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A Smashing Good Time By Lucas Dyke
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There are very few video games in which you can fight a mustachioed Italian plumber wearing overalls while controlling an anthropomorphic fox with a laser gun and bionic legs . In fact , there are only four in the world , and all of them are installments in the Super Smash Bros . series of fighting games . This series has been around since 1999 , and its most recent installment was in 2014 , with the release of Super Smash Bros . for Wii U and its handheld counterpart , Super Smash Bros . for 3DS , both commonly referred to as Smash Bros . 4 .
Both games originally sported 51 playable characters , and now , with the inclusion of downloadable content , have a total of 58 characters . This is an incredible number by fighting game standards , and considering that each character has at least 20 moves , Smash Bros . 4 contains over 1,160 moves , each with their own unique properties and effects . All of these characters and moves , each of which can be linked into multiple other moves at certain points in a match , come together to create a fighting game with considerable competition appeal . A competitive scene that many had previously assumed would die out quickly has flourished and is still going strong after almost two years . To this day , people are still discovering new combos , setups , strategies , and uses for each character , a continuous cycle of innovation and improvement fueled by the desire to win with one ’ s favorite character ( or , in many cases , with characters considered the best in the game ). Smash Bros . 4 is constantly evolving , the meta changing , and the competitive scene just as diverse as the community that loves this game , items turned on or not .
In late 2014 , Super Smash Bros . for the 3DS had just been released , and all those who had played the previous games in the series started flocking to it , curious about which mechanics had changed and which had stayed true to previous games . The tournament scene slowly developed with the handheld version of the game , but took off with the release of the Wii U version . The first player to make waves in the Smash Bros . 4 community emerged not long after the Wii U release . Gonzalo Barrios , more well known by his competitive alias “ ZeRo ,” started his winning streak in that fateful November . ZeRo placed first in fifty-four consecutive tournaments , a streak lasting until the MLG Finals tournament in October of the following year where Nairoby “ Nairo ” Quezada defeated him in the Grand Finals , ending ZeRo ’ s almost year-long