(SBO), also known as the Arcadia Cup Tournament,See the text in the logo was an annual Japanese fighting video game tournament hosted by the magazine '' Arcadia''. Several games are represented at a single year's tournament, with the lineup changing every year. Which games are to be represented are decided by the organizers of the event. It was considered one of the two most prestigious fighting game tournaments, along with the

Evolution Championship Series The Evolution Championship Series, commonly known as Evo, is an American annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are completely Open (sport), open and use the Double-elimination tournament, double elimina ...

. It was suspended indefinitely in 2012. Tougeki generally begins in April with the qualifications rounds, which were spread over all of Japan and were distributed over a number of months. The finals were then held over two to three days, usually in August. "Tougeki" typically referred only to the finals. For 2012, Tougeki was held as part of the larger outdoor gaming event GAME SUMMER FESTIVAL 2012, which also included Ongeki ~Game Sound Impact 2012~, for music games, and Wasshoi 2012 Summer!, for

shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a Video game genre, subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain typ ...

games, and was held in Narita, Chiba. The event was streamed on

niconico , known before 2012 as , is a Japanese video sharing service based in Tokyo, Japan. "Niconico" or "nikoniko" is the Japanese sound symbolism, Japanese ideophone for smiling. As of 2021, Niconico is the 34th most-visited website in Japan, accordi ...

for 1500 niconico points (1500 JPY) for one day, and 2500 niconico points (2500 JPY) for two days. As the first tournament held outdoors, there were many reported problems with the event, including low attendance, very high temperatures, glare on the screens, and network problems that required tournament matches to be restarted. Extended tournament run time caused many entrants to miss the final train of the day, many of whom resorted to sleeping on the streets of Chiba.

History

The 12th Super Battle Opera took place in 2012 on August 4 and 5, and featured the following games:

Singles 1 vs. 1

*'' Soulcalibur V'' *'' Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3'' *'' Persona 4 Arena''

Teams 2 vs 2

*'' Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited'' *'' Aquapazza Version 2.0''

Teams 3 vs 3

*'' Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown'' *'' Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition'' *'' Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike''

Format

Each tournament is played either individually or in teams of up to three players and uses a

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

system to determine a winner. The qualifications are done on a regional level using a two-tier system: Players form their teams and compete at local arcade halls in a single elimination tournament. The winners then go on to a regional playoff, and the winners of this playoff are granted a spot in the finals in Tokyo. American and European players have been granted special spots at the Tougeki finals. In Europe, the representatives are decided by the Tougeki France organization. Though a few arcade machines are set up for casual play at the finals, the main focus is on the tournaments.

Champions

DVD releases

A few months after the finals in Tokyo,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

movies containing all matches in the playoffs were released by

Enterbrain , formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing founded on January 30, 1987, as . Magazines published by Enterbrain are generally focused on video games and computer entertainment as well as video game and strate ...

, the owner of Arcadia. The movies were released in a number of volumes, containing a number of discs. Each disc containing one entire tournament.

* Umehara ga kimeta - One of the most famous moments in SBO'03

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tougeki - Super Battle Opera Esports competitions in Japan 2003 establishments in Japan 2012 disestablishments in Japan