Welcome back, readers! Hope your break, if applicable, was a swell one. I played the heck out of Donkey Kong Country Returns over the break, and was highly impressed with the level of skill required to nail some of the tougher challenges. The Time Trials in particular have necessitated some severely good platforming from yours truly, especially to unlock the elusive “Shiny” Gold medals (which usually require you to be several seconds faster than Gold). If you’re having issues with the controls–rolling in particular–check this handy guide!

Today’s comic is a joke about a game that’s 20 years old. On occasion, I’ve seen a little criticism aimed at BitF for making strips about older games, so I thought now would be as good as any a time to clarify the philosophy that goes into this comic. It’s about Nintendo. I wouldn’t even call it a comic about Smash Bros–the name and theme of Brawl is merely a convenient way to tie all the characters together in the same universe. So from day one, anything related to Nintendo has been fair game. The characters and idiosyncrasies involved in three decades’ worth of games are what I really like writing and drawing about; I’m not too concerned with timely industry satire. On occasion, I’ll do something topical (usually in the vein of a new game’s release), but Brawl in the Family is, above all else, a comic by Nintendo fans, for Nintendo fans.

And yeah, the frog suit is pretty useless, eh? Except when it’s not, and you never have it by that point. Kind of reminds me of the Sheep from Settlers of Catan in that way. This also means BitF has now had a comic centered on each of the SMB3 suits.

-By Matthew