Shinmaru

Well, I think my personality only "changes" as I get to know people. Around strangers, I'm more of a reserved, observant person because I don't really know the people too well. However, once you get to know me, I turn into a total dork. lol The way I act online is pretty much the way I act offline around my good friends. I wouldn't say I'm more open online, per se, but people usually get to know you much faster online. So, people can be rest assured that I don't turn into some crazy, depressed psycho when I go offline :p Home is pretty much the same thing, because I have an extreme familiarity with my family. I act the same around them as I do with my friends (except without some of the more derogatory humor lol). They know me well and I know them well - what would be the point of trying to conceal my personality?

Well, I had thought the screens that I had previously seen for Metal Gear Solid 3 looked fantastic, but I wasn't expecting anything [i]near[/i] the amazing quality of these. They look absolutely fantastic. Screen 1: I was actually thinking the same thing, heh. If the individual branches and the vines covering them are actually rendered in real time...wow. I can't even think of a coherent thought to finish that lol. The shot looks extremely good, I think, and the amount of detail put into it is just astounding. Screen 2: Yep, it's quite obvious that the ground textures need a bit of work but everything else is looking good. Screen 3: My jaw just about dropped when I saw this one - Snake's character model is stunningly close to photographic quality. The little bits of light shining through on Snake is a nice touch, too. Screen 4: Very cool looking shot that shows off how fun that the jungle environment should be. There should be plenty of suspenseful moments while the guards hover mere feet away from wherever Snake happens to be hiding. Good stuff. This is the part where I curse the fact that I don't have a PS2 lol. I really think Metal Gear Solid 3 will end up being one of those games that you just buy a console for, no questions asked. Like Charles said, the game really looks like it'll not only be the best in the Metal Gear series but a revolutionary step in gaming. Stuff like that doesn't come around very often.

Well, I often get struck with writer's block, but I don't try and force myself through it...usually, when I do, I get stuck with crap that I don't like lol. I've been known to shelve stories for months (even years in a couple of occasions) at a time, because I didn't know how I wanted to continue it and I didn't want to force anything out. As for dealing with writer's block...I just let it go. Usually, all my inspiration comes from watching or hearing something (whether it be a TV show, a book or a song) and everything else just flows from there. With me, I start out with one little idea and the rest of it just develops into whatever it's going to be. Most of my writing is based on improvisation, because I almost never know what I'm going to be writing once I start. I may have one or two ideas in the back of my mind but I almost never have a clear picture of what's going to come out. Of course, the downside to my writing style is that it can lead to [i]major[/i] writer's block. If I have no inspiration, I can't do a damn thing about it, basically lol. I just learn to deal with it, heh - my mind is always working on getting inspired by something else most of the time, anyway :p

I'd like to think I'm mature but maturity is a really subjective thing nowadays; everyone has a different idea of maturity. With maturity, I think a lot of people see others acting intelligent and equate that with maturity...I don't really see it that way, though. I basically agree with what Tony said: maturity is knowing when what you're doing is appropriate for the situation. A mature person can goof off and have fun with their friends when the time is right. I don't really see a problem with that, heh. A mature person will also know when what they do is inappropriate for a certain situation. But, still, it's pretty subjective - I'm sure there are people with a totally different opinion of maturity. EDIT: Also, I don't think acting mature is "acting older than you are". That's just silly, in my opinion lol.

"We'll have to go back in the morning," Roland said. "It's too late to get a ride to the Golden Saucer without rousing some suspicion, I think." Roland squinted slightly and eyed his guns up and down; they were cleaned with expert precision and polished to a shine. As soon as he was satisfied, he slipped them back into their respective holsters, soundlessly. "Whatever you say," Sofia remarked. "Though, it would be far better to catch the boss right now, rather than tomorrow." "Why is that?" Roland asked, clearly suspicious. "Well," Sofia began. "He's obviously going to know about our failure by tomorrow. Our leader is not ill-informed, as you know." "Yes, this is true..." Roland muttered. "And, I'm guessing that he will be plenty angry at us," Sofia said. "Especially since we came out looking just as bad as The Turks did." Roland grimaced. He had to admit, Sofia had a good point. The boss would definitely not be happy and giving him time to stew over the less than stellar results of the attack would not be a smart thing to do. Loren complicated things, as well; Roland had no idea whether or not their leader would be accepting of this newfound member. "Fine," Roland sighed. "We'll try to find a way to the Golden Saucer right now. God knows that I don't want to deal with that fool of a leader when he's pissed off and has had time to stew over it." "Good," Sofia smiled. "Glad to see you've come around." "Shut up," Roland replied. "Why do you have to be so irritating?" "It's a mystery," Sofia said, blowing some more smoke at Roland. He responded in kind with another icy glare. If Roland hadn't glared at her like that at least five times a day, Sofia would probably be afraid of that glare. Roland's cold blue eyes were not exactly reassuring of his sanity. "I'll go get the other two," Roland said. "I don't trust you around the girl." Sofia laughed as Roland strolled over to Blaze and Loren.

I think these latest sketches are fantastic, quite honestly, the glasses especially. Strikingly close to photographic quality, I think. It's easy to see how much you improved, perspective wise, from the last sketches to these two sketches. I like how the glasses are kind of bent slightly...it adds a nice effect to the sketch, I think. The left handle of the glasses looks sort of funky, though. The right handle looks far more natural, I think. Plus, the shadows are kinda eh. Still, good work, I think. The CD player is just as good. You even replicated the logos very well, which I thought was quite cool. I also think the "groove" on the CD player was fantastically replicated. The only problem I have is that a couple of the buttons look sort of odd. However, it doesn't really take away from the sketch very much, so whatever. Great work, man ^_^

Call me biased but I like the drawings :p The alarm clock looks pretty good...I think it looks a tad odd in places (especially in the upper right hand corner) but it's pretty accurate. The Game Boy Advance SP is just as good, though the perspective makes one side look larger than the other, I think. Overall, though, it's good stuff; far better than I could ever hope to do in my lifetime, anyway lol.

I agree with wrist cutter. The more you let these people get to you, the more you're going to fall into their trap, so to speak. Using the same inane tactics that they use against you isn't going to solve anything; it just makes them want to bully you around more, I think. There are kids like this everywhere, heh; a lot of them are just pure a-holes who will group together and pick on the "weaker" people in an attempt to gain acceptance. You just have to learn to develop thick skin and not be so affronted by them. And, if that doesn't work, you'd better develop a sense of humor pretty damn quickly or they'll eat you alive.

Roland was never sure as to exactly why Sofia talked to him. He did not care for her company in the slightest and he knew that she wasn't interested in him at all. Of course, Roland's thoughts on this issue were still clouded with the naivete of his days on the farms of his youth and his travels in the wild. He could never truly understand someone like Sofia; however, that didn't make her any less annoying to him. "You should know as well as anyone that there's no vodka here," Roland said in a matter-of-fact tone. Sofia laughed. Roland's somewhat naive nature made him very interesting to listen to and very fun to taunt. For all his grit and intelligence, Roland had still not adjusted well to society. And that was a fact that Sofia took great pleasure in taking advantage of. "Yes, I'm sure that you have no vodka here," Sofia replied. She drew in another breath slowly and quietly. Roland picked up his glass slowly and drank the rest of the water. After he was finished, he set the glass down. The glass shook slightly before settling down. Sofia knew that this simple action was not a result of Roland being nervous; as uncomfortable as he was around people, Roland was not one to succumb to nervousness. Roland was probably on a short fuse that night. A pity, Sofia thought, since she usually had much more time to toy with Roland. "Where is Blaze?" Roland asked, with a hint of impatience. Sofia let out another breath slowly. The gray cigarette smoking flowed slowly towards Roland and seemed to wrap itself around his face. "I'm not sure where exactly he is," Sofia replied calmly. "He went out for a walk." Roland looked out the window. The shadowy figures he saw climbing down the ladder moments earlier were now gone. More than likely, Blaze had gone after them. "He went after them, didn't he?" Roland asked. "Well, you're not so slow, after all, are you?" Sofia asked, with a slightly humorous toned. The icy glare Roland sent her way told her that he obviously did not take to that question very well. "Never mind," Roland said. He checked his guns to make sure that they were loaded and, when he saw that they were, he put them back into their holsters. "I'd like to go a night without hearing any smart comments from you, if that's not too much to ask." "Of course not," Sofia replied. She put out her cigarette and tossed it aside gracefully. "Just as long as I can come along for the ride." "I don't give a **** what you do," Roland replied flatly. "As long as I don't end up dead and the Turks do, I could care less what happens." Sofia smiled...that was exactly the way that [i]she[/i] felt about all this.

[quote name='Dagger IX1']1. What was the first anime movie, series or OVA you ever watched?[/quote] Heh, you won't see me admit this often, but my first series was Sailor Moon. Around here, it came on UPN either before or after Sonic the Hedgehog; I can't remember which. All I know is that I used to watch Sailor Moon every morning before I went to school - considering that I was about nine or ten at the time, the quality of dubbing or anything like that wasn't an issue for me lol. I just liked the show. [quote name='Dagger IX1']2. Do you feel that time has made you more picky about the titles which you like and/or choose to buy?[/quote] To an extent, yes. I really don't watch [i]that much[/i] anime, though I do watch it every once in a while. My tastes have matured a lot from when I first watched anime but I feel I can still enjoy the stuff I watched when I was younger, sort of like I can still enjoy the same video games that I played when I was younger. [quote]3. If you had watched some of your current favorite shows when you first got into anime, would you have been able to appreciate them as much as you do now?[/quote] I think it depends on the show. There are some shows that I probably wouldn't have watched when I was younger, simply because my tastes were radically different than what they are today. But you never know.

I don't see any worthwhile discussion arising from this...you're just basically asking people to list stuff. Things like this are best relegated to myOtaku or something.

I'm a fan of Stephen King but I can't say I'm terribly interested in the show. I might watch a couple episodes to get a feel for it, but I probably won't end up watching the show for too long. Of the Stephen King movies that I've seen, my favorite is easily The Shining (Stanley Kubrick's version, of course), since I loved the book so damn much. The movie is really faithful to the book (besides the ending, which I never really cared for but eh) and Jack Nicholson's performance in this is pretty lengendary, heh. The Simpsons parody of it (The Shinning) is almost as good, though :p

I've never really been able to get into DDR. I enjoy the occasional music game (I've had some fun times playing Gitaroo Man and Samba de Amigo at my friend's house), but DDR has never been my thing. There's just something about it that strikes me as being not very fun at all, heh. For me, it's probably the lack of good music (to me, anyway - that's pretty relative) and the fact that I don't really enjoy dancing lol. But, even if I did, I don't think I would really enjoy DDR. Just not my kind of game.

"You know they probably won't die, right?" Roland said, in a sort of half-question. "If it were this easy, we wouldn't even be dealing with them." "Well, even though it might not work, it's still worth a try," Sofia replied. "It's no small loss to us if it doesn't work." She shrugged slightly, as if to emphasize the minor loss of a Midgar train. "Yes, but you never know how many innocents we could lose," Blaze countered. Roland turned his head slightly, then leaned back against the wall a bit more. That wasn't really unexpected; Blaze saw himself as a sort of champion for the people, or at least it seemed that way to Roland. Honestly, Roland didn't really care what happened to the people - to him, they were just as guilty as the Turks. Sofia turned her head and looked into the distance. "Right about now, I'd say," she remarked. A few seconds later, a large explosion sounded off. Even though the three were far enough from the explosion to not be in any danger, the pure noise still rang in their ears. The train came to a sudden stop, narrowly missing dropping off the path in which it was riding on. "See, no innocents lost." "No Turks lost, either," Roland grunted. "Just as I predicted." He turned and walked back towards the entrance of the Sector 3 warehouse. "I'll be back in the warehouse if any of you want me - I'm tired of watching our plans go up in smoke." He walked silently back into the warehouse and shut the door behind him. Blaze and Sofia may or may not have followed him; either way, it didn't really make a difference to Roland. He was a reluctant follower in this plot, anyway. "If it were up to me, we'd just ambush them and blow their god damned brains out," Roland remarked to himself, walking up the stairs to the top floor of the warehouse. "I don't see the point to all this meticulous planning - they're making them out to be more than they really are." Roland wiped the dust off of the doorknob that led into his chamber and opened it. This was a testament to how old the warehouse really was - there wasn't even a door that required the use of an ID card to enter. "That's them," Roland muttered, barely making out a few shapes climbing down a ladder near the broken down train. His eyes were still extremely sharp, even after an extended period of living in civilization. "I just knew that they'd still be alive after that...they're too resiliant to be killed that easily." The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his ambush plan wasn't really feasible, either. After all, if they were really as resiliant as Roland thought, and they were, who was to say that a simple ambush would kill them? "I need a drink," Roland said to himself, pouring a glass of water. He thought to himself that he should probably contact the leader of SENTINEL, but decided to delegate that task to someone else. He didn't really like the man, anyway; he didn't really like anyone in SENTINEL for that matter. Sofia would probably be the best choice to report back to their leader, since she was the most eloquent speaker of the three - she was also the one most like their exalted leader, which was probably why he liked her so much. Who knew, really? These really weren't things that Roland paid much mind to most of the time. Roland took a long drink out of his glass and set it down on the table. He sat down in the black leather chair located by his desk and got comfortable. He then proceeded to nap for a short while. OOC: Well, that's about it. I was on limited time, so I apologize if the chapter wasn't up to snuff, heh. I'm glad to see that the RPG has gotten off to a good start, though ^_^

Music isn't my life but it's definitely up there. Music is just one of those things that anyone can enjoy, regardless of whether or not they listen to the same music or not. I think it's really been in the past couple years that I've expanded my musical horizons, so to speak. When I was younger, I never really paid too much attention to it, other than listening to the local oldies/classic rock station on the way to school each and every morning (it's still the best radio station we have here, heh). In the past couple years, I've ventured out onto my own to try out different bands and I've found some band that I really enjoy (Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Pink Floyd, Queens of the Stone Age and Soundgarden being among the bands that I searched out for myself, rather than listening for them on the radio). If there's one thing I want to do, though, it's to experience a live concert - I've never had the opportunity to go to a live concert, which is pretty sad. The area where I live is pretty far out from any sort of musical venue and I've never had anyone willing to drive me to a concert. Hopefully, I can change that, though (thank God I'm getting my license fairly soon). So, yeah, music isn't the [i]biggest[/i] part of my life but it's damn near close to it.

[quote name='Satori Night']Hi! I already know the ending of FFX-2!!! It's really bad and it's all BoA's fault!!!![/quote] This is really nowhere near the post quality that we strive for here at OtakuBoards - it's really frowned upon to just jump in and say that you hate the ending of FFX-2 without any rhyme or reason (so to speak). A little elaboration would go a long way, I think. Why do you dislike the ending of FFX-2? What about the other parts of the game? Was it generally a good experience for you? And so on. And remember to use spoiler tags if you ever decide to post about the game's ending, heh. And, CrH, please do not play mod...your post was pretty spammy, as well, and it's just one more thing for us to deal with. Thanks.

Yes, I believe you've hit the nail right on the head, Mitch. I enjoyed reading your critique very much ^_^ Yes, for Darkness, [U]Heart of Darkness[/U], or at least some of the prevailing themes of the book, were an inspiration for that particular poem. The other main inspiration was The Ballad of John and Yoko by The Beatles - I really love the simple tune of that song and I thought the chorus of that particular song was fantastic. I had a fun time writing Darkness, heh. And Comfortably Numb was definitely a big inspiration for Comfortable and Numb (in more ways than the title of the poem, heh). The tune of the song was the biggest thing for me...the song flows amazingly well and the tune really brings it together. Fantastic song, I think, and representative of why Pink Floyd rules. Just about anytime I write poetry, I'm listening to music (and when I'm not, I'm going over tunes in my head). Basically, all of my work is inspired by either 1) An experience I've gone through or am currently going through 2) An idea I've been thinking about or 3) A song I've been listening to (oftentimes, a combination of any of these elements). Music is definitely a big part of my writing - I doubt my poems would be half as good if I didn't have music to help me keep my rhythm, heh.

There are a fair amount of people (around here, at least, but I'm sure it's the same most places) that are into classic rock. I enjoy listening to a lot of it, on occasion. Usually, I listen to a lot of the more well-known bands like The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin and so on. The Beatles and Pink Floyd (though, I haven't heard nearly as much of their music as I have of The Beatles) are pretty much my favorites of the 60s-70s Classic Rock era (I think the 80s is still a bit recent to call "Classic Rock" lol). I love The Beatles because, well, they're The Beatles. They had a massive influence on a myriad of bands and their music just kicks ***, no questions asked. From what I've heard of Pink Floyd, I love their music because it's just so damn different from most of the stuff I listen to; they're a remarkable band.

[QUOTE=maladjusted][color=firebrick] "Darkness" -At the beginning your pattern was AAAABBBB, and you did use the word 'before' two times, and it was a little boring and monotonous. [i]Sitting in the heart of darkness Brooding like the sunset below Send in the graves to get me I'll be haunted like Marlow [/i] I think that part had good flow, sort of a natural ryhming. You should try and use that more often, it's not as obvious as ryhmes such as 'cat' and 'hat', so many poets and writers prefer it. Of course, the fifth stanza was my favorite. Nice poem. Was is based off the book? "Fell in Love" [i][b]I fell in love with a girl But my heart wouldn't stop And my eyes kept bleeding[/b] ?____________________? [b]She's in love with the world But the world wouldn't stop And it kept on spinning[/b] ?____________________? Everything she loves Is right in front of me But it's really funny It's considered cheating now[/i] I really started out liking the bolded lines, it was very much like the beginning of a song and has a very nice beat to it. Now, the fourth line was sort of iffy since it didn't really connect with the third line. Maybe if you added a new line and made the rest of that stanza a new one... Same goes for the second part of the poem. I'm sorry if this is making you feel like I'm destroying your poem...^_^;; It's just only my personal preference. Nice poem. I really like your poems, Shinmaru, they're actually the first pomes I've really read on OB and I'm very pleased. I would suggest that when you're writing the poems you keep in mind sort of a rythmic [sp?] beat of some sort. Hope to see more. ^_^.[/color][/QUOTE] Well, I think I'm on and off with my rhyming lol. Some poems I'll rhyme and with others, I won't. It just depends on what comes out, really. Usually, I don't make drastic changes to first drafts of poems ("Darkness" was an exception - I thought about the last part for a while). So, yeah, don't feel like you're destroying my poetry - those are just your personal preferences and that's fine. My preference is just to go with whatever comes out; I think it reflects my personality fairly well, actually. Anyway, I tried to come up with two poems to post but the second one was pure crap, so I'll just post the one I wrote yesterday. Enjoy. [b]Puppet Show[/b] One puppet says "I want to be happy!" The other puppet says "I want to be free!" Now which do you think Really wants what he means? One puppet says "I want to be rich!" The other puppet says "I still want to be free!" Given a choice Between greed and a voice Which puppet do you think is happy? One puppet says "I want to be famous!" The other puppet says "I always want to be free!" We're pulling the strings Nobody wants these things Does anyone ever become happy? Welcome to the puppet show Welcome to the puppet show! Welcome...to the puppet show!

Yes, I think most people largely prefer remakes that strive to add something to the original gameplay over a straight port (even people who have never played the original would likely prefer stuff added on). Take Resident Evil for the GameCube: The basic core of the game is the same, but there are quite a few changes, the most obvious being the updated graphics. The game simply looks amazing and the darker feel gives that extra kick when it comes to horror aesthetics. Also, Resident Evil had some remade puzzles and the design of the mansion was tinkered with so that the GameCube remake of Resident Evil would feel totally different from the original PlayStation version. You have to admire that. Also, look at Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Again, the basic core of the game is the same, but the graphics are updated to match (and exceed, I think) Metal Gear Solid 2 in graphical quality. Also, the play mechanics of MGS2 are integrated into the game, thus the need to totally revamp the rooms and areas of the original Metal Gear Solid. I can assure you that Twin Snakes will most likely [i]not[/i] feel like the same old Metal Gear Solid that most people played almost six years ago. So, yeah, I would largely prefer developers to go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to re-releasing games - it really, really helps out a lot.

Wrote a couple more poems yesterday. The first one is kind of a quickie poem...feels incomplete to me, but I'm not sure how to end it. I'll probably end up editing it later on, heh. [b]Fell in Love[/b] I fell in love with a girl But my heart wouldn't stop And my eyes kept bleeding She's in love with the world But the world wouldn't stop And it kept on spinning Everything she loves Is right in front of me But it's really funny It's considered cheating now I fell in love with a girl But my heart couldn't stop And my eyes were greedy She's in love with the world But she wanted too much And the world kept on spinning Everything she loves Is right behind of me But it's really funny It's considered cheating now This next poem I enjoy much more, feels more complete. [b]Comfortable and Numb[/b] Hello, can you hear me? I've tried and no one can see I can't feel a thing 'Cause everything's the same I turn toward the light Blinded by purity Comfortable and numb Blind with eyes that no longer see I feel it in my heart Everything is gonna be right Rising in the west Setting in the east I'll follow the light Hello, can you hear me? I've tried and no one can see Everyone is one And she bores the hell out of me I turn toward the light Differences are clear to me Miles down the road Hoping for a sight to see Comfortable and numb Sitting on the throne with me God laughs at men But she'll laugh with me Hello, can you hear me? I've tried and no one can see Everyone is gone But the light was left with me God pulled a cruel joke But I wasn't there to see I was setting in the east Ready to die for me Comfortable and numb Nothing will change for me But the light will come forth And say that she'll love me The light will come forth And say that she'll love me

We're really trying to avoid these one-shot "ask a question" threads because they don't really initiate any sort of discussion. You could probably get the answer to your question easily enough if you search it out on Google or GameFAQs or something.

I posted about this a few months back but, seeing as it's in the archives, I thought now would be a nice time to bring things back. Remakes and compilations have been in gaming for a long, long time. Some of the more famous of them include Super Mario All-Stars, Sonic Jam, the Activision and Midway compilations and so on. Remakes aren't too uncommon, either; we have Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, Super Mario Bros. DX, Tetris DX and more. Game Boy Color wasn't really known for having too many remakes but there were some good re-releases of NES games on there. In recent years, however, especially with the advent of the Game Boy Advance, remakes and compilations have been made like crazy. The Super Mario Advance series, the two Legend of Zelda compilations, the Sonic compilation, etc. More often than before, games are being remade and released as new games. They're even being included as extras in games (Metroid is unlockable in Metroid Prime/Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission and there are several NES games available to play in Animal Crossing). There are both good and bad sides to this - the obvious bad is that some of these games just [i]can't[/i] hold a candle to some of the games of today. There will obviously be some games that will always be timeless classics and will provide great gameplay that can be enjoyed by anyone...but that doesn't mean that some games will be nearly as enjoyable as they were in your youth (or whenever you first played them). Despite this, however, I'm all for remakes. Firstly because there are several games that I have never gotten the chance to play (such as the original Metroid) that I can now play because of remakes. I'm sure this is good for a whole generation of gamers who have also never had the chance to play some of these classic games that were released before their time. Secondly, sad to say, some of my older gaming consoles aren't in the best of shape. I won't go into details but I'm unable to play a lot of the older games that I have. Remakes give me an opportunity to purchase and continue to enjoy games that I might not have otherwise been able to play anymore. So, what's your opinion on remakes? Do you buy them, regardless of whether or not they have extras (and I'll tackle that issue in another post)? If you don't buy remakes, why not?

[QUOTE=The Vampire: Ed][FONT=Comic Sans MS][COLOR=Red]Exactly how many episodes are there in the Cowboy Bebop series? It was only like two weeks ago when I caught the end of the series on Adult Swim, and then the next time it was on it was started over from the beginning. Now, it's right back at the last few episodes, and I was really starting to wonder just how short it really was. Question: [spoiler]Does Spike actually die at the end or what? They make it look like he does because he's just laying there, then a star fade out in the sky after they mentioned that a star fade away when someone dies or something similar to that.[/spoiler] It's not that bad, since most people probably didn't expect it, and it would kinda be a shock. But I like the show, and it would kinda suck if it just ends like that.[/COLOR][/FONT][/QUOTE] [spoiler]Cowboy Bebop is twenty-six episodes long, the first episode being Asteroid Blues (I believe) and the last episode being The Real Folk Blues Part 2. And, yes, Spike does die at the end. There will always be crazy conspiracy theories about Spike living but I doubt they're true. I think that's the best ending for the anime, anyway, since Spike didn't really have any reason to keep on living. He said himself that Julia was the only reason he was still going on and, with her out of the picture, what reason would he have to stay alive? It made sense to have Spike die, plus it gives people the chance to develop an attachment to Spike - how many people remember Spike over a lot of other famous anime characters? A lot, I'd say.[/spoiler]

[QUOTE=Cyke][color=darkblue][font=trebuchet ms]Yes, it just might be an elitist thing to say. I can't think of a convincing reason to explain why I feel that the SSB franchise is not a fighting game series, but it's just the way I feel. Whenever I play SSBM, I feel like I'm playing Mario Party rather than Street Fighter II, for example. It's not the arcade style, because I love the MARVEL vs. CAPCOM franchise, and it's not its goofy presentation, because I consider Clayfighter to be, well... a fighter. The game simply doesn't sit well with me as a fighter, and I therefore can't categorize it under the genre.[/color][/font][/QUOTE] *shrugs* Your opinion, heh. I'm still of the opinion that Smash Bros. is a fighting game, albeit a fighting game that is definitely not of the norm. [quote name='AzureWolf][font=Georgia][color=#0000ff]SSB:M, however, I do not see as one of those games. It was designed as a party game, and that's what it is best used for. What you have to take into consideration is that, although player X is capable of beating player A and player B separately, that does not mean player X can beat player A and player B at the same time. Additionally, player X and player Y, both better than player A and player B in a one-on-one, may not necessarily mean that team XY would beat team AB. There's an exponential difference in skill that occurs, or it might be that new, complex variables are introduced as more players are factored in. Whatever the case - multiplicity/splitting of skills, or additional variables - an individual's skill becomes less and less an influence on the outcome. We can all agree on this through experience, if nothing else, right?[/color'][/font][/quote] While an individual's skill may not be the only defining factor when it comes to determining the outcome of a Smash Bros. match, I wouldn't discount the effect that experience in Smash Bros. has in matches so easily. In fact, I think the examples you mentioned serve quite well for this. For example, in the team battle, perhaps Team AB would simply have more experience as a team than XY - experience fighting as an individual does not always guarantee that you'll be good fighting in a team, as I'm quite sure you know. Conversely, if you put someone more inclined to team play in a fight with someone who has an abundance of single-player experience (as in no team play), the person with more single-player will most likely win. [quote name='AzureWolf][font=Georgia][color=#0000ff][i]So, what about one-on-one's?[/i] Well, there lies the mechanics of the game. SSB:M was designed to be a party game, not a deep, complex fighter. That means that balancing the characters and other factors were targetted towards group playing. SCII, on the other hand, attempts to balance versus matches, where everything is balanced so that the only variable for all match-ups are the skill of the players. Obviously, neither truly succeed, but just looking at what each game aims to accomplish, and the fact that both games were made from very experienced and talented video game companies, can we agree to say that, at least with respect to artful fighting, SCII comes out on top?[/color'][/font][/quote] Melee may not have been [i]designed[/i] to be a deep, complex fighter but it [i]can[/i] become one quite easily, I think. The Melee characters are balanced far better than people realize and can be countered with just about any character if you can use some simple strategy. SCII may come out on top when it comes to delivering a more traditional (i.e. "artful") fighting game but sticking to traditions isn't what keeps me playing games.