I don't agree with the majority of what he's saying, but he's obviously someone who grew up with an arcade machine of Street Fighter II in front of his face and isn't taking the radical shift of fighting games lightly. This one paragraph speaks absolute truth however:
Smash Bros. famously began as a prototype for a generic martial arts game and it's tempting not to imagine what would have happened with the series if Nintendo had never agreed to let its mascots be used in the game. Would the fighting mechanics be as compelling if all of the same moves were tethered to a series of Bruce Lee clones? Would the Pavlovian outbursts of joy be the same if it was a ninja performing Link's spin attack? It's difficult to imagine that anyone would care. The disappointing truth of Smash Bros. Brawl is that of a game with unresponsive controls, a vapid narrative context, superficially titillating visuals, and a deeply disturbing nod to the corporate progenitor to which so many players associate their personal gaming experiences with.
It's hard to imagine anyone toting this fighting game as their favorite ever if Nintendo mascots weren't your playable characters. Without a shadow of a doubt, this would have been a nice bottom feeder fighter like Power Stone and would have been forgotten quickly. This is a game built off the strength of it's cast as opposed to the strength of it's gameplay. I'm not saying the game plays bad at all, because on the contrary I find it very fun the short amount of time I've played this series. It's just that, there's a reason no one cares about Power Stone and Small Arms but eat up Smash Bros. and Jump Superstars, and it ain't the gameplay.
Tag: Became a freaking mod and a complete douche, coincidentally, at the same time.
