Matt Gerardi and I have both been anticipating the new Super Smash Bros. for some time now. Matt’s excited because he loves Smash Bros., and I’m excited because the Wii version will allow me to professionally justify the purchase of adorable figurines. To kick off today’s What Are You Playing thread, Matt and I chatted about the snippets of the new SSB we’ve been able to experience so far. As always, share your weekend gaming plans in the comments.
John Teti: What are you playing this weekend?
Matt Gerardi: Well, that depends, really. I’m our critic for all things Super Smash Bros., so I’m eagerly awaiting a review copy of the 3DS version. If the full thing doesn’t show up before the weekend, though, I can guarantee that I’ll still be playing the bare-bones five-character demo that Nintendo released. I just can’t get enough Smash Bros.
JT: You and I had fun earlier this week listening to the soundtrack for the new SSB, which was ripped to YouTube seemingly within seconds of the demo going live. What’s your favorite track so far?
MG: Just to be clear, those song rips are from the full Japanese version of the game, which came out last week. Now that I’m done being a pedant—I have a few that I really really love. There’s the remix of the classic underground music from Super Mario Bros. This new Smash Bros. version is fantastic. It almost sounds like if they had Larry Levan remix the song for the Paradise Garage back in the day. It’s a full-on club track now with hand claps drenched in reverb and everything. It’s great.
JT: You and I were both into the club-style remixes. I think I told you at one point that I accidentally ended up listening to a club remix of the Pac-Man theme for 15 minutes straight. I needed to take a little walk after that.
MG: That’s a good one, too. It’s got this super-weird Middle Eastern flair to it. My other favorite that’s decidedly not a club track is the medley of songs from the Japan-only Nintendo game Mysterious Castle Murasame. It’s just so dense and has this breakneck tempo, yet it has all these fantastic poppy elements, like really hooky melodies and perfect background elements. There’s these “doo doo doo”s during one of the sections that are just sublime.
JT: Yeah, you really keyed me into the “doo doo doo”s. I like that one, too—there’s a touch of traditional Japanese sound woven in there that plays nicely against the modern mix.
MG: So that’s what I’ll be playing all weekend, assuming things go well. If a code doesn’t show up in my inbox, I’ll probably wade back into Destiny and throw some more of my life away into the competitive multiplayer. What about you, John? Are you playing anything this weekend?
JT: Hmm. I might take a look at Destiny myself, not because I’m especially excited about it, but because it’s novel enough that I want to see what’s what. And I’ll probably re-watch that video mashup that Derrick [Sanskrit] made for the new Smash Bros.’ Animal Crossing Kapp’n music, on account of it makes me giggle. I didn’t even know that mashup-generator site [vMASHUP] existed. But Derrick knows about everything that is on the Internet.
Matt Gerardi: It’s true. Derrick is one hip cat. Or hep cat.
John Teti: He’s both. That’s how hip he is.