Some of my fondest gaming memories come from when I was 18 and 19 years old. My friends and I would play Tekken 3 after class and sometimes on weekends when we were hanging out at each other's houses. While I greatly enjoyed just hanging out talking smack and doing other things I won't mention here, it was the following year that would bring my fondest gaming memories. Since all of my friends were into fighting games and I would generally import the latest Tekken or Street Fighter so we could play it at home before anyone else, I decided to import the newly released Nintendo All-Star Dai-Rantou Smash Brothers for my Nintendo 64.

I have to be honest, as I headed down to the local import store to pick up the game, I wasn't really expecting much. A crazy fighting game with all of the Nintendo mascot characters, how could that possibly hold a candle to Tekken 3? When I got home I started playing through the single player and really wasn't all that impressed. I invited one of my friends over and even playing two-players it was still looking like one of those risky import titles that you just chalk up as a loss.

It wasn't until I had a group of friends over the following weekend and we tried out the four-player mode that it suddenly clicked. The game was so fun that we spent nearly every weekend crowded in my living room playing Smash for hours on end. It was so addictive that one of my friends bought his own N64 controller even though he didn't own the console.

Last month I talked about what we may see in the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii. This month I'll take that idea a step further and discuss how online play will hopefully be handled in Brawl and how the tournament level players will have to adjust to an all new atmosphere. We know very little about Brawl, and next to nothing about its proposed online play, but it's always fun to speculate and hopefully Nintendo is paying attention.

Modes of Play

While other fighting game communities may debate over how many rounds to play, what to set the health bar to or how long each round should be, Smash players have a much harder debate on their hands. The modes of play in Smash are so different that it's almost like playing completely different games. You can play tournament standard settings with one-on-one stock play and no items, or you can go with the casual settings with four-player free for all in a timed game with all items on. There are quite a few other options, but these are the main two that will come up during online play in Brawl.

Nintendo absolutely has to give players every option that they've had over the last two Smash titles when it comes to online play in Brawl. You have to be able to search for rooms with all items on, all items off, custom item settings, stock play, timed play and the number of players in a match. While tournament level play will not be possible online (more on that later), the tournament level players will still want to practice using similar settings. At the same time, the casual players will want to play with their own rules and probably stay out of the tournament player rooms. It's very important for Nintendo to offer a wide range of options when searching and creating matches in Brawl.

Latency Issues

Fighting games are fun to play online, but for the people who take these games seriously online play is devastating. Smash Brothers already has a vibrant offline tournament scene with big tournaments taking place almost monthly. There are many respected players among the Smash community. However, when Brawl releases the number of players visiting the primary Smash forums (Smash World Forums) will greatly increase with players who are not tournament level, but consider themselves at that level because they can beat their friends. When this happens, the community will have to deal with the difference online and offline play and which format will be required in order for someone to prove their skill.

While some may think that a game like Smash Brothers wouldn't be affected by the slight 2-4 frame latency found in all online fighting games, Smash is actually more technical than games like Dead or Alive 4. In order to execute some of the advanced tactics in Smash, precision timing is required. That kind of timing can't be done with 2-4 frame latency. Even though in a perfect connection the 2-4 frame latency is hardly noticeably, to a high level Smash Brothers player it will make all the difference in the world.

Ranking

Nintendo has not officially confirmed whether or not Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be going online. The developer will make every attempt to get the game functioning online, but we won't know for sure if online play will be included until probably sometime next year. However, according to Nintendo, even if the game goes online there's a very good chance that a traditional online ranking system will not be implemented. Smash Brothers has always been about having fun, and an online ranking system would take away from that.

Despite the potential issues with online ranking, I would like to see a ranking system. It's not hard to offer ranked and non-ranked matches, and it gives people something to compete toward. However, the ranking system needs to be done properly if one is implemented. Every online console fighting game aside from Killer Instinct on the Super NES (via XBand) featured a ranking system that rewarded the player for their sheer number of wins instead of factoring in the skill of the person they played. It's not hard to beat up on 1500 low level players and become the number one ranked player. It's quite a bit harder to take down 100 top level players.

Hopefully if a ranking system is added, it will be done properly. While we wait for more details on Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we'll continue to speculate on what we will be seeing come 2007 when Nintendo finally unleashes the next Smash Brothers on the world.