When William “Leffen” Hjelte became one of Dragon Ball FighterZ’s best Android 21 players and started taking games off of top competitors like Goichi “GO1” Kishida it instantly became big news. Even though Smash had long been accepted as a fighting game, even though Melee competitors had attended EVOs for years, even though the communities intersected, Smash players didn’t touch traditional fighters.

In fact, Smash barely has crossover inside its own communities. Not many Ultimate players pick up Melee and most Melee players that picked up Ultimate dropped it behind after a few months. At this point, most Smash fans are used to the lack of crossover. In the wider world of fighting games (the FGC or fighting game community), Smash’s isolation is a little strange. Maybe even elitist.

“It’s not that it’s not part of the FGC, I just don’t think it wants to be part of the FGC,” top fighting game player Christopher “NYChrisG” Gonzalez said an interview with Score Esports. “You ask FGC people about Killer Instinct, they know. Marvel, they know. King of Fighters, they know. We even know Smash and its players. You ask Smash players about any other game, they don’t care.”

In the FGC players often at least know about other games if not play them. ChrisG got first place in three different games at First Attack 2019 and players like Dominique “Sonicfox” McLean show top 10 level skill at multiple traditional fighters at a time. There are players who have that kind of overlap in Smash – namely Mew2King and Wizzrobe – but it’s not as common.

Also, since #Evo2017 the top five tournaments w/ the highest unique entrants were all Smash:



2017 – Melee – 1030/1435 (71.78%)

2019 – Ult – 2302/3521 (65.38%)

2018 – Melee – 866/1353 (64.01%)

2017 – WiiU – 964/1514 (63.67%)

2018 – WiiU – 740/1358 (54.49%)#evostats #EVO2019 https://t.co/THN3II08NM — One Frame Link (@OneFrameLink) August 1, 2019

It’s even less common that Smash players enter into traditional fighters as Leffen has done. The gap is wide enough that many voices in both the Smash and FGC world say that while Smash is a fighting game, it isn’t a part of the FGC.

Here’s the rest of that ChrisG quote, by the way: “Smash is its own entity. They live breath and sleep Smash. They run their own events and don’t really associate with the FGC, not the other way around.”

ChrisG isn’t wrong, though he is generalizing. Eric “ESAM” Lew has gone out of his way to acknowledge the FGC and play fighting games. He did a speedrun race of Divekick and regularly encourages playing all fighting games. Bobby Scar, a top caster and voice in Melee, tore the 5 Gods of Melee moniker out of the FGC world and takes major inspiration from Street Fighter’s own legend Mike “Mike Ross” Ross. And then there are pros like Dekillsage and Leffen.

Alan Bunney, CEO of PandaGlobal, one of the bigger teams in fighting games, calls the two cousins. Personally, I prefer odd siblings. Smash and the FGC have a lot in common. They’ve even learned a lot from one another – more than either may care to admit. They respect each other, but at a distance, and that respect can be weirdly conditional. They could survive alone but they’re better off helping one another. Like siblings, a lot of the differences they have are kind of petty, weirdly personal, and not as big as the similarities.

Those differences might matter more to the two siblings than to anyone else outside of the family, too.

In game: The differences

Those differences go right down to the games themselves. If Smash and the FGC are siblings, they could be half siblings. They share one parent for sure: the beat-em-up. They both come from that old tradition of punching, kicking, and comboing that came from the arcade. However, Smash has the console platformers as the other parent and the FGC has even more arcade lineage – whether it’s additional beat-em-ups or two-player competitions like Pong.

The result is traditional fighters tend to be more ground based and Smash has more to do with aerial movement. Where traditional fighters gain complexity from command inputs which unlock a long list of new moves, Smash gains complexity from the unique ways characters can shift their movement through the air. Both these points of complexity lead to combos, finishers, and the basis for their competitive strengths.

This is also why Sonicfox can hop right into Mortal Kombat 11 and dominate but he can’t do the same with Ultimate. He’d probably prefer we forget the smack he talked about becoming a top talent in three months and beating Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios. Even as a content creator, ZeRo may win off raw Smash fundamentals, which take years to build and which involve complex aerial movement and spacing that most fighting games don’t replicate.

No slight meant to fighting game pros like Sonicfox, many top Smash players would struggle in the reverse situation, if they had to adapt to the grounded, input focused style of traditional fighters. Not to mention, some fighting game players like Dekillsage have done well in Smash. Street Fighter pro Yusuke “Momochi” Momochi, looked pretty sharp playing Ultimate on Quickplay as well.

Smash also has a percent and stock system where getting kills means knocking a player into a blast zone off stage. That, in turn, adds entirely new areas of skill expression like DI. Short of Directional Influence, it influences a character’s direction post hit and it expands to survival DI, Combo DI, SDI, LSI, and even deeper mechanics. At high levels of the game, good SDI can invalidate some confirms, like Ken’s jab or the various lingering fire moves (Richter’s, Ness’s, Robin’s).

The percent system changes the way defense works in both games. In fighting games, blocks are often harder to beat than shield (just ignore Smash 4) because shield has HP, but attacks will have chip damage that goes through blocks. Grabs and cross ups will often net big rewards, though they’re often high risk. Smash’s defense involves combo and survival DI, SDI, and out of shield options, where traditional fighters often involve exploiting minus frames, not falling for frame traps, and mind games.

On top of all of that, Smash was designed for casual play which means stages often matter much more than in other fighting games. In addition, the tempo is a lot different. Fighting games, especially ones like Tekken, have a breakneck pace compared even to Smash’s fasted game – Melee. Timers in fighting games often don’t go over two minutes while in Smash they go up to eight.

There’s enough variance across Smash and FGC titles that you can find exceptions. However, it is true that Smash is different. It might just be the Smash is more different from most fighting games than they are from each other. Smash is different enough to start its own sub-genre, Platform Fighters, a family tree that branches out into Rivals of Aether, Brawlhalla, Digimon Rumble Arena (kidding), and Slap City (dead serious).

In game: The similarities

For all that variance, Smash shares a lot with the other members of the FGC. It’s a nearly consensus fighting game that makes it into Combo Breaker, CEO, DreamHack and EVO for a reason.

The obvious is similarity is the part where two people hit each other until one wins. Smash’s creator, Masahiro Sakurai, modeled the game after SNK’s King Of Fighters/Fatal Fury series. Sakurai did shape the game more towards casual and new players but he had fighting games in mind while making Smash games for Nintendo.

That similarity isn’t just obvious, it’s a big deal. By sharing the simple goal of hitting a player opponent with strikes both games share the idea of neutral. This strange, beautiful, misunderstood word encapsulates so much skill in all fighting games. Smash has a neutral game, something that links it by blood to fighting games.

From there, Smash shares spacing, footsies, mind games, and combos (though they work differently). Across the wide world of fighting games, you can find different genres that share more with Smash as well. Street Fighter may be boxed in but Soulcalibur and Virtua Fighter had ring out features that resemble Smash’s off stage game. Though I think there are some substantial differences that only larger the better you understand both games.

Anime fighters have more aerial movement and jumping than purely traditional fighters as well. Dragon Ball Fighter Z has a huge amount of aerial extensions and plays neutral in the air much more than Street Fighter. Here too think there are substantial differences to the air game in Smash and DBFZ and that gap increases with understanding. Still, there’s a base similarity.

For all the differences in tempo, timeouts (victories by running the clock) exist in both fields as well. Smash now has command inputs for the characters they’ve taken from traditional fighters. Both games share character archetypes like rushdown characters, projectile/zoner characters, and (in Ultimate at least) grapplers. Very similar ideas of defensive and aggressive play circulate both worlds, too.

With a shared win condition comes a surprising amount of shared features and shared mentality. Tech chases exist in both arenas, 50/50’s exist in both arenas, the classic grab>shield>attack>grab triangle exists (akin to rock>scissors>paper>rock). Smash and fighting games share a very deep core.

Out of game: The similarities

In turn, they share more than players realize outside of the game. Just as the core mechanic of the fighting game is beating someone else, the core social dynamic is expressing skill. In both worlds, skill is supreme.

Being the best in your region will make you hot shit in either the FGC or Smash and has a good chance of getting you a posse, artificially inflating your ego, sending you down a weird, weird life path, and earning respect, attention, and blind hatred from total strangers. The role of skill is pretty equal in both communities too. Old FGC players talk about getting punched at arcades but old Smash players got pretty hot about things, too.

Smash players do claim that the fan culture is more intense than in the FGC proper. This may be true but it’s hard to say. The main proof is that Smash top players have been a lot more vocal about troubles with fans and constantly getting approached by them in bracket. This surfaced in conversations about VIP areas and also when a fan hurled a crab at Juan “Hungrybox” Debiedma. As I said, the Smash world gets heated, too.

More than just the gospel of skill, these groups share the gospel of community. For both Smash and the FGC, locals, monthlies, grassroots tournaments, and pure community matters a lot. While other fighting games do have developer support, there’s still a sense that community matters a lot and that these are the more populist esports where you live and die by community.

Smash and FGC people will talk about their communities saving them, reshaping their lives, and giving them outlets more than a lot of other esports. The MOBAs and shooters probably do it just as well but it’s a larger topic in Smash and the FGC, because in Smash and the FGC you aren’t supposed to be doing it for money. You’re supposed to be doing it for the community.

That tight focus on community builds the foundation for another shared piece of culture – diversity. The fighting game and Smash worlds both have a lot of people of color, a lot of players from different class backgrounds, and a lot queer players, too. Sonicfox is a gay, black, non-binary furry and also one of the best fighting game players to ever live. Three defining players in Smash – Ken, Mang0, and Armada – all come from very different backgrounds and have different ethnicities.

Other esports can claim to have this level of diversity but very many of them don’t. The idea that anyone can enter if they too sing the gospel of skill and community lives in both Smash and the FGC. Oh, and to be the buzz kill, both communities have seriously struggled to extend this attitude to women.

Overall, there’s a heavy sense of scrappiness to both of these communities. The FGC may have the developer money Smash has but it’s not rich. Neither esports are the upper crust ones you go to if you want to make a lot of money. In turn, they both have personality and attitude you don’t find in other esports. Their commentary is more colorful, exciting, and racy. Their players don’t calmly line up and shake hands, they get in each others faces. The crowd makes its allegiance clear – sometimes too clear.

Is Smash a true fighting game? Yes, there's fighting in it, isn't there? 100%, 14 votes 14 votes 100% 14 votes - 100% of all votes

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Out of game: The differences

Despite an intensely similar spirit, the FGC and Smash community aren’t that chummy. One of their biggest out of game differences are their social circles. FGC and Smash players have fairly separated and distinct social circles that can look quite different. Sonicfox and ZeRo interaction got so much traction because it felt a little rare.

This isn’t always true. ESAM and other players do make overtures and form bonds with the FGC. It helps that ESAM is an older player. By old, I mean 27.

A key difference in the Smash and FGC world is age. In Ultimate especially, it’s almost unremarkable to see a 15 year old prodigy. To outsiders, it’s shocking to learn how young Ultimate’s top 50 is. Study the competitive scene enough and it begins to feel normal. Wade through Smash twitter for research purposes and yes, the youth of the community becomes very clear.

In this respect, I sympathize with the FGC. Often times, I found it easier to bond with FGC and Melee or Brawl veterans simply because of a shared age. It can feel weird to hang out with a teenager, even if there’s a shared interest that transcends age gaps.

With age comes real cultural differences, too. A lot of the FGC came up in the era of the arcade, where each match mattered a lot because each match meant money and a position at the front of the line. Mike Ross explained how much that could mean to the often poor fighting game demographic.

“Back then, you know sometimes all you would go to the arcade with was 50 cents. Because that’s just what – that’s just what you had, right!? Sometimes you’ll be at lunch, you’ll look at this uh, I dunno – a snack. It might cost 75 cents. You could either buy that and eat or save that and go to the arcade. […] And when you beat somebody you didn’t you just beat them, now they can’t eat!” Mike Ross

This is all on the panel with Mike Ross and Daniel “Tafokints” Lee linked above [roughly 5:30]. Mike Ross turns to Tafo and asks the name for casual matches in Smash, learns it’s “friendlies,” then says, “there are no friendlies in the FGC, let’s just get that straight.”

In the earlier days, before Melee’s revival and sure into EVO in 2013, the FGC didn’t necessarily see Smash as having that shared, scrappy spirit. It took EVO, more community gatherings, and Melee’s raw refusal to die to show FGC the core similarities that existed in spite of cultural differences between casuals and friendlies, consoles and arcades.

There are other differences as well, like an even more predominant and strong international scene in the FGC. Smash has its strong Japanese and European competitors but the FGC also has the Pakistani community in Tekken, strong South Korean players, and strong British and European players. Smash is more concentrated in Japan, the US, and continental Europe.

These differences don’t seem to matter as much as the arcade vs. console culture as well as the different chips on the shoulders that those cultures brought. For the Smash community, the chip on the shoulder has been surviving and creating without developer support. For the FGC, the chip on the shoulder is more lasting so long, being multi-generational, and coming up from the arcade and into the modern world.

Pushing away and coming together

Maybe because this is all the world of fighters, the esports with things to prove, Smash and the FGC get into little sparring matches. They aren’t huge deals that warrant a lot of worry or fear. We can still expect Smash and the FGC to share big events and their top players to talk and get along.

However, both sides have had issues with the other talking down to them. Smash had to fight to get the respect of the already well-established FGC during the 2000’s and early 2010’s. Once they got that respect, they abused a little.

Melee’s community in particular struggles with elitism and occasionally talking down to other esports. The nasty tendency showed when Melee fell out of the EVO lineup in 2019 and Samurai Shodown entered the lineup. Samurai Shodown was a hyped remake of a beloved old fighting game that – while not hugely popular – had legacy and niche respect. So things predictably went very sour when Armada openly mocked Samurai Shodown as an inferior game.

Nah fuck it, I'm going off. This shit has me fucking heated.



Hey @ArmadaUGS, you want to know why people hate Melee? This is why. Not the reason you present in this video, but because this is what you think of other scenes and other communities. pic.twitter.com/OdgJjv8Csy — 𝙉𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙀𝙢𝙤 𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙠: 𝙐𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 (@HBJohnXuandou) March 2, 2019

The FGC reacted swiftly and angrily. This, many FGC members said, is exactly the kind of blindness and arrogance that pushes the FGC away from Smash – Melee in particular. All of this harkens back to ChrisG’s comments about the Smash community choosing to isolate itself and ignoring the rest of the FGC.

So many cool things in Smash Ultimate, but the community will ban 99% of it before December 7th without even trying it. — Joey Cuellar (@MrWiz) June 12, 2018

In this case especially, the arrogance was defensive. Melee had just gotten removed from the lineup by Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar, the TO of EVO – the biggest fighting game tournament in the world. Mr. Wizard had long made open jabs at the Smash community and his cutting Melee felt less motivated by views or practical interests and more by that old, lingering divide. In fairness to Mr. Wizard, Melee is one of the biggest pains in the ass to run given all the outdated hardware it needs and EVO often rotates out titles.

Melee’s arrogance is often an extension of how it defends itself. Melee got here and stayed here by arguing that it is so inherently sick that it has to stay around. It’s a good argument and a necessary one for a very old game that has massive hardware requirements. Unfortunately, extend the argument too far and it becomes, “Melee deserves more slots and more air time because it’s better than whatever you’re watching.”

What fighting game you wish you was OD in?



I wish I was OD in Melee. I love that game it’s so good — Justin Wong (@JWonggg) February 3, 2020

But the truth is, Melee is really, really cool. Smash is really, really cool. A lot of the FGC can see that. Fighting game legends like Justin Wong openly advocate for the game and play it because they want to see more of it. When Sonicfox recently said Smash wasn’t a fighting game, he said it with no malice and immediately respected the skill that goes into it.

With the whole "smash isn't a fighting game" argument that occurs, I agree IMO. It's not,

HOWEVER, it is by far the hardest game you can learn. It not being called a fighting game shouldnt take away from the skill and technique it takes to perfect it. Top players in this are OD. — SonicFox @ Final Kombat (@SonicFox5000) June 17, 2018

In the comments of Wong’s tweet, you can see a lot of Smash players return the love and talk about fighting games they’d love to excel at. In the panel with Tafo and Mike Ross, Tafo talks openly about how TOs in Smash directly learned from TOs in the FGC. The communities clearly come together in ways we see – like Leffen at DBFZ Summit – and in ways we don’t – like TOs passing torches and teaching one another.

Like odd siblings, Smash and the FGC have weird, unnecessary fights. They have differences that seem small in the grand scheme but are big enough to keep them apart. But they’ll come together when it matters. They’ll learn from and grow with each other.