This was the first blog post I ever wrote - and good god, you can tell. It’s really funny looking back on this just because of how thoroughly hashed out this debate is now, to the point of being utterly trite. It’s also funny to see how I chose to argue some of my positions (ie Not At All). Still, it’s where I started, and I think I’ve come a long way as a writer.
About a fortnight ago, while browsing through my Twitter feed, I noticed that a number of people were talking about a so-called “Smash documentary”. Being the knowledge-seeking person that I am, I investigated (read: clicked a link that someone posted) and eventually found myself watching “The Smash Brothers”, a nine-part documentary series by East Point Pictures that goes over all the ins and outs of the competitive Super Smash Bros. Melee community in America. I was very quickly sucked in, learning all I needed to know about the community’s beginnings, its most important players, its greatest achievements as well as the current state of the community and the direction it will move in towards the future.
As a fighting game player, I have always had enormous respect for those players in the upper echelons of the competitive SSBM scene, since not only is the game’s speed on par with Marvel vs Capcom (and it is perhaps even faster), it follows an entirely different set of fundamental rules that I still cannot wrap my head around, and to top it all off, the sheer number of “tech skills” (advanced tactics such as wavedashing and L-cancelling) that players were required to not only be able to execute consistently, but know exactly when and where to execute them, was something I could not even dream of comprehending. Plus, they do it all on a pad. I don’t think I’d be able to pull off any of those things on a stick, let alone a GameCube pad.
Having briefly explored Melee quite some time prior (as in attempting to wavedash with Sheik on Dolphin using an Xbox 360 pad), I found my interest in the game somewhat rekindled. Having a more or less “informed casual” background in the game’s sequel, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I could certainly appreciate what gave Melee its appeal, and why Brawl fell out of favour with a large part of the Smash community. As “The Smash Brothers” will tell you, the release of Brawl divided the Smash community, and the “Melee vs Brawl” debate still rages on to this day. Of course, I don’t see how it can still be a debate at this point. It’s clear to me that competitively, Melee is the superior game, and here are my reasons why:
- Melee is faster, attacks actually have hitstun (and therefore combos exist) and the game overall rewards offensive play over defensive play. This creates a game that is more interesting to play and watch.
- As a result of the first point, Melee is hype. In every Melee match that I watch, exciting things always happen. Whether it be a clutch ledge-tech or an exceptionally disrespectful edge-guard, Melee always gives viewers something to be excited about. By contrast, only two times has Brawl ever been hype. The first being the Mew2King vs Salem grand finals set at Apex 2013, and a tool-assisted Snake vs Meta Knight match.
- Brawl players argue that their game has a lesser focus on technical prowess, and consequently, a larger focus on mindgames, thus creating a game that is just as deep as Melee, but more accessible to new players. To which, of course, I will argue that your game has prat falling, therefore your game doesn’t count. Ever.
Which, of course, brings me to the point of this blog entry — the “prat falling” (more commonly known as “tripping”) mechanic in Brawl. The short version is that if a player mashes the control stick (which normally executes a dash), there is a very small chance that the player’s character will trip and fall over rather than continue the dash. This is the main case against Brawl as a competitive game, and it’s easy to see why. It enables luck to be a significant factor in achieving victory rather than just player skill, and it effectively punishes players for playing the game, regardless of whether or not they are playing casually or in a tournament setting. The game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai, stated that the inclusion of this mechanic, as well as many of Brawl’s other design decisions, were made so that the game would be as non-competitive as possible.
Historically, Nintendo has been very unwilling to embrace competitive gaming in the way that companies like Microsoft and Sony have. In the late 2000s, when SSBM was being hosted on the Major League Gaming pro circuit, MLG organisers had to jump through many a hoop just to get the rights to live broadcast the tournament matches over the internet. The same scenario happened very recently, as well. When a tournament for SSBM was decided to be run this year at the Evolution Championship Series, arguably the biggest international fighting game tournament in the world, Nintendo was quick to jump on the EVO organisers saying that they, similarly to the fate MLG almost suffered over five years prior, would not be allowed to live broadcast the tournament matches on the internet. While fan outcry quickly forced Nintendo to overturn their decision (five hours after the decision was announced, in fact), there is no denying that Nintendo has not embraced competitive gaming to the extent that other companies have.
This poured over into Brawl’s general design philosophy, with the game’s director, Masahiro Sakurai, stating that he wanted to design a game in which there were no clear-cut winners or losers. He wanted to create a game where “everybody was a winner”. Now, I understand that I may be a couple years late to the party, but I’d just like to point out that not only is this kind of philosophy really god damn stupid, but it’s a quite literally unachievable goal to reach for.
Regardless of whether or not you, or even Sakurai himself, considers Smash to be a “fighting game”, the fact of the matter is that it still a game that pits two or more players against one another to see who comes out on top — it is a game that thrives on competition. In a game where competition is the very reason why people play, this “everybody should win” mentality is completely illogical and contradicts the very nature of the game itself. Sure you can make a game where there are no clear-cut winners or losers (by adding stupid mechanics like tripping), and while there may not be any losers, there certainly won’t be any winners, either. Nobody walks away from a draw game feeling satisfied.
And don’t forget the fact that regardless of the game’s faults and design choices, Brawl still has a competitive community. Understand the implications of this. Regardless of how “competitive” a game is designed to be, in the end, a game is only as competitive as the people that play it. That’s the entire reason Smash built a competitive community in the first place. Competition is a part of human nature. Even in games that thrive on co-operative multiplayer, there are unspoken competitions between players to see who can get the most kills or complete an objective in the most impressive way. It doesn’t even matter if your game lacks any kind of multiplayer functions whatsoever — in the days of early single player arcade games, players would always compete against each other and the three letters sitting at the top of the high score table.
The point is that in nearly any sort of video game, in some way, there will be competition. If the game does not provide a way to determine a winner, then the players will create those criteria themselves. Competition is part of the human condition, and when designing a game that thrives on this facet of human personality, such as Smash, competition must at least be acknowledged. And with that, I want to quickly talk about the future of Smash — that is, Super Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS. I would hope that Nintendo soon comes to the realisation that competition, and by extension, victory, are inevitable. It is with this attitude that they must make these new entries in the series. Now, I’m not saying that the game must be meticulously balanced to cater to competitive play — after all, regardless of its tournament scene, Smash, at its core, is a fanservice game — but it doesn’t hurt to consider the needs and wants of the competitive community. Brawl alienated a lot of the competitive community that had built around Melee, which leaves many of them feeling cautious about the new entries in the series. It’s very possible to create a game that appeals to the competitive fanbase while not alienating casual players. In fact, that’s one of the natural advantages Smash has. The simplistic control scheme and gameplay is easy enough for anyone to pick up and have fun with, but with enough room for taking the game to another level, the competitive fans are pleased, and these are arguably some of Nintendo’s most important fans.