With the recent announcement of Smash Bros. for the Switch, I decided I wanted to take a brief look at the history of the Smash Bros. franchise up to this point.
These games have an ensemble Nintendo cast, amazing multiplayer, and an amazing fighting legacy.
Since 1999, the series has been bringing people together and tearing them apart.
Smash Bros. is applauded as one of the fighting games that best brings out the social element,
it's a series best enjoyed with friends and family. Whether it be at home, on the go, or at competitions.
Created by Masahiro Sakurai, founder of the Kirby series,
Super Smash Bros. first began as an experimental project on the Nintendo 64.
Previously keen on developing a fighting game for 4 players,
Sakurai developed a prototype without the approval from Nintendo. A green light and a development cycle later...
Super Smash Bros. was born.
With the first version on Nintendo 64 released in '99, it was a huge hit, selling around 5 million copies worldwide,
it became the 5th best selling game for the system.
And as we know, Smash Bros. became one of Nintendo's flagship series.
And around this time, fighting games were all the rage with Marvel vs. Capcom, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat.
In which the fighting genre held a common standard when it came towards gameplay, with health bars and the two-player focus.
However, the design of Smash Bros. was a bit unorthodox.
In the place of health bars, there are these percentage meters and instead of just beating others up, the main objective is to knock others off the stage.
Plus, there's this huge emphasis on platforming elements,
if you get knocked off, you really need to understand your character's mobility to get back on stage.
And contrary to other fighting games at the time, up to 4 players can fight at the same time.
Adding to this dynamic, we have items. Which are for the most part inspired by other Nintendo properties.
They can range from Pokéballs, baseball bats, hammers, etc.
How they work is fairly simple. If you throw a Pokéball, a Pokémon comes out that will help you.
However, what kind of Pokémon is an absolute mystery. It can be something useless as a Goldeen, but on rare occasions, Mew could come out.
I remember that back in the day, friends and I would get together just to throw Pokéballs, just to see what kind of Pokémon would come out.
Moving on to the controls, there's only two attack buttons which include both normal and special attacks.
Normal variants are divided into separate move sets, dependent on direction. Plus, you can charge these moves,
while special attacks had to do with the character's own unique abilities, which are again divided by direction.
With all this in mind however. Smash Bros. is a game that's best experienced with a social atmosphere.
Playing it with friends and family really makes to most out of it. In terms of Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64, the game is limited by its amount of characters.
Despite this, it did have its staples like Mario, Link, Samus and Donkey Kong,
but it also contains characters such as Fox, Yoshi, Kirby and Pikachu,
each with their own distinct play-style.
Moving on, their were four unlockable characters, which are Luigi, Jigglypuff, Ness and Captain Falcon.
Falcon, in particular, exploded in popularity due to Smash.
I think Sakurai developed his move set from the ground up, since he came from the racing franchise.
Speaking about these characters, each one has a unique version of Smash The Target.
A mini-game that I view as a "character tutorial".
For example, a lot of these utilized acrobatics to even reach some of the targets,
which is easier for some characters than others.
One thing that I absolutely adored about Smash Bros. 64 is the sound direction, but also how it's sounded.
Not only for the remixing of other franchises' music, but also how hits sounded.
Striking a solid blow on somebody else sounds like bowling pins getting hit.
Plus, I absolutely love the sound of the laser sword.
Come to think of it, each item has its own unique sound effect,
and you can honestly distinguish them apart very quickly by their sound alone.
For instance, I can't tell you how satisfying it is to hit somebody with a charged home-run bat.
If anything else, the N64 version did well in laying the foundation of the series.
Moving on in the franchise, we head towards Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Melee was one of the first titles released on the system and it became a massive hit soon on arrival,
Melee expanded on pretty much everything that Smash Bros. Nintendo 64 introduced.
Leading up the game's development, Sakurai really wanted to highlight the improvement of the game's graphical capabilities,
in order to do this, the development team created this opening full motion video sequence. Personally, I think this is the most iconic opening in the entire series,
everything about it just screams early 2000s for me.
Anyway, the game was in development for about 13 months,
and Sakurai would describe the process as one of the most painful development cycles he ever went through.
But later, he stated that he believes Smash Melee is the sharpest game in the series.
Interesting enough, Sakurai was planning to replace Ness with Lucas in this game, but decided not to in consideration of possible delays,
on that note, Hideo Kojima actually wanted Solid Snake to be a character in Melee. But again, Sakurai didn't want to extend delays on the game.
However, both of those ideas would be incorporated in future entries.
Speaking of new characters, Roy and Marth were originally going to be Japanese exclusives.
But after some feedback, they were added into all versions of Smash,
so much so that a strong argument can be made that Smash Bros. made Fire Emblem much more popular as a series.
Moving on, Smash Bros. Melee essentially expanded on most everything on its predecessor,
with more characters, stages, sharper gameplay and additional move sets.
I love the inclusions such as Shiek, Dr. Mario and Ganondorf.
Plus, unlocking characters was a journey all to itself,
Mewtwo is the best example of this, whose only unlocked by having 20 total hours across characters.
Which reminds me, the single player experience was greatly expanded on. I absolutely love the stages in Melee,
so much fun to be had within the lower level of Hyrule Temple, Kirby's levels and many others.
And if I had friends over and wanted to just mess with them, we would head over to Big Blue or Pokéfloats,
then throw in max items and you have a madhouse.
Though personally, I always prefer playing on Final Destination.
Like characters, I always enjoyed unlocking stages, doing so was a challenge all in itself.
Additionally, many other stages require you to play a massive amount of matches to unlock them.
Looking at Smash Melee as a whole, the game is bursting with content for its time,
so much so that since its release, the community has been keeping the game alive.
Melee tournaments still go on to this day, and watching the development of Melee as an e-sport is really something.
My last thoughts on Smash Melee?
This game has given me one of the best multiplayer experiences I've ever had. It left such an impact, that the game is still being played competitively to this day.
So naturally, when the next Smash would be announced, fans would immediately go wild.
This is where we enter Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
In E3 2006, this game was announced and it broke the internet at the time. I remember people going absolutely insane over the game's announcement.
The reveal trailer introduced Final Smashes, special moves that characters can perform while obtaining these Smash Balls.
Plus, we saw new characters such as Zero Suit Samus, Wario and Solid Snake.
And wrapping the entire trailer up was this overly dramatic song that strangely fit in with the game.
Remember the website Super Smash Bros. Dojo?
It basically gave new info on Brawl leading up to its release,
at the time, people's eyes were practically glued on this website. But with two delays leading up to the release, people were absolutely losing their minds over Brawl.
The development of the game was rather unique, back in 2003, Masahiro Sakurai actually left HAL laboratory,
but came back to work on Smash Bros. Brawl.
But for a good portion of the development, Sakurai would work on Brawl on his own, until a development team was organized to help him out.
In terms of new characters, Nintendo actually asked fans to submit what characters they would like to see the most,
and one of the most top requested ones was Geno from Super Mario RPG. But, presumably, due to copyright issues with Square Enix at the time it didn't happen.
Moving on, one of the things that really turned heads for Brawl was Subspace Emissary, which essentially expanded on adventure mode.
And while it showed off some impressive cinematics, there really isn't much of a reason to play through it again a second time after completing it.
While Brawl brought in new characters, it also got rid of some from Melee.
However, one of my personal favorite characters in Brawl has to be Wolf,
he's basically a heavier version of Fox with a revamped move set.
However, the biggest thing that Brawl did to alter the Smash formula was the inclusion of the Final Smash,
personally I always turn the Smash Ball off, I liked playing the game more like it was in Melee.
Other than that, Brawl introduced the Stage Editor. It was useful for what it was, but extremely limited.
You can only edit on certain templates, but you can make some pretty decent stuff with it.
Plus, Brawl was the first Smash game that introduced online play,
and while Nintendo Wi-Fi is no longer available, it wasn't exactly the greatest experience anyway,
matches had a bunch of input lag and freezing, and putting together parties often took a while to do.
One thing I absolutely despised about Brawl was its tripping mechanic,
whenever a character dashes, there's a small possibility whether or not a trip will occur,
and when things get hectic in matches, it seems as if the random number generator really gets in the way of combos.
Plus, the gameplay in Brawl is often cited to be much too floaty compared to previous entries,
as you can see by my gameplay I'm not the best Smash Bros. player out there.
But I do love the series and just wanted to take a quick look at the franchise.
It seems as if Smash Brawl has aged more so than Melee, but with the release of the Wii U in 2012, many looked forward to the next generation of Smash.
Which accumulated in E3 2011, with the reveal of Smash Bros. for the 3DS and Wii U.
Development for the game didn't begin until after October 2011, when Sakurai finished his own project known as Kid Icarus: Uprising.
This time around, Smash 4 would appear on two versions, one for the 3DS and the other for Wii U.
Interestingly enough, Sakurai wanted to add something along the line of Subspace Emissary into Smash 4,
but later cut it out since he didn't want its cinematics to appear on the internet.
What made Smash 4 unique was its separate versions across both the 3DS and the Wii U,
the concept of a handheld Smash Bros. was interesting and despite my concerns leading up to the release, the Smash team managed to integrate it well on the 3DS.
Considering the hardware that it's on, it looks great on the device.
A mode exclusive to the 3DS version, Smash Run, reminded me a lot of Subspace Emissary,
well, save for the cinematics and story.
You're placed in a huge area, all the while collecting items to upgrade. It includes fighting other characters, along with racing to the finish,
and truth be told, I kind of like it better than Subspace in terms of level design, Smash Run offers a more compact experience than its predecessor.
What is new to these versions are the customizable Miis, which revolve around 3 classes. The Brawler, Swordfighter and Gunner.
Personally, I thought this sort of thing would've been added in Brawl, considering the Wii first introduced Miis.
In addition with customizable move sets across characters, there is a degree of individualizing your Smash experience in this game.
While Smash on the 3DS definitely has its uses when travelling, I was more excited to see it on Nintendo's latest console at the time
and first off, Smash on Wii U looks absolutely gorgeous. In terms of gameplay, Smash Wii U is bursting with content
with returning modes such as event matches and classic mode, bolstered by new ones such as both master and crazy orders.
Plus, stage builder returned in a much more intricate way. This time stages can be created just by drawing them on the Wii U gamepad.
Online matches have vastly improved since the days of Brawl, with most matches being precise,
however one mode I honestly didn't really care for was Smash Tour, which is the Wii U exclusive.
And of course, you can't get away with talking about Smash 4 without talking about the Amiibo craze,
these pieces of plastic really got popular when Smash 4 was released.
The idea of them first came up via the concept trophies back in Melee's days. But here, they're actual figurines that act as personal A.I. components.
But moving on, what I also really liked about Smash 4 is how the brought back the GameCube controller,
in fact, Nintendo sold an adaptor to make sure that you can even use the controller.
Gameplay wise, Smash 4 is a nice compromise between Brawl and Melee,
not as sharp as Melee, but not as floaty as Brawl.
Thankfully, they got rid of the random tripping, but I like this middle ground between Melee and Brawl's gameplay,
it's accessible enough for newcomers, but it's enticing enough for those in the hardcore community.
Smash 4 also had an 8-player mode, which is a chaotically fun time,
I tried it a few times and I had no idea what was going on in the game, but it didn't matter,
Moving on, Smash 4 is the first in the series to introduce DLC. Where we saw returning characters such as Mewtwo and Roy,
however, we got some surprises in the form of Ryu, Corrin, Cloud and Bayonetta.
Speaking of characters, Smash 4 had an extremely large roster. Including DLC, we had 58 characters in here, honestly we'd be here all day going through all of them,
but I love the inclusions like Rosalina and Duck Hunt.
Smash Bros. again, is a game that champions the human dynamic. And across all the games in the series, fun can be had with friends and family.
So with the recent announcement of Super Smash Bros. for the Switch, I am actually interested to see what they'll do.
Presumably, the Squid Kids from Splatoon are going to be in it and we do see Link in his Breath of the Wild design.
Personally, I'm really excited to see where the developers will take this latest entry in the series,
I'm assuming that this latest Smash will take full advantage of the Switch's capabilities.
And while it's not confirmed, I'm certain there has to be new characters added.
So will Geno finally make it to Smash? Or what about Shovel Knight?
Whatever the case, Super Smash Bros. is known as the Paragon of social fighting games on the market.
I'm not entirely sure where Smash Bros. will be heading off in the far future,
but odds are it'll continue its trademark appeal of entertaining and bringing people together.
Nintendo developed a treasure with Smash and I'm excited to see what the series has in store for us next.