What Does Super Smash Brothers Mean to You?
On January 21, 1999, Nintendo released ‘Super Smash Brothers’ for the Nintendo 64, garnering critical acclaim and widespread popularity all amongst the gaming community. Ever since then, the franchise has evolved into not only one of the finest fighting games available, but one of the most beloved franchises in all of video games. In honor of #SmashBrosWeek, we asked a group of extraordinary people to recount their favorite memories and overall feelings about the iconic brawler.
Javier Reyes, President of Zoey Deutch Fan Club
Twitter: @Javiipeno
I’ve played Super Smash Bros. for a very, very long time. While I do believe Mario Party is the undeniably superior gaming experience, there’s no doubting the influence of Nintendo’s iconic brawler. What’s funny, however, is the most profound memory I remember is hardly a spectacular one, and actually quite an ordinary one.
There was this one time — the summer before my freshman year of college — where a group of friends of mine and I decided to have a Last Day of Summer, of sorts. Basically, we were all really melodramatic back then and wanted to commemorate a day to us hanging out for the last time as a group. Later at night, we played Smash Bros. Melee for a bit and I won a whole bunch of games because I’m most definitely the best. Later on, though, everyone except me and my friend Tommy (who shockingly decided to betray me and not contribute to this piece) had stopped playing, instead choosing to just talk about life or whatever. While Tommy and I still contributed plenty to the conversation, we also continued playing in the background with 1 vs. 1 matches on the map Fourside.
Then, my other friend Tyler (another person who betrayed me by not contributing) at one point goes, “Wait, tell me why these two have just been playing Smash Bros. for like an hour without making a point of it?” We all laughed hysterically, but continued on.
I don’t know, there’s just something about that moment that remains deeply sentimental and important.
Vanessa Reyes, President of Nicholas Cage Fan Club
Smash legit almost broke up friendships during college. When our group introduced this game into our hangs, it forever changed our once die-hard-gal posse who never let anything drive a wedge between us. Feuds formed as we heard the dying cries of our character from every epic death. Frustration leeched into our daily lives, effecting our interactions. Suddenly, your actions in the video game became a very real, personal attack on each other. The thing that saved us was “hatred friends”.
One day, when things got really heated, my friend, Rachel, yelled out with a sly smile, “Alex, you and I are now hatred friends!” There was what seemed to be the longest wave of silence I’ve ever experienced — and I swear I could see dust particles in the air slowly drifting by as we all stared intently into each other’s souls. Then the silence broke into a roaring laughter. To this day, we still call each other hatred friends in jest.
Mike Cavalier, Mike Cavalier Parody account
Twitter: @mikecav5
I suck at Smash Brothers and have played two, maybe three, games of it in my lifetime, so I’m not sure whose brilliant idea it was to have me give my input on this, but I digress.
My favorite memory, from the brief amount of time I’ve spent with the franchise, is hiding in the corner of the map until everyone else died and then declaring myself to be better than all the people who died before me. It’s kinda like how I operate with my sports takes: I never actually stick my neck out on the line, so when someone else’s prediction doesn’t come to fruition I’m able to mock them without any fear of them using my own takes against me.
Jack Harmonay, Anything but Harmonious
Twitter: @thebagel1
Since I started my gaming career as a Sega and Playstation kid, with my only Nintendo console at the time being the GBA, I didn’t get my introduction to Smash until a few years after Melee had released. Then, one fateful day on the playground during first grade, my good friend was telling me about his new Gamecube he had just got, and asked if I wanted to go to his house and play it after school. As a blossoming gamer with nothing more than a PS2 at home, I happily accepted. When we got there, he popped Melee in and I watched the legendary opening cutscene in awe. As all these characters I semi-recognized flashed on the screen, my 6-year-old self could not have been more excited.
“What could this game possibly be?” I thought. “All these characters, do you get to play as them all?” At the time, I was used to 3D platformers like Jak and Daxter or Sly Cooper. The only fighting game I had played before that was Virtua Fighter 2 on my brothers old Sega Saturn, and that game is much more traditional for the genre than Smash. As the iconic menu music played, we selected our characters. I don’t remember who we actually picked, but I’m just going to assume I played as my guy Captain Falcon (aka the GOAT). We played a few matches in which my buddy stomped me the fuck down, infuriating my six-year-old self.
After my 4th or 5th loss, I had enough. I threw the controller down, looked my friend dead in the eye, my face bright red from anger, and slapped him straight across the face. Thats right. An open-handed bitch-slap that left a five-finger mark across his face, just like my mom used to do to me when I was talking “inappropriately” at family therapy. He started crying and ran and told his older sister who scolded me about not being a good sport and blah blah blah. After all that, we decided to turn Smash off and play Wario World. Does anyone remember Wario World? It was a 3D platformer starring Wario on the Gamecube. Pretty mediocre from what I remember.
Anyways, that was the first time I ever got my hands on an entry in the legendary Smash Bros. franchise, and what an introduction it was. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here performing ancient Pagan rituals in hopes of Nintendo adding a sequel to the Subspace Emissary from Brawl in the new game. A man can dream…
Tim Grapes, Man With Obviously Real Last Name
Twitter: @tim_grapes
My favorite Smash Bros memory is surprisingly NOT from my early childhood; on my final day of high school somebody had brought in a gamecube and had set up an impromptu tournament in a science classroom. I ended up cruising through two rounds as Game and Watch, and was a bit of a cinderella story. When I saw my third opponent picked Ness, I knew it was curtains. That’s the thing about Smash Bros, if someone picks a character you think is bad there’s a 100% chance you’re about to get served. And I got served real good. But it was a sentimental and almost surreal moment for me to actually be in my final day of school EVER playing the same game I’d been playing since kindergarten.
Sam Panko, Kingdom Hearts Enthusiast
Super Smash Bros Melee was the main reason that I wanted a Gamecube. I played the game at a friends house many many moons ago and was immediately captivated by the fact that I could play as some of my favorite Nintendo characters like Link, Kirby and Yoshi. Growing up I had a PS2 and, being an only child, would play single player games 99% of the time. Smash was basically the first game that introduced me to the experience of local multiplayer. I wanted the game so bad but first, I needed a Gamecube. I remember my parents cut a deal with me that I would have to do a certain amount of chores, or something like that, in order to finally get my hands on this console.
Eventually, I did everything I had to do and got the Super Smash Bros Melee Gamecube bundle. It felt like one of the best days of my life and would kill to just relive that moment. Super Smash Bros was like Guitar Hero 3 for me, a game that I played for hours and hours on end and beat the Adventure Mode within just one day. Besides that, it was always the game that I could play with friends when they came over as opposed to taking turns on my single player games. Luckily, the Wii was backwards compatible, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to play this game after my Gamecube was tragically sold at a garage sale for $10 (got ripped off majorly).
That was a truly sad day, to say the least.
Alex Eichler, Lover of Extremely Safe Music
Instagram: @a.eichler
I’m pretty sure that I’ve been barred from ever playing Smash Bros. by all of my friends. I’m not really sure why, to be honest.
But if I had to guess, it’s because of my habit of spamming Pikachu’s down-B thunderbolt move like it was going out of style. That move was so unbelievably effective to use, so Pikachu has always been my harbinger of death—incinerating my victims with enough lightning to light up all of Times Square, bro. That little satanic mouse was the merchant of chaos, and one day I hope to trick my friends into letting me back in so I can send them into the realm of hopelessness and despair yet again.
Anthony Ramirez, Sad Mets Fan
Okay, so you know how Jigglypuff has that down-B move that, if executed at a precise moment, can instantly KO an opponent? Well, one day I randomly chose that living incarnation of cotton candy and haphazardly activated the move out of pure desperation. No one, including my friends who I’d been playing with, expected it.
He has remained the only character I use to this day.
John Ostrowsky, Actually-Not-Depressed Jets Fan
Instagram: @johnostrowsky
As you know, I am not an exemplary talent when it comes to any video game, really (except Guitar hero).
This particular experience I’m about to speak on, however, bucks the trend of me being the worst among our friends at games. It was another round of Super Smash Bros., a game that I’m only vaguely acquainted with and, for the most part, embarrassingly bad at. My usual routine is picking the character that looks the easiest to play with, and see where things take me.
This match, I picked some character named Roy who looked pretty dope. What I had no idea of beforehand is that I was walking into a character with a practically built-in cheat code. I began the match doing the absolute Most, just mashing every button on the fucking controller until one caused some damage. I eventually found the magical C-stick attack, and then something I am very unfamiliar with happened: I started wreaking HAVOC on fools. The C-stick single-handedly carried me to a win and I feel no shame in admitting it.
Phill Worster, Person
I remember playing Smash as long as I’ve been playing video games. I was never really good and would always try to play as Kirby to suck people up and spit them off over the edge. One time a friend made the suggestion of using Peach, which I promptly ignored and continued to utilize Kirby’s death-suck and laughing maniacally while doing so (Eventually, I did end up making her my main champion).
There’s one memory, though, that really sticks out regarding how our weekly “Smash Tuesday” came to be. Our college was hosting a Smash tournament and my friend Jack invited me and another friend to go. Now at this point, mind you, I hadn’t played the game in a good 4 years or so. I felt more confident with using my now new character Peach and felt like I could hold my own. I was excited to see what would happen.
As the tournament neared, more and more friends joined in until the 14 of us just decided to meet there. When I got to the tournament I had realized that I made a huge mistake. Everyone there was leagues beyond what I could manage. Jack’s name was called to one of the TVs and I watched as he destroyed another player with Ganondorf. A group of us cheered and celebrated until I heard my name called. I was at the same station as Jack had been and now I had an audience of 20 people. It was at this time I realized we were only playing with the Pro controller
I only practiced with the sideways Wii remote. My second mistake. The game began and my fingers fumbled to find how to jump. My opponent noticed my obvious lack of skill and quickly took me down.
First life, gone.
I came back, determined to put up a fight, and planned to come down fast with a down-air punch. I proceeded to float off the edge to my death.
Second life, gone.
I had one life left and needed to entertain what few people remained to witness this pathetic fight, so it was time I went full spaz. I decided to mash all buttons in hopes to get at least one hit. My randomness confused my opponent enough for me to actually get a few hits in. I was still eliminated, but I got praise from my friends and other players for not being a total waste of time. Hooray!
Anthony Gabbianelli, Person of Horrendous Movie Tastes
Twitter: @AntGabbs
I’m not a betting man, but when it came to Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I made an exception. At a New Years Eve party, all my friends and I bet two bucks each (I think?) on a tournament-style game of Brawl. I hadn’t played the game in a while so I just chose Snake with the leopard print colored alternate. I actually surprised myself because I ended up winning the entire thing and won twenty bucks that night. We even did the same thing years later when Smash for Wii U came out!
But I lost.
Akash Hundal, Delusional Lakers Fan
Twitter: @AkashiusClay
Growing up as a kid, Super Smash Bros was always in the upper echelon of sleepover activities. But the thing that’s so great about Smash is how it’s been able to transcend multiple generations and capture the hearts of millions of kids and adults alike. I first started playing smash on the Nintendo 64 — until my older cousin tricked me into trading it to him for his inferior Pokémon Stadium game when I was 7 years old (if you are reading this, I will never forgive you Dev).
However, my fondest memories of Smash come from when I was a wee freshman in college. College move-in is as exciting as it is nerve racking. Me and my roommates decided to break through the awkward introductory phase by doing what college freshman often do best: getting drunk off of vile hand sanitizer-esque vodka while playing Super Smash Bros Brawl. Soon after, we made a drinking game: we would turn up the frequency of Poke Balls appearing and every time a Goldeen would come out, the thrower of the Poke Ball would have to take a big swig of his or her drink. Soon, the entire 5th floor of Pine Hall was talking about playing “Goldeen” over at 501 after class.
During this time, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to some of my best friends in college — most of which I expect to be future lifelong friends. All of that might not have been possible if it weren’t for that stupid game that I obviously don’t suck at and is clearly rigged!
Donovan Russo, Writer and Recording Artist
Twitter: @Donovanxrusso
Okay, so I grew up playing video games like every other child but Super Smash Bros. was a game that will always stand out to me. I don’t know if it was just the concept of the game (hand-to-hand combat with elements of fantasy that would make any child’s eyes light up) or if it was simply the fact that, in a way, I was fighting whoever I was battling. You see, throughout my childhood I found myself consumed with the art of heroism and all that it entailed. Being a superhero truly capitalized on the concept of masculinity, which I now know to be a socially-constructed norm. But that’s not the point of this little tribute piece, really.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that playing Super Smash Bros. made me feel invincible. It made me feel as if I was more than just a powerless child in elementary school who was really bad at math. I would identify with the characters I selected for battle; if I was in a sly mood, I would pick Sonic the Hedgehog; if I was in the mood to act with a certain zest of nobility, I would pick Link; and if I felt enraged, I would simply pick Donkey Kong.
It’s through franchise games, like Super Smash Bros., that children are presented with this opportunity to explore an entirely different side of their imagination. They can pick and choose what character they want to represent them, while also experiencing what it’s like to compete. Childhood memories like this one have allowed me to evolve into who I am today, and I hope other little kids get to pick up a controller and experience this same sense of inspiration and explore this world of imagination for themselves.
