The Smash Pack is Back Jack!

Once upon a time, there were a couple of fellows by the name of Mario and Luigi, who thought of an idea. “How about we get a whole bunch of our friends together and have little fighting matches, Mario?”, Luigi said. “Momma mia! What a good idea Luigi!” Mario Exclaimed. So Mario and Luigi called a bunch of their old Nintendo friends to form a game called SUPER SMASH BROS.

And the game hit the Nintendo 64 with a kind of slow start at first, but soon became one of the best selling games for the N64. Now the Game Cube is here...

“Whew! It’s been a while since we had our friends over hasn’t Mario?” Luigi said as he gulps down a drink of Mushroom Juice. “Ya, it has been a while, that was really fun ya know?” Mario sighed. Luigi remarked with, “Hey! Why don’t we em’ back up and even invite some more of our NINTENDO buddies over for a fighting MELEE?!”

Well now SUPER SMASH BROS MELEE has been released on the Nintendo Game Cube and has been polished up and even reworked a little(ok a lot) from the original. Now that the Game Cube is here, the sequel to the best of 1999, is here and has been improved in almost every way possible.

Characters
First of all, before I explain anything, lets talk about the characters. All 11 characters from the original Super Smash Bros are back(some hidden, most not), along with some all new characters(some hidden, some not). One of the new characters that you’re able to use right off the bat is Princess Zelda/Sheik. During battle you can transform into Sheik, that mysterious character from Ocarina of Time.

Other new characters include (a mix of hidden and starter characters) Bowser, Princess Peach(when you switch her dress color to yellow, her hair will turn brown and she looks like Daisy{possibly Luigi’s princess as Peach is to Mario?}), Ice Climbers(the chilly duo who haven’t been seen since the NES title, “Ice Climber”), Ganondorf(finally, old Ganon receives a game to be a playable character in), Falco(I’ve always liked Falco, although most of his moves are identical to Star Fox’s), Dr. Mario(the MD finally sees the spotlight), Young Link(looks familiar), Marth and Roy(characters from a Japanese series called “Fire Emblem”), Mr Game & Watch(never heard of them, but you might have), and a couple others.

Quite an impressive line-up huh? Well heck ya it is. Twenty-Five characters are more than enough to keep the replay value up and unlocking all the hidden characters will drive you crazy to finish.

Welcome to the Fight Club
Now before I get into any of the modes or extras in the game, I’ll explain what you do(like you didn’t know). Each character has a percentage at the bottom of the screen and instead of starting at a number and decreasing like a traditional fighter does, every attack increases the percentage and your goal is to knock a character off a stage to get your KO or two in the fight.

Each character has his/her own sort of attacks and most have special attacks like Mario’s fireballs, Bowser’s flame thrower, Pikachu’s(yes he’s back) Thunder, and so on. Attacks that include kicking, punching, or a combination of both are used with the “A” button, and special attacks are used with the “B” button. Then for attacks that are stronger than the special and regular attacks, are performed by different combinations with the Analog Stick, and the “A” and “B” buttons.

You’re able to block, and while you’re holding the button you can roll to evade different attacks. You can also grab and throw (or some sort of throwing) using the “R” and “A” buttons together.

The fighting system isn’t really all that “in-depth” and is usually frantic and more button smashing. Mainly BECAUSE of the frantic action you won’t have time to think of what to do. Despite all this, the fighting is really good and most importantly, it’s FUN. Fun is something a lot of games nowadays don’t have.

Aside from just fighting, there are various items that will drop down onto the stage for use against your opponent, or to power you up or decrease your percentage a bit. Items include Light Sabers, guns, auto-guns(well, actually plasma guns) bats, and Pokeballs that house Pokemon who will pop out and use a certain attack on all but who threw it; which are items using for attack, while Tomatoes, Hearts, Hamburgers, and other sorts decrease your percentage.

Adventuring, Tournaments, and Trophies; Oh My!
First of all, the single player mode is far more worthwhile to play than it was in the N64 title. I’ve been playing single player more than I have multi-player and I just can’t stop playing. Probably the most appealing fact of Super Smash Bros Melee is that there are over 250+ trophies to collect. The trophies range from a variety of characters from different Nintendo games and each has its own little bio on it. You can unlock trophies by beating Classic or Adventure modes, or using coins that you collect while fighting to use in a slot machine. The trophies are probably why the single-player is so fun to play.

Classic
Going along the more traditional way like the single-player in Super Smash Bros, you fight through different courses, making your way to the Master Hand. The “Break the Targets” is back and you also have to race and finish under a certain amount of time.

Depending on the character you’re using, a couple of levels might be replaced by different ones and so repetitive is non-heard of. Although Classic is fun, it’s certainly not the back bone of the single player experience.

Adventure
Nintendo, listening to our cries and pains, added an extra stuffing in the single player for SSBM. You pick a character and you go through various stages to beat a metal counter-part to one of the characters. You either go through a level like the Mario Bros one where you fight your way through Koopas and Goombas to fight the boss at the end, or like in Brinstar you fight and then have to escape. The adventure mode is by far the funnest part of SSBM and has made the game better than it already is.

Event Matches
If you thought the Classic or Adventure modes were easy and lacked any challenges, then this is your thing. The event matches range from easy to conquer, or extremely difficult. You are put in certain situations which you have to overcome such as knocking Captain Falcon out in under 7 seconds or beating Pikachu using only Pokeballs.

New event matches open up once you unlock hidden characters. There are 50 event matches to conquer once unlocking all the hidden characters, and then one more opens up after beating all 50 of the event matches.

Vs. Mode
I’m not going to explain everything one by one as if would make this review longer than it already is, so I’ll just give you the meat. What was the Smash of Super Smash Bros is now improved 100 times greater in SSBM. There are a variety of different kinds of Vs. Mode activities you can do and most all of them are fun. You can go in Tournament mode where you can choose of up to 64 combatants to battle their way to the finals, but then be trampled by y our awesome character. There’s the regular matches where you pick a character, your friend picks a character, pick a level, and then duke it out.

There is also Giant Melee where you fight with a super-sized model of your character in a Godzilla vs. King Kong like battle.

There is actually to much in Vs. Mode for me to go into as the Multi-Player is probably the main reason why everybody buys it. Just take my word for it and trust me when I say it’s big, because it is.

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Graphics
The graphics are awesome and have taken a Grand Staircase of steps over the original for the N64. The beginning movie was really awesome and totally sent me. Especially the part with Sheik, where she’s looking up to the sky and the water behind her, it was great. The character models have had total make-overs and look better than ever. You can see individual stitching on Mario’s pants and Ganondorf has the dark outfit which was colored perfect for his attitude. Even though you don’t pay much attention to the character models while fighting, they’re still really good. Also, as frantic as the action can get, I never noticed or experienced any slow down, even when all those special attacks and kung-fu fighting are going on.

The levels are, although still relatively small, pretty good in size. Each one is detailed to the bone and I especially like the old Super Mario Bros 2 level. The F-Zero stage is also pretty cool as when you’re fighting, a group of 500mph+ racers zoom under you.

Control
The fighting’s great, there’s nothing confusing, but my one and ONLY complaint is the camera angles. Sometimes when you’re on a big level the camera zooms out to far and with all the people fighting, it’s hard to see who’s beating who. I’ve smashed my controller many times on the floor because of the annoying camera causing me to lose because I didn’t know that Zelda was beating me and I wasn’t beating her(and it’s still in perfect condition, man Nintendo makes good hardware).

Other than that little gripe the controls are responsive and to master than might take a while(by the way, has anybody beaten the 100 man melee without getting damage done?).

Sound
Every character has his/her own voice set-up and you can listen to their voices during battle. But the better sound comes from the sound effects. Get some surround sound in your room and you’ll be blasted away. Everything has it’s own sound like when you’re hitting someone, you’ll hear your punches making contact. I’m also very glad that there isn’t an announcer rambling on throughout the fights.

I’ve still got the theme song for Super Mario Bros stuck in my head. Each stage has a theme song that corresponds with the game it’s from. Hearing the Mario Bros tune always puts me in a world of my own. I wonder how it does that.

Overall
Super Smash Bros Melee has earned its spot as the best game to own on the Game Cube(along with Tony Hawk 3). Get some more controllers and have some friends over, and you’ll really find out what’s so fun about it. Also, don’t be fooled by the kiddie Pikachu or Pichu, they’re awesome fighters.

Who’s your favorite character?

“Well Mario, that was an awesome experience huh?” as Luigi sighs with relief while adding a cold compress to the bump on his head left from Bowser. “Yes it was , but I’m still not done, why stop there? Lets keep fighting!” Mario Exclaims as he picks some needles out of his rear from Sheik.

With one last note, Luigi asked, “Now when can I use my new computer thingy so we can fight some Chinese people?”

~Happy Gaming