Critical Play – Playing SSBU under a feminist lens

For this week’s Critical Play I played Super Smash Brother’s Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch – playing as the two characters Palutena and Peach from the Kid Icarus and Mario series respectively. I think Smash is a game that’s highly accessible for a wide range of ages and audiences, as it features such a diverse cast of characters. Though it features some level of violence and fighting which might alienate some, the fighting is for the most part stylized and cartoony in a more “fun” sense rather than a directly violent sense that is more common in other fighting games like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. Through playing these two characters in particular, I noticed a number of interesting design decisions that pushed against the patriarchal norm of strength and fighting.

Though I think her design is a bit overly sexualized, the rest of Palutena’s design exudes holy strength, and I think the overall character and feeling that I got when playing her was that of an unbeatable goddess. The way she controls and her attacks in-game plays strongly into this power fantasy, and I was able to feel this for myself firsthand as I played her. Her moves are overwhelmingly flexible and versatile, but the most important characteristic of all of them is that they essentially shut out the opponent and nullify any counter attacks. Many of them feel borderline unfair, allowing her to attack with invincibility or from incredibly long distances. Her back-air (aerial attack placed in the opposite direction that the player is facing) and dash-attack utilize the shield on her arm, and feature invincibility during the duration of the move, meaning that when Palutena and her opponent throw out their moves at the same time, Palutena will end up winning the exchange.

Palutena Re-Made | Smash Amino

Her side-b, neutral-b, and down-b allow her to hit opponents from nearly across the entire screen, all while keeping opposing projectiles away. And this all plays into the power fantasy – it makes the player feel godly and their opponents as mere mortals, as their projectiles and attacks are blocked and defeated soundly. 

Palutena - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Serebii.net

(Explosive flame can be cast to hit enemies from all the way across the stage, without ever having to get close)

Peach on the other hand, is not someone who immediately stands out as a strong fighter. Her traditional representation in most gaming media which she’s showcased in is as the damsel in distress and as a “weaker” character to be saved by the male protagonist, and at first glance it appears that her Smash iteration is no different, with some moves appearing to play into those tropes. However, the more I played, the more I realized that her moveset is incredibly strong. None of her moves are huge, explosive damage dealers that one might traditionally value in a “strong” character – rather, Peach’s strength comes from her maneuverability and the speed of many of her moves, and gives her the ability to pull off combos and take lives seemingly from nowhere.

Top 30 Peach Ultimate GIFs | Find the best GIF on Gfycat

The main core of Peach’s moveset comes from being able to float in the air and hover at any height, a mechanic that is unique to her (and also Daisy), which gives her unparalleled movement in the air. It allows her to fake out opponents and place aerial attacks with pinpoint precision, and a result of this is that it allows her to win many situations by placing herself in a position using float where she’s essentially unreachable by the opponent, before canceling her float and countering an attempted attack. It also manifests in the way that she ends up taking stocks from her opponents – rather than utilizing powerful moves to knock her opponents off the screen instantly, she can maneuver herself into positions in the air to repeatedly prevent an opponent from returning to the stage, meaning that opponents can lose their lives much earlier than expected. Overall, I think playing Peach from a feminist lens realizes a different form of strength that subverts traditional masculine ideas of what is strong in a fighting game, and subverts her original character design as a damsel in distress.

 

Discussion Question: How might we redesign the system of a “fighting game” to lean away from traditional masculine values of fighting and violence?

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