A bit about Korean Levers
A company called Attasa set up a booth at Mastercup where players could purchase Korean levers. Many players had some interest in Korean levers, but never really got into them because they didn’t know where to start. This gave them an opportunity to easily buy levers to try for themselves.
The levers on sale were provided by Crown. There were two different types of lever for sale: the Crazy Dongpal lever and the Help Me lever, named after the two famous players.
The standard lever on an arcade cabinet in Japan is the Sanwa JLF, which is what the majority of Japanese players are most familiar with. However, the levers used in Korea and other countries are all different.
That said, levers from Korea, our next-door neighbour and Tekken powerhouse, can be found here and there in Japanese arcades. Many Japanese players have had a reasonable chance to try them out.
There are a number of players who have some interest in Korean levers, but not enough to go out of their way and order one online just to try. Attasa’s booth at Mastercup 10 last year lowered this barrier of entry, and not just their on-site stock, but even their online inventory was completely sold out.
I’m willing to bet it’s thanks to social media that the information spread like wildfire, and made everyone want to give it a go.
There’s a guy in Indonesia making a crazy lever
I’ve been to Indonesia maybe 4 or 5 times to participate in events and tournaments. One time when I was there, trying to make some friends with the locals, I was suddenly approached and given a set of springs. I was told that they were hand-made springs built to modify a Sanwa JLF.
I actually left them on my desk for about half a year, but my curiosity got the better of me one day so I decided to try them out. I immediately noticed my inputs becoming cleaner and more precise. I was so amazed that I messaged the creator to thank him. That’s how I found out about the Golden Lever.
Follow @wazwuz Tweets by wazwuz
I knew that the famous Korean player Lowhigh used a Golden Lever, but I never thought to purchase one myself. In fact, the very idea of ordering a lever from Indonesia didn’t even exist in my mind. I was using a Korean lever I bought from Mastercup, but I had similar issues to many other players. Namely, the diagonals were difficult to find, and my wrist got tired really quickly.
While I was trying to figure out how to solve these problems, wazwuz approached me at SEAM2018 in Singapore. He handed me a Golden Lever and said “please try this and tell me what you think.”
I originally played around with the balltop version, but eventually settled on the battop.
As I customized my lever more and more, I could feel it becoming better and more comfortable. Before this, I never even bothered to maintain my arcade stick, but lately, opening up the bottom of my stick at least three times a day has become part of my lifestyle. I’ve already had to replace the screws on my Fighting Edge three times.
I’ll be talking about what exactly the Golden Lever is, and why it’s so great in a later blog post, but this more or less sums up my general thoughts on the product.
I got to know wazwuz through the Golden Lever, and began talking to him more. I was deeply moved by his passion for the FGC, and tried to help in my own way by spreading the word about the Golden Lever. I’ve been name-dropping it here and there; sorry for spamming your timelines. But thanks to that, Sengoku Denshou—a company quite well-known within the community—will become an official distributor of the Golden Lever in Japan.
Every time the Golden Lever restocks, wazwuz makes an announcement on Twitter and players from all over the world rush to order one. They sell out in an instant. It doesn’t matter if you’re from Europe, Asia, America or wherever; they’re gone in an instant.
Golden Lever sold out, for those who have order it, thank you for the support 🙇🏻♂️. If you missed it, you can Preorder it now https://t.co/GmEmFLKJrL ecpected shipping early February pic.twitter.com/denMVLBYhQ
— ASI | wazwuz (@wazwuz) January 21, 2019
This is Sengoku Denshou’s announcement tweet, by the way. It looks like they’re taking preorders.
【予約販売のお知らせ】千石電商では、 #GoldenLever の入荷の目処が立ちましたので、本日より、ラジオデパート店限定にて、 #GoldenLever の予約注文を承ります。価格は\14,980円(税込)です。
— 千石電商 公式 (@sengoku_densyo) February 10, 2019
↓必ず下記に続くTweetをご一読の上、ご了承いただける方のみ、予約注文のご検討をお願い申し上げます。 pic.twitter.com/gmNY5pdJlR
The pricetag is pretty scary, isn’t it?
It’s about four or five times the cost of most other levers in the market. You could buy a whole arcade stick with that kind of money.
And yet, so many of them have been sold. I’ve brought my Golden Lever around to events and received feedback from numerous players, and they generally have a great impression. I don’t think most fighting game players would mind investing a bit more into their gaming devices.
In my opinion, the quality of the Golden Lever backs its price. I’ll be going into detail about this in my next blog post.
Thanks for reading.
Links:
Official Arcade Stick Indonesia Store
Source: Yuu’s Blog