Super Smash Bros. Review

Fighting games have never been my forte. The 11-year-old gamer that I was in April 1999 simply didn’t have the patience to memorize dozens of combos and throws. Imagine how thrilled I was to pick up Super Smash Brothers and not only play a fighting game that was simple to play but deeper than it appeared, but also a fighting game featuring 12 of my favorite Nintendo characters, 9 memorable levels, and more.

Super Smash Brothers owned my Nintendo 64’s cartridge slot for months. In fact, it’s the only Nintendo 64 title I frequently revisit. So recently, in the wake of hours and hours spent playing the GameCube sequel Super Smash Brothers: Melee, I decided to pull out the dusty Nintendo 64 and pop in Super Smash Brothers yet again. For all seven of you in the world who are unfamiliar with Smash Brothers’ concept, imagine a mix of the arcade Mario Bros. with a stripped-down, gore-less Mortal Kombat. Up to four fighters jump into an arena (some teleport, some come out of pipes in the ground, and some fly in via Arwing) and simply beat the snot out of each other with their own specialized attacks and items that randomly appear throughout the playing field.

The big catch to Super Smash Brothers’ gameplay was that players didn’t have a set amount of health like in other fighting games. Rather than that classic setup, HAL Laboratory introduced a system where characters took damage with each hit, and each hit that ensued would send the victim flying across the screen a little further each time. At high levels of damage (damage was calculated in percentage, though damage could exceed 100% or even 200%), characters would likely fly right off of the screen and lose a “stock,” or a life. At the end of the battle, the character with the most KO’s or remaining stock would be considered the winner.

One could see how this concept would lead to entertaining multiplayer battles, and this is where Super Smash Brothers truly succeeded–granted, credit must be given to its single-player game, which took you on a tour of all of the courses and put you against almost all of the other characters. Still, multiplayer stole the show here. Not even Goldeneye 007 or Perfect Dark could compare to the amount of time I spent playing the game’s Versus mode against other players. Super Smash Brothers introduces the ultimate, intense fight for survival, one that couldn’t be rivaled even by a heated “Man with the Golden Gun” showdown in Goldeneye 007. The best part of it all was that Versus mode allowed for CPU-controlled opponents to be thrown into the arena, so even without friends, the mode could be enjoyed and served as a better training mode than any fighting game had ever offered.

The controls were simple enough: the analog stick was used to move characters around the 2D playing field, while the C buttons served as jump buttons, and A and B were used for different attacks. The “A attacks” were usually less specific to each character and served as basic fighting moves; there were a lot of punches and kicks mapped to this button. The B button allowed characters to use their special items: Fox could shoot his blaster, Mario could throw fireballs, and Link could even pull out a bomb to spice things up. All characters could block and dodge with the trigger buttons, and throw opposing characters off of the screen. The controls were simple and in turn the fighting mechanics were also simple–combos were less about quick, successive hits and more about well-timed, expertly-linked air strikes. Of course, items made the experience even more interesting: Bob-ombs would ignite themselves and walk across the playing field, becoming a ticking ball of doom to anything nearby. The Home Run Bat, with proper timing, would send an opponent flying off of the course with a powered-up swing. Pokeballs were always interesting and kept opponents on their toes–would the useless Goldeen appear flopping around on the ground, or would a massive Snorlax from the sky?

Super Smash Brothers wasn’t without its faults. Though the characters all displayed their likeness and respective franchises well, the graphics were average for 1999 and don’t stand the test of time very well. It’s especially hard to play Super Smash Brothers after years of Super Smash Brothers: Melee, which runs much faster and looks a heck of a lot better. Visual complaints aside, Super Smash Brothers did have a fantastic soundtrack, funny sound effects (who could forget sending Pikachu flying, screaming, “Pika, Piiikaaaa!”), and even an “audience” that sometimes chanted the name of the winning combatant.

Compared to Super Smash Brothers: Melee, Super Smash Brothers is obviously inferior. Melee introduced almost three times as many characters and levels, a boatload of new weapons, and more attacks for each character. The frame rate and overall speed of the game was intensified, characters could dodge attacks in the air, and best of all the amount of damage taken from each hit was reduced by a lot. Characters like Pikachu and Ness were powerhouses in Super Smash Brothers, but not so much in Melee. Overall the game was made a lot more technical with the December 2001 release of Melee, but seeing the game’s roots after playing the sequel definitely made me appreciate where the game came from, and where it could be going with the upcoming Wii release, Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.

Overall, anyone who hasn’t experienced or fully experienced Super Smash Brothers should most definitely pull out their Nintendo 64 and find a copy of the game online. Super Smash Brothers was just one of the games that made the Nintendo 64 one of the best multiplayer consoles of all time, and it is still a blast to play today.