Yeah, These are pretty sweet matches. Actually shifted me off West Wing.
My god, Infiltration vs Tokido was… Omg.
Great finals!
Dear lord that was amazing. Manly tears for all, that was everything that I hoped for and more.
Thank you Evo!
Good stuff as always. I love watching this and the MLG Starcraft tournament every year.
Maybe just a few too many Akuma fireballs for me as a casual viewer. I’m glad I caught the end of MvC3 for some variety. I’d like to watch that KOF finals if they repost it. I’ve never watched Mortal Kombat or Super Smash Brothers either.
If you want to watch something pretty crazy try the Persona 4 Arena matches.
Any way to see some of these matches if you missed the streaming?
That $20 would be better spent on practically any other fighter on the market.
(This isn’t as much a knock on SFxT, which apparently is slightly more viable now than it was when it launched, as it is a knock on buying any fighting game on a handheld, especially a current Capcom fighter. Those things are usually terrible for single-player content, and you’re not going to have much luck finding opponents online.)
Have to agree that handheld fighters aren’t worth, and SFxTK isn’t worth it at this point either- the game is dying pretty hard outside of a super-hardcore niche (and I’m saying super-hardcore within the FGC itself) The game pretty much isn’t played by even the pot monsters anymore (the folks who slow up with no hope of winning such as myself)- and with a new SF4 announced I think the game will die off really quickly.
If you’re looking for a game with a low entry barrier: look at Divekick next month for $10. Persona is also very easy to get into with its fairly simple controls and small roster- my main issue with the game is bad matchups (I played Yukiko and was in an area with multi S-Labs)
Yes, everyone should get Divekick next month. $10, cross-buy cross-play on PS3 and Vita. It has single-device multiplayer on Vita.
I wouldn’t say Persona 4 Arena’s controls are simple; it does an impressive amount of stuff with four buttons, by which I mean “have fun learning which two- and three-button combinations perform specific functions.”
(Also, the fighting games I would call “worthwhile” on handhelds aren’t very good competitive games in the first place, like BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend and Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, both of which have a huge number of fun single-player modes.)
Blazblue (if you’re on PS3) is getting a new, much more respected version next year (Chrono Phantasma). No 360 version as anime games don’t sell on the 360.
Divekick finals were awesome this year, I don’t know how it will translate to home play, but it’s fun to watch.
Honestly, the more I hear about Chronophantasma, the less I’m interested, so I’ve been glad to be able to ignore its home release for a while now. I already knew Tager was going to be bottom-tier again, and Nu being turned into a stance character made things worse, but the low-quality music and the ridiculous X-Fac-er, Overdrive system just tell me “I don’t want to play this game.”
That Chris G vs Justin Wong UMvC3 match was a classic. Such great high level play from both guys. That Storm comeback with no life against two characters when Justin was down 2-0 was incredible. Really, that whole climb out of losers bracket for Justin was amazing, but good on Flocker for pulling it together at the end and winning.
SF4 was fun. Infiltration vs PR Balrog rematch was my favorite of the bunch, especially when Infiltration pulled Hakan out of his back pocket to win even though Rog kept it close. I was falling in and out of sleep by the time it got to the Akuma mirror match between Infiltration and Tokido, so I’m going to have to go back and watch those last couple of matches. I enjoyed seeing the strong Makoto play continue by Heitani in top 8 as well. Xian seems like a nice guy so I’m happy to see him win, but at the same time I don’t really love watching his character Gen, as brilliant as he plays him.
Injustice finals were meh. I really enjoy watching and playing the game, but Superman is too fucking ridiculous. That dumb character has top tier zoning, pressure strings, damage, mobility, and the best super move in the game. He got nerfed a bit in the last couple of weeks and still dominated the Top 8.
I’m going to have to go back and watch KoF which I missed.
EVO 2014 starts in a few hours. Just thought I’d bump this up in case anyone is interested but unaware.
AVClub of all places did a nice long preview article covering all of the different games and storylines/players.
Yeaaaah get hyyyyype… And stuff. Love it.
Let me just take a second to shit on Capcom for taking over the USFIV streams for all major tournaments. It’s cool that they’ve finally gotten involved with supporting the community but I find it frickin unbelievable that they require you to buy a subscription to watch archives after the live stream has aired. Is the money made from subscriptions really worth the extra buzz and free marketing from blocking out people who might be interested in checking it out but can’t catch it live? Can’t they make this monetarily worth their while just by showing ads? It blows my mind how backwards Capcom still is with this stuff when compared to the developer support you see in the big MOBA tournaments.
It does mean the main EVO stream is showing eight hours of pools for a far more interesting game than USF4 today. :P
I’m actually not planning on watching much from EVO at all, partially because I’m working today and Sunday, but mainly because I don’t really care to watch any of the games being shown this year. I’ll try to catch Nintendo’s SSB4 thing (probably another character reveal), but I don’t feel like I’ll be missing out on much from top eight in any of the main-stage games this year.
Aside from any of that, the way certain aspects of the event are being handled this year (and not just by the EVO organizers) is kind of a mess. BlazBlue has enormous pot bonuses, but they got announced too late for it to affect entry numbers, so it’s sitting with a larger pot than USF4 but 1/4 as many entrants; meanwhile, Skullgirls is a side game again, but has a larger pot than some of the main games due to its publisher throwing money in.
I haven’t played Blaz Blue since the first release, and even then not much, but a friend sent me this video from the recent Blaz Blue tournament and it was extremely fun to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrvY6BbiUE0
30 minutes long, but worth watching till the end. There’s a lot of drama in there and some fantastic reversals that even someone as inexperienced as me with that game found really exciting.
There’s definitely been a huge buzz around the internet about the BlazBlue finals, but I didn’t get to see it. I’ll be sure to check it out. I’ve never played that game in any incarnation.
I’m completely floored by the fact that a Rose player won the USF4 tournament. Rose has been my main for several years now and as far as I know, the character has hardly ever sniffed a major tournament win. She’s never been considered a top tier character, though this new version has helped her a bit. Luffy has been a consistently strong player for years, but being a French dude, he doesn’t get a lot of face time in the big US tournament scene. Despite a strong showing last year where he narrowly missed the top 8, I never would have guessed he could win… especially with that long road of killers he had to deal with from the losers bracket. Just an incredible performance by that guy. His play all through the top 8 is among the very cleanest Street Fighter I’ve ever seen - and I’ve watched a LOT of Street Fighter. Rose is an honest character who relies heavily on fundamentals and mind games. She has so few options on wakeup and can run into tough matchups vs characters who have strong knockdown pressure. For a Rose player to come out on top over a field of 2,000+ is just awesome to me.
I really liked the top 8 in general this year, though there were a lot of one sided matches going 3-0 or 2-1. The last several years have been dominated by characters who win by forcing the opponent to play endless guessing games after a knockdown. The addition of a delayed wakeup on hard knockdown in this new version of the game has really taken that sort of play down a peg. This year we saw a clear resurgence of characters who win by hard work controlling space in the neutral game. Lots of great footsies matches all around.