Thursday, November 13, 2014

Smash Bros: A Crisis

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  I'm having such a crisis at the moment. Simply put, I have no idea who I am going to play the upcoming Super Smash Bros For Wii U (hereafter referred to as Smash 4) with.
  A big part of me plans to buy the game along with the Gamecube controller adaptor for my Wii U, and because I've held onto some of my gaming gear over the years I have enough Gamecube controllers to facilitate some party play, but my life is not what it once was and what stage I am at has changed drastically. This conundrum is really making me question whether I really need the game at all.
  At face value this game should be a day one purchase, the Smash series has always been like that for me: I rented the N64 Original many times and played the heck out of it - I never owned it though because I was young and permanently owing a game back then was rare; Melee however was another story, I bought it day one and for years it was MY GAME. I love that game so much and it is without question one of the greatest Couch Multiplayer games ever made. Brawl came along afterwards and I never really got into it at all, but I'll get more into that later. See part of loving Melee so much was where my life was at the time: I was in my early 20's, studying and surfing between different friend's flats, and when we got together we got snacks, drank beers, and played Smash. All the time. And it was fucking fantastic.
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  But inevitably Life changes: friends move away; surfing between flats becomes staying home raising kids; going out for snacks becomes cooking meals and having dinner parties; and playing video games on Couches becomes playing Online and having a chat when you can squeeze it in. Looking back I realise now why my experience with Smash Bros Brawl was so marred; yes some of the combat system tweaks made it unbalanced, yes the Final Smashes are stupid, and yes the SubSpace Emissary is a giant steaming pile of bad game design - but what marred it for me was because it arrived near the beginning of the end.
  Those friend groups were starting to break down, we didn't get together to game much anymore, when we did get together we either drank or went to music gigs...and drank. All the fun of Smash was disappearing, on account of life starting to change in the ways I just described, but I just didn't fully realise it at the time, I still expected to get a lot of fun out of Brawl. Flash forward to now, 6 years later, with the feelings I'm having surrounding the impending release of Smash 4, I can finally fully understand why Brawl let me down so much.
  The true heart of Super Smash Bros, what makes it so goddamn fun, is Couch based multiplayer. Four or more players, swapping controllers, shooting the shit and talking smack, all in the same room. Smash Bros is, and this a big call I'm about to make, the best local multiplayer game series since Bomberman in it's prime. Yes I realise Smash 4 will have robust online functionality but that has just never been the same for me as playing games with friends and interacting with one another. The developers of the Smash games have made attempts in the past to bolster the single player component - Challenge Mode, All Star Mode, SubSpace Emissary, Smash Run etc - but they've all fallen flat for me, they just aren't what Smash Bros really is all about.
  Life has changed greatly for me, I have a wonderful wife and amazing son now, and our friends don't game together. The fact of the matter is that without this element, at this point I can't imagine myself getting much enjoyment from Smash 4 at all.
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I love Nintendo and I love Nintendo games. I pretty much only play Nintendo games now, I don't bother with the very limited exclusives and formulaic multi-plats on PS4 and XBONE, and I don't own a functioning gaming PC. In Fact the only consoles I own beside Nintendo consoles are a PS2 and a PS3, and I use those primarily for DVDs and Blurays. I work a part time IT job and at the time I had a baby on the way, but a few months back I forked out the cash for a Wii U, Mario Kart 8, and Super Mario 3D World because I love Nintendo THAT much.
I adore my Wii U; Mario Kart 8 is unbelievable, I've had a lot of fun with Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, and almost above all, my Wii U is my Nintendo history box. I love how it upscales Wii games and the Gamepad is one of the best devices I have ever played NES and SNES games on, once the N64 and the long rumoured Gamecube support hits the Virtual Console, man, then I'll be having myself a time. So I love NIntendo and Super Smash Bros is one of Nintendo's premier game franchises, it stands to reason that Smash 4 will be an incredible game and will undoubtedly go on to become one of the Wii U's most loved and long revered games. I know I really want to buy it, but I hate thinking about just how little value I may end up getting out of it. Maybe I should try to bring about a rebirth of Couch Based gaming in my friend circles, a one night a week or month sort of thing - make it a real event...Either that or I could wait until my son is old enough to play with him and his friends, but who really knows what games will even be then and some kid's Dad joining in and playing games with him and his friends sounds...kind of lame.
- Danny