Nothing Wins the Justice

Another year, another SMASH! charges by. For the uninitiated, the Sydney Manga and Anime Show has been rocking on for three years now, and this year we girded our loins and hammered out an extra day of convention goodness which I can assure you is quite a lot harder than it sounds.

Since this year I was mainly placed around the Games room, I actually can't comment much on how the convention went apart from that area; but I can say that the Games room was pretty serious business. Not only did we manage to net ourselves about a dozen superhuge plasma television screens, but the friendly fellows down at Ubisoft boogied on down to provide us with some as-yet unreleased-in-Australia awesomeness!

So alongside our various X-Boxes and Wiis playing your usual score of Smash Brothers, Street Fighter and Mario Kart, the Ubisoft side of the room had all manner of madness, boasting a wide selection of consoles such as Wiis, XBoxes, PSPs and some manner of Mystery Monolith Machine, the nature of which I am still uncertain. The games were equally impressive, including never-seen-in-Australia-titles such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Super Smash (!!!), Final Fantasy: Dissidia, some form of Naruto rubbish (which is actually already available in Australia, thank you Ash) and something which definitely blew my skirt up, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, which looked so ludicrously awesome that I promised myself to find some time to boot some people off a console and bask in its glory.

The Games Room was a veritable riot of colours and sounds, bursting with Hadoukens, cries of victory and dismay, and all manner of strange J-Pop-y noises oozing out of the DDR section (oh wait, I'm sorry, the IN THE GROOVE section, which is completely different from DDR. My mistake). But it wasn't all fun and games, oh no - there were a number of competitions which were Very Serious Business (TM). Gladiators from all walks of life faced each other on the fields of Smash Brothers and Street Fighter, both hosted by yours truly, raced to the finish in an extremely retro Mario Kart 64 Showdown, and were determined to defy the laws of physics and break the limits of what is humanly possible with In The Groove.

Without going into too much detail, these competitions were great fun for all involved, and the final rounds were truly epic. Mass brawls were narrowed to elite duels to the death in Smash Brothers, with both players displaying reflexes, maneuvers, counters and acts of sheer awesome which kept the audience in rapture until the final blow was dealt. The Grand Finale saw the massive-sword-swinging Roy go toe to toe with the bow-toting angel, Pit, the latter of which was played to such a high level that he would be falling to his doom and still take potshots at Roy, dealing considerable damage before breaking away from the brink of death to fly back to safety.

The Street Fighter Finale was similarly impressive, if more one-sided. In a game which relies on lightning-fast reflexes and the memorization of singularly unfair ultra-mega-bullshit-combos, both players threw down all their cards, pulling stunts as impressive as they were physically impossible. However, one player constantly proved that little bit faster, darting out of the way just as his opponent began his attack before exploiting the narrow opening to deliver a devastating assault. The opponent fought bravely, but in the end was overwhelmed, walking away with the second prize and a knowledge of what it truly means to be pwned.

I completely missed the Mario Kart 64 Showdown, but I count that as a small loss as I did manage to catch the end of the battle In The Groove. The ultimate winner was something more than human - arrows shot up the screen faster than the eye could see, but he was one with the music. The rapid beat was his heart, the techno instruments his mind, and the shrill screams which constitute singing in the most challenging songs were his very soul. Clutching onto the back support for dear life, he hammered the board like a man possessed. His feet were a blur of motion, and though his head stayed level his cheeks vibrated wildly as though he might explode at any moment. His opponent was no match for this creature of funk made flesh and ended with a meagre A- to his Mega S+++++.

All in all, I did not get to see much of SMASH! at all, only occasionally leaving my station to chase down some task or host a trivia competition, but it did have the friendly, boisterous atmosphere I remember. Between the dozens of vendors, tasty munchies and entertaining events, everyone was having a good time, so I call that a success.

Even if I never did get to play Star Ocean.

Ethistan: Its ok Bog, I actually have Star Ocean: The Last Hope, have had it all year in fact. Haven't gotten around to playing it though...

Syfro: To be fair, the Peter is a busy creature.

Ranneko: I too went to SMASH. I am somewhat of a con junkie in this regard.

SMASH is doing quite well for a con of its age, it is continuing to keep the entrance price down making it worthwhile to show. Unfortunately they don't have enough content for me, and most people who are less obsessive than I, to go for both days.

The layout is pretty good, the roundhouse is well suited for things like Cosplay and non-obnoxious main stage things. (Please don't do that game show again, or at least shift it to somewhere less main stage).

I was reasonably impressed by the vendors, there were of course a variety of figure vendors, the anime socs, Madman, Kings Comics, etc. But the place I was most interested in was the vendor selling nicely framed animation cells from various anime series.

That said, I was somewhat uninterested in making many purchases because I had already been to Supanova not that long ago, and had ducked into Kinokuniya the weekend prior, so I was pretty much up to date with series I was interested in.

That said, I did come across some Castle of Cagliostro figures.

I did get around to checking out the maid café this year, it was surprisingly not ridiculously priced, well, not beyond the rest of the con food pricing. That said, the maid dress style doesn't really do it for me so it was primarily a long queue followed by tasty tasty cake.



Smash is great, but unfortunately there is not enough to do to fill multiple days. The best reason I have to attend is that it is a great chance to meet friends and catch up with people. I recommend that some of you guys show up next year.