Farpenoodle is a legend. Not only in the SC community where this OG stands behind Heaven’s Battle as well as Soulcalibur Asia League. He is also the author of the StreamControl app which many – actually, most – FG streams are using for the past decade.
Twitter: @Farpenoodle
Twitch: Farpenoodle
Birth Year: 1987
Country: Singapore
If you had to introduce yourself in three sentences to some SoulCalibur player who didn’t know you, what would you say?
I’m Farpenoodle AKA Shen Yu of Team Shen. I guess I used to be competitive but I’ve been a more behind the scenes kind of person for a long time who’s been involved with the broadcasts of many events in my time including Evo and locally, SEA Major. I run Heaven’s Battle with the help of Maimai and various other volunteers and also am the author of Streamcontrol which is used to help run many FGC broadcasts to this day.
What is the origin or meaning of your nickname?
It’s not that interesting. Many years ago, I was in an IRC channel and was changing my nickname to random things and “Farpenoodle” stuck. As for “Shen Yu”, my real name is “Yu Sheng” and while on a trip with Shen Rii and a few other local players, they printed my name as “Shen Yu” on the ticket which at the time I found hilarious. In a way this was the genesis of Team Shen.
How did it happen that you ended up playing fighting games?
I used to play FPS games but ended up seeing footage of SC2 in action when it had first come out on console and thinking “wow I need to try that.” I ended up finding the local community on what used to be the soulcalibur.com forums and started visiting arcades and have been hooked ever since.
Who do you main in SC6 and why?
Cassandra. She’s a fairly simple and offense minded character and that tends to be the type of character I gravitate towards these days. I like being able to play a lot of different games so simple characters that don’t need a lot of maintenence tend to be what I like to play.
What is your opinion regarding SC6?
I think Project Soul did a great job with SC6 and the latest patch has left the game in a very good state that I feel comfortable saying could be played for many years to come.
If you could change one single thing about SC6 what would that be?
Honestly most of the things I’d like changed would basically require them to make a new game and revolve around how I think Soul Charge is too strong. That said I think if I were to ask for one change that would be relatively easy that would be to maybe make Reverse Impacting a Soul Charge give you a guaranteed punish.
What do you consider to be your greatest SC6 achievement and why?
Helping to run Soulcalibur Asia League. I like to think it helped show Bamco the potential of the tour format for Soulcalibur and helped their decision along to attempt the World Tour. Unfortunately that didn’t pan out for obvious reasons. At least we had one great event out of the Tour I guess.
Please answer a single question that you were not asked but you would like to answer!
Not really a question but I’d just like to give a shoutout to all the various people who’ve ran events for the game online during the pandemic. In particular SabinDeus because the first Deus Ex Caelo was definitely the inspiration for me to start Heaven’s Battle. As offline events start returning hopefully online events won’t be needed as much and we’ve done what we could to keep people interested in playing the game. Special shoutout to Maimai who’s been a great help getting Heaven’s Battle off the ground and keeping it running. She really is an asset to the community and I’m eternally grateful for her help. Many thanks to all the various volunteers and commentators who’ve helped out over the past year as well.
Thank you for the interview!