The 1980s were a time that I wasn't around for. I was born in 2002, twenty years later. American culture from that time frame is something I'll never truly understand, if only because I didn't grow up in it. To my knowledge, however, it's largely defined by its films, music, and unfortunately, strong anti-communist sentiments.
Super Dodge Ball embodies all of these ideas. It's a very 1980s story, as if the generation as I understand it were transmogrified into a single video game. A time capsule of a different era, far more interesting to me than many games from the late aughts and early 2010s that try to capture its aesthetics. Here's a game that has it all: an underdog sports story where you go up against the Soviets.
It's interesting how the gameplay reinforces this underdog ethos: the other team members always have way more health than you, usually deal way more damage than you, and often times have access to moves that you can't use. Its strategy that you have to use to be able to win against them, even though it takes a while to get used to learning how to use each of your skills. There's a severe lack of coordination from the limited AI that lends to this experience. It's hard to work together with everyone.
Also, the stakes are way higher than the average dodgeball game - for some reason, getting someone out of the game makes them die. Their spirit floats away as their corpse disappears. I didn't really know how to talk about this but I felt like I had to - it's just a strange and funny choice for a game like this. Sam and his friends are going through some rough shit.
At the end, when you finally defeat the reigning champs and reinforce xenophobic ideas through your intense patriotism, your team throws you up into the air triumphantly as it turns into a sepia photo of all your hard work. Just like every 80s' sports movie, Super Dodge Ball paints itself poignant and inspirational, as if our team has come so far.
Even if it's just a dodge ball game, regardless of how strangely morbid it is.
Super Dodge Ball embodies all of these ideas. It's a very 1980s story, as if the generation as I understand it were transmogrified into a single video game. A time capsule of a different era, far more interesting to me than many games from the late aughts and early 2010s that try to capture its aesthetics. Here's a game that has it all: an underdog sports story where you go up against the Soviets.
It's interesting how the gameplay reinforces this underdog ethos: the other team members always have way more health than you, usually deal way more damage than you, and often times have access to moves that you can't use. Its strategy that you have to use to be able to win against them, even though it takes a while to get used to learning how to use each of your skills. There's a severe lack of coordination from the limited AI that lends to this experience. It's hard to work together with everyone.
Also, the stakes are way higher than the average dodgeball game - for some reason, getting someone out of the game makes them die. Their spirit floats away as their corpse disappears. I didn't really know how to talk about this but I felt like I had to - it's just a strange and funny choice for a game like this. Sam and his friends are going through some rough shit.
At the end, when you finally defeat the reigning champs and reinforce xenophobic ideas through your intense patriotism, your team throws you up into the air triumphantly as it turns into a sepia photo of all your hard work. Just like every 80s' sports movie, Super Dodge Ball paints itself poignant and inspirational, as if our team has come so far.
Even if it's just a dodge ball game, regardless of how strangely morbid it is.
poyfuh
1 year ago
Ultimately I think the joke of the game still works insofar as it’s a goofy parody of this kind of youthful sports story where a playground game is given the ultimate world scale and enormous levels of slapstick violence but the LENGTHS to which the localizations went on these games is always an weird peek into a more disconnected past.