The other day I finally got my first fighter, Marshall Law, up to the top rank in PSP Tekken: DR, "Divine Fist" ("Fist God" in some regions). Took me quite a while to do too.

Only problem is... I kinda cheated. See, I really ranked Law up to "Raijin", which is only about 3/4 of the way up the ranks. Then, I started getting my butt kicked steadily by the AI, and I kept getting demoted to the rank just below "Raijin".

At this point, I tried to learn how to improve beyond my current level of ability. I checked Tekken boards for strategies and Anti-AI moves, and I did get a bit better, maybe to the point that I could win a round for every round I lost. And this frustrated me, because at this rate, I would never rank up past "Raijin". I would stay at the same rank forever. Or, I would improve so gradually that it would take months and months for me to progress through the remaining ranks.

And this was where the cheating came in. Tekken boards call it "Start-Select" because pressing these two buttons simultaneously during a match exits the match to the game menu. And this is how you exploit this feature: Start a match. If you win the match, then exit, save the game, and start another match. This way, every match you win gets saved. However, if you are about to lose a match, press start and select simultaneously to reset. This way, the near loss does not get counted, and you can take another shot at it, until you successfully win another match.

This way, instead of constantly struggling against your losses to rank up to the top, you slowly pile win upon win, discarding anything that would otherwise have been a loss, until you reach the top rank. Overall, it's a faster way to get the top ranks. (Unless you really are a Tekken "Divine Fist" and don't need to resort to such base methods to rank up.) And it isn't easy. You still have to be good enough to beat top-ranked AI characters often enough to actually get promoted. Otherwise, you would be stuck in a loop of perpetually almost-losing matches.

But still, it's cheating.

Why did I do this? I did this because there are certain things I like to complete in a game in order to feel like I have "completed" it. In Tekken, one of those things is ranking a character to the top rank. There was no way I was going to rank a character up without this cheat without putting in months and months of extra gaming, and I am just not that hardcore a gamer. So I cheated.

I didn't write this to moan about what this says about me as a person, but I do find it interesting how loopholes and cheats, whether purposefully implemented in games or not, become part of how gamers interact with that game. (Warp-tubes in Super Mario Bros.; Konami's Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, B, A, Start cheat for its NES games; IDKFA, IDDQD, and IDCLIP for DOOM). This loophole in Tekken is posted on most Tekken boards, and I am sure that many players who have ranked up to "Divine Fist" haven't done so by slogging through extra months of winning some and losing some (though my admiration goes out to those who have).

Just got a couple new PSP games. Well, new for me, although old in general: Wipeout Pure and Dynasty Warriors. The former is great so far. I love the soundtrack, and it's great classic Wipeout action. The latter is my first venture into the DW series, and it seems okay so far. Appears to me that it will become repetitive very quickly. I'm hoping it will help me get through the two volumes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms I got for Christmas.

Well, that's that for now.