CLASSIC GAMING
Super Smash Brothers MeleeDeveloper: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Beat-em-up
Year: 2001
System: Gamecube
(Now with 50% less McMahon and Cheese!)
In the beginning of the 21st century, there was a noticeable absence of fighting games in favour of, possibly, first person shooters. The main problem was that the old fighting games were getting mostly tired, and the new ones didn't live up to the mark well enough. Also, Capcom had the market cornered past Namco's work, so therefore there was a niche desiring to be fulfilled. And guess who swooped in and claimed that niche?
Story - Super Smash Brothers Melee has no plot at all. Whether you believe a fighting game needs a plot or not, it has none. It has the very simple mission of the great Nintendo characters proving themselves against the rest in three modes. Classic, Adventure and All-Star. All of which are a hard long slog through various Nintendo worlds to reach the final boss. The final boss, Master and Crazy Hands, is still rather a mystery to everyone. Are they a powerful wizard? Hands of a child with toys who see them as the hands of a god like the first Smash Bros. game seemed to imply? Nobody knows. But who cares? Let's have ourselves a melee!
(When the Ice Climbers fought on the cruise ship, someone had to break it up.)
- The game, as said before, has three modes to choose from.
Classic, which plays like the first Smash Bros. game from the N64 of having normal fight, special fight, bonus round repeat throughout. Adventure which has your chosen character traverse through the many lands of Nintendo such as the Mushroom Kingdom, Brinstar, Onett and Green Greens. And All-Star mode, which takes its mode directly from Kirby Super Star's The Arena mode, an endless slog against EVERY character in the Smash Bros. roster with only three healing items to spare inbetween.
The battles themselves have one underlying difference from other fighting games. Unlike other fighting games that require you to beat down the other's health bar to zero, you have to smash your opponent out of the arena itself. This can be done by increasing their damage meter. The damage meter shows how much damage someone has taken and the more damage they accumulate, the easier they can be beaten out of the ring as they become more vulnerable to go flying from attacks.
There are also lives, which show how many times you can be knocked out of the arena before you lose. While your enemies in the single player modes have always one life, you can choose yourself up to five lives, as well as the difficulty of the enemies from Very Easy to Very Hard. The only exception to the damage meter rule is against Master Hand and Crazy Hand, who must be defeated by taking out all of their health.
(Guess whose banana smoothie got spilt on vacation?)
Attacks by the 25 playable characters of the game are incredibly simple to learn and it is only the mastery of the character that is the challenge. All characters have four Smash Moves with the B button, the ability to shield and dodge as well as throw opponents, and a variety of 13 moves with the A button. The Smash Moves employ the various recognisable abilities of the characters, such as Mario's Fireball, Samus' Charge Beam, and Link's Sword Spin, each attack feeling like striking a blow for that character and his, her or their series.
One of the best things about Melee is not only is it incredibly easy for anyone to play but like any good fighting game has an understandable variety of characters for everyone. If you're a speed freak, get Pikachu or Fox. If you're an average guy, get Mario. If you want an extra challenge, grab the Ice Climbers. There is a character for every kind of gamer here and the only ones who wouldn't like this are those who absolutely hate Nintendo.
(Mario delivers a personal bitch slap to Bowser, Brooklyn style.)
As well as the main fight, there is a fantastic multiplayer mode. As well as the characters, there are 29 stages to play in from the various Nintendo franchises, each one beset with their own hazards and strategies needed. There is also a wide range of modes to play in such as Giant Mode where everyone is huge, Slo-Mo Mode where everyone is very slow, and Fixed Camera Mode, where unlike normally where the camera follows the action, the camera reveals ALL of the stage far back.
Adding to this are the variety of items that occasionally fall into battle. The items range from the annoying such as the Flipper, to the random such as the Pokeballs of which a variety of Pokemon aid you against the opponent in some way. Naturally many of the items are from the Nintendo games. Pokeballs, Bob-Ombs, the Screw Attack, Maxim Tomatoes, Heart Containers, a cornucopia of Nintendo items are out there, with even some surprising entries such as Proximity Mines and the Super Scope, which make the battles all the more random in who shall truly win.
(Order this trophy set now and you get a free box of Bob-Ombs!)
Lastly, as a special bonus and adding to replayability value, there are trophies. Trophies occasionally appear in the Adventure mode stages or Classic Mode's Grab A Trophy stage, and are merely trophy stands showing characters of popular or obscure Nintendo games, enlightening fans of all the games past and present, as well as giving a nostalgic urge among them or inspiring the completionist desire to, as the Pokemon trainers say, catch 'em all.
Not only that but there are a few other challenge modes such as the Target Test, a practice mode, the Home-Run Contest (where you rack damage up on a sandbag, then swing him with a baseball bat to see how far you can make him go), as well as the surprisingly addictive Multi-Man Melee which has either 10-Man, 100-Man, Endless or Cruel Melee. The first two are self explanatory, Endless is a survival test, and Cruel Melee is an ultra hard Endless Melee where the enemies (who are male and female polygonal faceless characters) can smash you out of the ring quite easily. Even when everything's said, done and stamped on, there's still extra challenges to hone your skills with.
(All your hearts are belong to us, not Link.)
- The graphics have moved on substantially from the blocky pointy days of the N64 when the fighters looked like they were made out of triangles. Now the beloved Nintendo mascots have round smooth faces, shining clothes and firmer bodies making their attacks look far more smoother and nicer looking. No more is a Fireball like some paper cut-out, but a full firey sphere itself. Characters move with the grace they were born with, some of them looking more impressive than others. Even characters who never had a 3D update such as the Ice Climbers look perfect with their ruffling windswept anoraks.
The stages also feel a lot more active than their static 64-bit counterparts. Activity is more obvious from the passing cars of Onett to the sweeping city and outskirts of Corneria. Each stage brings with it a whole new sense of familiarity when you recognise little bits of stages placed either obviously or neatly into the background, ensuring that each battle brings with it some smile. Even though you are essentially fighting along a 2D path in a 3D environment, nobody's complaining because it just works perfectly.
(Birdo had to do a lot of favours to be in this game, for which it was well equipped for.)
- Another piece of the game's beauty are the musical pieces, all of them being from Nintendo games, remastered and upgraded. Many many songs from the games of Nintendo are brought back, from the jazzy rendition of Ice Climbers to the rocked-up theme of Brinstar, each song is a piece of gaming history to someone playing it, and everyone has their favourite from somewhere. The musical score is such a masterful rework, that there is even a best-selling album by the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra called Smashing...Live! Yes it's all orchestral remixes of the Nintendo songs, but that's never stopped the fans from disliking it at all.
Perhaps one of the finest and certainly one of the most popular fighting games of all time, Super Smash Brothers Melee has become the Gamecube's opus, reaching 6 million sales as its best selling game, with another highly anticipated sequel coming along promising to be bigger and better than ever. This game was the dream of all Nintendo fanboys, until the next one comes along, where it evolves from a smaller dream, into a grander fantasy.
Fun and Innovation - 5Replayability - 5Gameplay - 4Presentation - 4"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto
Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!