The calendar has flipped, and it is now October. With that, Breast Cancer Awareness month is upon us. This means everyone, including those in the gaming community, will recognize breast cancer for what it is: an all too problematic, unfortunately common and devastating issue effecting many around the world. With the color pink highlighting awareness of this, I wanted to flip forward the calendar with an appropriately themed writeup in the “Smash” world, highlighting all the cool things our pink pals, characters, players and the like have done over our game’s great history.
Characters:
When one thinks of pink characters in Smash, Jigglypuff and Kirby should be the first two to come to mind; at their bases, they are round, pink puffballs. But they aren’t just any ordinary puffballs, as the two have shared plenty of time in the franchise’s spotlight. Kirby was in competition with Pikachu for the all-around best character in the game in “Smash 64”, and this was because Kirby had an amazing amount of combo potential, a great advantage state and, unlike many characters in the game, a good recovery boosted by having six jumps. While Kirby took a significant step back and hasn’t seen such prominence ever since, “Smash Ultimate” holds promising prospects for Kirby, as his worst matchups in Sonic and Meta Knight have been toned down a lot, and Kirby’s flexibility in being a decently offensive and defensive character will bode very well for him. Jigglypuff, on the other hand, wasn’t much in the N64 version, but truly shone in Smash Melee. Being an undisputed top five character in the game, Jigglypuff has, thanks to professional player Hungrybox, won tournaments at all levels of play, including the national spectrum (Hungrybox has won an Evo using Jigglypuff before). Like Kirby, Puff took significant steps back after being in the limelight in Melee, but like Kirby, better days are likely ahead for Puff, especially with the transition to faster play allowing for it to make better use of its great advantage state.
And, of course, there are plenty of pink palettes for characters all around the game.
In this video, I used my pink and red Bowser in a game against a Cloud.
Now, Cloud is pretty much undisputedly the second best character in Smash 4. However, if you watched this video of my pink Bowser absolutely demolishing this Cloud, you might be inclined to think otherwise as I record a zero-death, shieldbreak, and nearly come away with a perfect game, getting hit only twice. If I hadn’t gone for the greedy F-Smash flashy kill towards the end, it’s entirely possible I could have recorded an incredibly rare perfect game. Nevertheless, let this be a display not just of a good game from myself as a player, but of how good a pink palleted Smash character can be when in the right hands.
Of course, also, here’s a video with my pink Rosalina in action.
A one-hitter in a tournament bracket (a fairly casual, local tourney, but a tourney nonetheless). If I had a teeny bit more patience at 1:03, I would’ve had a perfect game. Nevertheless, a dominating one-hit performance from my potential Smash Ultimate main, in pink attire nonetheless, is certainly good enough.
Enough of me for a bit, though. Let’s have a look at the man who has repped the pink for longer, on a higher level, and more dominantly than any other smasher (if not gamer, period) ever.
I’m referring to Smash legend, one of the “Gods” of the game, Juan “Hungrybox” DeBiedma.
Referred to by his gamer name, Hungrybox, this legendary Jigglypuff main has single handedly put the pink puff ball on the map. In Melee, it is a commonly perceived notion that Jigglypuff is at an extreme disadvantage against top tier characters, such as Fox, Sheik and Marth. Hungrybox has still yet taken games off of the best players in the world of those characters, such as M2King, Leffen, Armada and Mango. Hungrybox is the only player in all of Smash history to win a national tournament using Jigglypuff, which he did when he took Evo in 2016. How did he do it? Hungrybox is easily the undisputed master at hitting Rest setups with Jigglypuff, which are by far its most powerful tool. Capable of ending stocks as early as 30% in Melee, Hungrybox’s ability to easily land this powerful attack was a lot of what allowed him to have such success. That wasn’t all, though: even when he couldn’t find an early kill with Rest, Hungrybox’s stage control and neutral game have been unprecedently good. Despite the fact that Jigglypuff can’t keep up with Fox or Falco and can run into trouble with Marth’s lengthy sword, trying to attack him with shorter ranged punches and kicks, Hungrybox has always found a way to win, and he’s done so in style.
While Hungrybox couldn’t replicate that success in Brawl or Smash 4 (mostly because Jigglypuff’s positive attributes took significant hits, and the mechanics of the game were every unkind to his playstyle) he is still an absolute God in Melee, both literally and metaphorically. With Jigglypuff looking like it might be noticeably better in Ultimate (combined with Hungrybox’s recently announcement of also wanting to explore King K. Rool’s metagame) the door is wide open for Hungrybox to make a huge comeback and stun the world just as he has in Melee for years.
Finally, while the game itself may be called Super Smash “Brothers”, women characters in Smash have certainly been influential. While there were no women in Smash 64, in Melee, Peach is without question Top 10. She also happens to be the main of Armada, who is one of the Five Melee Gods alongside the aforementioned Hungrybox. Additionally, Sheik is top five material in Melee. Meta Knight’s tantalizing presence in Brawl and being nigh omnipotent may make you think that the feminine presence in Brawl was limited… Except it wasn’t. Salem became a legend for being the only non Meta Knight main to ever win an Evo tournament when he did so with Zero Suit Samus. This was especially remarkable considering that ZSS has a really bad matchup against Meta Knight, whose followers and playership are virtually everywhere on the tournament scene for Brawl. Flash forward to Smash 4, and Bayonetta is the undisputed best character in the game, hands down. Bayonetta isn’t the only female rep to hit it big time in Smash 4; Sheik returns to the spotlight, and is also joined by Rosalina and Luma, Zero Suit Samus and Lucina as prominent female reps in the game. In the upcoming Smash Ultimate, the Ice Climbers return, which adds to this sentiment. Additionally, Isabelle and Inkling join the fight, meaning that Super Smash “Bros” is undoubtedly gender neutral at this point, considering how influential women characters have been, and will no doubt continue to be.