I've been incredibly busy the past two months right after EVO finished and have barely given myself a chance to really rest a little. While it's great that I've been so productive, it's very easy to keep rushing forward and lose sight of where I'm headed. With getting one audio project done after another and switching from one new game to the next, both work and play has kept me busy.
What eventually broke this chain and gave me a bit more to think about was an offer a friend gave me. The same friend that I helped with a project back in July was now able to officially hire me for contract work and asked me a few weeks ago about doing it. I thought about it for a while and ended up initially turning down the offer and decided to focus on music since I was incredibly motivated and inspired the past few weeks. He eventually contacted me again last week and really tried to convince me to take the job. In my mind, I felt it was unnecessary for my participation. But he was adamant on specifically having me do it. I was rather surprised by his enthusiasm and started to consider if I could put aside time for it. I asked for more details with the duration of the job in particular and it's about 4 weeks. After spending nearly an hour trying to persuade me, I eventually sort out how I was going to approach taking this job, slowing down on my audio work, and then continuing what I was doing after those 4 weeks of work time in my head and agreed to take the job.
Honestly, I felt bad for making my friend work so hard to try to convince me to take the job when I've been complaining about not getting any job opportunities for so long. Having been so unfocused all year since returning from Japan, I didn't want to ignore the motivation and inspiration I've recently gained and so I've been fervently working on remixes and continue to do so until I start on that job. In any case, here are the remixes I've finished the past 2 months.
On the videogaming side, I've jumped from playing Fire Emblem Three Houses to having to switch to Astral Chain, then to Daemon X Machina, and now Code Vein. With no more pre-order games in mind (other than Mario & Sonic at the Olympics 2020 in November), I can kind of relax a little on time constraint and slowly take on those 4 games. With the amount of work and games I've been putting time into recently, I felt almost as blind as I was before I got so motivated. I think that's why it's important to me to take one day out of each month like this to write in my blog to be able to reflect and clear my mind a bit so I can stay on the path I want to head towards. You can say I've been pretty happy with the amount of progress I've been able to cover in both work and games the past two months, and yet I still feel empty at times. I want to be able to reach a point in my life again where the uncertainty of my future feels exciting rather than daunting. My trip to Japan proved that my life still has that potential.
As we get into the Autumn season, I push forward towards my short-term goals and hope that it helps my long-term goals.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
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 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~
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~
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