Corronchilejano
Member
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Game Theory: Super Smash Bros TRAGIC Hidden Lore
- Thread starter Corronchilejano
- Start date
GAF isn't a hivemind.
It's an interesting theory. I doubt Sakurai put anywhere near as much thought into the narrative of Smash Bros. as MatPat does (though I don't think anyone would as that's generally the draw of the show), but it's still some food for thought.
Game development is a very personal venture. Any art form is. You inject a lot of yourself, unwittingly or not, into the things you make. It's clear from the many interviews Sakurai has made that Smash Bros. is a personal series for him, and that's for many reasons, some of which the video might hit spot on with. But the good thing about Smash Bros. is that from the start it was always been made in a way that specifically speaks towards an audience acquainted with their nostalgia, not just by mindlessly crossing over a bunch of characters people know about, but by setting up a slight narrative that explicitly draws out a sense of childlike wonder you'd like to have by association of enjoying it.
Context means a lot. When I first beat the original Smash Bros. and the ending rolled, even as a kid I just kind of looked at that and said "so.. it was me all along? I was the real 'creator' of this?" I dunno. While subtle it all just felt really special and beating Smash for the first time was an odd feeling I'd never had at the time, that still persists, and which I feel like I have much more of a frame of reference looking back at it. Every passing day I think about it, it means a little more than it did the previous day.
Game development is a very personal venture. Any art form is. You inject a lot of yourself, unwittingly or not, into the things you make. It's clear from the many interviews Sakurai has made that Smash Bros. is a personal series for him, and that's for many reasons, some of which the video might hit spot on with. But the good thing about Smash Bros. is that from the start it was always been made in a way that specifically speaks towards an audience acquainted with their nostalgia, not just by mindlessly crossing over a bunch of characters people know about, but by setting up a slight narrative that explicitly draws out a sense of childlike wonder you'd like to have by association of enjoying it.
Context means a lot. When I first beat the original Smash Bros. and the ending rolled, even as a kid I just kind of looked at that and said "so.. it was me all along? I was the real 'creator' of this?" I dunno. While subtle it all just felt really special and beating Smash for the first time was an odd feeling I'd never had at the time, that still persists, and which I feel like I have much more of a frame of reference looking back at it. Every passing day I think about it, it means a little more than it did the previous day.
TheVoidDragon
Member
It's an alright theory up until the end of it, it does make some sense. I think the ending part is a bit too far though, that feels a bit forced in.
Several of his theories only work because he's ignored things which suggest they're wrong. For example, in the Portal companion cube theory, one of the reasons he suggests there is an actual person inside every companion cube is because GLaDOS says they are sentient, even though pretty much every piece of Aperture Science technology has a sentient AI built in. Or how in his TF2 pyro video, he says the pyro is male because of things like finger length and proportions, ignoring that the TF2 characters have a certain appearance for easy class identification. It seems like if something doesn't make sense or doesn't support his theory, he'll just ignore it.
Several of his theories only work because he's ignored things which suggest they're wrong. For example, in the Portal companion cube theory, one of the reasons he suggests there is an actual person inside every companion cube is because GLaDOS says they are sentient, even though pretty much every piece of Aperture Science technology has a sentient AI built in. Or how in his TF2 pyro video, he says the pyro is male because of things like finger length and proportions, ignoring that the TF2 characters have a certain appearance for easy class identification. It seems like if something doesn't make sense or doesn't support his theory, he'll just ignore it.
I have watched some of his videos. Some were surprisingly bad. Others were more entertaining. All in all, they felt like a waste of time.
edit: i wouldn't recommend the channel as a whole but there's probably some entertaining videos (as long as you don't take it seriously). Quality is hit and miss.
edit: i wouldn't recommend the channel as a whole but there's probably some entertaining videos (as long as you don't take it seriously). Quality is hit and miss.
Why do some people on GAF dislike him so much? Even if you disagree with his Theories you can construct a logical argument against it or you can ignore it and leave it be. But there is no need to ban him as a user suggested. Because his videos aren't meant to be taken super seriously he even says himself on multiple videos.
Gonzo The Great
Banned
I can't listen to this guy speak for more than five minutes without feeling like I'm back in high school and have to listen to one of my prepubescent classmates read their plagiarized essay.
I used to like Game Theory a lot before it turned into clickbait garbage, such a shame. There were some interesting videos on applying real world physic to video games. Now we just get EVIL DEAD COMMUNIST PEWDIEPIE EXPOSED.
Sometimes he puts out an alright video, though. I suppose he still had some clickbait titles way back but it's just seemed to take over now.
Sometimes he puts out an alright video, though. I suppose he still had some clickbait titles way back but it's just seemed to take over now.
Soulscribe
Member
That was a fun watch 
boiled goose
good with gravy
Amazing
Sure the thumbnail and titles are clickbait-y but thats how youtube works unfortunately. The content of those videos are really good. He still does the real world physics stuff too. The recent hookshot episode is an example of that.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Could've added in a point how smash characters ruining Sakurai's "hands" is a metaphor for smash ruining Sakurai's hands.
Corronchilejano
Member
Truth be told, I hated myself the day I realized he's making me enjoy fanfiction.
Theories are supported by facts. Theories that are not supported by facts are bad theories. To support his Majora's Mask theory, for example, he presented "facts" to support his case and now a lot of people who watched that video believe those "facts" and continue to spread them even though they are complete bullshit. It's just video games, so of course it's nowhere near as serious as people spreading bad theories like young earth creationism or homeopathy, but ignorance is frustrating no matter where you find it. People post that video in a lot of Majora's Mask discussions.
That said, this one is one of his less reaching videos.
Cymbal Head
Banned
I don't really think anything in this video is much of a stretch. By now it's well established that Sakurai is (literally) sick and tired of working on SSB.
I don't get why people take the overspeculating so seriously? It's what those Videos are about, and Matpat himselfs makes Jokes about he puts waay too much thought in simple things in Videogames.
Really, stop taking seriously what was not ment to be taken seriously
About this one; I liked it, but wow, it's kinda crazy that someone can make up such a Story from the stuff in the Game, even for Matpat haha
Really, stop taking seriously what was not ment to be taken seriously
About this one; I liked it, but wow, it's kinda crazy that someone can make up such a Story from the stuff in the Game, even for Matpat haha
Bobs Big Boy
Member
He has a point, if you accept that everything he says is bullshit.
ersocaster
Member
I just watched that video, and he presented a metric ton of evidence to support his theory. All I see to combat his theory is "Nuh uh".
It's also the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eUkSgrdHk . It's very depressing for being a Clear screen!
Smash 4 also follows the sad Clear music trend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMXOvbst1h0 .
I do wonder what Master Core means in the traditional Smash lore (i.e., not thinking Sakurai is Master Hand).
backflip10019
Member
This guy is a living personification of the r/gaming subreddit.
I put facts in quotes because his evidence is full of logical fallacies like confirmation bias. He says this area represents this facet of grief and cherry-picks examples that fit that idea but ignores the examples that do not.
Here is a more thorough debunking I posted in the comments on that video:
This is a bad theory because it uses logical fallacies to support its claims. It makes presuppositions and finds evidence that supports the conclusions they've already drawn without examining everything and missing evidence that goes against their conclusions. They use false dichotomies where they try to show that one explanation isn't likely and then assume their explanation is the only other one and must be right.
The areas of Termina do not represent individual components of the stages of grief.
Clocktown: Several NPCs in Clocktown know that the moon is falling. Several of them flee or plan to flee the town by the third day. People are dealing with it multiple ways. The Happy Mask Salesman bargains with you to retrieve what he lost and gets angry with you when you don't pull off your end of the deal in the first 3 days. The mayor is bargaining by having a town meeting to trying and figure out what to do. The head carpenter is both in denial and angry. The swordmaster actually ends up dealing with the moon by running away rather than denying that the moon is a threat. The major sidequest of Clocktown involves dealing with a couple of people who are very much aware of their problems and not denying them at all. One of them fights to overcome his fate and the other plans to run away from the moon but if you help them they accept their fates.
Woodfall: Deku King is angry. Monkey bargains for your help and accepts his fate. Deku butler is depressed. Cremia is in denial about the cow abductions. Romani bargains for Link's help and gets depressed if you don't save the cows and Cremia.
Snowhead: Darmani does bargain with Link for help, but bargaining happens in every area of the game. People are always asking Link to help them. The song of healing is essentially the song of acceptance. Darmani is also depressed and immediately after asking Link to help him accepts that it may be beyond Link's power and asks him to do something else, so there's acceptance. Most of the Gorons are starving and freezing and they're pretty much dealing with their own losses by accepting it, being depressed, or denying it. The baby Goron is depressed.
Great Bay: Lulu is depressed. Mikau bargains for Link's help and accepts his fate. The rest of the Zoras are pretty much in denial that anything is wrong. Mikau dealt with the loss of his eggs by getting angry and got killed trying to save them.
Ikana Valley: You help most people you help in the game come to acceptance, so there's no reason to single it out here. Sharp and the king of Ikana are angry and most of Ikana is in denial of their own deaths and refuse to move on. The little girl is in denial about her father.
Majora's Mask is a game full of grief because there are many things to grieve about and the game makes no attempts to veil these reasons. None of the areas embody a single aspect of grief.
Termina: The game focuses heavily on time and "term" is a perfect root to describe a world on a time limit since that's what it means: a finite length of time. The world itself is terminal meaning it has a time limit. This is not "a pretty big red flag" for Link being dead. There's nothing about it suggesting anything to do with Link.
Termina is an alternate reality... Why would Hyrule be able to see a moon that doesn't exist there? Link falls through a mysterious Wonderland-esque portal to get there. There is no evidence for Link dying and the closest they can come up with is "maybe he died falling through the magical portal." Then they have a debate over how impossible things can happen in world full of magic and act like that's proof of anything. The people are mirrors of Hyrule people because it's a parallel universe. The game really doesn't hide this.
The elegy of emptiness lets you make a statue of any form you can take. It says nothing about the forms having to be based on dead people, and just because Link's other forms are from dead people does not mean that Link himself is dead. That's a leap of logic.
The Hero's Shade is an adult. He obviously hasn't accepted anything because he regrets not being able to pass on his skills.
"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" adequately describes both getting turned into a deku scrub and letting the world get destroyed/dying. Both are terrible fates and the Happy Mask Salesman saves you from both fates. It's his signature line and hints more at his mysterious god-like powers. It also ties into being warped back to the first day.
Majora's Mask is a game that deals extensively with loss and grief. The entire world is suffering from various losses. Obviously there are going to be a wide array of emotions displayed in the game. However, no emotional response is embodied by a single area. Every area displays multiple emotions and none stand out. Assuming Link is dead is adding a completely unnecessary and unsupported layer on top of what is happening in the game.
Storm Raider
Banned
MonaLisa.jpg
Corronchilejano
Member
So... fan fiction? What a monster.
Sums up my feelings on it perfectly. He jumps to so many conclusions and uses them as fact. The Rosalina one was equally terrible on this.
But he doesn't present it as fan fiction. He presents it as a possible legitimate factual interpretation of the material and the intent of the developers, which in turn causes other people to believe that interpretation and also present it as fact. People aren't going "Look at this Majora's Mask fanfic!" they are going "Did you know that Termina represents the 5 stages of grief and that Link is dead?! My mind is blown!"
People that actually believe in those videos do so because they want to believe in it. I guess that they find the games more interesting pretending that those "theories" are true (i.e. fact).
Corronchilejano
Member
But hey, that's just a theory... a Game Theory. Thanks for watching.
Would you prefer if the channel was called "Game Conjecture"?
Uuuuh... no. At 11:22 in the video Mat makes it pretty clear that the game is open to any number of interpretations and that the gamer sees what the gamer most wants to see. Is it a cop out? Maybe, but he's not saying it's outright correct.
Also, people interpret storylines how they desire to do so. That's what opinions are.