EVO 2015 Hype!

This is the first year I sat down for all 3 days of EVO and watched all the streams intently rather than watching it on the side while I played games or doing something else.  There were 7 streams going on at once this time around for EVO rather than just 3 which made it that much harder to follow everything.  I mostly followed Super Smash Bros. 4 and really enjoyed the high level play and all the crazy new strategies players have found and utilized during the tournament.

As varied as the character selection was for Smash 4, I couldn't help but see the same few characters throughout the tournament.  At the very least, it wasn't filled with Diddy Kongs since he was the strongest character that everyone swarmed towards playing for a while.  Funny enough, that's exactly who Grand Champion of EVO 2015 chose to play to win the tournament:


12:38 for the final combo he pulled off to win the tournament.  This was the best winning moment in EVO this past weekend.  The grand final was pretty decisive, but the fact that he was able to pull off a long combo like that at such a high percentage is what made it amazing.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Finals actually finished on the first day.  I saw a lot of Margaret picks, which reminds me that I have yet to try her out yet ever since buying the DLC for it.  Despite being a dominant pick for players at EVO, it was Super Boy's Ken Amada pick that led to a decisive victory at the Grand Finals.  I found the Loser's Bracket Finals to be a lot more exciting as it was an extremely close game with great plays by both players.  Hagiwara was also wearing a shirt with the most adorable character which I had to look up and found out it was a IdolMaster character "Anna Mochizuki".




Tekken 7's Final was akin to last year's Final for BlazBlue where the competitor from the winner's bracket had so many chances to end the tournament as the winner, but lost it every time.  It's not nearly as close as it was for BlazBlue last year, but you can tell he was so close that he can taste victory.  Through all the missed chances and eventual defeat, he broke down and was inconsolable.  Even Katsuhiro Harada, Director/Producer of Tekken, went over and comforted the broken AO.  I feel bad for him since he was so close, but Nobi's win was well earned through the struggle of clawing his way to the grand finals from the Loser's bracket.  I really like how Tekken 7 is looking and can't wait for it to reach consoles in the States.


Killer Instinct was pretty fun to watch, as well.  There were some crazy comebacks and close games.  Rico Suave, who I remember watching play last year, climbed back to the grand finals from loser's bracket and chose characters that the commentators didn't feel were good match-ups and ended up winning the tournament.  I haven't been much interested in the newest Killer Instinct since it was Xbox One exclusive, but it looks like they're bringing it to PC now so I'm super excited.  Killer Instinct was one of my favorite fighting games back on the Super Nintendo.


I missed the Guilty Gear Xrd Finals since it was streaming too early, but I'll watch a recording.  I wanted to get Guilty Gear Xrd, but I heard they're already bringing a more definitive version out.  So I'm just waiting on that before I pick it up. Oh yeah, and this apparently happened:  I also missed the Mortal Kombat X Finals, but I didn't really care too much about it.  I kind of just want to play the game a little.  I'm not too interested in watching MKX.

Super Smash Bros. Melee was pretty nerve wrecking to watch.  Lots of great plays, a surprise Samus pick (for me at least), and some disappointing mistakes.  I was all for Mango winning a 3rd year at EVO, but he made some mistakes and SD (Self-Destruct) twice on the last round against HungryBox.  HungryBox was playing to win at EVO as he came in 2nd last year against Mango, but was denied by another Fox player Armada.  It was a great Finals to watch.  I really liked that match between Leffen and Plup (Fox vs. Samus).


Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the game of comebacks where I saw a lot of crazy matches turn around with one character.  Sadly, I didn't recognize a single player that was in the top 8.  All the best players were knocked out before reaching Top 8 which goes to show how much the meta and new blood has changed the game in the past year.  The winner used a team composition of Sentinel, Hulk, and Haggar.  It's team Big Buff Dudes!  I didn't watch the finals for UMvC3 has intently as I was playing Heroes of the Storm with a friend while I was watching.


And finally, there's Ultra Street Fighter IV which was absolutely bonkers!  This might be the last year SF4 will be at EVO since Street Fighter V's development is coming along and is getting closer to finishing.  So stuff like this happened during Ultra Street Fighter IV's EVO:






Ultra Street Fighter IV Finals were great.


With the close of EVO 2015, so too does the trinity of Summer Events.  E3 was a bit underwhelming this year.  There were a lot of surprises like Fallout 4, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Shenmue 3, The Last Guardian making an appearance once more after a long hiatus, and some other sequel announcements like Dishonored 2; however, there wasn't anything that drew me in and got me excited like I would every E3 before.  Steam Summer Sales was also underwhelming with shady dealings in raising prices before the discount, getting rid of bundles or forcing bundles, and lackluster discounts.  There were even a few times where a game was supposed to go on sale but was switched out when the time came.  There were a lot of players I was expecting to see at the top 8 finals for EVO but didn't, but still watched some really exciting matches this year.  So I would say that EVO was the best event out of the three this year.  Although, I shouldn't complain about getting the games I did during Steam Summer Sale.  I'm slowly getting through them and enjoying the ones I'm playing thus far.  With all this done and behind me, it's time to get back to work.