The Gifted Kitty 420 Interviews Brett Harbach A.K.A Romneto!

Sweet, sweet satisfaction is all a 420 Kitty fsk fsk and game recognizes game. Meet Brett Harbach. Brett knows satisfaction, He plays Marvel vs Capcom 2 (referred to as MvC & MvC2 in this interview) and takes this game to extraordinary Heights!
Think I'm kidding you? Roll The Footage!

"Iceman got murdered before he had a chance to do anything."-Brett Harbach.

Damn near a perfect match...
If you own a Xbox and you are a player of MvC2 feel free to contact Brett through the Xbox live network, username “Romneto”. “Rom” is the title of the Magneto infinites and “Neto” is the second part to Magneto’s name, put it together you get Brett Harbach A.K.A Romneto. Even the most seasoned player could tell you Brett is a force to be reckoned with in the MvC community meow, and the Gifted Kitty 420 is the only Kitty in the world that was able to get an interview with MvC enthusiast himself!

Brett, you ready for this?


I’m as ready as Magneto is to tear a Sentinel apart!

MEOW He's a BEAST!


Tell the world a little about yourself, how long have you been playing and what keeps you motivated to play?


Well let’s see, I have been playing ever since the game was released in arcades back in 2000. Back then I was just a 16 year old kid working at the local grocery store. I would take 2 and 3 hour breaks to play MvC2, and I loved every minute of it! The main thing that keeps the game fresh to me is that it has unlimited replay value. With 56 characters and 3 assist types for each character, there is always going to be some new situation or something strange that happens in a match. The characters are very unique and distinct from each other. Heck there is even a kitty in the game! Felicia is feisty and has some very impressive combos. Other than the competitive aspect, the training room is what interests me to this very day. There are certain combos that can only really be done in training mode. This is one I just completed today, I used a wavedash (repeatedly canceling a dash into tapping down) to call two assists and use them both in the same combo:



I love learning new techniques, combos, and strategies. In life I am never okay with being just good enough, and that is why Marvel is so amazing to me. As good as a player is, they can always become better, they can always learn more about the combo system and the way the game works. That is truly a beautiful thing. I believe that new combos and techniques will continue to be discovered in MvC2 for at least another 10 or 15 years.



Have you ever been interviewed... BY A KITTY?


Hmm (scratches head, looks around), not officially, but my pet kitty does look at me quizzically at times. I don’t know what he is thinking, but he might have dreams of becoming a journalist one day.



420 Kitty is sad to say that kitty doesn't get to play MvC2 as much as kitty likes but MvC was played by my paws before the interview and memories started to flood back in my head. Happy 420 kitty is! Picked my favorite team (pretty much any team with Guile on it) and commenced the ass kicking. Kitty loves Guile! Who is Brett's favorite character and why does Brett like said character ?

Magneto aka the Rushdown God aka the Master of Magnetism. Simply put: he is the most electrifying character in fighting game history. Looking back at all the fighters I have played (and seen played), I cannot think of any other character who can single-handedly turn the course of a match around in the blink of an eye and do it with such style and flashiness. Another interesting element of the character is that he has sub par (lower than 100%) defense. So even though he can demolish an entire team, if you make one mistake using Magneto you can easily be killed in a single combo. Magneto represents Infinite possibilities. Not only does he have more practical Infinites and Infinite variations than any other character in the game, he also has by far the best mobility. People often send me messages on Youtube asking how long it took me to become so good with Magneto and how many combos do I know with him. It’s tough to answer these sorts of questions though because my improvement was gradual and hard to measure, and combos are limitless as I said earlier. In terms of the comics, Magneto inspires me because he stands up for what he believes in and defends his fellow mutants. His parents were killed before his eyes in World War 2, and yet he persevered and has become the most powerful mutant on earth. Coming in a close second is Charlie aka Nash (japanese version). Charlie has this style that no other characters possess, and his moonsault slash (air kick move) is downright devious.

YES! And the best part is, Kitty can smell what Magneto is cookin!

When The Gifted Kitty plays with Guile the Kitty likes to pretend that Guile is using his manly muscles to bring terrorism to a halt! Is there anything in particular that Brett likes to think of when playing his favorite character?


I like to think of connecting just one hit with Magneto. I focus on something seemingly minor because I know it will lead to something devastating. Off of just one hit from Magneto I can kill a character, and if I play my cards right I can kill off the whole team. I used to play with more emotions, like I would feel anger whenever I fought Sentinel. More recently I do my best to stay focused on the matter at hand. A patient Magneto is a deadly Magneto. Words to live by.

OOoooOHHHhhh, I bet those are!

The Gifted 420 kitty is fully aware that you are bona fide/dignified/certified/ any other type of fied MvC2 bad-ass, Brett's channel on youtube BrettH123 is the location where he has uploaded WAY MORE THAN 600+ Videos of combos, beat downs, and video game murders for the whole entire world to witness. Brett, I was counting videos by paw and I decided eff that idea lol, you have way more than 600 videos! Exactly how many do you have and why so many meow?


Great question, The Gifted 420 Kitty! As of today (3/7/10) I have 2789 videos total, and of those videos, 2391 are MvC2. Going by percentage I estimate: 80% match videos, 10% training room combos, 10% match highlight clips or compilations. There are some projects on the horizon that will be really awesome. The soonest of those is ‘Team Dynamics volume 1: Charlie/Spidey/Psy aka Team Old School Brett’. This video will feature the team I used when I first played MvC2, and explore this trio to their full potential.

I have so many videos (more than any other MvC2 enthusiast on Youtube) because my mentality is, “what if something incredible happens in a match/training mode and I miss my chance to record it?”. That would be awful and it has happened to me before. So I leave my video capture card connected all the time to my PC. That way match when I play online matches I just press the ‘capture video’ button before each match and I am good to go! I have a rigorous work ethic and am highly organized in terms of videos. I separate my online matches by exact date, in folders, and within that I separate by players. After capturing the videos, I use a program called VirtualDub to compress the matches so they will upload quickly to Youtube. I will continue to upload videos, and within a year or so I may even have more than 4000 MvC2 videos.

Ummm, to the readers out there. Please keep note that if you challenge Brett your name will be put on file with video of the recorded match. This man literally kicks ass and takes names.


Lets dive a little deeper into the game shall we, now the kitty does know a little bit about MvC here and there for this cat has been around the block. Kitty has played tournaments in Texas (nothing big) at Anime conventions such as A-kon and Oni-con and has met some serious competition. The beginning of the tourney way before the prelims usually you find a decent amount of players who use their favorite teams, usually consisting of any one of the 56 playable chars. But towards the finals People tend to leave their favs and move towards teams that may consist of Magneto, storm, and sentinel or Magneto, sentinel, captain commando or sentinel, storm, and.... you get the just of it. Do you believe that the art of picking a unique group of characters has died to some extent? Even in tournament play?


This is a very important question and one that many players often bring up. The players that win tournaments typically have 2 or 3 main teams that they have achieved success with. You are correct in saying that those teams mainly have the gods (Magneto/Storm/Sentinel/Cable) and a top tier assist (psylocke, capcom, tron). There is another side to this though.

Characters such as Magneto, Storm, and Sentinel have more tools, more options in high level competitive play than most mid tier characters do. For example, Magneto and Storm are super fast and Sentinel has the highest defense as well as great movement using his flight mode. Magneto has the Rom Infinite which is the key to controlling the momentum of the match. What it really boils down to is risk/reward ratio. If I land a hit on you with Magneto and let’s say you are using Guile, I can do a combo that will take 75% life (without DHC to another character) or if I do something really sick I can kill him off of that one hit. Now Guile has his strong points for sure, but he does not have any combos that will do an insane amount (75% or more) off of just a single hit. So when you look at it that way, it’s really about how many hits do you need to win the match? When you play someone who is really skilled in blocking, they will find it much tougher to block a rushdown Magneto than to block most mid tier characters. The reason is simple, Magneto can get you in five different ways: high, low, crossup high, crossup low, and throw. Characters who do not have an airdash only have 3 attack options, and sometimes they have only two really.

There are some really sick combos and strategies that a player can do with mid tier characters. It’s just tough to be successful with them when they do not have as many tools to work with as the top four characters. That said, I still like using my Charlie to take down Magnetos Storms Sentinels and Cables. I regularly take down Magnetos with my Charlie. That has more to do with my knowledge of what Magneto can do than anything else. Since I have spent years and countless hours discovering what Magneto can do, I know what to expect.




Please don't think that the kitty is a Magneto/sentinel/storm basher, Kitty just thinks that its a damn shame when 33% percent of the total fighting card has most of the same team or chars. Yet the Gifted kitty does not fret though, If you know how to play the game right you can destroy any team! Does Brett have a team that he would use to stop the generic madness?

Yes I do actually. My favorite team to use in many cases is Charlie/Magneto/Tron. Now even though it does have Magneto, my Charlie ends up doing most of the work. I named this team RomSlash. Rom is the name of Magneto’s Infinite and Slash is short for Moonsault Slash (Charlie’s air kick move). The team has some sick combos and crazy crossups that are really tricky to block.

This is an example of what Team RomSlash can do (In this case Magneto did the work, but this is not considered a top tier team):





OH GOD, THAT WAS JUST NASTY! Remember kids, he is DOOM.

Brett, its time to get serious! Kitty is going to ask you some questions about characters. Hope kitty doesn't catch you off guard lol!

Uh-oh I don’t know about this... (haha)


Psylocke.
Notice how this woman stands, get yourself in her fighting stance and tell me, do you honestly think it's healthy for this woman to pose this way?


Wow now you are getting serious! I don’t think it’s healthy for me to stand that way. Psylocke is a trained Asian/British Ninja who can do things that I can’t even dream of. I am a really skilled basketball player, I love to write poetry, and I can eat nine cheeseburgers in 3 minutes – I’d like to see Psylocke do that!!!

(Burger King 9 stacker challenge)



Hmmmm, they just built a brand spanking new BK down the street…..


Do you believe that Guile and Charlie are the only Americans in history that can suplex the Incredible Hulk?

I’m going to go with yes on this one. I heard a legend about Hulk Hogan trying it back in 1977, but then his back gave out on him or something.

Well let me tell you something brother, Randy was there and he heard that back Snap into a SLIM JIM! OOOOHHH NOOOOO it was Bad! Lols Next Q!

Do you believe War Machine does free advertisement for Yahoo?

It’s definitely advertisement, but not free. They are paying him with bootleg copies of the about the be released Iron Man 2 movie. He fast forwards past all the parts with Robert Downey Jr. and watches the action scenes of his good friend Don Cheadle.

Ha! I’m sure he watches his glorious moments only in his Sunday’s best!

Okay, all I have to say is X-men, who do you prefer, father or son?

I like Cyclops more, the father, since he has a really awesome Infinite combo and he just seems more badass to me.


Bone or Adamantium?

I like classic Adamantium wolverine for his better combo-ability. Bonerine (haha) is fast as hell, but has the worst defense in the game. Yikes!


Iron Zangief or Sentinel?

Iron Zangief all the way. Then again, I despise Sentinel from the core of my soul. You could have said Sentinel or a rusty can of 3 week old opened tuna. I would have chosen the tuna.


Thats whats up.

Hey man, lets have a man to Kitty moment real quick. I can type, I can talk, and I have all of the 420 cat nip in the world, think I could score a date with Felicia?

I’d say yeah as long as you can get and keep her attention. She’s very curious as all felines are, so just spit some game and see what happens.


Meow Kitty just seeing what a pro has to say, and Kitty likes!

Anyways 420 kitty already has a date lined up for tonight, house cats love strays with swagger fsk fsk so lets wrap this up!

Kitty wants to know if it is bad to gloat after a victory. Kitty has played online a couple of times and would have Iron man on his team just for one reason, to deliver the final blow! Kitty would quickly press start after the victory, jump in the air, turn on the boosters for flight, alternate between pressing left and right on the controller rapidly for a few moments to make Iron man look like he's spazzing or have the best drunken time in the world. Right before the final freeze frame Kitty would hold the up directional button and Iron man would raise his arms in the air. THEN FREEZE! Opponents see Iron man flying away in victory! Shortly after the connection gets cut^^ you should try this with Iron man/ War machine, Its pretty effin sweet!
Is it bad to gloat? Whats your favorite way to gloat when you get your awesome victories?


I don’t think it’s bad to gloat. As long as you don’t make really insulting personal attacks on people. Here is my favorite example of me trash talking someone. I had just beat this guy in a first to ten money match for $50:



If someone goes out of their way to talk badly about me and then I beat them. They have to eat their words and face the verbal assault. Online I do all kinds of random combo stuff to a dead character. That Iron Man thing sounds pretty dope, I will have to try that out. With Magneto I do about 5 or 6 trijump hk (sj airdasah down + hk) after they are dead.




Hell yeah! Kitty has to jet, does Brett have any final words for all of the people reading this? Anything like "Winners don't use drugs!" or something along those lines?

To all the people who love to play MvC2: keep playing, keep learning, and don’t let the losses bring you down. The satisfaction from winning is only temporary, but the satisfaction from learning amazing elements of the game will last forever.



420 Kitty really enjoyed this Interview and will be keeping an eye on you, just like the rest of the world should! Readers can keep an eye on him too at http://longislandmvc2.blogspot.com/

Stay Gifted My Friends, 420 Kitty is out!