Summer Event Withdrawal

EVO just ended last night, and man it was great!  But today, I felt a bit...empty.  I think I'll call this "Hype Withdrawal"!  I was super excited for this Summer's events like I do every year and was not disappointed this year...for the most part.  E3 was a bit underwhelming, but reminded me of a lot of games I'm looking forward to that they've already announced.  Most of them I can't even get because I don't have a PS4 yet: Final Fantasy XV, Hatsune Miku Project DIVA X, The King of Fighters XIV, NieR: Automata, Nioh, Persona 5, etc.  Then the main Summer release game came in the mail: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE which I've been struggling to play because I keep nodding off and feeling sleepy each time I play it (Note: It's a bit slow, but a great game.  I nod off on even some of my favorite games in the past).  Steam Summer Sales arrived and I was initially disappointed with the discounts, but I still managed to spend a decent amount of money on 11 Single-player games, 5 multiplayer games, 5 Soundtrack DLCs, and 2 game DLCs.  I've been enjoying playing multiplayer with my friends and sister on games like Overwatch, Move or Die, Ultimate Chicken Horse, Golf With Your Friends, Roguelands, and Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide the past several weeks and it's been a blast!  I had some frustrating experiences with some of the smaller indie games I bought and now going through some of the longer-lasting single-player games I bought (I bought Metal Gear Solid V:Phantom Pain but haven't installed it yet).  Summer Games Done Quick was two weeks ago and I watched quite a bit of it throughout the week but missed a lot of the ones I wanted to watch so I'll still be watching some of it (it'll help alleviate some of the withdrawal).  And then we just had EVO this past weekend which I am pretty exhausted from.  The first day was the most tiring as I was attempting to watch 5 streams at once (I have no idea how I survived watching 7 at once last year).

I missed Tekken 7's finals and will watch that sometime this week.  Super Smash Bros. Wii U was fun to watch Pools and everything leading up to grand finals.  Grand Finals was okay...But it was exciting to see a player bring Mega Man all the way to Grand Finals! (He got 2nd)  Pokkén Tournament was pretty tiring to watch and I fell asleep parts of the beginning of the Grand Finals but woke up to watch the last few matches.  It was pretty intense.  Killer Instinct was pretty fun to watch.  I'm impressed by how much Killer Instinct has evolved and refined itself as well as being available on PC.  If I had a better computer and Windows 10, I'd definitely play it.  I missed Mortal Kombat X, though I don't care for it as much.  I might watch some of the Finals.  Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was great!  I got to see my dream match up of Justin Wong vs. ChrisG.  As much as I wanted to see Justin Wong make another comeback with the usual 1 character vs. 2 scenario, I really wanted ChrisG to win this year.  And not just the match, but the entire tournament.  He has worked so hard refining his team and playstyle throughout the many years of playing UMvC3 and has gotten close to winning EVO many times but hasn't.  So I was really happy for him when he climbed all the way to Grand Finals, reset the bracket, and won pretty decisively at the end.  Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 released 5 years ago, but is still a really fun game to watch tournaments for.

In terms of Grand Finals, Super Smash Bros. Melee was definitely the most exciting one to watch this year.  With a repeat of last year's EVO final, Armada (Peach/Fox) and HungryBox (Jigglypuff) met once again on the grand stage.

Much like with UMvC3 having the dream match of Justin Wong vs. ChrisG, I got to see my dream match of Mang0 vs. HungryBox during the finals of Super Smash Bros. Melee.  And much in the same way, as much as I wanted to see Mang0 win EVO again for a 3rd time, I wanted to see HungryBox win more.  He went toe to toe with Armada at last year's EVO and encountered Mang0 at the grand finals of EVO in 2014.  This was definitely his year to shine and I really wanted to see him win it this year.  I especially wanted to see him win this year's EVO after his interview at Dreamhack last year:

(1:35-1:58)  I don't know what his relationship with his biological father was like, but at the very least he proved to himself that he can accomplish anything he set his mind to.  I was so happy for him.  It was down to the last round and last stock.  It was an intense match.

Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator was fun to watch with a variety of characters in the finals.  I was cheering on Nakamura for bringing Millia Rage to the finals.  But the lovely surprised to come out of the showing was the reveal of Dizzy!  She's back!  And she's so cute!

And then there was Street Fighter V.  I was cheering on Infiltration to win as I became a fan of his for his performance at last year's EVO with Street Fighter 4 with switching up between a variety of characters (8 of them).  He's won EVO for Street Fighter 4 back in 2012, but I didn't think too much of it (he played Akuma and Gouken that tournament).  He played three matches in a row at the end with losing to Fuudo in winners final, then won against Yukadon in losers final, and then finally he reset the bracket and won against Fuudo in the Grand Finals.

And that ends the summer events.  I'm going to buckle down to get some work done this week and then continue working on my own projects afterwards.