller venues to occupying ballrooms at four-star establishments with talent from all across the globe attending. Major sponsors such as Capcom, Namco Bandai, and others are responsible for the development of some of the world’s most famous franchises in gaming, and are showcased at a central tournament featuring the top fighting talent from across the world. With major prizepools, fighting games are now reaching a platform that can be compared to traditional eSports.
Each week, I’ll be posting interviews I’ve had the pleasure of conducting with members of the fighting game community. The interviews will touch upon their history in the FGC, where they got their start, and what they’d like to see from video games in general.
This week’s guest is the best looking Rufus player, Brentt Franks aka NGL | Brentt.
Kash: Thank you so much for joining me today, please introduce yourself to the Broken Joysticks readers.
Brentt: Thanks for having me! My name is Brentt Franks, and I’m an SF4 player from Southern California. I’m the tall white guy you see on streams with the nice hair and beanie. 😀
Kash: Please tell us a bit more about your team and your current sponsor?
Brentt: My current team is New Generation Legends (NGL), led by Will (Shakugan), along with Chris, Marq Teddy, and Luken. We don’t have an official sponsor as of now, but we are always seeking out new sponsorship opportunities. However, our team currently has a product sponsorship from Madcatz. Markman has been absolutely amazing to us and constantly supports us whenever we are in need of something at home or in tournaments.
Kash: A fighter’s tag is like their identity. Some would rather use their name and some nicknames; how did you decide what yours will be?
Brentt: This is an interesting topic with me. As you can read, my name is spelled with two t’s, but my entire life I’ve had the problem of people misspelling it with only one t, or calling me “Brett” or a few other things. When I decided to start competing, I didn’t want to get my name confused with someone else who actually is named “Brent” so with the help of a few friends I created the tag “Bren2xT”. I thought its meaning was kind of self explanatory, but TO’s and streamers had the hardest time even getting that tag right, so I eventually decided to drop that and just enter as NGL Brentt. As I’ve become more of a known player, my name has been properly used and it’s something I’m extremely happy about.
Kash: Which game(s) are you most known for and which character(s) do you play?
Brentt: I’m most known for Street Fighter 4, but I do play Street Fighter X Tekken also. In SF4 I play Rufus, but if the situation calls for it, I can also use Balrog and Seth pretty well. I mained Balrog for the first couple versions of the game, so I’m very comfortable playing with him. In SFxT, I use Rufus/Dudley. That game doesn’t get the amount of shine it deserves, because I think it is a very good game. Chris and I actually put a decent amount of time in to SFxT, as I think the neutral game required strongly increases the player’s footsies, and it’s helped my neutral game in SF4 a lot.
Kash: What is your highest placing currently at a tournament?
Brentt: When I used to think about this, I’d have to sit and really dig deep to think of all my placings at majors, but thankfully the ranking system on SRK has made this SO much easier. According to that site, my highest placing at a recognized event is 7th at the Shadowloo Showdown Qualifier. I’ve gotten 2nd and 3rd places and many Wednesday Night Fights, but I have yet to get that 1st place victory. It’s really tough because I live inside of the most talented scene in the entire country, and when you play against the best players every week for years, it’s hard to keep your play fresh and surprise people with new things.
Kash: Online play is something that many of the top players in the FGC prefer not to do or do it in secret. Do you feel online play is good and some players just don’t take advantage or do you think online play teaches too many bad habits that won’t help in a tournament setting?
Brentt: I think that if you are a good player before you start playing online, you won’t develop bad habits solely from playing online. There are so many players that don’t have the privilege of a thriving offline scene around them, and it’s all they have to work with. Players that are new to the game and jump straight online for practice are the ones who may develop the bad habits from playing online. I think the most beneficial factor from online play is the match-up experience you can gain from characters that your offline scene lacks. For example, Socal lacks a strong Cammy player, and due to her popularity at the highest level, it’s too important to know that match-up. My only option is to play against some of the good Cammy players online for experience.
Kash: Do you think other people in the FGC like their characters because they like them, or because they need to use them based on the current tiers and meta game?
Brentt: This is something that is definitely a player by player scenario. For example, one of my best friends and former teammate Anton (FRQ Filipinoman) uses Rose at the highest level possible. You won’t find her anywhere near the top of the tier list, but he shows that if the character is in the right hands, anything is possible. Same thing could be said about my teammate Marq Teddy and his Guy play. The reason why I chose Rufus is because while I was playing Balrog, many players approached me and told me that I played him too aggressively for a charge character, and I should consider switching to a more offensive by nature character, which led to me choosing Rufus.
Kash: Patching fighters is usually on a per company basis and if they currently have the resources with some companies doing it frequently than others. What is your opinion on patching fighters, do we require them frequently or annually?
Brentt: I think patching fighters is extremely necessary for things like glitches and infinites that aren’t caught while the game is still being tested. As hard as most companies try, something seems to always find its way in to the final build, and patches are required so that these glitches aren’t exploited, especially for games that are tournament popular. As far as balancing goes, I think the way Capcom has handled the Street Fighter 4 series is a great model to follow. A new balance patch or version of the game every year and a half or so gives the players enough time to really explore the game and showcase what every character is capable of before deciding what, if anything, needs to be changed. Games like Injustice and Mortal Kombat received too many balance changes in my opinion, to the point where I didn’t even consider picking them up because every match-up learned would just change in a couple weeks with the new patch.
Kash: As of late there’s been this push to get the FGC to eSports level. The community has a variety of colorful personalities as well as hype moments at events. What do you think is currently holding us back?
Brentt: In my opinion, I think TO’s and players should start reaching out to bigger companies for sponsorship opportunities. Supporting the FGC clothing companies and other grassroot organizations is awesome, but if this scene is ever gonna explode on to the main stage and compete with games like League of Legends and DOTA 2, it needs the support from big companies such as Coca-Cola or Microsoft.
Kash: How difficult do you think it is for a new person to enter the community and feel welcome, from your experiences? Also how open are you for people to come to you for advice, guidance or to play a set?
Brentt: I think the FGC is one of the most open and welcoming gaming communities that exists. I’m an 09’er, or in other words, someone who picked up fighting games with the release of Vanilla SF4. After a few weeks of practice, I was already traveling to enter tournaments and made many friends within the community. I wasn’t good at all, but that wasn’t something that really mattered when it came to getting advice from good players or just simply making new friends. I’m very open to people asking for advice or playing a set with anyone who wants to learn the Rufus match-up a little bit more.
Kash: While it’s something that’s been going on for a while, what’s your take on pot splitting or throwing matches on stream? With tournament organizers and streamers vowing to work together to stop that, do you think we’ll see less of it?
Brentt: Pot splitting is something that can never be stopped. You can’t really control what a person does with their money, or who they share it with. As for throwing matches or playing alternate teams in grand finals, I think that should stop. Nobody can force you to play your main team ever, but I think it’s just a respect thing. Have respect for the TO’s, the other competitors, and the viewers who are putting time and effort into running or participating in the event.
Kash: Recently it was revealed that Ultra Street Fighter 4 will have a mode called Edition Select where you can pick a past iteration for a character. Capcom revealed this mode is offline only. Do you think it should remain as offline only along with how do you think tourneys will decide the rule format now with this added variable?
Brentt: I think that it shouldn’t be allowed in Ranked matches, but definitely allowed for the Endless lobbies with the option of turning it on or off. As for tournaments, it shouldn’t be allowed at first, at least until after Evo. I don’t think it’s something that should just be ignored, but we need to give respect to the work Capcom has put in to the balance changes for Ultra first, and after a good amount of time we can explore the rest of the versions.
Kash: If you could challenge any player to a ft10 in any of the three games you currently play, who would you pick and why?
Brentt: Hmmm, I like this question. I would challenge Luffy, the Rose player from France. We played a set at Evo and he won 3-2, but that was on PS3. I don’t like to make excuses, but I’ve never really felt confident on that console. I’m confident that I know that match-up more than any other player on the planet, as I’ve played Filipinoman more than anyone else in my SF4 career. I would definitely like to run it back at this year’s Evo as it will be on Xbox.
Kash: Other than fighting games, what other styles of games do you play?
Brentt:I’m a huge fan of rhythm games. I’m not a competitor in them or anything, but I find them very entertaining since I play many real life instruments. Also, I’m a very huge fan of the Gears of War franchise. Before I got in to fighting games competitively, I played Gears of War competitively on the Gamebattles site, and we had a very good team.
Kash: Are there any upcoming game(s) on any platform that makes you scream “I need this in my life”?
Brentt: Aside from Ultra SF4, nothing really catches my eye. A new Gears is in development and that always has me excited, so we’ll see how that goes.
Kash: Next gen consoles are out and the only one with a fighter made exclusively for next gen is Killer Instinct on Xbox One. How do you feel about the game, will it do well being exclusively on Xbox One and will you pick it up for tournaments?
Brentt: I actually had interest in Killer Instinct, but the fact that it’s exclusive made it a no go for me. If you think about it, you’re paying almost $700 to play that game, and that’s too much. Not to mention, if you’re a stick user, you have to either pay to mod your stick to be compatible with the Xbox One, or buy a TE2 which is 200$. I think they should have considered an Xbox 360 release of the game, and the game would have picked up a lot more.
Kash: If you could grab any character from one game and put them in any other game, who would you pick, where would you place them and why?
Brentt: I would like to put Rufus in to Injustice. A lot of my good friends play that game competitively but I just can’t seem to get in to that game or find a character that I like. If that game had Rufus or any Street Fighter character really, I’d definitely have to body all of them.
Kash: Any upcoming tournaments that you’ll be attending?
Brentt: We are attending NCR and EVO for sure. We are really trying to make it out to CEO this year, as it’s the one tournament I’ve never been to that I really want to make it to.
Kash: With stream sites like Twitch becoming the easiest gateway for people to view the community and players in action, is there any particular stream were people may see you play outside of a tournament setting?
Brentt: Chris and I are in the process of getting our own stream up very soon, we are just currently working on the details and content ideas. Aside from that, we play casuals with a lot of the Socal guys from time to time, and you can find us playing sometimes at the home of Velociraptor and Driftwood, and they stream on their own channel TwoBitTV.
Kash: Any last words for the Broken Joysticks reader as well as any way for them to contact you with any questions they might have?
Brentt: I would just like to thank my teammates and fellow Socal friends for all the experience and advice they have given me throughout the years I’ve played. I appreciate anyone taking the time out to read this interview, and I hope I gave some decent insight in to the topics you mentioned. Also, thanks to Markman for all of the support over the past couple years. And of course, I would like to shout out my best friend Chris, the best Ken in the universe. My gamertag on Xbox Live is NGL Brentt if anyone has any questions or ever wants to play any online sets with me.
