Kyle’s Biggest Gamer Moments

Image Credit: Dimps

Yeah, it’s a strange article title, but I couldn’t think of anything better. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna talk about all the times I’ve ever said a slur while I was playing a game. No, this article is going to talk about some of my biggest moments throughout my time playing video games.

Why am I doing this? Well, if I managed my time properly, this should be going up on my birthday, so I wanted to take the time to share some of my greatest personal accomplishments with all of you. I thought that it would be fun to teach you all about who I am as a capital G Gamer.

We’ll also be tackling these from least impressive to the accomplishment that I’m the most proud of.

Master Ball Rank in Pokemon Champions

Image Credit: The Pokemon Works, Game Freak

Starting with my most recent accomplishment, Pokemon Champions is an awesome game that has reignited my love for competitive Pokemon. I played a ton of competitive during Pokemon XY and ORAS with my friends during high school, but fell out of it during (Ultra) Sun and Moon due to being busy with college work. I came back to the series in 2020 during the Pandemic, but then fell off again during Scarlet and Violet, but that’s because I hated Terastellization as a mechanic.

But with Champions, I’m back in! Champions is a game that has a smaller selection of Pokemon (186 Pokemon and 59 Mega Evolutions) and items (only about 10 that are viable). The metagame of the first two seasons (Regulation M-A) largely revolves around the six best Pokemon: Mega Charizard-Y, Mega Floette, Garchomp, Sneasler, Kingambit, and Basculegion. These have been the unanimous best Pokemon basically since Champions launched.

My first team getting to Master Ball Rank in Pokemon Champions was a Rain team with an option for Trick Room. The final version of the team consisted of Pelipper, Mega Dragonite, Basculegion, Sneasler, Sinistcha, and Haterenne. The reason that I went with this team is because Rain is a team archetype that I’m very familiar with, so I was able to get a lot of wins, and climb the ladder very quickly. I also wanted to use some new toys like Mega Dragonite, Basculegion, and Sneasler.

The team went through several variations. Originally I had Conkeldurr and Archaludon on the team. They were good comfort picks, as I loved Conkeldurr back in Gen 6, and Duraludon was the centerpiece of my favorite team I made during Gen 8. And they were good, until I hit Ultra Ball Rank. Then I found that I was having a hard time using them. And that’s when I swapped them out for Sinistcha and Sneasler.

This climb was so much fun, and I even went on an undefeated 12-0 run into Ultra Ball Rank. This was just a great feeling for me as even though I missed an entire generation of competitive Pokemon, the skill and knowledge that I gained over ten years of playing didn’t seem to leave me. I was able to pick up right where I left off in Sword and Shield. And with all my time spent in Gen 6, the fact that this is a Mega Evolution format made it very easy for me to get right in.

I also made it back to Master Ball Rank in the second season (same ruleset) with a dual Mega team with Mega Tyranitar, Mega Venusaur, Excadrill, Corviknight, Rotom-Wash, and Ceruledge. You can learn more about that team in this article from last month.

I don’t know what the next ruleset for Champions is going to hold, but I promise that I’ll be back in Master Ball rank again! And maybe I’ll try and hit Champion Rank one day.

Beating Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts 2

Image Credit: Square Enix

Time to go back in time to my childhood. Kingdom Hearts 2 was easily the game that I played the most growing up. Even back when the game came out, long before what we know about the game’s mechanics these days, this was a game that kid me would play for hours on end, even if it was just to goof around in the different worlds. But there was always one challenge that loomed over me. A certain one winged angel that turned 10 year old me into a real life Cloud Strife because he haunted my dreams!

Sephiroth is the only superboss to appear in the original PS2 version of KH2. Crazy to think that Final Mix added in 14 more superbosses, but in the original, he was all that we got. But don’t think for a second that means he’s a pushover. Sephiroth comes equipped with a wide array of moves for you to learn. This includes a sword combo that kills you. A bunch of orbs that surround you and kill you. A fire pillar that sucks you in and kills you. And a move that drops you to 1 HP AND drains your Magic.

Yeah, it should come as no surprise that Sephiroth has a wide arsenal of attacks to kill you with. And when I was a kid, it took me literal months to finally beat this guy. I was barely able to make it into his last phase where he powers up, gets super quick, and starts hucking meteors at you. And this powered up phase is usually where my attempts ended. He just got too fast for 11 year old me to keep up with.

Now, it’s true that this was one of the most challenging boss fights from my childhood. And yes, I did eventually overcome it. But I didn’t just beat Sephiroth. That’s not a story, and I’m not here to waste your time. No, I accidentally beat Sephiroth by using the worst Keyblade in the game.

See, after one of my failed attempts, I had left Hollow Bastion to go and do some Synthesis grinding for the Ultima Weapon. And back on the PS2, the Keyblade that you’d equip for this is the Sweet Memories Keyblade. This was a notoriously bad Keyblade, sporting 0 in both Attack and Magic stats, and a useless combat ability in Lucky Lucky.

Later when I went back to give Sephiroth another crack, I forgot to change back to a good Keyblade and I didn’t even realize it until about halfway into the fight when I noticed that my Keyblade was making bumblebee noises instead of the Christmas noises that Decisive Pumpkin makes. But I somehow managed to get a win with (arguably) the worst Keyblade in the game.

Losing to this fight over and over again also helped teach me how KH2’s combat worked. I know, I learned after I’d done everything. But this fight is what showed me how the “Revenge Value” system worked. As a kid I just slapped on whatever abilities I got, not reading about what they did. So when I got here and had all of my Combo Plus abilities equipped, I noticed that Sephiroth would “randomly” break out and kill me. So I took those Combo Pluses off, and noticed that I was doing a lot better. 

Getting my ass kicked helped me gain an appreciation for the game’s mechanics. My love for this game would also lead to me getting really into speedruns for the game when I got older.

Attending My Locals

Speaking of getting my ass kicked and loving the game more for it; FIGHTING GAMES!!! Look, it’s not a Kyle article if Pokemon and Fighting Games aren’t mentioned. I’m pretty sure the Earth would be thrown off its axis otherwise.

This year I managed to find a monthly local event where I live. At the risk of doxing myself, I live in New Hampshire, and there isn’t a lot out here. It honestly feels like a miracle that I was even able to find this. I’ve only been to two of these events, but I can guarantee that I’ll be going until they stop running this event.

The first event that I went to was in March 2026. I entered the tournament for Guilty Gear Strive, my favorite modern fighting game, and I used May the whole way through. May is a very funny character that also happens to be really strong. Her gameplan is to deal massive damage to her opponents off of her beefy counter hits.

I’ll admit, even though I’ve been playing Strive on and off since it came out in 2021, I was really nervous for this tournament. I wasn’t sure what the skill level would be here. During my first match, I could barely do anything right. I still got the win in my first round, but that was more so because my opponent was bad, not that I was playing well.

This was a small tournament, and I ended up getting 5th place out of the fifteen people that entered. Honestly, I’m very proud of this performance. This was my first time ever going to an in-person event, and I’m glad that I managed to do a good job. 

But this wasn’t just about video games, tournaments, or glory. This was also just a fun event to go to. I got to meet a lot of cool people that all share a common interest. We were all at this tournament for fun, to hang out, and learn more about the games we love.

My ultimate goal is to win one of these events, and getting top 8 at both events that I went to is a good place to start!

DBZ: Budokai Any% World Record

And now, what I consider my greatest achievement in gaming. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is another game from my childhood that I’ve talked about a few times before. When I was in high school, on a whim I decided to look and see if there were any speedruns of the game’s story mode. And to my surprise, there was! This run from KakkaRot_SRL was my inspiration.

I was blown away by the skill and tech on display. The combos on display were something that I didn’t even know was possible in this game. The whole game revolves around canceling the end of your combos so that you can string them into other combos. If you want to learn more, watch my video for an explanation.

After dissecting the original run from KakkaRot, I finally decided to give it a try. I have to say, this was a ton of fun to do. The run itself has an interesting mix of skill and RNG that made it so that virtually any run had the chance to PB. Though, I don’t think that I was as kind to my hands as I could’ve been. I did get cramps, and ended up getting blisters on my palms from the control stick spinning that you have to do at one point. My first run finished with a time of 32:12.

My ultimate goal with this game was to get a sub 30 minute time. With each finished run, I was inching closer and closer to that goal. And then, January 7, 2017. It happened. I essentially got the God run in my 29:43. This run was as close to perfect as it could’ve gotten for the time. Darn near everything went right for me. There was very minimal trolling from the game. Everything just worked. And at the end as the credits rolled, I just sat there. Silently.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but a time like this was what I was working towards. All of the failed runs led to this. I don’t mean to go all English teacher on myself. You know “what did the author mean by this?” But I watch that back almost 10 years later, and I think that the silence was me subconsciously realizing that I hit my peak with this game. This was my final goal with the category. 

With nothing left for me to prove, I wrote up a guide on the game, made that Guard Cancelling video from earlier in this segment, and I called it done. I did what I wanted to do. And if anyone else wanted to continue, I left everything there for them to learn from.

And that’s exactly what ended up happening. But, that part of the story doesn’t involve me. If you want to learn more about what came after my time, I cannot recommend ThaRixer’s history video on this game. And if you’ve already watched it, watch it again. He did a fantastic job with it.