Super Smash Bros. (Spoiler: Snake Kills Ganondorf)

[tegan]

So there is a new SSB game coming out. Two new games! One for 3DS and one for Wii U. Naturally, I predict that the full title will be "Super Smash Bros. F3UD." Now that we've got the bare minimum of concrete visual information about the game, it's the perfect time to talk about it and make wild predictions!

 

TRAILERS!

 

 

WEBSITE!

 

 

Observations and Speculations:

• Every time one of these games comes out, I'm always struck by the graphical fidelity on display with Mario's character model. When Melee came out I was all "YOU CAN SEE THE TEXTURE OF THE DENIM IN HIS OVERALLS" and now I'm all "YOU CAN SEE THE STITCHING IN THE BRIM OF HIS CAP;" but in every case, he still has a hilarious rubber mustache.
• I really, really like the inclusion of Wii Fit Trainer. I'm always hoping for more female characters in SSB, and Wii Fit is such a perfect, uh, fit for the series. It's a popular and recognizable Nintendo franchise and the character's portrayal is the sort of self-parody that Smash is known for. She seems to handle like Zero Suit Samus, too, which was one of my favourite characters in Brawl.
• Mega Man looks rad as heck and I'm glad that they're sticking as close to the NES design as they possibly can, particularly focusing on Mega Man 2. Rush seems to be present too. I think Rush probably works like Sonic's spring did in Brawl. The Yellow Devil's present in some capacity, too, which is cool. The best part of the Wily's Castle stage is that it still retains the Wily Castle Mystery Pipe.
• The Animal Crossing Villager is on the same level as the Wii Fit Trainer for me in terms of cleverness. The only things that bug me aaaaare... 1) I just know that axe is gonna' have limited uses. 2) it seems like a missed opportunity that they're advertising using the male Villager. Animal Crossing is ridonkulously popular with women. I'm sure the female Villager is in there as a costume option or something, but she's not present in the promotional material at all. I get that they're probably concerned that the type of players who like Animal Crossing might not like a fighting game, but the whole deal with Smash Bros. is that you don't play it because you like fighting games. The genius of Smash is that you play each character as though they were in their own game. For instance, if you've never played Smash but you HAVE played Metroid, you're going to get a handle on using Samus pretty quickly because you know exactly what to expect from her moveset. If you're not playing professionally or with jerks, Smash is very inclusive. 3) dude planted his trees way too close together in that opening bit.
• Some of the gameplay footage shown clearly demonstrates Mario using FLUDD again, just like in Melee, which is a fucking weird thing to bring back but okay. I am okay with this. Mario Sunshine HD confirmed? (probably not)
• They seem to be going with a very slightly modified Twilight Princess Link again. He's using the TP Bombs, Hylian Shield, Master Sword, Hero's Bow, etc. He even has the arm brace thing. Kind of odd considering that they've got Skyward Sword Link now. Even with Wind Waker being rereleased, I don't think Toon Link will be returning, since Spirit Tracks Link appears to be a background character in the 3DS version of the game and it would likely be too visually confusing. I'm willing to bet that, if there's an alternate Link, it'll be the the Link from the new 3DS game. LTTP style Link sounds like it could be pretty swag.
• Samus is wearing the Other M Varia suit rather than the Super Metroid Varia suit that's been in a constant in Smash since the first game. This might mean she'll play differently from the heavy, clunky Samus of Brawl; since the Other M version of Samus was notably more agile and melee-focused than Samus usually is. Hopefully Adam will authorize the use of smash attacks.
• I'm glad that Final Smashes are back, but I really hope they rebalance some of them. I remember playing against my friend when he used the Landmaster on the OG Mario Bros. stage. Turns out it's exactly large enough to stick in between the top two platforms and can't move out of that position!
• obligatory Pokémon speculation: Lucario kind of sucked. I predict that Mewtwo comes back, but it's in that weird new form they introduced for X and Y.
• I expect Sonic to return since Sega's all buddy-buddy with Nintendo right now; but probably not Snake. It would be unfortunate, because I always felt that Konami understood the point a lot more than Sega when it came to the third-party characters in Brawl. Snake has the hilarious codecs and all kinds of wink-wink-nudge-nudge stuff in Subspace Emissary (eg:
  ), whereas with Sonic felt like a corporate agreement. His reveal trailer was just him beating up Mario for three minutes, he only appears at the very end of Subspace Emissary (showing up to save the day at the last minute); even in the UI stuff his franchise is always capitalized for some reason.You know how there's that awkward bit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are skydiving? That's in there because Disney and WB would only agree to lend their characters if they shared exact the exact same amount of screentime and screen real estate. That's how Sonic feels in Brawl; like he's there on contract rather than for fun. Sorry to rant.
• Namco-Bandai is helping out with this one, so they're probably going to put in at least one Namco-Bandai character. The realist in me says Pac-Man. The optimist says Klonoa. The pessimist says some fucking Tekken character.
• Tegan-approved speculative additions: either Malo from Pushmo or Dillon from Dillon's Rolling Western for modern franchise representation; female alternate costumes of characters with female counterparts like Villager or Pokémon Trainer; Bayonetta perhaps since that's an exclusive now, at maybe a Wonderful 101 character; someone from Fire Emblem Awakening; retooling of clone characters like Ganondorf to make them more distinct; Luigi finally gets the goddamned Poltergust; Toad (bonus points for removing Peach and adding an additional Toad); Shulk and possibly another party member from Xenoblade because why not; obligatory retro entry will probably be Little Mac; Chibi-Robo to account for the bizarre announcement of a Chibi-Robo special edition Wii U and recent surprise revival of the character; Jill from Drill Dozer because she's rad; another character from one of the single-representative entries like Metroid and F-Zero; some rejiggering of Captain Olimar to incorporate Rock and Flying Pikmin; and probably another Kid Icarus character. That's for starters, anyway.

 

Gradually attempting to pull Jake back in.

[SecretAsianMan]

Link does appear to be in his Twilight Princess garb, but the Zelda stage is clearly Skyloft from Skyward Sword, so maybe that version of Link will still appear.

 

• I'm glad that Final Smashes are back, but I really hope they rebalance some of them. I remember playing against my friend when he used the Landmaster on the OG Mario Bros. stage. Turns out it's exactly large enough to stick in between the top two platforms and can't move out of that position!

 

[Sno]

- I love, love, love Megaman's design. Nintendo's done an amazing job evoking both Keiji Inafune's original concept art, as well as Megaman's NES sprite.

- Wii Fit trainer is a great, wacky, unexpected inclusion.

- I hope the Animal Crossing villager has a female alt. Animal Crossing is such an inclusive series, it would seem weird to represent it with only the male character.

 

- I loved Xenoblade so much, i really want its main character, Shulk, to show up in the game. That feels like a longshot though.
 

- I think Marth is going to hang around, being that he's still the FE character with the most starring roles in FE games, but i think FE: Radiance's Ike is going to be replaced by FE: Awakening's Chrom.

[Twig]

FACT: I prefer all of the clones to their originals. Maybe the one exception is Ganondorf, although I still like him more, I just wish they'd made him more original.

 

What I'm getting at is I'll be annoyed yet again when Ike is replaced by some other Fire Emblem character I don't care about. Just like I was with Roy. Marth is BORING.

 

Also bring back Dr. Mario. ):

[Frenetic Pony]

You know, I was a huge, huge, huuuuuge fan of Smash Bros.

 

Hundreds, no, over a thousand at least hours logged onto the first and Melee. I bought Brawl, kind of enjoyed it, but it was also something of a letdown compared to the snapiness of Melee. I think logged maybe, maybe a hundred hours at most on it. Probably less.

 

And I'm not feeling this one so far either. Of course I've yet to play it. But I've become the jaded cynical bastard that thinks, just because it looks like smash bros, and just because it's called smash bros, doesn't mean it's going to feel as good as Melee or the first. And I'm already bothered by how it looks. The colors feel under saturated and the visuals disappoint, I know it's a Nintendo system but the previous entries have always managed to pull out some visually incomparable games for the systems they were on. Of course the 3DS version looks great, so I don't know what's going on there.

 

But, it's more than just that even. The big super move item is back (final smash). Didn't like that in Brawl at all, really the opposite of what Smash Bros is about, but at least you can turn off items. But where's Sonic? That I did enjoy from Brawl, and where's Tails? And Wii Fit trainer? I know, wacky. We've had Rob and Mr. Game and Watch. But neither of those characters were actually enjoyable to play beyond their amusement factor. And the one thing I really missed from Melee was the huge variety in stages. Where's stages like Big Blue, and Pokefloats, and etc? Crazy, weird, fun stuff. I'd much rather have crazy, weird, fun stages than characters there solely to be odd.

 

I'm far from convinced yet

[Sno]

The developers have been saying that they're trying to get more back to the feel of Melee, rather than Brawl.

[Twig]

Most importantly, tripping is GONE.

 

I didn't get nearly as into Brawl as I did Melee, but that's almost entirely because I was no longer in high school and my college friends didn't play Smash Bros. I started playing again recently with some coworkers and GODDAMN Brawl is a fun game. I think I still prefer Melee, but I also vastly prefer Melee to the original, and I like the original well enough.

[ItsMeYourFriend]

I didn't get nearly as into Brawl as I did Melee, but that's almost entirely because I was no longer in high school and my college friends didn't play Smash Bros. 

 

i think a lot of people had a similar experience and think that the quality of brawl is to blame as opposed to their own lives shifting in the 7-8 years between melee and brawl. 

[Ucantalas]

I got really into Brawl, much more than Melee, but I think that's mainly because I didn't own a copy of Melee at any point.

Regardless, I am ridiculously excited for this. I can't wait to play as Megaman. Back when I was playing the first SSB I would always think about how awesome it would be if Megaman was a playable character. I hoped for him to be in Melee and Brawl, but was disappointed with both. So you can imagine the excitement when I first saw his helmet beam down in the E3 trailer thing.

[JonCole]

Newegg has preorders of it for $35, though it's obviously a bit early to be doing so - http://slickdeals.net/f/6140062-Nintendo-3DS-Game-Pre-Order-Super-Smash-Bros-or-The-Legend-of-Zelda-A-Link-Between-Worlds-34-99-Free-Shipping

[ItsMeYourFriend]

also i sort of hope the online play is smoother and less laggy than it was on brawl, but at the same time i don't know if i care that much. so much of the experience of the smash bros games comes from having several people physically in one space. 

[Ucantalas]

I'm always a little sad about how sub-par Nintendo's online capabilities have been. I just want to play Mario Party online with strangers who won't be able to punch me when I steal one of their stars.

[Sno]

Did any of you guys hear about the Evo thing?

Nintendo informed the organizers of the Evolution Championship that they would not be allowed to stream footage of their planned Super Smash Bros Melee tournament. (With nearly 700 people competing in the Smash tourney alone, and Evo streams typically drawing viewership numbers of over a hundred thousand people. It's one of the very, very biggest competitive Video game tournaments in the world.)

To worsen the hurt, the slot of the tournament Super Smash Brothers Melee was taking up was decided through a fundraiser for breast cancer research, with Smash fans donating the most, at nearly a hundred thousand dollars, to get their game back in Evo for the first time in six years.

It was starting to look like a real big mess, but then either something was sorted out behind the scenes, or Nintendo acquiesced as a result of the outrage, because it was later announced that Evo will actually be going ahead as initially planned starting this friday.

It only took about a day for Nintendo to reverse its decision, but the news spread quickly. They turned an incredible swell of excitement for Smash from their biggest fans into a negative story.

[Twig]

Yeah Nintendo is really stupid about streaming / Let's Plays / whatever. They refuse to let anyone have the money. I'm glad the flip-flopped on this decision.

[Gormongous]

I can almost understand their motives with a mostly narrative game like Super Metroid, because it could be replacing someone's need to purchase and play, but is anyone getting their Smash Bros. fix from watching a tournament livestream? It really must just be about the money.

[TheLastBaron]

Super weird, I have friends that are really hyped about smash at EVO. Also it's weird that when the game came out 12 years ago the people playing it now were probably little kids.

[Sno]

It actually took them about about half a day to a day from the time the story went up on shoryuken.com.

If it's really another outgrowth of the let's play thing, it makes even less sense here and i think Nintendo is pretty indefensible in the matter. (Mini-rant: I think the let's play thing was pretty indefensible to begin with. They weren't going after people who were trying to fraudulently profit off of Nintendo IP, they were going after people doing a job that publicizes and evangelizes the products Nintendo makes. Nintendo may as well go after the big news and review sites as well.)

If it's, more understandably, just Nintendo wanting to keep its distance from the boys club ethos of the FGC, all they had to do was literally nothing and they were fine. They still enjoy a huge swell of good feelings for Smash Bros in a time when they're trying to promote two new Smash Bros games.

[Frenetic Pony]

I can almost understand their motives with a mostly narrative game like Super Metroid, because it could be replacing someone's need to purchase and play, but is anyone getting their Smash Bros. fix from watching a tournament livestream? It really must just be about the money.

 

Nah, my sister wants to BUY games after watching Let's Plays, pretty sure most people do. Nintendo's leadership hasn't much of brain left between the whole lot of them, they don't care about third party support, don't care about indie developers, still don't care much about online play, never cared that their great new controller was just a worse tablet, something more people the in the world already had than will ever have a Wii-U if it was the best selling console in history.

 

I've not much optimism for the survival of Nintendo. If the rumors of yet more competition in gaming hardware from both Apple and Google play out over the next year I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo... I honestly wonder if they wouldn't fold altogether. Their investors are just as clueless as their execs, a recent meeting had concerns raised over, not the dismal Wii-U prospects, but the quality of their cafeteria. They'd better get their shit together, I want that new Zelda damn it!

[Sno]

As bad as things are for the Wii U right now, the 3DS is actually doing incredibly well.

There might need to be a future where Nintendo is a one-system company, bring all of their development power to bear on a single platform. It would become an absolutely irresistable purchase. None of the other big console players are splitting their focus like Nintendo is. (Unless you want to pretend that Sony cares about the Vita.)

[SecretAsianMan]

Nah, my sister wants to BUY games after watching Let's Plays, pretty sure most people do. Nintendo's leadership hasn't much of brain left between the whole lot of them, they don't care about third party support, don't care about indie developers, still don't care much about online play, never cared that their great new controller was just a worse tablet, something more people the in the world already had than will ever have a Wii-U if it was the best selling console in history.

 

That was my problem with the Let's Play thing.  LPs I've seen have done more to sway me than any Nintendo commercial ever has.  LPs have never been about spoiling a game, they're about showing how much fun playing a game can be.  The Smash thing makes even less sense to me because its one of those games that's pretty much pure gameplay.  What better way to get people to want to buy and play your game than showing just how fun it really is?

[Gormongous]

Nah, my sister wants to BUY games after watching Let's Plays, pretty sure most people do. Nintendo's leadership hasn't much of brain left between the whole lot of them, they don't care about third party support, don't care about indie developers, still don't care much about online play, never cared that their great new controller was just a worse tablet, something more people the in the world already had than will ever have a Wii-U if it was the best selling console in history.

That was my problem with the Let's Play thing.  LPs I've seen have done more to sway me than any Nintendo commercial ever has.  LPs have never been about spoiling a game, they're about showing how much fun playing a game can be.  The Smash thing makes even less sense to me because its one of those games that's pretty much pure gameplay.  What better way to get people to want to buy and play your game than showing just how fun it really is?

 

Oh, I wasn't saying that Let's Plays of video games actually compete with the video games themselves as a product or service, just that I can imagine the intersection of myopic/paranoid corporate greed that would suggest as much -- just like lent copies, demos, and mods all supposedly compete for sales with the video games from which they derive.

 

As bad as things are for the Wii U right now, the 3DS is actually doing incredibly well.

There might need to be a future where Nintendo is a one-system company, bring all of their development power to bear on a single platform. It would become an absolutely irresistable purchase. None of the other big console players are splitting their focus like Nintendo is. (Unless you want to pretend that Sony cares about the Vita.)

 

Well, the 3DS sold just over 14 million units this past fiscal year, which almost makes the revised figure of 15 million that Nintendo set in January after it gave up on the original 17.5 million. So yeah, the 3DS is doing well, but not incredibly well, and it almost seems as though Nintendo expected it to be performing even better, considering the sales spike from the price reduction. I just wonder which of Nintendo's many hands knows what the rest are doing. This is the sort of blundering that killed Sega.

[TheLastBaron]

I have definitely watched LPs of games and not bought the game after, but it's more often because I see that the game doesn't look like something I'd want to play.  Sometimes I'll watch games instead of playing them, but it's because it's for a console I have no intention of purchasing (like the Vita).

[Sno]

According to this, Nintendo wasn't just trying to stop the stream, but completely halt the Smash tournament.

[Twig]

Jesus Christ, Nintendo. What the fuck.

[Zeusthecat]

According to this, Nintendo wasn't just trying to stop the stream, but completely halt the Smash tournament.

 

Why? In what universe would this actually be a beneficial move for a company to make?

 

My crackpot theory is that desperation is setting in and rather than acknowledge that they are responsible for poor sales they want to blame and punish the customer. As stupid as it sounds it could kind of make sense especially considering the frequency of these moves as of late. 

 

I don't even think Dick "Satan" Cheney would stoop this low. I mean, shit, it's supporting fucking BREAST CANCER RESEARCH!!!