EVO 2011 After Thoughts

Hey guys. Just writing an opinion piece on the recent events at EVO 2011 and I'll start off by saying, this is easily one of the best EVOs I've ever watched in recent history. For those uninformed, EVO is short of Evolution Champsion Series, a collection of big tournaments for various fighting games. This year in particular included BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2, Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat 9, Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition and after watching it and collecting myself from all the excitement, I wanted to share my thoughts on the event. This article is a little experimental as it's basically a podcast but in written form, because I don't have a good microphone. Without further ado, lets go through each tournament from the order the finals were done. First up, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift 2.

Admittedly, as much as I like BlazBlue, I didn't follow this one too closely, and I think I have my BlazBlue friends to blame for that. Oh, they love the game and always play it, but for the most part, they talk about how overpowered the top three characters are: Hazama, Noel, and Makoto. So to be honest, I didn't feel like watching a tournament where the final fight would end up being a mirror match between Makotos. Man, was I wrong. Not only was winner not either of the three 'Best Characters', but the match in general was a fight between LordKnight's Litchi and Spark's Hakumen.





The path up to this fight in particular was really intense and fun to watch because the infamous Tokido, who recently took Tekken, BlazBlue, Marvel vs Capcom 3, AND Street Fighter 4 championship at CEO was in the top 8 and spectators were concerned, he might take it here too, especially considering he was playing a fairly mean Noel. Now, nothing against Tokido, cause he really is a great player and I respect him, but when you take all four of the major tournaments of different games at once, you stop being inspirational and look more like a terminator machine than anything and I guess I wanted Tokido to lose because it proves he still has to learn. Again, I like the guy, I just want to still relate to him, if that makes sense.

Continuing on, the grand finals was very fun and impressive to watch as Spark's defense was absolutely awe-inspiring, making Hakumen, a character who is consider one of the worst characters (I hear he's 4th from the bottom) look like a impenetrable machine! It really made me want to get back in the Continuum Shift after everything was said and done and maybe even pick up a few new characters on the way... for no particular reason. Heh.

Tekken 6 was the exact opposite of what I was hoping for. Again, I didn't really pay attention beforehand, mainly because... well... I don't care for Tekken. I think it's fun every now and again, but on a competetive level, it's just not exciting to me. Granted, last year, if I recall correctly was diverse enough to watch, with a Steve ultimately taking the champsionship. This year however wasn't so diverse. I'm not sure what was discovered, but there were a lot of Bobs chopping around. Even though the grand finals began with Miguel vs Bob, it eventually boiled down to Bob vs Bob. So yea, lots of big old fat guy bashing around. If someone might give me more insight on this, I'd actually love to know. What else is there to say but... Bob?

Mortal Kombat 9 was particularly interesting, because of one player: REO, a very impressive Mileena player who apparently was at EVO because of a fund raiser to get him there. I'm not sure about all the details, but I'm sure they can be found at TestYourMight.com. Anyway, watching his Mileena player was awesome because all the pressure, all the mix ups, and the precision of his combos was so entertaining to watch and every fight was so enticing and nail-bitingly tense. It was great. Sadly, after resetting the grand finals in his favor, REO was defeated in the grand finals, but he made such an effort. I hope to see more from this player in the future.



Marvel vs Capcom 3 was also very exciting to watch, but in particular, I wanted to talk about one of the players who got knocked out before the top 32 and that's Noah. You're probably wondering 'why is he talking about some guy who didn't even get the top 32?' Well, the reason being is that Noah's 8 years old. He's 8 years old and he made got into the top 48 contenders out of 1500 people. That is no easy feat, no matter the game. However, another thing I wanted to discuss was people's reaction to Noah, particularly the match where he finally lost against Chris G. It's one thing to cheer for the underdog, but to boo out someone for doing what he came here to do is just plain insulting. Not necessarilly to the one you're booing out, but the one you're booing for. It's hard to explain, but I imagine Noah, based on his reaction when he lost at his young age and skill with these sort of games, realizes that not everyone is going to nice to you, especially in a big event like this. When the crowd began booing so strongly when he was losing, I felt that they no longer wanted Noah to win because he was good. They wanted him to win because he's a kid. That is more an insult to him than it is to his opponent, in my opinion. That said, I really respect the little guy and hope he gets better as he gets older.






As for the tournament itself, like I said, it was exciting to watch, though I admit I was sad when Combofiend got 4th overall. I wanted him to take it overall cause he had such a unique team compared to all the Phoenixs and Wolverines out there. Regardless, the finals wasn't anything to scoff at as we got to see some great Tron action. Again, while he made a great effort and played very strong, PR Balrog ultimately lost to the winner Viscant. Though watching these fights made me excited for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, mainly because a lot of the lame stuff that happened throughout the tournament, such as the infamous DHC Glitch that can reset damage and combo scaling on a character, will be gone so next EVO should be much better.

Finally, we have Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (Say that 5 times fast), which damn, was this game so thrilling to watch. It began a little weak with contenders like Wolfkrone and Flash Metroid being taken out relatively easily by Tokido and Kindevu (who I swear is the Marn of the Japanese FGC... take that as you will). Then came the winner's bracket and if there were ever a long string of hype-building fights, these were them: Poongko vs Daigo, Latif vs Tokido, Poongko vs Fuudo, Latif vs Daigo, Poongko vs Latif, and Latif vs Fuudo. Each of these fights were great and all the players really showed their stuff, with Fuudo taking the championship. It took me a while but I can't hate Fuudo for having such a good Fei Long because he legimately played smart and took advantage of things his opponent's did, such as Poongko's random shoryukens or Latif's burn kicks. Speaking of which, I hope Latif starts to get the recognition he deserves because before EVO happened, no one thought he would make even the top 8 and I had to wonder why. Regardless, it was a great string of matches and ultimately, I'm happy with how they turned out.



And that's EVO 2011 in a nutshell, and easily it's one of the best EVOs in recent history. I only hope that future EVOs are just as exciting and diverse... though I don't know if Tekken 6 will be or should be at the next EVO, because it seems to have such a low turn out and who knows, people were thinking Mortal Kombat might not be so popular after EVO, but seeing how many people were there to watch, who knows? We might see the game announced for next year, yet. Though only time will tell. Regardless, I'm excited for next year and hope to go out to vegas to witness everything live and even compete. Anyway, I've rambled on for long enough. If you agree or disagree, leave a comment and share your thoughts. Til next time.