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Super Smash Brothers Melee is art

YungBonesVillain

Smash Rookie
Joined
Sep 16, 2014
Messages
3
If you're willing to read, I am going to attempt to convince you that

1. games are an artistic medium
&
2. Super Smash Brothers Melee is a perfect example of an artistically beautiful game

To preface, I'd like to give my definition of the terms "game" and "art"

Taking inspiration from Plato and Wikipedia, I assert that art is defined as changing, arranging or enhancing elements from nature for the purposes of human consumption.

Second, I need to define “game.” Taking inspiration from Daniel Floyd (Extra Credits), I assert that a game can be defined as the combination of interactivity and another artistic medium.

I'm sure many people reading this are thinking that melee is a silly example to prove that games can be art. And they're partially right. Compared to modern games, Melee has poor audio and visual design and barely has a story at all.

Melee is downright ugly compared to a game such as Assassin's Creed Unity

But Melee is actually a perfect example to prove that games are an artistic medium. That's because games' artistic value comes from their mechanics. Similarly to how a picasso portrait enhances nature to make it more interesting, the mechanics of melee enhance the physical laws of nature to create a more interesting experience.
Melee has gravity, but you can also jump twice.
Melee's interactions happen in 3d but movement is limited to 2d.

Melee's physics engine allows things like doublejumping to enhance the experience. That's exactly what art is. An enhanced experienced based upon nature.

Melee is also well crafted. Similar to how the skill of a musician or a painter is evident in their work, a game's engine is evidence of the creator's skill. Melee's engine interacts with itself perfectly, even while being pushed to the limit. Wavedashing is a good example of this. The interaction between air and ground momentum that allows for wavedashing is proof of how robust the engine is. Not only does the game allow for this transfer of momentum, the ratio of speed transferred also changes from character to character. This is proof of the masterful design of a physics engine.

As a (small time) game developer myself I can attest to how impressive it is to design a physics engine that interacts with itself perfectly. Especially since the ways advanced players use the engine were not conceivable at the time of development.

melee is art. dispute me.

-known scrub of bedford
 
Last edited:

AirFair

Marth tho
Joined
Jul 1, 2014
Messages
1,972
Location
Houston, Texas
I'd just like to throw in Prog's classic quote
"Smash is Jazz"

Just comparing how you play melee towards other fighters makes it evident that it's so much greater in that aspect.
 

YungBonesVillain

Smash Rookie
Joined
Sep 16, 2014
Messages
3
I like to think the creativity and openness of the gameplay is partially why the robustness of the engine is so impressive.
 

leekslap

Smash Ace
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
581
Location
Trapped in a .gif
3DS FC
2294-4978-8399
Well although playstyles are kind of irrelavant, I have to agree. In other fighting games, playstyle is more subtle, but without tags or anything, I can tell the difference between Cactuar's Fox, Mango's Fox, and M2K's Fox. Mango's is off the wall aggresssive with devasting and creative combos you would never expect to work. M2K's is campy and simple yet effective. Cactuar's is smart, using positional advantage, spacing, and mindgames to it's full extent with a balance of camp and aggression ( leaning more to camp though ). But Fox has like 7 options for the most common of situations so of course there's going to be a discrepancy! OK, let's look to a more limited character like my main, Samus, so I will distinguish Wes, Darrell, and Plup. Wes would be the Mango of the group but not nearly as aggressive and he rarely missile cancels. Darrel has excellent spacing so he would be the Cactuar. Plup is patient with arguably the best mindgames and reads of the 3. Samus is not nearly as flexible as Fox but style is still clear. Still too versatile? Let's look at the worst character in the game: Kirby. Triple R spaces moves like fair, dair, and forward tilt and gets kills through his grab combos. Chudat camps and spams bair. M2K plays similar to Triple R and Chudat but gets kills through edgeguards and is more creative with his edgeguards. So style is in this game.
 
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