That's right! Today Friday December 2nd, 2011 is the tenth anniversary of Super Smash Brothers Melee. It's crazy to think that I've been playing this game for close to half of my life. Sadly I do not have my Gamecube memory card with me at the moment, but I am confident in saying that I've put more hours into Melee that any other video game. I played Melee so much that my controllers would break from too much use. I'm not normally a huge fan of multiplayer video games, but there is something about Melee and the Super Smash Brothers franchise in general that's grabbed hold of me and refused to let go.
The original Super Smash Brothers came out in 1999. When I first heard about it I was nine years old and my mind almost exploded. The fact that all of my favorite Nintendo characters could fight each other was a ridiculous concept. I didn't have a Nintendo 64 in 99', but I made sure to play Super Smash whenever I could. Two of my friends had the game and we would get together and play all the time. Characters and items would fly all over the screen creating a blissfully chaotic experience, which we loved. My go to character in the original was Kirby and I was ridiculously good with him. I haven't played the original much since 99', but it's my understanding that Kirby was pretty overpowered. For some reason I don't personally own an original Super Smash Brothers cartridge. They're fairly cheap now, so might have to pick one up.
When Melee was released in 2001 I didn't have a Gamecube. Only one of my friends did and I would be at his house almost every single weekend to get in as much Melee as I could. Melee improved upon the original Super Smash Brothers in almost every way (Some may disagree with me on this). There were exponentially more characters, stages, and items. They even added a story mode, and trophy collecting. Melee was the ultimate Nintendo fan-service experience.
The Summer of 2001 I received a Gamecube for my birthday. I didn't get Melee immediately, but when I did I played it all the time. At first I would play with my younger brother. I was a lot better than him so we'd mess around a whole lot. I didn't use Kirby as my main anymore, because I didn't like him as much. Melee was a much faster game than the original and Kirby didn't pack as much of a punch. During my first few years of Melee I mainly played as Ganondorf and Fox. One day when I was messing with my brother I bet him that I could beat him with Princess Peach, who I had only been a handful of times. I ended up crushing him and finding out that I wanted to use Peach all the time.
From that point on I got a lot more serious with Melee. I practiced with Peach all the time. Lucky for me a few of my friends got deep into Melee at the same time. We'd often turn off all the items so we could fight with our pure gaming skill. I move from game to game quickly, so I don't really linger on one long enough to get super good at it. Melee was a different story. I practiced for years and never seemed to get bored. I even entered a tournament at my local mall when the sequel Super Smash Brothers Brawl was released for the Wii.
I liked Brawl well enough, but it'll never be as good as Melee to me. Brawl was much more floaty and not as fast as Melee. I'm not necessarily saying that Melee is one of the best games ever made, but it's certainly one of my favorites. When I play Melee I genuinely have fun and I'll always remember it fondly for that. There's something special about the extreme chaos that the game has to offer.
Happy Tenth Birthday Melee!
-Manny
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