This small series of blog posts is about taking the subtextual story of the Super Smash Bros. franchise and stringing it together through the whole series. This entry is all about Brawl.
At the end of Melee, we see a young tween, becoming more organized while still enjoying the crossover battles he can create with his imagination. As the series moved into Brawl, this tween would become a full teenager. More responsibilities come with that age, as well as the idea of leaving childish things behind. This is showcased in the latter stages of Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, with the enigmatic final boss Tabuu.
An adult figure, with closed off body language, both able to hold Master Hand, the embodiment of creative imagination, hostage as well as revert every character to their trophy form in a single blast. Tabuu, due to his name pointing heavily to taboos, is meant to reference the societal taboo of interacting with childish things as an older person. Peer pressure, societal norms, and the very meaning of new responsibility for a teenager reinforces this taboo. All of this combines to form a very powerful force, one that would force child-like imagination and wonder to cease. In the case of the story, it would rip the world and characters apart, and destroy everything in its wake. Just like Subspace itself.
With all of the areas that were visited in the main campaign, especially areas that were consumed by Subspace Bombs, Tabuu creates the Great Maze. It is a labyrinth of the strongest enemies as well as remixed areas with new gimmicks and level designs. The only way to reach it is to fight through the last two regular stages in the game, both called “Subspace”. The first involves an unlikely group, that being King Dedede, Luigi, and Ness. The king had taken their trophies for himself and placed broaches with his face on them, but had been knocked out and his castle consumed at the midpoint in the story. Thankfully, those broaches are essentially Chekhov’s gun, and are able to awaken Luigi and Ness, allowing them to revive Dedede and head out. They find the entrance to the maze, at the very least. Another survivor is Kirby, because he accidentally swallowed a broach from the midpoint. When he gets to the entrance of the maze, the king is ecstatic to see him okay. They head into the maze with all of their allies, who were rescued during the course of the two stages.
The maze is not only a gauntlet of enemies and obstacles, it is also a boss rush. Scattered throughout are dark doors leading to either a shadowy character or a boss from the campaign. All must be defeated to reach Tabuu once again. Thankfully, there are four entrances, and all can be found over the course of running the gauntlet, allowing for time to save your progress. Once everything is cleared, there is only one option to move forward: confront Tabuu once more. He charges up like before, but is stopped in his tracks by a new arrival. Like how discovering something completely new can reignite the imagination, the arrival of Sega’s mascot Sonic is enough for Tabuu to be forced to fight the characters directly. Tabuu fights fiercely, with strange patterns and attacks that sometimes just kill on hit. No matter the terrible odds, the man is defeated, Subspace withers into nothing, and the world is returned to its complete whole.
This story is very much representative of Sakurai at this point. He grew up with toys from Japanese kid’s cartoons of the 70s, much like how some people grew up with the cast of Smash 64. He would broaden his horizons with new media in the early 80s, including the arcades that began springing up. In his teenage years in the late 80s, based on how this story was written, he would seperate himself from the taboos of Japanese teens that normally left childish things behind and molded into workers. Sakurai would be more than just a worker, and in the 90s and beyond, creating video games for the world to enjoy would be how he expressed the creativity that he sustained from his youth.
The next entry will cover Smash 4, short but important, and Smash Ultimate, the climax and conclusion of the franchise’s story.