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Written by David Shelby
on February 14, 2019

Almost twenty years ago, a commercial aired on TVs all across America with an alarming message to share: “something’s gone wrong in the happy-go-lucky world of Nintendo."

Ever since the early days, Japanese gaming giant Nintendo has had a way of standing out among the rest, for better or for worse. Never has this proven truer than with its fighting party game series Super Smash Brothers. Originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, it’s since grown into an insanely successful franchise and potentially  Nintendo’s biggest esports discipline.

Early Fighting Games

Street Fighter In the late 80’s and early 90’s, fighting games fit a very particular mold popularized by developer Capcom. Games such as Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Mortal Combat, and Marvel vs Capcom involve two fighters in a two-dimensional, side scrolling arena, who string together combos from a variety of different attacks with the goal of knocking out the other fighter. These were games that got their start in arcade boxes, making their way into homes on the Neo Geo or Super Nintendo later. Due to the mass appeal of arcades in the 80’s and early 90’s, these games are considered some of the earliest esports, and gave rise to the sprawling phenomenon known then and now as the Fighting Game Community (FGC).

With the release of the N64 and the Playstation in the mid 90’s came the revolution of fully three-dimensional games. While the series mentioned above retained their 2D style, other developers didn’t shy away from the new frontier, creating games such as Tekken and Soul Calibur. These games are functionally little different from their 2D counterparts, though they allow a fighter to move in 3D space.

Throughout all this time, Nintendo never went so far as to make a fighting game. It’s anyone’s guess as to why. Considering how beloved Nintendo’s characters are and how ubiquitous the fighting game genre was throughout the 90’s, it could have come at any time. Still, despite everything, Nintendo finally released Super Smash Brothers in the twilight years of its 3D console, and in true Nintendo fashion, defied all conventions.

Super Smash Bros (1999)

n64_super_smash_brothersSmash Bros takes place on a 2D arena, though its isometric graphics create the illusion of 3D. Its locations, or stages, float in space, and often have platforms raised above the ground level. This is wildly abnormal for a fighting game and is true for this one possibly because Nintendo’s first breakout success was a platformer.

To add to the eccentricities of this game, the characters don’t have “life bars,” as they would in a traditional fighting game. Instead, as a fighter takes damage, he/she/it accumulates damage measured in a percentage. The more damage a character takes, the further that character can be launched. If a character falls off a stage, that character loses a point and the character that did the launching gains one. In timed matches, the winner is the character with the highest points. In survival matches, the winner is the last one standing.

 

 

Traditional fighting games are one on one matches, but Smash Bros has always taken pride in supporting up to four players (modern games support as many as eight). This makes for very chaotic matches, which is exacerbated even further by the presence of items. Characters can pick up hammer or barrels and bash their foes over the head with them, grab a super mushroom to grow giant, or throw a pokeball to summon a Pokémon ally to their side whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Super Smash Bros Melee (2001)

Super_Smash_Bros_MeleeWhile largely successful and well received by fans, it’s fair to say that Smash Bros wasn’t initially taken very seriously as a fighting game. That all started to change after the second game was released just two years later, Super Smash Bros Melee. This new game was much the same as the first, but it added a lot more to the formula: new stages, new characters, new graphics, new game modes, and most importantly, new mechanical complexities.

In the competitive scene, Smash Bros looks very different from what Nintendo (we assume) intended it to. Matches are one on one as they are in a traditional fighting game, or sometimes two on two. As it stands, the game isn’t particularly balanced for competitive play. Erratic stages weigh heavily in favor of very certain characters, and the in-game items serve as a random element. As the competitive players developed their playstyle, or metagame as it were, they came to allow only very certain stages, while banning items altogether.

 

 

Melee was responsible for bringing this metagame to the series, and though it was released back in 2001, it may come as a surprise to hear that it still has a presence in the esports world to this day, even though three games in the series have been released since. Surely this seems odd to the casual observer, but there are reasons for why this is the case.

For starters, while Melee’s release followed very quickly after the first game, it took seven years before the third game, Super Smash Bros Brawl, hit store shelves in the US. This long wait, most of which came with no assurance there would ever even be a sequel, gave fans ample time to acquaint themselves with Melee. The serious players discovered a plethora of intricacies within the game that weren’t even programed intentionally, and thus Melee players were introduced to such complex moves as the wave dash and the L-cancel. This was a time when Melee players came to view the game as one for skilled players invested in serious competition, which only served to make Brawl more of a disappointment for them.

Super Smash Bros Brawl (2008)

SuperSmashBrosBrawlCoverAccording to most measurements, Super Smash Bros Brawl was a huge success. Copies flew off the shelves from the initial release and for years to follow. It’s dearly beloved among casual fans, and has been well received by critics, but it’s always suffered from a glaring problem. While the game is a joy to play with friends on a casual level, especially the game’s story-based campaign, on the competitive level it’s broken beyond repair. Two of the game’s characters are astronomically better than the entire remaining roster, those being Meta Knight, an antihero from the Kirby series, and the Ice Climbers, the stars of the classic platformer Ice Climber. This makes for incredibly uninteresting competitions, driving competitive players and spectators back to Melee.

Another long interim came with no new Smash Bros. In fact, this one more than the last was plagued with doubt stirred up by the game’s developer Masahiro Sakurai. Sakurai very clearly expressed that he no longer intended to continue working on the series. It was rumored that he had said the same thing prior to Brawl’s release, but afterwards it was almost certain that if there would ever be another Smash Bros, he wouldn’t be at the helm. Though the reasons are unknown, his talk of quitting never came to a head, and he continues to direct the series to this day.

Super Smash Bros. 4 (2014)

Super_Smash_Bros_for_Wii_U_Box_Art2014 saw the release of Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U, commonly referred to by fans as Smash 4. This game was a giant leap for the series, and with a relatively balanced roster found its own competitive player base. While the Fighting Game Community had ignored Brawl before it, it welcomed Smash 4 with open arms. Even so, fans continued to play and host tournaments for Melee. Neither game ever truly eclipsed the other, and thus both found their places in the world of esports together.

It’s worth mentioning that while fans of the series were always ecstatic at the prospect of competitive Smash Bros growing, Nintendo was not. As the years have come and gone, Nintendo has proven to be a company that is fiercely protective of its intellectual property, set in its ways, and oblivious to the rest of the gaming world in way that some would call xenophobic. In fact, Nintendo was adamant early on about not supporting professional Smash Bros play in the west, even threatening legal action in at least one instance. Though this company can be a bit of a tough nut to crack, it eventually embraced the idea, and thus Smash Bros continues to hold its place in esports.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate (2018)

ssbultimateThe tail end of 2018 saw the release of Super Smash Bros Ultimate. So far, the game has been very well received, and its tournaments have garnered solid viewership. Still, strange as it may seem, more than seventeen years after its release, people continue to play and watch Melee. Shockingly enough, the two even have near equal numbers of viewers.

Following the release of Ultimate, the unthinkable happened: Nintendo did a reversal on their competitive outlook. This game boasts the largest character roster in Smash history and has proven to be the most relatively balanced of them all. Its online functions have also been greatly improved, and this time around Nintendo would much rather sanction live streams of the game rather than shut them down. For the first time in series history, the developer and the player base stand hand in hand.

 

 

Smash Bros is perhaps the most unorthodox fighting game ever made. Other games have come since that pay homage to its unique formula, but in the world of esports and the FGC, it stands out like a sore thumb. As esports grows worldwide, this timeless series has steadily evolved its identity, yet it remains something special in the hearts for fans of all ages.

 

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