Super Smash Brothers: Melee

Super Smash Brothers was a hit for the Nintendo 64 like Final Fantasy 7 was a hit for the Playstation 1. Big. What other game allowed you to take a bunch of different Nintendo franchises and have them fight against each other in a fighter arena, settling the score of many a heated Nintendo Power debate?

Well, it seemed like SSB64 was a hit. And, of course, like any Nintendo franchise to grace a console, it got a remake in Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo Gamecube. The graphics are improved, the fighting is improved.. everything's improved. Right? Right. Except for the concept.

Super Smash Brothers: Melee starts you off with a decent handful of your favorite Nintendo franchises- Mario, Peach, Link, Zelda, Pikachu, Captain Falcon, and many more- and leaves you to this brawler. Like any basic fighting game, it features a story mode, a VS mode, and some other generic modes somewhere along the lines of the first two catagories, such as "Time Attack".

The game is unique in the sense that it allows you to fight on a 2D area with 3D characters, which is unique in the immediate sense, though other fighters have done it. While games like Dead or Alive were attempting to achieve 3D-esque backgrounds, Nintendo quickly realized that the Nintendo 64 was not built for this, and worked around it. This, actually, makes the game more fun. Up to four players can play simultaneously, which makes it a great party game, and the sheer amount of different situations definately makes it attractive.



However, this iteration has it's own set of flaws. First, the game seriously needed something new. I know not all hardcore Nintendo fans will agree with me on this, but Nintendo really squeezed blood out of a rock on this game, mainly because they had so little they could add, character-wise. "I fought with Mario in the old SSB, exactly why would I want to fight with him in the new one?" is the prevailing thought I had in this game.

Quite frankly, the game feels somewhat like that the development team took the Nintendo 64 game, ported it to the Gamecube, updated the graphics, and then threw in some extra bonuses for good measure. Nintendo seems to do this a lot. Sure, I love playing Link in this, and I especially favor the addition of Marth- but really, this is nothing revolutionary to the old game.


Another issue I had with this game was that it simply didn't have enough for the meandering single player. While this is prevalent in most single player games, I felt like I really needed something to tide me over when I didn't have a gaggle of friends over that went "OOH, NINTEN-DO!!!". The first player experience is good, and thankfully there are bots to fight, but woefully, all you end up doing is playing the game in tired reptitions to gain statues, points, or other whatnot that really is inconsequential.

I do have to add, the collectables feature is interesting, if not psuedo-annoying. Sure, I understand that the majority of older Nintendo gamers such as myself (But not myself) want to spend countless hours racking up points to gain a special retro trophy, but personally, I think it wanton. And considering this is the most complex feature in the game sans the actual gameplay, I felt somewhat screwed.

As well, this game loses a star completely because it put so much emphasis on Pokemon and other tired titles. Will Nintendo ever realize that Pokemon is dead? Apparently, with the new host of Gamecube games, no, but regardless: IT'S DEAD. I enjoyed Pokemon when it came out, hell, I was obsessed with it (There wasn't much to do as an American in Europe). However, that still doesn't change the fact that now, I'm sick of seeing Pikachu, and I don't want to see his little wimpass critter friends. They die.




Overall, SSBM gets three stars from me. As I imagine, many readers now are crying that I slammed their game so badly, but in my opinion, it deserves it. Cult followings and trademark characters aside, this game is no better than any other simplistic brawler out for any other system. I guarantee you that if someone took that system and patched in some completely fameless characters, this game would have flopped. Good for Nintendo it didn't.

3 star(s) out of 5

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