Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- 15 May 2011, Friends Matches #01

Another day, another bunch of brawls, eh? That tends to happen when you secure a session at the start of a weekend, the next day may just go and get you a repeat performance. The best part is that as things go along on successive gatherings, you may end up wrangling some fresh blood at the differing time frames. Oh, and I was worried before, because this is the kind of behavior that really racks up a ridiculously oversized backlog of material...but suffice to say that I've gathered up just as ridiculous a backlog of a myriad of other source materials, so I'm not nearly as worried as before about the potential for people (myself included in that) getting bored. Have you ever tried watching hours solid filled only with brawls? I mean, it's exciting at the time when you're the one playing it, but the same can't always be said for a viewer...although maybe I shouldn't underestimate the draw of Spectator mode. I may just be a tad biased in my evaluation, anyway...seeing as how I've already seen these ones before. At least I like to think that when I have the liberty to be choosy and only take the ones I like best of the bunch, on average things should be at least a tiny iota more interesting than straight up Spectator. Now think about the preponderance of material that you see and then wonder how many there must be that are "too boring" to make the cut. It's like with roaches, hiding just under the woodwork! --- Match #1 -- Mushroomy Kingdom Lucario (Joou) vs. Ness (EEL) vs. Mr. Game & Watch (YK2) I really like how dynamic simply playing on Mushroomy Kingdom makes things...I mean, the gimmick of a side-scrolling screen might not sound like a lot, and the previous two games had mostly-flat stages with mid-level pits and destructible and item-filled boxes floating around. This stage inexorably marching onward adds a very crucial bit of urgency to the whole thing, keeping participants just enough on edge without actually having to introduce something overtly and memorably random into the equation...so they don't generally think too much about it as a big threat. That's the most dangerous kind of hazard, the kind that you write off as being something you don't actually need to worry about. --- Match #2 -- Smashville Pikachu (Joou) vs. King Dedede (EEL) vs. King Dedede (YK2) I always actually forget about the Saturday concerts, and it just kinda happens that it'll show up like this without my having been expecting it. Given that this was recorded on the early hours of a Sunday, this is also something that happens to point out who chose the stage if you have people taking part where it actually still is Saturday. K.K. Condor isn't my favorite of his songs, but like all of Totakeke's tunes, it happens to be incredibly catchy for something so simplistic. --- Match #3 -- Flat Zone 2 Jigglypuff (Joou) vs. Lucas (EEL) vs. Yoshi (YK2) vs. Captain Falcon (GOLD) Aha, and leading us into the remainder of the matches from this sitting, we are joined by the ever-intense GOLD. In general, when the heat gets turned up, things either start to wind down due to burning the wick at both ends or they'll escalate into a veritable bonfire of the sort of elevated intensity one might expect.