With Evolution 2009 around the corner, it will definately signal a new generation of players. According to the Evolution Twitter the count was at 1040 entries for Street Fighter IV. Over the years, this amount of entries would be unheard of. Heck, if you were to tell arcade goers back in the day that they would still be playing Street Fighter II competitively 15 years later, they would not believe it. Well it's true and within those 15 years are chapters of history molded by the community and its players. After years of compiling forum posts, player interviews and word on the streets, this is their story.
1994 - Street Fighter II becomes the arcade scene Just like Pac-Man a decade before, arcades swelled to capacity with
patrons alike. The only difference this time around was that Street
Fighter II became the first arcade game where obtaining the highest
score was not the ultimate goal. Instead, it was a virtual competition
unseen before, creating a culture where you can just about walk up to
anyone on the street and say, "Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li are..." and most
people 35 and under will associate them as "Street Fighters."
Relevant Link -Rise of Street Fighter II popularity
During this era, California led the forefront in top play with
Sunnyville Golfland, Southern Hills Golfland, and the Regency and the
early stars/masters of the game came out from the masses of top-level
play - Tomo Ohira, Thomas Osaki and Mike Watson. Out of the three, Mike
Watson is the only player actively playing today while the other two
are long since retired legends. Tomo Ohira was the dominating player of
South California, to the point where he was sponsered by GamePro
Magazine. Osaki on the other hand was more infamously known among his
peers to be a legendary traveling SF2 technician. His 24/7 no-nonsense
play has been idolized by veterans like David Sirlin because he is the
type that will never let up, even if his opponent is Mike Watson or a
9-year-old girl.
Relevant Link - Domination 101 excerpt
Relevant Link - Discussion on Pre-Internet greats of SFII 1995 - Early Internet for Street Fighter At the time, the Internet was not as big as it is today. Before
YouTube, before Shoryuken.com there was a small usernet group
Alt.games.sf2. Dating back to 1992, this primitive bulletin board was
the only place where the wealth of early Street Fighter knowledge was
shared all over the world. The only drawback was having an Internet
connect, which was exclusive to college campuses and big company
offices.
Fast forward to late 1995 where members
created #sf2, a social chatroom using IRC. It is the ancestor to what
is known now as #capcom on the EFnet server of mIRC, which is to this
day the most active Street Fighter chatroom prefered by Shoryuken.com.
1996 - Battle by the Bay This was the year where competition exploded. Street Fighter Alpha 2
came out in the arcades and many people once again flocked to their
nearest arcade to get a piece of the newest Street Fighter.
SF enthusiasts, Justin Ratcliff and Chris Finnie decided to hold a meet
and greet that summer for the Internet inhabitants of alt.games.sf2 to
have a good time and settle scores at Sunnyvalle Golfland. It later
converted into a full-fledged, international tournament, dubbed as the
Battle By the Bay (B3). It was Southern Hill Golfland's reigning
champion, Alex Valle, with a dramatic comeback with a secret weapon in
the final match against the Bay's best, John Choi. This tournament was
the first of many NorCal versus SoCal matchups to take place as the
years went on.
Relevant Link - Battle By the Bay Tournament 1997 - Boston Brawl and Street Fighter III In response to B3, Boston Brawl (B2) was meant to be just like B3 in
holding a national tournament but on the East Coast. Turn out was also
huge but it was the west coast that crashed the party. Despite getting
an early defeat, the Bay's best John Choi battled his way out of the
loser's bracket in SFA2 to topple Sacramento's David Surlin to become
champion. This West Coast invasion help ignite a whole new WC versus EC
rivalry (although not the caliber of Tupac/Biggie).
The MidWest Championships followed to bring more exposure to the
historically under represented Midwest area. Although this was not the
first MWC (it even predates B3 by 2 years and a Mike Watson victory in
SF2), it was the first tournament to boast the new Street Fighter III:
New Generation. Even though this was the breakthrough performance for
Midwest veterans Wes Truelson and Jason Wilson, it was the West Coast
once again taking over with John Choi defeating Alex Valle.
Relevant Link - MWC 1997 results
During the later part of the year, SF3: Second Impact was released into
the arcade and was a dramatic upgrade over the infinite-prone and
glitchy prequel. Plus it featured the return of Akuma, otherwise known
as Gouki for non-American players.
1998 - First appearance of Umehara Daigo Like present-day Evolution, the United States Fighting Game
Championships (USFGC), was held in Vegas with many traveling from
everywhere to receive the biggest cash prize given out at the time.
With 11 different games going on, it was the most ambitious tournament
ever created even though some things didn't go over so well (most
notably, the cancellation of Hyper Fighting). When the desert heat
finally cooled down that July 12 night, it was Valle running away with
2nd Impact, SFA3, Tekken 3 and Virtua Fighter 3; Choi with Super Turbo;
and the emergences of arguably the sexiest fighter of the US, Jay
"Viscant" Synder, taking MvC.
Relevant Link - USFGC results
Later that year also came about a national SFA3 competition to find out
who was the best and gets a crack at the Japanese SFA3 champion. Coming
out from the field of 62, Alex Valle once again comes out on top where
Umehara Daigo bested a field of 10,000 fighters (!) in Japan. When the
grand finals came about Calipower's Ryu could not match Daigo's
A-Akuma. Afterwards, California's best were out for Daigo; however,
only Graham Wolf was the only one to squeak out a narrow victory from
the Beast. Daigo casually played a keen A-Guy and A-Gen, a couple of
characters that were never handled in such as fashion in the states
before. This demonstration of Japan's might, along with Japanese
attendance numbers, rocked the growing online community.
Relevant Link - Japanese fottage of the Grand Finals ft/ Valle vs. Daigo 1999 - First taste of Third Strike With the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) coming back to LA, after
being in Atlanta for three years, it brought the fighting community's
latest interest, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, closer to its fans
than ever before. In fact, Choi, Valle, Sirlin and the Cannon brothers
were able to get the first US taste of this, eventual marquee
tournament game.
Two weeks after E3 was the East
Coast Championships 4 (ECC4). The marquee tournament was SFA3, which
brought a ridiculous 110+ people to attend that tournament alone. Once
again, the West Coast was planning to steal the spotlight again;
however, the East Coast's Eddie Lee was the man that stood before them
on the main stage of SFA3. Late into the tournament came the
heavyweight match-up: Valle vs. Lee. Despite not being for the
championships, all action in the arcade literally stopped to watch West
Coast's king of rushdown battle against East Coast's best turtle. When
it was all settled, Valle came out on top and eventually won the whole
thing with an equal amount of cheering from the West Coast supporters
and boos heckling from the East Coast locals.
The
next day, the tournament was horribly behind schedule so tournaments
were rushed and pushed to the limits. Even though most of the
tournaments were finished, the whole weekend can only be called a
moderate success but the aftermath was chaotic. Lost within the chaos,
the results weren't revealed to the mass public in a quick enough
manner and promised footage never surfaced and currently remains in the
minds or tapes from the attendees.
Relevant Links - ECC4 logs 2000 - Bang the Machine The start of a new year, brought a whole new start for the online SF
community. Shoryuken.com launched and quickly killed all existing SF
communities, as it was a huge conglomeration of all things Capcom
fighters. It was the site where players get their tips, combo videos,
and trash talk through the forums. Add to this the release of Marvel
vs. Capcom 2, the world clamored to watch stellar clear videos from
fighting game veterans James Chen (jchensor) and Mike Z.
The Midwest Championships came back to full effect in 2000 with Twin
Galaxy (that company that awards high score players) co-sponsoring the
tournament. Even though the main tournaments were present, awards were
given to high scorers, and a "Lifetime Achievement Award" given to
Choi, Watson, Valle and Ohira. However, nothing could top the all time
biggest event to hit the fighting game community that made Mike "Papa"
Wats yell out "What the ****?!" During the deciding match to crown a
champion at Super Turbo between Watson and Valle, Y2K came late and
caused a power outage to ruin the festivities. Once the power came back
on, Watson won over Valle.
Relevant Link - MWC 2000 Logs
Although the King of Fighter series were never officially part of the
EVO roster, the SNK (Shin Nihon Kokaku, roughly translated as the New
Japan Project for all you that are interested) company planned to file
for bankruptcy that year after releasing KOF 2000. Although the game
was the best of the series at the time with a refine reworking of the
striker system, it was not enough to bring fortune or fame to the Fatal
Fury creators as they were forced to close their doors.
"Bang the Machine" is one of the most ambitious event to hit the
fighting game community as it is a documentary to chronicle some of
America's top fighting game players during that summer's biggest
tournament.
Relevant Link - Bang the Machine: Clip 1
Relevant Link - Bang the Machine: Clip 2
Relevant Link - Bang the Machine: Clip 3
Relevant Link - Bang the Machine: Clip 4
The tournament in question was the next in the B series, B4 in Folsom,
California. Not only was this the last major tournament during the
summer of 2000 but also stakes were high for the winners because they
have the option to compete against Japan's best.
Other than Valle, Choi and Watson dominating event once again, the big
news came out in the form of both Hsien Chang, a virtual unknown from
Texas until he scored second at Third Strike and Duc Do revealing his
infamous Spiral-based team and wiping out all of his competition in
MvC2.
Relevant Link - B4 Quick Results
Relevant Link - Arturo Sanchez's long B4 log
Later on, the dramatic conclusion of the taping of "Bang the Machine"
ended up in Tokyo, Japan with many in attendance both in the arena and
on the #capcom to get the latest update. The biggest pre-tourney news
came with Duc unable to attend and giving his spot to Ricky "Hello
Kitty" Ortiz, joining Valle, Choi, Watson, Chang and Eddie Lee.
Unfortunately, the U.S. got massacred in Third Strike (15-1, Japan) by
the hands of Ohnuki, Daigo, RAOH, and Mester. They didn't fair all too
well in Alpha 3 either, losing 12-4. The American did push Japan at
Super Turbo but fell at a close 10-12 lose. On the redeeming side,
Ortiz and the rest destroyed at MvC2 winning 14 to 2. After this
milestone event, the arcade tournament scene continued to be hot,
carrying that summer competition heat all the way into winter and into
the new year; creating fiery young stars such as the up-and-coming
Justin Wong from the NYC.
Relevant Link - Japan vs. U.S. Invitational match breakdown 2001 - Justin Wong and B5 No one under the legal age has created such a stir in the fighting game
scene such as Justin Wong. Growing up under the wings of Eddie Lee in
NYC Chinatown, Wong became the talk of the fighting game scene as he
pulled win after win after win in MvC2 tournaments as well as great
marks on the other top fighting games. With a victory in both MWC 2001
and ECC6, Wong was looking to cap off the equivalence of a Triple Crown
at B5 on the West Coast. Oh did I mention he was 15-years-old at the
time?
Not only were the likes of Valle, Ortiz and
the defending champion, Duc Do, there to dampen Wong's chances to
ousting the best in the West, but a group of some of the hottest
Japanese fighters are also taking a trip over the seas into Folsom to
demonstrate that mighty Japanese prowess in fighting games.
B5 turned out to be not only a civil war between the WC versus Justin
Wong at MvC2 but also the closest to a full blown Japan/U.S. battle in
SFA3 and Capcom vs. SNK. As much as the west coast army battled hard at
those two, it was BAS and Chikyuu taking them respectively with an
unseen Japanese style of play. As for MvC2, it came to the match that
everyone predicted: Defending MvC2 champ, Duc Do versus the hot up in
comer, Justin Wong. Throughout the summer, Wong utilized the first
Magneto-based team ever to crush his opponents; however he opted for a
more stable Storm/Sent/Cammy team to upset Ducvader to become the
undisputed MvC2 champion.
Relevant Link - B5 Brackets
Relevant Link - B5 DVD's available for download
Towards the later months of the year, Capcom vs. SNK 2 is released in
the arcades boasting a huge cast of 48 legendary fighters right off the
bat. Unlike CvS1, this sequel refines the limiting ratio system with
whole new properties along with adding four additional grooves (super
meters) and implementing a more Capcom-friendly 6-button layout. With
all of these vast improvements, it proves to be worthy of heavy
competition play. Unfortunately, it would also go down to one of the
biggest glitch controversies and as Capcom's last great fighting game
to this date.
With the scoop of fighting games getting even bigger it seems sky's the limit for the community. However, it takes a real world tragedy to put the breaks not just the fighting game community but for the nation as a whole. September 11, 2001. We all know the story. Four planes were hijacked that morning and three crashed into the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon killing over 3,000 people in the process. Near ground zero, buildings located near the World Trade Center were also damaged, including the one that housed all of the material in the Bang the Machine documentary. Many pieces of footage was lost and all that remained were master copies that are only shown at selected Evolution tournaments. The documentary itself is unfinished and have unlicensed music hard coded into the film so a mass release today would not be possible without the possibility of law suit.
2002 - Dawn of Evolution, Fall of Three Legendary Arcades
With the Street Fighter community coming to a fever pitch in
competition, it was finally time to expand into a bigger playground
with its culminating summer tournament. No longer sprouting from its B
series predecessors, the final tournament of the summer went under its
new and more fitting moniker - Evolution.
Like
all of the major fighting game tournaments, Evolution boasted
competition exclusively to the hottest Capcom fighting games to date
such as the new fan favorites, Third Strike, CvS2, and MvC2 but also
retaining its roots in Alpha 3 and Super Turbo. Throughout the long
weekend, the tournament ran into some difficulty such as cabinets (yes,
the entire tournament was ran on cabinets at the time) breaking down
and people not showing up. However, when it was all said and done, the
tournament came out a huge success with Wong, Cole and BAS keeping
their crown with wicked performances from Tokido demonstrating for the
first time to an American audience Urien's unblockables in Third Strike
and Rodolfo giving Wong a shot for his money in the MvC2 grand finals.
Months later, another fighting game company made headlines by rising
out its ashes. The creators of the famous King of Fighters series, SNK,
returned after filing for bankruptcy two years prior. Although their
first game out of retirement, SNK vs. Capcom: Chaos, was completely
sub-standard in terms of graphics and gameplay in the year 2002, SNK
rebounded with latest releases of their cash crops of KOF and Metal
Slug. From there, SNK Playmore is still up to this day creating a wider
variety of games.
As 2002 was wrapping up, news
of the Gametime Arcade in Virginia, home to some of the best fighters
in the East; Southern Hills Golfland, stomping grounds to such pros as
Duc Do and Alex Valle; and the Gameroom in Folsom, the Mecca of
fighting game tournaments like B4 and B5, all closed their doors
saddening much of the fighting game community.
2003 - Super Battle Opera
Big news rocked 2003 about a huge fighting game tournament on Japanese
turf. Unlike Evo, it is not going to be an open tournament where anyone
can show up in the start. Instead, the format is a team competition in
which there were many qualifiers in Japan and a few in America. With
the likes of Alex Valle, Jason Cole, Cambell "Buktooth" Tran, Paul Lee
and Micheal "Pyro-****ing-lee" Foston qualifying to go to Japan, it
looks like a group can really shake things up there in March.
When the date of March 25 came to signal the start of Super Battle
Opera (SBO), fireworks and intro music helped ushered in the
contestants of the event leaving American fighters wanting something
cool like that to happen in summer at EVO. In the 3S competition, the
USA team of Valle/Pyrolee/Paul Lee preformed outstandingly with two
Pyro OCVs but fell short of the top three. The SFII team also went deep
but also fell short; however it was the Soul Calibur 2 US
representative, FetZ, who did place in the top three to bring home some
sort of glory. The main story of the tournament though was Daigo
virtually placing in the top three of almost every Capcom fighter and
Guilty Gear in typical Daigo-fashion.
Relevant Link - SBO results
After the SBO fever cooled down, the summer made the competition scene
heat up once again with the anticipation of Evo in mid-August. The hype
was so great on SRK.com that a total of 1155 came to compete in nine
fighting games including for the first time a blend of 2D and 3D
fighters (Tekken Tag, Tekken 4 and Virtua Fighter 4).
The action was intense as ever with "a Korean, a Frenchmen, 2 Americans
and a whole lot of Japanese" claiming the top spot. On 3S, the
Americans fought hard but got completely rocked by the top Japanese
Yun-player, KO. On the CvS2 stage, Ino went crazy with his K-groove
team showing that the game can be won without Roll Cancels. There was
also the Beast, Daigo, just completely taking over the top 3 in all of
the 2D fighters including first place in GG#Reloaded and Super Turbo.
Not to be outmatched, the Americans answered back with JinKid taking
the Tekken 4 crown and Justin Wong adding his third world MvC2 title to
his name.
Relevant Link - Evo2k3 results
Relevant Link - Evo2k3 trailer 2004 - The Beast Unleashed
By 2004, DDR is fading away and the fluctuation of new generation
moving to online games. This decrease in arcade attendants left little
profit for arcades to support the purchase of really expensive arcade
units.
Relevant Link - 1up Feature: State of the U.S. Arcade Industry in 2004
Although the arcade industry in the United States looked very bleak
with every passing month, the arcade market in Japan still runs strong
as ever as Arcadia Magazine helped to sponsor Super Battle Opera 2.
Although the winners of the NorCal Regionals in Sunnyvale qualified to
enter on behalf of the USA, it was the crew hailing from SoCal's Family
Fun Arcade (FFA), Pyrolee, Frankie3s and Arlieth; completely stole the
show. With Pyro being no stranger to the event, he led his team passed
the first two rounds but finally losing a close one in the third. Aside
from the FFA team's stellar performance, SBO2 proved to be a very
interesting turn of events with the absence of a Super Turbo and MvC2
tournaments, the tier-system virtually falling apart in the GG#R
tournament (zero Sols and Eddies placing in top 3 with a Zappa, Baiken
and Bridget placing in the top 2) and Daigo failing to place in any
event.
Relevant Link - SBO2 Winners
Two distinguished features made the hype for Evolution 2k4 incredible.
One was the sheer amount of games being covered: SFST, SF3S, CvS2,
MvC2, GG#R, T4, TTT, SC2 and VF4, creating a huge collection of 2D and
3D tournaments unseen in the U.S. since the Midwest Championships 2000.
The other distinct feature would be that this is the first major
fighting game tournament being ran on consoles rather than arcade
cabinets and the enforcing of the "Bring your own controller/joystick"
rule.
Despite much talk about the perfect console
port for a game and the complaints about not keeping things old skool,
the Evo2k4 weekend in Cal Poly held much heated competition, drama,
pride and even foul play.
On the 2D stage, one
name made the top 3 in 2D game (other than MvC2): Umehara Daigo. Once
again shutting out the American fighting game scene, he nailed the
final nail with the now legendary comeback against Justin Wong where
Daigo sat on the verge of defeat against Justin's Chun-Li. Ready to
inflict decisive chip damage with her Hoyoko-Sen Super Art II, Daigo
saw this coming and parried all of Chun-Li's 15 rapid-fire kicks and
counter with a Ken super combo to steal away a victory in dramatic,
Daigo-fashion.
On the CvS2 stage, the American field surprisingly shared a majority of
the top 8 with the Japanese, who has historically owned this
competition. Leading the helm for the Americans was the fan favorite
Buktooth and Ricky Ortiz. After some friendly fire in USA vs. USA
matches, it ended with Ricky against Japan's Kendevu, in a heated grand
finale where Kendevu swept Ricky and claiming one for Japan.
On the MvC2 stage, Justin Wong was the odds on favorite for a reason:
there was really no one that could touch him at MvC2. With incredible
ease, Wong completely shutdown second place David Lee in the grand
finals to capture his fourth world victory in MvC2.
On the 3D fighting ring, one tournament stood out: Soul Calibur 2. Not
only top-level play was demonstrated but the final game came down to
two great friends, Rob "RTD" Combs and Marquette "Mick" Yarbrough.
According to the attendants, the final fight was not so spectacular as
everyone wanted it. The two did not play their best and just split the
winnings down the middle with each other.
Relevant Link - Gamespot coverage of Evo2k4
Relevant Link - Inside Evolution documentary"
Relevant Link - Game Show Network coverage on Soul Calibur II controversy 2005 - Return of the King
In October of last year, the unthinkable happened that rocked the MvC2
scene: Justin Wong loses a big tournament at the 8 at Break Tournament
to Sanford Kelly. Fast forward to May 2005 during the biggest east
coast fighting game tournament, East Coast Championships. Unlike many
of the ECCs before, this tournament did not highlight a West Coast
versus East Coast battle. The grand finals did start out like everyone
predicted with Justin Wong facing off Sanford Kelly in a rematch for
MvC2 supremacy. Even though Justin forced the match into a second set;
however, it was Sanford who made lightning striking twice as he pulled
off a 4-1 victory in the second set.
Relevant Link - Grand Finals: Sanford Kelly vs. Justin Wong
On the other side of the country, a new successor to the Southern Hills
Golfland legacy has started to show signs. The fighters of FFA arcade
started their first Ranking Battle (kind of like KSK's Gamer Vision
ones in Japan) and began to distribute the videos over the Internet.
With really big names in the SoCal 3S scene beginning to show up like
Pyrolee, Vic "Victoly" Vance, Paul Lee and Frankie3s making
appearances, it became the series for watching top-play 3S action in
this digital age.
Relevant Link - Denjin-Video: Home to FFA ranbats and podcasts
After the SoCal scene finished brushing up on Third Strike, Evolution
2k5 finally takes root in its current home in Las Vegas, money match
capital of the world. Even though Third Strike proved to be the most
popular game of the entire tournament for the first time due to the
popularity of FFA, the real showstopper came in the form of a former
king ready to snatch his crown back from the young guns - B4 MvC2
champion, Duc Do.
Coming back from five years
away from the national MvC2 spotlight, Duc Do started mounting
underground comebacks by winning local tourney after local tourney. By
Evo time, the king surprise many of the east coast combatants with his
signature Spiral style. By the final eight has been decided Justin was
put in the losers bracket by unknown Hawaiian player Robzilla; while
Duc reigned atop in the Winners bracket undefeated. Although many
people predicted to see these two MvC2 heavyweights in the grand
finals, east coast veteran Yipes knocked Justine out of the tournament,
preventing fate from replaying the B5 finals. After Yipes taking a set
over Duc in the grand finals, Duc cleared Yipes's clock via the revived
Spiral/Sentinel trap.
Relevant Link - Evo2k5 official website with results
Though the old schoolers believe that Vegas is the perfect place for
the ultimate fighting game tournament, especially with the freedom to
money match as much as possible, the general consensus of having the
final rounds best of 3 games (and first win in CvS2) is just too
extreme and unjustified for a tournament of this magnitude. This was
cleared up a year later.
2006 - $6000 Money Match
After getting overwhelmed by the Japanese at SBO3, the next stop on the
American tournament calendar is the East Coast Championship XI. Going
into the tournament, Justin Wong has been without victory for a year
and a half, whereas his friendly rival Sanford Kelly has been winning
every MvC2 tournament on the east coast. As it turns out, Wong finally
bested Kelly in a close 4-3 finals win. But as for the actual ECC
tournament itself, time and overall management hurt the reputation of
the tournament to the point where this would be the last successful
tournament before giving up the reigns to the EVO East qualifiers.
Relevant Link - ECCXI Results
On the verge of Evo came a very ambitious idea from a regular follower
on the SRK forum. His handle is Bunkie and he started up a little
Internet radio show known as Alpha-Ism Radio to follow the latest
happenings before, during and after the Evolution World Event. His show
brought a lot of attention as things heated up the week prior to
Evolution as Sanford Kelly said that taking Marvel this year is "Free."
Relevant Link - Alpha-Ism Radio
As Evolution started up, Sanford had his chance to make good on his
word. Unfortunately, Evo2k6 brought out an abundance of top-tier and/or
old skool MvC2 players to fill each pool with dramatic results. The
most epic of all pools was known as the "Pool of Death" which brought
together Sanford Kelly with the likes of Mike Ross (SoCal veteran),
Rodolfo aka RowTron (Evo2k2 MvC2 runner-up) and defending champ DucDo.
With the gauntlet thrown down, Sanford losses to the unpredictable
DucDo and gets ousted by RowTron in a close match going down all the
way to the wire.
Relevant Link - Pool: Duc Do vs. Sanford Kelly
Relevant Link - Pool: Sanford vs. Rowtron
The drama did not end there, tensions arose from that pool to the point
where West Coast and East Coast players argued among whether or not Duc
can beat Sanford and visa versa. With the help of Alpha-Ism Radio to
instigate extra opinions, the end result came in the form of a $6000
money match between Duc and Sanford, essentially adding on the feuds of
West vs. East and Old vs. New.
That night came
the most anticipated match of all Evo history, Duc vs. Sanford for
$6000! In the race to 7 wins rules stated, East and West coast
players/betters were seated on different sides of the room whereas Duc
and Sanford were on stage. Early on, each player traded wins but in the
end, Sanford pulled ahead to a 7-4 victory and brought back his
reputation.
After a dramatic Saturday, the Sunday finals quite
frankly didn't lived up to the rest of the hype. Interestingly enough,
Diago locked horns with Alex Valle once again in Super Turbo. Once
again, Valle took down the beast and raised a moral victory that
American can beat the Japanese if the will to win is greater than the
fear to lose. Those with the will great enough to win Evo includes
Justin Wong winning over Chunksta at MvC2 to reclaim his throne and
secure his 5th world title, Knit beating down all of the FFA crew and
local Japanese Yun players to win Third Strike, Kindevu overcoming six
of America's best CvS2 players to secure the crown, and old schooler
Alex Wolfe bringing back the Super Turbo championship to American soil.
Relevant Link - Evo2k6 Results
Relevant Link - Evo Aftermath While
the time after Evolution is usually the time the Street Fighter scene
cools down and prepares to return to school and work life, a whole new
scene was ready to emerge. Super Smash Bros. Melee, has came a long
ways from being an easy-to-pick-up kids game to one of the most
technical fighting games next to MvC2 and Guilty Gear. While the
community forum, Smash World Forum has been in existance since 1999,
the site became a popular hotbed of new player due Major League Gaming
picking up the game for the Fall 2008 season and the first
announcements of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. During this time, many
veterans to the game have been talked about spanning both sides of the
coast and all were ready to make a break to MLG Vegas for the $10,000
top prize. In the end, it was PC Chris winning over KoreanDJ avenging
pass loses to taking back his crown as best Melee player at the time.
Relevant Link - MLG National Championship Writeup 2007 - Dark Prince, EVO and SFIV
If there was one name that was on the top of every member of SRK's hit
list early in 2007, that name would be Justin "Dark Prince" Jordan. In
preparations for a 5on5 MvC2 match between the best of both coasts,
Dark Prince was left out of the West Coast roster. In an interview,
Dark Prince expressed his concerns for being left out of the team
despite showing the ability to beat a couple of the members on the
team. After the interview hit YouTube, many veterans lashed out to Dark
Prince and eventually the hype finally hit a boiling point where Dark
Prince agreed to play Clockw0rk, one of the "washed up vets" Dark
Prince called out, to a first to 10 wins match. Many players came from
all over CA including Justin Wong to watch/bet on the match. The
outcome came out with Dark Prince losing to Clockw0rk 10-4.
Relevant Link - Dark Prince Interview
Relevant Link - Dark Prince/Clockw0rk Pre-fight Hype video Going
into the summer season, Evolution surprised many members of SRK that
Super Smash Bros. Melee will be part of the Evolution lineup. While
many SRK members looked down upon the Smash community by calling the
game for kids, members of the Smash community was happy considering
that Melee was dropped from the MLG roster for the season. For the
first time, Melee stood on the same ground as Third Strike and Marvel
vs. Capcom 2 at the country's most prestigious tournament of the year.
Relevant Link - Smash in 2007 Evolution
2007 proved to be an ambitious tournament with a lot on their plates.
Unfortunately, there was too much to get done in the small amount of
time given. The major gripe this year was that Capcom vs. SNK 2, Third
Strike and Melee all had to change their rules to single game, instead
of the usual "Best-2-out-of-3" elimination style. While this was made
to ensure that the tournaments would finish in time, much of the Third
Strike tournament resulted in many upsets. Most notably unknown Makoto
Mike making it into top 8 in the Winner's Bracket.
Despite
the fact, finals on Sunday lived up to everyone's expectations.
Hardcore Virtua Fighter fans showed up despite the early grand finals
time, Americans in Guilty Gear came close to dethroning the dominant
Japanese players, Nuki regains his Third Strike Crown, BAS takes back
the CvS2 title from up-in-coming American players and Alex Graham takes
back the Super Turbo trophy to the States.
However the
biggest surprises came with the Super Smash Bros. Melee finals. Young
Mango, who used to be ranked 27th in SoCal defeats crowd favorite Ken
in the first match of the Finals sending Ken into losers. From the
start, what used to be finals perfect for stepping out for a dinner
break appears to be one of the most exciting finals to watch. Unknown
to the general SRK community, by picking up Melee, Evolution was graced
to witnessed part of the Smash community. It's illustrious history,
epic rivalries, superstars and upstart rookies all painted a picture
years in the making and finally changed the perspective of the SRK
community.
Historically, Evolution is capped off with
Justin Wong winning Marvel vs. Capcom 2. This year one man stood in his
way, that man was the same one who eliminated Justin two years prior -
Yipes. Despite making miracles with a Cyclopse comeback, Justin could
not overcome Yipes's inhuman control of Magneto/Storm/Psylocke. Yipes
defeated Justin in both winners and grand finals to become only the
only other man on the East Coast to win MvC2 at Evolution.
Relevant Link - Evo2k7 Results
Relevant Link - State of Games by James Chen 2008 - Legends Never Die
Going into 2008, news on the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl and
Street Fighter IV was on the tips of everyone's tongue. The former
faced a month's delay, which gave Nintendo a small window to promote
the next entry to the series with four pre-release tournaments across
the nation. At the championships held in New York City, Melee veteran
KoreanDJ took home the crown and set the bar for the competition to
come. With the help of Smash World Forums and the newly created All is
Brawl, tournaments popped up across the nation every week for the
majority of the year.
But with the recent release of
Brawl, came an awkward situation for the Evolution staff. Upon
announcing Brawl's inclusion to the tournament lineup, the basic Melee
rule of no items was changed to a rule set promoting items. While the
Evolution staff looked at this as a way to spice up the tournament to
make things interesting and exciting, the majority of Smash players
protested against it. They claim that items make the game more random
and would invalidate the results as it does not measure skill. Whether
either side were correct in their point of view, the liberal stance for
items remained and the Smash community was forced to bite the bullet.
On
the Street Fighter side of the fence, things couldn't get any better
for the community as a new entry in the series was long overdue. Though
news was so short and far in between in developer's blogs and public
trade shows, the eventual arcade release delighted many in Japan. Those
in America were out of luck as Capcom refused to sell to the
international market, a move later imitated by Namco with Tekken 6.
Despite the blockade, many arcade hotspots like NorCal's bay area,
Southern California and NYC managed to become the few places with the
arcade release of Street Fighter IV and got a leg up on the competition
going into Evolution.
Despite losing their Toyota
sponsorship, Evolution 2008 proved to be the most extravagant
tournament in Evo history. Once again in Vegas with essentially the
same lineup as past years, the inclusion of many new games on
exhibition made the venue new and exciting. For the first time, Street
Fighter IV, Street Fighter II: HD Remix, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and
BlazBlue became playable to the American public all at the same time.
Also for the first time, Evolution sign-ups were exclusively done
online with no on-the-spot entries given. While many weren't fazed by
this and took time to enjoy the extra events provided by the Evolution
staff, one man came to this year's Evo at the very last minute with a
promise to fulfill.
Leading up to Evolution, NorCal
veteran John Choi struggled with family problems. Along with working
full-time and studying towards a degree, his father contracted stage 4
stomach cancer. As Choi's father went into surgury and made a speedy
recovery, he motivated Choi to go ahead and participate in Evolution.
Among a near All-American sweep in all games that Evolution, John Choi
took home two Evolution wins and left the most inspiration post on SRK
since the passing of Mummy-B.
"Life throws curve balls at
you but you learn to deal with it. That is exactly what my father did
and what makes him so great. He doesn’t drink or smoke and exercises
regularly, yet this happened to him. But he did not sit still and cry
about it. He kept on trucking and fought with all his heart. Don't ever
let anyone tell you that you can not do something. I can win EVO, he
can beat cancer, and you can do anything that you want in life. Life is
a game and you are here to win. Now go out there and go for the win.
I hope all of you will do the same in not just Street Fighter but in all aspects of life. Go win."
Relevant Link - Where's the Cheese by John Choi
Relevant Link - Evo2k8 Results
Relevant Link - State of Games 2008 by James Chen 2009 - Rebirth
With
many fighting games coming out of retirement and making themselves home
on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii, this can only be described as a rebirth
of the fighting game spirit. So much time towards fighting games will
pay off this weekend at Evolution 2009. Nearly all games are brand new
and registration for Street Fighter 4 had up to 1,040 entries. Street
Fighter has gone through many years of history and Evolution 2009 is
aiming to create a whole new chapter to the legacy.
- dB Daryl Bunao
Additional Sources: Road to Evo2k2 by Javier Moreno SRK forum archives Preppy's massive page of videos Addendum:
I want to express that relative to other veterans like Alex Valle or
Mike Watson, I've only personally observed the competitive fighting
game scene for not that long. Also, my scoop of following all games is
limited to general interest and information. So the following account
is a compilation of important events from personal observations and
online records and discussions.