#Smash Bros (Other Nintendo Properties)

[foxune]

Today’s Game: Dillon’s Rolling Western (3DS, 2/22/12)

[lesbianchemicalplant]

okay it’s pretty funny to see people who make Smash Bros mods handwringing about how it would be Unethical and Theft to use ai voice gen for such mods because They Didn’t Get The Original Announcer’s Permission

like.....you are dedicated infringers of other people’s Intellectual Property lmao. every game asset you’ve tweaked, reused, and recontextualized was made by someone else, and belongs to Nintendo. the voice lines and assets you’ve ported over from other games for your custom characters and stages are also “stolen”. the whole thing is infringement.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Game & Watch Gallery 4 Playthrough.

Fighter: Mr Game & Watch.

Game: Game & Watch Gallery 4, Wii U Virtual Console (Nintendo GBA). First Released on October 28th 2002.

Fighter Bio.

A true enigma, Mr Game & Watch is both everyone and no one within his world. His roles have varied so much as to put even Mario to shame with such examples being a juggler, flag bearer, exterminator, fireman, judge, sewer worker, workman, lion tamer, parachuter, deep sea diver and many more. Mr Game & Watch however has at the same time had none of these roles because as an entity he does not exist. The Game & Watch games were often self-contained LCD consoles that had a single game which ran on technology similar to calculators (I believe). In the games there is a pale beige colourless background which often has some coloured decorations that remain on the screen at all times such as trees or waves from the ocean, there are then multiple pre-drawn LCD segments usually in black that when playing will in turn light up in order to simulate movement, so for example a character will have faded out pictures of them walking along a road and when pressing right the next picture to the right of the one currently prominent would light up and the one next to it will fade out making it seem like the character has moved. A good example of this is the screenshot in this post which shows multiple pictures of characters falling out of a burning building along with the Firemen carrying a trampoline, you can see how specific ones are lit up whilst the others are not as visible. The Watch part of Game & Watch comes from many of them having a digital clock also which can have an alarm set which often involves a character of some kind (such as a cat) appearing and ringing a bell for the time the alarm is set to.

The characters in many of these games did not have names and were simply random civilians or professionals such as Firemen or deep sea divers. Mr Game & Watch as a character first appeared in Super Smash Bros Melee where he represented these numerous nameless characters. What’s interesting is alongside this with the amount of Game & Watch games produced including ones based on already existing properties, Mr Game & Watch has technically taken on the identity of other characters including Mario himself. Since his first appearance in Super Smash Bros Melee, Mr Game & Watch has made a few appearances in other games, although considering anything ‘canon’ to his story is not really possible. Honestly this probably is the best thing for Mr Game & Watch as it makes him feel like this being from a whole other dimension compared to everyone else in Smash Bros.

Friends: Since he is not really a character there aren’t any real relationships Mr Game & Watch has. Any of his in-game interactions are with others who are essentially other versions of himself. The only arguable exception is possibly Mario as in Game & Watch Gallery 4 he shares a small appearance alongside Mario where they host the Gift Mode.

Enemies/Rivals: Unlike with friends, there is a candidate for Mr Game & Watch’s ‘enemy’ which is most likely the Octopus that seems to be the most prominent other Game & Watch character having a whole minigame dedicated to it in Nintendo Land. In the original game the Divers (aka Mr Game & Watch) have to grab as much sunken treasure as they can before going back to the surface and avoiding the Octopus, if the Octopus grabs them then they are taken away and when the whole crew are gone it’s game over.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: As I stated earlier Mr Game & Watch is unique when it comes to this topic as he has actually been other characters in the Smash series, specifically in the game Mario Bros he takes on the roles of Mario and Luigi. He also takes on Mario’s role in Donkey Kong which is a crossover therefore with Donkey Kong based on the original arcade game. Other games feature Mario but his design is more like Mario in those cases so I don’t feel it counts as much. As stated earlier Mario appears alongside Mr Game & Watch in Game & Watch Gallery 4 on GBA, he does not appear in such a role in the previous Game & Watch Gallery games however since the concept of him as a character himself only began with Super Smash Bros Melee in 2001 and Game & Watch Gallery 3 came out in 1999. Mr Game & Watch did make a couple of other appearances, most of them I don’t feel it’s worth noting as they were more small cameos such as in Warioware Micro Games and as part of a Minigame icon in Super Mario Odyssey, however probably the most notable is that he appears in Donkey Kong Country Returns in the background of Foggy Fumes, a level where everything is in silhouette due to the fog and he appears as a cameo in the background hammering at a pipe. The only other debatable cameo is in Wario Land 4 where there is a character who runs the shops in the games that definitely is inspired by Mr Game & Watch, however that character is actually someone else so even if Mr Game & Watch is not really a character in the first place I wouldn’t count that as a direct appearance by him.

Why this game?

The reason I decided on Game & Watch Gallery 4 specifically is that it was the easiest way to play multiple Game & Watch games, get screenshots of them and it looked the closest to the original being on GBA as opposed to the other games on Game Boy which were a lot more downgraded. The vast majority of the games I needed are covered in this game which is why I felt it was the best one to represent the character of Mr Game & Watch.

My past with this game.

I have a bit more of an interesting history with this game than I expected when looking into it and remembering various things in the past. I suppose the best place to start is with the whole world of LCD games as a whole. Tiger LCD games were probably the first examples of these things I remember since I grew up in the 90s and these things were everywhere as some cheap 'stocking filler' type things. Remembering any specific games is something I can’t do which I think probably demonstrates even back then these were hardly things that brought much enjoyment beyond a couple of minutes at most. Probably the LCD game I remember most was one my neighbour had when I used to go there playing with her kids when I was really young, I remember she had this one that had multiple games in one and I think the one I remember most was a simplistic driving game where you had to avoid the cars that would appear in front of you and see how long you could keep going before you crash. I think the next big LCD game I remember (and I’m not sure if this really was an LCD game but it definitely looked like it) were during the Tamagotchi craze when I was young. I don’t remember if I ever had an actual Tamagotchi since I think it was used here as the name for anything like them rather than the specific brand, but I do remember winning one on holiday at an arcade, it was one of the very few times I actually managed to collect enough tickets to get a prize. This one stuck out to me particularly as I thought it looked like Yoshi on the box although that wasn't the case in-game. All these years later I discovered it is called Ganbare Ryuta Kun, anyway it was the main one I remember and even if it was a ripoff of Tamagotchi I can’t help having some nostalgia for it.

When it came to Game & Watch itself, I believe the first one I ever got was part of a line called Nintendo Mini Classics and was Mario’s Cement Factory. If I remember right, it was back when my parents decided to follow what my Aunt did and get a small caravan to stay at this caravan park (that despite how it sounds was really like a nice holiday place than some rundown parking lot or something) rather than go away on holiday each year. We did it for a short while before ultimately deciding we weren’t as into it as my Aunt’s family was but I still remember a fair few things there, such as playing through probably the worst game I’ve ever played (The Fellowship of the Ring on GBA) there as well as how my Cousins found a copy of Rayman on GBA underneath their Caravan one year. Anyway, I do vaguely remember playing this game a bit when I was bored but I think eventually the novelty ran out for me with it. The game was still to me an interesting thing I’d never heard of before so I was glad I got it though even if it wasn't that exciting to play. Sometime later I remember when I was really into Donkey Kong 96 on the Game Boy being interested in if there were any other games with Mario facing the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr and reading in the games magazine I had about Game & Watch Gallery (possibly 3 but it might have been 2). I was interested in it because DK Jr actually appeared, however I remember when I finally had a chance to buy it in the store the GBA was coming out and I decided I wanted that more, which in hindsight I think was probably the best choice. When the Gamecube came out I first saw Mr Game & Watch and I don’t know honestly what I thought of him beyond he was meant to replicate arcade games or something. I do remember the music from his stage did pique my curiosity with how mysterious it was but I think it took me a fair bit of time to realise his relation to that Mario’s Cement Factory game I had. It didn’t help that the physical Game & Watch in Smash Bros (where the stage takes place) didn’t look anything like the Nintendo Mini Classics version I had, which was more like a tiny version of a Game Boy.

I did vaguely remember hearing of Game & Watch Gallery 4 in magazines but I think I’d lost interest at this point beyond finding it neat. The Spriters Resource did pique my curiosity a bit with how many of the games had unusual characters like Luigi boxing a Wiggler, however it was only when I decided to do my Smash playthrough I actually got the game and only in that case because I learnt the game had the Modern versions (where the games star various Mario characters) and Classic versions which recreate the original Game & Watch, which was far easier than tracking down the actual individual consoles.

My Smash Playthrough.

I believe looking back at posts I’ve made so far this is the second game that doesn’t really have a clear ‘ending’ after Dr. Mario that I’ve played so far. This was what I believed in any case when playing the game so therefore I decided to have a specific goal to work towards which is what I’ve done with ‘endless’ games on my list such as getting some specific item or unlocking something specific. In this case the game I aimed to unlock was Octopus since it made sense as a ‘final boss’ of sorts. Octopus required 50 points to unlock, in the game points are represented by stars you get for each game which you are awarded for every 200 you get in the score in a game. Honestly, this was fairly irritating with some games giving points away fairly easily but having a limit on 5 stars I believe, this means you have to try and build up the points on other games that can be a lot slower and more difficult, not to mention getting a game over means you’ll have to start from a score of 0 again. It was due to this in order to maintain my sanity I went with unlocking Octopus rather than getting the 220 points required to unlock everything in the game. I have learnt also that credits are unlocked with 170 points and cast credits with 220 so technically there is an ‘ending’ to this game.

 Of the games available my favourites were probably Donkey Kong Jr which is a recreation of the original arcade game, I definitely preferred the Modern version of this as it was fun seeing DK Jr dealing with Mario enemies such as Goombas and Bullet Bills. Chef I remember could be somewhat addicting in both versions with you having to keep catching food items in a frying pan and throwing them in the air trying to avoid any of them landing on the floor. Fire is a fairly classic Game & Watch title although I feel like I’ll probably go over that more when it comes to the Game & Watch stage down the line. I also found Rain Shower surprisingly fun mostly because I always liked how old arcade games took such mundane activities and made a game out of them. In this case in the classic version you have clothes on a clothesline with raindrops falling down and you have to pull the clothes along the line to avoid the drops of rain. Since it was the one I wanted to unlock as my last, Octopus is a pretty fun game and fitting for a ‘final boss’, this game involves you taking treasure from below an Octopus and having to avoid its tentacles. I enjoyed both the Modern and Classic versions of this game and I felt the Modern version was easier and if I was willing to put the time in would likely have let me get a lot of points. The final game I want to mention is probably my favourite being Boxing, granted this isn’t due to the original Game & Watch version which was fairly bland but the Modern version which involves Luigi boxing against a Wiggler (which is funny to see with boxing gloves), Big Boo who seems to use a smaller Boo as its glove and finally Waluigi. It’s funny to me seeing Luigi of all characters being chosen for this game.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Mr Game & Watch in Smash.

What makes Mr Game & Watch particularly difficult is that every single one of his moves references a specific game. Due to this I decided for a specific game to represent him I had to choose one which covers his main moves, in this case Game & Watch Gallery 4. The games represented in G&WG4 that are also in his moveset in Smash are Manhole, Fire Attack (Which has a bit of history to it as earlier versions had the attackers as Native Americans with a feather on their head which was initially in Super Smash Bros Ultimate but removed before release and in Game & Watch Gallery 4 the feather is also removed so this version matches Smash better than the original versions), Octopus (both for the Final Smash with the Octopus itself and the Up Smash which has Mr Game & Watch doing a headbutt with a diving helmet from the game), Parachute and Fire (interestingly originally this move referenced just Parachute with Mr Game & Watch using a parachute as an attack, but in later games his up special had him get trampolined up by Firemen which references Fire before using the parachute when falling from it), Mario’s Cement Factory (although the object he uses in this looks more similar to one from Mario Bros than Mario’s Cement Factory), Donkey Kong Jr, Alarm (he uses a bell which matches with the Alarms on each game which have a character ring a bell when the timer goes off), Chef, Tropical Fish, and finally Mario’s Bombs Away (a bizarre game that has a lot more colour than other Game & Watch games, has Mario very clearly defined but also is a game that seems to be set during the Vietnam War with Mario as a soldier, meaning yes, Mario is a Vietnam veteran.)

This is definitely not every single game Mr Game & Watch references and through writing this post I’ve realised that I should probably look into some of the other games as Game & Watch as a whole is a bit of a blind spot on my list that I haven’t represented as well as I could have. I think for some of Mr Game & Watch’s alternate costumes I might look into finding the other games represented in his moveset to add to my list now.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to the Super Mario Wiki and the Nintendo Wiki for additional information.

Screenshots were taken by me using Miiverse.

[lookingforroleplayers]

I can't remember if I've asked this before, or if I just thought about it and thought it was too niche of a request and chickened out, so I'm so sorry if you've already been asked this / said no to it. But is there a possibility of a kind of "other / misc Nintendo" masterlist? Like, for maybe C- and D-list properties that don't have their own masterlists? I know for a fact my own fandom is wayyyyy too small to ever warrant a dedicated list lol but maybe if you stick all of us lonely and forgotten Nintendo properties together you'd have a decent list.

Or if that's too niche I suppose it could be broadened to a smash bros masterlist which might overlap with some of the others but it could help find people who specifically are open to smash bros related interactions

honestly it depends what you mean with "other Nintendo" :<c i was considering uniting the Nintendo masterlists tbh, or at least make one for. Anything that isn't Mario (and any other Mario-related game, like the Donkey Kong ones), but i'm not sure tbh nfasdmg

SO!! leaving this to you guys

[dumpsterfirepropaganda]

So a while back, I decided to make a spreadsheet listing all of the franchises/series/properties/etc. that I have a special attachment to, along with specific elements/aspects that I particularly enjoy in the media I consume, in order to see if there was any one variable all of them had in common.

It ended up looking like this:

I added the year I got interested in each property as well, and it’s been funny to see the progression - you can see how it starts with the movies my parents showed me at the beginning, then the video games my friends introduced me to (or that I fortuitously found out about after skipping vacation bible school one day but the full version of that story is for another time), then my special interests growing out of a mix of those...then that little stretch in 2020-2021 where I started dipping my toes into things out of morbid curiosity and getting genuinely invested in them whoops

 Anyway, I wanted to share this in case anyone else is interested in creating something like this. I think it’d be so fun to see what other people consider to be the most appealing aspects of the things they’re into, as well as how their tastes evolved over time! 

(Zoomed in versions of the spreadsheet under the cut for easy reading, as well as abbreviated explanations of how I got into everything on this list, if you’re interested.)

Jurassic Park - I was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid. My parents were like, “Hmm, she might like this - we’ll just make her cover her eyes for the scene where the T-rex eats that guy off of the toilet.”

Star Wars - Parents bought me Lego Star Wars for the Wii because THEY liked Star Wars but I had no clue what was going on, walked in on them watching Episode V and they let me stick around

Pokémon - All my closest friends were into it but I wasn’t allowed to play until finally my parents caved and let me get a DS and a copy of Platinum. Easily the franchise I am the most invested in ahaha

Sonic - Went to the phone store with my mom and they had a mobile version of Sonic 2 on one of the demo phones. Went home and got it on virtual console, literally defined how I play video games now

Mega Man - Picked up a copy of Nintendo Power (RIP) because it had Mewtwo on the cover. Featured character was Zero. His design activated all the neurons in my brain so I read everything I could about him and eventually got into the games, and now Mega Man characters own the deed to my house and my firstborn child

FNAF - Friend showed me a video of a playthrough at my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. Scared the pants off of me. Couldn’t stop watching it.

Alien/Aliens - The Great Movie Ride at Disney, but specifically the waiting room where they play the trailers for the movies (I closed my eyes during the actual Alien section of the ride because it freaked me the heck out). That trailer stuck in my brain and one day I just decided I wanted to watch it. I’ve never mentioned them before but I need y’all to understand that these are my favorite movies of all time and I literally wrote a college essay about why they are so good

Metroid - Saw Samus in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and thought she was super cool. Got an SNES Classic for Christmas and tried out Super Metroid...instantly hooked. One of the most amazing games in the universe you guys

The Thing - Dad was like, “Oh yeah I watched that in theaters when I was 12 it’s great let’s watch it.” I couldn’t look my own dog in the eyes for three days.

Terminator - Wanted to check out more 80′s sci-fi. Plus Michael Biehn. Love Michael Biehn.

Twilight - Me and a close friend (neither of whom had grown up reading these) decided to watch the first one as a joke. Got invested. Ended up watching them all. Now I write Mega Man/Twilight fanfiction. Beware what you do ironically, folks.

Homestuck - Was vaguely aware of it for years but (like most people) had no clue what it was about until the Sarah Z video. Decided to give it a try.

It checks almost every single box on this spreadsheet, so...there’s my defense for that, I guess.

The Locked Tomb - Everybody kept posting weird things about this book series and it sounded too crazy NOT to read

Subnautica - I love the ocean. I love space. I love aliens. I couldn’t get a copy of Pokémon Violet at Wal-Mart and wanted something new to play and it happened to be on the shelf.

[onenettvchannel]

BALITANG TEKNOLOHIYA: Warner Brother Games' free-to-play fighting game 'MultiVersus' launch at the end of May 2024, brings together with the DC, Cartoon Network and WBD-related character properties

(Written by Ridley Terrance / Contributed News Reporter of OneNETnews and Master Control for ONC)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA -- Warner Brothers Games (WBG) and Cartoon Network Studios (CNS) officially launched a free-to-play crossover fighting game 'MultiVersus', per inspiration of Nintendo's "Super Smash Brothers" on Tuesday morning (May 28th, 2024 -- Pacific local time) for both consoles and personal computer (PC) gaming systems.

The one and only Free-to-Play gaming platform fighter brings together an eclectic mix of main protagonist characters from various Warner Brothers-Discovery (WBD) franchises, including Cartoon Network animated shows in America, promising endless fictional-wise entertainment and a fresh take on the genre.

'MultiVersus' offers colorful and lively combat with its ever-expanding list of the fictional protagonist characters. Among the stars are 'Steven Quartz Universe' and 'Garnet' from the show "Steven Universe", accompanied with Norville "Shaggy" Rogers & Velma Dinkley from "Scooby-Doo". They bring in their best styles and abilities to fight each other. Their involvement is in recognition of iconic series in the Cartoon Network and present the game's diversity in its character designs.

Gaming mode of options in competitive matches such as 'Player vs. Environment' and 'Player vs. Player' battles each other with your favorite protagonists and villains alike on both properties, whether if you are a solo, groups or professional E-Sports players. 'MultiVersus' took inspiration from the above Nintendo game, per the millennium release of early 2000s. They share common match mechanics beginning from basic attacks up to special moves, double jumping and even dodging. However, having its own set of rules and character dynamics allows it to give a fresh spin to the concept of crossover fighting games.

With its rich roster, engaging gameplay and innovative features in the industry of gaming, 'MultiVersus' is set to become a staple in the new fighting game community. Players can expect fresh new updates regularly from the gaming developer 'Player First Games', with new characters, maps and stages; keeping the excitement alive for months to come.

'MultiVersus' is now available free-to-play worldwide on your PlayStation and XBox-supported consoles & launcher stores for PC gaming systems on Steam and Epic Games via Windows 10 or 11.

EDITOR's NOTE: Originally published on May 30th, 2024. But due to summer vacation in the Philippines, we rescheduled it from today's article publishing. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

FILE PHOTO COURTESY: Google Images SPECIAL THANKS to DJ Unikitty (formerly ColeThePony in Canada) for sending us a gaming news tip!

SOURCE: *https://x.com/multiversus/status/1794896358073303541 [Referenced X Network Captioned Post via MultiVersus] *https://press.wbd.com/us/media-release/warner-bros-games-launches-multiversus [Referenced PR News Article via Warner Bros. Discovery Pressroom] *https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/multiversus-vs-super-smash-bros-similarities-differences-explored [Referenced Editorial Article via Sportskeeda] and *https://www.ign.com/wikis/multiversus/Characters [Referenced Character Listings via Imagine Games Network]

-- OneNETnews Online Publication Team

[carnellousthecat]

So, two days ago marks the first day I've ever posted to a blog anywhere in my life, and I'm thirty years old lol. Been a lurker on this site for a long time, seen the seasons come and go, the trends

okay that's enough waxing poetical. My previous post proved a couple people might read my stuff so I'm gonna find something to talk about. I think today's topic will be... Super Smash Brothers

So story time, growing up I was a microsoft kid. Dad worked at microsoft, our pcs were windows, our consoles were xboxes, you know how it is. This means the only times I ever got to play any nintendo property was over at a friend's place. Back in high school one time I went to a friend's and there was a gamecube there. My friend was playing on the 360 so I was like "can I play the gamecube?" and my friend was like yeah totally bruh or something idk, 2010s shit lol. So I looked through the games and found: Metroid Prime. I thought, that's the character from Smash Brothers! I've always loved playing as her! I knew two things about her. One, she was secretly a woman under the suit, and two, she was from a game called Metroid. So here was my chance to play Metroid Prime.

I am not exaggerating when I say, that single session of Metroid Prime got me thirsting for the entire series, something I would not experience until earlier this year, when I heard Metroid Prime was available to play on the Nintendo Switch. I legit dropped like 300 dollars on a Switch just to play that. And pokemon. I'd never played pokemon, my girlfriend seems to like it. Maybe I should give it a go?

Anyway, now we come to the last couple of days. I finally caved and decided to buy myself super smash brothers ultimate, a game I had always dreamed of owning so I could practice and stand a chance against all my friends! I've been playing it almost nonstop since I bought it, it's such a blast, even did a couple fights with my girlfriend, that was fun!

And I got to thinking. What's the pro scene like?

See, I knew some things about the smash pro scene. I watched like maybe one or two matches, I knew that meme where the sweaty smash bros player goes "four stock, final destination, NO ITEMS!" and I always thought that was just... boring. When I played with my friends it was four player free for all every time, and we'd pick random fun stages and have a blast literally blasting each other into lava or acid or the sky or something. That just sounds a lot more fun to me.

So, if that's more fun to play, why does the pro scene sound so much more boring to someone like me who's only got a passing understanding of it and has never been interested? Whenever my more sweaty friends decided they'd have enough of the party game and went "1v1! Final Destination! No-" you get the picture, I immediately tuned out. I had no chance of winning because I didn't have any of the tools I used to use to get by in the free for all games. Doing unexpected things, spotting and using the right item at the right time, being more effective at platforming when the stage is falling out of the sky or something, and being tactical with who I engaged with and who I should just do that Godzilla meme with. You know the one. Those were skills I had from general gaming, and I could employ them in ways even my non-switch owning ass self could understand clearly and instantly.

So. If I, the casual consumer, was bored and tuned out every time the game inexplicably turned into Street Fighter, and had such a blast with literally anything other than that, then, why is that like the only type of thing they play at pro matches?

Limited stages to the most bare bones and simple ones. No free for all tournaments, but one v ones and team ones instead, absolutely no items save for the smash ball usually, someone correct me if I'm wrong but from my understanding that's the type of thing they do at tournaments.

See, I was talking to my friend who's an absolute legend veteran of fighting games, has been to tournaments, has a custom "hit box" I thought he called it, basically this chunky board with buttons and sticks like an old arcade game, coolest shit I've ever seen. I was trying to explain my frustrations and he said something that stuck with me, something along the lines of, any random element introduced into a match immediately ruins it. I was trying to explain that in my hypothetical smash bros tournament the victor wouldn't be decided by a single match but probably five matches in random stages or more so the law of averages applies and whatnot (not sure that's what the law of averages is but ykwim) but, you know, even in random chaos, play enough matches and a clear victor emerges, that's always been the norm with sports. You don't do a single bout of football, you smash into your opponents again and again and again and again for hours to make abundantly clear when one team has absolutely destroyed the other and there can be no question about it.

So, what makes a good sport. Not even esport, what makes a fun and watchable sport. I have a few ideas.

Personalities. You need recognizable names and personalities that the layman can easily get to know in a way that little narratives and rivalries and legends start to form around them. This is something in esports already obviously.

Simplicity and readability. A person just tuning into a football match for the first time in their life should be able to quickly pick up what's going on.

Relatability. The sport should be a high stakes version of a game we all play. Who hasn't played catch, or thrown a football, or kicked a futbol, or swung a tennis racket at least once in their life. You have experience with the sport and you know how it's played because you have played it.

Excitement. A match of a sport should have an ebb and flow, it should change in easily understandable ways, you need to be able to tell easily when one team is winning and the other team is losing, when they're having a comeback, when things are getting exciting because they're changing.

Skill. When watching the sport it should be immediately abundantly clear to all watching who is the single best player in the world.

So putting all this stuff together, let me tell you what I learned from experimenting with the game for the past couple days.

I was on my own mostly so I had to play with bots. I missed the free for alls so I did that, four player ffa, I always liked some of the items so I turned select ones on at low frequency or whatever, they show up less often, and on every match I'd switch to a different stage that looked interesting.

I was pretty rusty so I experimented a bit with the CPU difficulty until I was just about able to hold my own just enough that the outcome wasn't always sure, I would win about 1/4 of the time, which should happen when there's four players.

But then for kicks I swapped to the one v one final destination style, with the simple stages and such. And I discovered something amazing.

Even though there was no one on my team helping me, the cpu player at the exact same difficulty as the FFA game became a complete pushover, I had to go up two difficulty levels just for it to stand a chance. I noticed from observing that the lower difficulty npc was acting in some very odd ways. Doing things players never ever do. Sometimes they'd walk slowly unshielded. Sometimes they'd just stand still, any player of smash bros knows the name of the game is keep moving at all times, depending on the character you might try to never touch the ground. And I'm sure 90% of players don't know it's even possible to walk slowly. The npc had a handicap on that made it behave in a way that was SO much easier than any real player.

So... why was the FFA harder at the same npc difficulty?

I thought about it and see, computers have an ability that humans will never be able to replicate. The ability to think instantly. They can absorb almost any amount of basic information and follow algoritms on it in a heartbeat. Essentially what this means is that an NPC player is omnipresent. It knows and processes every single bit of input, event, any change that happens to the stage even though they're on the opposite side of the map, instantly frame by frame, and this ability is SO powerful that they had to add a ridiculous handicap that made the computer players do shit real players never ever do.

And then I thought. What if a human could do that?

Imagine if you will, a huge stage, four players duking it out in FFA, items raining on them, the stage changing dramatically, sometimes even purposefully by players, the stage being selected at random every subsequent match until a clear winner from the four is declared.

But the people playing are the greatest Smash Brothers Ultimate players in the entire world.

Wouldn't you pay to see that? I would absolutely pay to see that.

See, what happens when you introduce "random elements" is that the pro player has to have a response ready in reflex time for every single possible event that could change the board state. They'd have to learn the intricacies and mechanics of every single stage in the game. They'd have to familiarize themselves with every item and be able to pick out which it is when there's a mosh pit of four players scrambling on top of it with a bunch of flashing effects and kicks. There might be item metas, which are unique to every stage, there might be special tactics about when to engage and when to stay out of a bout because it benefits that lone player in the mosh pit.

The thing about a 3v3 co op match is that there are only two possible outcomes. One team wins, or the other team wins. So yeah, it's excitingg when they're getting close to winning. You probably have one team you like that you'd rather won the match and so when it gets close to that happening or not happening you get excited.

Well, imagine if every match actually had 4 possible endings. Four personalities, four titans of Smash, who know every single stage by heart, who have items they prefer over others, who are known for being good at Corneria but not at... idk that metroid one that's constantly spinning and there's lava under it and everyone hates that map but unexplicably Sonicfox is unstoppable there. And as stocks start to dwindle, these unbeatable and instantly recognizable titans start to get picked off one by one by one.

See that's what I learned. I played free for all games with like 6 npc players and me, it was chaos, things were happening everywhere constantly all over the screen. And when I got knocked out early I stuck around to watch and see how it turns out. Maybe I'd get knocked out SUPER early and there's still like four players on the board.

Now imagine that situation at a event. One person is knocked out. And then another. And then another. It's down to three of them now and while your favorite player is out already two of them you also love but one you despise with pure rage. And the two you like are fighting each other instead of the one you hate, and they're about to both get knocked out! Then it's just down to the one you hate and the one you love, after that arduous chaos, that gauntlet of insanity it's just down to one player against the other.

And then the guy you hate wins.

But don't worry, there's ten more rematches to go, and maybe they'll get corneria! Your favorite Ducunt player might still have a chance.

This is what I'm saying. Super Smash Brothers is severly slept on, it has SO much potential. The developers crafted a game with an incredible cavalcade of mechanics and the esports only interact with like maybe 20% of them. And if you walk from the smash game to the guilty gear or tekken or street fighter booths or even other arena fighters and what have you, you're in for just about the same thing. A couple of guys or more hitting each other like it's a boxing match.

Which is exciting! Obviously! Boxing matches are fucking exciting as hell! But if you want a boxing match you could go to the boxing match booth, or you could go to the six player free for all extravaganza that reminds you of that tv show with all the squids.

I think about this kind of thing often. Games like Chivalry pit armies of 32 players against each other in huge objective based modes. It's a hell of a lot of fun to play, but what if every single player there was a master at their craft? What if that huge 32 player team was like an entire army of personalities who've mastered the art of cooperation on the field of battle, professional warriors at their peak cooperating like an entire football team, with demarcated leadership, with a single general or whatever, professional comm chatter. It would be like a world record Wow guild doing a thingy thing but it's PVP and the entire world is watching.

I would pay to watch that. Wouldn't you?

[lrussellconceptart]

Best battling games

As I am looking into creating concepts for a battling game for my final semester I thought it a good idea to look into the most favored fighting games.

Currently very popular the Super Smash Bros Ultimate game for Nintendo. Super Smash Bros Ultimate is a platform combatant for up to eight players that sets characters from Nintendo games and other third-party properties against each other in an arena. There are many modes to play such as: Smash, Squad Strike, Tourney, Special Smash, and many more. The game is a 2D combat game, however it is the first Smash game to be in full 3D.

A recent popular game that is a massive throwback is Street Fighter the 30th Anniversary. It is a collection of the arcade versions of twelve Street Fighter fighting games: Street Fighter: Street Fighter (1987) is a 1987 video game. However, for the Switch it has Thirteen fighting games. The player takes control of martial artist Ryu as he competes in a global martial arts competition with five countries and ten opponents. A second player can take command of Ryu's friendly American adversary, Ken Masters.

Another popular battle game is Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Ultimate MvC3 is all on making the most of your special powers and your partners rather than stressing about memorising combos and being incredibly exact with your inputs. Each fight is a 3v3 match, with each player controlling one character until they call in their allies for an assist or screen-filling super move. Additionally, if you begin to lag behind, the X-Factor mechanism may turn what seems like certain defeat around. It's disorderly, noisy, colourful, and a tonne of fun.

Finally, let's look at Injustice 2. This is a fantastic single-player campaign that will keep you occupied for hours as you are immediately thrust into the DC Comics universe. After you're done with that, a universe of well-crafted combat against AI or other online players is waiting for you. Additionally, in a novel twist, beating the game's trials will net you items of gear that you can use to change both the appearance and stats of your selected fighter.

Overall, it is clear that 2D-based fighting games are having major 3D elements added to them. It makes you feel like you are playing a modern-day fighting game along with the 2D platform side. With the 3D elements it makes you feel like you are playing open-world without you having to travel anywhere or circle around your player. With modern battle games, there are slight elements that lose the traditional 2D side to the game, however, I feel 3D is necessary to keep up with the graphics and audience of today. It is clear that these games keep being popular and the style of game is forever being developed.

References:

Image 1: Farough, A. (2019) Super Smash Bros Ultimate: A superparent guide, SuperParent The Video Game Guide for the Modern Parent Super Smash Bros Ultimate A SuperParent Guide Comments. Available at: https://www.superparent.com/super-smash-bros-ultimate-a-superparent-guide/ (Accessed: April 21, 2023).

Image 2: Barder, O. (2017) 'ultra street fighter II' review: Exactly the kind of game the switch needs, pity about the price, Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/games/2017/05/25/ultra-street-fighter-ii-review-exactly-the-kind-of-game-the-switch-needs-pity-about-the-price/ (Accessed: April 21, 2023).

Image 3: Babalon, M.of A. (2022) Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 characters - full roster of 50 fighters, Altar of Gaming. Available at: https://altarofgaming.com/ultimate-marvel-vs-capcom-3-characters-roster/ (Accessed: April 21, 2023).

Image 4: WB games support (2023) Injustice 2 beginner guide – DC games, DC games support. Available at: https://dcgamessupport.wbgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001922507-Injustice-2-Beginner-Guide (Accessed: April 21, 2023).

[maxwell-grant]

May I please ask where you set the boundaries when constructing a crossover? (i.e. How far are you willing to bend characterisation of the setting a character's adventures take place in and of the individual characters themselves to make this crossover work? How many settings are you actually prepared to smush together before you feel you're losing more than you gain in this mix? and so forth).

I could be off the mark here, but this question sounds like you yourself got a very big idea planned but you are unsure of how far you can, or want to, push the concept. Two words of advice upfront: 1: Stop overthinking it, and 2: Run your ideas by people whose judgment you know and trust. I run some of my biggest and stupidest ideas by friends of mine and they help me make them less stupid or at least stupider but in a better way.

I mentioned in my post about potential Shadow crossovers that "boundaries" are not the priority to fret over so much as having a good working knowledge of the characters. And part of that is because a crossover, by design, already constitutes the breaking of boundaries. That's by default what a crossover does. You don't wanna test or break boundaries, then you picked the wrong kind of story.

A crossover is still a story like any other. Two characters meeting is not a story, it's a premise. You don't start a story by defining where it can't go, before you've even decided where you want to take it. Some boundaries are important, others aren't. Some boundaries are hard-coded and unbreakable, and others HAVE to be broken for the story to work, and the process of deciding which is which is easier when you have a clearer idea of what are the characters and what is the story you want to tell, and what you can and can't do with either. You gotta understand the properties you're working with, or at least, understand WHY you want to work with them and make this crossover happen in the first place.

For example, you could, very easily, write a crossover between The Shadow and The Spider, just by going through the motions. They are urban vigilantes with fairly similar designs who live in the same time period and fight crime with their supporting casts. I'm sure most writers offered the job wouldn't think twice of putting them together. But as someone who's read their stories quite extensively and who likes and obsesses over both characters, I would not cross over the two, because their stories and characters are fundamentally incompatible with each other in a more "serious" narrative, and you could not merge the two without seriously fraying one or the other.

It's a story that doesn't work, with characters that are not supposed to function together or in each other's narrative real estate, even with a character as malleable as The Shadow. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to write a good Shadow and Spider crossover, but to me, personally, these two are hard-line incompatible. That is, if it's a crossover based specifically on these two, because that changes if said crossover expands to more characters, as I'll get into.

Regarding the question:

How far are you willing to bend characterisation of the setting a character's adventures take place in and of the individual characters themselves to make this crossover work?

By default, any crossover is already going to have to create new settings from scratch based on relevant bits and pieces from the properties in question, so you do get more leeway for bending it.

But regarding characters, it's a question that cannot have a unified answer, because it's even more so dependant on a case-by-case basis. You could argue "only as much as necessary for the story to work", sure, but that's not really a good answer, because a story can do anything it's author wants to, and sometimes the story is not good to begin with, or the characters are just not made for being in the same narrative or even partaking in a crossover to begin with.

No amount of justifications for a story or characterization can excuse an unsatisfying result. Joe Yabuki and Guts are two of my favorite manga protagonists, but there would be no point to even attempting to put them together in the same story, because you'd have to twist either their narratives or their characters past the point of recognizability, which defeats the purpose of making a crossover to begin with.

Like, yeah, we've all heard the argument that Zack Snyder's Superman makes sense in the context of his movies, doing his own thing. Sure. But there's a reason any discussion of that character in the context of Superman in general comes prefaced with "Zack Snyder's" first, and why mainstream audiences who earnestly looked forward to Batman V Superman walked away feeling cheated, because, to borrow RLM terms here, they got "MurderMan vs Captain Hypocrite", and you can't even tell which is which in that description. You gotta give audiences at least a bit of what you promised them.

How many settings are you actually prepared to smush together before you feel you're losing more than you gain in this mix?

This one actually DOES depend on the story, because most stories that aren't just short narratives require multiple settings for it's scenes. Chances are your narrative will already be combining multiple settings, because setting is a word that can refer to "Korea during the Joseon dynasty", "spaceship traveling through lost nebulas" and "the McDonalds parking lot", as if they are the same thing. And in a way, when you look at a narrative's bones, they basically are.

To an extent, I think opening yourself up for a massive crossover of multiple properties of different characters and settings can, indeed, be a better choice than just going off purely by X meets Y. You start off by making it very clear to the audience that the boundaries are thin and you will be breaking them, and you use said framework to instead tell a myriad of stories, big and small. Stories that you couldn't really tell if you stuck to an existing framework or defined strongly the boundaries you can't cross. I'm gonna use Smash Bros as an example:

Smash Bros is arguably the biggest "official" crossover of all time, and it doesn't really have a "story" other than the basic framework that the series was built on, that these were representations of Nintendo icons dueling it out, and the few details that used to define this in the older days (like the characters being trophies and copies, and not the real deal) have been basically pushed aside. The most story you get in Smash nowadays is in the form of what the trailers showThe "point" of Smash was never really to tell a big, dramatic story with these characters. And maybe you really can't tell this kind of story, or a good story, with this many characters to juggle.

But they tried it once.

I'm sure most of you who do remember Brawl, as anything other than the blistering shame of the franchise that it's treated as these days, remember it mainly because of Subspace Emissary, which was this big, dramatic storyline where the end of the world was at stake and all the characters had to pull their weight to fight it. Subspace didn't have dialogue, it didn't have much story other than characters going from scene to scene while fighting, several of the characters either got nothing to do or were written poorly (mostly Wario), and none of this mattered at all, because Subspace, I'd argue, was the one and only time Smash Bros ever really recaptured that childhood feeling of smashing toys together that the franchise was built on.

Because if you remember being a kid smashing toys together, you remember not just doing it because you wanted Max Steel to kick Cobra Commander's butt. No, you did it because you wanted to tell a story where Max Steel got trapped in a rapidly filling water tank along with He-Man's Battle Cat while Cobra Commander kidnapped Max's girlfriend April O'Neil and bombed the city, and Max Steel had to talk Battle Cat into not eating him so they could together save the city and April from evil, and so they reconciled their differences and saved the day. Those things mattered to you. They were the stories you could tell with the resources you had in hand, sagas you did for the sheer fun of it, regardless of whether they were "good", you probably didn't even think of that. Why would you? You had bigger things to do.

And that's what Subspace did. It was big and dramatic and the world was at stake and all these heroes were coming together. Ness sacrificing himself to Wario so Lucas could have a chance to run away. Diddy Kong dragging along seasoned Star Fox pilots to rescue his buddy. Samus and Pikachu forming a bond. Peach stopping a deadly battle just by offering tea. ROB's story arc culminating in actual genocide, hell, ROB having a story arc to begin with. To a lot of people who played Brawl as one of their first games, this would have been their "introduction" to a lot of these characters in any sort of narrative, and to characters like ROB or Ice Climbers, this would have been the only chance they would ever get to be part of a great big dramatic narrative. Hell, Pit sure looked like he was on the same boat at the time, until Smash brought the Kid Icarus franchise back from death, and now Smash is where characters or properties get to stay relevant or at least on life support (Captain Falcon), or make glorious comebacks (King K.Rool). Brawl was what destroyed the idea of there being boundaries as to who could get in Smash or what kind of story could be told within it.

And people don't seem to recall this nowadays, but Brawl was when Smash exploded in fan content, specifically inspired by Subspace. This was the period of the Machinima craze and the fan mods galore and fan remixes and fan art and fan headcanons and fan films, and suddenly it hit people that, just because the games couldn't accomodate the stories they could tell with the premise, didn't mean that they couldn't start telling them on their own. We even got the formerly longest piece of English fiction off of it. The devotion Melee inspired in competitive players, Brawl did for artists and creators who got their start off in Smash fan content.

And because of it, suddenly a lot more people started writing stories with ROB and Ice Climbers and Pit and Captain Falcon and so on than there would have ever been if it wasn't for Brawl and Subspace. Smash gave ROB a story the character likely would have never gotten otherwise. And if you don't grasp what I'm getting at because you still think that fan content is a long way from being "official" or at least respectable, I don't know what you're doing following someone who rants about pulp fiction all day.

The point I want to get across is, boundaries in a crossover are important, yes, they exist for a good reason, but the boundaries should be defined by the story and characters and whatnot, not the other way around. Boundaries in fiction exist to be crossed or tested, they exist to tell you where you can't go so you can try to do so anyway and either fly high or crash.

Sometimes, bending or twisting characters and settings can be both a grave sin, as well as the thing that allows them to survive. Sometimes there are rules that seem unbreakable until someone breaks them without trying. And sometimes, going big and stupid and carefree over-the-top is either the worst, or the best outcome. It's fiction, taking risks and having fun is part of it.

So I'm afraid I thankfully cannot give your question a universal answer.

[foxune]

Today’s Game: The Legendary Starfy (Game Boy Advance, 9/6/02)

[robotnikholmescomicblog]

Crazy thing is, from what Ian said, the team wanted to include Mario for the next crossover. Setting aside Nintendo's known over-protective nature of their IP's, do you see that working out even if they got the green light?

I heard about that too! It would have been...interesting, given that Nintendo are even more restrictive than Sega is with their characters emoting. If it ever WAS given the green light and Archie Comics made them, Sonic and Mega Man appear alongside other Nintendo properties, they may as well make it a Super Smash Bros comic at that point. xD

Might have been cool, though. Maybe Bowser'd make a cool villain

[popculturebuffet]

Quick Thoughts: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Reveal Trailer and Initial Roster

Whelp I didn’t expect to be doing another one of these so soon but welcome to quick thoughts where I give well quick thoughts on stuff instead of the longer form reviews I usually do. 

So as longtime or even short time readers of this blog might know I love NIck. I don’t review shows from it as often as Disney or Cartoon Network, but it was still a beloved part of my childhood and still makes great shows today such as the Loud House, Harvey Beaks and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s horribly mismanaged, which is why two of those shows are no longer with us and the last of them is weirdly missing from this game, and have a long and storied history of screwing things over.. and i’m not exagerating when Mr. Enter, no matter your opinon of him now, did a whole marathon of every nicktoon almost every entry included the fact the show had been screwed over in some way. 

But as anyone who knows my history with Disney will tell you just because I don’t sugarcoat a brand I like’s fuckups dosen’t mean they aren’t near and dear to me at the same time. I”m a grown up: I can have complex emotions towards a chlidren’s tv network. So I love it’s varied shows some of whom (Avatar, Harvey beaks again, Danny Phantom, Hey Arnold) are among my all time faviorites. 

Now something readers of my blog probably WOUDLN’T know is I love Nintendo, they have their own fuckups like weird release strageies and never doing a remotely decent discount like the competition, but their still a company I love and since I only play handhelds most of the time are my primary source of good shit. So naturally Smash Bros is my faviorite franchise of theres. I love the idea of fighting games but often struggle with the combo heavy nature. So Smash Bros, having a roster of some of my faviorite characters ever, a plaformer style control scheme, and a deceptivley simple style that’s easy to learn and fun to master with the right character, is my shit. Sure I won’t rush out to buy every dlc character, but you better belivie I played the hell out of Ultimate, will likely go back to it again some day, and did buy Banjo and Kazooie because fuck yeah. 

So yeah I needed to talk about Nick making their own smash bros clone. When I heard the rumors I wasn’t sure, mostly because Rumors can be just that.. but nope this game is happening and i’m all on board for it. This isn’t Nick’s first crossover rodeo in recent memory either also making a pair of Kart Racing Games: one I KINDA wanted to play till I looked at the roster, had a good laugh and lost that i want, and the other I really want to play as it seems like the first game if it were you know an actual game with a decent track selection, a deep character roster and an actual love of it’s properties. 

So making their own Smash Bros was a logical step and one i’m here for. We haven’t had any of the big cartoon networks make one since well.. Cartoon Network, and Nick has just a deep a bench to pull from, one that will hopefully get CN to get their cast to throw hands once more. 

For now though the idea of the vast history of nick all throwing hands with each other is amazing. Look i’m honest with myself: this looks like a decent smash clone,functional but nothing specail, but with the expressive character animation and solid roster you need for a game like this. I know going in i’m not going ot get Smash Ultimate quality of brawler, but i’m probably going to have fun with it. 

The only downside I see so far is , like the Kart Racers, theyd idn’t seem to get ANY voice actors for this which smacks of laziness, especially since most of the voice actors for these characters are still active, and in some cases like Spongebob or Loud House are still working with you. So you have no real excuse for this, shame on you.

But yeah the game looks good.. despite the trailer being pretty bad. It’s just some generic music set to “LOOK WHO WE GOT”. And granted look who they got is really spiffy and i’ll be diving into that in a second, but it dosen’t give any of these characters a reall chance to show off how they play or how awesome they are. It’s just a bland montage of whose in the roster in the same 2 or 3 stages. And when you have 15 stages overall to show off that’s not excusable. Again i’m not expecting Smash level quality revelas, this game dosen’t have the marketing budget, but you have a really great concept and roster here, you coudl’ve revealed it better and this game better. The Kart Racers 2 Trailer was also mildly bland but it did show off the game better, showing off several tracks and how VASTLY improved the roster was, so you CAN make a good trailer you just didn’t. It felt like they thought the poitn of all the smash reveals trailers was here’s a character and missed all the style and substance to them. 

That being said while the trailer was weak.. it was boyed by the fact this roster is REALLY damn good. Let’s face it I woudln’t even be talking about this game if the roster wasn’t this minty but they clearly learned from Kart Racers not to half ass it and while they learned the long lessons from Smash in how to promote the fighters they have, they learned the right lessons in having a nice mix of crowd pleasing faviorites for kids and vetrans alike along with a few deep cuts for said longtime fans. And this is JUST the intitial reveal roster: Given the Box Art isn’t out yet, I feel there’s more to come, especially since despite being perfect for the game there’s no one from the Avatarverse yet, but I also feel that Nick is saving that for a second trailer to announce the release date. But I can and will go into who i’d LIKE on the roster in another one of these sometime soon. -

Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy (SpongeBob Squarepants): I’m getting these three out of the way as their essentially to this what Mario and Co were to smash: necessary and inevitible.  As for who was chosen.. it was as obvious as putting spongebob himself int he game. Sponebob is Nick’s mascot, Patrick is nearly as iconic and Sandy is well loved as well as the spongebob character most associated with buttkicking. Being an expert martial artist is both part of her character and a cerntral part of her character and relationship with Spongebob. So yeah not a lot ot say here: it was ineivible but I don’t mind at all having grown up with them and with my niece and nibling being huge fans. 

87 Leo and 87 Mikey (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): This one i’m mixed on. Not on the turtles being here: i’m a MASSIVE TMNT fan and i’td be stupid to leave them out since Nick Owns them, made the last two series, and they fit this kind of game like a glove, even having had their OWN smash clone to themselves once. 

No my issue is obviously in the version choseN: The 87 turtles. Again I have no beef with the guys themselves, I haven’t seen much of 87 but I want to and they look really gorgeous and nicely cartoony. It’s just a REALLY weird choice. The 87 turtles have never been on a nick network due to rights issues, have never been associated with nick, and aren’t the ones most kids of EITHER DEMO would be familiar with: Grown up fans of nicktoons from the 90′s like myself would be more familiar with 2003, and kids and teens from more recent eras would be more familiar with 2012 and rise, which REALLY should’ve been the rep. I mean their weird shame of rise bothers me enough on a good day but not using EITHER show you actually made bothers me, it bothers me a lot. I’ll still probably play Mikey, i’m not made of stone and as I said I have no beef with the 87 turtles, I just wish nick had used the others or hell just gone all lin and used one turtle from each cartoon. I mean if your going to use stuff you’ve barely aired why not give me some 2003 nostalgia too huh? Though it could just be that since, unlike the rise and 2012 turrtles the 87 turtles have the same body type and colors it was easier to just do all 4 and just give each unique facial expressions. Who knows... I knows it was probably that. 

Lincoln and Lucy Loud (The Loud House, Duh): Another pretty obvious one as The Loud House is currrently nick’s co-flagship show with spongebob. Still waiting for my diffrent world spinoff with Bobby and Lori guys. So yeah Lincoln isn’t a suprise and Lucy is only minorly one as it was a matter of “which sister”... and Lucy is one of the most popular. Neither really fit a combat setting.. but given this is a fun crossover game, that really dosen’t matter and in fact is kind of the fun: taking just the most insane matcchups imaginable and mashing them together. I mean this is a game where Lincoln and Lucy can beat up Leo and Mikey, why wouldn’t I want that kind of crack on my nintendo switch? I am hoping for Luna to make her way to the stage next as she was absent from Kart Racer 2 and would be really fun to play. Plus having ANOTHER bi fighter in the mix if korra gets in there would be awesome, let alone letting the two beat up or punch each other’s face. But again I could and probably will mak ea whole article about other possible fighters i’d want. 

The Plesant Suprises: Nigel Thornberry , Oblina and Powdered Toast Man (Wild Thronberries, Ahhh! Real MOnsters1 and Ren and Stimpy) : Yeah while only one of these cartoons was a faviorite as a kid (Wild Thornberries)... I have nothing but respect for these choices. One of the funnest things about Smash is while you can see some roster members coming sometimes you get utter curveballs like Mr. Game and Watch, Pirana Plant and MInecraft Guy. They also go for more cult franchises like SNK or Earthbound (the latter of which is fucking awesome localize mother 3 already dammit) too among the big heavies, making it feel like a true tapestry of Nintendo’s history. 

Nigel is the only one of these three that’s really obvious. He’s a meme, he was the best part of his show.. but it’s still just uniquely batshit to put NIGEL THRONBERRY in a fighting game. You better belivie he’ll be one of my mains. 

Oblina is more a suprise because I thought they’d go with Icket, but instead went wtih the character who was more popular and had a really unqiue and cool design, so i’m pleased as punch to have her. Finally while I don’t have any real attachment to ren and stimply apart from Log, and really it’s hard to gain any now knowing i’ts creator was a pedophile piece of shit, the franchise is still a cornerstone of nick history, the rest oc the crew didn’t abuse power or not make deadlines or be a com plete piece of shit, and powerded toast man is genuinely great. I”d love to see Really Big Man too, clash of the weird superheroes, I love me a weird as hell superhero. This also speaks promisingly that w’ell get some real weird curveballs to come and i’m here for it. 

The Rest: Helga, Zim, Danny and Reptar. (Hey Arnold, Invader Zim, Danny Phantom and Rugrats! ): Note i’m not lumping these together because their bad: their all graet nostalgic picks from timeless shows and with the rugreboot currently running on Paramount+, it’d be weird not to represent them. 

And since I brought it up reptar is a fun chocie, another oddball but one more understandable as no one wants to beat the shit out of a toddler. Or rather no one playing the game would care you could because it’s a silly fighting game and a 12 and 8 year old are also beat upable, but someone would probably throw a fit somewhere. Plus again it’s a game where you can have danny phantom fight reptar. Shut up and take my money. 

The rest are all great choices if ones I’m not suprised by: Hey Arnold’s an all time classic and being tough is a lot of Helga’s character, and again I can have her throw hands with nigel thornberry, reptar and a ninja turtle in the same match. Zim is another fan faviorite and fits the game like a glove and Danny Phantom is the one out of Nick’s three suprehero classics it actually still cares about so my boy getting in there isn’t a shocker, though his attacks lookw eird. Hopefully they green them up before the final prduct. 

So yeah overall it looks really promsing and really fun and i’ll probably check this game out if I get enough money when it comes out or more likely put it on my christmas list. But I will get it somehow this i swear.. speaking of which put manny in the roster dammit. If you liked this.. thing consider joining my patreon for a buck a month fo exclsuvie reviews and ot help me review tuca and bertie, amphibia and more as part of my memebership drive. 

[twistedtummies2]

Your top 3 kink crushes within the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster... and why can I imagine King K. Rool being one of them? ( ͡¬ ͜ʖ ͡¬)

Okays, so...this is a tough one to answer because Super Smash Bros. is a mega crossover of multiple Nintendo properties. So you could almost say you're asking for my Top 3 Predators from Nintendo, in general. Thankfully, I think I can answer that question, despite that. ;)

3. King K. Rool.

The arch-nemesis of Donkey Kong is, as you suspected Anon, a pretty obvious choice. K. Rool is, in general, a pretty great option, but in Super Smash, he REALLY takes the cake, as he uses that immense body of his to his advantage in a battle. People seem to have mixed feelings about how he plays - for some he's one of the best, for others he's one of the worst - but I'm not really judging him SOLELY based on him as a Champion. I'm really just judging K. Rool himself. And...come on. Just LOOK at him: he's pretty obviously my type, when it comes to the Non-Anime Boi Types. There's not much else to say that isn't plainly visible. XD

2. Charizard.

BAgain, I don't think there's much to say here. The reasons why I love Charizard are quite plain. I love dragons, and while Charizard is not a dragon TYPE Pokemon, he is very clearly a dragon in terms of design and stereotypical characteristics. With thighs thicker than thick can be thickness, and a nice belly on him (not as massive as K. Rool's, but still quite lovely), this Pokemon just LOOKS amazing, and with Charizard, that's really all that's needed. The great thing about Pokemon is that you can fiddle with the personalities any way you want, since any one is a race/species, not a singular individual (at least for the most part). So if you want to make your Charizard evil, friendly, aggressive, gentle, etc., you can go any direction you please.

1. Bowser.

Bowser is one of my favorite video game villains of all time, and one of the most iconic...and DEFINITELY one of my favorite preds. Again, JUST FREAKING LOOK AT THE GUY. A big dragon-turtle-beast with muscles and blubber mixed together for days, he already looks like something I wouldn't mind feeding. His personality is great, too: Bowser is versatile because, once again, you can go all kinds of ways with him...but at the same time, there are always certain traits that will remain the same, which makes him more of a solid character. He can be a bungling clown or a real menacing monster; he can be a dimwitted lout or an intelligent ruffian; he can be a pure evil demon, or a sympathetic rogue. He is also canonically predatory and gluttonous (to be fair, I think that goes for all three of these guys), and there's literally a game (not a Super Smash one) where you get swallowed by him and have to traverse through his innards. What more can I say? It's freaking BOWSER! Now, before I end this one, I want to give a quick Honorable Mention: not a fourth place, mind you (not sure who that would be, off the top of my head), but just a quick character I felt I should point out...

HONORABLE MENTION: Joker.

While his name unfortunately just causes me to think of a certain Batman villain, I have to admit, Joker seems like a VERY fun character, and one who could potentially be equally fun to kink-ify. I know absolutely nothing about Persona 5, but the style and skillset this character has REALLY appeal to me aesthetically. I really need to see about looking up more on him in the future, because I know several people on this site like the Persona cast for these kinds of purposes...and because he just seems really cool. :P

[onenettvchannel]

BALITANG TEKNOLOHIYA: 'MultiVersus' is set to re-launch, unveiling for a new gaming release date by late-May 2024

(Written by Miko Kubota / K5 News Patrol #4 reporter of OneNETnews and Station Manager & President of ONC)

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA -- American fighting game developer Warner Bros. Games (WBG), unveiling the official release date of 'MultiVersus'. After its first open beta testing stage last year in 2023, 'MultiVersus' has been significantly improved to ensure an extraordinary gaming experience for a new or returning player(s).

'MultiVersus' is expected to add lots of novel features that would hold both casual and competitive gamers spellbound. The re-launch includes graphics upgrades, smoother gameplay mechanics and a larger character roster such for instance like Steven Quartz Universe, all aimed at surpassing fan expectations and reviving the franchise.

One of these main highlights of 'MultiVersus' is its varied selection of fictional cartoon characters from different properties of Warner Bros. & DC Comics. Whether it be Batman, Superman, Bugs Bunny, Adventure Time, Tom and Jerry etc., players ranging from noobs to veterans should look forward to crossing over into something truly special. The mix of familiar faces and the dynamism of its gameplay mechanics makes this game unique among crossover fighting games in general.

Moreover, the said upcoming re-launch of 'MultiVersus' follows closely on the heels of the recent announcement of its release date, per the news report via Imagine Games Network (IGN). The game fans have been in high anticipation for the game to return and are in a frenzy since it was confirmed that it will be released later next month.

In a latest press release obtained thru OneNETnews, where it was discussing the said re-launch, Warner Bros. expressed their commitment to providing an accessible gaming experience no matter what level of expertise players might have. It has been said that according to feedback from beta testing WBG's studio has put much effort in order to make significant improvements which will lift 'MultiVersus' even higher.

The comparison between it and other crossover fighting games such as Super Smash Bros. from Nintendo is unavoidable. However, an entertainment and technology news outlet 'The Gamer' observes that 'MultiVersus' introduces some individual elements into this genre. This free-to-play game is fast-paced and strategic with fresh thrilling feelings about crossovers while at the same time building on iconic figures from Warner Brothers’ long list of fictional characters.

The gaming landscape is always on the move and as a result, MultiVersus wants to make a mark in its re-launch. Here comes an epic showdown of all time for gaming enthusiasts when Warner Bros. releases this crossover hit. This game has iconic characters that blend well with engaging gameplay and exciting new features from the licensed TV and Movies in cartoons, making it ready for capturing gamers worldwide.

As free-to-play fighting game releases online by Thursday (May 28th, 2024 -- Pacific local time), 'MultiVersus' will be available on gaming consoles and desktop operating systems (OS) such as Windows 10 PC, Playstations 4 & 5, Xbox 1 and Xbox Series X & S through various store outsets.

CONTRIBUTED SPLASH SCREEN COURTESY: Google Images

SOURCE: *https://geeky.parade.com/video-games/multiversus-new-features-and-release-date [Referenced News Article via Parade Magazine News] *https://www.ign.com/articles/warner-bros-multiversus-finally-has-a-re-release-date [Referenced News Article via Imagine Games Network News] *https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/27/23658536/multiversus-open-beta-shutting-2024-launch [Referenced Classic News Article via The Verge] and *https://www.thegamer.com/super-smash-bros-vs-multiversus-comparison/ [Referenced Classic Editorial Article via The Gamer]

-- OneNETnews Team

[gamebunny-advance]

Poll Results

Thank you to everyone that participated! I always appreciate when y’all take the time to indulge me in these~

I think 10 responses is probably gonna be the best I’ll get, so I’ll go ahead and consider the poll “closed” for now. Only 2 folks voted on the Doodle Dump poll, so I’m not gonna change how I’m doing them~

Top 3 Fandoms:

Super Smash Bros (7 Votes)

General Nintendo (6 Votes)

Animal Crossing & No Straight Roads (5 Votes)

Top 3 Preferred Content Type:

Fanart (10 Votes, Whoo 100%!)

Headcanons (9 Votes)

Opinion Pieces (7 Votes)

My Personal Thoughts:

So I’m kinda surprised that Smash Bros is still my top fandom despite my lack of recent output for it. I do recognize that the small amount of votes probably comes from folks that have been around a while, and thus would have come to support me when I was established as a Smash artist, so the vote turnout probably isn’t accurate to my actual audience. However, this does tell me that y’all are “ride or die” kinda fans, so I appreciate that y’all are sticking around even as my interests shift. I promise that I’m not done with Smash yet. There’s just other things that were occupying my mind for a while.

In retrospect, “General Nintendo” was kind of a weird one for me to have even put up there, since so many of the other choices were still Nintendo properties. Arguably, Smash content is “General Nintendo” by default since I don’t think any of the other Nintendo characters I draw aren’t also in Smash, with the loose exception of Rhythm Heaven. But there were some voters that would choose one and not the other, so maybe there is some nuance to what makes them different categories. Either way, I suppose it’s to be expected for those two to take the lead when my blogs are literally named after a Nintendo console.

I expected Fanart to come out on top since I’m primarily an artist, but my concerns weren’t really to see if Fanart would be first, but more so how other types of content stacked against it.

I find it interesting that y’all are more into my creative writing (the headcanons) than my analytical writing (the game theories), since I feel a lot more silly writing my headcanons, but I can appreciate it. I do have fun thinking about these characters’ various traumas~

But I’m surprised that “Opinion Pieces” was in the top 3 at all. I guess y’all just enjoy a good rant from time to time, and I can get behind that too. I just didn’t expect it to come before “Game Theories.”

Not counting custom responses, the bottom choices were kinda expected. This is a fanart blog, so I didn’t really expect “OCs” to get in front of anything. Tbh, the only reason I even post OCs here is because I have a better audience over here than the main blog~

As for content type, Game Documentation was in last, but it had more votes than the last time I took this poll, so I’m glad that at least some of y’all find this stuff interesting. Just one vote ahead of that was Edits, but I don’t make too many of those anyway, so I also expected them to be close to last.

Overall, this has given me a little food for thought. Thank you again for participating in my nonsense!

[vg-sanctuary]

Kururin series

Eighting/Raizing - Game Boy Advance, Gamecube - 2001-2004

[images from nintendolife, perfectly-nintendo and gamefaqs]

Kururin is a forgotten Nintendo IP that my one of my friends immediately compared to Super Monkey Ball, since you navigate mostly brief obstacle courses with tricky controls and it can become very frustrating very fast, although it isn't nearly as punishing as Super Monkey Ball's main mode. Kururin, though, doesn't have a monkey in a ball, it has a bird in a long rotating ship called the Helirin that constantly spins whether you want it to or not. and it's 2D instead of 3D. it's very cute and colorful and only came to America on Wii U VC in 2014. the others never came, which is a shame because the aesthetics and gameplay are different than any other Nintendo property (co-developed with Eighting-Raizing, who notably also helped with Pikmin 3) and that bird is really cute. I've also never bothered to beat any of the three games because they get extremely hard toward the end, but I did enjoy the parts I played. notably, this is also my first post specifically about a series.

if you vaguely know about Kururin, it's probably because it had a cameo in Super Smash Bros. Brawl or because you got curious while browsing the Wii U eShop. I first learned about this series a long time ago through a YouTube video about an XBLA game called Hyphen, which is basically a spiritual successor to the Kururin games. I like the Kururin games better, though, because they have cute birds and more colors and don't get hard quite as fast. more recently, someone suggested Kuru Kuru Kururin as a good, cheap GBA import, which I figured it was, so I bought it along with two dozen other games from Japan. another friend eventually told me that Kururin looks an awful lot like Roundabout, an indie game that leans way into the 70s visual theme of Kururin Paradise and adds some goofy B movie flair. it's an open world, mission-based spiritual successor to the Kururin series that includes the artistic liberty of jumping over obstacles, but this blog post isn't about those, it's about Kururin.

the gameplay, more specifically, involves navigating the Helirin through mazes and occasionally through moving obstacles like enemies. if your Helirin touches a wall three times before you reach the goal, it's destroyed and you have to start over, but some levels have healing pads that fully restore your hits. stages progressively become longer and more difficult, with the last handful being hard enough to call boss levels. Kururin's cousins (and various cosmetics) are hidden out of the way in certain stages, except in Squash where you do proper boss fights for them. after collecting the cousins you can let them ride on the wings of the Helirin and look cute, which I love. Kururin Squash includes abilities for the Helirin in certain levels, like fists on either end that allow you to destroy enemies.

Kururin went for a solid three games, all of which have different levels and so are all worth playing, though if I had to single one out as "worse," I'd choose the first one, since the second adds the ability to make the Helirin rotate faster for slightly less waiting, and to use a smaller Helirin as an easy mode. Kuru Kuru Kururin also has the least visual style in the series, but these are small differences. Kururin Squash, the third game and the only one on Gamecube, adds a cute puppet style to the brief dialogues, a multiplayer race mode, Helirin abilities, and overall more stuff. Squash is the best, then, but it's about the same difference between the first two Super Monkey Ball games or between the first two Katamari games. while the newer game is objectively better in at least one way, the gameplay is approximately the same, just with different content, so they're all worth playing if you enjoy the series.

the Kururin games get hard and can be frustrating, so they aren't for everyone, but I still think it's worth celebrating its existence as another long dead Nintendo IP and an import oddity. if it sounds interesting and enjoyable to you, it probably will be, and the first game is on the Wii U eShop for cheap. the other two games aren't especially expensive imports and the spiritual successor Roundabout is on Steam for $10.