Ah. Here I am again.
...
Yeah, and that feels ok. I said in my last post that I wouldn't do another one of these until I started believing that my writing does any good. Well... it probably still doesn't. At least, for anyone besides me. Still, sometimes I need to get my thoughts out of my head, even if nobody reads them, and that's all the good they do. But that's something, at least.
So, yay. Here it is, my glorious return to blogging. Or something.
Oh, and speaking of things that are glorious...
...
Yeah, and that feels ok. I said in my last post that I wouldn't do another one of these until I started believing that my writing does any good. Well... it probably still doesn't. At least, for anyone besides me. Still, sometimes I need to get my thoughts out of my head, even if nobody reads them, and that's all the good they do. But that's something, at least.
So, yay. Here it is, my glorious return to blogging. Or something.
Oh, and speaking of things that are glorious...
 |
| Much funnier if you've played Fire Emblem: Awakening. |
Yeah, "For Glory." I know the one.
*Sigh.*
No, I didn't just love it. That's an understatement. The first time that I got a chance to play that original game on the Nintendo 64, I was transfixed. Enamored. I was introduced into a new world that I'd never realized I had always wanted to be a part of. From that very first day, something about this game resonated deep within me, in a way that few experiences in my life ever had before.
It was 1999. The exact date, I don't know. (It's possible I could look it up; I do have journals from when I was that young, and maybe I have it written down. But not only am I not sure if the event is written there or not, it would be a lot of work to find, even if it is. So, let's not worry about it.) It was one of those relatively rare occasions where I got to sleep over at a friend's house. (In elementary school, that was one of the most exciting adventures I could go on.) At some point that night, my friend powered up the Nintendo 64, the Super Smash Bros. cartridge in place, and there it was: beauty like I had never before fathomed.
My friend showed me the ropes, first going through 1-Player mode so that I could get a better understanding for how the mechanics of the game worked. You know, attack with the A and B buttons, combined with different directions on the control stick; damage doesn't defeat opponents, only knocking them off-screen does; but Master Hand does have hit points, unlike everyone else, and you need to defeat him; watch for the stages' hazards; grab the items, and here's how you use them; etc.
"Now, your turn."
And so it began. That night, we traipsed all around that game. We fought free-for-alls, tackled team battles, had my friend's brothers join us, I took on my first 1-Player adventure and won, and I felt a special kind of joy in what we were doing. I remember how I wanted that feeling to last, wanted my adventures to continue, and so I kept on playing Super Smash Bros. for hours after my friend and everyone else in the house had gone to sleep. Yes, in a time of my life where staying up until 9:30 PM was considered a privilege, and where staying awake until midnight on New Year's Eve was a real struggle, here I found myself playing Smash Bros. until almost 2:00 in the morning. You would think that meant an addiction was born. But no, it was something much better than that. Something new had crept into my being. Something akin to... a new love? Maybe.
I've sometimes told people that my first love, very early in my life, was the CF-18A Hornet (Canada's model of military fighter jet), but recently I've realized something: my love for the thought of flying in freedom, and of being a hero... are a little bit older than that.
A few years before I came into contact with said first love, I entered kindergarten. While there, I was faced with many new questions for their respective first times. Two in particular struck me as especially important, even then: "Who is your hero?" and, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" For me, they were both the same answer:
"Sonic the Hedgehog!"
As you can see, I had high aims back in the day.
You see, the first video game I can remember playing is Sonic the Hedgehog 2, on the Sega Genesis. I quickly came to admire Sonic. Running through courses with him at high speed was exhilarating. Smashing robots and freeing animals made me feel like I was doing a good thing. But the thing that really impressed me about the blue hedgehog was his character. While the cartoon shows and comic series of the early '90s showed Sonic to have that lovable (*cough* heh heh *cough*) attitude and rebellious streak that '90s teenagers were famous for, and that he was full of snappy remarks, trash-talking his foes, and always with the air of, "I'm too cool for you all,"he still showed the characteristics I remembered him showing all the way from Emerald Hill Zone to fighting the Death Egg.
He was determined, and courageous. And in all these different adaptations of the Hedgehog, I also learned one other important thing about him: no matter what kinds of obstacles or opposition he faced, he was always positive, optimistic, and hopeful.
As young as I was, I didn't appreciate how great an impact that blue hedgehog had had on me. (Metaphorically speaking, the crater from this impact was... umm, I don't know. Underwater? ...Hmm. Not exactly my best metaphor. Oh, well.)
The signs of said impact are visible to me now, though; once I realized in kindergarten that I couldn't be Sonic the Hedgehog when I grew up, my next career goal -- obviously so much more realistic -- was to become a knight.
I really did have high aims back in those days.
Now, try to keep that in mind, while I fast-forward back to the scene that I started talking about before interrupting myself: my first experience with Super Smash Bros. The game that inspired me so much, that I decided I didn't need sleep -- only more battles.
What was it about this fighting game that captivated me so intensely? A year or two earlier, I'd played a tiny bit of Mortal Kombat a different friend's house. And I was familiar with those arcade games like Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. But those had never resonated with me... at all. So, why did Super Smash Bros.?
Well, like I said a little earlier, I was introduced into a world that I had always wanted to be a part of, even though I hadn't yet realized that fact. This time, I wasn't being plopped into some unfamiliar world, where I would naïvely pick some random character (based solely on how cool he or she looked), and clumsily beat up random opponents in furious sprays of blood, to attain some arbitrary glory. No, Smash Bros. wasn't like that at all for me. This was... home.
I knew these characters. Even if the first Nintendo console my family owned was a Nintendo 64, I knew and loved those characters already. And it wasn't just their names I knew; to me they were people, albeit fictional. They were people that I knew and admired. Long before I'd ever played a Nintendo game, I already knew what a great hero Mario was; a simple plumber, confronted with bad situations, would always respond with gusto and cheer. I already knew that cute dinosaur, Yoshi, and how he (...Wait, is it "he?" "It?" I have questions about the genders of Yoshis) would remind me of the feeling of having a loyal animal friend, like the pets that I'd rarely known, up to that point in my life. The same could be said for Pikachu, whom I knew was more than just some cute little yellow guy; he housed power inside of himself, and was happy to protect the people he cared about. Of course, you could say the same about Kirby, too; I admired and adored that little pink guy. (So much so that he's been one of my "mains" through all Smash Bros. games, and that this is the only picture I've ever used for my YouTube profile picture.)
Seeing "the guys" (which, yes, includes Samus, even though she's a woman) made the game a happy place for me. And what made this game nothing short of magical to me, was that on top of that, now I wasn't directing a lone hero through seas of enemies and evildoers. This time, even though there was fighting amongst the characters, this game was an experience of fighting amongst friends.
I've looked back before and said that Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and in particular the song that plays during the ending credits, is directly responsible for how much I love musical montages. (See for yourself.)
And on a similar note, I know that it was Super Smash Bros. that directly inspired my love for crossover universes. It was what led me in later years to be so excited to see the Avengers or the Justice League when they assembled. It was why I put in so much effort for so much time helping a friend to keep alive a comic we drew, where we'd illustrate fights between characters like Street Sharks, Bomberman, Mr. Freeze, Goku, and of course, ourselves.
(If I can find a picture of the old stuff, I'll show you...)
[Insert picture, if possible.]
[If you're reading this, it means I didn't insert picture, wasn't possible. I'll have to draw some examples, take a picture of them, and post them up here when I get the chance.]
The point I'm making here is that Super Smash Bros. had taught me something that I thought was an epiphany in my young life. (Not that I called it an epiphany, mind you. See if you know any nine-to-ten-year-olds who know the word "epiphany.") It was this:
Heroes' journeys do not need to be separate and isolated. A real hero doesn't need to be this one exceptional person who rises higher than anyone else is willing to go, and who alone faces the challenges of their journey while everyone else waits in safety. A real hero...
...can have friends just like him or her.
That was a pivotal life lesson for me. And I would hope that could be a life-changer for a lot of people.
Maybe you've heard of Joseph Campbell's book, "The Hero with 1000 Faces." The big idea of it is that every hero you ever encounter -- in any story, ever, through book, movie, stage play, biography, or video game -- goes through a very similar journey. And something in the heart of every hero feels familiar, in effect making all heroes (at least, all real heroes, as opposed to anti-heroes) the same one. That's because, Joseph Campbell says, these stories are metaphors that mirror our own real lives. These heroes, like us, find themselves in situations where they are called on to do hard things. They leave behind their normal life, descend into their trials, struggle, push themselves to their limits, and somehow exceed them. They persevere, perhaps fail, perhaps fail many times, but ultimately try again. And when they are victorious, they can return with triumph, knowing how their journey has helped them to grow.
It's a lesson I had drilled into me, time and again.
Be like Luke Skywalker, who learned to trust his feelings, and yet knew to reject evil. He's the only Jedi the galaxy has, and he has to succeed, no matter what. Be a hero like him.
Be like Superman, who has strength and powers that nobody else even comes close to matching. Many are the threats that only he can take on and overcome. Be a hero like him.
Be like Batman, who fights evildoers, no matter who is willing to help him, or who opposes him. Even if he must do it alone, he keeps people safe all the same. Be a hero like him.
Even with some of the video game heroes I've already mentioned, they reinforced the idea of the one, exceptional hero who rises above himself or herself, and overcomes great challenges alone. Sonic alone fights the Death Egg. Mario (or Luigi) alone defeats Bowser. And in spite of the fact that a Pokémon trainer must rely on a team of Pokémon in order to become a Master, the trainer is the one who mainly gets the glory.
So, going by the example of most of the heroes I had around me in my earliest years, I should have been learning to be a "special" sort of hero, one who strove to excel, and be better than others, and to accomplish great things, all on my own.
But as I said, Super Smash Bros. was what really taught me that a hero doesn't need to undertake a journey alone. A hero doesn't need to feel isolated just because he or she has chosen to do something worthwhile, instead of doing something easy. It turns out, even on epic quests, or the much less fun but more common tasks, which will cause you grief, suffering, and exhausting amounts of work, even then, you can bring along friends.
It was that principle, that idea of heroes who can fight together, that made Super Smash Bros. Brawl especially stand out to me.
I will agree with a lot of fans and with Masahiro Sakurai himself, Brawl was not quite as good as Melee. It was still good, and don't let me make it sound otherwise. But in some ways Brawl didn't quite match up to its predecessor; something was missing. And no, I'm not referring to directional air dodging, wavedashing, different gravity physics, easier combos, different items, Special Melee, individual Break the Targets stages (though I did miss those), Mewtwo (and I missed him too), or a world without Meta Knight. I mean that there was a certain kind of aesthetic... a certain kind of charm, I guess, that hadn't quite transferred over to the new installment. Much like Twilight Princess tried to make a Legend of Zelda game darker and gloomier, and only succeeded in suppressing some of the light-hearted charm that most fans love about the series, Brawl sort of did the same to its respective series.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. In spite of this, there was one thing about Brawl that totally enamored me. Well, two things, really. The second of those two things was the theme song, often known as "Audi Famam, Illius." (I once wrote a different blog post about that song in 2013. Apparently it's one of the only ones on this blog that people still read. Click here if you want to read it.)
The main thing that drew me to this game, though, was one of the things most heavily criticized by certain fans: the Subspace Emissary.
Melee had its Adventure mode, which I loved; where the premise of 1-Player Mode in the original Smash Bros. was basically, "Defeat everyone at least once, then fight the final boss," and where Melee's Classic mode was basically, "Defeat a certain number of randomly selected opponents, then fight the final boss," Melee's Adventure mode was almost a story of conquest. "Welcome to Mushroom Kingdom! Get to the other end of the course over there to reach the castle. Once you're there, if you can defeat the princess and whichever plumber is defending her today, you can move on to the Kongo Jungle. Good luck!" Or, "Well, now that you've defeated Samus, Zebes is going to self-destruct. You need to get off the planet. NOW. Pop Star is nearby; maybe you could escape to there."
For someone like me, always happy to see a hero through his or her story, and always excited to seeing worlds connect with each other, this was great stuff.
And so Brawl's Subspace Emissary was like a dream for me. What began with Mario and Kirby having a friendly competition, almost immediately developed into a group of heroes banding together to defend their world from a dangerous enemy.
If by some weird chance you've never played Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the past eight years, and you still want to... well, I guess I'll skip over the rest of the story from there. I don't really need to tell it anyway; the point is, all of these heroes, who were already occupied with their own separate journeys, would meet up, stop going their own ways, and unite in a common goal, rescue one another, and sometimes even set aside their rivalries and personal hatred for one another, in order to overcome something too big for any one of them to conquer alone.
Add to this the fact that one of my brothers joined me (as Player 2) for part of my first playthrough of the Subspace Emissary, and there you can see again what made me love the game so much. It was declaring right to my face that same message I'd had seared into my heart when the Smash Brothers first assembled on the Nintendo 64: Those who face evil and challenges are allowed to be courageous, and they don't have to do it alone.
I suppose I'll be misunderstood as I say this, but... I guess I'll say it anyway.
In my religion, we have a scripture that says, "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them."
It's in reference to a city actually called Zion, a very special city of people who all lived this special kind of culture. They worked at improving themselves, at helping others to improve, and improving their personal relationships and their community until it was more like a close family. They were united in purpose. They were united in their goals and plans. They did what they knew to be right. And because of that, nobody among them suffered needlessly.
Does any of that sound familiar?
At very least, I hope that calls to mind what I've been saying so far about Smash Bros. Heroes I cared about, with whom felt a sort of connection, would come together, fight for what they believed in, and bring happiness to others. United in purpose. Of one heart and one mind. Doing what's right. Why wouldn't I feel good, playing a game like that?
But now look at this. Look at what has become of this game.
...Is it bad that I still find this kind of stuff painful to listen to? I mean, it's nothing new. As far back as Melee in 2001, there arose a divide between "casual" and "competitive" players. I always found it "kind of annoying" at best, and "nothing short of infuriating" at worst. Is it bad that I still feel that way?
From the advent of "competitive Smash," it was like there were two entirely different games, and one of them wasn't any fun. And I mean that, too, not as an exaggeration; it's not just that competitive play is not as much fun; it's no fun at all.
Why else would there be that specific distinction in the latest Smash Bros. between the two modes?
"Make your choice:
For Fun?
or For Glory?"
Notice that you can't choose to have both.
Truth be told, I don't understand why someone would be so fixated on glory, that they would give up the chance to have fun without inhibition. What do you even gain out of glory?
Actually, that question applies to more than this one particular video game franchise that I'm talking about; it applies to nearly any aspect of life. What does glory give you? Certainly not fun, if glory is your ultimate goal. A few definitions of fun are, "enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure," "playfulness or good humour," and "behaviour or an activity that is intended purely for amusement and should not be interpreted as having any serious or malicious purpose." You know, the exact opposite of what glory-seekers are after.
Does it bring you honour? ...Not really, no. I don't know about you, but I still have yet to meet any person who would be impressed to find out that someone is a world champion of Super Smash Bros. And beyond that, I can see that glory does not equal honour, even in fields that are more popular (and currently more respected) than video games. I mean, how many Olympic gold medal winners can you remember by name? How many winners of Miss Universe do you know? Who won Grammys or Oscars last year? Who are the most recent people to win Nobel Prizes? Who starred in movies in 2006 -- and for that matter, what movies even came out that year? Are any of these names coming to mind?
...Hmm. Some glory. Fleeting, isn't it.
Does glory bring you satisfaction? Or... does it just satiate you for a little while, then leave you craving more glory still? Trust me, glory is hollower than one of those chocolate Easter bunnies you get from the store for what you think is a good price, only to find it full of air where chocolate should be. (...I'm hungry. I shouldn't write metaphors while I'm hungry.) Your glory is not sustaining. In a manner of speaking, it starves your spirit.
Ultimately, does glory make you happy?
I don't even want to answer that question. I want you to answer that for yourself.
...And I'll wait. I'll give you a minute, if you want.
...
...
.......
...I could tell a knock-knock joke?
...
No, never mind. I'll just assume that was long enough.
I hope you were honest with yourself just now. And I mean that. It's no loss to me if you go on your way believing that seeking out glory really makes you happy, and you fail to see that there are better things to seek out. But if that's still what you think, it is a loss to you, and that makes me a little bit sad. Or to put this in another way, I don't gain any glory from sharing my thoughts today. (Heck, who even reads this stuff? You're probably one of 10 people on the planet who will hear me saying this. I don't gain any glory out of that.) What I do gain from this is maybe a little bit of happiness. Or, I really hope, you learn something, maybe change your perceptions or beliefs for the better, and you gain a little bit of happiness through that.
Sorry, is this getting too personal or sentimental or something? Fine, back to what I was saying, then.
Recently I came across a YouTube video called "Why the Top Smash Bros. Players are Quitting Smash." I didn't watch it. In fact, I sighed, and deliberately clicked away from it, because I didn't care what this person thought those reasons were. And frankly, I didn't even care if it was true that "top players" were leaving. "Just as well," I'd thought. "Now maybe normal players will feel more confident playing online, even in For Glory mode."
If by chance you're not familiar with it, "For Glory" mode is one of the two versions of online play in the newest Smash Bros. games. In For Glory matches, you play online under specific rules. For the purist competitive players, those rules are 1 vs. 1, no items, on the "Final Destination" or "Omega" version of a stage (meaning, one large, flat piece of ground for you to stand and fight on. See the picture for an example). Each player has two lives. The first to knock off his or her opponent twice, wins. (There is also a 5-minute time limit, but few matches last that long anyway.)
I've played on "For Glory" mode a few times. I've even won a few of my matches. But yes, it was only a few. (I won 6 out of the 16 matches I played, my game data tells me.) I know you're not supposed to blame outside circumstances for how well you do ("No Johns!"), but I seriously believe that at least some of my bad performance in those matches was the result of lagging Internet connection. It's hard to smoothly play a game when, essentially, time itself does not flow smoothly, or even at the same rate, for your character or opponents.
Anyway, I don't bring that up to complain. This is relevant to a personal story.
At first, these losses kind of bothered me. I rarely lost against other human opponents in most circumstances, but here I was, for the first time participating in a system that recorded every loss or win, and I was only winning occasionally.
I had to do something to counteract this disadvantage, I thought. And so, for a time, I decided to devote myself to training a little. Going against the best AI opponents I could muster, I practiced being able to anticipate my opponent, so that way I would be able to act and react in time even when my Internet was slow. I would take my favourite characters to the Omega and Final Destination stages, to face off against the overused characters that were always so infuriating to fight. I practiced until I had planned out ways to overcome them all: strategies to outmaneuver characters faster than me, methods to strike first at those with a longer reach, ways to dodge or absorb the damage from stronger foes, tactics to escape their irritating combos... and after carrying on like this for a while, maybe I was ready. Maybe I was ready to take on human brains behind those characters and tactics now.
But during this period of time, I noticed something about myself:
I was not happy. Ever.
I was angry. Well, I was angry for the majority of the time; this training involved a lot of concentration, repetition, tension, and frustration. I noticed times where I was straining myself not to shout profanities towards nobody in particular. And this from someone who does his best never to swear in any situation. Yeah, I'd say that this game was really striking a few nerves with me.
The rest of the time, though, I just felt sad.
And that's because during this time I spent "training," every once in a while I would be pricked by some deep memories. Memories that reminded me why I will go to such great lengths to avoid contention, conflict, and competition in my real life, if harmony, peace, and cooperation are possible.
I think it was about the year 2000 that my siblings and I got our own copy of the original Super Smash Bros. I remember how often I would ask one of my siblings or one of my friends to do a team battle with me, rather than having us fight one another; I did that because winning often made me feel terrible when I saw how the loss affected the people I was playing against. Any of you who are younger siblings probably know a bit about what that's like; how frustrating, or even discouraging can it be, to have an older sibling who is better than you at almost everything you try, simply because they're bigger or have more experience? Once I realized that I often caused that kind of feeling, I hated it, and wanted it to stop.
I remember how, all the way back then, I made it a policy not to "edge guard," not to use inescapable combos, not to use "meteor smash" moves, or anything that made me feel like I was winning because of simple "lucky shots." It always bothered me when I felt like my skill and devotion were being defeated by unfair advantage and luck. It bothered me even more when that meant I was too quickly eliminated from a game, and would need to sit by, idly watching, while others kept going. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't the only one who felt that way. So we all mostly agreed to avoiding practices like those.
Many of those habits have carried over to when I play newer versions of the game. To this day, when I play Smash Bros. and knock someone off-stage, I often give them distance, let them land, and then resume fighting.
So when I was "training," and for the first time I practiced smacking recovering opponents to their deaths, that pricked at me a little.
I'd always thought that if you wanted to show that you were truly courageous, and truly skilled, you wouldn't need to take advantage of your opponent in a moment of weakness; you'd want to face that opponent at his or her best.
So when I began searching for -- and finding, and exploiting -- weak points that I could spam into oblivion, that pierced me a little more.
And I'd always kept in perspective the fact that this was just a game. It wasn't as though the fate of the world, someone's life, or even money was at stake depending on who won or lost. Playing this game should have been a kind of friendly competition, nothing serious.
So when I found myself actively wishing harm on my enemies and delighting in every time they failed -- with my help, of course -- that pierced me so deeply, it started to hurt.
Eventually I noticed how angry I felt during the day -- not just when I was playing Smash Bros., but throughout the rest of the day afterwards -- and it was then that something completely shattered inside of me.
"This used to make me so happy..."
...That's because it used to be fun!
It had always been about fun! Super Smash Bros. had always been so much fun, that even setbacks were fun! Playing with friends, we could laugh as the tornadoes on the roof of Hyrule Castle tossed us into the distance. Finding out that if you have a Star power-up when you jump off the stage in Planet Zebes will, ironically, lead to you being K.O.'d, brought us no end of amusement. We could find so much joy in "Items 'Very High.' Bob-ombs only. Saffron City," that it was hilarious to hear the explosions, no matter who was caught up in them.
And playing together... sometimes my siblings and I would decide that instead of it being "my turn to play Nintendo," two or more of us would share a turn together. To children like us, that was one of the greatest expressions of love we could give. What stronger form of bonding was there than, "Here, I may finally have something to call my own, something all to myself, but I'd rather share it with you"?
Heroes don't have to do things alone, remember. They can do things as Brothers.
Now, when I write posts like these on Facebook (i.e., decide to absolutely waste my time), this is usually the part where I go, "And so, what does this mean for you?"
...In some of those more recent Facebook Notes, I've normally answered my own question with, "I don't know. You figure it out."
That's what I was originally going to slap down here. I mean, one of the first things they had to teach me in university-level English classes was that you don't need to assume that stories only have one meaning. So I could have just left you to figure out what I'm trying to say here. But I'm not going to.
You could go about the rest of your day thinking, "Oh, some random person told us a story about his experience with a video game. Great."
Or you could think to yourself, "lawl, is noob who sux, b cuz cant lern wavedash tech CC multishine 4 gimp waveland updash roflofl shinespike 2 hard 4u git #rekt u suk, noob cazual."
Or, you could just be disappointed that you accidentally came across this blog post that was not at all like what you were searching for. (For curiosity's sake, what were you searching for when you found this, anyway?)
But... maybe this is a long shot here... maybe you've learned something I was hoping you'd learn. It could be that you've noticed that glory won't make you happy, doesn't make you happy, will never make you truly happy. But maybe you've learned at the same time that unity and consideration for others will. It could be that you see my story reflecting something in your own life. Who am I to say, eh?
I guess that last of all, I just want you to realize that the choice is always there before you. You can seize the fleeting pleasure of a momentary achievement, or you can strive for something deeper, something that gives you greater happiness as a whole. Whatever your choice, I assume most of you will go on, continuing to play Super Smash Bros., For Glory or otherwise. But as you do so, that was something I wanted you to know.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to call some people right now; they have my Master Sword, along with some of my other stuff, and I need to get it back. (You didn't think I could have a blog called The Sword of Peace and not own a couple of swords, did you? Maybe I'll write about that someday.)
Well, until next time,
- TAB III
You see, the first video game I can remember playing is Sonic the Hedgehog 2, on the Sega Genesis. I quickly came to admire Sonic. Running through courses with him at high speed was exhilarating. Smashing robots and freeing animals made me feel like I was doing a good thing. But the thing that really impressed me about the blue hedgehog was his character. While the cartoon shows and comic series of the early '90s showed Sonic to have that lovable (*cough* heh heh *cough*) attitude and rebellious streak that '90s teenagers were famous for, and that he was full of snappy remarks, trash-talking his foes, and always with the air of, "I'm too cool for you all,"he still showed the characteristics I remembered him showing all the way from Emerald Hill Zone to fighting the Death Egg.
 |
| * Seeing the final boss before you, looking up into its empty steel gaze, fills you with determination. Your HP is restored to full. |
He was determined, and courageous. And in all these different adaptations of the Hedgehog, I also learned one other important thing about him: no matter what kinds of obstacles or opposition he faced, he was always positive, optimistic, and hopeful.
As young as I was, I didn't appreciate how great an impact that blue hedgehog had had on me. (Metaphorically speaking, the crater from this impact was... umm, I don't know. Underwater? ...Hmm. Not exactly my best metaphor. Oh, well.)
The signs of said impact are visible to me now, though; once I realized in kindergarten that I couldn't be Sonic the Hedgehog when I grew up, my next career goal -- obviously so much more realistic -- was to become a knight.
I really did have high aims back in those days.
Now, try to keep that in mind, while I fast-forward back to the scene that I started talking about before interrupting myself: my first experience with Super Smash Bros. The game that inspired me so much, that I decided I didn't need sleep -- only more battles.
What was it about this fighting game that captivated me so intensely? A year or two earlier, I'd played a tiny bit of Mortal Kombat a different friend's house. And I was familiar with those arcade games like Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. But those had never resonated with me... at all. So, why did Super Smash Bros.?
Well, like I said a little earlier, I was introduced into a world that I had always wanted to be a part of, even though I hadn't yet realized that fact. This time, I wasn't being plopped into some unfamiliar world, where I would naïvely pick some random character (based solely on how cool he or she looked), and clumsily beat up random opponents in furious sprays of blood, to attain some arbitrary glory. No, Smash Bros. wasn't like that at all for me. This was... home.
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| Taken from Brawl in the Family, by Matthew Taranto. I would ask his permission to use this here, but when I last checked, he was busy shipping out a few thousand books of his comics. So I'll have to get back to that when he has time. In the meantime, here's the comic's website: http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/ |
I knew these characters. Even if the first Nintendo console my family owned was a Nintendo 64, I knew and loved those characters already. And it wasn't just their names I knew; to me they were people, albeit fictional. They were people that I knew and admired. Long before I'd ever played a Nintendo game, I already knew what a great hero Mario was; a simple plumber, confronted with bad situations, would always respond with gusto and cheer. I already knew that cute dinosaur, Yoshi, and how he (...Wait, is it "he?" "It?" I have questions about the genders of Yoshis) would remind me of the feeling of having a loyal animal friend, like the pets that I'd rarely known, up to that point in my life. The same could be said for Pikachu, whom I knew was more than just some cute little yellow guy; he housed power inside of himself, and was happy to protect the people he cared about. Of course, you could say the same about Kirby, too; I admired and adored that little pink guy. (So much so that he's been one of my "mains" through all Smash Bros. games, and that this is the only picture I've ever used for my YouTube profile picture.)Seeing "the guys" (which, yes, includes Samus, even though she's a woman) made the game a happy place for me. And what made this game nothing short of magical to me, was that on top of that, now I wasn't directing a lone hero through seas of enemies and evildoers. This time, even though there was fighting amongst the characters, this game was an experience of fighting amongst friends.
I've looked back before and said that Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and in particular the song that plays during the ending credits, is directly responsible for how much I love musical montages. (See for yourself.)
And on a similar note, I know that it was Super Smash Bros. that directly inspired my love for crossover universes. It was what led me in later years to be so excited to see the Avengers or the Justice League when they assembled. It was why I put in so much effort for so much time helping a friend to keep alive a comic we drew, where we'd illustrate fights between characters like Street Sharks, Bomberman, Mr. Freeze, Goku, and of course, ourselves.
(If I can find a picture of the old stuff, I'll show you...)
[Insert picture, if possible.]
[If you're reading this, it means I didn't insert picture, wasn't possible. I'll have to draw some examples, take a picture of them, and post them up here when I get the chance.]
The point I'm making here is that Super Smash Bros. had taught me something that I thought was an epiphany in my young life. (Not that I called it an epiphany, mind you. See if you know any nine-to-ten-year-olds who know the word "epiphany.") It was this:
Heroes' journeys do not need to be separate and isolated. A real hero doesn't need to be this one exceptional person who rises higher than anyone else is willing to go, and who alone faces the challenges of their journey while everyone else waits in safety. A real hero...
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| I hope I have the right artist at last. I think the original source for this picture is: https://krudman.tumblr.com/post/90067624824 |
...can have friends just like him or her.
That was a pivotal life lesson for me. And I would hope that could be a life-changer for a lot of people.
Maybe you've heard of Joseph Campbell's book, "The Hero with 1000 Faces." The big idea of it is that every hero you ever encounter -- in any story, ever, through book, movie, stage play, biography, or video game -- goes through a very similar journey. And something in the heart of every hero feels familiar, in effect making all heroes (at least, all real heroes, as opposed to anti-heroes) the same one. That's because, Joseph Campbell says, these stories are metaphors that mirror our own real lives. These heroes, like us, find themselves in situations where they are called on to do hard things. They leave behind their normal life, descend into their trials, struggle, push themselves to their limits, and somehow exceed them. They persevere, perhaps fail, perhaps fail many times, but ultimately try again. And when they are victorious, they can return with triumph, knowing how their journey has helped them to grow.
It's a lesson I had drilled into me, time and again.
Be like Luke Skywalker, who learned to trust his feelings, and yet knew to reject evil. He's the only Jedi the galaxy has, and he has to succeed, no matter what. Be a hero like him.
Be like Superman, who has strength and powers that nobody else even comes close to matching. Many are the threats that only he can take on and overcome. Be a hero like him.
Be like Batman, who fights evildoers, no matter who is willing to help him, or who opposes him. Even if he must do it alone, he keeps people safe all the same. Be a hero like him.
Even with some of the video game heroes I've already mentioned, they reinforced the idea of the one, exceptional hero who rises above himself or herself, and overcomes great challenges alone. Sonic alone fights the Death Egg. Mario (or Luigi) alone defeats Bowser. And in spite of the fact that a Pokémon trainer must rely on a team of Pokémon in order to become a Master, the trainer is the one who mainly gets the glory.
So, going by the example of most of the heroes I had around me in my earliest years, I should have been learning to be a "special" sort of hero, one who strove to excel, and be better than others, and to accomplish great things, all on my own.
But as I said, Super Smash Bros. was what really taught me that a hero doesn't need to undertake a journey alone. A hero doesn't need to feel isolated just because he or she has chosen to do something worthwhile, instead of doing something easy. It turns out, even on epic quests, or the much less fun but more common tasks, which will cause you grief, suffering, and exhausting amounts of work, even then, you can bring along friends.
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| Mouseover text: "Well, okay, now I'm glad they didn't take me along for this one." |
It was that principle, that idea of heroes who can fight together, that made Super Smash Bros. Brawl especially stand out to me.
I will agree with a lot of fans and with Masahiro Sakurai himself, Brawl was not quite as good as Melee. It was still good, and don't let me make it sound otherwise. But in some ways Brawl didn't quite match up to its predecessor; something was missing. And no, I'm not referring to directional air dodging, wavedashing, different gravity physics, easier combos, different items, Special Melee, individual Break the Targets stages (though I did miss those), Mewtwo (and I missed him too), or a world without Meta Knight. I mean that there was a certain kind of aesthetic... a certain kind of charm, I guess, that hadn't quite transferred over to the new installment. Much like Twilight Princess tried to make a Legend of Zelda game darker and gloomier, and only succeeded in suppressing some of the light-hearted charm that most fans love about the series, Brawl sort of did the same to its respective series.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. In spite of this, there was one thing about Brawl that totally enamored me. Well, two things, really. The second of those two things was the theme song, often known as "Audi Famam, Illius." (I once wrote a different blog post about that song in 2013. Apparently it's one of the only ones on this blog that people still read. Click here if you want to read it.)
The main thing that drew me to this game, though, was one of the things most heavily criticized by certain fans: the Subspace Emissary.
Melee had its Adventure mode, which I loved; where the premise of 1-Player Mode in the original Smash Bros. was basically, "Defeat everyone at least once, then fight the final boss," and where Melee's Classic mode was basically, "Defeat a certain number of randomly selected opponents, then fight the final boss," Melee's Adventure mode was almost a story of conquest. "Welcome to Mushroom Kingdom! Get to the other end of the course over there to reach the castle. Once you're there, if you can defeat the princess and whichever plumber is defending her today, you can move on to the Kongo Jungle. Good luck!" Or, "Well, now that you've defeated Samus, Zebes is going to self-destruct. You need to get off the planet. NOW. Pop Star is nearby; maybe you could escape to there."
For someone like me, always happy to see a hero through his or her story, and always excited to seeing worlds connect with each other, this was great stuff.
And so Brawl's Subspace Emissary was like a dream for me. What began with Mario and Kirby having a friendly competition, almost immediately developed into a group of heroes banding together to defend their world from a dangerous enemy.
If by some weird chance you've never played Super Smash Bros. Brawl in the past eight years, and you still want to... well, I guess I'll skip over the rest of the story from there. I don't really need to tell it anyway; the point is, all of these heroes, who were already occupied with their own separate journeys, would meet up, stop going their own ways, and unite in a common goal, rescue one another, and sometimes even set aside their rivalries and personal hatred for one another, in order to overcome something too big for any one of them to conquer alone.
Add to this the fact that one of my brothers joined me (as Player 2) for part of my first playthrough of the Subspace Emissary, and there you can see again what made me love the game so much. It was declaring right to my face that same message I'd had seared into my heart when the Smash Brothers first assembled on the Nintendo 64: Those who face evil and challenges are allowed to be courageous, and they don't have to do it alone.
I suppose I'll be misunderstood as I say this, but... I guess I'll say it anyway.
In my religion, we have a scripture that says, "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them."
It's in reference to a city actually called Zion, a very special city of people who all lived this special kind of culture. They worked at improving themselves, at helping others to improve, and improving their personal relationships and their community until it was more like a close family. They were united in purpose. They were united in their goals and plans. They did what they knew to be right. And because of that, nobody among them suffered needlessly.
Does any of that sound familiar?
At very least, I hope that calls to mind what I've been saying so far about Smash Bros. Heroes I cared about, with whom felt a sort of connection, would come together, fight for what they believed in, and bring happiness to others. United in purpose. Of one heart and one mind. Doing what's right. Why wouldn't I feel good, playing a game like that?
But now look at this. Look at what has become of this game.
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| Yes, this is another piece of a Brawl in the Family comic. If you at all like the panels I've used here, you should really go visit the website. ^This one can be found at http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2014/08/29/590-comic-review-super-smash-bros/ |
...Is it bad that I still find this kind of stuff painful to listen to? I mean, it's nothing new. As far back as Melee in 2001, there arose a divide between "casual" and "competitive" players. I always found it "kind of annoying" at best, and "nothing short of infuriating" at worst. Is it bad that I still feel that way?
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| I apologize for the words at the top; I didn't make this. |
Why else would there be that specific distinction in the latest Smash Bros. between the two modes?
"Make your choice:
For Fun?
or For Glory?"
Notice that you can't choose to have both.
Truth be told, I don't understand why someone would be so fixated on glory, that they would give up the chance to have fun without inhibition. What do you even gain out of glory?
Actually, that question applies to more than this one particular video game franchise that I'm talking about; it applies to nearly any aspect of life. What does glory give you? Certainly not fun, if glory is your ultimate goal. A few definitions of fun are, "enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure," "playfulness or good humour," and "behaviour or an activity that is intended purely for amusement and should not be interpreted as having any serious or malicious purpose." You know, the exact opposite of what glory-seekers are after.
Does it bring you honour? ...Not really, no. I don't know about you, but I still have yet to meet any person who would be impressed to find out that someone is a world champion of Super Smash Bros. And beyond that, I can see that glory does not equal honour, even in fields that are more popular (and currently more respected) than video games. I mean, how many Olympic gold medal winners can you remember by name? How many winners of Miss Universe do you know? Who won Grammys or Oscars last year? Who are the most recent people to win Nobel Prizes? Who starred in movies in 2006 -- and for that matter, what movies even came out that year? Are any of these names coming to mind?
...Hmm. Some glory. Fleeting, isn't it.
Does glory bring you satisfaction? Or... does it just satiate you for a little while, then leave you craving more glory still? Trust me, glory is hollower than one of those chocolate Easter bunnies you get from the store for what you think is a good price, only to find it full of air where chocolate should be. (...I'm hungry. I shouldn't write metaphors while I'm hungry.) Your glory is not sustaining. In a manner of speaking, it starves your spirit.
Ultimately, does glory make you happy?
I don't even want to answer that question. I want you to answer that for yourself.
...And I'll wait. I'll give you a minute, if you want.
...
...
.......
...I could tell a knock-knock joke?
...
No, never mind. I'll just assume that was long enough.
I hope you were honest with yourself just now. And I mean that. It's no loss to me if you go on your way believing that seeking out glory really makes you happy, and you fail to see that there are better things to seek out. But if that's still what you think, it is a loss to you, and that makes me a little bit sad. Or to put this in another way, I don't gain any glory from sharing my thoughts today. (Heck, who even reads this stuff? You're probably one of 10 people on the planet who will hear me saying this. I don't gain any glory out of that.) What I do gain from this is maybe a little bit of happiness. Or, I really hope, you learn something, maybe change your perceptions or beliefs for the better, and you gain a little bit of happiness through that.
Sorry, is this getting too personal or sentimental or something? Fine, back to what I was saying, then.
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| Er, Mario, if you wouldn't mind... could you push the Control Stick just a little bit to the left, and then press A? |
Recently I came across a YouTube video called "Why the Top Smash Bros. Players are Quitting Smash." I didn't watch it. In fact, I sighed, and deliberately clicked away from it, because I didn't care what this person thought those reasons were. And frankly, I didn't even care if it was true that "top players" were leaving. "Just as well," I'd thought. "Now maybe normal players will feel more confident playing online, even in For Glory mode."
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| And I suppose you'll want me to use Fox only... |
I've played on "For Glory" mode a few times. I've even won a few of my matches. But yes, it was only a few. (I won 6 out of the 16 matches I played, my game data tells me.) I know you're not supposed to blame outside circumstances for how well you do ("No Johns!"), but I seriously believe that at least some of my bad performance in those matches was the result of lagging Internet connection. It's hard to smoothly play a game when, essentially, time itself does not flow smoothly, or even at the same rate, for your character or opponents.
Anyway, I don't bring that up to complain. This is relevant to a personal story.
At first, these losses kind of bothered me. I rarely lost against other human opponents in most circumstances, but here I was, for the first time participating in a system that recorded every loss or win, and I was only winning occasionally.
I had to do something to counteract this disadvantage, I thought. And so, for a time, I decided to devote myself to training a little. Going against the best AI opponents I could muster, I practiced being able to anticipate my opponent, so that way I would be able to act and react in time even when my Internet was slow. I would take my favourite characters to the Omega and Final Destination stages, to face off against the overused characters that were always so infuriating to fight. I practiced until I had planned out ways to overcome them all: strategies to outmaneuver characters faster than me, methods to strike first at those with a longer reach, ways to dodge or absorb the damage from stronger foes, tactics to escape their irritating combos... and after carrying on like this for a while, maybe I was ready. Maybe I was ready to take on human brains behind those characters and tactics now.
But during this period of time, I noticed something about myself:
I was not happy. Ever.
I was angry. Well, I was angry for the majority of the time; this training involved a lot of concentration, repetition, tension, and frustration. I noticed times where I was straining myself not to shout profanities towards nobody in particular. And this from someone who does his best never to swear in any situation. Yeah, I'd say that this game was really striking a few nerves with me.
The rest of the time, though, I just felt sad.
And that's because during this time I spent "training," every once in a while I would be pricked by some deep memories. Memories that reminded me why I will go to such great lengths to avoid contention, conflict, and competition in my real life, if harmony, peace, and cooperation are possible.
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| Surprise, this one is also from Brawl in the Family. Seeing how I bought a set of those books that I mentioned the author is busily shipping out, I don't feel too guilty about posting comic excerpts up here; he's still making profit off of me, right? (If said author feels differently, please let me know, and I'll take these down.) |
I think it was about the year 2000 that my siblings and I got our own copy of the original Super Smash Bros. I remember how often I would ask one of my siblings or one of my friends to do a team battle with me, rather than having us fight one another; I did that because winning often made me feel terrible when I saw how the loss affected the people I was playing against. Any of you who are younger siblings probably know a bit about what that's like; how frustrating, or even discouraging can it be, to have an older sibling who is better than you at almost everything you try, simply because they're bigger or have more experience? Once I realized that I often caused that kind of feeling, I hated it, and wanted it to stop.
I remember how, all the way back then, I made it a policy not to "edge guard," not to use inescapable combos, not to use "meteor smash" moves, or anything that made me feel like I was winning because of simple "lucky shots." It always bothered me when I felt like my skill and devotion were being defeated by unfair advantage and luck. It bothered me even more when that meant I was too quickly eliminated from a game, and would need to sit by, idly watching, while others kept going. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't the only one who felt that way. So we all mostly agreed to avoiding practices like those.
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| "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. I am an impatient edge-guarder. Prepare to die." |
So when I was "training," and for the first time I practiced smacking recovering opponents to their deaths, that pricked at me a little.
I'd always thought that if you wanted to show that you were truly courageous, and truly skilled, you wouldn't need to take advantage of your opponent in a moment of weakness; you'd want to face that opponent at his or her best.
So when I began searching for -- and finding, and exploiting -- weak points that I could spam into oblivion, that pierced me a little more.
And I'd always kept in perspective the fact that this was just a game. It wasn't as though the fate of the world, someone's life, or even money was at stake depending on who won or lost. Playing this game should have been a kind of friendly competition, nothing serious.
So when I found myself actively wishing harm on my enemies and delighting in every time they failed -- with my help, of course -- that pierced me so deeply, it started to hurt.
Eventually I noticed how angry I felt during the day -- not just when I was playing Smash Bros., but throughout the rest of the day afterwards -- and it was then that something completely shattered inside of me.
"This used to make me so happy..."
...That's because it used to be fun!
It had always been about fun! Super Smash Bros. had always been so much fun, that even setbacks were fun! Playing with friends, we could laugh as the tornadoes on the roof of Hyrule Castle tossed us into the distance. Finding out that if you have a Star power-up when you jump off the stage in Planet Zebes will, ironically, lead to you being K.O.'d, brought us no end of amusement. We could find so much joy in "Items 'Very High.' Bob-ombs only. Saffron City," that it was hilarious to hear the explosions, no matter who was caught up in them.
And playing together... sometimes my siblings and I would decide that instead of it being "my turn to play Nintendo," two or more of us would share a turn together. To children like us, that was one of the greatest expressions of love we could give. What stronger form of bonding was there than, "Here, I may finally have something to call my own, something all to myself, but I'd rather share it with you"?
Heroes don't have to do things alone, remember. They can do things as Brothers.
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| You know what they say: The family that K.O.s together, grows together. (Actually, nobody says that. Maybe they should, though.) |
Now, when I write posts like these on Facebook (i.e., decide to absolutely waste my time), this is usually the part where I go, "And so, what does this mean for you?"
...In some of those more recent Facebook Notes, I've normally answered my own question with, "I don't know. You figure it out."
That's what I was originally going to slap down here. I mean, one of the first things they had to teach me in university-level English classes was that you don't need to assume that stories only have one meaning. So I could have just left you to figure out what I'm trying to say here. But I'm not going to.
You could go about the rest of your day thinking, "Oh, some random person told us a story about his experience with a video game. Great."
Or you could think to yourself, "lawl, is noob who sux, b cuz cant lern wavedash tech CC multishine 4 gimp waveland updash roflofl shinespike 2 hard 4u git #rekt u suk, noob cazual."
Or, you could just be disappointed that you accidentally came across this blog post that was not at all like what you were searching for. (For curiosity's sake, what were you searching for when you found this, anyway?)
But... maybe this is a long shot here... maybe you've learned something I was hoping you'd learn. It could be that you've noticed that glory won't make you happy, doesn't make you happy, will never make you truly happy. But maybe you've learned at the same time that unity and consideration for others will. It could be that you see my story reflecting something in your own life. Who am I to say, eh?
I guess that last of all, I just want you to realize that the choice is always there before you. You can seize the fleeting pleasure of a momentary achievement, or you can strive for something deeper, something that gives you greater happiness as a whole. Whatever your choice, I assume most of you will go on, continuing to play Super Smash Bros., For Glory or otherwise. But as you do so, that was something I wanted you to know.
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| In spite of what you may think, that's not Crazy Hand. Fun fact: Matthew Taranto made Master Hand left-handed in his later comics because he, like me, is left-handed. So this works out rather nicely. |
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to call some people right now; they have my Master Sword, along with some of my other stuff, and I need to get it back. (You didn't think I could have a blog called The Sword of Peace and not own a couple of swords, did you? Maybe I'll write about that someday.)
Well, until next time,
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| "Byyyyyeee!" |
- TAB III
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