It was a pretty big weekend for one of my favorite game
franchises ever Super Smash Bros. After some drama from Nintendo, Smash was
allowed to be streamed and EVO, the world fighting game championships, and went
on to break the world record for largest fighting game live stream of all time.
This combined with the official announcement of return of Olimar (my main from
Brawl) in Smash 4 has led to it being a good weekend for Smash players. Of
course, no online discussion of Smash Bros. would be complete without endless arguments
on the definitions of “competitive” or “fighting game” so I suppose I should
weigh in on this. For the record, I have been playing Smash Bros. since it came
out for the N64, my friends and I have put literally thousands of hours into
melee and brawl, and I have entered Smash tournaments in the past. I consider
myself to be a fanboy of every aspect of Smash Bros. from 99 stock pokeball
battles to 1v1 Final Destination showdowns, and everything in between.
First things first; play the game however you want. If you
and your friends are having fun playing the game, then keep having fun, and don’t
let anyone tell you that your way of playing is “wrong”, that’s not what I’m
here to do. What I am here to say is that you can’t dismiss the complaints of
the competitive community just because you don’t like to play the way they do. The
community that plays Melee at a tournament level were the first people to put
to paper many of the advance mechanics from that game, mechanics that people
use at every level of play, so even if you only play 4 player coin matches, if
you have ever spiked someone with a meteor, or learned to nail sweet spots with
a character, you have them to thank. Also, regardless of what anyone says Smash
Bros. is a competitive series. It is a game where multiple people are put into
an arena on equal grounds, and the game ends when only one of them is remaining,
or scores the most points, and the winner is given a victory screen. That is
literally the definition of a competition. Any game that features players
competing against each other, and results in one player or team winning is “competitive”
(except Mario Party, screw Mario Party), even if you personally just enjoy the
game and don’t care about winning. Without further ado, have a list of reasons
why the game being “competitively viable” is important:
1. Game balance is way more important than competitive tier
lists. Tier lists are really disingenuous, and only apply at the highest levels
of play, proper game balance however, affects the gameplay experience at all
levels. I’m sure there are a number of people at lower skill levels who became disenfranchised
with Brawl because they had a friend who played Meta-Knight who they were never
able to beat and couldn't figure out why.
2. Having solid control of your actions makes victory feel
good. I’m not talking about items and stages here, the wackiness of having bomb
fall on you is different, I’m talking about feeling like your actions have an
effect on the outcome of the game. Even though it does happen, deaths from
random stage hazards happen significantly less often than kills through attack
from players. It’s not just about winning either, this is coming from someone
who considers the Ganoncide to be the pinnacle form of player death.
3. More options is never a bad thing. If you are one of
those people who think Smash should never see tournament play and people who do
that are taking it “too seriously” then what do you have to lose by that option
being available? Maybe you don’t like competitive Smash now, but you could grow
to like it over time? The way I see it, if you are that intolerant of the way
other people live their lives then you would never interact with those people
anyway.
4. There’s no reason why the game can’t be both. Melee is an
excellent party game and an excellent
tournament game. Neither of those elements suffers for the other one being
included. No one is arguing that Smash 4 should be “Street Fighter: Nintendo
Edition”, so stop acting like us hoping that the next Smash is competitively viable
is the same thing as us saying that they should remove items or have every
stage be flat and boring.
I could really keep going here. There are an endless number
of reasons for me to rattle off, but the biggest one is still: why do people
care? If you don’t like tier lists and twitchy gameplay and internet whining,
then just ignore it and go play some Smash. No one is forcing you to watch or
play in tournaments, and if you run into someone in real life who won’t play by
any rules other than his own call him the asshat that he is and move on.
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