Let's talk about EVO 2019 [VICTORY SPOILERS]

EVO was so much fun to watch this year.  I remember when I first started watching EVO a bit more serious back in 2011, there were barely 3 streams, I only watched 4 different games, and I mainly only watched finals.  Now there's a combined force of over 15 stream channels, I watched over 22 different games, and I pretty much dedicated the time from Friday till closing on Sunday watching the streams.  With the rise of Esports and plethora of fighting games developed in the past decade, EVO has exploded into popularity.  It's such a great time to be a Fighting game fan or to get into them right now.  So let's talk about finals and game announcements!

Puyo Puyo Champions

Puyo Puyo Champions was an Animevo tournament.  I played a decent amount of it when it released three months ago.  I didn't even know if we were ever going to get it localized, but I'm super glad they brought it over.  It's a bit barebones, but was sold at an incredibly cheap price.  Ever since Puyo Puyo Tetris released on PC, I had tried taking both games a bit more seriously and try to learn the game and yet I always ended up practicing Tetris a lot more.  With Puyo Puyo Champions out, I tried to put more focus onto it.  I've come to have an even greater respect for those who have practiced to get to this level of skill whenever I watch them play.  I saw a lot of familiar names like S2, ShiroBrawl, DdR_Dan, and livedesu.  livedesu is just way too good and is far and beyond everyone else's skill.  He's fast, has creative chains that can trigger from the front or end effectively, and he knows when to harass (make a small chain to disrupt the opponents combo).  It was fun to watch Puyo Puyo being played at this level.

SoulCalibur VI


I was excited to see an American get to Grand Finals and he was playing Azwel, a character I find to be unique and fun to play.  Bluegod, the American player, was able to reset the bracket but was overwhelmed by his opponent Yuttoto of Japan.  Voldo is a fairly quick and weird character to react to since a lot of his attacks come from odd directions and is a bit more difficult to predict.  It was a good Top 8 to watch.  I was sad when it ended and they didn't have anything to share or announce.  Apparently, they withheld their announcement until Sunday where all the major Grand Finals took place.

BlazBlue Centralfiction


It was nice to see BlazBlue Centralfiction still at EVO.  I wasn't too surprised to see Fenritti at Grand Finals considering how consistent he's always been every year, but I was surprised to see how dominant his opponent was against him with a 3-0 victory.  Es is such a strong character.

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st]


Having to wake up by 10AM on Saturday to catch UNIST Top 8, I was already feeling sleepy as the day began.  UNIST was the game my friends and I were looking forward to watching the most (other than Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for me) as it's been the game we've been playing together the most recently.  All of Top 8 was a lot of fun to watch with a diversity of character choices, really high level play, and some wild display of combos from both players at Grand Finals.  We watched a lot of pools as well leading up to Top 8 and each of us learned a bit more about competitive play and a bit about the characters we liked using.  I felt like I learned a lot considering I'm the only one that doesn't practice the game and found a lot of new strategies and approaches I could be using for characters like Mika and Waldstein.  UNIST was one of my favorite Top 8 finals to watch this EVO.

Kill la Kill: IF


Kill la Kill: IF released a week before EVO, and yet there was a decent amount of people participating in the tournament.  Not knowing too much about the game, I watched the tournament more as a way to find out if it'd be a game I'd enjoy.  In conclusion, I think I'd enjoy playing single-player and not multiplayer.  Also, $60 is kind of a lot for 8 characters, a handful of stages, and a combat system that doesn't have as much depth as a traditional fighter.  I'll definitely be picking the game up one day, but not till it's a lot cheaper.

Dragon Ball FighterZ


While watching Top 8 of Dragon Ball FighterZ last year, I had fallen asleep at one point since it was Sunday (3rd and last day of EVO), I was super tired, and I didn't realize how exhausting watching the game would be.  Much like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, there is a lot of things going on during combat.  Each player has three characters of which they can switch between or call in for an assist, a special meter that can go up to 7 levels, sparking which works like a burst and gives a limited time of heightened strength, projectiles, and the ability to teleport behind the opponent among other things.  So there's a lot to pay attention to.  Surprisingly, I didn't fall asleep throughout Top 8 this year considering how tired I was already feeling after watching UNIST.  It was a good showing of new characters, new metas, new strategies, but the same rivalries.  Last year, Go1 climbed up to grand finals and had reset the bracket against SonicFox who requested to switch seats and player sides with Go1 after the reset.  SonicFox had turned the momentum around and won DBFZ's first EVO showing in 2018.  This year, Go1 went into Grand Finals on winner's side with SonicFox climbing through loser's bracket and making it to Grand Finals.  It wasn't looking too good at first with SonicFox winning the first two games.  But Go1 was able to turn a close third game around and found the momentum to push forward and win two more close games to close out the match.  It was an emotional victory for Go1 as he threw off his headphones and glasses and cried uncontrollably knowing that he's worked for an entire year to get to that point.  What made the moment even greater was the incredible sportsmanship displayed by SonicFox as he congratulated and celebrated his opponent's victory alongside him.

Samurai Shodown


Samurai Shodown reboot had only released a month ago and yet a lot of players have already established a strong sense of what works and what doesn't.  Much like its predecessors, Samurai Shodown is a footsie heavy fighting game that relies more on spacing and timing rather than catching your opponent with a long combo.  I'm waiting for the PC version to release and so I haven't had the chance to play the game yet.  I didn't watch much of pools, so I didn't get to see a lot of characters being played.  Top 8 showed that there are obvious favorite characters in high level play.  Still, there were a lot of high tensity moments and it was really exciting to watch.  Infiltration was just so on point and dominant in Grand Finals.

Super Smash Bros. Melee
I just wanted to make a small mention since I did watch Grand Finals.  It seems a lot of the familiar names in Melee wasn't in Top 8 and the Grand Finals were between ChuDat with Ice Climbers and Hungrybox as Jigglypuff.  Unsurprisingly, Hungrybox won pretty decisively.  I was happy to see ChuDat in Grand Finals, but sad to see him getting camped out.  I did watch a bit of Nitro+ Blasterz, but barely remember anything since I was focusing on Samurai Shodown and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Puyo Puyo Tetris Swap (and a bunch of other Animevo games)
Aw, no one uploaded a video of Puyo Puyo Tetris Swap.  It was fun to watch, although live_desu was just too good and took 1st place in this game as well.  From 5PM-8PM Saturday, I was watching Puyo Puyo Tetris Swap, Guilty Gear XX, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Million Arthur: Arcana Blood, Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai, and Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code all at the same exact time.  I didn't really pay enough attention to GGXX, so I don't remember much.  On GGXrdRev2, I was cheering on Marlinpie who was able to reset the bracket in Grand Finals but started losing momentum and control of the fight by the 6th game.  UMvC3 was interesting with a lot of unfamiliar team compositions, but I was too focused on the other games to really pay much attention to it.  Million Arthur: Arcana Blood had just recently released in the West and I had bought the game right on that day right before the Grand Finals, so I sadly didn't understand what was going on.  But watching the gameplay of MA:AB, I was excited to play it myself (and so far it's really fun).  Puyo Puyo Tetris Swap, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2 and Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai were the games I was focusing on watching during that time.  I've waited for a long time for Koihime Enbu RRR to get cheaper since it adds very little to the original game and I finally picked it up for $12.99.  Top 8 was fun enough to watch.  And finally Melty Blood, I just kind of watched it off and on with all the other streams.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
It was near the end of the day for Saturday and the last three finals I wanted to check out starting at 8PM were Mortal Kombat 11, King of Fighters XIV, and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.  I've never been fond of watching MK.  I like playing the games, but for some reason I just get so bored watching them.  I figured I'd give MK11 a chance since it's the new one, but I still had the same feeling and got bored.  The stream for King of Fighters XIV was being commentated in Spanish and the stream quality was a bit poor, so I lost interest in watching that as well.  I settled with watching Persona 4 Arena Ultimax while playing some fighting games on the side.  It was entertaining, but it also felt very long to get through the finals.  And thus ended the streams for Saturday.  With going to sleep so late that night and Top 8 starting at 9AM the next morning, I wasn't sure if I was able to keep up.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle


BBTAG was a lot of fun to watch this year as players have all gotten better and adapted to new metas and new strategies.  What's more, an American got into Grand Finals and won pretty soundly.  And he won with Yang, a character often not considered to be part of the meta in high level play.  There was a huge difference in skill level this year compared to last year as the game and its players have grown and evolved.

Street Fighter V


When Street Fighter was about to start, I was just so tired from the lack of sleep that I started feeling sick.  Not knowing a majority of the players, I decided to take a nap and hoped that I'd feel good enough to survive the rest of the day.  After sleeping for an hour, I woke up and watched the last few matches.  I was happy to see a lot of my favorite characters in those last few matches (Rashid, Ibuki, and Karin).  The Grand Finals was pretty exciting with a lot of back and forth momentum and mind games.  There were tons of close calls with the last hit being the closest one of all.  It was wild, fast-paced, and a lot of fun to watch.

Tekken 7


Tekken 7 was a lot of fun to watch this year with a tiny exception.  Arslan Ash is a player from Pakistan who has made a name for himself in the Tekken community since his victory at EVO Japan earlier this year.  I haven't gotten to see him play until Top 8 of this EVO.  You could say that his style of play is really boring to watch; however, I can't help but praise him for how efficient his playstyle is.  His style of play with Kazumi is very safe, systematic, and effective.  There's very little wasted movement and it rarely puts him in a disadvantageous position to be easily punished.  It is both aggressive and defensive at the same exact time.  It made me wonder why none of the Korean players try that with Kazumi first (my only guess is that a lot of the best Korean players stick to what they know with familiar characters).  Overall, it was a fun Top 8 to watch.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate


Not only did the finals break the record of highest viewership for Super Smash Bros., it also broke the record of highest viewership in EVO history with 279,000+ viewers.  Each and every player had a different character they played from the others and made me happy to see such a variety of viable characters.  There were a lot of crazy plays, but these 10 seconds from this video was my favorite:


And the most wild moment in the Grand Finals where Tweek had the game point lead of 2-1 and the stock advantage of 3-1.  Down to his last stock, MkLeo was able to turn that game around and barely make it out of that 4th game before winning one more game to reset the bracket and winning 3 more games to win the Grand Finals.  It was an insane comeback that I haven't seen the likes of since the days of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.  SSBU was definitely one of the best, if not the best, Top 8 at EVO this year.


Okay, time for game announcements!

Granblue Fantasy Versus


The more I hear about this game, the more I want it!  So it seems like there will be an RPG mode where it plays like a Beat-em-Up with loot, gear, levels, and online co-op with friends.  A release date in February of 2020 for Japan was given, but no update on when we'll get a Western release or a release for PC.

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r]


Unfortunately, UNI[cl-r] was leaked a few months ago by Taiwan and Australian ratings so the existence of the game was known.  The character was also leaked.  Still, I was happy to see it officially confirmed along with adding new moves to every character and showing what the new character is capable of.

Dragon Ball FighterZ


Joining the list of leaked information, Janemba was accidentally revealed on Nintendo's store page as a DLC character and was quickly taken down afterwards.  So sadly, he was not a surprise.  On the bright side, Season 2 pass for DBFZ was 50% off over the weekend and so I picked it up which includes Janemba.  I actually don't know who he is, but I really liked what I saw in the trailer.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle


This was the announcement I was most excited for and it certainly delivered!  It was unfortunately leaked the morning it was going to be announced, but I'm glad I didn't know and watched it revealed live on EVO stream while I was watching with my friends.  Prior going into EVO weekend, I had hoped for BBTAG to have another season of character packs to sell.  As much as I hate DLCs, I want more characters, content and change to BBTAG.  I LOVE the game.  With version patch 1.5 out a couple months ago, there was leaked information on who might be joining BBTAG through the announcers audio files from a datamine.  While I was expecting to see some characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, and Under Night In-Birth, we instead got two new fates joining as well as a RWBY character.  Since the launch of BBTAG, it's been known that the names "Asuka" and "Yumi" were found as announcer audio files in the datamine.  Both those names are known to be main characters of Senran Kagura.  Long have I waited for them to be announced for the game, and finally "Yumi" makes an appearance as its first Senran Kagura representative.  For the 7th fate, it was heavily implied that they were going to start adding characters from Akatsuki Blitzkampf based on the datamine from version 1.5 of BBTAG.  Having only played Akatsuki Blitzkampf once out of curiousity, I didn't know the characters well enough to say who'd I really want added.  I obviously wanted Akatsuki as he's one of my favorite characters in Under Night In-Birth (as a guest character).  But I joked with friends saying that I'd want Blitztank, a character brought up in joke quite often since I first learned about it back in 2012.  To actually see him added as an official character in BBTAG was both amusing and delightful.  But the biggest surprise of all was seeing Neo Politan as the RWBY character they were going to add.  I expected Team JNPR, Qrow, Adam, Roman, and a number of other characters that might make it before Neo, and yet the one character I really wanted (other than Velvet, who wasn't part of the datamine leak) was the one they gave us.  There will also be new mechanic changes, new UI (Oh please fix that awful character select screen), possibly new moves for characters, and 5 more unrevealed characters.  All that I can hope more for is a single-player mode with replay value like they have had for all Arc System Works fighting games.

Street Fighter V


Among the biggest leaks of EVO was Street Fighter V.  UNI[cl-r] was just a logo leak.  DBFZ was just a name leak.  But Street Fighter V was the entire video leaked out on Steam Store page for Street Fighter V.  They tried to take it down as quickly as possible, but it was already too late.  The video was downloaded and uploaded all over the net and spread like wild fire.  It was rather unfortunate and Ono went up on stage to deliver an apology to all the fans for having the surprise ruined.  But in all honesty, it would've been kind of a weak announcement.  It's cool we're getting E. Honda again, and Poison actually works differently from Street Fighter IV.  Lucia was the most exciting announcement out of the three being the new character and all.  But while every single game seemed to be getting revamped gameplay changes to all characters and systems (UNI, BBTAG, SC6, and T7), Street Fighter V had nothing new to offer other than these three characters.  At the very least, all three of them were available the day after the official announcement.

Tekken 7


What I wanted out of Tekken 7 was another season of characters and for Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII to be the guest character.  Due to a ill-timed joke in the middle of Tekken 7's finals, everyone watching was led to believe that Solid Snake of the Metal Gear franchise was joining Tekken 7.  This was cleared up the day after when EVO twitter explained that the short video of Snake was something cool they wanted to make and show during the tournament.  This obviously enraged the community for misleading them.  But this means Tifa still has a chance to be the guest character!  The guest/feature character was not shown at EVO this time (I'm still weirded out by the inclusion of Negan from The Walking Dead in Tekken 7), but two out of 5 of the DLC characters were shown: Zafina, a returning character to the series and Leroy Smith, a new original character.  I'm okay on Zafina (not too exciting for me), but Leroy looks like a fun character.

SoulCalibur VI


So both SoulCalibur VI and Samurai Shodown didn't show anything at the end of their own Finals, but withheld it until Sunday where all attention would be at one place (a smart move).  SoulCalibur VI revealed its last DLC character from the first season as Cassandra.  I tried her out last night and she's way different than I remember her and am really happy about her new moveset.  I just hoped for a 2nd Season of characters for SoulCalibur VI and was thinking that Sekiro would be a cool guest character for the game.  Seeing how I got everything I wanted in BBTAG, I was wondering if I'd get Sekiro in SoulCalibur VI.  Season 2 will include new moves for characters, changes to mechanics, and new content.  Season 2 pass will include 4 DLC characters with new character creation items with one of the DLC characters being a guest character.  At the end of the trailer, I saw a flower petal fall and the chime of bells which made me think it really was Sekiro.  "OMG, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE GETTING SEKI- oh it's Haohmaru-".  Haohmaru was a character that made almost too much sense and is a little crazy to think about.  Samurai Shodown was one of the first weapon-based fighters that really popularized the concept while SoulCalibur had ascended to become the most popular weapon fighter in the market.  So it was really cool to see it come full circle and have both series collaborate.

Samurai Shodown & King of Fighters XV


Honestly, all I wanted out of Samurai Shodown was a release date for PC.  They revealed the release dates of all the DLC characters for Season 1 and a free DLC character in September.  Then they revealed that a Season 2 character pack will release in 2020 with returning characters of the series based on a popularity poll (I hope Iroha gets in!).  I'm just looking forward to the PC release so I can play it.  Also, I'm super happy Rimururu is in the game.

Guilty Gear


Daisuke Ishiwatari didn't show up to last year's EVO and we were told he was working on something Guilty Gear related.  Well here it is and it looks incredible!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
And of course we got nothing out of Nintendo.


EVO was so much fun to watch this year.  I feel like fighting games are just getting better and better now.  It's such a great time to be a fighting game fan~

Looking at EVO 2018 Announcements

It's strange to have EVO at the beginning of August instead of the beginning of July, but this allowed an entire month for me to be productive.



I was able to finish one Remix and then work on an original composition (which I can't upload quite just yet).  I've started working on some original work to put together for a new portfolio so I can start looking for jobs again with something new to show.  After finishing the original composition, it was so embedded into my mind that I was hearing it in my sleep and was thinking about ways I could change or improve it in my dreams.  It became so exhausting that I knew I needed a break before I try to compose anything else.  So I took the past week off of work of any kind and focused on getting through some games.  I had been staying up late a lot throughout the month trying to progress in some games and finish them.  I realized this wasn't working out so I really wanted to take some time to actually sit down and get through some of these games so I'd stop having the urge to stay up late to make progress.  Unfortunately, I only managed to get through three of them as the 4th games I was working through happened to be twice as long as I thought it'd be.  Also, EVO was this past weekend so I didn't have as much time to play as I was focused on watching streams.

EVO was a lot of fun to watch this year and it had way more streams on main stage side and AnimEVO side.  I was anticipating some exciting announcements to be made during EVO, but nothing really compared to the reveal of BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle from last year.

[Dead or Alive 6]

Other than showing us a new character, they hinted at the return of Hitomi and Leifang
 

Diego is their attempt at attracting more Western audiences to their game.  With making the statement of wanting to make the characters less sexualized and creating and culminate an acceptance to the competitive scene, they aim to have their game be part of the list of games featured at next year's EVO event.  I'm excited for a new installment in the DoA series, but everything they've shown and said so far has been killing my excitement for it.  It's like they have an identity crisis and they're trying to find a way to be part of the cool kids.  Only time will tell how this pans out.

[SNK Heroines ~Tag Team Frenzy~]
They've revealed the last character for the game and it's not who I was expecting at all.

I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity.  There are plenty of female characters to choose from in the SNK series, and they ended up choosing one of their most well known male characters to turn into a female for the game.  I had hoped and expected it to be Fio from the Metal Slug series based on the silhouette looking like someone saluting with a ponytail blowing in the wind.  I'm okay with this turn of events, but a lot of fans are quite upset about it.  I just hope the game will come to PC and soon.

[Fighting EX Layer]
Terry shows up again in another game in his original male form.


He looks so good.  He looks way better than he did in King of Fighters 14.  Pullum Purna and Vulcano Rosso are also back.  I'm hoping and waiting for Fighting EX Layer to come to PC.

[BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle]
As expected, the only real news is that the last 9 remaining DLC characters were announced.


They come out today, so at the very least I was excited about that.  Then they go and teased us at the end of the trailer that a new franchise is coming to the game, but didn't say which one and when they'll talk about it.  It could be part of the datamined information of Asuka and Yumi from Senran Kagura, or the hinted inclusion of Neptune from Hyperdimension Neptunia.  But for all we know, it could be something that wasn't datamined or rumored like the Arcana Heart series.  I'm excited, but I'm also mad we have to wait for more information.

[Guilty Gear]
They announced a World Tour for Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, BlazBlue Central Fiction, and BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.  They showed nothing new and said that Daisuke Ishiwatari is working on something Guilty Gear related, but that's it.

[Super Smash Bros.]
This is all they left us with:
Thanks, Nintendo........at least it's something for once.

[Soul Calibur 6]
Two more returning characters.  Seong Mi-Na is looking great.


[Tekken 7]
Two returning characters with 3 more characters will release in the future.  The sixth character is a guest character and I can't say I'm all too thrilled about it.  It's not an appropriate character for the game so I'm rather disappointed.


[Dragon Ball FighterZ]
As found in the datamine, Cooler was revealed.


[Street Fighter V]
G and Sagat are available now.  I don't have any Fight Money left to buy anyone.....




Thus ends another year for EVO.

Summer Events and Short Rant on Fighting Games

Although seemingly monotonous and tired, it's become such a tradition for me to enjoy the Summer events every year now.  I felt so excited leading up to it, relished in it, and now feel a bit sad that it's over.  I don't feel nearly as empty as I do every year (maybe I'm getting used to the feeling), but I can definitely say I enjoyed the Summer events this year: E3, Summer Steam Sales, Summer Games Done Quick, and EVO Championship.  E3 was discussed in last month's post.

To say I "bought some games" would be an understatement.  Between May and now, I've accumulated 50 games.  In early May, I picked up Mass Effect: Andromeda for $35 just to play online multiplayer with a friend since I wasn't quite ready to play the campaign.  Multiplayer is a survival kind of mode and I was a little disappointed.  It's still fun, but there aren't that many levels and enemy types so it can get a bit stale.  Mid-May, I pre-ordered Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada and grabbed Tales of Xillia and XenoBlade Chronicles at check-out.  I didn't get to play much of Samurai Warriors: SoS, but I plan to right after I finish up NieR: Automata.  I was willing to pick up an Early Access game called Dead Cells that is influenced by Metroidvania games.  It's a challenging Rogue-like Action-platformer that's a lot of fun, but is one of those unforgiving games I might never finish.  It's hard to imagine that I had bought Shadow Warrior 2 back in May since it felt like a long time ago that I got together with friends and played it a bunch.  It's a wild game and I had a lot of fun with it.  At the end of May, I was really excited to pick up Tekken 7 and Guilty Gear Xrd -Rev 2- and actually played a decent amount of them so far.  I got through all of arcade and story mode for Tekken 7 and have been just enjoying Treasure Battle and trying to improve playing certain characters.  It's been a very long time since I've actually sat down and tried to learn a character in a Tekken game and it felt really nice.  Guilty Gear Xrd -Rev2- I have mostly played multi-player with a few arcade mode so far, so there's actually a LOT more I'm going to get out of playing it.  I had went through GGXrd -SIGN-'s story right before Rev 2 released so that I'd be up-to-date story.  I did the same with BlazBlue Chronophantasma (which I swear took 20-30+ hours to do) before I picked up Central Fiction during the Steam Summer Sales.  I pre-ordered Valkyria Revolution and sadly had to push it back in queue since I'm getting through NieR Automata right now.  For Steam Summer Sales, I picked up a lot of classic type genre games like Fighting games, Shoot-em-Ups, and Platformers.  One particular game to note I picked up was Killing Floor 2.  It's finally out of Early Access and most of my friends had it already.  After picking it up, we've played it together quite a lot and has become the most played game the past month.  I picked up a lot of other multiplayer games to play with friends and it's been kind of wild how much I bought to do so.  Summer Steam Sales was surprisingly great this year.  I was really happy with most of my purchases, if not all, and I've been having a lot of fun getting through them.  Summer Games Done Quick was a bit disappointing this time around.  I saw a lot of games I wasn't interested in seeing run throughout the event, but then I quickly realized that most of them were streamed in the middle of the night.  I skipped a lot of runs throughout the week either because I haven't played through the game yet (preventing spoilers) or I just wasn't interested.  It was still a week I enjoyed relaxing, talking to friends while we watched the streams and played games together.

EVO felt like a mixed experience, but it was overall entertaining and a great way to end the Summer events.  I paid more attention to Anime EVO this year and saw some really fun tournaments for games that I like that generally don't get much attention.  Unfortunately, I don't see any uploads of the tournaments for Anime EVO for this year.  At the end of the first day was the King of Fighters 14 Finals.  It was a pretty good final and that reversal on the very last round was EVO moment material.

Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2's Grand Finals was okay.  I was sad that there weren't any Millia players in Top 8, but there was a Jack-O player.  Omito's Johnny was fairly consistent throughout his journey through Top 8, so it wasn't too surprising to see the outcome.  Leo can be a tricky character to deal with, so the Grand Finals had some interesting moments.

I didn't really bother watching Injustice 2.  I watched it for a bit and got bored.  I kind of knew that would happen since I didn't particularly enjoy watching Injustice 1 either as it felt slow and kind of clunky.  It was fun playing through Injustice 1, but it's not a game I particularly like watching.  Moreso, a lot of stages in the 2nd game are so dark!

Super Smash Bros. Melee was a bit disappointing.  It was clear that the Smash elites would make it to Top 8 and the three former winners of EVO were fighting hard for another win to their record (Mang0 has won 2 while Armada and HungryBox have won once each).  Armada put Mang0 into losers brackets early in the Top 8 and it was a bit painful to watch as Mang0 was making the same mistakes he made going up against Armada 2 years ago at EVO.  Aside from multiple Self-Destructs (SD), Mang0 tends to get zoned out to the edges of the stage by Armada and easily gets punished whenever Armada waits for him in the middle of the stage.


Mang0 managed to beat HungryBox in losers bracket to make it to Grand Finals and hopefully learn something from the matches he had against Armada earlier.  But as expected, the same mistakes were being made (although lessened) and Armada had complete control over the flow of the fight in too many instances.  Armada earned his 2nd EVO win and he stuck with his Peach pick this time around.  I suppose that's at least better than seeing another Fox mirror match.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was also pretty disappointing in the same exact fashion as Super Smash Bros. Melee.  The finals for UMvC3 was fairly early and would end around 10AM in the morning, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to wake up for that.  The night before, I saw that Justin Wong was still in the tournament and I wondered if he made it to Top 8.  I was going to go back to bed if he wasn't and sadly he was knocked out before then.  But then I saw ChrisG's name on the list and was curious if he was able to win a 2nd time at EVO.


ChrisG was put into loser's bracket by RyanLV's unusual team consisting of Morrigan, Phoenix and Chun-Li.  I don't remember the last time I saw Chun-Li at a tournament.  In fact, I kind of forgot that she was even in the game.  RyanLV would utilize Chun-Li's aerial kicks to stay suspended in mid-air to burn out ChrisG's infamous wall of Morrigan's Soul Fist and then engage after the super wears off.  Climbing back into Grand Finals, ChrisG tried to find an opening in RyanLV's defense as he did his usual combo of Soul Fists and Doom missiles, but RyanLV's tactics and engagements seemed to really confuse ChrisG and RyanLV was able to capitalize on some of the desperation attacks ChrisG put out.  It wasn't exactly a one-sided match, but it really felt as if RyanLV was able to control the match in his favor the entire time.  His team has a high risk, high reward output just from having Phoenix in his team.  Phoenix is the squishiest character in the game, but with one of the scariest damage output when she transforms into Dark Phoenix from a level 5 super meter.  That risk certainly paid off as it was the key to winning the last round for RyanLV.  Although it was a bit boring for a Grand Finals, I have to praise RyanLV for finding an answer to ChrisG's strategy that many competitors couldn't get past for so many years.

BlazBlue: Central Fiction was so exhausting to watch.  It's really scary just how good players can get in this game where even one mistake might cost you the entire match.  A friend and I joked about how glad we were that the Arakune player didn't make it into Grand Finals.  Arakune's main weapon is "curse" where a homing fog follows the enemy player until they touch them which causes bugs to fly all over the screen and either open up the player to an attack or keep them in block-stun while their health is being chipped away.  It's a bit boring and disheartening to see.


Ryusei is quite the character.  I've never seen a pro fighting game player so energetic and happy all the time.  Even when losing he's seen smiling and laughing.  His pressure game with Carl is pretty disgusting and leaves little room to engage.  Fenritti played Jin and relied a lot on resets and poking into hit confirms.  So it was quite a treat to see him fight against such pressure and make some great plays throughout the match.  BlazBlue CF was one of the better Grand Finals we saw this year at EVO.

I felt like I was able to enjoy watching Tekken 7 a lot more this year since I actually got to play the game and understand the mechanics a lot better.

Having actually played the game now, I'm able to see the little details that make this game fun to watch as much as it is to play.  The environments are so beautiful.  The effects and art style makes the game feel more modern but not so realistic that it takes away the magic of it being a videogame.  The slow-motion, camera zoom when both players are close to being knocked out and both pull out an attack really adds to the suspense and excitement.  It was a pretty good Grand Finals, but I have to say that the last game was pretty brutal.

I was rather conflicted on who to root for on Super Smash Bros. Wii U's Grand Finals.  I like ZeRo as a player and would be happy to see him win at EVO a 2nd time.  But at the same time, I like Bayonetta as a character and Salem is one of the few pro players to stick with her after she was nerfed so hard where she fell from top tier down to middle tier.


It was a grueling fight between the two players and it brought them to the last round.  ZeRo with still two stocks left and Salem already up to 101% on his last stock, who would win?  It was definitely an EVO moment right at the end.

Street Fighter V was certainly something else this year.  There were a lot more character variation in Top 8.  New up and coming pro-players made their way to the finals.  And the Grand Finals will certainly be a match fans will talk about years later.

Having reached Top 8 three times in the past 6 years that I've watched EVO, Tokido was quite familiar with the fierce competition that awaited him.  Up and coming pro player Punk has been garnering quite the attention the past half year and got to Grand Finals without losing a single match throughout the EVO event.  The first set, before the bracket reset, was quite nerve wracking.  Both players demonstrated why they reached Grand Finals with careful engagements with little to no error.  It was quite the tug-n-pull between Punk immaculate reactions and execution in defensive play against Tokido's fast and aggressive pressure.  After the bracket reset, Tokido just went super saiyan and went in without hesitation.  It's as if it was an entirely different person playing.  After the match was over and Tokido had a chance to speak to the crowd.  He said something quite simple, but carried so much weight, meaning and sincerity behind it that it left commentator James Chen in tears.

"Fighting Games is something so great." -Hajime "Tokido" Taniguchi 2017

It's not a new sight to see James Chen cry as he's a passionate man who cares deeply for the Fighting game scene and the community that supports it.  It was an exciting and emotional end to EVO and I was happy to share the experience with my friends (through voice chat) and even my sister this year.  She got to go to EVO and watch the tournaments on site and we exchanged more text messages with each other talking about it than we normally do from an entire year.  EVO was so much fun to watch this year.


My Short Rant on Fighting Games:

I've talked a lot about fighting games in the past.  I love seeing the different techniques and skills each character has, the story behind each one, the music, the art, the presentation.  Fighting games have so much depth to them.  But there's something else that Fighting games brings to videogames that I don't talk about much, and that's a community.  Fighting games were created just for the pure entertainment like any other game back in days of Arcades.  Many other arcade games have competitions on the highest score, but fighting games are a little different.  Fighting games have players directly compete against one another.  This sort of competition is much more intimate and personal.  You would think that this sort of competitive game would cause animosity between players (and of course it does in some cases), but somehow it has brought many strangers together because of the love they have for a particular game.  Many players would try to prove themselves to be the best at the game that they love playing and soon it became a chain reaction of competitions between cities, states, and now regions.  What was a showcase to show who was the best slowly became a community of fans who get together to meet new people, better themselves against new opponents, and the celebration of the games that they love.  Now we have people who play on a professional level and people who watch who may not even play the games.  Through fighting games fans gather to share their passion and love for the games with others.  Competitors find reason to improve themselves to be able to triumph over others.  I do talk a lot about how videogames bring people together, but fighting games take it one step further as it creates an intimate relationship by nature because it has one player directly in confrontation with another player.  By now, pro players are so used to seeing each other at tournaments that it's like a mini-reunion every time they go compete.  Through fighting games, friends are made, names are cheered, journeys are taken, rivalries are created, and tears are shed because there are so many people willing to invest so much time and energy into these games that they're so passionate about.  It is because of this that Tokido's words hold so much weight behind them.  Fighting games are truly great.

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.

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.

Don't end just yet, Summer!

Man, what a crazy month! Starting from June, there was the E3 conference to start off the Summer. Following that was the Steam Summer Sales that began a lot sooner than I thought. Despite my efforts, I still ended up spending twice as much as I wanted to for the sales. Then I started playing Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty while watching the playoffs for DotA 2 on the first week of July. Then EVO 2014 streams started that weekend with some of the craziest matches in fighting game history; One being BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Grand Finals (Starting at 01:40:58) that had 7 match points before Garireo reached the ultimate victory.  That was definitely THE most intense Grand Final of EVO this year.  I also enjoyed the finals for Super Smash Bros. Melee.  There was also the Grand Final for Ultra Street Fighter IV, which wasn't as exciting; however, there was an interesting fact about the winner: He used a Playstation 1 gamepad throughout the tournament.  I don't know how he did it.  That controller used to give me blisters all the time before they introduced the dual analog sticks.  My favorite EVO moment this year was Justin Wong related, just like last year.


Starting at 12:18.  It's the last match with 2 points for both players, and the victor will move onto the Grand Finals.  Justin Wong is down to his Akuma, who can easily be taken out in one combo, and Filipino Champ had brought out his Phoenix with a level 5 meter which transforms her into Dark Phoenix.  At that pivotal moment when Filipino Champ got the hit confirm at 12:26, I immediately thought "it's over, Justin lost..."  But to my surprise, Filipino Champ X-Factored and dove in WITH his support out to hopefully end it right there.  In that crucial moment, Justin Wong was able to react to it with a Messatsu-Goshoryu, (a special Shoryuken/Dragon Punch) which has a good amount of frames of invincibility during start-up, and make contact with both characters of Filipino Champ which finished the match right there.  I kept wondering if it would have been different if Filipino Champ was a bit more patient and stalled those last 20 seconds (Justin Wong used to do that ALL the time!).  Still, it was one of those great moments that makes watching these matches streamed live worth it.  Right after EVO was the DotA 2 International which holds the record for highest reward pot of over $10 Million in e-sports history.  Unfortunately, I've been so worn out from watching so many streams, keeping up with work, and trying to clear games that I didn't follow The International very closely and ended up missing the Grand Finals.  I heard it was pretty decisive and wasn't that fun to watch compared to the lower brackets and early playoffs.

In between all that news following, game buying, and stream watching madness, I managed to get some work done.  I had finished the Ultima Exodus Remix Project I've been working on and successfully uploaded all 10 tracks on Youtube.


All 10 tracks are in that player there.  With the project finally completed, I started finishing up loose ends with projects I was working on before this week.  Right after that, I'm going to need to start looking at job openings again, but this time for Audio rather than Quality Assurance.  It's causing a bit of stress as more time passes and my chances of finding a job becomes slimmer.  But I refuse to give up and work at a job that I won't allow me to get better with music and learn more about game development.  Until I find one, I might continue doing more remix projects, because remix, arranging, and covering videogame music has been something I've been wanting to do all my life and wasn't able to until just recently.

In terms of games, I'd say I've been playing a lot more enjoyable games compared to what I played back in April and May.  I finally got around to finishing Dragon's Crown and was presented with end-game content with a lot more I can do!  It was surprising to see after the credits ended and there was more to the game.  I finally got around to finishing Dead Rising 2 as well, and it was so painful.  There were some aspects I really enjoyed out of the game, but it mostly frustrated me.  There isn't much to say about it.  One of my friends bought me Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae for my Birthday and I played it days after and finished it pretty quickly.  For a Indie developed Hack-n-Slash, I thought it was solid.  It was challenging, had a lot of combo options and skills, a decent amount of unlockables, and a very pretty main character.  Phantasy Star Portable, I've had on my PSP since 2009 and never beat because of how incredibly grindy it got at the end.  I tried one last time as I've played it off and on for the past 4 years after graduating, but I still wasn't able to defeat the final form of the last boss and so I gave up.  I watched the ending cinematics on Youtube and considered the game to be finished under my excel sheet.  Magicite was one of the games I bought during the Steam Summer Sale.  It's an Action-Platformer with crafting aspects and rogue-like elements.  It's like a mix between Terraria and Risk of Rain.  I played the game quite a bit with two of my friends and I managed to finally beat it twice: once solo and the 2nd time with my friends.  I also finished Resident Evil 6 with a friend recently and really enjoyed it a lot!  I can see why a lot of fans are upset with it as it's a lot less about exploration, puzzles, and horror and a bigger focus on Action and cooperative play.  I thought Capcom did a great job making a fun co-op game with long-time favorite characters of the series.  I had bought a lot of 2D platformers during the Steam Summer Sale and ended up being very disappointed in a lot of them.  Inescapable was short, boring, and had a dumb ending.  Oniken had incredible cutscenes that truly felt like a NES game, but took some of the worst aspects of Action-platformers for its game play and design.  Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge, I didn't have much expectations for, but I bought it because Jake "Virt" Kaufman created the music for it.  The game wasn't that great, but the ending credits song by A_Rival is amazing!

Then there were 2D platformers I got that were pretty good or incredible!  1001 Spikes is one of the incredible ones!  There are so many games that want to capture the retro, 8-bit era magic of games but don't quite get it other than mimicking the graphics with some annoying chip-tunes that screams "generic videogame music!"  But 1001 Spikes seems to get it right!  Rather than emulating a game for the NES and saying that it's retro, it has all the concepts of a retro game with a modern mind behind it.  1001 Spikes is a difficult, troll-a-thon, platformer that consists of very short, but very challenging levels that are all intricately designed with a defined concept behind it.  Every jump, every enemy, and every trap are carefully placed for reasons of player reaction, challenge, and opposition.  It's a game where you will die a lot but learn from with each try with a satisfaction of completion at the end of each level.  Memorization is required and so is quick reflexes and reactions.  Much like Dragon's Crown, I thought I had completed the game when it starts playing a cinematic and then presents more gameplay at the end!  Besides the many modes and content available, there's also a ton of extra characters to play as.  Some that are quite familiar from other game franchises.  It's just one surprise after another with this game, and I love it!  The last Hardcore platformer I played that felt this great was Super Meat Boy.  One of the secret characters in 1001 Spikes is Nyx from NyxQuest.  I remembered the game but never got it, and so I did during the Steam Summer Sale.  It was a short 3 hour adventure, but it had some really nice gameplay that utilizes the mouse to move everything around and the keyboard to jump, fly and glide towards safety.  It was a pretty fun game and I only hated one of the levels.  Another 2D platformer I got that I absolutely loved was Abyss Odyssey.  I actually pre-ordered it and didn't even know much about it.  I saw a trailer for it during E3 and said "it looks kinda like Castlevania and I'm craving for a Metroidvania game right now."  There were many surprises in store for me in this game as the combat system is inspired by fighting games, particularly Super Smash Bros.  Fighting is similar to Super Smash Bros. with the ability to skill cancel like in Street Fighter or the game Valdis Story.  The game has some rogue-like elements where the levels, enemies, item placements, shops, and altars are randomly generated.  This game is also very tough, but not in the same way as 1001 Spikes.  Contrary to 1001 Spikes, you CAN'T memorize anything in Abyss Odyssey since everything changes every time you play.  The combat system has a lot of depth to it for being so heavily associated with Super Smash Bros. and it kept me wanting more as I played the game.  The music is great too!

Along with the game, I also get the soundtrack for free for pre-purchasing and I'm glad I did.  I'd say I played Magicite (23 hours) and Abyss Odyssey (25 hours) the most recently.  Others games I've completed recently are: StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty (working on Heart of the Swarm now), Killer is Dead (which I loved), and Sniper Elite V2 (it was sorta fun).

I've got a lot of stuff ahead of me in the next month such as looking for a job in audio, finishing up projects, and clearing more of my backlog.

P.S. I started watching an animé called Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? (Is the Order a Rabbit?) and it's so cute I can't contain myself!

All the HYPE!

Man, what a crazy month it's been!  It's funny that I say that since I haven't really gone anywhere.  I decided to take a break from work in July and had planned that for June but kept busy in order to keep up with work.  I'm so sad July is coming to an end since it's been so much fun for me.  In the beginning of the month, a friend from LA drove all the way up to visit me and hang out for a few days.  I played a bunch of games on Wii, PS3, and PC with him and showed him around Old Sacramento.  It was a short visit, but it was definitely worth seeing him again since the last time I got to hang out with him was 3 years ago before I graduated from UCI.  Project X Zone for the 3DS finally came in the mail, but I didn't get the chance to play it until 2 nights ago since I've been so busy the past 3 weeks.  On July 11th, Summer Steam Sales and EVO began.  On that weekend, I watched all the matches on Twitch Stream while playing the Open Beta for Firefall.  There were a lot of exciting matches and this was the first year I watched all of EVO.
Source: Youtube Channel IGN

The match between Justin Wong vs. ChrisG on Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was the one I really wanted to see happen and it did when Justin was knocked into the loser's bracket.  When it was 0-2 and Justin was down to his last character, I just expected him to lose and thought it was a one-sided match with ChrisG doing some excellent plays.  But then Justin surprised everyone with a crazy comeback with Storm (which he has done before) and won 3 rounds in a row and climbed his way all the way out of loser's bracket and into the finals with 2-2 but lost in the end.  Still, it was such an exciting experience watching him beat all odds and get so far.  I enjoyed watching most of the finals, but for specific games, I was looking forward to watching Persona 4 Arena, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Street Fighter x Tekken since those are games I generally don't get to see tournament plays for.  I played Firefall and Path of Exile with a friend while watching the streams that weekend.

Then the week continued with more sales from Steam.  I had ordered a discounted Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate 3 for 3DS and went out to buy Dynasty Warriors 8 on the first day it came out (July 16th) for the PS3 in between the sales.  And right when the sale started, there was a Humble Weekly Bundle of Spiderweb Software's 15 games.  I also forgot to mention that during my friend's visit from LA, we went to GameStop and I finally got a copy of Baroque for the Wii for $5 and Odin Sphere went on sale for $5 on PSN this week so I picked that up last night.  Needless to say, I acquired a plethora of new games and have been excitedly playing through a good number of them in the past 2 weeks.

To go through some of the games I got on steam, I finally purchased Defiance for $13.59 and thought it was a good price for a game I can hop onto once in a while to mess around in and kill stuff.  I didn't feel very good about a $30 on it during the free weekend I tried it a few weeks ago, but $13.59 isn't too bad of a price.  I had a lot of trouble getting God Mode to work and then found a way to play it without it crashing by turning all the graphic settings to low.  It's definitely a multiplayer intensive game, but I can't connect to anyone's game which means no one plays it or match making sucks.  Still, it's a fun third-person shooter that cuts to the chase and let's me jump into the action.  The one game I'm really happy with is Rogue Legacy.  It's an Action-Platform Adventure game with RPG and Rogue-like elements such as level progression, equipment acquisition, randomly generated levels, and extreme difficulty.  It reminds me a lot of Castlevania post Symphony of the Night type games and I think that's where it really pulls me in.  I'm also really happy with The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, a sort of diablo-ish game with a unique skill tree and ability mechanic.  Along with me buying a bunch of games during the sale, a lot of my friends have been buying games too and I've been able to play a bunch of games with them because of it.

And the month isn't over just yet.  One of my friends is treating me to Videogames Live tomorrow and it will be the first time I'm seeing it in concert.  There's still so many games I want to play and get through.  My plan for "relaxation" originally was to beat as many games as possible with one of them being Starcraft 2.  Well, that didn't happen as I haven't even touched it yet.  I just ended up buying a bunch of games and playing whatever I felt like.  Surprisingly, I jumped up from 53 completed games to 70 since the last time I posted last month.  What makes me sad about July ending soon is what I have to get back into for the next month: back to arranging my portfolio, searching for job openings and submitting resumés and cover letters, possibly going to court for jury duty (most likely, ugh), and getting work done.  Hopefully I was able to relax enough this past month to actually help me keep focused for the next month.