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I have barely any interest in e-sports. I’m not really interested in discussing whether they - or chess, or similar - should count as sports. For the record, I don’t count them as such and I don’t approach them the same way as a viewer but I’m not gonna hate on them. Really, professional video game players are roughly equivalent to high level athletes, but with much lower profiles. I certainly remember comparable behavioural complaints in the FGC to recent NBA scandals, for example. No heroes no idols, etc. I’ve only really engaged with e-sports in two forms. Quite a while ago, maybe eight to ten years or so, I got casually interested in DOTA 2 , both playing (very, very badly) and watching (very, very ignorantly). Both before and after this period, I watched a lot of FGC tournaments, across most of the big games. This included Street Fighter IV and V , Guilty Gear Xrd , Under-Night , a little bit of Tekken and Mortal Kombat , a nice big range. I haven’t watched much in the last few ye...

  9 Monkeys of Shaolin was released in 2020 by Sobaka Studio. I believe it was their second game. Although many would describe it as a beat-em-up, it eschews some of the hallmarks of the genre in favour of an experience that courts more mainstream attention. With a level-based (rather than arcade) campaign, skill trees and item unlocks, and a focus on story sections, I would consider it more broadly in the 2D action genre, refuting the more specific descriptor. I enjoyed my time with it, although it was not particularly ground-breaking and in the end broke itself.   9 Monkeys most obvious departure from the beat-em-up formula is the prominence of its story. Not every mission is heavy on the story, but the opening prologue includes a forced loss which leads to protagonist Wei Cheng’s recovery and training in the care of Buddhist monks. Wei Cheng ultimately masters their techniques and takes a new name as he joins them, achieving first revenge and then overcoming a threat o...