Smash Toxicity

Even with few titles in its 20 years, Super Smash Bros. has a great concept. Your favorite Nintendo characters fighting each other. Four players or more duking it out. Items, various game modes. There's things that make you smile. But we also see the fandom, which is very obnoxious and some of these tournaments have seen very vicious and disgusting moments.

A lot of this involves sexual assault. Stories have come out over the last few years regarding tournaments. People getting kicked off a team, let go. Possible criminal charges. It's blown up now with accusations of assault. I believe a woman assaulted a teenage boy. When you mix that in all together, it creates an even more toxic group that you didn't think was possible. While Nintendo has no involvement in tournaments, they are probably very disgusted out of all the trouble going on. But there can be some fault of trying to cater to people who just want to play for fun and ones who want a real tournament type game.

But ultimately, the fanboys are ones to blame. It's a toss up between this group, Zelda, and maybe Final Fantasy as one of the worst fanbases in gaming. Hell, I'd say Nintendo in general. The constant complaining about how nothing is like Melee. My thoughts on that game is that it's mediocre and the speed of it was too fast for my liking. Is there issues with all the games? Sure, but nothing that makes them unplayable. The ones that play tournaments take it too seriously. It's meant to be a party game with items and interesting stages that aren't like your typical fighter. A guy I knew in college, he was very chill, but would only want one specific stage in Brawl and no items. He'd let loose a little bit sometimes, but that was very rare. But he wasn't obnoxious compared to other community members.

Where this community goes after this, I don't know. Probably a number of criminal charges on the accused. Major changes to tournaments next year. Treating other people respectfully, but that's a tough challenge. The goal now is to clean up the Smash Bros. community. This can apply to other fighting game tournaments, too. Keep an eye on these people involved, especially with Smash Bros.. There is more kids and teenagers who appreciate those titles a bit more than Street Fighter.

Smashing toxicity may be the only way this community can be saved.