With the new Super Smash Brothers game coming out for both the 3DS and the WiiU in the up coming fall and winter respectively, I thought it was best to do a look back at our favorite games as kids. There's only a few games in this series, but it's a game that everyone loves and cares for and, of course, fights over with friends and family.
A quick synopsis of the series, these games take our favorite video game characters from all our favorite Nintendo games and pits them against each other in either a single player mode or with your friends in a co-op mode. Each character has attacks that are related to them from their other games, such as Pikachu's thunder bolt or Mario's fire ball. And for each game, there are secret characters in the game that can be unlocked meeting certain criteria. Each match is held in an area that matches one of the character's home turf and during these matches, items can fall from the sky that the players can use to aid them in their fight.
Super Smash Bros.
The first game in the series is the self titled Super Smash Bros. It was made for the N64 and was originally only going to be released in Japan. The first game of its type, it has ruined many friendships but it has become one of the best games to still play with friends even today. This game starts off if several characters that we all know from their own games, including Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Pikachu, and Fox as well as the four secret characters; Jigglypuff, Captain Falcon, Luigi, and Ness.
In this game, only the main characters (the original eight) have stages that correspond with their games. There are a total of 9 stages, one of which is unlocked during game play. Each stage has different features on them to give the players more to think about when they are playing, but overall they are all around the same size in this game.
The single player in this game had the player fight through a set amount of matches against computer players throughout almost all of the stages. The player can pick from Very Easy to Very Hard difficulty and can pick from 1 to 5 lives. When the player beats all of the computer players, as well as the bonus stages, they go against the Master Hand. He is the final boss throughout the entire series and once the player beats him, they win the chance to unlock a character or the Mushroom Kingdom stage.
A few things that some people don't know about this game, there were a couple of intended characters for this game that didn't show up but showed up in the other games. These characters include Mewtwo, King DeDeDe, and Bowser, all big power house characters in the later games. It is believed that they weren't added into the game because the movement was harder to make for these characters and it would have taken a longer time to release, but the actual reason is unknown.
Super Smash Bros Melee
The second installment in the series is personally my favorite of all of the games, mainly because it included some of my favorite characters from my favorite series, Roy and Marth from the Fire Emblem series. This game includes all of the characters from the previous game and a few of the stages that can be unlocked during game play. This game was made for the GameCube and became one of the most popular games for this system, aka if you didn't have this game, you shouldn't have a GameCube. It added a lot more stages and characters and a bunch of new single player game play and other extra features.
The game starts with 14 playable characters, already almost double the entire cast of the previous game, and comes with a total of 25 playable characters. All of the characters from the old game are in this one, including a few stages as well. Newly added to this game are Bowser, Peach, Zelda/Sheik, Ice Climbers, Dr. Mario, Young Link, Ganondorf, Falco, Pichu, Mewtwo, Marth, Roy, and Mr. Game & Watch. Even some of the new characters come with their own stages when they are unlocked, such as Mr. Game and Watch and its Flat Zone. The new stages now vary in size and shape from the very large Hyrule Temple to the much smaller Yoshi's Island and come with a few added surprises.
This game includes the same single player mode as the previous game, called Classic Mode, but also includes an Adventure more and an All-Star mode as well. The Adventure Mode takes the player throughout a multitude of stages where the player either walks around to complete the stage, kind of like the original Super Mario Brothers games, or fights an enemy or two. Each stage compliments one of the starters for this game, going through 12 stages and a final boss of Giant Bowser. A bonus boss, unlocked if this mode is beaten under 18 minutes on Normal or harder without using a continue, is Giga Bowser. Giga Bowser is about 3 times harder to kill than Giant Bowser; trust me, I only played against him once but it was the hardest thing I have ever done. The other single player mode is All-Star Mode, This mode is unlocked once the player clears Classic Mode and Adventure Mode with all characters, including the secret characters. This is the hardest mode in the game, where the player goes against every character in the game, finishing off with a team of 25 Mr. Game and Watches, and the damage from each battle is carried over.
Some added features to this game are Trophies, Events, Home-run Contest, Multi-man Melee, and Target testing. Trophies are collectables in the game that are unlocked doing random events/matches. Events are set matches that have certain rules that the player must abide to pass and can lead to unlocking trophies, stages, or even characters. The rest are kind of self explanatory so if you don't understand them, oh well.
Super Smash Bros Brawl
This game was a highly anticipated game for the Wii, due to the success of the earlier games, but in my opinion, it is not as good as Super Smash Bros Melee. A good amount of characters got the cut from Melee, but they were quickly replaced with some new up-and-comers. The characters that got cut were Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, Pichu, Roy, and Young Link. The added characters include Pokemon Trainer (with Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard), Diddy Kong, Ike, King Dedede, Lucario, Meta Knight, Olimar, Pit, R.O.B, Snake, Sonic, Toon Link, Wario, and Zero Suit Samus (like Sheik to Zelda, its a transforming character with Samus).
The Classic Mode and All-Star Mode are the same as before, but the Adventure mode was changed to the Subspace Emissary. This new mode has the chance of unlocking every character during one play through. It is a more expansive adventure mode with bosses every so often and the player goes through playing all of the characters. There are a lot more different stages in this game, some can be seen in the Subspace Emissary. These stages are more expansive and some can be systematically destroyed when playing them. The other mode in this game is the online play where the player can play against any other player online at the time through a WiFi connection, which is the first game of the series to be able to do so.
A new concept added in this game was called the 'Final Smash'. It is an item that can unlock a secret move that can instantly defeat an enemy. Each of these move are unique to each character with a few exceptions, like Link and Toon Link. This is one of the cooler features of the game that adds a whole new aspect to the fighting.
Super Smash Bros Wii U and 3DS
These upcoming titles are the games that are expected to bring Nintendo out of it's slump and perhaps save it from having another bad fiscal year. The game for each system is supposed to be exactly the same when it comes to players, but I believe that for online play, 3DS players can only play against other 3DS players and so on. The 3DS version of the game is also expected to be released much earlier than the WiiU version, with the 3DS version out by 10/3/2014 while the Wii U date is during the holidays of 2014.
There are also some exclusive stages for each system with only 3 stages that are found in both consoles. Each of the exclusive stages are mainly made after games found on those systems, such as for the 3DS, Arena Ferox found in Fire Emblem: Awakening and for the Wii U, Skyloft from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The main reason for the different stages for each system is due to the graphics of the consoles, with the Wii U being more advanced in the graphics department.
So far, the only confirmed returning characters are Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Sheik (confirmed being a separate character in this game), Toon Link, Samus, Zero Suit Samus (also confirmed separate), Kirby, King Dedede, Fox, Pikachu, Charizard (confirmed not a part of Pokemon trainer, as he wasn't confirmed), Lucario, Marth, Ike, Pit, Olimar, and Sonic. For newcomers, the following have been confirmed officially from the official site; Rosalina, Greninja, Palutena, Little Mac, Villager, Wii Fit Trainer, Megaman, you Mii, and Pac-Man.
From the looks of it, the game play on the 3DS does look like it will be a little bit harder, but overall these two games look like they will be the games to get this holiday season. From polygon features in the first game to 3D characters in the last, this game has certainly gone a long way. We can only hope that the financial issues with Nintendo don't hurt the company too much so we can continue to get this series in the future.
Kirby Air Ride is the greatest game ever conceived by man!
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