A few weeks ago, on the 29th of November, I played Super Smash Bros. Brawl for 17 1/2 hours. There's a nice little story behind it.
The week was an intense one. After months of only leisurely playing casual stock matches against both friends and CPUs, I vowed to actually complete the game. I had a short break from school running from the 20th of November to the 3rd of December, which provided opportunities for lengthy sessions of gaming. The 23rd to the 30th is where Brawl took over.
There was numerous challenges yet to be completed, each being ones that take time and dedication to a certain aspect or mode. I went through and finished up classic and all-star mode as every character, having already started both to some extent, and begun a quest to beat boss battles with the entire cast. Separate challenges, mind you, involve completing a runthrough at each difficulty level. The 'Easy' and 'Normal' modes are nothing to be sniffed at, 'Hard' is worth paying attention to, 'Very Hard' puts up a fight, but 'Intense' mode, oh boy intense mode. Spent a few hours on it alone. It wasn't so much hard through killing guys as much as it was about endurance. Heart Containers need to be used very wisely. Eventually, my Luigi skills pulled through and the mode was conquered.
The Events, Home-Run Contest and Target Smash-related challenges were all completed already, quite some time ago. The Multi-Man Brawl challenges remained however, which aren't "difficult" per se, just time consuming, namely the "Complete 100-Man Brawl as all characters". It took damn ages.
With every practical challenge complete, very few remained. Collecting all the stickers and trophies would render me complete. I decided to go for the trophies first. After collecting countless trophies from all the other challenges, not many were left. A majority of them were of enemies of the Subspace Emissary, where the only way to obtain them was to use a trophy stand item against them in battle. Through the process of getting a list online and cross-checking those I've already gotten, I realised I had eight enemies left to capture. So off on a hunt I went. This took a considerable amount of time, but journeying through the levels of subspace is always fun.
The bosses were a bother, though. Most of them weren't too bad, but Meta Ridley, holy mother of god, is it annoying. You have to understand that the higher the difficulty level, the greater chance of a trophy stand appearing. Needing to go through what is the hardest level in the game on the highest difficulty is already a giant pain, but that's not even the worst part. Once you manage to reach the boss, the conditions are ridiculous. First off, there's a two minute time limit. Runs out, gotta start the boss again. You need to start by draining Meta Ridley's life enough. Too little, trophy stand doesn't work and you need to wait for another. Too much, the boss is beat and you gotta do the whole level again. Obviously not desirable, so you need to be careful. After his health is low enough, you still need to be weary. What I mean this is not only do you have to avoid all his attacks (some of which are One-Hit KOs), you need to be sure not to accidentally attack him while doing dodging all his moves. While you'd have to be stupid to press the attack button by accident, items on the other hand are actually a hindrance. Koopa Shells and Smart Bombs, among other things, can be hit or activated by the boss and they'll hurt themselves, enough to self-destruct and make you do the entire level again. -.- Did this happen to me? Yes. Yes it did.
The one key item you'll be hoping for is the trophy stand, obviously. It's the whole reason for attempting the boss. Even on the highest difficulty, it hardly ever appears. I've gone through as many as five attempts without it showing up. You'll be attacking the boss, waiting for the trophy stand to appear, the time limit will then run out, repeat. It's a bloody irritating process. In the slim chance that the trophy stand does appear, it's not as simple to convert to a trophy as the other bosses. They're grounded, so you throw the stand at them, walk over to the trophy and pick it up. Whereas Meta Ridley is airborne, and his default location (see picture) is to not be above the main platform. The trophy falls into nothingness, and the game views you as victorious, despite not
obtaining the trophy. Guess what? You gotta do the level again, and not **** up this time! :cry:
*Sigh* Anyway, through much trial, I eventually got it. That meant I had every subspace-related trophy. Truly an achievement.
Looking at my collection of trophies, I noticed that I was only two short of completion. The first was the stickers trophy, received for collecting every last sticker. The second was...what? I looked at the challenge grid and the stickers trophy was the only one listed. That means one of the two final trophies was obtained through random means, such as the coin launcher. I looked at a complete list online and saw the missing trophy, the Cheep Cheep. It would take ages to get a random-*** trophy such as it. I'd have to play the coin launcher for hours and hope to get lucky for the mere chance that it appear for capture. Well, that's exactly what I did. Starting at the maximum coin limit of 9999, I was shooting at trophies and ship-like enemies for what seemed like an eternity. It droned over me. The
music burned into my skull as I used over 7000 coins to obtain the god-forsaken trophy in question.
With the Cheep Cheep trophy possessed, the only one remaining was the stickers trophy. So, find all the stickers, the game is beat. This, I am still yet to do. Of the 700 stickers in the game, I have 654 at this very moment. I'm just going to have to play lots and be patient to get those final stickers.
So, in the entire week, I played a little under 70 hours of Super Smash Bros. Brawl to get
so close to 100% completion. The longest session was 17 1/2 hours, with other daily times being 15 hours, 12 hours, 13 1/2 hours and 7 1/2 hours, plus a few 2 hours doses. Regular casual brawls were still a part of my routine, but to a lesser extent than usual. Super Smash Bros. Brawl remains my favourite game of all time and I'd be willing to do it all again.
I have no life