Long-established is the purpose of friends. When you feel like you can’t do anything right, they remind you of the times you did. When you feel like the world’s against you, they loyally stand by. And when you triumph, they celebrate your successes alongside you. All of this, it turns out, it crumpled up and tossed in a trash can overflowing with lighter fluid when you’re choosing your main in Super Smash Bros.

While the majority of people who tune into Super Smash Bros. tournaments are in it for the nasty spikes and pop-offs, this fighting game’s grassroots community also has some comedy chops to offer.

The best surprise from last weekend’s Smash Ultimate Summit tournament was a hilarious, Interstellar-inspired skit from some beloved pros about the difficulty of leaving old versions of Super Smash Bros. behind.

The only thing less fun than losing in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is getting buried.

This isn’t so much a “diary” as it is an explanation. It is an explanation as to why, throughout the last week’s day-to-day obligations and engagements, I have had the affect of a melting globule of salted snail.

My mood has been poor, maybe worse than when I got rejected from my first-choice college, and I have been ducking behind corners and under tables even just to scroll through Twitter or check my email. It is also an explanation as to why, every time I unlock my phone, I and everybody else in my vicinity have been confronted with a pornographic image of Nintendo’s Yoshi, wearing a thong bikini, under the words “hell yeah I’m a slut".

Right after the world’s most blah Super Bowl mercifully wrapped itself up, 124,000 viewers tuned into Twitch to watch something way more exciting: the Oakland Super Smash Bros. tournament Genesis 6. The event was one hype moment after another, and its players looked so capable that, at times, I wondered what devil they’d promised their firstborn to.

Victoria “VikkiKitty” Perez had been competing at Super Smash Bros. 4 for five months when local tournament organisers plucked her out of the contender’s pool and threw her on stage to commentate.

Over the PA one 2015 tournament in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, everybody heard the words, “Victoria, come into the stream room.” It wasn’t a question, not that Perez would have give herself the option to say no.

Last night, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate got Mario’s Piranha Plant, the platform fighter’s first downloadable fighter, and it’s a doozy. Piranha Plant’s moveset is a radical departure from what we’ve seen in prior Smash games, but thankfully, unlike those games’ downloadable fighters, this one isn’t overpowered.

I think all of us are curious about how a literal piranha plant is going to hold its own against the likes of Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The new, downloadable fighter releases sometime before February 15 — we’re not exactly sure when yet — and if you own the game, you’re going to want to give the big guy a spin.

Just don’t miss out: You only have three days to get him for free.

Nintendo’s removal of the “taunt” option in Smash Ultimate online play has sparked an outbreak of one of gaming’s most notorious behaviours: teabagging.

Gonzalo “Zero” Barrios, regarded as the best Smash 4 player in the world, recently needed a safe approach against Jamaal “Samsora” Morris Jr., who was playing Peach. It was their both of their final stocks at last weekend’s Smash Ultimate tournament, Smash Conference. Barrios tried hard to bait Morris’s white gown-wearing Peach as she fluttered through the air, but she wasn’t biting.

In a millisecond, Morris caught Barrios in a grab, tossed him off-stage and plucked a few turnips from the ground. Morris threw one and caught it again as Barrios clambered back on stage. Then Barrios met Peach’s parasol in the final blow of the unremitting 0-3 set.

Smash Ultimate is a living game, and one month later, it’s just starting to walk on two legs. Sure, its launch was explosive, but Smash takes on new meaning as fans’ ideas about it evolve. Who’s top tier in the meta? What’s the wackiest ruleset anyone’s come up with? Will we decide a year from now, en masse, to play with the Smash meter on? Only time will tell.

Here’s what’s happened since Smash Ultimate’s December 7 release.

Remember when the poster for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie dropped? Remember that slightly realistic, terrifying fur? Now imagine that's what Sonic looks like in Smash Ultimate.

It's just one of the makeovers some of the Smash roster has gotten of late, courtesy of the art director for God of War.

Yo dawg, we heard you like tutorials.

There was a time when a popular Smash flex was showing someone that you could even beat them with Bowser, the hulking, slow-to-move Mario monster. Before Bowser’s huge form had even initiated an attack, it’s likely his opponent had already gotten in a shot or two.

It’s not that he wasn’t powerful—he was, when he could get a hit in. But playing as him, and Smash’s other heavy fighters, felt like tugging on puppet strings with lots and lots of slack.

Being over the age of 30 and having a very fortunate job, I'm lucky in that I don't have to miss out on games just because of the platform they're on. But growing up, with a family that was relatively poor and not having much spare cash lying around, there was plenty of games I never grew up with.

Consoles of the '90s were a good example. We had a family PC and some older PCs because the local bank branches didn't know what to do with them. But TVs in every room was absolutely not something we could afford, and so those glorious early days of games like Smash passed me by.

Since Smash Ultimate’s launch, a debate has been brewing among fans new and old: Is the fighter-unlocking system in Smash Ultimate bullshit, or actually super fun?

A terrifying glitch in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate allows the adorable Isabelle to spawn an infinite amount of assist characters. Finally, you can play as Isabelle and Knuckles and Knuckles and Knuckles and Knuckles and Knuckles and Knuckles and Knuckles.

For those who never grew up with a Wii or Gamecube, or just because they happened to be playing something else, Smash Ultimate will be their first proper introduction to the Smash series. And while the platform fighter looks like total chaos, there's a ton of little fundamentals you need to know.

There is definitive proof: Smash brings people together.