The fighting game community has traditionally thought of itself as a grassroots movement separate from the giant productions of other esports, but the line between the two sure was blurry in 2015.
Capcom recently completed its third-annual Capcom Cup series, which added $500,000 in pot bonus to Ultra Street Fighter IV tournaments around the world. Nintendo continued to embrace the competitive scene for Super Smash Bros., while publishers like NetherRealm Studios, Microsoft, and Aksys Games added extra prize money to both EVO 2015, the fighting game’ largest event, and other venues. Sponsors are also growing more ambitious. Red Bull not only backed Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis, arguably America’s best USF4 player, but it also produced a video series about his upbringing in Compton, California and trip to Japan.
While the payouts and spectacles still aren’t as large as League of Legends or StarCraft, this year was an important turning point for the genre as a new generation of titles like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Mortal Kombat X began their first year of competition. With Street Fighter V set for release next year, Capcom fans also said farewell to the Street Fighter IV series they played since 2009. Here’s a look at some of the best stories and performances in 2015.
APEX 2015 completes a last-second venue shift
It’s hard to have great tournament moments when you don’t have a venue. APEX 2015 is the premier event for the Super Smash Bros. series and was the first with Nintendo as a sponsor after years of it ignoring the competitive scene. At the last minute, however, authorities condemned the original location for safety reasons.
Through the efforts of tournament organizers and Twitch, APEX was able to relocate from Secaucus, New Jersey, to the Garden State Convention Center in Somerset and condense three days of competition into two. This task was worth the wait as Evil Geniuses’ Kevin “PPMD” Nanney won the first Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament he competed in after half a year’s absence. Meanwhile, William “Leffen” Hjelte knocked out Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman to become the first to defeat all of Melee’s five best players in tournament conditions.
BananaKen overcomes bearsome opposition at CEO 2015
It was heartbreaking to watch Jose “BananaKen” Llera fall during the Loser’s Finals of the EVO 2013 Persona 4 Arena tournament, where he dropped a match-winning combo and subsequently broke down. Even then, he did prove that his Shadow Labrys had the potential to defeat top Japanese players, whose arcade culture gives them a definite skill advantage over the United States.
At CEO 2015, BananaKen was able to enter Grand Finals on the winner’s side of the bracket to take on NiceBurst | Souji and his Teddie. After a close battle, BananaKen won in the final game and became one of the few to defend American soil in the air-dash-happy “anime” sub-genre. It doesn’t hurt that he earned an extra-special trophy: a replica of the P-1 Grand Prix championship belt from the game’s cover art.
ZeRo dominates Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
When every top player travels to multiple major events, it’s difficult for a single competitor to be the undisputed best. That makes Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios’ 55-tournament win streak in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U even more significant.
ZeRo definitely plays with power as his mains of Diddy Kong and Sheik are some of the best characters in the game. But he also has the consistency to overcome hungry challengers and bring his distinctive white scarf to the top at competitions like APEX and EVO. The organizer of CEO 2015 and the owner of community site Smashboards.com even placed a $500 bounty on the Chilean, but he still got away. It wasn’t until the MLG World Finals in October that Team Liquid’s Nario finally shut him down with Zero Suit Samus.
EVO 2015: Stacked brackets and heartbreaking losses
The world’s largest fighting game tournament captured more than 3.8 million unique viewers and generated enough moments to fill this list by itself, so let’s run down some highlights.
Rico Suave used his vast character knowledge to claim the Killer Instinct championship while Jigglypuff warrior Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma reached the Grand Finals for Super Smash Bros. Melee for the second year in a row — only to fall to Adam “Armada” Lindgren’s Fox.
Fan-favorite and real-life traveling warrior Nicolas “KaneBlueRiver” Gonzalez took the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 title in a tournament loaded with players who remained devoted to the game years after Capcom stopped updating it. And Ryuichi “Woshige” Shigeno’s premature victory celebration may have earned Guilty Gear Xrd coverage on SportsCenter, but let’s not forget that his opponent, Kenichi Ogawa, also showcased the skills that made his Zato-1 a legend at Japan’s Mikado arcade as he took the world title in Las Vegas.
But the best theatrics were saved for last: In the grand finals for Ultra Street Fighter IV, Yusuke Momochi and Bruce “Gamerbee” Hsiang fought until the last match, when the former’s controller broke down in the second round. Momochi had to forfeit the round, putting the fate of the tournament on the final 99-seconds. Eventually, the 2014 Capcom Cup champion pulled through and beat Gamerbee’s Adon to claim $33,000 in prize money.
Sonic Fox takes souls, prize money in Mortal Kombat X
He’s technically not old enough to play an M-rated game, but Dominique “cR|Sonic Fox” McLean knows how to achieve flawless victories in Mortal Kombat X. He filled up his college savings fund quickly by earning over $112,000 in tournament prizes, including first place at EVO 2015 and the ESL Pro League.
His crowning moment came at Summer Jam 9 in a first-to-10 match against Carl “RZR|Perfect Legend” White, a multi-time EVO champion. After his Kung Lao couldn’t get a single win against Sonic Fox’s Kitana, Perfect Legend said that Sonic Fox was “godlike” but that he would have lost if he used his main of Erron Black. The organizers immediately arranged a first-to-three under those conditions, but 10-0 only grew to 13-0. The rematch might have been a foolish choice, but it was a great display of the rivalries and pride that arise within the genre.
Rise of the American fighting game developer
2015 was a year of in-roads for developers as well as players. Mortal Kombat X continued NetherRealm Studio’s commitment to the competitive community with a large cast of combatants, each with three variations. It also captured casual fans as it reigned over the sales charts for the first half of 2015. Microsoft and Iron Galaxy continue to make their reboot of Killer Instinct into more than a nostalgia act with a second “season” of unique characters, a PC version, and a World Championship with a $30,000 prize pool set for the next year.
Outside of the big studios, Lab Zero Games fulfilled its promise to introduce six newcomers to its hand-drawn fighter Skullgirls following a 2013 Indiegogo campaign that raised more than $828,000. Recently, the studio once again leveraged the power of crowdfunding to attain $1.89 million to develop the action-role-playing game Indivisible. Finally, EVO Co-founders Tom and Tony Cannon and former Capcom Community Manager Seth Killian launched the technical alpha of Rising Thunder, a mecha-themed title with simplified controls for those who like the strategy of fighting games but not complicated combos.
Keoma’s breakout performance at the Capcom Cup
A beast of a fighter lives in Brazil, and his name isn’t Blanka. Various travel issues kept Keoma Moutsatsos Pacheco from traveling to Street Fighter IV tournaments outside of South America in the past, so most people weren’t familiar with how dangerous his Abel was.
That changed at the Brazil Game Show, where he defeated Tatsuya Haitani, regarded as one of Japan’s “five gods” of Street Fighter, to become the only one in the Americas to defend his homeland against Asian players at a tournament that grants automatic qualification to the Capcom Cup Finals. After performing well in several European events, Keoma proved he deserved his place in the Capcom Cup by beating Darryl “Snake Eyez” Lewis, arguably the strongest USF4 player in the United States, in the first round. He would rack up a few more upsets, take tournament favorite Ho Kun Xian to the wire, and reach Top Eight before falling to Snake Eyez in a rematch. It’ll be great to see how Keoma builds on this performance in the year ahead.
Daigo Umehara: The Beast with a heart
He is the first person that comes to mind when people think of top fighting game players. The Beast. The man with the psychic Shoryuken. The one responsible for the Daigo Full Parry, the most-iconic moment in the genre’s competitive history. These days, it feels like Daigo Umehara is more vulnerable than at the time when he would win every tournament, but it speaks more to the level of international competition than to any softening on his part. This year, Umehara overcame elite opponents in long first-to-10 sets to win invitational events like the Topanga A League and Canada Cup Master Series in contests that displayed his aggressive Evil Ryu as well as his understanding of space control and psychology.
Umehara qualified for the Capcom Cup Finals by taking Norcal Regionals with a decisive win over Gamerbee and fought to the Grand Finals of the year-ending championship. While he finished second, he did earn the right to $60,000 in prize money. Rather than bringing his winnings home, however, he instead donated all of it to the Evo Scholarship fund for the New York University Game Center. Umehara has a reputation for being an unflappable opponent, but he called this was a token of gratitude for the fun and experiences he had over the course of the year and his time as a Street Fighter IV player.
Kazunoko wins at the Capcom Cup Finals
The third-annual Capcom Cup series of tournaments was the last to feature Street Fighter IV as its main game, and Ryota “Kazunoko” Inoue made sure to make the most of it.
The aggressive Yun expert and Guilty Gear veteran earned his spot in the year-end finals by winning CEO 2015, where he spoiled a breakout performance by Gustavo “801 Strider” Romero. Kazunoko earned top placements throughout the year and finished just outside of Top Eight for EVO 2015 in a 2,227-person bracket. He also took the time to take several Guilty Gear Xrd tournaments at CEO and SoCal Regionals — one with a sick Instant Kill setup — and he formed part of the three-man team that took Japan’s Arc Revolution Cup.
Kazunoko finished off the year with a dominant performance at Capcom Cup Finals. His first round put him in a rematch with 801 Strider, who claimed that he would make the Japanese player his “first victim.” 801 Strider failed to back that prediction up, but later opponents didn’t fare any better. Kazunoko would then face Daigo Umehara in both Winner’s Semi-Finals and Grand Finals. Umehara previously lost to him 7-0 in the exclusive Topanga A League, but Umehara knows how to analyze his losses and come back stronger. Even then, Umehara could only take one game from Kazunoko as he used Yun’s mobility, mix-ups, and comeback factor to take the championship.
Updated on January 12, 2016 with additional information about Woshige and Rising Thunder.