I don't care this is a Smash clone (even though I think what it did was interesting). I don't care that it features DiNO instead of Dante (well, I WAS a little salty about that back then, but I digress). I don't care that it didn't live up to its potential (though, I lament the fact Dart and Abe were cut, along with the titlescreen overhaul, and that Spyro and Crash were never brought in).

This game, despite some flaws, was very much a dream come true. I loved Smash back when I played it at a friend's place (original, Melee, and a little bit of Brawl), and I had always wished for Sony to do the equivalent. I knew they had a great deal of exclusive titles and IPs at the time, and was the only console that could come remotely close to competing with Nintendo's absolutely mammoth roster at the time (I love you Xbox, but I can count your significant exclusives on one hand by 7th gen).

While the roster was much weaker than any of the more modern installments of Smash, it had quite the very interesting cast to pick from, all with contrasting artstyles and playstyles that help give the game quite the differing flavor during matches. I've yet to see a platform fighter utilize characters from FPS/TPS titles (like Killzone, Bioshock, or Dead Space), along side action brawlers like Cole, Kratos, Heihachi. There are just some fun combinations you can get.

What emphasized the topsy-turvy nature were the stage mashups, which I thought were quite interesting and dynamic in of themselves, even without the stage hazards (which can be turned on and off). Even more so when the stage itself slowly evolves over the course of the match from one design to the other, with certain exceptions.

The light character customization in the game was also a neat little bonus, changing colors/costumes, intros, outros, win/lose music, and even taunts, making the characters you play feel that much more unique to you.

Now, again, the game is far from perfect, with some characters being quite overpowered compared to others, the knock-out system being a bit limited, and the roster not reaching the potential it could have. I really do get that. However, I just can't help it. The fact that this game exists at all at the tail end of the PS3 lifecycle was kind of a miracle in of itself.

I don't play it NEARLY as much as I used to back in the day, and the online servers have been shut down for some time now, but once in a while I have a small craving to pop the game in, mess about in Vs. modes with my main (Sir Dan), and putz about in Arcade mode once in a while.

It was a fun, albeit flawed, festival of fighting with a small portion of Playstation's history.

Though, as novel as it is, the final boss in the arcade mode IS kind of crap...