In the video game, Megaman 4, 20XX is referred to as the year when the evil robots of Doctors Wily come close to destroying civilization.

In Super Smash Bros. Melee, competitive players refer to the year of 20XX as the year every competitive player plays Fox McCloud to incredible TAS (Tool Assisted) levels. Becoming nearly identical in play style to robots.

Why Fox?

In all Smash Bros. games there exists a tier list. A list of characters with their supposed ranking when compared to other characters. Some characters are just better built to handle more situations, or more versatile, meaning that character is essentially “better” than the others. Fox is considered to be the best character in the game due his attacks coming out fast and the fluidity of his moveset allowing for long strings of combos and incredibly strong punishes.

Characters can take years to master and even longer to execute tech skill (Specific character movements) correctly and consistently. Although many characters are a lot easier to handle, Fox is the preferred due to his versatility in the amount of tech skill that can be learned, developed, and introduced.

But Why 20XX?

Hax$ (Hacks Money), a Smash Bros. Melee player who had been a Captain Falcon main (primary character) is renowned for his precise and consistent movement. When he decided that Falcon was too slow and instead dropped him for Fox was the straw that broke the camels back. Many considered the switch a step towards 20XX as his precise and accurate movement combined with the top tier character would ultimately spell doom for anybody else who plays any other character. Ultimately forcing everyone to play and master Fox just to be viable enough in competition.

Stale Moves

Although Fox vs. Fox battles are intense and very fast paced, it is comparable to watching a Basketball game with only two of the same people playing over and over again in the same venue. The match up gets stale rather quickly, and is adversely affecting Melee, as many believe that 20XX will spell destruction of the community with boring and expected matchups while others believe 20XX will push the development of tech skill on Fox and as a result force others to develop more tech skill for other characters to become stronger, faster and overall better.

20GX

As the 20XX movement rages on, a counter movement has sprung up in contrast to it. The year is 20GX and Captain Falcon has reached his full potential beating out everyone on the roster and most importantly, defeating Fox. The 20GX movement seeks to maximize the power of Falcon in order to prove to 20XX that tiers aren’t what defines characters. From Aerial Stomps to punishing mid air knee strikes, Falcon is becoming a worthy opponent to Fox essentially ensuring that Fox vs. Fox match up are not the only ones we will be seeing in the future.

Although 20XX may seem very close, there are a number of players who refuse to buy into the Fox top tier hype and instead chose to play some of the lower tiers, in spite of some disadvantages they may have. Hopefully there will be some revolutionizing tech skills developed for other characters, such as Ness or Pichu, further adding to the roster of competitive viable characters. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until Pichu becomes the new top tier character in melee.