Fox, Shine, and the Birth of Competitive Smash

[Music] it's not a stretch to say that fox mccloud is the face of super smash brothers melee but did you know he was in the original Super Smash Brothers on Nintendo 64 - crazy right and get this before that he was the protagonist of his own extremely obscure series called Star Fox which consisted of Star Fox for the Super Nintendo and starfox 64 for the Nintendo 64 these games are almost entirely on rail shooters meaning you travel forward on a set path with the only movement control you have being limited to where you fly horizontally or vertically along set paths in the original Star Fox you play as Fox and this shit had super FX so you know it's a classic Fox controls the arwing a spaceship equipped with bombs rockets and lasers that you use to shoot stuff graphically it's pretty impressive for the time but the only time you ever see Fox are on the title screen and in these little text boxes in the reboot for Nintendo 64 they added a bit more variety to the gameplay with the addition of the landmaster a tank and the blue marine a sub however you're also able to unlock a special mode for the game's multiplayer that allows you to control slippy Falco Pepe and Fox on foot how do you unlock it exactly first you kill a certain amount of enemies on each of the 15 levels which rewards you with the metal get all 15 of these medals and you'll unlock expert mode a harder version of the main game where Fox where sick-ass shaves at the metal on the last level of expert mode and you'll be rewarded with this [Music] needless to say it's pretty shit and it wasn't really worth the hassle but this was the first time anyone ever saw in plate as Fox outside of a vehicle and at foreshadowed Fox's upcoming inclusion as a playable fighter in Super Smash Brothers which was released two years later while most other characters have moved as that referenced their original games the developers of smash 64 made up the bulk of Fox's attacks themselves because they didn't really have any references for potential attacks to work with due to the vast majority of his source material being played in a spaceship so with the exception of his blaster which was featured in various renderings of Fox from around starfox 64 is release the developers ultimately just came up with a bunch of standard punches and kicks for most of Fox's other attacks one move in particular that the devs came up with has always struck me as a bit odd however his now iconic reflector I mean a blue hexagon that reflects things why and how they even come up with this well actually it turns out that this too might have some basis in Fox's source material in Star Fox in starfox 64 you can tap either of the shoulder buttons to do a barrel roll while doing a barrel roll blue streaks will appear around your ship and you'll reflect incoming lasers away from you need when making the design for the reflector my guess is that they wanted something that the players wouldn't confuse with the shield or at least was easily distinguished from it so they strayed away from the circular design of the barrel rolls graphic and instead made a pointed solid blue and empty in the middle boom the reflector but come on that's not the reflector that's the shine baby its iconic and if Fox is the face of melee is the logo why do we call it that anyway it's never been referred to as shine by the team that worked on smash so what gives you might figure that it comes from the fact that it kind of shines and sparkles when it's out but you'd actually be wrong the term originates with the legendary but often forgotten matt deezie Dahlgren ez is credited as the first person to run an organized tournament series for super smash brothers melee tournament go which he began running out of his parents house in San Jose California in April of 2002 because of this DZ is often considered not only the founder of melees competitive scene but Super Smash Brothers competitive scene as a whole since the scene for smash 64 didn't really take off until a few years after melees release matt deezie then 18 years old came from the Tekken scene and sought to emulate their scenes competitive nature and environment he began by advertising tournament go on smash boards a form dedicated to Super Smash Brothers despite his post promoting them tournament go 1 & 2 were small very small and capped out at around six or seven entrance each mostly comprised of diesease friends and Mutual's and keep in mind that this was only a couple months after the game's release it wasn't until d z posted on a separate smash boards account claiming to be the best player in the world that his tournaments began picking up steam as more people began entering to prove him wrong tournament go threes attendance blew his previous numbers out of the water at 50 entrance with 4 & 5 nearly doubling that amount at 90 with the final tournament go in August of 2004 DZ would relocate the series from his parents house to a school auditorium he rented out of pocket this last tournament go would be the first smash tournament to ever pass 100 entrance and in addition tournament go 6 was the first tournament teased the now standardized match ruling of no items for stocks in minutes across these six iterations tournament go attracted people from not only across the country but from Japan and Europe it's notable entrance would include old-school legends such as Ken ESI as in Captain Jack and Chu dad among others legend has it that mr. Deasy would wear a ridiculous sequence shirt at the tournaments he hosted and after killing someone with the reflector which he dubbed the shine would flap his shirt around wildly his antics and the catchy nature of shine compared to reflector caused it to catch on DZ would also coined the term sex kick and chain throw which would both also go on to become commonly used terms in smash after hosting an extremely successful tournament go six matt deezie retired from competitive smash and fittingly later went on to work with capcom in their esports and fighting games department many would follow in diesease footsteps and host their own tournaments which eventually gave rise to the greater melee scene as a whole complete with friendships rivalries upsets and historical moments and sixteen years later it's still going strong it's been a long time since the last tournament go and diesease departure from the scene and all I can say is thanks Matt you change not only my life and not only competitive melee players lives but competitive smash 64 players brawl players smash four players and ultimate players if not for the fact that we call this little blue hexagon shine instead of reflector then for the fact that you're the creator of one of the biggest fighting game scenes in the world if Fox is the face of melee and shine as the logo then matt deezie Dahlgren is the soul [Music] [Music]

Channel: AsumSaus

Views: 566,344

Keywords: smash bros, ssbm, super smash bros melee, smash melee, melee, smash bros melee, asumsaus, fox, shine, competitive smash, fox's shine, matt deezie, melee fox, fox shine melee, shine melee, competitive melee

Id: eRLgEzirKxs

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/UnfrostedPopTart5]

Love how AsumSaus puts this into perspective at the end. Everyone who's watched the doc has heard Matt Deezie's name, but for me, personally, I've never put 2 and 2 together that he's responsible for the birth of competitive smash.

I hope he gets a chance to watch this video and read some comments because I'm so thankful for what he did for Melee. Thanks Deezie

[u/The_Great_Saiyaman21]

Imagine a world where we call it wave-reflector and multi-reflector. I don't want to live in that world.

[u/YuTango]

Thanks matt I'm glad I dont have to say reflector ever

[u/mas_one]

TIL competitive melee came from Tekken

[u/Monsyphon]

Sex kick is more important to me than shine

[u/Master_Tallness]

Really cool, actually learned some stuff I didn't know and felt like I knew a lot!

[u/HYPERNATURL]

Ee-sai

hol' up there brother

[u/Meester_Tweester]

I knew about Tournament Go but not shine. I thought it was just because it shined.

[u/Middleman97]

TIL Matt Deezie is not an acronym for MattDotZeb.