The age-old question of Smash

[Boo Destroyer]

How did you react when you saw Mr. Game & Watch in Melee for the very first time? ;D

[Shrikeswind]

A bit unperturbed, to be honest, since Melee first came out at a time when I had neither a Gamecube nor any particular fanaticism for Nintendo, so I pretty much figured he was from some game or another when I saw him at a Target demo or where ever I first saw him and thought nothing of it, so when I learned more about him it didn't affect me, having known of his existance for some time. Understand that I was in middle school when Melee came out and I was the nerd, which reads "I had my popularity to think of, so video games were low priority." Glad I left that phase.

[The Qu]

Honestly, I still remember. It was the day I picked up Melee (Which would make it December 26th, 2001) and leafed through the strategy guide. Owning a copy of Game & Watch Gallery 2, and having played 3, I was amused and baffled that such a character would get in Smash Bros. I was much more excited at Pichu, who I didn't know was a clone at the time, and Mewtwo, who I didn't unlock for several more years. I was awed by Bowser and Peach as well.

But those two funny Japanese guys left me confused.... A Nintendo game that didn't come out here...?

[Johans Nidorino]

Unfortunately, I was already an Internet user, so I first saw Mr. Game & Watch in a screenshot of an online magazine in 2001... IGN? GameSpot? I forgot. I didn't own a Nintendo GameCube until mid 2002.

It was hard to believe, and it was pretty cool at the same time. A character made of the LCD shapes used in handhelds of the 80s (I still believe it's silly to say retroactively "Mr. Game & Watch is the character in Ball" as Melee invented the name). The flatness of the character was only well perceived in the actual game, though.

Definitely an awesome idea by HAL.

[Arcadenik]

While I was excited about playing as Bowser, Peach, Zelda, Sheik, Ganondorf, Mewtwo and didn't care about Falco, I wasn't too excited about the rest. I was looking through the Player's Guide and saw the unlockable characters and I was a little disappointed at the final roster (this was before I developed fanaticism for Nintendo). Dr. Mario? Marth? Roy? Mr. Game & Watch? Young Link? Pichu? Ice Climbers? Why do we have different versions of Mario, Link, and Pikachu? Who are these characters and why I haven't heard of them?

I didn't know who they were and what games they came from. Later, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Game & Watch must be Nintendo's first-ever character before Mario, which made me like him a bit because I felt it was pretty nice to pay homage to Nintendo's history. I learned why I haven't heard of Marth and Roy because Fire Emblem never came to North America back then and I accepted that answer. I found out on another gaming magazine that the Ice Climbers came from an obscure NES game called Ice Climber and I found that very interesting and made me like them a bit.

It was during my pre-Internet days when I wasn't exposed nor influenced by what the majority of fans wanted in Smash. Because of this pre-Internet perspective, I wanted to see Wario, Toad, Meowth, Kid Icarus (Pit), the NES boxer (Little Mac), King Dedede, Diddy Kong, and Dixie Kong in Melee. My reasons for wanting these characters:

Wario - he had 3 Wario Land games on the Game Boy and I only had Wario Land 3 as my first Game Boy Color game
Toad - he was one of the main characters in Super Mario Bros. 2 and is one of the eight main characters in spin-off games
Meowth - he was (and still is) one of the main Pokemon in the anime along with Pikachu
Kid Icarus (Pit) - I never played his games but I remember him from the Captain N cartoon show
The NES boxer (Little Mac) - I never owned the NES game but I remember him when I came over to my cousin's house and watched him play the NES game
King Dedede - Kirby's Dream Land was the only Kirby game I ever played and owned
Diddy Kong - I only owned Donkey Kong Country 2
Dixie Kong - same reason as Diddy Kong's but I also rented Donkey Kong Country 3

My most-wanted character for Melee was Ganondorf because I was obsessed with Zelda Ocarina of Time at the time and Link was already in the game.

[Manspeed]

Could we NOT turn this into another "I want [character x] thread?" Arcadenik? You never fail at that.

Anyway, when I first saw Mr.GW in Melee I nearly peed my pants. I was pretty much the only person I knew who even gave two craps about Game & Watch at all, and after years of playing all three Game & Watch Galleries I was pretty happy to see them get acknowledge in the biggest celebration of Nintendo to hit a home video game console.

[8bitretroshit]

I couldn't even figure out WHAT he was aside from who he was.

See, few months before Melee's PAL release (which was 6 months after the US release...) I occasionally checked my friend's internet (we didn't even had it back then...) for Melee stuff. Not a lot to be found, but I found a screenshot of the fully unlocked character roster. While I didn't know who Marth and Roy were, I couldn't even figure out what the hell G&W was supposed to be. To me the icon looked like a guy with a Pompadour hairdo, and being a shadow figure I really wondered if it was a fighter at all. Because of the 'Watch' in the name I actually thought it meant that, by selecting him, you'd be spectating the match (which makes no sense at all, oh the dumb mind of 14 year old me).

Then at one point I emailed some dude asking about G&W and it all became clear. G&W also immediately became my favourite character with his silly attacks and being so simple as he is.

[Sqrt2]

At first I thought he was one of those 'Joke Characters' that occaisionly get put in games. I thought that his moves were a bit silly and that he was more or less useless. However after playing with him I soon changed my opinion of him and now he's one of my favourites.

[Yamato.EXE V2]

I've seen Mr. Game and Watch in the official Japanese website at Winter 2001; one of the only Gunpei Yokoi characters in Melee, he shows a lot finesse techniques.

[The Qu]

Jun 19, 2010 20:13:35 GMT -5 Sqrt2 said:

At first I thought he was one of those 'Joke Characters' that occaisionly get put in games. I thought that his moves were a bit silly and that he was more or less useless. However after playing with him I soon changed my opinion of him and now he's one of my favourites.

This brings up an interesting point- in Smash, even the joke characters are playable. Mr. Game & Watch and, IMO, R.O.B. are both highly playable characters who have a bit of a less than serious bent to them.

[Johans Nidorino]

Mr. Game & Watch and R.O.B. have in common that they symbolize Nintendo's hardware more than software, so they're always seen as heterogeneous with the rest of characters (OK, it could be debated Mr. Game & Watch was software too, but it's software so primitive, it was entirely dependent on its own circuitry).

I don't like the terms "joke characters" or "WTF characters" applied to them, but I can't deny they're like that in some way.

[cheatmaster30]

I honestly did not find anything weird about the character whatsoever, already knew about it in advanced, and was all like 'awesome, I unlocked another playable character!' That and his attacks are pretty much awesome in their own way.

[Boo Destroyer]

His multiplayer match entrance in Brawl was right boring.

Could have been this instead: a G&W unit falls onto the ground, starts to shake, and then he jumps out of its screen.

[Prince~Of~Light]

Aww, but it doesn't just straight tell he can't shake if it wasn't seen from visible frames. (-ll-)


After locking Mewtwo I wondered how I could get the last character, and soon I saw from the net who Mr GW was how to unlock it.
I didn't find him dumbfounding guy, some of his moves even good.

But after seeing it in action.
Boy, was I so amazed. He reminded me of those little microgames you find sometimes in McDonalds and such.
Frame by frame movement. Wow.
I wondered was Nintendo doing small microgames too, since Mr GW was pulling it's moves off like that.
I just thought maybe it was a some kind of small game brand done some years ago.

But after hearing Game & Watch was like Nintendo's first own game brand... well, you know the rest. (-l_l-)

[Fryguy64]

Well, first time I found out "Mr. Game & Watch" was in the game was when the game had just been released in Japan and screenshots were leaked. Some monkey thought it would be a good idea to send out the first photo of Mr. Game & Watch standing in the Kongo Jungle N64 stage.

Of course, we also didn't know there were N64 stages, so there was a chorus of "faaaaaake" that rose up. I remained skeptical, but figured he'd probably be in.

My biggest problem with Mr. Game & Watch is that the only characters THAT simple are the falling dudes in Parachute and Fire. Every other Game & Watch character has a face and other features. In short, I don't think he's very "Game & Watchy".

I don't dislike him.