Player Profile Interview: Friendly Fire

Moomoo Mumosa here. You might be wondering why I’m offering up another interview even though I released a newsletter this week. Well, it turns out that my assignment is ending in December due to unforseen circumstances, but I’ve taken such an interest in the scene that I can’t help but try to find out more. That’s why today I’m bringing you an interview with one of this week’s unfortunate S-tier casualties: Friendly Fire. Sean has been right around that borderline between S and A for a while, so I thought it would be interesting to get his perspective on the scene’s history, his own improvement and Falco inspirations.

--

Greetings everyone, this is Moomoo Mumosa, here once again at Arcade Legacy Ranbats  with a very special guest. You may know him as Mr. Friendly Fire, AKA Sean Redmond. Sean, how are you doing today?

— Good, how about you?

I’m doing pretty good! Okay, so let’s kick off this interview just by basic introduction. Introduce yourself, and why you love Melee!

— Um, hello. My name is Friendly Fire — er, my name is Sean Redmond, my tag is Friendly Fire. I got into Melee probably about, I don’t know, 3 years ago. My friends were playing it in the dorm when I was a freshman in college, and they were playing it on HDTV and I was like “Oh, this game is pretty fun!” I’d always played it as a kid, but I never really got into it much — like, competitively. And then my friend was watching videos — M2K vs. Shiz — and I was like “Oh, this is crazy! I wanna be able to do this stuff.” So then I picked up Falco — I’d always played Falco, but I picked him up, y’know, more intensely and I learned all the tech and stuff. And I dunno, I love Melee because it’s extremely, I don’t know, in-depth and no matter what level of play you are it’s fun, which is kinda something you don’t see in a lot of games. And you can keep improving, and lots of things to learn, and there’s never anywhere where you feel completely stuck.

Sure. That’s a great answer. And you’re a Falco main, just to clarify?

— Yes.

Okay. You can provide short answers if you want for these, long answers if you want…What’s your best stage? What’s your worst stage?

— My best stage is…it really depends on the matchup, but um I’d say Dreamland or Final Destination are my best stages.

Great! And your worst stage?

— My worst stage would be Fountain of Dreams.

So what is your most comfortable matchup?

— My most comfortable matchup is Fox, cuz I play him all the time and there’s Foxes everywhere. And my least comfortable would be Samus or Marth.

I see. And what about Samus or Marth give you trouble?

— Marth’s range is crazy, and it’s really hard to get in, and once he hits you once, he has crazy punishes on you, so you have to have really good DI, and you have to hit him way harder than he punishes you. And Samus, pretty much the same thing.

Mm, okay. Briefly describe how you play — how you think you play — and describe what you’ve been working on recently.

— I’m pretty aggressive when I play. Well, at least, once I get a hit, I’m very combo heavy. And a lot of players, I think, in Cincinnati are not that way — they’re very much neutral-based. And that’s something I struggle with — my neutral’s okay, but it’s not as good as it could be, and once I get a hit I can do some damage. So what I’ve been working on is my neutral — wait, and watch what players are doing rather than just go in.

Which player do you enjoy playing against the most?

— Probably Tomo.

You guys play often?

—Yeah yeah, I play him all the time because we go to the same college and I see him, like, probably every week. He’s a lot of fun to play against. He’s a really nice guy, very cheery.

That’s good. So which player do you find the most frustrating to play against?

— Most frustrating to play against? Ooh…Burlap and Kane are very tough to play against because Peach is very tough for Falco — I think it’s a good matchup, like, not a bad one, but also a really hard matchup too, and Kane because he played Samus.

You were in S-tier today, so let me ask you the S-tier level question: who do you think we should be looking out for in A tier?

— Well, I was going to say Tomo, but he just got into S, so…he’s someone to look out for. Other than that…I’m not really sure who’s in A right now.

Sorasin’s in A, I think Halfjack was in A today, um…Village Mascot (graduated back to S), Dirac…so mostly Tomo, you’d say?

— Yeah.

Burlap’s also in A!

— Right, right and Burlap too. But Tomo’s, Tomo’s been on the come up. He’s been improving drastically.

That’s great! Okay, so some longer form, more player specific questions. You’ve been on the grind for S tier for a while and it’s only recently that you’ve made it in. Today, unfortunately you didn’t stay, but…is there anything in particular you’d attribute to your breakthrough? How do you think you’ve changed as a player to get to this point?

— I’ve watched a lot of videos — like, a lot of Mango videos — and just see the way he combos, see the way Westballz combos, and I’m like “Oh, there’s a lot more that I could be doing.” Trying to find openings whenever there is one, and I think…when I used to play, I used to zone out a lot, and now I get really hyperfocused, and I think that’s what’s attributed [sic] the most to my recent successes. Um, what else…um, what have I attributed to my successes, is that what it is?

Yeah, so you’ve been working on your punish game basically.

— Yeah, my punish game, and my ability to focus, because I get pretty distracted.

Okay. So maybe along these lines, how has the scene changed while you’ve been playing, because I know you’ve been around a while?

— It’s changed a ton. I came two years ago, I was terrible. I came two years ago because I switched colleges; there was nobody here, we had like, 10-15 people maybe every week. It was great though, it was fun, we all enjoyed playing each other but we never really got a lot of experience and the scene wasn’t very good. And then recently, just a few months ago, people started flooding in — we have 50 people in like one bracket, which was crazy…yeah, it’s changed a lot.

Would you say the scene has kinda grown in skill along with you?

— Oh, I think so, yeah. Everyone — it’s crazy, because you’ll feel like you’re getting better, but then there’s this random person who just shoots up out of nowhere and is taking S, like Conner and PAS.

So this is kind of trite, but I’ll ask you anyways: who’s your favorite top player Falco, and maybe let’s make it a little more interesting — what are some examples of things that you directly took and learned from top Falcos? I know you mentioned some combos.

— Westballz is definitely my favorite player. He’s also my favorite personality, because he’s kind of a funny guy. He does a lot of crazy things; I can relate to him because he has super off days and super on days. I’ve taken a lot of his…when I watch his combos, I try to incorporate a lot of those things. I guess one of those specific things is light hit back air -> down air.

Oh yeah, that’s a sick combo.

— Yeah, that’s so much fun.

So how do you think you differ from local Falcos? FEAR can be included in this discussion; is there anything you admire about then? Anything you feel they do better than you, and on the other side also, do you think that you have things to learn from them?

— Yeah. I think the best person to mention would be PAS. I think I have the most similar playstyle to him, although he’s got way better neutral which is what I have to take from him, trying to learn things from that. FEAR I haven’t played much and I’ve only seen him play once or twice ‘cause he doesn’t come a lot…let me think, other Falcos…

Mascot?

— Mascot, yes. He’s really smart when I watch him play. I think his combo game isn’t as good, and he has amazing neutral, and he’s very smart. Once he gets a hit, he’s still pretty good.

Actually, are there any Falcos in the B bracket? I don’t remember…

— There are a few.

Modem.

— Yeah, Modem. Modem is crazy good in friendlies and then he suffers in tournaments. If he gets that under control, he could be really amazing.

You’re going to CSC IV, right? Do you have any goals in mind, or any people you really wanna play? Any people other than yourself whose performance you’re interested in?

— I’m planning on going to CSC IV. I haven’t really thought about much who I want to play because I play so many people around here all the time, but definitely people from out of state. I definitely want to play people from Columbus [Mumosa’s Note: just pretend he said from out of city here lol], maybe…I don’t know who else is coming.

Some people from Illinois are coming.

— Illinois, yeah. That’d be nice…Reeve. I wanna play Reeve.

Oh, I think he should be coming, yeah. He’s pretty good.

— Yeah, he’s crazy.

Okay, so that about wraps us this interview. Maybe let’s end with two more questions. One, some advice to newer players.

— I guess the best piece of advice I have is have fun while you’re playing. I see a lot of people who can’t decide a main, and they hate it every time they’re switching characters and they’re frustrated. And I think — stay with one character if you can. It’s okay if you don’t know which character you want to play but you’re going to improve the most if you try to stick with one character. It’s good to play other characters, but you’ve gotta improve with a specific one. Because if you think about it, all the top players, they all have one or two mains. Most of them have one main. Or, I guess at the very top level they have like, two or three now, but like…the saying still stands, I think. A lot of new players struggle with that kind of thing. They’re like “Oh, I don’t know what character to play,” and I’m like “Play whoever you have fun with.” A lot of people think they have to switch if they lose with the character but you really can just improve as much as possible and at that high level is when it really matters what character you’re playing.

And finally, some shoutouts, maybe to UC Smash?

— Yeah, UC Smash. Great group of people, they’re really fun to play with. They’ve been training. Cameron, the Puff main…um Tomo of course, he’s probably one of my best friends, we play a lot…Modem, I play a lot.

Thanks for your time, Sean — if that’s all you have to say, that about wraps up the interview!