Who/What Inspires You?

[Cold-Water Wash]

Excuse the incredibly wimpy sounding title.

Basically, I just wanted to know how you all decided you wanted to get into competitive smash as a whole as well as who inspired you or what inspired you to pick up your current main.

For me, I took interest in competitive smash due to the surprisingly well made Smash Documentary on YouTube. I found it by sheer fluke and it caught my interest. My Wario main was inspired by none other than the Reflex Wonder. This was actually due less to his skill or the power of Wario, but actually the goofy way Reflex played his matches. There was gratuitous taunting, footstooling and other such nonsense that fit, in my mind, the embodiment of Wario as a character. In essence, I wanted to feel that sense of goofiness and fun in a setting that fostered a serious competitive vibe. I played Wario in Brawl (back before I realized that Melee was generally superior) and figured I would rock the treasure-hunting, microgame creating whack-job once again.



So I put the same question to you, fellow smashers: Who inspires you? What made you play smash? Who has gotten you to switch mains and why?

 

[MLGF]

I was always OK and I did develop a small reputation on a few small forums when I was younger in Online Brawl.
I played Brawl+ and found it fun, then years later I played Project M and I played online against a lot of people.

...Then... I kinda just quit.
Don't get me wrong, it was still something I play. But 2.5/2.6 (I forget which one) was just a fun game and while I did play with a competitive mindset, I also was jumping between a lot of fighters at the time.
Then I found the documentary and it was fun and I enjoyed it. Not much of it was that new to me, but I wanted to show my friends because I thought it was good.

Now my friends liked Smash, but they never played it like me. I know I just claimed that I didn't really play it avidly, but I still had things like El-Cancels, Slip n' Slides, teh shufflez, and other things down and I played online enough to play Ike well.

But one of my friends watched the whole series and sent me a text saying "Hey, can you teach me how to play Smash like you?"
The one thing I never had when I played KoF, Blazblue, MvsC3, or P4A in my sporadic jumps between games was someone in real life to play with seriously. I hadn't considered it to be important, but after a week of teaching I was avidly training my speed, timing, and the rest of my game while having him play catch up. Not only that but since he was closer in skill to the rest of my friends, but still good enough to consistently win, they all want to play Smash. They certainly are improving too.

Now I'm currently in college and only see these guys once a week. But I now have some friends to play with enough that we have something of a makeshift "crew" down and a general drive. Plus with a biweekly in my town, I'm playing tons of new people who are all really cool. I, much to my honest to god surprise, was one of the better people there and I have had people ask to simply play me and I've been told I play well by people who I think are likely better then me. It's honestly a great environment with both close friends and complete strangers.

It's a good community and that's why I stick around.

 

[kevinw0w]

I loved playing melee as a kid, and I was aware that there was a competitive scene for it since I was in elementary school or so. Brawl came out when I was in junior high and I ended up playing a lot of wi-fi with an online crew. One of the first Melee players I watched was Chudat, who I thought was amazing. Chu also mained Kirby in brawl, so naturally I mained IC's and Kirby in Brawl haha. I went to my first tournament when I was in 8th grade (Final Smash 6), and I actually did pretty well for my first tourney.

I stopped playing smash in high school until halfway through my senior year. I didn't feel like putting in the effort to relearn all of the IC's tricks, and Kirby was generally regarded as a bad character by then, so I picked up Pikachu as my new main. This time I watched a lot of Esam. I went to HOBO 39 and had almost identical results as my first tourney. Project M was a side event and this was the first time I had seen it in person. I knew of its existence, but then I thought all the new moves and whatnot just looked really weird, and I didn't think it would really become a popular tournament game, since Brawl- and Brawl+ and all those other mods never blew up the way PM did.

The summer after I graduated, I ended up downloading PM version 2.6. Coming from a predominantly Brawl background, it took some getting used to, but I ended up falling in love with the game. Sheik was my best character in Melee, so picking her up felt pretty natural. And after trying a handful of other characters, I eventually grew quite found of Ivysaur; I watch Denti's matches more than anyone else now, lol.

Now I'm in college and lucky for me, there's a great group of PM players here that I get to play with on a weekly basis. We travel fairly frequently and so far I've been to 3 tourneys. I love the game and the community -- I don't plan on quitting anytime soon haha.

 

[Bazkip]

Started hanging out and playing Smash with some guys who lived near me, they've been playing seriously for years now so they were obviously much better than me. I simply wanted to be able to compete with them. Looked into the community after I'd been playing with them for awhile, and it seemed like a cool place, so I hopped right in.

It probably helped that I started loosing interest in TF2 around then, which had been my main game for 4 years before I started playing Smash seriously.

I find it really neat how...shall I say "Real" the community feels over any other online community I've been part of before. For any others they were just random internet people and a few people in real life that I knew participated in it. With Smash, there's an active community where I live, and even the global community feels a lot closer and less like strangers than other groups online.

 

[Terotrous]

I don't really have any desire to be really competitive at this game to be honest. I enjoy playing and watching it (and watching it is a first, as I've always considered Smash fun to play but boring to watch), but the online in this game isn't great and there are no tournaments anywhere near me, so besides playing with my friend every week it's not going any farther than that. Divekick is my main game, because it has very competent online.

 

[Nail.exe]

1) My friends, the community in my college town and the communities (no matter how small) in / at neighboring towns and colleges

2) SETHLON AND THE SUPA H0T PH1R3

 

[XalchemistX]

First gotten into smash when I saw this on TV

I'm inspired to play mostly from my best friends
My most hyped moment was when Mewtwo was announced in melee. Till this day I'm still shocked...a playable legendary!!

 

[Blade-Fox]

What inspired my main: Starfox SNES & Starfox 64 / Friend mained Marth and no one played Roy so I played him for lolz. Then found out he was fun.

What inspired competitive smash: Melee was a fun game but it just sat on the shelf collecting dust and only came out at parties. Saw the DBR combo videos back in like 2007ish (I forget when they released) and then immediately went and looked up one for Fox. The fact that there was more stuff to do with the game blew my mind. Saw "Shine Blind" and never looked back.

 

[Alfonzo Bagpipez]

My Main: Unlocking Marth for the first time as a 6 year old and saying "Whu dafuq r dat?"
I played him for a little bit and thought he was pretty fun.
Then I played Fire Emblem for the first time, and it quickly became one of my favorite gaming series.
FE being my favorite series eventually led to me playing Marth and Roy almost exclusively in casual play.

Competitive Smash: In High School, there was one cramped room with one small TV and one Gamecube to play one copy of Melee.
I had only ever been beaten once by one of my cousins in a 1v1, so I challenged the best guy there with my Luigi against his Falco.
I got wrecked...so I switched to Marth, only to get wrecked even harder and to have all of my confidence destroyed.

This made me want to get better, so I invited everyone there to play Smash.
"This is a new memory card, so I don't have any characters in Melee. Wanna play Brawl instead?"
"No, let's play Project M."
A Smash game where every character is gud?
I got hooked instantly.

Leave the rest to the BRILLIANT Smash Documentary, and I turned into a serious smasher.
Sadly, now I'm actually better than everyone at my school, and not many others play Smash here in Hawai'i.
So, now I guess I can't really get a true sense of competitiveness until I move somewhere else.

 

[Downdraft]

Brawl was a birthday present a little over 5 years ago. I played with a few kids in the neighborhood whom didn't have a copy, and I was the best.
We played casually, and that weak competition did not prepare me for the people I met in college last Spring. To make matters worse, I mained Zelda when I played casually. Well, that was no fun when I began to play actually good players, so I quit Brawl. I have no interest in dealing with the mess that is Zelda or abandoning my favorite character, the one whom I've devoted a few hundred hours of my Brawl time to.

I'd known about the Wii exploits for a while, but I was hesitant to give them a shot. The people I met at college introduced me to Project M hands-on, so I got that and Brawl-. I loved Zelda's animations and attacks, so I tried her in both hacks, and I love her just as much as I used to love Brawl Zelda. I've seen limited footage of Zhime and KoreanDJ's Zeldas in 3.0, but that limited footage was so hype. I've got a long ways to go before I'm on their level, and I've got some limiting factors such as location and transportation that prevent me from developing faster. Plus I only play the game twice a week in 6 hour sessions tops. I would like to better at this game, but I'm losing my hope/drive. There isn't another Zelda main in our group, and I don't know anyone personally that could help me overcome the obstacles I'm facing while playing her. I'd also like to pick up Sheik and Meta Knight, but I'd be facing the same problem, i.e. playing a small group of people for a relatively short amount of time out of any given week. I really need to expand my horizons, but I don't know how.

 

[Cold-Water Wash]

Brawl was a birthday present a little over 5 years ago. I played with a few kids in the neighborhood whom didn't have a copy, and I was the best.
We played casually, and that weak competition did not prepare me for the people I met in college last Spring. To make matters worse, I mained Zelda when I played casually. Well, that was no fun when I began to play actually good players, so I quit Brawl. I have no interest in dealing with the mess that is Zelda or abandoning my favorite character, the one whom I've devoted a few hundred hours of my Brawl time to.

I'd known about the Wii exploits for a while, but I was hesitant to give them a shot. The people I met at college introduced me to Project M hands-on, so I got that and Brawl-. I loved Zelda's animations and attacks, so I tried her in both hacks, and I love her just as much as I used to love Brawl Zelda. I've seen limited footage of Zhime and KoreanDJ's Zeldas in 3.0, but that limited footage was so hype. I've got a long ways to go before I'm on their level, and I've got some limiting factors such as location and transportation that prevent me from developing faster. Plus I only play the game twice a week in 6 hour sessions tops. I would like to better at this game, but I'm losing my hope/drive. There isn't another Zelda main in our group, and I don't know anyone personally that could help me overcome the obstacles I'm facing while playing her. I'd also like to pick up Sheik and Meta Knight, but I'd be facing the same problem, i.e. playing a small group of people for a relatively short amount of time out of any given week. I really need to expand my horizons, but I don't know how.

You shouldn't be discouraged. I barely have any people at college that play smash at all - let alone competitively - so I've started setting up dolphin on my computer for netplay. Perhaps you should look into that.

 

[SpiderMad]

combo videos, music, certain vibes Mango gave in his twitch analysis videos that were the quintessence of heart fueling Melee more than anything else

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qYr13bLv80&index=2&list=PLovBMkMLex7y0xboPZJ8ZALzhluFPH3AN

 

[Downdraft]

You shouldn't be discouraged. I barely have any people at college that play smash at all - let alone competitively - so I've started setting up dolphin on my computer for netplay. Perhaps you should look into that.

I've got an HP G60 Notebook PC that's over 4 years old. I'm running Windows 7.
Would that be enough to use Dolphin?

 

[Cold-Water Wash]

I actually have no idea. To be honest, I don't think so, but it's definitely worth a shot.

 

[Saito]

Nothing inspires me other than the thrill of the challenge.

I love watching high level players play, but that's only because they are so good at what they do. They don't inspire me as much as they make me want to beat them.

I'd love to get into competitive smash, but I'm a pure john when it comes down to it.

No car
Socially awkward with people I don't know, so can't bum rides.
No friends with cars
No real income to travel to tourneys
No prevalent smash scene in my city.

It's even worse because this is like the one city in California that doesn't really have a smash scene either.

I've only entered one real tournament in my city which I won. I don't even consider it a real feat though because I've seen the higher level players and I know that they would of all destroyed the competition at that tourney.

I want so badly to compete, I want so badly to be able to play with other people that are almost as good or even better than me in the game I love. Hell, I couldn't care less about the tournaments just as long as I could play with all these people.

-----------------------------------
Edit : Wi-Fi is not a suitable replacement either.
I hate limiters more than anything.

It's a John to complain about the lag but god damnit, nothing frustrates me more than missing something I know I could hit because of external sources.

No computer good enough to play netplay although that might change soon. Then I would also need a gamecube controller adapter. No, an xbox controller will NOT work.

 

[MechWarriorNY]

Few to no Smashers do that for me, and none in the context gameplay, so I'll go by exact wording here.
Captain America, for the ideals he has, and how if nothing else, he can nearly always say "I did the right thing."
I'm working on being able to say the same(doing fairly consistently so far, whoooo).

 

[Cold-Water Wash]

Nothing inspires me other than the thrill of the challenge.

I love watching high level players play, but that's only because they are so good at what they do. They don't inspire me as much as they make me want to beat them.

I'd love to get into competitive smash, but I'm a pure john when it comes down to it.

No car
Socially awkward with people I don't know, so can't bum rides.
No friends with cars
No real income to travel to tourneys
No prevalent smash scene in my city.

It's even worse because this is like the one city in California that doesn't really have a smash scene either.

I've only entered one real tournament in my city which I won. I don't even consider it a real feat though because I've seen the higher level players and I know that they would of all destroyed the competition at that tourney.

I want so badly to compete, I want so badly to be able to play with other people that are almost as good or even better than me in the game I love. Hell, I couldn't care less about the tournaments just as long as I could play with all these people.

-----------------------------------
Edit : Wi-Fi is not a suitable replacement either.
I hate limiters more than anything.

It's a John to complain about the lag but god damnit, nothing frustrates me more than missing something I know I could hit because of external sources.

No computer good enough to play netplay although that might change soon. Then I would also need a gamecube controller adapter. No, an xbox controller will NOT work.

When you look for an adapter, try the may flash adapter. It's kinda annoying to set up, but it works really well.

And I know that feel. While I'm not lacking transportation, I live a good two hours from New York City, and tourneys in upstate NY don't get well publicized.

 

[9bit]

I was always a fan of the Smash Bros games. The original was probably my most-played N64 game by a long shot. I always just played it competitive-casual though. A few select items (including the beam sword) and no "advanced techniques" I can remember. I liked Captain Falcon the best.

I was super hyped for Melee and I bought it the day it came out (which happened to be 2 days after the launch of the Gamecube, which made me sad). For a few years I played very much like a noob: lots of c-stick spamming and dash attacks.

Then I found out about competitive play. I think it was from joining this site in '05 but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway I started watching videos of pro players by downloading them via the DC++ program / chat room. Those were truly magical times. I was watching people do things in the game that I didn't think were possible. They moved so fast!

I quickly became fans of people like Ken, Isai, Azen, DSF, Chillin, Chudat, HugS, Eddie, Caveman, and most of the people at the FC3 crew battle, which was a favorite of mine for a long time.

I started practicing the stuff I'd seen and read about and I've basically been playing (or attempting to play) in a competitive way ever since. I played the characters of the players I really liked and tried to emulate the stuff they were doing. Mostly Marth, Captain Falcon, and Falco (in Melee).

Nowadays I'm inspired by any really awesome sequences. Whenever I see someone do something crazy hype I almost think about switching mains but really I just love to see people do incredible and unexpected things in Smash.