Nintendo World Championships Wait Until The Good Part

The Nintendo World Championships took place Sunday evening in the always regrettable Microsoft Theater (formerly the Nokia) at LA Live, a place of mediocre food and poor planning. Much like the place it was held at the The Nintendo World Championships could have been so much more if more time and effort was put into it. As a somewhat filled theater had Nintendo fans half cheering and half asleep the matches that took place barely entertained until the finals.

Then... then it was beautiful! But, before then.

*I just want to remind readers not to go to the Final Fantasy concert happening for E3 this Wednesday as I've attended no event at the Microsoft Theater that didn't bore me. Security wastes your time and is made up of some of the dumbest people ever. They won't let you leave once you enter the theater for any reason.

The event started to much fan-fare from the crowd. The place wasn't filled to the brim. I'm afraid Nintnedo didn't get the word out as good as it could that it was free entry to the public. There were a lot of empty seats. We had thousands of fans anyway, but in no way was it packed house.

Nintendo's first group battles from eight qualifiers from Best Buy and their own choice of Internet celebrities were in the game of Splatoon.

I love and play Splatoon. It was boring to watch. With many of the battles not showing who was playing or what team each competitor was on, it was just watching random battles happen. Someone must have gotten the word to the host Kevin Pereira who finally started telling the audience which teams competitors were on. Why Nintendo couldn't attach names on the big screen made no sense.

Shout out to both Kevin Pereira and Andre from Black Nerd Comedy, they both did a great job of hosting and being funny. Kevin cracked jokes, Andre rapped, everyone else sucked the life out of the room. DJ Wheat and whoever was his partner, oh, Justin Flynn were so meaningless to the proceedings. I hated DJ Wheat bringing his son, Mini-Wheat, out to comment on the Splatoon matches.

Your child isn't special DJ Wheat, he's as entertaining as you, which is not a compliment.

It did make me sad that there was no child's division of gameplay this year to see some tikes duke it out and show off their skills. I'd rather see kids play games to listen to them talk about them.

Once again, Mini-Wheat your were a terrible announcer, don't follow in your father's footsteps and you know what, I hate you. I hate you for making the event more boring. I hate you small child.

Bad children aside, the event got more entertaining with elimination rounds with classic games like The Legend of Zelda, Super Metroid and then the new Super Smash Bros.. Those were fun to watch as the classic game matches labeled competitors' names. Smash on the other and couldn't be bothered with taking the time to have competitors names ready.

None of the YouTube personalities could stand out, because none had a mic. Jovenshire of Smosh Games or Arin Game Grumps might have had some fun commentary. They had no way to express that unless that would shout!

Blast Ball was announced, the crowd was silent. The reaction to Blast Ball, a new 3DS title that has you playing soccer with robots that shoot lasers, was met with no reaction from the audience. Every other title, old games and new had some applause, not Blast Ball. Because Blast Ball is boring. It's boring to watch at least and looks relatively simple with very little in design aesthetics to keep you interested.

Once Reggie was on stage the event change. The rematch he had with Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma finally put life back into the event, before then it was a husk of anything entertaining. The banter, the bad talk and plain bad gaming on the part of the President of Nintendo of North America was thrilling. How many times did he fail as Ryu from Street Fighter. Did he ever play the game before, it looked like he didn't. The audience had it's first real laughs.

After Reggie lost his match we had some real competition with Mario Kart 8 in 200cc mode. It was fast, fresh entertainment the audience could get behind it and knew which competitor was competing.

Super Mario Maker, which so many guessed would make an appearance, blew the doors off as the audience screamed out and squealed out for  every move of Mario made that took him closer to death. "Hellish" has been the term colleagues have been writing about the levels that Cosmo and John Numbers, the final two, had to pass to win the Nintendo Championships. They were dead on, I can't imagine anyone wanting to play those levels for fun unless they like Super Meat Boy.

At the theater the audience was truly on edge to see as these two amazing players figured out how to launch Mario across long distances and wall jump to victory. It was great publicity for what was once only call Mario Maker, now Super Mario Maker.

Watching John Numbers win was entertaining, seeing someone master a game that well, that they never really played, you have to give them some applause.

John Numbers not only go the rarest Amiibo, I mean a golden Mario trophy, he got to shake hands with Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario, and got a signed New 3DS from him. Great prizes, but I think last time people won cars and money.

The Nintendo World Championships could have done a lot better. With some simple tweaks, minus one annoying child, and could have been a real world championship.

Friends argue, Nintendo doesn't have to do any of this, and I agree. However, if they're going to do it, they might as well go all way and have the best show possible.

Always try harder Nintendo.