The Combo Video

I have a tendency to become deeply enamored with things. I fall in love with and get wrapped up in things that to many people wouldn't have much meaning. The star of these little interests has been, for many years, fighting games. The core of bettering yourself inherent in these games has enchanted me years at this point. Of course, I am far from the only person who has a similar love for fighting games and I want to talk about a particularly beautiful expression of that love. The combo video.

To put it simply, a combo video is a montage of the fucked-up things you do can do to an opponent in these games. A way to paint your skill onto the canvas of digital video and share it with the world. But over time this changed. People began to tell stories in this format. In an odd way, the videos themselves started to reflect the creators inside and outside. Nowadays, a combo video can be a lot of things. A stylish breakdown of your prowess at a children's party game, the first examples of a learning player finding what they love about competing, or even the collective efforts of dozens of people. All contributing clips to create the sickest vid possible. And I think they're all beautiful. All of these little videos are examples of people finding love and beauty in something small. In taking pixels on a screen and using them to give birth to stories and lives as wonderful as anything else. 

The specific combo video that made me realize this and write about it is the 2021 piece by Da, falaise. In it, the game of Super Smash Brothers Melee is broken down into its most core elements. Character models are nothing but the hitboxes that make them up. All color is removed and even the stages themselves are left as nothing but voids behind the characters. And yet, if you love this game like Da does, you can tell exactly what is happening. The smallest hints of the stage paint a perfect picture in your mind. Everything shoots into place because you've been here. You have been both the loser and the winner in these situations. You can feel every hit, know every sound effect, you can perfectly see what is obscured by the editing. Because you share the same love of this game as Da does. It reminds me of talking to someone about something obscure. It's a connection of joy that's rare and often fleeting. But that shared love is made all the more wonderful for it.

 

Falaise by Da