Do you know what a “wavedash” is?
If your answer is “no” then you have a long and exciting journey ahead of you.
At the end of it, you will understand how Super Smash Bros. – a game you loved as a kid, picked up again in college, but ultimately forgot about – has evolved from a childhood fancy to an international competitive phenomenon.
So swallow that red pill and journey down the rabbit hole to discover the secrets of Super Smash Bros.’ success.
The game
Before you can understand where Smash is today, you have to understand how it was born. In the late 1990s, a young Nintendo programmer named Masahiro Sakurai saw a problem in the gaming world… and a solution.
The crowded “fighting” genre of video games was stagnating. The market for muscle-bound monsters slugging it out was decreasing. Sales for these games had leveled out and, most importantly to Sakurai, he didn’t think they were fun to play.
Sakurai wanted to create a new type of fighting game, but rather than take the idea to his superiors at Nintendo, he enlisted the help of his friend (and future president of Nintendo) Satoru Iwata.
The young developers spent what little free time they had feverishly programming their brainchild into life. The result was Kakuto-Geemu Ryuoh. Also known as Dragon King: The Fighting Game.
Dragon King looked nothing like its contemporaries. Rather than two fighters, Dragon King allowed up to four players to duke it out on screen at once. The traditional “life bar” was replaced with a percentage system. The more damage a character takes, the farther they fly when hit. The goal of Dragon King was not to kill your opponent, but to knock him out of the arena. Once a character flies past these boundaries, s/he would explode in a shower of sparks and colors.
Dragon King was addictive, but the characters were dull and the graphics needed work. Sakurai decided to use existing Nintendo characters (such as Mario, Link, and Kirby) to create an instant connection between players and fighters. The Nintendo executives loved the demo so much that they greenlit the game into becoming an official title for the recently released Nintendo 64 console.
It was titled Super Smash Bros, and was first released in 1999.
Growing pains
Although it was not a hugely expansive game (with only 12 characters, nine stages, and a weak single-player mode), Smash Brothers became an instant hit in Japan and America. It sold millions of copies and Sakurai started working on a sequel.
A grassroots competitive Smash scene was beginning to take root. The original Smash Brothers was a regular part of Nintendo multiplayer gatherings. Fans would meet up to beat the stuffing out of their favorite mascots.
But advanced gamers were frustrated by the game’s limitations, and were hungry for more characters and capabilities. This was satiated in late 2001 when Nintendo released Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Melee was the catalyst that competitive Smashers needed to transition from a niche hobby to a full-blown competition.
Unleash the Smashers
It’s important to note that Sakurai and Nintendo never intended Smash to become a competitive game. They wanted to make a fun party experience that players could enjoy with their friends. However, Sakurai and company never counted on the rise of the Smasher.
People that play Smash intensely identify themselves as “Smashers.” These are not your average video game fans. These are people so committed to their craft that they’re willing to spend huge amounts of time tearing the game apart frame by frame in order to uncover any secrets and advantages hidden within the code.
Melee was ripe for this type of experience, and as time went by what was thought to be a very simple game was revealed to possess an incredible amount of depth and complexity.
Here are just a couple of the complicated inputs and glitches, known as “techs”, that Smashers have spent their lives attempting to master.
Wavedashing: The unofficial signature move of the die hard Smash scene, wavedashing involves executing a short hop and then commanding your character to dodge into the ground. Because the game doesn’t know how to process so much momentum, it causes the character to sort of slide across the ground rather than running on it.
Source: Kotaku
Wavedashing is essentially a digital moonwalk.
L-Cancelling: By analyzing the game frame by frame, Smashers discovered that pressing the shield button – or L button – allowed players to cancel lengthy animations early. This cut down on movement lag and allowed for quicker combos by removing the time between attacks.
If this all sounds super complicated and nerdy… don’t worry, it is.
The bottom line is that top Super Smash Bros. Melee players were able to break the game in key ways and turn casual bouts into acrobatic war-zones.
A timeline of competition
With a deeply analyzed Melee at players’ disposal, the Smash scene reached a pinnacle. Talented players started looking for ways to discover who was the biggest Smasher of them all: the best, most fearsome player.
The Early Game (2003 – 2005)
Battles for supremacy in basements and dorm rooms grew into unofficial tournaments at local GameSpots. These loosely structured competitions lead to what is now known as the Super Smash Bros. Golden Age.
Great players became celebrities within the scene. Chief among them was Ken Hoang, a California based 17-year-old who won essentially every major Smash tournament during the age of The Early Game. Excitement was growing, and the Smashers caught the attention of large-scale tournament producers at Major League Gaming.
The Golden Age (2006 – 2007)
With Major League Gaming’s help and money, the Smash scene grew. Major League Gaming put on huge tournaments with hundreds of players and thousands of dollars in prize money.
The culmination of the Golden Age was EVO 2007. EVO, established in 1996, is a worldwide fighting game tournament, the precursor to the eSports bouts that happen today. Melee was included as a promoted title for the event.
Ken won the tournament, but later dropped out of competitive smashing as the pressure was too much to handle. In his absence, the competitive Smash entered a period of inactivity.
The Early Platinum Age (2013 -2014)
Two things happened in 2013. First, a group of indie filmmakers released a nine part Smash documentary on YouTube. This production put the spotlight back on Super Smash Bros. Melee and drew new fans into the scene. And EVO included it in its 2013 tournament as a fan-nominated wild card game.
But Nintendo objected to this inclusion. They didn’t want their casual game to be seen at a hard-core fighting tournament. They petitioned EVO to take it out of their lineup. The Internet exploded in protests, and Nintendo relented. Super Smash Bros. Melee became the most watched series at EVO 2013.
The Smash scene was back in business.
Modern Smash
Today, Super Smash Bros. is bigger than ever. Dozens of large-scale tournaments take place around the world each year. There are thousands of dollars given out in prizes: $32,000 at the Smash Summit in California, and $20,000 at DreamHack in Sweden.
The enduring popularity of Super Smash Bros. can be attributed to its loyal fanbase, who pushed Nintendo for upgrades and lobbied for inclusion in tournaments like EVO, helping transform the game into something bigger.
But they’ve also made sure that Sakurai’s vision is still relevant. The game is still suitable for all levels, and it’s a lot of fun to play, just like Sakurai dreamed of all those years ago. By staying true to the core value of entertainment, the game is now entrenched in modern day play, which means we’ll probably be blasting Kirby and Mega Men into the ether for the foreseeable future.
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