ISSUE LINK: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/ac4194d5-23d7-46fe-b6e2-0f364600532a

Super Smash Bros. Melee is Nintendo’s tightest, deepest, most technically rewarding fighting game of all time, with an active playerbase and tournament scene still uncovering its secrets.

But what did reviewers make of it in 2002, when “lets put all the characters and properties we own in one game” wasn’t an obligatory and trite cash grab, but a novelty?

Aidan and Ty checked it out in “GameNOW,” an unfamiliar title for what turns out to be a familiar editorial crew. We kick the whole thing off with a discussion on whether selling our old games was an obvious thing to do, or *~breaching a sacred bond between player and game~*.

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Sources include the Video Game History Foundation, the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections. The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!