Snot Man
Smash Cadet
Hello, Smash fans! It’s not quite Japan Time Time again yet. But rest assured that an international team of experts is working hard, ’round the clock, to make sure that you’ll soon see the next entry in this thrilling saga! But until then, you might be wondering about the origins of this series. Wait, you think. It has origins? That’s right, it does!
Every week, in parallel to your regular, present-time Japan Time Time updates, we’ll be going back in time to revisit the weeks long past. So every week, you’ll see one entry about the latest updates, and two or three entries stuck together covering the ones that came long before. All this time travel leaving you confused? Well… You may think of time as a strict progression from cause to effect, but it’s really more of a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. There. I’m sure it’s all clear now.
If you’re afraid of those days, back when we didn’t know what the Subspace Emissary was, never considered the thought of a playable Ivysaur and weren’t even sure whether we could play the game in widescreen or not, don’t panic!
The time-travelling Phase Distorter from Earthbound (that thing here: <img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" alt="I'm the Phase Distorter, of the 'Earthbound' series of games featuring some very strange characters. Hello." />) will be coming along to let me comment on things here and there. Consider it a bit like watching DVD commentary of an old show that hasn’t <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard">grown the beard</a> quite yet. Either that or reading an old comic strip and seeing everyone drawn crudely and making jokes about Ultimate Online or Quake II instead of, say, anything else. But there will be a mysterious treasure at the end waiting for you if you stick around! Now, please hold on to something, and make sure you don’t accidentally kill your ancestors!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>First, what you have to understand is that I used to post these things on LiveJournal for a few friends of mine. Those are the rather humble beginnings of something that, as you probably saw already, got a lot more random and, um, long-winded. I’ll be hitting my stride soon, but for now, don’t be alarmed by the fact that I can stick to a single paragraph to describe a simple Dojo entry, and rarely start talking about old TV shows out of nowhere. To immerse yourself better, imagine this being written with mediocre picture quality and bad 80s haircuts.</em>
<strong>Prologue: A New Beginning</strong>
Before I begin, I’d like to take a bit of time to set up the context in which we found ourselves as the blog launched, as well as explain the “Japan Time” that I name the blog after from time to time. You can skip if you know all that crap already!
We are in the middle of May 2006. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third installment in the positively awesome Nintendo crossover fighting game franchise, had been announced with much fanfare, and <a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/movies/movie01.html">the awesome first trailer</a> was shown at E3, showing some old returning favorites in their new incarnations, several new characters both expected and less expected, all set to the Nobuo-composed main game theme, and ending with the humorous and surprising reveal of a new playable character, Solid Snake. Snake, being a third-party character not created by Nintendo, was a first in the series, and his presence implied that some very, very awesome things could very well be on the way….
Flash forward one year later. May 2007. News about the game has been very scarce, and the itsy-bitsy tiny website hasn’t updated in months due to the creator’s wishes to focus on development. A <a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/movies/movie02.html">new trailer</a> was shown at Nintendo World in November, but failed to be half as interesting as its predecessor: it only showed glimpses of new stages and moves in action, and its big reveal was that Fox, who had been a starter character in the two previous games, would be in this one too! Whoop dee freaking doo. The community despaired, and fans, finally getting sick of writing “Who would you like to see in the game?” lists on GameFAQs, were about to wither away and die.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>If you weren’t about to wither away and die at the time, good for you, but boy, did I get dehydrated back in those days.</em>
Enter Japan Time.
Sometime in the middle of the month, the tiny and neglected website was taken down, with a cryptic countdown instead taking its place. The site, it seemed, would reopen in seven days. Manic fans of the game wet their pants seeing this, letting their imaginations run wild. What would be next? A new trailer? The full initial playable roster being confirmed? A release date? Neat character bios? <em>Anything?</em> The only solution was to wait. And wait we did. Day after day, we saw the numbers going down, eagerly awaiting the Monday where the site was to reopen, but checking the site ever day anyway, <em>just in case</em> it had skipped a number or something. Finally, the day came. Finally, at midnight, Japan time, people refreshed the site obsessively, hoping to finally see the new site in its glorious form. However, this is what we saw.
“Site launching today!! (Japan time)”
What? WHAT?! In the immortal words of the Angry Video Game Nerd and myself on that day, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS!” We had to be patient again. And we had no countdown to base ourselves on this time. But we knew. Oh, we knew. The site would be updating within 24 hours (Japan time, remember!), and it would have all been worth the wait. Sakurai was toying with us, but it would all pay off in the end. Right? <em>Right?</em> Hour after hour, we checked, getting even more anxious as business hours in Japan resumed, and hopefully there would be someone awake to press the site-launching button. Hours passed. People went to sleep, for the same message taunted them as they refreshed. But finally, at 3 AM, EST, a message sighted on the oddly silent GameFAQs message boards was seen. “it’s updated. go go go!”, it said.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>As has been pointed out in my previous entry’s comments, “Japan Time” has become a 4chan meme because of this. I don’t really hang out much at all around imageboards myself, but, having a few friends who do, the phrase entered my personal lingo. I’ll probably never call it “Japan tiem”, though.</em>
We pressed Refresh. It was the beginning of a new era. And also…
<strong>Week #1: May 22nd to 25th, 2007
The Aforementioned New Beginning</strong>
The site was really a blog of sorts. And it would update <em>daily</em>! Terrible torture method for fans, or brilliant strategy? The jury is still out. What is certain is that many were disappointed that night, but after the pain subsided, many, including myself, were glad to be able to wake up, ever weekday, with a new tidbit of info about the game they wanted for so long. Every day, something new would be inside the mystery box. Would it be a new car, or a single old penny? Thrilling, isn’t it? To give us a taste of what was to come, the site, dubbed Japan Time by fans ever since, gave us three updates for the price of one to give us a taste of things to come.
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/list/old_list01.html"><strong>Day #1: Update #1: The Basic Rules</strong></a>
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Notice how I number days and updates. That was pretty neat, but it got bothersome after a while. When JTT moved to this blog, I decided to drop them so as not to confuse people too much. Heaven knows the latter entries can get very confusing by themselves already. If people want me to start numbering them again, though, I can always do that.</em>
The very first thing we saw was this. An explanation of things every single person who had cared to stay up ’till 3 AM for this knew about. This, more than anything else, may have played the biggest part in the update’s general slap to the face. But nevertheless, it amused me, if only for the line at the end. “If you had to call it something, I’d say it’s almost like a sport.” I don’t know if Sakurai himself wrote those updates, only to have them translated by someone at Nintendo of America/Europe, but something about the tone of some of the updates came across as something resembling a lot the typical Japanese super-politeness. It’s hard to explain, but something about the tone of them, along with the few jokes sprinkled in, just makes me smile. This, sometimes, was the only thing that made me forgive some lesser updates.
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage01.html"><strong>Day #1: Update #2: Battlefield</strong></a>
This was a slightly more interesting bit of update! (Slightly.) This was to be the beginning of an odd trend in the first few revealed arenas, in that it had no real gimmick or weird layout eccentricity, but the background changed as time passed, thankfully making the stage not too dull for people watching tournament enthusiasts playing. (I might elaborate on those in a later update. Please look forward to it, thank you for the food and this feels so nostalgic!) And finally, we were able to confirm that this arena, often sighted in the two trailers, wasn’t meant to be taken from any particular game. Look, we didn’t have a lot of stuff to do regarding the game back then. We speculated on <em>that</em> instead of going on with our lives. Truly, this update was the beginning of a new era!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>The original entry used a, um, less polite term for tournament enthusiasts. I don’t have any actual beef with Smash tournamentgoers at all, what with my brother being a more “serious” player and my not having killed him yet. I’ll poke fun at the “hardcore tournament player” stereotype a bit in latter updates, but keep in mind that they’re tongue in cheek, even though, wow, I almost sound dead serious in these old entries.</em>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/music/music01.html"><strong>Day #1: Update #3: The Musicians</strong></a>
Somehow, this may be the most interesting update of the three. Seeing all those composers (possibly big-name, but really, who gives a crap about VG music composers, aside from maybe Nobuo Uematsu? Please sit down if you DO care, though.) alongside with the names of the games they worked on (the only identifying feature, really) was great speculation fuel. Would the guy who did Cho Aniki music reprise music from that game? Would the guy who did music for the Everybody Votes Channel write the theme for some insane stage based on Wii channels? Would the Killer 7 be appearing in the game? What the crap was Kamaitachi no Yoru 2? HOLY CRAP, YOKO SHIMOMURA AKA THE KINGDOM HEARTS GUY (Edit: WAIT, NOT-GUY)? Wait, what, Digital Pinball? Give us a break?
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Welp, I was partially right about the Everybody Votes Channel thing, at least.</em>
BUT! That’s not all. The remixed Menu 1 theme from the previous game was waiting for us at the end, and succeeded at sending a chill down the spine of many a Smash Fan. At last, we would be able to go to sleep with our hearts at rest despite the disappointment.
DAY #1 RATING: Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/mario.html"><strong>Day #2: Update #4: Mario</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/link.html"><strong>Day #2: Update #5: Link</strong></a>
Look! Two updates for the price of one! However, they continued the unfortunate trend of the previous day’s How To Play update, telling us things we all knew already. Even people who hadn’t watched the trailers had… probably guessed that Mario and Link would be returning, for some reason! But at the very least, this gave us new screenshots, pretty character art, and gave us some hope for the future. Hey, we said! If they get all the characters we know about already out the way quickly, then they’ll be able to tell us about the new ones! We… weren’t entirely wrong, but we’d have to wait some time before our hopes crystallized themselves. Plus, this led us to believe that we might have a two-update a day schedule. Sadly, that was not to be either. But let’s not dwell on that, shall we?
DAY #2 RATING: Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/item01.html"><strong>Day #3: Update #6: Gooey Bomb</strong></a>
Oh man. This update. It at least had the distinction of not being something we knew already, but… Sadly, Brawl seems to have taken the habit of creating odd items out of whole cloth, instead of pulling them from any particular game. All right, I guess. The first two games had fun things like the beam sword and ray gun, but… These may have taken things too far. The Gooey bomb, unfortunately named after but not related to a Kirby character I really like for some reason, was… lame. Okay, it might be fun to see in action, but… it just came at a bad time.
Some hopefuls, like me, thought there would be days like this, shrugged, and moved on, hoping the next day would close the week on a higher note. But the rest… Well, I often say “we”, here, but I don’t know about everyone else. As far as I know, people may very well have been drawn to suicide because of the Gooey Bomb. Maybe someone took the developers’ families hostage, stood atop the Nintendo Building in Japan with a beam sword in hand, pointed at Ms. Iwata, Grandpa Miyamoto and Masahiro Jr., saying on live television that if they didn’t update with some crap they cared about, they would not be held accountable for their actions. But obviously, either the developers were soulless monsters, or the very best Super Robots were immediately sent to deal with the hostage crisis, because as far as I could tell, the update remained unchanged.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Just in case, I checked and they still didn’t delete the Gooey Bomb entry. Maybe someone oughta email them…</em>
DAY #3 RATING: One Smash Icon out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
(It did have the redeeming feature of being something <em>new</em>.)
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/pit.html"><strong>Day #4: Update #7: Pit</strong></a>
This was no “Sonic Confirmed Playable” by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m betting some of the people who died the previous day punched out of their grave, regretting their mistake, because they had been reminded that Pit would be playable in this game. Once AGAIN, this was absolutely nothing new, but hey, anything so we wouldn’t stare at the Gooey Bomb for any longer. Once again, the neat character portraits somehow made those paper-thin updates more tolerable. And hey, we now knew Pit’s arrows could be controllable! Just what we needed! A new PK Thunder! Ahem.
DAY #4 RATING: Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
<strong>WEEK #1 OVERALL RATING:</strong> Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
Certainly not the grand opening we expected by any stretch of the imagination. This may have been made much more tolerable if there hadn’t been so much fanfare about it to begin with, or if they at least dropped a minor bomb on us to let us know that, yes, the blog would have some surprises in store that wouldn’t make us jump out the window. Not a terrible week, really, but not the best by any stretch. (This first update of mine was probably not my best either, by the way. Sorry if that’s the case! I promise to make it up to you for the next one, when I do it.)
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>All right! That’s it for Week #1. But hey, wait! Don’t get up just yet! The credits haven’t even started rolling. We still have two weeks’ worth of material. You can take a pee break for now, but be sure to come back after that! Things get… a little more interesting here.</em>
<strong>Week #2: May 20th to June 1st, 2007</strong>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/pit.html#2nd"><strong>Day #5: Entry #8: Pit: Special Moves</strong></a>
<em>In actuality, though, Pit is an angel who cannot ordinarily fly.</em>
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Historical first sighting on an italicized Sakurai quote! On those columns, at least.</em>
We left off the previous Friday with an entry about Pit. This one rewards the first of several weekend-long waits by teaching us about two of Pit’s special moves. This had the unfortunate implication of implying that there would have to be <em>two</em> of those types of update if they wanted to cover a character’s entire special moveset. And even if they DID update with the entire moveset at once, it might come out as a little underwhelming, especially for characters whose moves we already <em>know</em>. Concerning the update itself, there isn’t much here to complain about, aside from the typical lack of substance that many of those early entries share. Pit shoots the prettiest arrows ever (which can be controlled, as revealed in the entry just prior), and his Up+B allows him to fly in a way probably similar to Kirby or Jigglypuff. Woo! I can’t wait to play as him now!
<strong>DAY #5 RATING:</strong> 2 Mushrooms out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>I used different rating icons for each week back then! I eventually dropped this as I ran out of cool, new icons. Maybe a new scoring system would be nice? Taking suggestions!</em>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic02.html"><strong>Day #6: Entry #9: What is a Final Smash?</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/mario.html#3rd"><strong>Day #6: Entry #10: What is a Final Smash?</strong></a>
<em>I-I… I want it!</em>
Oooooh, yes. Finally, the dullness takes a break, and I can finally give a score about two! The strange item seen in the first trailer, which allowed Mario, Link and Kirby to execute some dramatic-looking super moves, has its name revealed (the Smash Ball!), as is said super moves’. (the FINAL SMASH! Which may, depending on the character, deserve a “F*** yeah!”) Players are advised to “look forward to the glowing personality” behind each one. Oh, you wacky Japanese. (It’s funny because the characters glow when they grab the balls, see! Heehee, balls.)
As an example, Mario’s Final Smash, also seen in the trailer, is commented on. This move may or may not be the most badass thing Mario has ever done, and it goes “Bam! Bam! BambambambamBAM!” Now, as long as he doesn’t let his dark killing intent spirit (or something) take over, we can take comfort in the fact that he is, in fact, on our side.
Once again, stuff we knew already, but this heavily compensated by being one of the coolest and less well-defined new aspects of the game so far.
<strong>DAY #6 RATING:</strong> 4 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic02.html"><strong>Day #7: Entry #11: Moving and Shooting</strong></a>
<em>Freedom and ease of use have gotten a real upgrade.</em>
Aaaaaand right back into the two-icon manure pile. Ugh. I HATE manure! The worst part is that I might have been a bit more tolerant if that update had been about the Super Scope. I totally dig the Super Scope, and so should you! It’s a real-life accessory-turned-video game item that looks totally rad, and… huh… looks totally rad! I never USED the thing, but I think one could basically reach the pinnacle of cool by using an arsenal of a Zapper, Power Glove, Super Scope and the… huh… Mouse! I don’t care that it’d be an unresponsive mess that takes four hands and a constant supply of batteries and controller sockets, either! All right, off with this tangent. Where was I at? Oh yeah. Wario’s holding the Super Scope is a weird way, and, get this, he’s running around! This is actually kind of cool for beamspammers like me, but, as my brother put it, this is <em>not</em> really something to update about. Disappointment like this is a common theme in early Japan Time entries. (I, for the record, am looking forward to the more recent entries, where glee and soul-crushing despair follow each other closely, instead of constant “meh” as seen here. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! I’ve started another tangent AND I’m in parenthesis! What a world.)
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>I was writing this from a brighter, happier future when the game had not been delayed yet. Witness the carefree innocence in this child’s eyes!</em>
<strong>DAY #7 RATING:</strong> 2 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/item02.html"><strong>Day #8: Entry #12: Cracker Launcher</strong></a>
<em>You can also aim the launcher at different angles by tilting the Control Stick up or down.</em>
Remember what I said about the Gooey Bomb? Stuff like THIS is what’s wrong with today’s generation. I’m not sure how, exactly, that works, but I’m pretty sure Mario holding the Cracker Launcher here is somehow responsible for most of teen drug addictions and cancer. Look! They’ve created another projectile weapon for no particular reason! They could’ve used some kind of heavy artillery from, I dunno, Advance Wars or Metal Gear, at the very least. But nope! They had to go with something more whimsical that exploded into fireworks.
Maybe this is all a plot to make the game more comical and family-friendly. In other words, applying Nintendo’s recent mantra and catering to the casual gamer (to the exclusion of everyone else, long-time players might add…). So yes, following that logic, second-hand casual gaming, caught from standing too close to your grandma or little sister while she plays Wii Boxing, might give you cancer.
Man, I wish that thing was a container of retromutagen ooze. It’s what it <em>looked</em> like!
<strong>DAY #8 RATING:</strong> 1 Mushroom out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage02.html"><strong>Day #9: Entry #13: Delfino Plaza</strong></a>
<em>After a thrilling landing, it becomes a normal battle stage.</em>
Hey! It’s something taken from a video game! I hear this is supposed to be some kind of crossover! Anyhoo, yes. Delfino Plaza! The hub taken from the GameCube game, Super Mario Sunshine! I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I liked that game a lot. This may be because I never played much of Mario 64 in the first place, which let me judge it by its own merits or something. The only truly sad things about it were the subsequent overexposure of new characters Bowser Jr. (who, while not so bad, also had some old-school siblings to fill the, well, Bowser Jr. slot) and truly ******** recurring boss Petey Pirahna. (I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE him! Pay attention, this will become important later.)
Oh wow. I went on a tangent again, better start a new paragraph! This stage has a similar gimmick to the Battlefield from the week before, or, more accurately, Mute City in SSBM. The platform you fight on moves from place to place, landing and sticking around for a while before taking you somewhere else on your tour of the island. The only particularly sad part is that the stage isn’t Delfino <em>Island</em>, thus limiting your tourist trip to the game’s main area. Not a very exciting stage, but a little more interesting than what else we had seen so far, after all!
<strong>DAY #9 RATING:</strong> 3 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<strong>WEEK #2 OVERALL RATING:</strong> 3 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
The first full week of updates! The blog is officially underway, showing us a bit of everything, and a healthy balance of crappy and good updates. Wait, wait, never mind that. I don’t <em>want</em> crappy updates! Bah. In any case, a little more satisfying than Week #1! Which is not very hard, but gotta start somewhere, after all.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>We’re two thirds of the way through! I’ve started blabbing more about pointless things here, but there is a terrible lack of images in there, isn’t it? For now, I can only suggest booting up MS Paint and drawing your own! That’s right! This is an interactive article series. But don’t worry. Things get gradually more lively.</em>
<strong>WEEK #3: June 4th to June 8th</strong>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/music/music02.html"><strong>Day #10: Entry #14: Yoshi’s Story: Ending</strong></a>
<em>It’s enough to make a guy cry at the end.</em>
I dunno, man. Has anyone ever looked at Yoshi and gone “The ending theme to his N64 game immediately comes to mind”? It’s basically a remix of the main theme, which helps it not come across as TOO obscure. But hey, let’s face it, I’m pretty sure the world is split between people who have NEVER played Yoshi’s Story, and people who have beat Yoshi’s Story in a single rental. What boggles my mind, though, is why they put so much emphasis on Yoshi’s Story, which didn’t really do that well as far as I know, instead of Yoshi’s Island, which was less cutesy but much more awesome on several levels. And do we see remixes of THAT one? Well, we really should, shouldn’t we? Get on that!
Either way, decent song, and the comments, implying that they shouldn’t tease at Yoshi being in the game when he’s not confirmed yet (at least I THINK that’s what they mean), amused me. You may notice that I tend to be nicer to music entries than the rest, but hey. I like music entries. Unlike several others, they often have a minute’s worth of content or so!
<strong>DAY #10 RATING:</strong> 3 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/mball/mball01.html"><strong>Day #11: Entry #15: What are Poke Balls?</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/mball/mball02.html"><strong>Day #11: Entry #16: Groudon</strong></a>
<em>It… It’s HUGE!</em>
I hope my body can take it…
This is another one of those double updates where the first would have been a crime, had it been posted alone. But luckily, the refresher about Pokeballs (hint: the red and white things that too waaaaaay too much of the spotlight and trophy slots in Melee) is accompanied by a newcomer to the Pop Out And Kill You roster. Groudon! I didn’t really bother with the third gen of Pokemon, really, but I sometimes do things like look at game box art, so he was still recognizable. Here, old Groud doesn’t appear to do much but stand around giving people the Touch of Death, but at least he’s HUGE enough to look neat and imposing doing so. Pay attention, by the way! This is the beginning of a weird running gag. For some reason, this game features several huge things. I’m not opposed to that, note!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>It’s a little bit weird to comment on myself from the future, when my past self can already predict things ahead of time like that. Creepy and weird. But yeah, like mini-me here said, a legend starts here! A legend of quoting very stupid (but arguably really funny) videos from the “Over 9000!” guy.</em>
<strong>DAY #11 RATING:</strong> 3 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic03.html"><strong>Day #12: Entry #17: You must recover!</strong></a>
<em>This is when you use your midair jump!</em>
THIS may possibly be the worst entry in the blog’s history.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>We’ve had some strong contenders lately, but I think that might still be true.</em>
It seems every week has a weaker entry that I feel obliged to mock with as much comic hyperbole as possible, but this one actually seriously sucks. It’s nice to take time to teach people the basics of your game, but, well. Couldn’t they have covered that in a separate section where they explain the game’s basics instead of dripping them drop-by-drop like everything else? I can understand padding out updates, but this is just scraping the very bottom of the barrel. Six year olds who even looked at the previous two games know that stuff already! The didn’t have to wait two weeks to learn it, either. As for people who DIDN’T know, well… I’m no expert, but I’m FAIRLY sure anyone who now suddenly gives two flips about the upcoming game enough to check on the blog regularly at all isn’t really interested in learning basic gameplay features over the months.
AAAAAAAAAAH! I AM FILLED WITH IMPOTENT NERDY RAGE!! Gotta take it out somehow!
<strong>DAY #12 RATING:</strong> 0 Pokeballs out of 5
<strong>NADA.</strong>
THERE.
Man, I was looking forward to that one so much. I pictured it more spectacular. There should’ve been, I dunno. A riot. a car exploding or something. Wait.
<p align="center"><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/carexplodesoi7.png" alt="FREAKING FINALLY! Those old images rarely had alt text, by the way. This means you'll see some new material in here too!" />
<strong>I’ve got to reach the ledge!</strong>
Phew… that was a close one. Staying away from hazards like these is the key to survival.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Gasp…! An image!</em>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/kirby.html"><strong>Day #13: Entry #18: Kirby</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/pikachu.html"><strong>Day #13: Entry #19: Pikachu</strong></a>
<em>This is Kirby, Warp Star-riding citizen of Dream Land who can suck up anything.</em>
I don’t really like commenting on those updates where they show nothing but characters we know about already. Gotta do it sooner or later, I guess, but they’re still insubstantial like a lot of the early entries. I guess the screenshots are okay, but they’re just that: okay. It’s great that gaming websites are getting buckets and bucket of screenshots coming in at a steady pace like that but I sort of doubt the rest of the world cares.
I’m aware that the only way to make those updates interesting would be to either pair them off with something better or make them <em>triple</em> updates, but they don’t get a free pass because of that!
<strong>DAY #13 RATING:</strong> 2 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/various/various01.html"><strong>Day #14: Entry #20: Four kinds of control</strong></a>
<em>I like the feel of that powerful rumble.</em>
Those who looked down might wonder why I gave a sort of boring entry such a good score. Well, as you may notice sooner or later, I’m not a metagame kind of guy, so gameplay details don’t bother me, but “how are we gonna play the game, anyway?” has been a question on players’ lips since the game’s announcement. The only thing we knew is that we shouldn’t throw away those GameCube controllers yet, which is fine by me, but must have caused a few people to start digging around their trash can… or purchase a GameCube, maybe. Woah, Nintendo’s marketing ploys are wilier than I thought.
Either way, we now know that we can play the game in <em>every imaginable way</em>. Awesome! I’m curious to see how each will work out with actual Wiimotes in hand, especially since Smash isn’t the same without some tight, intuitive controls and whatnot, but we’re talking about PROFESSIONALS here!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>I hear the Wiimote controls awkwardly. Maybe my past self doesn’t know EVERYTHING, after all. HA! Take that!</em>
<strong>DAY #14 RATING:</strong> 4 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<strong>WEEK #3 OVERALL RATING:</strong> 3 Pokeballs out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
Some neater updates this week as well as, once again, crappy filler. It ends on a rather high note, granting it a thumbs up from me, and hope for the next week!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Aaaaaaand, okay, we can go back to the future, now. Typing in italics like that is exhausting.</em>
Thanks for sticking around for this whole super-long entry! As a reward for being brave enough to face all this tl;dr, you win… nothing! Absolutely nothing! You thought you’d get to a treasure of gold and diamonds, or at least a cheesy lesson about perseverance being the greatest treasure of all, but nope. I lied to you. Oh, and before I forget. Did you kill any of your ancestors while in the past? Not sure? Take this simple test. Hold up your hand in front of you. Is it starting to fade out gradually? If not, congratulations! You’re still part of the timeline! If you’re not, then I hope you’ll enjoy spending eternity chilling by a lamppost at the End of Time.
Stay tuned next week (after the regular JTT update, I mean) for screw balls, my second shortest review ever, and a special visit from four guys who are sometimes enthusiastic and sometimes not! (Man, again with the 4chan memes. I don’t know either.)
Every week, in parallel to your regular, present-time Japan Time Time updates, we’ll be going back in time to revisit the weeks long past. So every week, you’ll see one entry about the latest updates, and two or three entries stuck together covering the ones that came long before. All this time travel leaving you confused? Well… You may think of time as a strict progression from cause to effect, but it’s really more of a great big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. There. I’m sure it’s all clear now.
If you’re afraid of those days, back when we didn’t know what the Subspace Emissary was, never considered the thought of a playable Ivysaur and weren’t even sure whether we could play the game in widescreen or not, don’t panic!
The time-travelling Phase Distorter from Earthbound (that thing here: <img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" alt="I'm the Phase Distorter, of the 'Earthbound' series of games featuring some very strange characters. Hello." />) will be coming along to let me comment on things here and there. Consider it a bit like watching DVD commentary of an old show that hasn’t <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrowingTheBeard">grown the beard</a> quite yet. Either that or reading an old comic strip and seeing everyone drawn crudely and making jokes about Ultimate Online or Quake II instead of, say, anything else. But there will be a mysterious treasure at the end waiting for you if you stick around! Now, please hold on to something, and make sure you don’t accidentally kill your ancestors!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>First, what you have to understand is that I used to post these things on LiveJournal for a few friends of mine. Those are the rather humble beginnings of something that, as you probably saw already, got a lot more random and, um, long-winded. I’ll be hitting my stride soon, but for now, don’t be alarmed by the fact that I can stick to a single paragraph to describe a simple Dojo entry, and rarely start talking about old TV shows out of nowhere. To immerse yourself better, imagine this being written with mediocre picture quality and bad 80s haircuts.</em>
<strong>Prologue: A New Beginning</strong>
Before I begin, I’d like to take a bit of time to set up the context in which we found ourselves as the blog launched, as well as explain the “Japan Time” that I name the blog after from time to time. You can skip if you know all that crap already!
We are in the middle of May 2006. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third installment in the positively awesome Nintendo crossover fighting game franchise, had been announced with much fanfare, and <a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/movies/movie01.html">the awesome first trailer</a> was shown at E3, showing some old returning favorites in their new incarnations, several new characters both expected and less expected, all set to the Nobuo-composed main game theme, and ending with the humorous and surprising reveal of a new playable character, Solid Snake. Snake, being a third-party character not created by Nintendo, was a first in the series, and his presence implied that some very, very awesome things could very well be on the way….
Flash forward one year later. May 2007. News about the game has been very scarce, and the itsy-bitsy tiny website hasn’t updated in months due to the creator’s wishes to focus on development. A <a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/movies/movie02.html">new trailer</a> was shown at Nintendo World in November, but failed to be half as interesting as its predecessor: it only showed glimpses of new stages and moves in action, and its big reveal was that Fox, who had been a starter character in the two previous games, would be in this one too! Whoop dee freaking doo. The community despaired, and fans, finally getting sick of writing “Who would you like to see in the game?” lists on GameFAQs, were about to wither away and die.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>If you weren’t about to wither away and die at the time, good for you, but boy, did I get dehydrated back in those days.</em>
Enter Japan Time.
Sometime in the middle of the month, the tiny and neglected website was taken down, with a cryptic countdown instead taking its place. The site, it seemed, would reopen in seven days. Manic fans of the game wet their pants seeing this, letting their imaginations run wild. What would be next? A new trailer? The full initial playable roster being confirmed? A release date? Neat character bios? <em>Anything?</em> The only solution was to wait. And wait we did. Day after day, we saw the numbers going down, eagerly awaiting the Monday where the site was to reopen, but checking the site ever day anyway, <em>just in case</em> it had skipped a number or something. Finally, the day came. Finally, at midnight, Japan time, people refreshed the site obsessively, hoping to finally see the new site in its glorious form. However, this is what we saw.
“Site launching today!! (Japan time)”
What? WHAT?! In the immortal words of the Angry Video Game Nerd and myself on that day, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS!” We had to be patient again. And we had no countdown to base ourselves on this time. But we knew. Oh, we knew. The site would be updating within 24 hours (Japan time, remember!), and it would have all been worth the wait. Sakurai was toying with us, but it would all pay off in the end. Right? <em>Right?</em> Hour after hour, we checked, getting even more anxious as business hours in Japan resumed, and hopefully there would be someone awake to press the site-launching button. Hours passed. People went to sleep, for the same message taunted them as they refreshed. But finally, at 3 AM, EST, a message sighted on the oddly silent GameFAQs message boards was seen. “it’s updated. go go go!”, it said.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>As has been pointed out in my previous entry’s comments, “Japan Time” has become a 4chan meme because of this. I don’t really hang out much at all around imageboards myself, but, having a few friends who do, the phrase entered my personal lingo. I’ll probably never call it “Japan tiem”, though.</em>
We pressed Refresh. It was the beginning of a new era. And also…
<strong>Week #1: May 22nd to 25th, 2007
The Aforementioned New Beginning</strong>
The site was really a blog of sorts. And it would update <em>daily</em>! Terrible torture method for fans, or brilliant strategy? The jury is still out. What is certain is that many were disappointed that night, but after the pain subsided, many, including myself, were glad to be able to wake up, ever weekday, with a new tidbit of info about the game they wanted for so long. Every day, something new would be inside the mystery box. Would it be a new car, or a single old penny? Thrilling, isn’t it? To give us a taste of what was to come, the site, dubbed Japan Time by fans ever since, gave us three updates for the price of one to give us a taste of things to come.
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/list/old_list01.html"><strong>Day #1: Update #1: The Basic Rules</strong></a>
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Notice how I number days and updates. That was pretty neat, but it got bothersome after a while. When JTT moved to this blog, I decided to drop them so as not to confuse people too much. Heaven knows the latter entries can get very confusing by themselves already. If people want me to start numbering them again, though, I can always do that.</em>
The very first thing we saw was this. An explanation of things every single person who had cared to stay up ’till 3 AM for this knew about. This, more than anything else, may have played the biggest part in the update’s general slap to the face. But nevertheless, it amused me, if only for the line at the end. “If you had to call it something, I’d say it’s almost like a sport.” I don’t know if Sakurai himself wrote those updates, only to have them translated by someone at Nintendo of America/Europe, but something about the tone of some of the updates came across as something resembling a lot the typical Japanese super-politeness. It’s hard to explain, but something about the tone of them, along with the few jokes sprinkled in, just makes me smile. This, sometimes, was the only thing that made me forgive some lesser updates.
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage01.html"><strong>Day #1: Update #2: Battlefield</strong></a>
This was a slightly more interesting bit of update! (Slightly.) This was to be the beginning of an odd trend in the first few revealed arenas, in that it had no real gimmick or weird layout eccentricity, but the background changed as time passed, thankfully making the stage not too dull for people watching tournament enthusiasts playing. (I might elaborate on those in a later update. Please look forward to it, thank you for the food and this feels so nostalgic!) And finally, we were able to confirm that this arena, often sighted in the two trailers, wasn’t meant to be taken from any particular game. Look, we didn’t have a lot of stuff to do regarding the game back then. We speculated on <em>that</em> instead of going on with our lives. Truly, this update was the beginning of a new era!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>The original entry used a, um, less polite term for tournament enthusiasts. I don’t have any actual beef with Smash tournamentgoers at all, what with my brother being a more “serious” player and my not having killed him yet. I’ll poke fun at the “hardcore tournament player” stereotype a bit in latter updates, but keep in mind that they’re tongue in cheek, even though, wow, I almost sound dead serious in these old entries.</em>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/music/music01.html"><strong>Day #1: Update #3: The Musicians</strong></a>
Somehow, this may be the most interesting update of the three. Seeing all those composers (possibly big-name, but really, who gives a crap about VG music composers, aside from maybe Nobuo Uematsu? Please sit down if you DO care, though.) alongside with the names of the games they worked on (the only identifying feature, really) was great speculation fuel. Would the guy who did Cho Aniki music reprise music from that game? Would the guy who did music for the Everybody Votes Channel write the theme for some insane stage based on Wii channels? Would the Killer 7 be appearing in the game? What the crap was Kamaitachi no Yoru 2? HOLY CRAP, YOKO SHIMOMURA AKA THE KINGDOM HEARTS GUY (Edit: WAIT, NOT-GUY)? Wait, what, Digital Pinball? Give us a break?
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Welp, I was partially right about the Everybody Votes Channel thing, at least.</em>
BUT! That’s not all. The remixed Menu 1 theme from the previous game was waiting for us at the end, and succeeded at sending a chill down the spine of many a Smash Fan. At last, we would be able to go to sleep with our hearts at rest despite the disappointment.
DAY #1 RATING: Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/mario.html"><strong>Day #2: Update #4: Mario</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/link.html"><strong>Day #2: Update #5: Link</strong></a>
Look! Two updates for the price of one! However, they continued the unfortunate trend of the previous day’s How To Play update, telling us things we all knew already. Even people who hadn’t watched the trailers had… probably guessed that Mario and Link would be returning, for some reason! But at the very least, this gave us new screenshots, pretty character art, and gave us some hope for the future. Hey, we said! If they get all the characters we know about already out the way quickly, then they’ll be able to tell us about the new ones! We… weren’t entirely wrong, but we’d have to wait some time before our hopes crystallized themselves. Plus, this led us to believe that we might have a two-update a day schedule. Sadly, that was not to be either. But let’s not dwell on that, shall we?
DAY #2 RATING: Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/item01.html"><strong>Day #3: Update #6: Gooey Bomb</strong></a>
Oh man. This update. It at least had the distinction of not being something we knew already, but… Sadly, Brawl seems to have taken the habit of creating odd items out of whole cloth, instead of pulling them from any particular game. All right, I guess. The first two games had fun things like the beam sword and ray gun, but… These may have taken things too far. The Gooey bomb, unfortunately named after but not related to a Kirby character I really like for some reason, was… lame. Okay, it might be fun to see in action, but… it just came at a bad time.
Some hopefuls, like me, thought there would be days like this, shrugged, and moved on, hoping the next day would close the week on a higher note. But the rest… Well, I often say “we”, here, but I don’t know about everyone else. As far as I know, people may very well have been drawn to suicide because of the Gooey Bomb. Maybe someone took the developers’ families hostage, stood atop the Nintendo Building in Japan with a beam sword in hand, pointed at Ms. Iwata, Grandpa Miyamoto and Masahiro Jr., saying on live television that if they didn’t update with some crap they cared about, they would not be held accountable for their actions. But obviously, either the developers were soulless monsters, or the very best Super Robots were immediately sent to deal with the hostage crisis, because as far as I could tell, the update remained unchanged.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Just in case, I checked and they still didn’t delete the Gooey Bomb entry. Maybe someone oughta email them…</em>
DAY #3 RATING: One Smash Icon out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
(It did have the redeeming feature of being something <em>new</em>.)
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/pit.html"><strong>Day #4: Update #7: Pit</strong></a>
This was no “Sonic Confirmed Playable” by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m betting some of the people who died the previous day punched out of their grave, regretting their mistake, because they had been reminded that Pit would be playable in this game. Once AGAIN, this was absolutely nothing new, but hey, anything so we wouldn’t stare at the Gooey Bomb for any longer. Once again, the neat character portraits somehow made those paper-thin updates more tolerable. And hey, we now knew Pit’s arrows could be controllable! Just what we needed! A new PK Thunder! Ahem.
DAY #4 RATING: Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
<strong>WEEK #1 OVERALL RATING:</strong> Two Smash Icons out of five!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_01.gif" />
Certainly not the grand opening we expected by any stretch of the imagination. This may have been made much more tolerable if there hadn’t been so much fanfare about it to begin with, or if they at least dropped a minor bomb on us to let us know that, yes, the blog would have some surprises in store that wouldn’t make us jump out the window. Not a terrible week, really, but not the best by any stretch. (This first update of mine was probably not my best either, by the way. Sorry if that’s the case! I promise to make it up to you for the next one, when I do it.)
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>All right! That’s it for Week #1. But hey, wait! Don’t get up just yet! The credits haven’t even started rolling. We still have two weeks’ worth of material. You can take a pee break for now, but be sure to come back after that! Things get… a little more interesting here.</em>
<strong>Week #2: May 20th to June 1st, 2007</strong>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/pit.html#2nd"><strong>Day #5: Entry #8: Pit: Special Moves</strong></a>
<em>In actuality, though, Pit is an angel who cannot ordinarily fly.</em>
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Historical first sighting on an italicized Sakurai quote! On those columns, at least.</em>
We left off the previous Friday with an entry about Pit. This one rewards the first of several weekend-long waits by teaching us about two of Pit’s special moves. This had the unfortunate implication of implying that there would have to be <em>two</em> of those types of update if they wanted to cover a character’s entire special moveset. And even if they DID update with the entire moveset at once, it might come out as a little underwhelming, especially for characters whose moves we already <em>know</em>. Concerning the update itself, there isn’t much here to complain about, aside from the typical lack of substance that many of those early entries share. Pit shoots the prettiest arrows ever (which can be controlled, as revealed in the entry just prior), and his Up+B allows him to fly in a way probably similar to Kirby or Jigglypuff. Woo! I can’t wait to play as him now!
<strong>DAY #5 RATING:</strong> 2 Mushrooms out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>I used different rating icons for each week back then! I eventually dropped this as I ran out of cool, new icons. Maybe a new scoring system would be nice? Taking suggestions!</em>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic02.html"><strong>Day #6: Entry #9: What is a Final Smash?</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/mario.html#3rd"><strong>Day #6: Entry #10: What is a Final Smash?</strong></a>
<em>I-I… I want it!</em>
Oooooh, yes. Finally, the dullness takes a break, and I can finally give a score about two! The strange item seen in the first trailer, which allowed Mario, Link and Kirby to execute some dramatic-looking super moves, has its name revealed (the Smash Ball!), as is said super moves’. (the FINAL SMASH! Which may, depending on the character, deserve a “F*** yeah!”) Players are advised to “look forward to the glowing personality” behind each one. Oh, you wacky Japanese. (It’s funny because the characters glow when they grab the balls, see! Heehee, balls.)
As an example, Mario’s Final Smash, also seen in the trailer, is commented on. This move may or may not be the most badass thing Mario has ever done, and it goes “Bam! Bam! BambambambamBAM!” Now, as long as he doesn’t let his dark killing intent spirit (or something) take over, we can take comfort in the fact that he is, in fact, on our side.
Once again, stuff we knew already, but this heavily compensated by being one of the coolest and less well-defined new aspects of the game so far.
<strong>DAY #6 RATING:</strong> 4 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic02.html"><strong>Day #7: Entry #11: Moving and Shooting</strong></a>
<em>Freedom and ease of use have gotten a real upgrade.</em>
Aaaaaand right back into the two-icon manure pile. Ugh. I HATE manure! The worst part is that I might have been a bit more tolerant if that update had been about the Super Scope. I totally dig the Super Scope, and so should you! It’s a real-life accessory-turned-video game item that looks totally rad, and… huh… looks totally rad! I never USED the thing, but I think one could basically reach the pinnacle of cool by using an arsenal of a Zapper, Power Glove, Super Scope and the… huh… Mouse! I don’t care that it’d be an unresponsive mess that takes four hands and a constant supply of batteries and controller sockets, either! All right, off with this tangent. Where was I at? Oh yeah. Wario’s holding the Super Scope is a weird way, and, get this, he’s running around! This is actually kind of cool for beamspammers like me, but, as my brother put it, this is <em>not</em> really something to update about. Disappointment like this is a common theme in early Japan Time entries. (I, for the record, am looking forward to the more recent entries, where glee and soul-crushing despair follow each other closely, instead of constant “meh” as seen here. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! I’ve started another tangent AND I’m in parenthesis! What a world.)
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>I was writing this from a brighter, happier future when the game had not been delayed yet. Witness the carefree innocence in this child’s eyes!</em>
<strong>DAY #7 RATING:</strong> 2 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/item02.html"><strong>Day #8: Entry #12: Cracker Launcher</strong></a>
<em>You can also aim the launcher at different angles by tilting the Control Stick up or down.</em>
Remember what I said about the Gooey Bomb? Stuff like THIS is what’s wrong with today’s generation. I’m not sure how, exactly, that works, but I’m pretty sure Mario holding the Cracker Launcher here is somehow responsible for most of teen drug addictions and cancer. Look! They’ve created another projectile weapon for no particular reason! They could’ve used some kind of heavy artillery from, I dunno, Advance Wars or Metal Gear, at the very least. But nope! They had to go with something more whimsical that exploded into fireworks.
Maybe this is all a plot to make the game more comical and family-friendly. In other words, applying Nintendo’s recent mantra and catering to the casual gamer (to the exclusion of everyone else, long-time players might add…). So yes, following that logic, second-hand casual gaming, caught from standing too close to your grandma or little sister while she plays Wii Boxing, might give you cancer.
Man, I wish that thing was a container of retromutagen ooze. It’s what it <em>looked</em> like!
<strong>DAY #8 RATING:</strong> 1 Mushroom out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/stages/stage02.html"><strong>Day #9: Entry #13: Delfino Plaza</strong></a>
<em>After a thrilling landing, it becomes a normal battle stage.</em>
Hey! It’s something taken from a video game! I hear this is supposed to be some kind of crossover! Anyhoo, yes. Delfino Plaza! The hub taken from the GameCube game, Super Mario Sunshine! I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I liked that game a lot. This may be because I never played much of Mario 64 in the first place, which let me judge it by its own merits or something. The only truly sad things about it were the subsequent overexposure of new characters Bowser Jr. (who, while not so bad, also had some old-school siblings to fill the, well, Bowser Jr. slot) and truly ******** recurring boss Petey Pirahna. (I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE him! Pay attention, this will become important later.)
Oh wow. I went on a tangent again, better start a new paragraph! This stage has a similar gimmick to the Battlefield from the week before, or, more accurately, Mute City in SSBM. The platform you fight on moves from place to place, landing and sticking around for a while before taking you somewhere else on your tour of the island. The only particularly sad part is that the stage isn’t Delfino <em>Island</em>, thus limiting your tourist trip to the game’s main area. Not a very exciting stage, but a little more interesting than what else we had seen so far, after all!
<strong>DAY #9 RATING:</strong> 3 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
<strong>WEEK #2 OVERALL RATING:</strong> 3 Mushrooms out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_10.gif" />
The first full week of updates! The blog is officially underway, showing us a bit of everything, and a healthy balance of crappy and good updates. Wait, wait, never mind that. I don’t <em>want</em> crappy updates! Bah. In any case, a little more satisfying than Week #1! Which is not very hard, but gotta start somewhere, after all.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>We’re two thirds of the way through! I’ve started blabbing more about pointless things here, but there is a terrible lack of images in there, isn’t it? For now, I can only suggest booting up MS Paint and drawing your own! That’s right! This is an interactive article series. But don’t worry. Things get gradually more lively.</em>
<strong>WEEK #3: June 4th to June 8th</strong>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/music/music02.html"><strong>Day #10: Entry #14: Yoshi’s Story: Ending</strong></a>
<em>It’s enough to make a guy cry at the end.</em>
I dunno, man. Has anyone ever looked at Yoshi and gone “The ending theme to his N64 game immediately comes to mind”? It’s basically a remix of the main theme, which helps it not come across as TOO obscure. But hey, let’s face it, I’m pretty sure the world is split between people who have NEVER played Yoshi’s Story, and people who have beat Yoshi’s Story in a single rental. What boggles my mind, though, is why they put so much emphasis on Yoshi’s Story, which didn’t really do that well as far as I know, instead of Yoshi’s Island, which was less cutesy but much more awesome on several levels. And do we see remixes of THAT one? Well, we really should, shouldn’t we? Get on that!
Either way, decent song, and the comments, implying that they shouldn’t tease at Yoshi being in the game when he’s not confirmed yet (at least I THINK that’s what they mean), amused me. You may notice that I tend to be nicer to music entries than the rest, but hey. I like music entries. Unlike several others, they often have a minute’s worth of content or so!
<strong>DAY #10 RATING:</strong> 3 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/mball/mball01.html"><strong>Day #11: Entry #15: What are Poke Balls?</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/items/mball/mball02.html"><strong>Day #11: Entry #16: Groudon</strong></a>
<em>It… It’s HUGE!</em>
I hope my body can take it…
This is another one of those double updates where the first would have been a crime, had it been posted alone. But luckily, the refresher about Pokeballs (hint: the red and white things that too waaaaaay too much of the spotlight and trophy slots in Melee) is accompanied by a newcomer to the Pop Out And Kill You roster. Groudon! I didn’t really bother with the third gen of Pokemon, really, but I sometimes do things like look at game box art, so he was still recognizable. Here, old Groud doesn’t appear to do much but stand around giving people the Touch of Death, but at least he’s HUGE enough to look neat and imposing doing so. Pay attention, by the way! This is the beginning of a weird running gag. For some reason, this game features several huge things. I’m not opposed to that, note!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>It’s a little bit weird to comment on myself from the future, when my past self can already predict things ahead of time like that. Creepy and weird. But yeah, like mini-me here said, a legend starts here! A legend of quoting very stupid (but arguably really funny) videos from the “Over 9000!” guy.</em>
<strong>DAY #11 RATING:</strong> 3 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/howto/basic/basic03.html"><strong>Day #12: Entry #17: You must recover!</strong></a>
<em>This is when you use your midair jump!</em>
THIS may possibly be the worst entry in the blog’s history.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>We’ve had some strong contenders lately, but I think that might still be true.</em>
It seems every week has a weaker entry that I feel obliged to mock with as much comic hyperbole as possible, but this one actually seriously sucks. It’s nice to take time to teach people the basics of your game, but, well. Couldn’t they have covered that in a separate section where they explain the game’s basics instead of dripping them drop-by-drop like everything else? I can understand padding out updates, but this is just scraping the very bottom of the barrel. Six year olds who even looked at the previous two games know that stuff already! The didn’t have to wait two weeks to learn it, either. As for people who DIDN’T know, well… I’m no expert, but I’m FAIRLY sure anyone who now suddenly gives two flips about the upcoming game enough to check on the blog regularly at all isn’t really interested in learning basic gameplay features over the months.
AAAAAAAAAAH! I AM FILLED WITH IMPOTENT NERDY RAGE!! Gotta take it out somehow!
<strong>DAY #12 RATING:</strong> 0 Pokeballs out of 5
<strong>NADA.</strong>
THERE.
Man, I was looking forward to that one so much. I pictured it more spectacular. There should’ve been, I dunno. A riot. a car exploding or something. Wait.
<p align="center"><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/carexplodesoi7.png" alt="FREAKING FINALLY! Those old images rarely had alt text, by the way. This means you'll see some new material in here too!" />
<strong>I’ve got to reach the ledge!</strong>
Phew… that was a close one. Staying away from hazards like these is the key to survival.
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Gasp…! An image!</em>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/kirby.html"><strong>Day #13: Entry #18: Kirby</strong></a>
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/pikachu.html"><strong>Day #13: Entry #19: Pikachu</strong></a>
<em>This is Kirby, Warp Star-riding citizen of Dream Land who can suck up anything.</em>
I don’t really like commenting on those updates where they show nothing but characters we know about already. Gotta do it sooner or later, I guess, but they’re still insubstantial like a lot of the early entries. I guess the screenshots are okay, but they’re just that: okay. It’s great that gaming websites are getting buckets and bucket of screenshots coming in at a steady pace like that but I sort of doubt the rest of the world cares.
I’m aware that the only way to make those updates interesting would be to either pair them off with something better or make them <em>triple</em> updates, but they don’t get a free pass because of that!
<strong>DAY #13 RATING:</strong> 2 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<a href="http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/various/various01.html"><strong>Day #14: Entry #20: Four kinds of control</strong></a>
<em>I like the feel of that powerful rumble.</em>
Those who looked down might wonder why I gave a sort of boring entry such a good score. Well, as you may notice sooner or later, I’m not a metagame kind of guy, so gameplay details don’t bother me, but “how are we gonna play the game, anyway?” has been a question on players’ lips since the game’s announcement. The only thing we knew is that we shouldn’t throw away those GameCube controllers yet, which is fine by me, but must have caused a few people to start digging around their trash can… or purchase a GameCube, maybe. Woah, Nintendo’s marketing ploys are wilier than I thought.
Either way, we now know that we can play the game in <em>every imaginable way</em>. Awesome! I’m curious to see how each will work out with actual Wiimotes in hand, especially since Smash isn’t the same without some tight, intuitive controls and whatnot, but we’re talking about PROFESSIONALS here!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>I hear the Wiimote controls awkwardly. Maybe my past self doesn’t know EVERYTHING, after all. HA! Take that!</em>
<strong>DAY #14 RATING:</strong> 4 Pokeballs out of 5
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
<strong>WEEK #3 OVERALL RATING:</strong> 3 Pokeballs out of 5!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" /><img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/world_w_08.gif" />
Some neater updates this week as well as, once again, crappy filler. It ends on a rather high note, granting it a thumbs up from me, and hope for the next week!
<img src="/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/phasedistorterfd1.png" /> <em>Aaaaaaand, okay, we can go back to the future, now. Typing in italics like that is exhausting.</em>
Thanks for sticking around for this whole super-long entry! As a reward for being brave enough to face all this tl;dr, you win… nothing! Absolutely nothing! You thought you’d get to a treasure of gold and diamonds, or at least a cheesy lesson about perseverance being the greatest treasure of all, but nope. I lied to you. Oh, and before I forget. Did you kill any of your ancestors while in the past? Not sure? Take this simple test. Hold up your hand in front of you. Is it starting to fade out gradually? If not, congratulations! You’re still part of the timeline! If you’re not, then I hope you’ll enjoy spending eternity chilling by a lamppost at the End of Time.
Stay tuned next week (after the regular JTT update, I mean) for screw balls, my second shortest review ever, and a special visit from four guys who are sometimes enthusiastic and sometimes not! (Man, again with the 4chan memes. I don’t know either.)
If it bothers you, pay no attention to the ratings. You probably won't be missing much.