Super Smash Bros.: A Retrospective Part III: The honeymoon and the aftermath

Day three of the Retrospective, release day for Ultimate. Let's continue.

Reminder that this happened.

So, with Sonic confirmed, I was already set for Brawl. I had the Wii console and was saving money for the game. So it was just a matter of waiting it out. Around this time, I wondered who else was slated for the roster and I was also anticipating the Subspace Emissary.

Basically a fanfic come to life. At the time, it was a nice way to expand on the Adventure Mode. It did what it was supposed to do. A story to tell, great graphics (For the time), an orchestrated theme, Brawl was pulling out all the stops and anyone following video games overall was suckered in to its campaign. From now until late January, the DOJO!! would update with characters, music, modes, items and so on.

And at the date mentioned, someone on 2ch received the game in Japan early. Said player started playing and putting screens on the imageboard, screens that would make its way to 4chan's /v/ board. Naturally, everyone from all corners of the gaming internet congregated to that one board to see what was up. Needless to say, things got real crazy. And it was a little earlier that the final roster got leaked.

Along with who was shown on the site, Wolf, ROB, Olimar and Toon Link were the last characters mentioned. I loved Pikmin 2 and The Wind Waker is arguably my second favorite Zelda title.

Oh man. Seeing this little brat in Smash made me giddy. Alongside our newcomers were Ness and Ganondorf returning. And of the roster, Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, Roy, Pichu and Y. Link were confirmed to not return. Four clones and a unique character. But the tradeoff was much better. So let's do a roundabout with Brawl's newcomers like the last time.

• Diddy Kong, at long last. He missed the trophy roster in Melee but made it in the playable roster here. My second most used after Donkey himself. I've come to appreciate Diddy a lot more when I joined the DKVine.
• Metaknight. Okay. I was neutral towards him so not much to say. But I did like the detail to his armor but I still consider his feet to be purple and not armored. I wasn't a fan of the English voice nor the special jingle he got.
• King Dedede I liked more. I'm surprised at least one of the two didn't pop up in Melee. I really liked his moveset and his voice. He oozed personality.
• Zero Suit Samus, the subject of a lot of porn. This had to be the game to ramp it up. So much so you have a lot of people who use Samus in the Zero Suit as the de-facto Samus. Even more damning is Zero Suit is better than normal Samus when Zero Suit was meant to be a point where Samus was vulnerable and weaker.
• Pokemon Trainer a year later I came to really like. I got back in Pokemon shortly after buying Brawl and this character or characters repped the staple avatar nicely with Red and the Kanto starters. Who do I prefer? For now, I can't say. It's been a while. I'll catch you on that one when I play Ultimate. I didn't like the stamina system though. That was a flaw.
• Wolf was a definitely an odd choice, but I liked him. Star Fox 64 was that good of a game. With him and Kirby's reps, you'd think that Donkey Kong would get King K. Rool or Dixie (hoo boy, just wait 'til I get to that part). He was the last character to be made and is composed of many other character's moves. He also shared a Final Smash with the other two Star Fox reps, the Landmaster.
• Lucas, until Ness was confirmed to return worried me. Now I had no issue with both PSI boys on the roster. Mother 3 also had a translation patch worked on at the time. I still laugh at the people who think NoA are going to localize it. Mother only got released because they could grab the Earthbound Zero ROM and reskin as a prequel (Ha, nice try).
  
• Lucario. Again, after replaying Pokemon and getting back in the grind, I've come to appreciate it a lot more. All the people crying about Mewtwo was obnoxious. Lucario was okay. A shill pick, but okay in my book. It's still popular to this day.
• Ike. He fights for his friends.
• Pit's redesign stands out a lot. Compared to the Melee trophy, this is like a 2000's reboot...which is exactly what it is and was with Kid Icarus: Uprising four years later. Never used him much.
• Wario, I already explained him.
• Captain Olimar, I admit I never used as much as I could. But again, Pikmin 2 was a superb title. Some people imagined him as an assist trophy but thankfully he avoided that hell. The individual Pikmin in Subspace had their own elements, a nice nod to their properties in the source material.
• ROB, the surprise character. Some people thought it was ROB 64 from Star Fox. No way Star Fox is getting four reps. That's not happening anytime soon. Though it's very flattering to give the would-be savior of video games in the North American market a spot on the Smash Bros. roster.
• Sonic the Hedgehog. No explanation needed.
• Solid Snake. Thanks for paving the way for Sonic and eventually the rest of the outsiders. Asshole.

But overall, a strong roster with a lot of good picks, probably the strongest set of newcomers to any Smash game in general. Honorable mentions to the Forbidden Seven.

• Dixie Kong, who some speculated may have been a team character with Diddy. She lost her chance in Smash and will never get in now.
• Toon Zelda, Wind Waker's Zelda basically. Ah man. This one really stung, because I not only love that game, I love that rendition of Zelda, by far my favorite take and most of my favorite Zelda titles have that design, Spirit Tracks being my absolute favorite Zelda to this day. A speedier Zelda would have been amazing. 
• Toon Sheik, who I think is actually Tetra. Another character I loved from Wind Waker. The transformation could have worked with her and T. Zelda. Oh well.
• Plusle and Minum were heavily speculated going by the Pra_Mai section in the game files. That would have gotten Gen III a rep, two at that if true.
• Roy, Mewtwo and Dr. Mario were discovered too. Overall you'd have eight more characters for the roster and I think that would have rounded things up fantastically. 

Mods have recreated most of them, one mod in particular I'll mention later on. But back to the leak on /v/, everyone was coming in to see the dumping of the Subspace mode. It war around 2AM where the first screens popped up and I remember this lasting until 7:30 PM that same day. Man. I was disappointed that a few other characters weren't around but it was something else. The music was being uploaded and this is by far Brawl's strongest point to this day. The soundtrack. A lot of music was added, so much the game disc had to be dual-layered to fit it all and the Subspace cutscenes, another con for this game.

But nonetheless, the wait continued and I had stuff to keep my occupied for the time. A few months and a small delay later, I managed to get a copy of the game one Friday before Spring Break. Hot damn. I remember playing training mode and picking Donkey Kong, admiring his increase in size. That model is probably my favorite compared to Melee's. He really was huge. Then I played the game in general. It did what it was supposed to do. Then I played the Subspace Emissary.


Fast forward a few months later, the game was losing its appeal. Everyone who played it got hype, got overhyped and the hype crash was settling in. One feature I hated was tripping. Tripping was a mechanic added simply because Sakurai hated the way people were playing Melee. It was meant to be a way to laugh at the situation but all it did was annoy people, even the people who don't play Melee competitively, myself included. When I played with friends, I was the better player and the game did this a lot: The weaker player would return, Final Smash ready. This was prominent in Mario Kart Wii with the Blue Shell attacking the lead racer. Basically they casualized the games so that non-gamers would have a chance to win but it backfired; the said group didn't like it either, be it tripping or the blue shell attack. And because Brawl was supposed to follow-up to Melee, this was a bit damning.

I don't play Smash competitively, but I acknowledge the people who do. What made Melee fun is that everyone could enjoy it, even the people who weren't as good. Sakurai's attempt to make it easier for the novice only pissed them off as well. How do you learn to play a game? You keep playing it and get better. I said this with New Super Mario Bros. Wii: Having the game play itself because you're not good at it stifles growth and development. The Wii generation overall watered down a lot of IP's and games and Brawl was the sign of things to come.

On the note of Brawl, I'm going back a bit to bring up a notable mod for the game, Project M. The mod started off as a way to fix Falco to play like he did in Melee in 2011. I didn't think much of it but I get why it was done. Same with Brawl-, another mod to fix the physics. But Project M was the main mod of Brawl. It started with modifying characters and grew to adding its own stages, costumes and even characters down the line, Mewtwo being one of them. Some of the characters got references from other games. I was very impressed to see Wario take nods from Wario Land, even taking his trademark shoulder bash for a Side-B move, something that took a decade to pop up in Ultimate. On the note of Wario, the so called shoulder bash in Brawl was a joke unless you were Wario Man. Brawl in general was broken with its balance. If you weren't Metaknight or Snake, you were screwed.

Most of the time, I just listened to the soundtrack, making the game more obsolete when I got an MP3 player. And I couldn't really play it due to my early Wii console not being able to read newer dual-layered discs. So, as quickly as I may have gotten into Smash, I slowly lost interest when I couldn't play it anymore. Such ends the tale of Brawl. I focused on Pokemon and could really care less about Smash, rolling my eyes when people brought it up. Another nitpick of mine was how everyone blew Nobuo Uematsu when he composed the main theme for the game and everyone remixed it. It got really annoying. Some renditions were cool but the rest were mind-numbing.

Another three years later around 2011, Smash was announced yet again, for the 3DS and the Wii U. Great. Back to this tired song and dance once more. But it was announced, not shown. At the time, Sakurai was focused on Kid Icarus: Uprising. The stress of another Smash title with your current project still incomplete had to have worn on his mind...

And that episode will be touched on in our next entry.

Super Smash Bros.: A Retrospective Part II: Get Ready for a Brawl!

Go here for the first part of the Retrospective. Go here to see my website and buy my books.

Shameless plug aside, we return to the Retrospective of Super Smash Bros.. 

Super Smash Bros. 3 was announced and the internet was in anticipation for what was to come. Me, I was still playing Melee and had yet to unlock every character. Smash really wasn't that big in my life, even when the game released and I was in the center of the hype storm, but hyped nonetheless. So let's fast forward to E3 2006.

The game's title, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was decided at long last. I had a dial-up connection so I could only watch maybe three seconds of an uninterrupted scene before the video buffered. But when 0:06 occurred, holy shit did I lose it. That had to be the biggest graphical overhaul I ever saw since...Melee. Again, I mention that I couldn't really watch the video due to my connection but I did hear the details and saw the screenshots.

The first new characters shown were Metaknight, Pit, Zero Suit Samus and to my joy, Wario. A lot of people were puzzled by certain characters absent from Melee and Wario was one of them alongside Diddy Kong who wasn't even a trophy and I never noticed until someone mentioned it. But this Wario was from WarioWare, which I wasn't too fond of and at the end of the trailer, the dude made an atomic fart...yeah. One thing at a time. But the end of the trailer baffled the hell out of everyone and to me now was the point of no return of Smash.

Showtime!

This asshole here opened a box that should have remained opened until at LEAST the fourth game. With Solid Snake in the game, everyone was requesting 3rd parties left and right. Suddenly the dream for Nintendo characters coming together was drowned in demands for Sora, Simon, Alucard, Mega Man X and other characters who have no place In Smash Bros. But in general, everyone was hyping characters in general. The rules for 3rd parties was that they must have appeared on a Nintendo console and Snake appeared in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes for the Gamecube, but Metal Gear on the NES counts too. Snake's inclusion was due to a friendship between Hideo Kojima and Masahiro Sakurai. One particular post on the Donkey Kong Universe summed up how I felt about that in retrospect.

But after that trailer and the website that launched, there was a blackout of information as the game was still early in development, though around October or November, Fox popped up in another short trailer. Around that time, I spent almost every other day browsing Gamefaqs for general games and browsing Brawl's message board. If you really wanna know how huge this game's hype was, you had to have been there to know. Every gaming site was bustling with topics on Brawl, wondering how Melee's successor would fare up. And with Snake opening the door for 3rd parties, every other video game fandom was hoping to get a piece of the Smash pie. It was insane. I'll share some pics with you on my very old folder from high school.

Just silly shit. Everyone had a mockup or a silly ass image they made for the the hell of it. Fake rosters were a thing too, mainly a wishlist of stuff. Sometimes it got insane like that second pic. This game was so big that characters like Earthworm Jim and Crash were requested, though at that time there was still somewhat of a fandom for the former at least. One character I wanted was Sonic the Hedgehog. Who didn't want Sonic in Smash? You'd think he'd be the first pick but nope. Going to another pic:

No, I didn't believe it.

That was the biggest hoax posted at Melee's release, Sonic and Tails. I personally want Tails in just for that hoax to become a reality. But going back to Sonic, he was the most overall character requested for the game, and it baffled me that people didn't like him. The first stance of me getting a taste of opinions outside my own. But in 2007, this popped up:

This was unbelievable. The two biggest gaming icons appeared at long last in a game together...and it was a sports title. I don't care for sports titles too much and around this time, SEGA's reputation started to fall with the disaster that was Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Ouch. 'Nuff said. People thought that this game meant that Sonic wasn't going to be in Brawl. It would make sense to have Sonic debut in Smash first, but okay. Around a month or two later I think, the Smash Bros. website got a rehaul and was dubbed Japan Time during the countdown. And then...

The DOJO!! appeared. A new site to showcase daily updates for Brawl. At long last, we would get new information after a very dry spell of no news. The original site can still be found here.

The site showcased characters, items, music and ways to play. The site updated every day where I'm at now at around 3AM, so I would stay up until...4:30AM bullshitting and waiting for shit like this:

I never recovered from my insomnia...

And yes, most of the updates were like this. But what made the DOJO!! stand out was the creator, Masahiro Sakurai's overall quirkyness and flare to describing the features and updates. Once in a while, we got characters, mainly characters from the first two trailers but we'd get a new character or a returning veteran with a new look.

This was a big deal, believe it or not. Sakurai also mentioned that not every character would return from Melee, adding more suspense to the days ahead. I had no qualms on who was getting cut, but I admit when Lucas from Mother 3 was shown as a newcomer, I wasn't worried.

But I heard Lucas was gonna show up in Melee and replace Ness. If Sakurai did this, I'd be pissed. I loved Ness in Melee coming off Earthbound and didn't want to lost a valued character. But what I admit caused some real damage to Smash Bros. in the long run was the introduction of Assist Trophies. Assist Trophies are an item you can use in the game to summon a character from another series to fight for a bit. This item was included to add characters that couldn't be playable, such as the Hammer Bro. from Super Mario Bros. and the Nintendog from the first trailer. Neat, right?

Hmm. Samurai Goroh was a requested addition due to him being Captain Falcon's rival in the F-Zero games and Stafy (Or Starfy, whichever you prefer) having his own series, Densetsu no Stafi standing out at the time and Isaac, a requested pick from this same period was mentioned as well. Being Japan-only didn't mean shit if Marth and Roy was anything to go by, so Stafy being deconfirmed stung a bit. At the time, I didn't consider assists to be a bad thing, and if anything you could say that this was the team's way of saying "Sorry, we couldn't add these guys in but take this cameo as a consolation prize". At the time, that was fine. Disappointing, but okay all things considered. In retrospect, another post from the DKVine summed up everything that was wrong with this item from Day 1.

(Site's down at the moment, so I'll sum it up like this: The poster mentions that making Goroh a summon character was a dangerous precedent as his role in F-Zero was notable. When I saw Stafy and Isaac years later coming back to that topic, I realized what he meant. Another poster mentioned it best: Smash Bros. isn't about the Nintendo characters anymore, it's about the personal projects and sword-rubbing IE Hideo and Masahiro with Snake.)

And how right they were. But we'll get to that later. Back to Brawl, the game was nearing release and I was still on the edge of my seat with Sonic the Hedgehog's inclusion. I didn't think the Olympic Games affected his chances, but I started to get worried in the back of my mind. Then, came October 10th.

Hot damn. I came home from school and was hyped the fuck up. That day, I even met an old friend from elementary school from back in 2nd grade. I hope he's doing okay. So that day has more sentimental value for me aside from Sonic's confirmation. The reveal was for the press conference at the time. With that put aside, I was all set for Brawl. Nothing could keep my hype from dying. At this point, my hype levels were off the charts. It was THAT big. And a little earlier, the Subspace Emissary was shown, a beefed-up version of the Adventure Mode in Melee, with cutscenes and a dark epic tale. Yeah, Brawl was going the extra mile to stand up to Melee, and it wasn't hard to do. But one thing I did have an issue with was Wario.

Wario was notably smaller in this game compared to his past appearances with Mario. Wario in the Wario Land series and Wario World was shown to be a very competent fighter with a lot of power to his moves and boasts masculinity and strength.

More or less the character in a nutshell. In Smash, almost none of that is present, Brawl being the notable offender for his representation. He moves like Mr. Game & Watch with choppy movements and I wonder if this was meant to be due to time constraints but he was one of the first characters shown. I remember that Sakurai mentioned that Wario got some negative press and possibly because of WarioWare and his overall bastardization altogether. Years later I found out that his Smash appearance was based on the Japanese adverts that featured him with a crude side dealing with toilet humor. Not to say the Manuals for Wario Land 4 and Wario World didn't have their grossout moments but in-game you didn't see Roachie or deal with an overflowing toilet bowl. Kinda funny how Sakurai slowly goes for being accurate to the source material...when he deems it necessary. Even the Mario party games and spin-offs get him right, but Smash continued to use this bizarre take on Wario, even by Wario standards.

I'm going on a tangent, but here you go. I gradually stopped using Wario in Brawl, sticking with Diddy and Donkey Kong. We'll get into that one next time. With Sonic finally confirmed and despite my overall nitpicks, I was still hyped for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. And I am indeed hyped for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, releasing tomorrow worldwide. But we'll still touch on the other Smash titles. Don't you worry.

Super Smash Bros.: A Retrospective

I said to myself back in 2015 that I wasn't going to touch on this game or this series anymore and I kept to it up until this summer. But at some point, you reflect on your past and you see things taht may have not happened at the time come to pass. so never mind that statement I made, I'm going to go back around 1999 to 2005 or so and give you some history behind my experiences with Smash. Buckle up, it's gonna be a good one, composed of many parts.

The title that started it all.

I saw the teaser during WWF one night with Mario and Fox fighting on Princess Peach's castle and wondered what the hell was that? Months later, this commercial played.

Now in Japan, Super Smash Bros., released as Nintendo All Star! Dairantō Smash Brothers was already on the shelves and received to good acclaim. Only in America and Europe was the series still unknown. My cousin got the game and brought it over one weekend.

...and it really didn't wow me much. Not to say it wasn't fun, but it didn't really make me say WHOA. For what it's worth, I knew about Captain Falcon from F-Zero also owned by my cousin in the form of F-Zero X and also Fox McCloud from Star Fox 64 and of course the usual fare from Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon, and Yoshi (What a joke, but one thing at a time). Samus Aran from Metroid  was unknown to me as well.

But Mother gets a special mention as I did play it before I got invested in Smash but I knew nothing of Ness. I only got to play Smash 64 for a week before my cousin went back home and I more or less forgot it.

Fast forward to 2005, and I discovered Earthbound, also known as Mother 2. Short version, one of my favorite games of all time. Move onward to two months later and I got a certain game...

The best-selling Gamecube game of all time.

If you owned a Gamecube, you owned Super Smash Bros. Melee. If you didn't, well hey more power to you. You avoided the Smash Curse. Me, I was curious to see who was what in this game and why everyone made a funk about it. Needless to say, I saw the appeal and I heard of a few characters that were in, characters I knew from my past (Ice Climbers) and as of recent at the time (Ness). Smash being a blur in my mind until I fired up Melee rekindled my brief encounter with the first title. Plus, I heard both Princess Peach and Zelda were playable, and my brain couldn't process that, so I had a lot to look forward to.

First, the presentation. Man. For 2001 that opening cinematic looked amazing and the game looked just as good. How the hell did we go from

 To

Is that not an improvement? Smash 64 was a low-budget title and it shows with Captain Falcon being a composite character with moves from Samus Aran and Fox and possibly a few others. It's also worth noting that Kirby and Jigglypuff share a model/moves/etc. Jigglypuff gets a note in that it was very popular due to the anime, alongside Clefairy who was also intended to be the series mascot before Pikachu. What could have been. But back to Melee, the graphical overhaul from the last game was amazing. How HAL Laboratories did it is anyone's guess. To make things better, you had all the original twelve with more characters to boot:

• Bowser, Mario's archenemy. his design here was different from every other Smash title he appeared in. My problem then and now was his hunch. really bad. And he was really really slow and clunky. Typical for a heavyweight but here it's just bad.
• Peach, the damsel in distress now fighting as an equal. Man, she looked good from her dress to her overall design. She had the best alternate costume masquerading as Daisy, short gloves and all. She even had a few nods from Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA).
• Zelda, the titular character of The Legend of Zelda. When you use her down special, she becomes Sheik, an alias used in Ocarina of Time. Two characters in one. Her design here along with the other Zelda characters lean on their renditions in that game.
• Sheik, who despite having the masculine design is referred to as female. If you didn't play Ocarina, spoiler alert. Oh well.
• Popo and Nana, the Ice Climbers, a duo from Ice Climber,  one of my very first games if not very first game overall. Seeing them made me happy. One of my favorite characters to use in Smash.
• Falco, Fox McCloud's cohort in Star Fox. Falco in the metagame and competitive scene is arguably one of the top characters in the game compared to most of the roster. He's also one of the infamous 'clone' characters the game was criticized for at release. Along with him were a few other clones, such as...
• Dr. Mario, Mario as a doctor. He's slower and heavier than Mario but has more power to his moves. Funny enough, he also has a few other moves that make him stand out from regular Mario but not by much. Even the game says it's just a matter of taste. Who do I prefer? Luigi.
• Pichu, the first stage of the Raichu line. Pichu is the lightest character throughout the series and has a gimmick where it hurts itself from its specials, akin to its Pokedex entries. It's prone to getting knocked out very early on, so it's somewhat of a joke character. Somewhat.
• Young Link, Link as a kid. I like Y. Link more than Link because of the increased speed and my love for Majora's Mask which gives him that slight connection that sadly never got expanded on. He also has one of the most frustrating Break the Targets board in the game until you learn how to use him.
• Ganondorf, the last character to be added. He is a clone of Captain Falcon and overall the strongest character in the game after Bowser. He also has better mobility surprisingly despite his slow movement. What I find interesting about this Ganondorf is that people cried that he never used his sword when he never used it in Ocarina. Not once. The only thing he used in the fight was magic, not dark magic but spell magic. Shows how much people really know about the series and that alone is enough to have a dedicated section to, so let's hold that one on the shelf until then.
• Marth, from Fire Emblem. Until Smash, Fire Emblem was a Japan-only series and upon localization, he and another character, Roy would be cut from the western releases. Thankfully, Nintendo of America's boneheaded call was not followed and the two lords made it to the west, Japanese vocals and all.
• Roy is Marth's clone with notable differences in the real meta of stats and attributes, but mainly being shorter and having some fire effects in his attacks.
• Mewtwo, the supposed final Pokemon in Gen I. It appears with its voice from the first movie and in the Japanese audio, actual speech. Pokemon later on from certain movies would get voices and lines retained in localization.
• Mr. Game & Watch, the 'joke' character of Melee. A flat representation of the Game & Watch handhelds Nintendo released back in the 80's. Every one of his movements and attacks are choppy and in 2D, but G&W isn't a flat cutout but an actual model. If you use the Metal Box item, you'll see it better.

Overall, from the first game, you have over double the amount of characters albeit in a very rushed manner but it was said conditions that made Melee what it was and I think it was a good call considering the short timeframe the game had. Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the series knows to some extent what to give in a game. Of course I can't not mention Masahiro Sakurai. Of course.

He created Kirby as well, though he only worked a few games while Shinichi Shimomoura worked on the rest at that particular time. But nonetheless. He directed the first two Smash titles in conjunction with HAL Laboratories. Melee was a game that not only had a unique roster but also had many other modes. Adventure mode was a nice nod to various other series and had a very particular envisioning of Bowser in the form of Giga Bowser.

Wow.

Pretty scary all things considered. According to Sakurai, he envisioned Bowser as a scary monster and noticed that as the games moved onward to 3D, Bowser grew more cuter and rounder. If Paper Mario is anything to go by, he was right. My issue with Bowser was his hunch once more. An intimidating character looks like a joke when he's staring at your torso. I get he can't be too big but an upright stance would make him look better. All the issues mentioned go away with Giga Bowser and that may have been intentional. Who knows.

But one of my favorite parts about Melee was the trophies. Man. The trophies in Melee were beyond some of the best in the series, a good chunk of them made from scratch, and hoo boy does it show.

There are other examples, but let's not waste time on that. What did make me giddy were the trophies that were present:

Yes, in case you haven't realized, I am a Mother fan. This is why people are angry about trophies being absent in the near release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But that'll come eventually. This gallery of Nintendo characters showed every other corner of their catalog with some notable omissions and very vague references as well (Two items in Melee were from GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, labeled under TOP SECRET. Both games were from Rareware who at the time was being purchased and sold to Microsoft). It was beyond amazing to find trophies from games you never played, were going to release and games that never made it outside Japan. A few did get omitted from the US release, mainly Tamagon from Devil World for obvious reasons. The Devil from that game would return in the next Smash title in a limited role.

Overall, Melee was worth every penny. I had few friends to play with but I played the game regularly and unlocked all the roster within two years of purchasing it. I wasn't that big on Smash but it was one of the few games I had out of my library of Zelda and Sonic titles, so it stands out. Melee released very early in the Gamecube's life throughout the five-year run, so people were anticipating the next Super Smash Bros. title. Around 2005, the same year I had Melee, the announcement was made for the next Smash title and with all the support Melee gained, this was something that I felt changed video game hype forever, for better...and for worse...

Shit that annoys me

-People who don't turn off their phones in the library.

-Painted toes. I don't know why, but I just don't like seeing toes painted. It's not a turn-off. Except on fat women. Vanity is a liability.

-On that note, fat women being mislabeled as plus size or thick. The two mentioned have more to them, while still showing some level of fitness. Fat women are fucking fat and have no appeal at all. If you're into that, good. Just call it what it is: Fat.

-Ever dealt with that one person that lingers behind you when you're working, and they just HAVE to see what you're putting out? Get outta here, I'm working.  Even worse, when they ruin the shelf you neatly organized. If you want something, SPEAK.

-When I'm in the grocery store, and I see a white person coming the opposite direction, they'll grab something off the shelf, and turn their cart around. Gotcha, motherfuckers. You didn't think I knew that, huh? And I've ONLY seen white people do it. Busted. Next time I see you pull that trick, I'm calling you out for it.

-When I download an MP3 file, and the artist and album information is either left blank, or the person who ripped the music puts their name in. I make it a rule to acknowledge the composer for their work. Music is just important in a game as the director and producer. When I download an MP3 file, I expect the uploader to put the title and the album information in the properties. Over 50% of the time, this does not happen. And don't leave yourself as the artist, you only ripped the files, you did not compose the music yourself. Put that in the comments section (And even then, don't do that.).

-Mainstream movies. Don't care for them. None are made with my best interest, and the ones that are, are obnoxious. Fuck Tyler Perry.

-Politics. The American political system was not made with me in mind. Whoever wins, I still lose. In a way, it's actually liberating. The less I have to worry about, the better.

-Bars and restaurants. Why waste $80 on poor quality food and drinks when I can get a week's worth of groceries with that? I could pay a bill for that amount. It's much less expensive to cook your own meals. But this generation doesn't know how to work a stove. For that matter, neither does a chunk of people I see.

-Add clubs, too. Just what I wanted, loud music and out of shape wenches with muffin tops and rose tattoos on their ankles. Another one, the ankle/foot tattoos. Stop. Those aren't sexy, all those tell me is that you're sexually liberated and need to show off something in an attempt to lead a guy on to you. I bet you're regretting that tattoo now that the guy you fucked is out of the picture and you have another mouth to feed. Any tattoo in general makes my eyes roll, especially if you put it on your stomach or back. Can't wait to see what it looks like when your body loses its luster, and it will.

-Drunkards. This is why I don't drink. Too expensive, the taste is off putting and I tend to drink in bulk. You can't do that with alcohol. So, that is off the books. Plus, you don't need it. I get the world is fucked up and people have issues, but drinking your problems away will only cause more pain, and I don't feel the need to take the brunt of your negligence, be it at work or on the road. Take a breath and reflect on your options.

-People who critique you for your own beliefs and don't practice what they preach. All of a sudden, you're religious or spiritual when I make the option not to be. If you were really as spiritual as you make yourself out to be now, don't get on my case for being an atheist and then you go on and do the exact opposite of what you told me. Stop policing people.

-Long intros to YouTube videos. A simple three second intro is all you need. I do two-second intros. When half your video is the fucking intro, you're getting a dislike from me. I don't even like the obnoxiously flashy one with dubstep.

-I hate those stupid dog faces that Facebook user put over their photos. Those are fucking stupid. Facebook is just as stupid, but that little add-on is annoying. Even worse than the collage of hoodrats with fancy text.

-Sites blocking you from articles because you used an Adblocker. Look, there's a reason I don't want to have some video pop up in the far corner at the bottom of the page and slow down my browser if not outright crashing it altogether. People don't want to see ads. They're annoying. Unskippable ads are very annoying. Make a compromise. You give the notice, but allow us to keep browsing your clickbait site. When you don't give that option, I don't visit your site anymore. My only regret is that I didn't get Adblocker sooner. But some videos put them in with the actual content, making you skim through until it returns to the content and as of late, ads are still present in the form of images. They're getting smarter...

-The absolute butchering and raping of the English language. I am not an expert on grammar and writing, nor I do not claim to be one. I'm just a simple writer who writes what he knows and learns more words in the process if I'm struggling with something. You can put the extra effort into putting that period at the end of your sentence. If that comes off as tryhard and dickish, so be it. This generation doesn't read anyway let alone write. Too many idiots looking at a phone screen while walking. I have the urge to slap that thing out someone's hands one day.

-Idiots who don't put things back where they found them. Working my dead-end job, I wonder what makes people the way they are. I'm convinced the majority of the world are adults with underdeveloped minds, or just adult children.. I've had the notion for a bit a few years back but now I'm convinced 100% the majority of people are idiotic or have don't give a fuck tendencies, more likely the latter. Who cares about being courteous? I'm the customer, they have to serve me. Not really. I have my limits and my integrity is more important than monetary compensation. Going to the next point:

-Anyone who detracts from an important or serious subject. If there's something serious going on, it helps to understand if you have anything valuable to say that contributes to the discussion. If you don't, just listen. Even if you feel the need to speak which you shouldn't, just listen. That's all you have to do. Too many people speak and not listen or observe. Take the person in question's words, process them and after he's done speaking, then release your brain trash. If the only thing you have to say is the guy's shoes don't match his suit, you probably should go to the corner and stand there for ten minutes.

-Cutscenes in video games. Remember when a game was simple to start and you started at level one and then played straight to the final boss? Cutscenes were regulated to the start of a game and the ending. They were special. Now it's just a way to artificially stretch the game's duration. I watched Final Fantasy XIII twice, seven hours of cutscenes. Pretty neat movie but I'm not sure about it as a game. I tried watching XIII-2 and dropped it an hour in. I think it was thirteen hours long. Yikes.

-YouTube clickbait. Thumbnails were a mistake. Just what I wanted to see, some obnoxious people making excited faces with the title in ALL CAPS. Disgusting. I'm glad I dropped making videos. All that work for no acknowledgement. I do enough of that at my jobs.

Whoops.

So, you wanna write a story.

I guess I'll go on ahead and put this out here.
So, you got a good idea and you wanna write it down. You've wanted to write a story, too. So, how do you do it? Well, not that I'm an expert but it's pretty simple to write a story, but writing a coherent and consistent story is a little more challenging. But there is no concrete way to write a story. Do what you will with your tale. But here are some tips from me to you.

1. Write what you know
The best stories are the ones you know. Things you're familiar with tend to resonate better and continuously develop scenarios and ideas to write down. A lot of iconic and well-known stories are usually because the author based some ideas around things he liked as a child or grew up around. With Mission, I based that around my fun with my friends as a kid and write it based on that fun we had with some other things that were around during my younger years. You can easily create stories on something you liked or stood out to you, even as an adult. Again, whatever you know, use that as the groundwork for your story or novel. Of course, it helps to dive into subjects you're unfamiliar with, but we'll get to that later.


2. Plan ahead and map out where your story will go
Writing a story is easy. Writing an ongoing story has some issues. I'll use a non-traditional form of media as an example. A long running manga like One Piece is successful because of Oda's planning and mapping out the story. Granted, the pacing may be a little slower with some of the recent arcs, but overall the attention to detail is amazing. He really loves his work, even risking his health to finish it. Of course you don't do what he did, but it shows he cares enough to put out some impressive work. A good work ethic goes with any job. But nonetheless you have to plan ahead before you write a story. If you intend for it to be short, like say one or two books that's fine. But for longer works, you'll have to see how far you can take it and also where you feel you can end things with minimal loose ends untied.

A big issue with long running series is fatigue. Do you still have it in you to keep going after say, ten years and up? If you don't feel it in your heart to continue, you're better off ending your story right there and then. But let's go to the next point and also expand on what I mentioned with work ethic.

3. Stay on point with writing
Staying on point with your material means, don't get lazy or intimidated. In this age of internet, phones, texting and emojis, it doesn't seem like people read too much let alone write. Hell, even a decade and change ago people would ream on you for writing a giant wall of text, even with paragraphs. Even I admit, reading paragraphs can be intimidating. With writing a book, you have to be prepared to read and write a lot and especially rereading your material a lot. When I do a volume, rereads are the worst part after trying to fish for ideas in unfamiliar subjects.You gotta look for typos, grammar mistakes and punctuation errors. However, I did say that writing a story has no concrete rules. Perhaps you want to take a word and corrupt it to fit the story. That's fine.

What I'm mentioning is the general lack of grammar skills. You can't write something without having that basic knowledge. A good example would be any comment section on any site. The grammatical errors and misspelled words could fill the entirety of the universe. If you want to write a story, you can't go around typing shit like

"the girl went inside the shack and got the shovel to pick up shit lol"

or

"The Girl Went To The Shack To Get A Shovel To Shovel Horse Poop From The Barn"

Or this, which I feel is worse:

"dana was a girl who was trying to learn how to be farmhand in Texas. She wanted to learn how to ride horseback but was told by her father, that she couldnt ride one until she knew what it was like to take care of a horse and all its necesary needs"

What I'm saying is, read a book or learn how to separate your social media from your professional work.


4. Keep it simple
Not your story, but your overall use of words. You don't have to be a scholar and use big words like extravagant, morose, lightheartedness or microspectrophotometry (A personal favorite that I made a direct attempt to memorize and pronounce). The best stories are not the ones with the longest or smartest words, but how words in general are used. You can make a great story with small words and you can make a so-so story with larger words. Basically don't show out. It's okay to not know some words you hear college professors use. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Just write and enjoy writing, that's all that matters.


5. Have fun with writing
I said it before and I'll say it again. The best way to get your story finished is to enjoy writing it. If you don't enjoy writing, you can't enjoy your book or your material. Even if you're writing a non-fiction book you can still enjoy the process of writing one. One thing I love about writing is that there's no set method. Every writer has their own style and way of creating a story. With that versatility, you have plenty of works that stand out so no two works are the same. In fact, I'd say it's best not to follow a particular way of writing outside basic grammar and punctuation. I only had a year of actual writing class in high school (The same year I had economics, something not present in my old school in NY. Go figure.). I learned a lot then and a lot from reading books. I didn't have to go to college to write, I just wrote. I started writing in 11th grade and spent most of my time writing instead of doing the actual schoolwork in my last year. In hindsight, it was the best choice I ever made. The public school system is a flawed one and you learn very little from it. I feel for the people who went to college just to learn how to write better.

6. Be original
Originality is the best way to stand out from the rest. Taking inspiration from other works is okay, in fact I'd wager most books took some pages from a lot of things. It's when you take a lot of pages from a work to where it's just a retread of that work is where things get a little off. Originality isn't hard to do, it just takes time. I'll give an example: Writing a story inspired by Superman is okay. It's when your character is more or less Clark Kent with a different name is where you have a problem. If you want to be original, you could have your superhero come from a dimension parallel to ours and he made it his duty to keep the planet safe from the evil forces he lived with, or have him appear from that dimension as an infant and raised by earthling parents, while learning to defend the Earth as he grows up. While the origin story is similar, it's the execution that makes Superman stand out from Nova Guy. Even if it's something silly like a Dragondile in the fairy world of Sparkleboom, that's still original for the most part.

Silly, but original.

7. Research
I don't know everything, and I don't claim to know everything. So, I do research. If I'm writing a chapter of Mission and I take my characters to another country, I do some Google-fu based on where they are and take my time searching and feeling out said country's culture, cities and so on. After I get what I need, I continue writing. I do this often, especially if a character is a native from that country. I try to use some words from their native tongue to give them more character and stand out. I do struggle on if I should have said character talk entirely in their language or just think their thoughts in English, though I always do the latter.

If I need to look up certain things I want to incorporate in my story, I do the same process above with just about everything, and even read up on things I do know but forgot along the way. It's much easier this way compared to drawing, which takes more time to do. I did have an interest in drawing but never took the initiative to pursue it or hone my skills. It's never too late, and I'd like to draw my characters so the audience can know what they're about visually.


Overall, I think that'll do for this entry. There are plenty of things you can talk about with writing and writing a book, but in general it's up to you how you want to create your story. Don't treat this like a go-to guide but a simple advice sheet.

And do visit my site if you have the time.

My new website...

So, it's been a while.
I've finally went and got my own personal website up and running. The website itself serves as a platform to promote the Mission Series novels.

Welcome to the World of Mission!

Sexual Misconduct: The next phase of feminism

If you've been watching the news lately, you'll see that a lot of voices in Hollywood and plenty other outlets in celebrity circles have come out and exposed the dark secrets that lie within, all starting with Harvey Weinstein's scandal. The sudden influx of women coming out after he was exposed made sense, with Weinstein being the forefront of the misconduct and harassment no longer able to compress the dirty laundry. Paul Mooney warned us about Hollywood and its hidden layers.

Now ignoring the biblical/spiritual nonsense, with the recent secrets exposed about Weinstein and his conclave of individuals who were in on it, it all comes to circle. Now then, with the other women coming out on other people in Hollywood with sexual misconduct, it was a slow start to exposing the nasty truth on fame and success and the means to obtain it.

But as of late, it seems that so many other women are 'coming out' and making claims of sexual misconduct. Sounds familiar. Almost like...

Nah.

I'm wondering if these recent claims of misconduct are actual misconduct or if it's just women who may have fooled around with these men with consent and no drugs looking for a piece of money. Even if they don't get it from their supposed rapists, they'll get some spotlight on a television show hosted by a sickly wo-man with fake tits and a blonde wig. The attention alone is enough for them.

Now, what does that say about the normal, everyday man that works with women? Will simply saying something like "You look nice today." or "I like your hair." counts as sexual misconduct? I didn't know a compliment was considered harassment. At my first job, I had my share of encounters with my female coworkers, nothing sexual, just the usual conversation and I admit to trying to get with a few of them, but now in this age of hurt feminists who are still bitter over Hillary's loss, will those advancements come back to bite me in the ass? What about the men who got further than the first date? You don't date your coworkers, that's a fact. Perhaps I dodged a bullet by not being able to go further than a simple cup of coffee or slice of pizza. I don't regret what I tried. Any guy will try to get a date or a pretty girl's attention. It's normal.

However, what Charlemagne tha God said on The Breakfast Club said in this particular Donkey of the Day triggered me to make this post and also re-examine these claims of sexual misconduct.

Are you kidding me? Men were raised on rape culture? Women dressing seductively and putting themselves out there is promoting rape culture? How about the women dressing like that NOT dress like that? You dress sexy and complain that men are looking at you in a sexy way? You're dressing sexy and provocative for yourself? Never. Women want the attention, but from a particular elite group of men, the ones they pick. The ones that actually reject them and they simply suck it up, still in awe over him. You on the other hand, will be looked at funny if you so much reject the so-called top-class women.

It's easier than it looks, just walk away. Maybe that's why the accusations are pouring out: The groupies and alpha bitches of yesterday are being phased out and ignored today. I reiterate: While there are some legitimate claims, I feel a chunk of them are in this for the money. One look at Cosby, and I believe it. The women need something to gossip about.

"I fucked X at a party, really!"

"I'm gonna be on "The Y Show as a cast member!"

"I'm going to be a singer!"

And the second and third examples are legitimate. Having to suck off some ugly executive to get a bite of fame isn't worth it, and you really don't need to do it. So it goes both ways. You could have backed down and kept your diginity, but the taste for success was damning it seems. You were okay with it as long as you won an Academy Award in the long run, right? Now, the first example is not a legitimate complaint. Consensual sex is not rape. You were likely taking drugs anyway to loosen up and if you weren't, you should have backed off and said something the very moment it happened instead of waiting twenty plus years to come out. Cosby would have been busted and arrested in a heartbeat. Instead, you're mad your good looks have faded and your womb is inert, unable to produce eggs. I don't have any sympathy for most of these women. The wave of feminism in the last few years have made it near impossible for some guys to get attention from women or even date. Even the ugly slobs have been emboldened by this push for sloppy freebleeders, but that is another can of worms.

I'm all for equality, and equality doesn't stop at pay, positions and respect. You wanna work this job, you better do the same work I do. You wanna be represented more in the video game/comic/etc. industry? Get to work. No one's stopping you from doing these things, you have to be able to do it. Here's a big one, one I don't think most women will be able to do.

You wanna work in a warehouse? Pull this load with a pallet jack. No forklift, grab that jack and get to work. You never see any woman trying to get into a position where she needs to work her body and if she tries to infiltrate, it's as the boss, not the associate. Always at a position where she can control or have some control. And for the record, catcalling isn't sexual misconduct. If it is a problem, you grabbing that musclehead's ass and running away like a schoolgirl is a problem, too. I remember a co-worker grabbing our asses in the past. Let one of us do that to them. I'd love to see a woman get charged with sexual misconduct.

Matter of fact, that's a means of getting even. Fight fire with fire.