This morning, I got Lau to Champion rank on Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. It took me 638 matches (630 wins/8 losses) to do it. Ugh. It was fun, but I feel like someone who has indulged in too much junk food in one sitting--the sweetness has changed to mild nausea and discomfort. I need to take a break from games (for at least a couple of hours). I know, I'll spend time on GameSpot! ;)

Beating VF4:E with Lau made me think of two things in particular:

1) The person on the VF forum who mentioned getting all 15 characters to Champion rank in VF4:E has some great perseverance! If it takes about 600 matches to get a character to Champion (and I was trying to rank Lau up as fast as possible), then it would take over 9000 matches to get all 15 characters to Champion! (!!!)

2) The increasing number of characters available in the increasing number of fighting games out there is making it less and less possible to learn how to use each of those characters to any degree of proficiency. I remember back in the day of Street Fighter II, I learned to use each of the eight fighters pretty well. But slowly, the number of games and characters, and the fighting system complexity have built up to the point that I've lost the ability to use all characters well. With my top three fighting games alone -- VF4:E (15 characters), Tekken 5 (32 characters), and Soul Calibur 3 (25 standard + 17 bonus characters) -- that's almost 90 different characters to learn how to use! (I'm ignoring the fact that I also own Marvel vs. Capcom 2...) It's amazing and overwhelming to think of how rapidly games expand and develop.