Hi everyone, here's my entry for the 
One of my favorite video games genres is fighting games. Normally, when talking about fighting games, you'd have traditional 2D fighters in mind such as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. But in this case, I'm going to talk about an unconventional fighting game that will always hold a special place in my gamer heart. Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Super Smash Bros. Melee is a game from Nintendo that came out in 2001 which features a wide variety of Nintendo characters. The game was designed to be a party game where you would play with a group of friends and just beat each other up on dynamic stages with random items. This is pretty much how I played the game for years until I discovered the competitve community for Smash. The competitive Smash scene is a whole beast to get into. There are various techniques which require quick and precise timing which are essential to beating your opponent in a 1v1 itemless duel. But, the most interesting aspect of playing Smash with a competitive ruleset is the mental game that you play with your opponent.
This is where Falco Lombardi, the space bird, and my main character comes into play. I created this GIF using Aseprite, a program used for making pixel art. You can notice in the background a blue flashing hexagon, this is known as his 'shine' in game. It's one of his best moves and is crucial to master applying it. The animation is really only just 4 unique frames that are looped together at specfic timings.
The reason I chose pixel art for this piece is because pixel art sets up limitations which allows me to focus on what I'm going to put on the canvas rather than how I'm going to get what I want on the canvas. The act of placing pixels on the canvas becomes slighlty gamified as if you are solving a puzzle on how to make a good image.
Falco has been deemed one of the top characters in the game right along with Fox McCloud, Marth, Jigglypuff, Captain Falcon, and Shiek. Personally, I'd say he's one of the more swaggy characters with his quick movement and vicious punish game. I mean, look at that shooting stance... Can't get cooler than that!
This character has been with me through my journey as a competetive Smash player. It was with him tha that I learned it is crucial to pay attention to your opponent and watch for patterns. For example, there is a common saying that Smash is like rock-paper-scissors except it is more like attach-shield-grab. If you pay attention to what your opponent likes to do, then you can take advantage and choose the better option. This can be generalized into being able to read your opponent. This concept has completely changed my approach to playing competetive games because it can be applied everywhere. If you play FPS games you can figure out where opponents like to camp or position themselves and flank them accordingly, in Rocket League you can see when you opponent wants to go for a save so you can fake a shot and put them out of position, and in Pokemon if you know your opponent wants to switch out their Pokemon because your type beats theirs you can use a move to beat the incoming pokemon rather than the current one. The applications of reading your opponent are endless.
That's what Falco Lombardi, the space bird has taught me.
Thanks for reading this if you got this far. Here's some singular frames of the GIF above!
