Finals Week + UltraDavid

I hate studying :/

So now it's finals week :/ In other words, studying  =___=


So with all of this happening right now, I decide to... play games!  I turn out to get really distracted when I try and study and try and do other things like play games (or write blog posts loolol)  So yea, procrastination aside, there hasn't been much going on aside from that.  I have pretty much finished my essay about games in Japan and such though I have to say, it's really really unorganized.  Also has shitty transitions but I don't care enough to fix it.  On the other hand, I found fighting games really fun to write about so I wrote a lot more than I planned to which is nice.


So a couple days ago, UltraDavid wrote an article talking about fighting games, their past and their eventual future in what we can become.
It's over here.  It's really really long, but it's definitely a good read.

Why can't we get
 along D:

I should say, I would like to disagree with his point about Melee and Brawl and how they can't intersect.  The scenes themselves share many similarities that aren't too hard to see.  Smash, and fighting games have quite a bit in common I feel.  People often point out that it's completely different because of the difference in how the games are played, with how Smash is completely different just in how the gameplay works.  To be honest, it's pretty much the same when you look at the basics of it.  You hit your opponent until they die.  In Smash's case, it's knocking them off the stage and not allowing them to recover, but the basic idea is the same.

Many things in Smash have very similar concepts to how they work in traditional fighting games.  There are footsies in Smash, but similarly to some games like Melty Blood, much of it is fought in the air.  You need to keep in mind the movement options that your opponent has, what kind of aerials they can do as they come down to hit you and the answers that you have to deal with this.  Smash involves using your movement options in order to put yourself in a favorable position.  Even after someone gets hit, the same concepts in fighting games carry over.  You can do a combo which allows you to do alot of damage to them, cause a reset and based on how your opponent may tech, allow you to pick up another combo, or get punished for trying to reset by losing your damage opportunity.  


Many of the same mechanics in the game work very similarly, but I feel the community is in a way similar.  They get hype over games, just like the fighting game scene.  They're trying to stream their tournaments so that they can reach a larger audience, and commentate their matches accordingly.  Many of their goals coincide with ours in that they want to expand their community and continue growing just like the fighting game community through many similar means.

IT'S TEHSPAMERER. HE TIMED OUT
VIDJO ON POKE FLOATS

One thing that Smash has over fighting games is the accessibility to casuals.  Smash is a game that I'm pretty sure nearly anyone who is a gamer has played.  Whether it was just for fun and screwing around, or seriously, people have played this game.  Because of this, Smash, has a much easier way to entice casuals as it's a game that everyone plays.  Having Smash at fighting game tournaments will not only allow for these casuals to be exposed to fighting games, but also the pro Smash players to be exposed to high level play.  Many top level Smash players have found their way into the fighting game community and have translated their top level play in Smash over to the respective fighting games they play.  The two most notable that I would know is Lord Knight, who one of the top players in Blazblue and Melty Blood, and Tonberry, formally known as tehspamerer, who is a big and upcoming player in Blazblue and has been great in Melty Blood.  Having Smash included in fighting game tournaments will allow more exposure to both casual gamers, and also high level Smash players who may later become great fighting game players.

Hopefully I can go :/

I feel that Smash and fighting games have enough in common to allow them to coexist and work together.  There's enough similarity to allow them to be the same.  There are a few tournaments that I know that have been incorporating Smash into their tournaments which I feel is the right direction.  There are the fighting game tournaments over at Rutgers in New Jersey that have had Smash along with traditional fighting games in the mix.  This year Apex, originally a Smash only tourney, has now incorporated fighting games into the mix.  Not only are they just adding these fighting games as their official games, but their getting Level Up to help them stream.  I feel that this a step in the right direction that will hopefully allow fighting games and Smash to continue to collaborate together in the future.