So are Smash-style fighting games a thing now?

Contract weave into a spire of obligations

The spikey haired Premier of the Sora, Donald, Goofy cult has finally ascended to his rightful place in the pantheon of Smash Bros. thus ending the long saga of the single greatest crossover fighting game in history with a guessable, but still laudable, conclusion. But for those who looked upon this as an end, as did I, for this era of fighting games, I suppose it's high time for all of us to eat some massive crow because the wider world has taken this as a green light to shove their feet through the slamming door. It really is quite strange, because if we ignore Brawlhalla, (which has been trucking along for a hot minute now and does a lot of things that Smash did along with cool crossover events) there hasn't really been many other fighting games that does what Smash does. It's very existence was a USP. But now we've got 2. One released and one recently accidently revealed, and both come cloaked in this sinister, towering corporatism which shows perfectly why this type of game should be exclusive to those who want to make it.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is the already released game that's done the rounds, and it has managed to hit the ground running despite having the single most generic name it's possible to have in this genre. Sorry 'Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale', you've been out generic-ed. (Wait, that game was called 'Battle Royale' a full 4 years before PUBG? Well that's interesting...) There was always going to be some attraction to this game which promised to flaunt old-school era (My old-school, I mean) Nick characters for people to smash about with, simply because of the nostalgia factor. But I'm seeing some actual enjoyment from a few people as well, mixed in with genuine concerns regarding seriously skewered balancing which seems to transcend usual high-level tiering play and bleeds into casual fun too. (Did you really expect a finely tuned fighter right out of the gate? I didn't.)

But when you cast just a slightly more invasive critical eye on everything here than you have to start asking a few serious questions, afterall wasn't the late Steve Hillenburg, the creator of Spongebob, against his adorably yellow sponge starring in crossover projects? As well as the idea of a Patrick Show and Sponge Bob kids, which are both now a reality. Though maybe I'm being presumptive and his issues wouldn't have extended to games, that wouldn't be too much of a surprise as the world's are pretty separate from one another. However then you stop and think about how in a Nickelodeon game starring Spongbob charatcers, Avatar characters, Catdog, Nigel Thronberry, Reptar, Lucy Loud and so much more; not a single one is being voiced by the original VA talent. Bare in mind, most of these actors are very active in the voice acting community right now, Nick hasn't dug up any relic TV shows, so it would only take an ask and a paycheck. They just don't want to, and isn't that a little telling?

And on the otherside of the news wall to the shadowy incorporeal world of 'speculation', we have the famed Warner Bros studio bringing their own fighting game and- wait hold on. The movie studio? They're doing a fighting game? What? Speculation is a bit of a bold statement, this is leaked to the point of near confirmation with so much out there that we're hearing of ongoing negotiations to bring in characters from across the- Warner-verse? This is so weird. I understand the crossover of video game franchises, that makes total sense and I have no gripes with how it has all been done, I've come to grips with the animated show crossover potential, they occupy the same medium, same as gaming, so it feels natural for them to shoulder up. But Warner Bros properties? Really? Different franchises from all over the place united only because they take a paycheck from the same place? (Tell me that's not just a little bit cynical)

This isn't even the first time they've tried this sort of weird thing. Do you remember Space Jam 2 where, under the guise of making this a 'bigger sequel', Warner decided that this Looney Toons movie needed cameos from every major franchise they could get their grubby mitts on from Justice League, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and... A Clockwork Orange? (In a kid's movie? Is anyone going to- nah, it's clear that Warner highups have never seen that movie. No need to spoil it for them.) For some reason WB think that if the 'cinematic universe' path to dominance is a road that has been worn-down and set aflame by Disney's Marvel, then they'll slam all gear in a multiuniversal crossover instead. And to be fair the idea is certainly different, although that doesn't mean I think it's a good one, or well conceived.

So far this news only really blew up because of Warner Bros. embarrassing themselves by trailing several years behind on a meme. (Thanks for Big Chungus in Space Jam, guys, you really hit that one on the height of it's zeitgeist) This time it's the all-powerful Shaggy meme that steamed out a couple of years back. Yep, Shaggy is going to be a fighter in this game and that alone has scored just a little bit of free publicity as people see that headline and then quickly check their calendars to make sure they haven't accidentally slipped back in time. But rumours run even deeper than that. Apparently we can expect Batman (Duh) and Gandalf. (Um... okay that one leaves me a little speechless) Is this going to be Sir Ian McKellen's iconic Gandalf? Because with an upcoming new take on Lord of the Rings that is presumably going to recast the main characters, that seems a little bit reductive in helping audiences come to terms with these new faces. (But then, they've already licenced a crappy mobile game with the old likenesses, so maybe WB is just stupid.)

If there's one thing I can say positive about this proposed fighting game, and there is literally only one thing, it's that the assumed title derived from a copyright filing, MULTIVERSUS, is actually pretty cool. It oozes tons more imagination than 'All-Stars Brawl'. But to loop back to my original point, this is all showcasing the head-scratching fact that Smash's brand of fighting game is spawning something of a subgenre, and it's weird that this is happening after 21 years in series developments. (although to be fair, we don't know that Multiversus is going to be stock-based, but the cross-over element, as well as the general timing, certainly fits that mould) Is the allure just because the king is stepping down from the throne, inviting this mad scramble to snatch the absent throne? Are they drooling after the decades of success that the Smash formula has heralded? Why do it just after the final flare of the Life-light chorus, I just don't get the reasoning!

Throwing more competition into any field of gaming is generally a good thing, rising tides raise all ships, as they say, but there's a touch of the corporate that I just can't shake here which poisons any excitement I otherwise might have built up. Why bring Nickelodeon characters to life if you don't also invite the iconic voices that come with them, Spongebob without Tom Kenney is just a household sponge, what are you doing? And though it'll definitely be funny to watch Fred Flintstone, Mad Max and Tom and Jerry wrapped up in a cartoon puff-cloud (All of whom are apparently confirmed characters for this game) without the eye of a damned maestro in charge of this project this is going to turn into a total mess of conflicting styles and characters that turns out little better than a MUGEN fighter. I suppose the next 'Fighter approaching' isn't going to be a character reveal, but the reveal of the next studio trying to springboard their inhouse franchises for a cheap turn-around. 

He lives

 In a pineapple under the Sea

I'm trapped in a supposedly lovable hamlet known as 'The Pineapple Under the sea', with my worn-down mouse clicker and underdeveloped child-brain. I'm desperately commanding a weirdly 3D yellow Sponge around a flat world reminiscent of one of my favourite TV shows. Nothing seems to add up, every item elicits the same lazy responses. I can't leave the house. All I want to do is get outside and start living that 'adventure' which the game box promised. What was on that box again? Something like a Krabby-wagon flying out of an explosion. Where were either of those two elements? I'd never quite grow into the biggest lover of point and click adventures, but our relationship together is never quite as frayed as it is now. With the haze of more than twice my life span of perspective, it feels like I struggled for weeks, and being a stupid kid I just might have, but the result was me putting down the game with a huff and never buying a SpongeBob game again. So what I'm trying to say is that me and gaming Spongebob ain't exactly the tightest knit pair.

But switch that up for the TV show baring the same name, and man I am a Sponge freak. (Or rather I was. I stopped watching long enough ago not to remember and yet not long enough ago to still retain any respectability) Steven Hillenburg's cartoon was one of those few shows out there which was fun and silly enough to appeal to me at pretty much any age, and never really slipped and make itself feel dated. And that's despite one of the very first, and most enduring, jokes it tells being based around a famous French marine researcher who wouldn't have been familiar to children when the show started and is still only mildly familiar to me now as a trivia note. But Spongebob didn't care about relevancy or slipping right into the exact scene which was popular to the kids at that age; the show just wanted to tell jokes they thought would be funny. (As it turns out, that is the most evergreen approach to a kid's show. Who'd have thought?)

When Steve Hillenburg died, it was the quite the gut-punch even for people who, by that point, had moved on from the show in their lives, just because the sheer proliferation of the image of Spongebob as an immutable totem of childhoods everywhere had become rigidly implanted. It became a real litmus test, if that were ever even needed, for what generation one was on for how they reacted to the news, those who cared really felt it, those who didn't seemed utterly perplexed why the death of some cartoonist was news. (But then would act aghast and demand reaction when one of their celebrities died. Sorry, I'm not trying to go 'us versus them' on this.) The ultimate culmination of this, to me, being the request from fans to honour Hillenburg through a skit during the Superbowl halftime show, for there was actually a Spongbob song entitled 'Sweet Victory' which depicted the show's own version of the Superbowl halftime. A simply insane suggestion to any of the stodgy jackets who actually ran the Superbowl, but supremely sensible and a well hearted gesture to fans. So do you know what they did? They kicked of the Halftime show with a half second from the beginning of 'Sweet Victory', and then switched to Travis Scott, a more profitable choice, a move which was both supremely disrespectful and largely insulting.  

The reason that I mentioned and went into great detail spelling out that history for you, is because I want you to know (or if you already knew, then to remember and keep readily to mind) the significance of that song. Because it takes some real confidence, for a couple of reasons, for a brand new Spongebob game to crawl out of the wilderness and hit us squarely with that particular song throughout the length of the footage. It adopts the lofty assumption that this is the respectful game to honour Hillenburg's series in the very way that mainstream NBA laughed and scoffed at, alongside just being a song declaring 'victory' before the game has even received a release date. (Premature, sure, but confidant.) All of which has called out of me a more critical eye then I perhaps might have held for a new Spongebob game, as this is something which now has to stand and deliver; for it's own good.

'Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake' is looking to position itself as the long awaited (at least by me) spiritual successor to 'Battle for Bikini Bottom', a game just recently remastered by THQ Nordic. In a move proving that THQ aren't jealously hoarding all of these old IPs just for remastering purposes, they've dedicated themselves a new 3d platformer, in a age so desperately spare on those games, which will take us all over the series' world and confused history. You've seen the trailer, (of if you haven't then you should, it's worth a look) and therefore you've seen how just about every single significant costume-change episode the show has ever pulled has been teased with references or Easter eggs. Already you can tell that this is going to be a game which tries to cover everything a Spongebob fan could want to see, and despite my instinctual trepidation for companies around THQ's size, I'm a little bit buzzed reading about all of it. Not going to lie.

Some of my personal fondest moments in youth were from playing Battle for Bikini Bottom, and it was actually in the wake of falling in love with that game where I first tried to design my own game. Albeit, that was a Boardgame that I was planning out on Microsoft excel and the thing was terrible because I was an idiot kid, but I guess the idea must have stuck because I'm still trying to make games nearing on twenty years later. (Oof, that hurt to write. Almost twenty years. Jeez) And though the Spongebob movie game (referenced at the head of this blog) inexplicably remains the first thing my mind goes to whenever I think 'Spongebob game', my brain is more and ready for that subconscious spot to be supplanted by a sleek modern follow-up which completely shakes up the scene. (So no pressure there, THQ Nordic, you're just working to save my subconscious from itself.)

We've already got something of an event synopsis to base our expectations on: some fortune teller gives Spongebob a wish granting device and sends him off to explore 7 distinct wishworlds in search of, adventure I guess, who cares. It's a nice traditional set-up for a 3d action platformer like this and it lays plenty of opportunity for stark design choices that can make each level stick out with flavour and flair, should potential be reached. In my most charitable estimation, I could see something like this achieving the fun-factor of the Kingdom Hearts 1 world set-ups, where you're jumping into wholly new environments, and even modes of play, between locations. (At the very least I think it would be amazing if THQ could copy Kingdom's Hearts' shifting HUD which changes to match the setting of the area) What has been unmentioned so far in this feature list, which I hope is only absent because it's so obvious that it hardly bares mentioning, are collectibles. We have those right? If this is a Battle for Bikini Bottom successor, there has to be collectibles. (I won't belabour the point, I'm sure THQ know that)

So I'm an optimist, clearly, when it comes to this title despite being given the whole 'no gameplay in the trailer' trick, because I'm just caught up in the whirlwind that promises to be another solid Sponge outing to slowly wash the bad taste of that movie game from my mouth. (Oh and for defenders of the movie game, try and remember that I'm talking about the awful PC version. It can't even be called a port, it's so starkly different.) Between this, the slow revival of the Destroy All Humans series and the upcoming brand new DLC for the Kingdoms of Amalur Remaster, THQ Nordic are really starting to pay off all of these licences that they went around acquiring and it's beautiful to see. All I want now, and this is a desperate plea, do something with that Timesplitters IP you've got in there, come on guys...