Shadowloo staff member Justice managed to secure our first official and exclusive interview, and its with none other then the professional gaming organization, the legendary Empire Arcadia.

The Empire is becoming one of the top professional gaming organizations in the world. The list of players on their roster are all top players in a wide variety of games across many genres. Many of them have traveled the US and some have traveled the world to compete in gaming events and tournaments spreading the Empire name far and wide. Enjoy the interview with some of their Street Fighters.

Question: When did the Empire start, and how did it come to be the major name it is today?


Answered by TriForce: Empire Arcadia, Inc. legally started in 2002 however it was a community that I was apart of in 1984 until I took control in 1988. We became the dominant gaming organization that we are today because we focus on being diverse and versatile in the culture, community and industry of gaming. The Empire’s diversity is shown through the different nationalities in its members both male and female, in their respective divisions; Valkyries of Arcadia (VOA) for the females and Knights of Arcadia (EMP) for the males.
The versatility is found in our ability to compete in Fighting, Shooters, Puzzles, Racing, Rhythm, Trading Card Games and more. We continue to expand our versatility as new games start to take stage on the competitive scene.

BattleField Arcadia Tournament is a great competition you guys hold, is it open for anyone to enter or only EMP’s own?


TriForce: BattleField Arcadia tournaments are open to anyone who wishes to compete. It draws players from the Tri-State area and around the East Coast Region.

I am very familiar with Andre being a Bison player myself, but for all those who have not heard of him, please tell the community a little more about The States Number 1 Dictator?.

TriForce: Andre “Jago” Lambert is the United States most successful Bison player, winning and placing in over 40 tournaments throughout 2009. His most notable tournaments was Placing top 50 at Evolution, 7th at Seasons beatings and going 2-3 with Daigo Umehara (Daigo winning) in a grudge match. What makes Andre so great at using Bison is his understanding of frame data. He is constantly calculating frames in his head while fighting his opponent. This knowledge helps him know when he is at advantage and when he is not. Unfortunately that data vs. the use of certain characters can only get you but so far. Knowing this and being able to do so well in tournament is what separates Andre from the many other Bison players in the US.

We have a little rivalry with Sydney, Australia but at the end of the day its all friendly competition, who would you say EMP’s rivalry is with on the west coast?


Andre: Sad to say but we don’t have any. You can say that our only rivalry lies with in our own organization that also now resides on the west coast.

Yipes: There are players with the potential to be able to compete against some of us in the Empire but no “unified” group, team, clan or organization that rivals the Empire. Not yet I guess.


Justin: Anyone in the west coast that competes in the Street Fighter 4 can be considered a competitor to the Empire but not a rival. 


Sanford: There are some godlike players in the West Coast like Valle, Ken-I, Combofiend and more but if the Empire had to have a rivalry it would have to be Japan. As far as I’m concerned there the players to beat. 


TriForce: Rivalry??? Heh, I’ll just say this. Street Fighter 4 is not my competitive game in Empire Arcadia and although I support competitive scene as a whole I’ll humble let the pros answer that question.

EMP is filled with some heavy hitters and so is the United States, who would you say are the top 3 SFIV players in the USA?


fLoE: Top 3 in the USA is a very tricky question. There’s a decent amount of people fighting for 2nd and 3rd. The only clear cut answer is that Justin Wong is #1. Although a lot of those people fighting for that spot put me at #2 in their opinions so ill just agree with them too lol.

TriForce: Based on stats the current stats ranging from local, regional and Major tournaments you can find that answer on Damdai’s web site. 
Personally it is very hard to say, there is only one constant and that is Justin Wong is the Empire’s and the nation’s best. As for 2nd and 3rd there are a lot of different players that can fit this role. First let’s talk about the players that can fit the role that are not in the Empire. Joe “iloveu” Ciaramelli, Martin “Marn” Phan, Alex Valle, Mike Ross, Ed ma, Shady K and so many more. 

However if you’re talking about with in the Empire, I can only say for sure that Justin is #1, second would be fight between Ari “fLoE” Weintraub and Sanford “Santhrax” Kelly, and 3rd would be a toss up between Arturo “Sabin” Sanchez and Peter “Flash Metroid” Susini. I’m taking a lot of things into account such as standings at Evo, Seasons Beatings 4, Active Gamers Triple Threat, North East Championship X (10), WCG Holiday Heroes, BattleField Arcadia Series and KiT.

IFC Yipes: I think the top 3 are Combofiend, Alex Valle and John Choi just based on raw skill. Even though results will show otherwise.



How does EMP feel about coming down to Australia and checking out the scene here, maybe we can have EMP vs. the Deep south?


TriForce: The last time the Empire was in Australia was when Justin Wong won 6 titles at OHN6 which was the Australian Fighting Game Championships. It would be a great experience for the Empire to go as a unit with some of our veteran professionals and upcoming Valkyries that now play the game. Yes…we are developing professional level female fighters in the Empire as we speak. They won’t be “good for a girl” because we are training them to be able to compete against some of the best in the Empire such as Justin “Marvelous” Wong, Sanford “Santhrax” Kelly, Kevin “Dieminion” Landon, Andre “Jago” Lambert and many more. How about a 5 on 5 and 2 of the members on our team will be Valkyries? 


IFC Yipes: I would love to see the scene out there. To be honest with you I don’t know of any other fighting game scene outside of the states other than Japan and it would be a godlike experience to have.

Where do you see the fighting scene 5 years from now in the states?


TriForce: Do you watch World Wrestling Entertainment? Heh…and to think Evo now has the “Ladies of Street Fighter 4”, this is going to be very entertaining.


Justin: Television.


IFC Yipes: Only time will tell. This is based on the fact that Street Fighter 4 has now put fighting games on the map in terms of mainstream.

What is your view on Super Street Fighter IV, do you think the changes made are positive changes or negative changes?

Justin Wong: I think the changes for the most part are positive. A lot of the complaints were answered by the developers such as Sagat being over powered and Ken’s fire ball issues.

fLoE: I’m excited about Super Street Fighter 4 but at the same time worried. I think Street Fighter 4 is a great game right now and it will be hard to replicate and I feel like things could only go south from here but hopefully Capcom can prove me wrong.


Flash Metroid: I think that the changes that have been confirmed so far are really good. There are some changes that I’m really hoping for that hasn’t happened yet but overall it looks really solid already. The game is going to be amazing I think there were only a handful of serious problems in SF4 and almost all of them have been fixed already.

Andre: That depends on the changes. We’re going to have to come to the realization that there will never be a balanced fighting game so long as the competitors do not have a hand in the matter in terms of its development.

IFC Yipes: I definitely think it’s a good look in terms of balancing the characters because in the first installment only 6 out of the 25 characters were worth using, the rest were competitively useless. This is based on certain match disadvantages and low priority moves for most of the cast. Hopefully in the next installment they would tweak these problems with the current 20 characters especially with the 10 new characters that are coming out.

What if super street fighter IV does not come to the arcade, how would this effect you?


Justin Wong: It will not have any significant effects on the players in the United States as we have the ability to play both arcade and at home. I think it would have a huge negative effect on Japan though because the Arcades are really the place that they play at as a community.


Flash Metroid: If Super Street Fighter 4 doesn’t get an arcade release its going to be really annoying because I plan on going to SBO this year and that means I’m going to have to play both versions at the same time.


fLoE: Super Street Fighter 4 coming to arcades doesn’t effect me directly but I think it will hurt the scene in general because if were only competing in the United States its just whatever. It’s always nice to have that “well we have to beat Japan” initiative but if it’s not in arcades that wont exist.

Since we all have HYPE mode switched on, if you can bring back any character who would it be and why?


Justin Wong: I think they should bring back Karan from the Alpha series. 


IFC Yipes: Rolento, nuff said!


Flash Metroid: Rolento or Karen because they are the coolest characters in capcom period =)


fLoE: hmm well Guy was my #1 choice who I wanted back but after him probably Karin or Rolento. I always liked how they played and I think they would be really interesting with the Street Fighter 4 engine and everyyyyyyone wants Rolento back.


Sanford: I think Karan would be cool to see come back.


TriForce: There are a ton of characters to chose from however I think there is one character more deserving than any other character in Street Fighter and the character would give Capcom yet another set of new moves to develop in a 2D environment and that is the very first opponent in the first “Street Fighter” game ever, Retsu.

Evolution is a world known tournament and most of your players rank high in it every year, is there a training routine EMP work with coming up to the event?

TriForce: The training routine never ends for the Empire. In order to compete on the world’s stage; SRK’s “EVO” World Fighting Game Championships, these guys have to play year round. Don’t get me wrong they take a couple of days off here and there but its not that far off from comparing it to a 9 – 5 job.

I was a major fan of the Capcom vs snk series, and the VS series in general, does EMP enjoy the VS genre? 


TriForce: The Empire has had a significant amount of Success in that series of fighting games. From X-men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom 1, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK, Capcom vs. SNK 2 and now Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, players such as Ricky Ortiz, Arturo Sanchez, Justin Wong, IFC Yipes and Sanford Kelly have dominated these games in competitive play for over 10 years.

Justin Wong: Yeah I love the Vs. Series. 
Answered by IFC Yipes: This is the series that made me who I am today. The versus series is what introduced me to the fighting game community. The versus series means a lot to my fighting game career as it brought me my first world championship in 2007 against Justin Wong at Evo.


Sanford Kelly: The versus series are cool. My favorite of them all is MvC2 and CvS2 because they brought me a lot of success in the competitive scene.

Would you like Capcom to collaborate once again if so, with who? 


Justin Wong: I think they should make a Marvel vs. Capcom 3. For now Tatsunoko vs. Capcom will hold us down for a couple of years.


IFC Yipes: I would love for them to make a part 3 for Marvel vs. Capcom. They need to add more characters like Ms. Marvel and maybe make Galactus the last boss. They need to add a good story line to the game as well. 


Sanford Kelly: I’m waiting on a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 obviously. I’d like to see what new characters from the Marvel universe that they would add. For now Tatsunoko vs. Capcom will have to do.

Any final thoughts for the readers at shadowloo?

The Empire: We urge everyone to get involved in competitive gaming to populate the scene and help it to become a great competitive past time for fighting gamers around the world. We’ll be sure to see you all at EVO 2KX.

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I hope you guys enjoyed the read as much as I did, and I would like to thank the following on behalf of all of us here at Shadowloo for taking the time to answer these questions.

Justin Wong – Justin Wong
TriForce – TriForce Johnson
IFC Yipes – Michael Mendoza
fLoe - Ari Weintraub
Flash Metroid – Peter Susini

Sanford Kelly – Sanford Kelly

Jago – Andre Lambert

To find out more about these Street Fighters or The Empire in general, check out their official site. Empire Arcadia