Smashmania: Last thoughts and a moment of reflection

Maybe because I was more concerned about who was getting cut (surprisingly nobody, but they fullfilled this too well. I was expecting Ice Climbers and Wolf, but no Young Link or Pichu), maybe because none of the newcomers hooked me (the closest ones were Simon and Chrom), maybe because my most wanted characters were not the typical Ridleys, K. Rools, Genos, Isaacs and Waluigis, maybe because from those wanted characters I got NO ONE, maybe because I'm getting fucking tired of leaks (my respects to Vergeben and the guy who created the Grinch leak, although they're partially guilty of ruining the fun) and maybe because I won't be able to play the game on its release date since I don't have a Switch... I have a lot of time to think about this, so I needed to post this last blog for Smash as a moment of reflection. This is not to low your excitement or your enjoyment for the game, this is something you should think while you enjoy the game.

Smash is a game made with us, the fans, in mind. It works because we always want more and more, but there’s always a limit, or is it?

Look, I’m a fan like many of you, but always comes a point where you have to say "enough is enough" and think "where are we going?"

In Ultimate, almost all of our dreams have been fulfilled: ALL the characters that have been in the saga have returned, a new story mode, characters everybody told us they would never be are here (Ridley, Daisy, Chrom, Joker), characters heavily demanded by the fans despite their null presence in their franchises for years (King K. Rool)... Starting to see my point?

We get to the point where you're nobody if you're not playable in Smash. Others have tried to achieve the success of the saga and nobody has succeeded, there are some who have excelled (Rivals of Aether), but at the end of the day, people return to Smash for a simple reason:

Why would I want to play a game in which I don’t know anyone when I can play the Nintendo game that has all the Nintendo characters?

That’s the main weapon of Nintendo. They've already created the brand, we already know what it is about, but here’s something curious that I think people haven’t taken the time to analyze.

I'm afraid Nintendo will become what it has always tried to avoid. Nintendo is the example of how to make a good video game: you never start a game making story or characters, you start making a good gameplay. If what you have before making story is fun, you started well. This is how they have created so many franchises and sequels within these franchises and even explains why there haven’t been sequels to other franchises that we would like to have.

Example: Beyond its poor sales, F-Zero is canned because Nintendo hasn’t known how to innovate with the franchise, they haven’t come up with new and fun mechanics that differentiates the next game from previous deliveries (the anti-gravity mode of Mario Kart 8 was their way of saying "we won’t do more F-Zero"). They just don’t want to sell the same thing over and over again.

And here's another comparison so you can understand me better: Why is Apple so loved and hated at the same time? For the prestige that your cell phone is from that brand. Steve Jobs created that idea about the prestige of your device and in the moment he died, Apple started selling the same thing over and over again because that's what people want, right? From an economic point of view, it makes sense, but you also get stuck. You only innovate again when you create something that blows your mind. That's what I see in Super Smash Bros.

I won’t deny that it looks amazing, it’s the highest point of the franchise but, what will happen then? When DLC ends, we’ll have 80 playable characters, if Smash 6 comes out, is it okay to have more than 100 playable characters? (Imagine you want to choose Megaman out of 100 characters) Will Smash just stick to add more characters?

Sakurai has repeatedly tried to get away from this problem by creating new ways of playing and including new items and scenarios that vary the way to win, but we’re so stubborn that we only want no items, Fox only, Final Destination (or any of the legal stages in tournaments) and playing only for competition (before any of you demand my head, I know I’m generalizing and not everyone plays competitively, but the competitive scene is between 70% and 85% of the content we’ll find on YouTube once the game is released.)

Nintendo is not a company dedicated to competition, it’s a company dedicated to innovation and fun, but we’re the ones that are pushing Smash to be what we want to be because we’ll never get fed up, the franchise might become stagnant. When you have absolutely EVERYTHING, you only have to look down. We’ll never reach the top again.

Look, the saga is going to continue with or without Sakurai because Nintendo knows it's a money printer. Nintendo can become Apple by selling the same iPhone over and over again. This may be the last Smash we’re truly excited because we already have it all. The only thing that remains is to add new characters: to include Rayman, Banjo-Kazooie, Geno, Sora, Isaac, to finally have Waluigi... and that's it (and more characters). Where else are we going to go?

We’re responsible for the content we’re going to receive and if we only care about one game mode, then that will be what we will get until the franchise dies. Innovate is to explore, Innovate is to experiment, it’s to discover something new in the everyday and that’s what we must do if we want to save something we want. Having more and more doesn’t mean it will be better (Brawl is the game that has contributed the most to the saga and the community didn’t accept it simply because of its lack of competitive value). We continue to demand too much from a person who's already tired of making these games. Let's not become the danger the saga can have, many times we spend more time yearning for what we don't have than enjoying what we do. So let's enjoy Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, because it can be the last game as we know it.