Скачать или смотреть Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- 18 April 2014, Friends Matches #01

Hey! I bet you thought I was out of these things already, since I only JUST got through a whole sessionload of 'em and seemingly moved on to bigger and better things. No, I say! Seriously, even when I'm not playing a bunch of Smash Bros. over the course of years past the point where we'd become overly accustomed and comfortable with taking the thing completely for granted... all it takes is a little bit, and you're sucked back in and you may never again come back up for air!

I clearly have to blame everyone else who enables this bad behavior... it's obviously not my fault. Not at all. Never... but it IS really good that we got a last set of licks in while the underlying network infrastructure was being torn down due to time-limited business alliances that clearly weren't able to last the test of time...

Now, I want to get uncharacteristically serious for a moment... and probably a little embarrassing... and not just for myself, but probably for the other players as well. Because Brawl brought upon us a wholly new paradigm. Since the beginning, everyone could enjoy Smash Bros. (even if some might wish that we only enjoy it the way they want us to... and then they get upset when Sakurai himself tries... a little TOO hard to stick it to 'em in a half-friendly ribbing and half-demented trolling fashion) and every small pocket of players would develop at their own rates and with their own individualized quirks.

Maybe you only played with members of your household. Maybe you had a stomping grounds around your neighborhood where all would gather to play. An honest-to-goodness competitive scene developed somehow... which is incredibly scary and built around scarily contrary-minded individuals to the spirit of the series... which is downright impressive, even if you don't agree with their methods and tendencies. Whatever your pond, the fish within would grow naturally and thrive within it and mutual polishing would result in each providing its own beautiful and unique array of players built from the shared ground and common experience, constantly grinding away at one another towards expanding each other's greater perspective on the game at large.

Then Brawl came along, and these pockets were given the potential to touch in unforeseen ways. ANY player could decide to hop into the ether-powered ocean of potential opponents. Household casual "champs" could mingle with the "dregs" of the hardest core... and just as if you picked up a game in their own locale to soak up some of the different flavor... things would be unbalanced to an extreme... for awhile. The beauty of the language of the versus multiplayer experience is that prolonged contact with the fists of another will eventually osmose their message into another's personal bubble... and in so doing, incredible mutation would be possible.

As a big fish in your own small pond, you might think you're quite the hot stuff, strutting around and smashing without apparent resistance... but someone from a distant lake will perhaps put you in your place without question. Do you get deterred? Do you just accept your inevitable fate at the hands of your newfound greater? Do you invent excuses for why you lost and lash out at your opponent in some other language than that of Smash and the tempo of the battle? You could... quite easily, in fact... ... ...but what if you took it all in proper stride and learned a new song and forged a new stream to swim against.

This goes for all interpersonal gaming experiences, mind you... Smash has no unique claim to any of it... and it's a truly and preposterously conceited fashion in which I treat the subject matter of what's probably one of the most approachable and universally communicable of all the fighting-adjacent games within any age's recollection... but I feel like it needs to be stopped, paid respect to, and admired... then you can get back to beating the tar out of each other and enjoying every moment of it.

And that's why this whole set is dedicated to such people, whom I must proudly (yet angrily!) tip my hat to (and shake my fist at) for doing their part in spurring on my own journeys of self-improvement (after complete and continuous demoralization)! ...I'm sure NOBODY can figure out who fills this role more than anybody else in my particular case.

...wait... was I supposed to describe the matches contained herein? I was, right? Welp, no time or description length left for that!

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Match #1 -- Corneria
Jigglypuff (Joou)
vs. Wolf (EEL)
vs. Ness (B×B)
vs. Samus (KOK)

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Match #2 -- The Summit
Meta Knight (Joou)
vs. Olimar (EEL)
vs. Luigi (B×B)
vs. Captain Falcon (KOK)

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Match #3 -- WarioWare, Inc.
Diddy Kong (Joou)
vs. Wario (EEL)
vs. Ganondorf (B×B)
vs. Captain Falcon (KOK)