The hype continues as we get closer and closer to the release of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS outside of Japan. In the past week, players who summoned a Japanese 3DS and a Japanese copy of the game have only fueled the pre-release fire, while an announcement from Nintendo itself highlighted another news-filled week for Smash 3DS.

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To help kick off the release of Smash 3DS in North America, Nintendo has announced the Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS National Open Tournament, a nation-wide competition where Smash players can duke it out in qualifying events at participating stores on October 4th in hopes of reaching the championship event at Nintendo World Store in New York City on October 11th.

The qualifying events, which will be hosted at certain Gamestop locations (Nintendo World Store will also serve as a qualifying location as well as the site of the championships) on October 4th, will feature brackets capped at 64 entrants only in free-for-all matches. Further, qualifying events will allow only starting roster characters and will have items, while the national event on will have only Smash Balls on, equipment legal, and all playable characters allowed. Full rules and prizes can be found here.

However, the big tournament on everyone’s radar was Umebura 8, the first Japanese Super Smash Bros. for 3DS tournament, which happened just before this past week. With 170 entrants, this is the largest Smash 3DS tournament to date. Neitono’s Greninja secured 1st over Abadango’s Pac-Man, while fan-favorite VGBC } AMSa finished tied for 9th. The tournament was a single-elimination competition with 2-stock, no timer matches only on Final Destination and Final Destination stage variants.

The highlight of the event was, of course, the grand finals, featuring an intense set between Greninja and Pac-Man. Facing off on Wily’s Castle FD and Pictochat FD, Nietono triumphs over Abadango with two wins in the best-of-three set.

On the other side of the world, TourneyLocator’s Shockwave 2 event also featured Smash 3DS, with TourneyLocator’s own Denti taking the tournament using Sheik. Valiant efforts were made by Bwett and Pwing as Little Mac and Villager, respectively. TourneyLocator’s Youtube channel has the entirety of the competition’s match footage from the broadcast.

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And, back in Long Island, New York, there was Crossfire 4 – the final farewell event for beloved Long Island Smash hub Empire Gaming and Comics, which held its own Smash 3DS event of 32 entrants. Dabuz, the Smash 3DS winner at HitBox Arena’s Smash 3DS event in New Jersey the weekend before, impressed with Sheik and took home the gold over Mew2King’s Sonic . Crossfire Gaming’s Vinnie rounded out the top 3 with his ROB.

As tournament players flocked to venues for 3DS events, reviews for the new games hit the Internet with undeniable fanfare. A majority of reviews have given the game high ratings, with virtually every writer in question satisfied with the portable Smash experience. GamesBeat, in particular, is rather enthralled with the new game, giving it a remarkable score of 97 out of 100.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a week of Smash 3DS news without a new glitch or bug rearing its ugly head. In one of the Multi-Man Melee modes, in which you bash your away through wave after wave of endless Miis until you are dispatched, an occasional enemy fighter will appear as a mini-boss. A new video shows that by using Yoshi’s neutral B move, Egg Lay, on these mini-boss fighters, they will grow enormous in size if you continually use the move on them. There isn’t much rhyme or reason to this bug, but it does produce some hilarious results.

And finally, one of the most painstaking parts of Smash 3DS is acquiring every character’s custom move. All fighters on the roster have four special moves, as well as two custom variations per special move, for a total of 12 specials. There are hundreds upon hundreds of custom moves to collect, which seems like an impossible task. Not so for Smash player Ninjalink – the New York Smasher has a Youtube playlist with videos for every single character’s custom move variants. Thanks to his work, players can now inform themselves on what every fighter can bring to the battle when customizations are turned on.

If you cannot make it into the Nintendo National Open Tournament brackets, keep your eyes glued to those computer monitors. October 4th is also the day of KTAR X, a Smash 4/Project M/Melee featuring both Smash 3DS singles and Smash 3DS doubles. The stream will be provided by Clash Tournaments.

Be sure to stay with us and our continued coverage of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS news, especially with the game releasing outside of Japan very soon.