Brawlin'

In life there are things that you are set up to hate. Like Naruto for instance. I loathe Naruto mostly because of the frothing fan base and the fact I really can't "believe" that the rip-off Monkey King main character is a ninja at all. If anything he is only a 'ninja' because, like everything else, even the orders of ninja cannot turn away applicants based on mental deficiency. This is a sad time for Ninja, brought down by equal opportunity employment. If the show was tolerable at all the fans destroy that element with their ranty chats on the subject, where I am left nodding while they go on about how someone was pissed off and did something that was changed in the localization to another screen of believe it and some shit... It fails to impress because others are trying to justify their fanaticism to the point that, like their obnoxious idol, they need to be put out of their misery before they do irreversible damage to themselves.

Like Naruto, The Smash Bros series has been something that fails to snare me, again because of the half-wit fanatics who march in droves declaring they kick ass at what I've always seen as a subpar fighting game. Subpar mostly because Nintendo has an obsession with turning a good idea into a family-friendly idea then shitting itself to death with pointless additions. All the restrictions and overly cheap characters made the game this frightful beast you could not possibly enjoy if you were not desperate enough to have purchased the original on the N64.

Most of my dread for the series came in the last year or so. For this year I've been working in a game store and have been forced to deal with irate fans who have no concept of not shooting the messenger when it comes to bad gaming news. With every pushed back release of Brawl I received 50 calls from irate mothers and basement dwellers wanting to know just what exactly was up. The great thing about working retail in the gaming world is that shit happens and you are left without much of an explanation. Your explanations have to be self-researched or brought on by years of improvisational acting. Since I never cared much about the Smash games, I was left rambling something about load times and voice acting, and occasionally diving into debugging. I eventually just started telling people to yell at Nintendo, not me, and would hang up on them in time to deal with a customer who wanted the same question answered. It was inescapable. What makes it slightly better was that there was no explanation offered to game journalists either.

The last nail in the Smash coffin came with the news that the company I work for was pushing for a midnight release of Brawl accompanied by a Melee tournament. The midnight release was the work of capitalists, the tournament proved that I work for Satan. A store that at times feels like it is half the size of a Game Stop, about 40-60 smelly nerds, and unseasonably warm weather. I felt that I was justified in hating this game because I would be working that night and would have to experience first hand what others had only told tales of during the Halo 3 release.

Release night: Cheese platters....

For all the bad feeling built up for Brawl, I couldn't help the excitement I felt as I started to read about the game and browsed stage videos. The Pictochat level was what snagged me, that and the Pokemon Trainer. Something in my brain flipped and I walked out of the Midnight release with a copy of Brawl. I didn't open it for 2 days, I thought I would come to my sense and return it before the need to open it ever arose.

The weird thing, I didn't hate Brawl. I had tried to play Melee and was simply uninterested, but felt Brawl needed a chance. It got one and it did not disappoint. The level maker is addictive, the stream-lined Brawl is very fun, and the Subspace Emissary mode caused endless frustration but was very rewarding. It....it managed to not fail. I suppose the only real failure here is on Nintendo's system, the horrible sounds a functioning Wii makes under the massive amounts of data and the fact that some systems are simply not up to the challenge.

The biggest accomplishment of this game I feel is how every character controls uniquely. King Dedede feels sluggish and powerful and Pikachu feels small and fast. My favorite currently is Mr. Game & Watch, who initially is a total clunker but turns out to be one of the most useful characters in a brawl match. Every character feels different, and this tops a lot of popular fighting games. Even the Soul Calibur series tends to have a few characters that control in similar ways, the only truly unique character to my mind being Voldo with his fluid movements that people tend to be confused by.

Voldo is totally my favorite.

So I suppose the lesson here is to not let fans ruin a series...but the problem with that is that Naruto is still going to suck, and Smash probably would have if the extra care had not been taken to make this game one of the best buys for a Wii owner. It is no RE 4, but it is good, and it will not make me look more favorably on the earlier games in the series. Of course if you like all of them you probably stopped reading by the time I called you a half-wit.