December 27, 2018

The Smash Ultimate Diaries -- ACT III

So I’m trying to decide whether Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is better than, worse than, or equal to Homecoming, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter.  While I have reservations about giving modern-day Sony’s movie division any credit or praise, a good movie is a good movie, and Miles Morales’ big screen debut is more than simply “good”.

It’s worth watching for its presentation alone -- an animated movie that doesn’t feel the need to play with kid gloves by default.  Granted there are times when the movie gets in its own way with possibly too much style -- during my viewing I thought a few times that it’d be better if they toned the AV down by 10-20% -- but it’s a critical hit more often than it misses.  Kingpin is the definition of an “absolute unit” design-wise, and seeing some of this stuff in motion makes me hungry for more.  Not just a sequel, but for other movies to be emboldened to give the style (or something like that) an honest try.  Like, Disney, maybe mimic this instead of another live-action remake?

The funny thing about the movie is that, while Homecoming stepped away from the origin story affect, Spider-Verse revels in it -- to its benefit.  Fair move, considering that we’re following Miles now.  Still, even if you’re wary of another superhero origin story, there’s more than enough meat on this movie’s bones to keep you satiated.  Shout-outs to this movie for making parents that feel like real people; this version of Jefferson isn’t just trying to run for Jesus like Spider-Man PS4’s Jefferson, and --

Wait, I feel like I should be talking about something else right now.  Oh, right.  Smash Bros.  Let’s talk about it one more time…with a focus on World of Light.  Because I beat it, and talking about that is…well, it’s necessary, I think.



One more Castlevania track for the road.

--For posterity’s sake, it’s worth making it clear right off the bat: Sakurai and crew didn’t have to make this mode.  The last game got away without a story mode, and I played it semi-regularly for no reason besides “it’ll be fun, so let’s go”.  But it’s a new day with new expectations, and the promise of a brand new tale was too hard to overlook.  So good on the devs for pounding this one out.

--Now here comes the “but”.  Anyone who goes in expecting a narrative on the same level as The Subspace Emissary is in for a rough time.  There are more cutscenes than the infamous “Galeem kills everyone” sequence, but they’re exceedingly rare, relative to the amount of play time you’ll put in.  It was probably an inevitability, though.  Brawl had the luxury of being able to tell a story with, like, half the roster, with shifting perspectives and locales.  Ultimate had a handicap going in, just because of its roster size.


--The format is also not the most conducive for a standard narrative.  There’s a heavier focus on a “choose your own adventure” sort of…adventure.  You start as Kirby, then have to work your way across a sprawling 2D map, beating captured, controlled Spirits/puppet fighters and clearing dungeons in order to weaken Galeem’s defenses and take the fight to him.  Crucially, you’ll have to unlock fighters as you go by beating their mind-controlled selves littered across the map.  

--Soooooooooooooo if you’re like me and spent a few dozen hours unlocking everyone in the game outside of the story, then congratulations!  You get to unlock them all over again at a significantly slower pace, with everyone bound to fixed locations!  Roy fans, get wrecked; you won’t be able to play as him in the story (barring new game plus) until you make it to quite literally the last stretch before the final boss.

--In general, this mode makes me go “hmmmmmmmmm.”  Not “Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” or “YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”  It’s -- well, it’s fine.  Okay.  Good parts and bad parts.  Basically the best I could hope for…Is what I would like to say, but there’s still a few pangs of disappointment in my heart.


--World of Light represents a pretty common trend among fighting game devs (and devs in general, if we’re being honest) when it comes to narrative content/campaigns.  It’s like someone says “Okay, I want to have a story mode in my fighting game.”  But then they tack on “But I don’t want it to spend a lot of time or money on it.”  And then “And I don’t want to actually focus on the story.”  So while WoL is FAR from the worst the genre has to offer, it’s pretty bare-bones in terms of pushing the needle forward.  Remember the Event Matches from previous Smash games, where you take on opponents in wacky scenarios?  Imagine that, only multiplied by…oh, let’s stay conservative and say five.

--What were the choices here?  Yeah, there’s probably a way to make a stronger narrative so that WoL doesn’t mostly come off as a string of random battles, but Sakurai and crew had to put out a game sometime this century.  And the most obvious alternative would be falling into the same trap as countless other stories and related material.  The ‘94 Street Fighter movie did its best to squeeze every single World Warrior into its runtime, and suffered for it -- a faux pas that would end up getting committed more than 20 years later with Street Fighter V.  Can you imagine the disaster we’d be facing if an unsteady hand at the helm decided (wrongly and foolishly) to story up a cast of 70?


--I’m not trying to make excuses or cover for the game just because it’s Smash and I love it.  While I can rationalize the devs’ strategy here (to an extent), I’ve got no problems admitting that WoL has its low points built in by design.  I wouldn’t blame anyone for calling it out as a time-wasting, padded drag, because there are times where it’s exactly that.  

--The saving grace from utter tedium is that you have full access to the Spirits you’ve gained, in the story and out of it -- meaning that you can clear matches in less than 5 seconds, or even a single smash attack, if you have the right setup.  And on top of that, there’s a Sphere Grid-style upgrade system so you can enhance your already-enhanced characters.  Break the broken game even further.  Go beyond.  Plus Broken.

--Inevitably, that means you run into another problem: if you play on Normal difficulty, then the triviality of 95% of the matches can inspire boredom instead of excitement.  Again, with the right setup you can make characters who basically ignore the rules of the game; there’s supposed to be a type triangle a la Pokemon or Fire Emblem that should put one person at a disadvantage, but after a certain point you can routinely ignore types.  My recommendation?  Amass Spirits via the Spirit Board before hitting WoL, then slap them on and crank up the difficulty to Hard at the outset.  If nothing else, you’ll get more rewards that way.


--Credit where credit’s due, though.  I’m someone who played through Master/Crazy Orders  more often than I should have just ‘cause, so I’d be a hypocrite if I said WoL wasn’t fun because of it.  More than a few matches are goofy as all get out, and endearing homages to whatever Spirit/game they’re from.  

--Probably my favorite in the entire game is a showdown with “The Boss” (read: a gray-clad Zero Suit Samus possessed by the spirit of Snake Eater’s The Boss) in the Pikmin stage to simulate jungle combat.  The difficulty’s at the max, you’re on a strict time limit, and you can’t cheese with Spirit power because you’ll have to use some slots to negate the stage’s poison effect.  It’s a dire situation against an overwhelming AI opponent -- and probably the most fun I’ve ever had with 1-player Smash content.



--It bears repeating that there are dungeons in this game, and I appreciate them.  They’re not the most complex or mentally taxing, but they do shake up the gameplay a bit in some pretty nice ways.  Using Zapfish to build roads in a power plant, chasing Rathalos across a map, the most direct and shameless Street Fighter II reference you can imagine (Capcom must have done a LOT of favors to get the coverage it does in Smash Ultimate), the list goes on.  

--Also?  There’s a touch of Metroidvania in that you’ll need certain Spirits to clear obstacles.  They’re not too difficult to find, assuming you’re methodically clearing out areas as you reach them; the end result is that you’ll be able to explore more of the map, and thus get more Spirits/fighters.  More importantly, though, it’s the fact that there’s been some form of compensation.  WoL doesn’t put too much emphasis on its story (which, really, shouldn’t be a surprise given what company we’re dealing with), but in exchange, it puts its focus on its gameplay.  Active player participation.  It might satisfy you.  It might not.  But hey, it’s something.

--All right, enough of that garbage.  Let’s talk about Galeem.


--I watched the Nintendo Direct revealing him, and I had no idea who he was.  I’ve finished WoL, and I still have no idea who he is.  Does he even have a gender?  Probably not, but I’ll go ahead and call him “him” for the sake of convenience.  The removal of trophies means that the blurbs explaining characters and elements of the Smash universe are gone as well, so details on Galeem are probably going to be hard to come by -- well, unless there’s already stuff on the wiki, or translations from a Sakurai interview.  Speaking solely based on the knowledge I have now? *shrugs helplessly*

--I guess there’s at least stuff we can extrapolate based on WoL.  Apparently, the Smash universe just has these higher-power beings, content to pull the strings from the shadows until they decide to lash out or wreak havoc.  A decent number of those higher beings are willing to manipulate the fighters into doing their bidding, up to and including full-on corruption with a surge of power (like Giga Bowser, but that’s more my personal theory than any confirmed canon).  Proxy battles are probably easier on the universe’s stability, because when you get these god-level creatures lashing out, you get Galeem wiping out all life in the multiverse on a whim.

--Also?  Multiverses confirmed, I guess -- if they weren’t already.  Miles Morales for DLC, then?


--I don’t know what Galeem is, but you know what?  I ain’t even mad.  There are some characters and elements made stronger because so much about them ends up shrouded in mystery.  Majora’s Mask is one of them.  And really, if you tried to slap a story or backstory on Galeem, that’d take away a ton of the menace.  The otherworldly nature.  The mystery.  We’re not supposed to sympathize with or understand the guy; he’s an abstract thought, a DnD alignment given phenomenal cosmic power.  He wants nothing more than to create a new, perfect world, pure and unsullied.  And what’s sullying the world?  Life.

--It reminds me of Soul Calibur in a way.  The titular sword existed as a counterpoint to the heinous, hideous Soul Edge, countering its corrupt power and influence with purity.  But it wasn’t a binary choice between good and evil; in fact, Soul Calibur progressively started to represent the opposite extreme as the franchise went on.  It reached a point where the holy sword went off the rails, and became the symbol of absolute order -- an order obtained, potentially, by removing the very possibility of action.  There can be no evil or chaos if there’s no one able to move.  Ergo, Siegfried’s big dumb suit of crystal armor.


--Galeem’s concept of competition is flawed, to say the least.  But he’s got the godlike power, so he’s going to take control of all the warriors and have them fight in a way he deems fit -- if at all.  It’s up to Kirby, Mario, and the rest to oppose the will of the gods (such as they are) with their own will, enforcing their right to exist on their terms with spirits unbound by binding order and divine orders.  It’s hard to know for sure whether Galeem grasped the concept of free will or just didn’t care, but either way, he saw fit to erase everyone just ‘cause.  So that meant it was on.

--This was pretty much a given for anyone who’s ever played a video game before (though thanks to my phone not loading a page fast enough, I stumbled upon the major spoiler beforehand), but the fight doesn’t stop with Galeem.  Well, not entirely.  To put it simply?  You know how people have compared Galeem to Thanos because of one action taken that causes mass genocide throughout the universe?  Imagine if the Avengers beat Thanos, only to make a second, eviler Thanos (who’s just as powerful as the first one) pop out and decide to wreck what little there was left -- while the slightly-less evil Thanos runs away to lick his wounds.  Yep.  That’s this game.


--I think it’s important to remember that the rise of Dharkon is no one’s fault.  Right, Black Dynamite?


--So I guess Dharkon’s a bit of a hypocrite, huh?  He’s clearly in opposition of Galeem, but ends up doing basically the exact same thing -- taking control of the fighters/Spirits, keeping everyone dead, etc. -- with nothing more than a change in decor.  Jokes aside, the decor in question is something else; chaos reigns supreme, with worlds more mashed up and disorderly than the already jacked-up default map.  Capping it all off is the theme of the newly-minted Dark Realm, encapsulating both incredible dread and the magnitude of your failure to restore the world.  You have to get back in the fight and fix what’s been doubly-broken, but it’s not that easy.

--Galeem is a problem and needs to be dealt with, but clearly just beating him in a fight isn’t the answer.  If you do, Dharkon will just cement his rule instead.  But beating Dharkon -- which you do, because it’s not like you’ve got a lot of other options at the moment -- just gives Galeem the confidence boost needed to show up and engage in all-out war against his now-weakened counterpart, so that his rule can be cemented instead.  These are both problem characters, presenting separate-but-equal problems.

--The solution here is one of the best I’ve ever seen in a video game, both in terms of theme and catharsis.  Simply put, you take the third option -- and decide to kill both of the gods simultaneously.


--In order to get Smash Ultimate’s true ending -- which is the only ending that doesn’t end in horrible death or extinction -- you have to first balance out the opposing powers/war by clearing out the right number of Spirits/fighters aligned with both sides,  If you’re doing it right, you’ll free Master Hand and Crazy Hand from the gods’ control, who’ll then open up the path for the true final battle…part of which involves you taking control of a souped-up Master Hand to clear out a massive armada of light/dark puppet fighters.

--Then you take a trio of fighters of your choosing and ascend up a platforming challenge that basically takes you off the planet and into the boundary between clashing dimensions, punctuated by a boss rush against every major enemy you’ve faced to date, culminating in a three-way fight between you, Galeem, and Dharkon while an epic remix of the main theme blares in the background.  And it all culminates in an ending cutscene that, while short on words, is still strikingly beautiful.

     

--I’ve played a lot of games that have the characters going “man, fuck the gods” and going on a world deicide tour.  I’ve played a lot of games where the binary options presented aren’t good enough answers, prompting the heroes to take a third.  But I didn’t expect a Smash game to work them both in, simultaneously, to such great effect.  Having conquered the gods, brought balance to light and darkness, restored the ravaged regions of the multiverse, and ensured their right to life on their own terms, the fighters are free to do as they wish.  As are the Spirits who simply want to go about their lives, be they villagers, elves, soldiers, or humble, rolling rock-eaters.  

--I guess in the end, that’s what Smash is all about.  It’s not about one single, dominating voice or force commanding everyone what to do.  It’s about countless voices, minds, and hearts acting as they wish -- using what they have to strive for what they desire, unfettered by overlords who would strip away everything that doesn’t suit them.  Fighting for freedom of expression, and ensuring it -- even if it means creating a new world, free of control -- is a noble goal in its own right.  And for that reason?  For the fact that we got something like this, again, in a Smash game, is incredible.  So despite its faults, in the end I can’t get too mad at World of Light.

--I can still be residually mad, though.  If I used that mode to unlock the cast for multiplayer, then I still would have had to wait for days to unlock my main ma’am Palutena.  Unacceptable.


And that’ll do it.  Now let’s see what’s going on in Kingdom Hearts land.

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