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Super Smash Bros. Brawl Blog Part 3/3
Updated March 27, 2008

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Blog Part 3/3
By Bryan Dawson

Going into the final stretch as I came close to finishing the guide, another issue presented itself. The Wii I was playing on decided to stop working. This is no reflection on the Wii as a system—I was not working on a retail Wii that you can just go out and buy. It’s a special Wii that allows me to play games that are still works in progress. It’s the only way to play a game and to get the guide done before the game releases.

Under normal circumstances, a hardware problem like this wouldn’t be that big of an issue. However, in the case of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it took me nearly a week to unlock everything in the game. When the new Wii was delivered to my office, my save data was gone and couldn’t be transferred. I didn’t have another week to unlock everything and still finish the guide on time. Thankfully, the helpful folks at Nintendo used a Wii that the testers had been working with that had everything unlocked. I was saved, but now I had a new request.

The entire time I had been at Nintendo, I had been playing alone. I’m a Smash Bros. veteran and I know most of the high-level strategies that are used in tournaments, so I know what I’m looking for when it comes to character and stage strategies. However, just like with any other fighting game, it takes months of competitive play to really discover the strategies players will use for years to come. Nevertheless, when I heard that testers were playing the game in the same building, I wanted to battle one to see what they were made of, and maybe discover some new strategies.

A quick flashback for you: when I was working on the Naruto: Rise of a Ninja guide, I was evenly matched with the top player on the development team after two days with the game. When I worked on the Dead or Alive 4 guide, I was handily beating the game’s creator, Itagaki, and a few members of the press who had boasted about their fighting game skills. I wasn’t very impressed with my competition in either case, but then again, I’m used to playing against the best of the best at tournaments around the world.

When it came to the testers at Nintendo, it seemed like they knew what they were doing. I was told that the lead tester was dominating everyone else using random select. The tournament player in me wanted a piece of the action. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I was unable to get a match going with any of the testers. Perhaps I’ll be able to get their friend code and challenge them online, but then again, by that time my skill level will far exceed theirs and it won’t be as much fun. The life of a competitive gamer is a difficult one.