Super Smash Bros. Melee Review Page 1

Parksey 18.05.2004#1

Developer: HAL Laboratories
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-4
Origin: Japan
Genre: Fighting
ESRB: Teen

Have you ever got that urge? You know, that one you get after failing for the umpteenth time on Super Mario Sunshine or The Wind Waker. That sudden insatiable urge to maul Mario, punch Pikachu, and kick Kirby right between his tubby, pink legs. We’ve all experienced it, you’re sick of Nintendo’s seemingly childish nature and you want to get your own back on their most loved possessions – their characters. Unfortunately, in the past we didn’t have an outlet for such anger. Well, in a bizarre twist of fate, now we can…

I never thought I’d see the day when the usually timid Nintendo would condone the prospect of all it’s most memorable and treasured characters beating the living daylights out of each other. Well, they did, and when the original Smash Bros. was released back in Christmas 1999, fans didn’t know what to make of it. Some threw their arms up in the air shouting, “You can’t put Mario in a beat-em up,” as if it were blasphemous. The wise ones, mind, welcomed it with open arms, as, thankfully, Smash Bros. was great, in fact it was the N64 best beat-em up. Even though it featured certain amounts of violence (albeit in a cartoony manner with not a drop of blood or a life threatening injury in sight), despite it’s content, it played like a typical Nintendo game.

The same is true of the sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee. Although many have shoehorned it into the beat-em up category, it is as far removed from, say, Tekken and Street Fighter as you could possibly get. No mind shatteringly difficult combos to remember, no complex button presses and no high kicking, fireball throwing Japanese schoolgirls.

You see, while Smash Bros. Melee is still a beat-em up at heart, it’s frantic and somewhat simple nature means it can often feel like a kind of ‘party’ game. What it really is, is the beat-em up stripped to it’s bare bones. The aim of the “normal” game (there are many deviations from this) is to have the most points at the end of a bout. You earn a point by knocking your rivals out of the arena and you lose a point by getting knocked out yourself.

It dispenses with such necessities (well, for your normal fighter) such as the traditional HP bar instead opting for a percentage system. As you administer more and more beatings to your opponents these percentages go up. The higher this is, the easier it is to send them soaring through the air. This being a Nintendo game instead of suffering a tragic early death, characters that get knocked out miraculously appear for more pain. And so it continues, until a set time elapses and the scores are totted up. The one with the highest score receives glory and praise, the losers, bucket loads of abuse and crude chanting from the modest winner.

It’s because of this simple formula that Smash Bros. feels so refreshing and different. All of your attacks are orchestrated through the control stick and a combination of either the A or B. It’s so simple you can pick it all up in minutes and jump in straight at the deep end. This is part of the series novelty almost everyone can play it and enjoy it.

This doesn’t mean the usual tactics are absent, mind. The shoulder buttons allow you to roll and dodge incoming attacks (a new edition to the series), however, perfect timing can be needed to pull it off and it takes a few hours before you really get the hang of it. Once you have, the game steps up a notch, where it’s now not only about planning your attacks but avoiding what your opponent(s) throw at you as well.

Also, there’s still the old dilemma of choosing a favourite character, one to suit your playing style, as ones like Bowser and tremendously powerful but also depressingly slow whereas characters like Fox are frighteningly fast but are a bit on the weak side when it comes to dishing out punishment. It’s all very well balanced, with players having to develop different ways of playing for different characters.

Thankfully after the short-but-brilliant Luigi’s Mansion and Pikmin, Nintendo have released a game stuffed with options. Almost every aspect of the game, no matter how small can be customised to satisfy even the most picky gamer. The single player is more than enough to occupy anyone’s time with secret modes and characters to unlock as well as hundreds of trophies of some of the more obscure characters and games from Nintendo’s rich tapestry of history.

But it’s the multiplayer were Smash Bros. really shines. Getting four mates huddled round a TV ensures countless hours of fun as you try and outwit you opponents. Like real fights these often degenerate into petty arguments with people shouting ‘Have that you little…’ and other obscenities, but that’s why playing against human opponents is so much better than when it’s simply you and the soulless CPU, which is the same every time. It’s obvious to see that Smash Bros. was designed to be a fast, furious multiplayer game and because of this, it’s here where you will spend most of your time.

Faults? Well, some may argue that it’s a bit too fast, as fights can often seem chaotic and out of control. Fans of the beat-em up will no doubt dismiss it as too simplistic, not realising that this is all part of the game’s charm. Also, if you’re doomed to a life of solitude and will never play the multiplayer, then knock a couple of marks off the score, as you probably won’t spend as much time with it as I have. The bonus characters aren’t as good as they could have been as, due to lazy development and time restrictions, many are simply carbon copies of the originals with different clothes or one extra move. But I’m simply nit picking now.

All in all it’s probably one of the most rounded, complete games on the Gamecube and, arguably, one of it’s finest. If you’re into serious fighters with booming commentators screaming, ‘’Round One. FIGHT!’’ then you’ll be more at home with something like Soul Calibur 2. If you fancy something a little bit different, something over the top and most important of all, something that’s great fun, then check this out.

Final Rating - 9

[ Edited by Parksey on 2004/5/18 19:25 ]

Edit this post:

[b]Developer:[/b] HAL Laboratories
[b]Publisher:[/b] Nintendo
[b]Players:[/b] 1-4
[b]Origin:[/b] Japan
[b]Genre:[/b] Fighting
[b]ESRB:[/b] Teen