You know Nashl3ey. You may think you do not, but you do. Just maybe not him directly, but his work for sure. Because he is not only Sophie player and UK tournament organizer but also the designer beyond all the information graphics coming from Europe.
If you had to introduce yourself in three sentences to some SoulCalibur player who didn’t know you, what would you say?
I’m Ashley aka Nashl3y (or Nash) and I am a UK Sophie Main, there’s not a lot of us here. I try to keep a lookout for events happening in the UK/EU Communities and help turn some heads in their direction with my work. And I also happen to be an expert at Not Punishing Punishable Moves but I’ll get there one day.
What is the origin or meaning of your nickname?
Before I got into the SC6 Scene, I primarily played Street Fighter. Back when Street Fighter 5 was announced, Charlie Nash (or Nash) was revealed to make his return to the series. I knew he was going to be my main so I made the pre-emptive decision to change my FGC Name to ‘Nashley’, but it was already claimed by someone else so I had to change to Nashl3y instead.
Don’t think I would have been able to go another few years as ‘ashrp1993’.
How did it happen that you ended up playing fighting games?
I started playing fighting games at a very young age since they were the one of the few genres that was available to me at the time. Soul Blade was the very first fighting game I’ve played and one of the first FGs I tried to understand on how to actually play rather than just button-mashing my way through (alongside with Tekken 3). From there on, it became one of my favourite gaming genres with other FGs such as Street Fighter, Tekken, DOA, Smash taking me to where I am today.
And yea, I said Smash… Fight me!
Who do you main in SC6 and why?
Sophitia is my main in SC6, which was interesting as I barely used her in prior installments (considered myself a Siegfried/NM Main back then and Z.W.E.I in SC5). During the beta, I first started with Siegfried but the changes to his inputs was fighting with my muscle memory too much so I decided to try Sophie instead; for some reason, her playstyle just clicked with me so I stuck with her as my main. I also like how simple yet effective her moveset is; primarily speaking about her Lethal Hit game and Soul Charge.
What is your opinion regarding SC6?
SC6 is easily the best installment and most fun I’ve had within the series to date; the gameplay is better paced, the movement feels responsive, the cast of characters is far better than that of 5 and their reworked movesets to make them more unique and distinguishable was a welcomed addition. That doesn’t necessarily mean the game never had its fair share of issues since launch, and oh boy, some of them came to stay. As of my recent games, I’m looking at you specifically, Vertizontals…
But despite the issues, I don’t think I’d ever stop playing the game. Maybe until a new one gets announced but that’s story for another day.
If you could change one single thing about SC6 what would that be?
I’ll avoid saying ‘Netcode’ because that’s pretty much a no-brainer for anyone who’s played SC6 online. But BETTER ONLINE FEATURES PLEASE! Soulcalibur online has always been fairly barebones since it was implemented in 4; you got Ranked and you got Non-Ranked… that’s pretty much it. Think it would have been nice to have even included the special settings from the offline modes such as Slip-Out or Blow Up or something just to give online play a bit more variety, and probably could have done some fun online events with them too. SC5’s Global Colosseo Mode was and still is probably my favourite online mode in the series and it was just a giant player lobby lool
If I had my way, I would have the lobby systems/features like that of the Arcsys Games but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what they may have in store for us in the future.
What do you consider to be your greatest SC6 achievement and why?
Well, as much as I’ve played SC6, I’m still not up there in the tournament scene yet… Although I do have my moments every now and then. But I think it safe to say I have some kind of success in ‘other areas’ of the game that I honestly didn’t expect I’d find; if anyone followed the UK or EU scene, I’m sure they’d come across all the posts of the fancy event and Top 8 graphics coming from Soulcalibur UK’s Twitter… Well, that’s me.
I always had an Art & Design background and just thought one day in the SCUK Discord that I would just give server and Twitter a bit of a ‘visual update’. People seemed to enjoy my work so I kept on going and ventured into doing other new stuff I was kind of unfamiliar with such as video editing, streaming, tournament organising from scratch, collaboration work with others in the different communities etc. Eventually it led me into becoming the Admin for the UK Discord and Twitter. Right now, my main focus is looking out for SC Events that’s happening in the UK/EU Regions (sometimes the US too) and design graphics to help promote them and hopefully it’ll get more people involved in their events and communities; as well as working on the revival of my own SC tournaments (which will be happening… eventually lol).
Doing all these things for the past few years led me to meet some fantastic people (both offline and online), made great connections within the community and I honestly couldn’t be any more grateful; I could say that in itself was one of my greatest achievements I’ve made with SC6 so far.
Please answer a single question that you were not asked but you would like to answer!
Hmmm…. Can’t think of how I would have asked this but if I was to give an answer, I guess it would be ‘Yes, I do work out’. I’ve always liked to try and keep myself healthy, especially for someone like me who spends most of his time behind the computer screen. And during the Covid Lockdown Season, I never really had that much to do during my time spent indoors so I exercised more than usual just to keep myself busy until lockdown was lifted.
You’d be surprised how often I’m surprised that other people are surprised about my physique, especially when I do my ‘rare’ fitfgc posts on Twitter. I often get told it’s mainly because my clothes hide my shape pretty well, which makes sense as I prefer looser clothing over the fitted stuff unless it feels comfortable.
But I take it in my stride and continue to train to keep myself in good condition. Although you may think I look it, I still have a long way to go before I reach where I’d think I want to be and it’s motivating to see others within FGC that have a similar passion for fitness as me. So keep it up guys!
Shoutouts to the SWOLECALIBUR Community!
Thank you for the interview!