Evo 2016: Day One Impressions

he day beginning Evo 2016 is an early one, with the doors opening at 8:00am, where players have been assigned to pools to determine placement in each tournament. The players will have to play through several match ups in the pools to then be placed in the tournament brackets. The pools are for all the game tournaments over the weekend included Tekken 7: Fated Retribution, Killer Instinct, Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, Mortal Kombat XL, Super Smash Bros. Wii U, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Street Fighter V.

A large selection of vendors were in attendance such as Split Frame, Arcade Shock, Mad Catz and various mod stations for arcade sticks. Lines would wrap through the convention center for attendees to purchase special edition fight sticks and controllers only available for Evo weekend some pricing up to $600! Playable builds of The King of Fighters XIV and Tekken 7 Fated Retribution were on the convention floor with side tournaments and contests throughout the weekend event. Having the chance to play both titles were highlights of the show for us and is exciting to see what is coming up this year in the fighting game genre. 

The MIX Indie showcase where playable builds of upcoming fighting games and similar games were also available where attendees would compete in games and also play with the developers. Various signings from members of the fighting game community and photo ops were a part of the show, also Daigo's first book was available for the first time in the United States only at Evo and finally translated in English.

Super Smash 4 and Melee have large crowds, especially the Melee pools and tournament. However it seemed that during the event those games in particular were located in smaller areas of the arena with less representation on the screens in the front of the building. Perhaps it was because of sponsorships or lack thereof that this title was not as well represented on the Evo floor, even though the following in the event as well as on the Twitch streams would say otherwise. Capcom Tour was always playing on the left screen, and the main screen will show whatever is playing on the main stage at the time. Smash was on the right screen and was away from other events and booths in the event. It would probably benefit the event to have an even distribution of booths and vendors on the floor instead of keeping it towards the Street Fighter events that were going on. 

Panels for the day that we attended included the Capcom panel, Killer Instinct and Maximillian and friends. The Maximillian panel was another highlight of the evening, where Max and his group of friends and various streamers stayed in the panel room for over three hours signing everything and taking photos with their fans and supporters. People like this are good representatives for the fighting game community and the group remains very humble, even though some personalities in the FGC are not as welcoming from my personal experience. Our group ended the evening playing sets of Street Fighter V and watching replays and Twitch streams of the event. It was a great and very hectic first day at Evo, and our group had only scratched the surface of what the weekend had in store for all the attendees at Evo 2016.