It has taken me a long while, but I’ve finally put my thoughts down on this little piece of fascination. Let me share something from EVO other than the games that I look forward to each year. Before every Top 8 Final for each game on the main stream, they play an intro video to get viewers hyped up. I personally am into these videos because I’m both a fan of fighting games and videography, so I would like to share my enthusiasm for this little part of EVO with you.
I’m particularly interested in these as a developing amateur videographer. I like getting into the little details in video editing and effects, so I would watch stuff like this and others like intros for StarCraft: Brood War tournaments in Korea such as OSL and MSL (I’ll write something about that in the future).
NOTE: The following videos include only the ones that I liked. If I missed anything, that’s because I didn’t like it. You can watch them yourself on YouTube.
Seth Mussey
These videos were all produced by Seth Mussey, an Emmy Award winning videographer whose skills are apparent in videos he puts together for the FGC. You can find the ones he did for prior EVOs on YouTube. Here’s one he did for Season’s Beatings V: Redemption from 4 years ago, and it still looks pretty good now.
EVO 2013
EVO 2013’s hype intro videos were such a big step up from those of EVO 2012, so I was really looking forward to the ones for this year. These are played before the Top 8 Final of every main game to get the viewers hyped for the matches.
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition ver. 2012
This was hands down the best intro video of EVO 2013. It was longer than the rest due to the buildup that showed the champions over the years. It told the story of years prior before coming in with the hype for the current event, complete with epic music.
Meanwhile, the music for the second half (a remix of Hakan’s Theme) turned out to be prophetic as the hypest moment of the finals involved the said character by the then-defending EVO champion to win against a formidable opponent.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Rap is a musical genre that divides a crowd; some (like myself) like it, while others think it’s trash. However, it does reflect the culture of the Marvel scene in the US quite a bit, so the music here is fitting enough. The finished product is still pretty hype, especially towards the ending.
The King of Fighters XIII
The KOF13 Top 8 final for the previous year was one of the greatest moments in EVO history, and the one for 2013 wasn’t as good as it was. It was still pretty hype though, and the hype intro was pretty nice in how it replicates the look and feel of the arcade intros of the KOF games. The finish is a little flat, but it’s cool to see how the dojo was reconstructed for this.
Mortal Kombat
This was the last year that Mortal Kombat 9 would be featured in the main lineup, which is a bit sad. Like with KOF13, the look and feel of the 90’s arcade Mortal Kombat was attempted here, which explains the disclaimer and the music. It’s not bad for what it does, although I do have an issue with the embossed font used on the disclaimer (maybe they really were going for a tacky old-school look there).
Super Smash Bros Melee
For something that starts off a game that had been gone for a while, this video did well in welcoming it back to EVO. I would later watch the Smash Brothers documentary series, so I only got to appreciate this trailer after that.
EVO 2014
When I first saw this year’s intros, my eyebrow raised a bit due to the aspect ratio used, which was 4:1 Super Wide HD. On a 1080p screen, the resolution of the video itself is basically 1920×480, and everything else is stylized letterboxing. I was iffy at first since I kinda had to squint in order to
It all makes sense though once you see how it looked like in the event itself. They had the super wide jumbotron The crowd even sings along.
Ultra Street Fighter IV
I personally think that the EVO 2013 intro vid for Street Fighter IV was better due to the combination of the photography, editing, and music (especially with the remix of Hakan’s theme). I still think that this year’s intro was pretty hype, so it’s not like I’m putting it down at all.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
For me, this one superior to that of the previous year. I like the rap track on this one and I thought it was fitting for a game of which its demise had been rumored for quite some time. The results made this Top 8 final even more amazing, and this hype intro started it.
Super Smash Bros Melee
This one is my second favorite among the intros, even though I don’t really follow Smash (I actually took a nap during Smash Top 8). I’m happy for the Smash community though, and I might stop hating on the game once I’m able to learn how to play it “properly” (On the other hand, I like but don’t play UMVC3).
Killer Instinct
This is my favorite in terms of music alone. I searched for it immediately after seeing the video on stream and found it in LittleVMill’s SoundCloud. It’s a great rendition of the Killer Instinct theme.
Having the character select theme to finish it was also a nice touch (I don’t care if it’s a loop, it never fails to get me pumped up).
BlazBlue Chronophantasma
It was the most dramatic of the top 8 finals in this year’s EVO, but it also had the shortest intro. I’ve always liked the music that Arc Systems put into their games, and this one also show up in their trailers for this game. BBCP is such a colorful game that it does make for a pretty good intro video, despite only being made of bells and whistles.
The King of Fighters XIII
Unfortunately, there were less participants for KOF13 for this year, but it was still a pretty good tournament. As for this intro, it’s much of the same with the previous as an arcade style intro, but with more tournament highlights than character introductions. It’s short like the BBCP intro, but the music (remix of Esaka, the Hero Team theme from KOF’96) definitely elevates it quite a bit. Now perhaps this is the best time for SNK Playmore to roll KOF14 out (and also have Hellpockets commentate again next year).
Closing Montage
It’s interesting to see how quickly they churn these montage videos out during the event. Admittedly, I’m not as fascinated by the closing montage as I am with the hype intros, most likely due to coming off of the excitement during the event, but it’s still nice to watch for cooling down and reflecting on how awesome it was.
