The Competitive 'Smash Bros.' Documentary Looks Really Good

Some people laugh when I tell them there's a huge competitive scene surrounding Nintendo's Super Smash Bros., the series of outwardly casual fighting games starring Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, and other cute Nintendo icons. Sometime later this year, I'll be able to point them to the upcoming documentary Metagame and show them the errors of their ways.

Filmmaker and Smash Bros. player Travis "Samox" Beauchamp recently unveiled the first full trailer for the production at the MAGFest video gaming celebration in Maryland, and it shows the human side of players best known by names like Mango, Armada, and Dr. PP. As the trailer shows, it goes far deeper than forgettable fluff about how much fun the players have onstage. One player speaks openly about his depression and its relation to Smash; another, Mango, talks about how the rest of the world melts away when he's in top form.

"When I play at my best, I'm Neo from

The Matrix

," says Mango. "I'm unbeatable. And I'll always believe that. I don't care if I lose the next 100 turns in a row, I know that when I play my best, it's a wrap."

Beauchamp has already released a similar though episodic project for YouTube called

The Smash Bros

., which drew considerable attention in 2013 for its superior production values despite its tiny budget. He followed up in 2014 with a

Kickstarter

request for $26,000 to make a documentary focused on the scene's modern developments "that could play in theaters." He met it handily with $34,583 in contributions, and over the last few months it morphed into

Metagame

.

It'll be out sometime later this year. Perhaps the best thing about the documentary is that it's accessible for all audiences, as it downplays some of the jargon that inevitably works its way into competitive gaming in favor of a memorable human story. Much like

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

,

Metagame

might be one to watch even if you don't play

Smash Bros.