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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

The Tech Deck

‘Smash Bros.’ mod ‘Project M’ is fast, furious, and ferociously fun

To use a pair of terms coined by Nintendo, I didn't used to play Super Smash Bros. for glory. Once, not long ago, I played purely for fun, and I probably had a little too much fun with the titles. As a child, my go-to local multiplayer destination was Super Smash Bros. Melee on the GameCube. I spent hours playing alongside my friends, occasionally trying out new characters, but sticking mostly to Kirby as I gleefully sucked in opponents and absorbed their abilities for my own use. We always had items turned on; cascades of bob-ombs would emerge from party balls as we tried to line up deadly Home-Run-Bat-smashes on each other. 

Melee's successor, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, stood as my most highly anticipated video game ever, and after I tore through the sealed plastic on the game's 2008 release date, I was greeted with nothing but joy. Still young and oblivious to any competitive nature to be found in Smash Bros., the expanded roster, shiny new graphics, and myriad new items and stages were all that mattered to me. My friends hopped on the Brawl bandwagon as well, and together we played the Wii title feverishly for more than six years. Sure, we underwent periods of lesser play, but whenever the latest gaming fad died down, Brawl was there to lure us back

Melee players should fondly remember the phrase, "DK...DONKEY KONG IS HERE!"

By rough estimation, I sank upwards of 1,000 hours into Brawl between 2008 and 2014. Though our skills improved gradually as a natural side effect of playing so frequently, my friends and I always played casually, choosing stages rife with hazards and leaving items on. Then, in early-2014, amid hype for Nintendo's upcoming Wii U Smash entry, a new friend introduced us to a mod for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, entitled Project M.

For those unfamiliar with this now-famous fan creation, Project M attempts to meld Melee's mechanics with Brawl's engine, creating an experience that combines the competitive viability of the former title with the technical improvements of the latter. The mod also reintroduces a couple of characters who were absent in Brawl, and re-tailors Brawl's selection of stages with competitiveness in mind. 

Project makes a vast amount of mechanical changes to the Brawl experience. For instance, air dodging results in helplessness, "teching" can be performed at any time, and numerous Melee mechanics like L-cancelling, dash dancing, directional input, and wave dashing make returns. If none of that means anything to you, then you likely are not a competitive Smash Bros. player, much like me several months ago. 

Why Nintendo dressed Wario in his biker garb for Brawl the world will never know.

Upon being introduced to Project M, I was both skeptical and intimidated. After the exorbitant amount of time I'd sunk into Brawl, the change of pace was not immediately welcome. Project M plays with the ferocious speed of Melee as opposed to the slower pace of Brawl that I had grown so accustomed to. At first, my friends agreed with my sentiments. We begrudgingly gave the mod some playtime, but always reverted to Brawl after long. We berated Project M for doing away with the carefree fun we'd always gotten out of Brawl, and we had trouble adjusting to the sweeping changes made to our favorite characters.

Now, roughly a year after being first shown Project M, it's practically all I play. Not even the glossy polish and eight-player mayhem of Smash 4 lured us away from the mod for long. So what happened? How was my friend group seduced out of such heavy skepticism? The answer is, even now, unclear to me, but there's no doubt that it happened. Somewhere along the way, during one of my hesitant early sessions with the mod, something simply clicked, and I was hooked. The speed no longer seemed to detract from the fun -- instead, it added to the intensity of the experience. The stages weren't dulled down and simplified -- they were polished for maximum competitiveness. The characters weren't "nerfed" -- they were balanced, making for a more viable roster and more play style options. 

My embracing of Project M came with an underlying, logical leap. At some point along the way, I decided that competitive viability did not come at the expense of fun. Instead, the thrill of competition added to the fun I had with Smash Bros

Marth's tippers return with a vengeance in Project M.

In Brawl, my go-to characters were Snake and Toon Link. The difficult sticky-mine mechanics of the Metal Gear Solid protagonist scared me away from adopting him in Project M, so Toon Link became my initial PM main. However, not much time passed before I realized that Toon Link's dreadful recovery was stifling my ability to win matches. So, I adopted Toon Link's big brother character, Link himself. It was somewhere around this point that my love for Project M began. Playing was still fun; winning, even more-so. 

My Toon Link skills transferred roughly over to the grown-up version, but Link's added power and superior moveset meant that I was emerging from games victorious more than ever before. The speed lent by Project M allowed me to create deadly combinations of projectile hits, chaining together Link's boomerang, arrows and bombs to make milkshakes out of my opponents. Soon enough, I was tossing in down-air sword pogos and powerful grounded up-B spinning attacks to lay waste on the battlefield. 

After a year of playing, my Link game has improved drastically, and I've picked up a stable of side-characters that includes the likes of King Dedede, Wario, and Squirtle alongside my green-clad favorite. And I haven't just gotten better thanks to Project M -- I've started having even more fun with Super Smash Bros. Though I still haven't fully embraced the most complex, difficult-to-execute competitive mechanics of the mod, I appreciate its competitive viability and now wouldn't have my Smash served any other way.

Over the summer, I attended a local Project M tournament, and although I was pulverized by players whose skills far exceeded mine, I had fun getting beaten, because I learned from the experience.

In Project M, Charizard, Ivysaur, and Squirtle are separate characters rather than all belonging to the Pokemon Trainer.

Sure, my Smash sessions with friends are not as relaxed as they once were. Mostly gone are the days of laid back, item-filled, four-player matches. That may seem an unappealing proposition for players who've only ever known Smash Bros. as a casual exercise. As a player who once saw the game in this way, I can only beg non-believers to give Project M a shot. It's free to try, easy to install, and, if nothing else, should prove an amusing change of pace for casual Smash players. If you're anything like me, then there's a good chance the mod will make you see the appeal of competitive Smash Bros.

Who knows? You might just never go back.

Below are instructions on how to get 'Project M' up and running.

What you'll need:

  • Nintendo Wii
  • Copy of 'Super Smash Bros. Brawl'
  • SD card (not a micro-SD card) with a capacity of 2GB or less

The steps:

  1. Visit http://projectmgame.com/en/download and download the Hackless Wii ZIP (Full Set).
  2. Reformat your SD card into either FAT or FAT32 format.
  3. Unzip the 'Project M' files, open the folder, and place the contained files into the root of your reformatted SD card.
  4. Delete all custom 'Brawl' stages from your Wii.
  5. Turn off your Wii and insert the SD card.
  6. Boot up 'Brawl' and navigate to the Stage Builder screen.
  7. Voila! After a few sketchy-looking screens, your copy of 'Project M' should be up and running. Enjoy!

Thoughts on 'Project M'? Have a favorite 'Smash' entry of your own? Leave your input in the comments section.