We didn’t get off to a great start with almost being refused entry again, due to the manager of Academi not communicating our booking with security AGAIN.
Anyway, security said they’d let us off this time, but you may find us in a different venue next year. We’ll keep you updated if the normal venue changes of course!
So after a rocky start, we got set up quickly and got some freeplay going on the Wii U, with Drn unlocking bits of Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing for the main tournament.
Once we’d done our usual sign ups and socialising for the first hour, we got stuck in with round 1 of the final SPGL Athlon sessions.
The first round was a Mario Party Star Rush Coinathlon.
It was a very quick deed, as it’s all about how fast you can get round 3 laps, repeating the same 3 mini games. (We did the download playable version.)
4 to a group for each game.
We started the main tournament a slight bit early, as everyone was raring to go, but not before I’d announced the Animal Crossing Challenge:
Do Level 6 on the beginners’ Island Tour with a set team.
We knew that quite a few hadn’t got round to downloading it, so I let people use my console where needed.
Derwen ran away with the victory of a score of over 33k, whilst 2nd place trailed behind with a score around 27k.
The prize for that was an Animal Crossing action figure and £10 eShop credit.
On to the main tournament, and everyone was either in a group of 3 or 4, and each time the top 2 went through.
Each group did a grand prix, and as the rounds progressed, the noisier and tenser it got!
As most people were unfamiliar with the game, even the mario kart ‘pros’ found it a challenge.
We left the final round until after the next round of the league session.
Others set up freeplay Smash 3DS, and we also saw a few games of Rhythm Paradise Megamix.
Round 2 of the league ensued, which was the main feature of the event. Smash 4, teamed with your amiibo; It was still groups of 4 people, but 8 players. The stage was of a certain selection and the only item was a smash ball.
The only rule for the actual players was that you could NOT play as the same character as your amiibo.
All 3 of our top players had scored the maximum 5 points in the first round, but things got really shaken up in the second round!
John’s group was up first, but what we’d all forgotten was how lethal Cat’s mario amiibo “Itsame” was! (It had in fact won a previous amiibo only Smash tournament last year…!)
It got down to it being John vs Cat’s amiibo. It was nail-bitingly tense right down to the last 10 seconds…
John was just about holding on, but as it hit 5 seconds, Mario managed to grab his character Link and launch him off stage. If he’d managed to hang on there just half a second longer, it would have gone to sudden death, alas his character died just as “GAME” appeared on the screen. He therefore got 3 points for the round, and Cat grabbed the maximum 5 points.
Next up was Jack’s group. It got all the way down to Nick vs. Jack’s amiibo, but no matter how much Nick tried, he couldn’t inflict much damage on the amiibo “Zeldaport”, so Jack’s amiibo made sure he grabbed the maximum 5 points.
Kieron unfortunately didn’t have much luck with his round and was only able to grab a mediocre 2 points, sealing him in 3rd place for the final trophy.
The final of the Sonic and Sega racing tournament was played by James, Drn, John and Kieron.
There was only a point between each player at the end, but Drn grabbed 1st place, and James grabbed 2nd. (£20 and £10 of eShop credit respectively.)
Round 3 and the final ever round of SPGL Athlon 2016 was a “Mystery”. Dylan had decided on 6 games that had been used over the last year of events:
- Bomberman
- Runbow
- Mario Kart Wii
- Nintendo Land
- Mario Sports Mix
- Tetris
Derwen also kindly contributed 4 hama bead Christmas decorations.
We thanked everyone for their support over the year, wished everyone a Merry Christmas, and anticipate that the next main event will be mid-late January.
It’s been an awesome year for SPNW, here’s to even more! 😀