Evolution, the largest fighting game tournament in the world, features the most popular titles and attracts the best players from both here and abroad. While the Internet gives us the ability to watch the tournament live as it happens these days, if you wanted to see what high-level play on the biggest stage looked like just a few years ago, you either had to be there or you had to purchase a special DVD package that was usually released a few months after the event.

Thanks to streaming technology and the ability to instantly access archived matches, the concept of match videos on DVDs has more or less been rendered obsolete. Unfortunately, the absence of a yearly Evolution DVD set means that we no longer get the trailers that preceded each release. Though they were only a few minutes in length, most of the trailers did well to whet our appetites thanks to the very cool and often inspired background music that was used as well as the top-notch video editing that was displayed throughout. Here are two examples of some of the better trailers that were produced. You can find more by searching YouTube.

background music: Bolero (Closing Credits) - Moulin Rouge, Vol. 2
featured games: Capcom vs. SNK 2, Tekken 5, Guilty Gear XX #Reload, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Marvel vs. Capcom 2

The "king" that is mentioned in the trailer is a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 player named Duc Do. At Evo 2k5, Duc won the MvC2 tournament with Spiral as his main, which is quite an accomplishment considering the fact that we almost never see Spiral being used toward the end of tournaments.

RELATED Anatomy of the "Evolution 2006 DVD Trailer" @ Meet jchensor

Later videos had more of an emphasis on the players. The above article talks about the Evo 2k5 trailer and explains the shift away from gameplay in the 2k6 trailer and beyond.

background music: Evolution - Ayumi Hamasaki
featured games: Capcom vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Marvel vs. Capcom 2

This is the video that made Ayumi Hamasaki a household name within the fighting game community back in 2002.