Victim of Culture

The Great Games: Super Smash Bros.

In The Great Games column we look back at titles that have defined video games over the years and earned a special place in the history of the medium.

It is easy to forget in the shadow of its younger brothers just how revolutionary Super Smash Bros. was at the time of its release. It wasn’t that the gameplay was so unique (though it was in many respects), nor was it the graphics were mind blowing (though, again, they were pretty sharp). No, the revolutionary thing about Super Smash Bros. was that the game existed period.

Prior to Super Smash Bros., the idea of Nintendo characters crossing over into each other’s games was fairly unheard of. Yes, there were the occasional cameos here and there, but for the most part the worlds stayed separate. That all changed with Super Smash Bros., however, and it was perhaps no better showcased than in the television commercial that ran at the time.

It featured real-life giant costumed characters first singing together and skipping through a meadow before suddenly turning on one another and battling it out. It was the beginning of an end for Nintendo as perhaps no other moment better marked Nintendo’s adoption of an ever so slightly more mature image (read: actually allowing mature titles, including some they published).

The game, however, was just as dumbfounding initially for players. Pikachu versus Mario? Link versus Kirby? Has the whole world gone topsy-turvy? Indeed, it had with a health system that counted up instead of down, and had no real “end” to it. The more beating a player took the easier they were to knock off the ledge, and that in turn was the only real way to “defeat” another player. That flipping of the fighting game convention alone created quite the learning curve for many players.

Then there were the items. Sure, Nintendo fans were used to banana peels and turtle shells from the Mario Kart series, but suddenly there were lightsabers, Pokemon balls, ray guns and more. The land mind was an ingenious weapon that easily almost disappeared into the level backgrounds. It became a common strategy to toss it onto the side of a ledge, wait for a player to get near, knock them into the ledge and watch the mine rocket them back off into oblivion.

Still, the defining charm of the Super Smash Bros. series has always been its blending of the Nintendo universe. There’s nothing else in gaming quite like Nintendo’s catalog of cartoon heroes. The chance to see them brawl in a melee is simply irresistible to most, and undeniably great to all.

Critical Reception

GameSpot
The game is extremely simple to learn and reasonably easy to master. The one-player game won’t exactly last a long time, unless you count the time you have to spend unlocking all four of the hidden characters. So, if you’ve got a crew of friends ready to pick a Nintendo character and throw down, then Super Smash Bros. is definitely worth a purchase.

IGN
I’ve been playing this Smash Bros. since its Japanese release — and I still love the game. But I have to admit that I spent most of the time playing the multiplayer modes. It’s not that the one-player mode is bad — HAL tried to add a bit of variety by offering bonus stages and team fights, but the order of your opponents never changes and you’ll find yourself playing just to get the hidden stuff. But plug in a few more controllers and the game comes to life.

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