Wario Wario Wario

Welp, we have a new meme dad for NASB.

I feel main characters first is a good rule for crossover kart racers and other games where characters are purely cosmetic (with rare exceptions for cases where a more cartoony or otherwise tonally fitting mascot exists within a non-cartoony series, like Slime or Riki)

I really like the idea of a stance fighter clone - like, they switch between a clone of one fighter and a clone of another. Dixie and Funky or Arcade DK and Jr. could be fun for this.

The Mr. Incredible memes aren't even recognisable as Mr. Incredible any more. They look more like Patrick if anything.

We are submitting Luigi's Mansion characters and a villain stage!

I'm currently watching Seinfeld for the first time - I've wanted to try and watch a lot more live action TV and movies lately since I'm generally just an animation and puppetry guy - is it just me or does the studio audience laugh at everything except the jokes? Or is this show's humour just too subtle for my borderline-Disney Adult baby brain?

I've been watching some of the old Flintstones episodes from the 60s, they aren't exactly laugh-a-second (or even laugh-a-minute) and the exchanges can be a bit cruel at times, but there's a weirdly comforting vibe to them; the stone age world aesthetic is wonderful with the flat-shaded thick-outlined neanderthals in front of beautifully painted backgrounds; and the slapstick is very well executed given the limited animation they were dealing with. This show certainly does visual humour better than verbal - the few belly laughs I've had with this show have been facial expressions and stone age technology (a tiny sundial being hung on the wall? comic genius). Laugh tracks can be a bit awkward at times but the sound mixing luckily makes them very quiet. It grew on me, but I can totally understand why it hasn't had the same consistent rerun staple status as Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo. Looney Tunes, despire predating the Flintstones (and TV as a whole), is meta and post-modern, The Flintstones is not. Scooby-Doo's episodic mysteries and beatnik aesthetic aren't provided by many other cartoons even today, but kids have plenty of caveman and dysfunctional family stories to choose from now.

It's kinda funny how the Simpsons, despite "dysfunctional family" being the hook, have a way more stable relationship than the family from Bedrock. Also, the Fruity Pebbles ads are completely OOC - Fred would be the aggressor and not Barney if this were the show

Why are cross-series echoes so hated? I seriously don't get it. I think they're rad. Reskins and repurposed assets are easily my favourite thing in gaming.

I just realised I forgot to include Tiny-Huge Island in the stage layout job for SMSB yesterday - welp, guess that's one of next week's misc jobs sorted.

I absolutely love how much crossover fanart exists between Dragon Ball Z and The Critic.

Credit to ronnieraccoon and JaySherman93

While I don't want this to be the case, I have a feeling Rocko's alt in NASB will be his yellow self from the Trash-O-Madness pilot. My personal choice would be either his "cool, not cute" skating gear from Mama's Boy or just giving him drowsy eyes like in Day of the Flecko though.

Semi-related fun fact: Rocko's pilgrim outfit from Attack of the Toybots technically doesn't appear in the show - it appears in the title card of the Turkey Time episode, but he never wears it in a digetic context. Ed, however, does wear a pilgrim outfit in that episode.

Windy Hill is probably the best big stage in Smash so far, but it gets a (partially justified) bad rep for looking bland and originating from a divisive game. I feel it could reskinned to basically any classic Sonic zone (not named Marble; Labyrinth; Lava Reef; or Sandopolis at least) and the layout would still make sense - like, yeah, there's the anti-gravity mechanic, but you barely notice that's a thing when playing and it doesn't even effect some projectiles.

We're submitting a Daisy alt to replace our pre-maturely added Battle League alt, and layouts for stages from Tropical Freeze and Bowser's Fury! Also voting on two new stages and music for the Mario movie stage.

It's funny how, despite being a devoted Smash fan site, this place is also the only place where you can criticise SSBU for reasons that aren't just certain pieces of content being absent or certain games not being referenced without being crucified.

Clown (Noone knows why)

oh my god the phrasing

I got Pac-Man Museum Plus. Haven't played every game, but I will say that Pac in Time is godawful - I can see why those furries were so furious.

Every single thing Reggie has said since he started the publicity tour for his book has been more and more cringe

I'd had Google misinterpret my searches before, but not to this degree. How does this even happen.

CITV execs right now:

still mad at smash remix for that god damn todd snap mewtwo bait and switch

EX-****ING-CUSE ME?

pac man's daughter is now his sister

I got two stages into Infinite and they're both mansions from games about hunting treasure.

Even if I'm tired of the "twisted childhood" trope, I am glad people are finally exercising their legal right to public domain Pooh

Yoshi's Island is simultaniously a really overrated and really underrated game - on one hand, I don't necessarilly agree with its "Miyamoto magnum opus" reputation, but on the other I feel it's a game more people should be taking inspiration from like how Wario Land 4 inspired games are becoming more popular, and Nintendo fans should have higher expectations for future Yoshi titles to at least try to reach Island's peaks.

It's weird how whenever I criticise Smash, people assume I'm just saying I want Smash to be more like NASB. On one hand, I like that reputation as "the spunch bop game guy", but on the other I do want to discuss Smash's problems as their own thing without people assuming the medicine I have in mind is orange and slimy.

After we gave Goku a non-0 percent on the NASB RTC, I feel I greatly overestimated the confidence there'd be in the Expired Cow

I have now officially written the longest known serious, analytical piece related to "The Expired Cow" in human history.

If Sega hadn't had their supposed falling out with Evening Star, I feel Mania 2 and Frontiers should've had swapped budgets and scopes compared to Mania 1 and Forces - especially when it coems to advertising.

It really annoys me when people say the toxic nature of Smash speculation is just "bad apples" or "people taking it too seriously" when literally everything about Smash's marketing - intentionally or otherwise - directly encourages this kind of behaviour and extreme parasocial attachment

I find it fun to work with franchises and characters I'm not familiar with in creation threads, especially for stages. Trying to immerse yourself in a universe you have no attachment to and capture the vibe and tropes - I think the ambiguity of unfamiliarity gels well especially, since you can take the blanks you've filled in, look up if they fit in the canon, and reshape it for a good mixture of original and canon.

i almost mispelled "thanks!" as "thanos!"

Every time I see a meta-narriative based on cartoons like the Chip N' Dale movie or Pibby, my first thought is always "How does Itchy & Scratchy work in this?"