Melee Clips

I may not have grown up with Melee (I only got to play the original N64 game and Brawl) and never quite understood its competitive scene, but this documentary instilled in me newfound appreciation for the players (not so much its spectating community tho).

As much as fans would like to say otherwise, Super Smash Bros has always been intended by Nintendo to be a “party fighter”, a non-serious fighting game that anyone can pick up and play and that revels in its chaotic gameplay. Yet, despite that, a passionate part of its playerbase attempted to turn it into something competitive, constantly trying to poke at its nooks and crannies for an effective strategy to pin down as the gold standard, through placing characters in tiers based on how fluidly they could be controlled, as well as mastering unintentional mechanics like wave-dashing and L-canceling, or even outright limiting players’ options in tournaments like turning off items, banning “cheap” characters *coughmetaknightcough*, or sticking to only one stage *coughfinaldestinationcough*.

HungryBox’s playstyle and loyal use of Jigglypuff (considered the “lamest” high-tier character in Melee) is like a tool of destruction tearing down the established rules of Melee’s competitive community, and that earned him a ton of ire from spectating community members even when he made it to the top, which was definitely not helped when a few other players hopped onto the HungryBox hate bandwagon on social media. However, HungryBox’s way of playing couldn’t be any more like what should be expected from a typical Smash Bros game: It rejects the assumption that the game is solvable, that the outcome of a match can be strategized and predicted to the letter.