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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Nintendo Rocking EVO 2014!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Daddy finally stopped smashing me into things and instead is playing Smash with me.

For this year's EVO 2014 tournament (that's the really big fighting game tournament every year) take a look at the sponsors list. You see a bunch of dudes. You also see Nintendo's logo. What does this mean? Well, Nintendo is sponsoring EVO 2014.

One of twenty.

"Big deal." You might say. Then consider that Nintendo has never sponsored a competitive videogame tournament they've never hosted before. You got the Video Game Championships for the Pokémon series (those just happened), and some competitive stuff in the early days when we had the Nintendo World Championships. No relation to the store. That's the competition famous for having those super-rare cartridges. That's pretty much it.

So this is new. I mean, I already wrote an article a few months ago about how Nintendo gave their a-okay on streaming at MLG Anaheim and EVO 2014. I watched MLG Anaheim. It... wasn't the smoothest stream. But I always love some Super Smash Bros. Melee action. The MLG guy in that article said Nintendo would be involved somehow in the presentation, which never happened. Unless they're the ones who pulled the fire alarms or something.

So perhaps they really meant Nintendo would do something at EVO. After all, companies like Capcom have been funding things for years. Money from Nintendo would really induce a ton of hype. The Super Smash Bros. community has been self-funding for over a decade now. They see themselves as a child who has to grow up by themselves since their dad is always at work all the time and has no time to spend with their kid. Or the dad doesn't want to spend time with the kid. (At least there IS a father here at all!) With the Invitational Tournament, the GameCube controllers, and now this unprecedented sponsorship... Daddy is finally coming home! Maybe he just got laid off work and isn't making money anymore so now he has all this time. Maybe he lost his job thanks to ObamaCare. ...Just maybe.

Some in the Smash community are wary: After all, Nintendo is in some tough  times right now. What if they are just exploiting the community to get them through the Wii U? After all, Nintendo is relying entirely on Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. 4 for 2014 and the rest of the Wii U's life. If it doesn't work... then there is no more Wii U. So basically, Nintendo is courting the Smash community, but Super Smash Bros. 4 itself has some... competitive issues, based on the demo. It still rewards defensive play/punishes offensive play, like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and unlike Super Smash Bros. Melee and other good fighting games.  Nintendo of America and Treehouse in particular has a fondness of competitive Smash. JC Rodrigo was reportedly amazing during the Invitational Tour. Reggie said he'd kick Hungrybox's ass. But there is one man who isn't so thrilled. Besides RawkHawk2010.

Invitational players, the commentators, and... Treehouse's JC.

Masahiro Sakurai. He still sees Super Smash Bros. as a party game, and doesn't care for its potential as a competitive fighting game! But it's just so beautiful as that. And fun both ways. Still, this game seems to be more balanced than the previous three games. I mean, look at Bowser! He's amazing to play with! But if Sakurai is intentionally taking out things that were in the previous games to stunt the game's movement options... that's just bad. Of course I have trust in Sakurai. He IS my favourite developer of all time. He must have a plan. Or he's rushed to finish the game before Christmas. The Nintendo reps were asking people at E3 what they thought should be changed about the game, but does Sakurai really have enough time to implement that?

I'll look forward to EVO 2014.

By the way, to this day, I maintain that Nintendo never tried to prevent anyone from streaming Melee at EVO 2013 and that was all made up.


Ludwig's NNID is PrinceOfKoopas. Not that that's relevant to this article. He lurks Smashboards.


EVO 2014 is nothing compared to APEX 2015.
Looks like Ludwig writes about EVO every year, with this on EVO 2015.
After skipping 2016, here's EVO 2017... in advance! There's a ballot to participate in.

2 comments :

  1. Well, he better not be rushed. Rushed games often show it.
    I prefer games being delayed to being rushed, even though that tends to cause explosions of rage and doomsaying.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...Of course he's rushed. You (specifically) wouldn't know, but he's reusing a lot of Brawl assets.

      Delete

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