The Home Run Contest in Super Smash Bros. is such a unique part of the game. It began in Melee (the second Smash Bros. game, the one on Gamecube) and has reliably returned in each version since then.
In Super Smash Bros.’ normal mechanics, characters attack each other to increase their opponent’s damage percentage. The higher a character’s damage, effectively, the lighter they become, and the easier they are to knock around with strong attacks. The object is to knock the opponent so far away that they leave the arena, either so they fall off the main platform and off the bottom of the screen, or so far to the side or top that they cross a kill line and are defeated.
The Home Run Contest is a solo mode where the kill line is removed on the right side of the screen. The arena scrolls infinitely to the right. On a platform on the left edge is a special opponent character, Sandbag-kun, or just Sandbag, who’s just a large cylindrical mass with a couple of eyes. Sandbag has no moves, and mostly just stands there. The aim is, to wrack up as much damage as you can over 10 seconds, then use the strongest attack your character has to knock it to the right. To assist in this, the game hands you a Home Run Bat, the game’s strongest attack item, to send it off with. The distance Sandbag flies is determined by the strength of your attack and the damage you’ve done to it. The game records the highest distance each character has been able to send it, and adds them all together for an overall record.
As is predictable for a game as fussed-over as Smash Melee, over the 26 years since its players have come up with all kinds of ridiculous strategies for flinging it downscreen. Later Smash games would do things like have the sun rise and fall as it spins through the air, but Smash Melee just lets it sail through the sky.
It’s an information-dense 25 minutes, but I’ve cued it up about two and a half minutes in to skip a lengthy intro and ad embed. Here’s the video from the start.
