A 9-year-old Dragon Ball FighterZ player confronts his own father at a tournament

Most combat games tournaments do very little to organize clashes. Of course, the biggest tournaments will be ranked so that big names and their regional rivals do not face each other right away, but most of the time competitors have to be ready to compete. all the opponents. Tsuyoshi, 9 years old Dragon Ball FighterZ player, crashed his head first in this unique challenge as he faced his own father in a recent tournament.

Tsuyoshi is a regular at the weekly Dragon Ball FighterZ tournaments organized by the Fighting Tuesday series of events in Tokyo, Japan. His talent has steadily increased with each competition and he has become quite formidable despite his young age. Tsuyoshi won his very first match in December 2018 and faced a good share of top players, including two games against Evo finalist Naoki "moke" Nakayama in as many months. And although he's not always successful, Tsuyoshi continued to show up at Fighting Tuesday from week to week, receiving encouragement from his father, regardless of the outcome of his matches.

This week's fight Tuesday was a little different. In order to help newcomers to have more experience in tournaments, the organizers have limited the competition to beginners and intermediate players. Tsuyoshi obviously made the difference, but a surprise challenger did the same: his father, who called Wasa. While he is generally committed to supporting his son, Wasa is also a competitor himself, so he has registered the same Dragon Ball FighterZ hook with his eye on the price. It was always possible for the father and son to end up playing in a tournament at one point, but the luck of the draw made them opponents in the first round.

What followed was a nice standard Dragon Ball FighterZ match, with Tsuyoshi and Wasa showing what they had learned during their workouts and their tournament matches. Of course, the skill level was not quite Evo level, but the extra tension of watching a young child compete with his father made it just as exciting. Commentators, Andrew "jiyuna" Fidelis and the always exaggerated Majin Obama, were quick to joke about the situation, highlighting the rare show with moments of endearing lightness. Tsuyoshi won a 2-1 win over Wasa, and the father-son pair shared a comforting moment before taking the lead.

Like Dominique "SonicFox" McLean (who also started the competition very early) before him, Tsuyoshi now represents the next generation of fighting games competitions. Fidelis, who has watched Tsuyoshi competing at Fighting Tuesday since last year, also compared Tsuyoshi's ability to have fun, regardless of the outcome of his matches, with the qualities that made SonicFox such an incredible player. through multiple fighting games. We do not know if Tsuyoshi will stay with Dragon Ball FighterZChildren may be notoriously fickle, after all, but its presence in the fighting game community proves that it's possible for everyone to learn, grow and perhaps even surpbad their peers more older … including your own father. Damn.

Ian Walker loves fighting games and likes to write about them even more. You can find it on Twitter at @iantothemax.