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"It's the best video game technique since Tetris."

One of the greatest inventions in history would have to be Super Smash Brothers. Right now on the Nintendo Wii, there's Super Smash Brothers Brawl, or SSBB for short. On the Gamecube, there's Super Smash Brothers Melee, also called SSBM, released years earlier. However, it's time to look at how a great concept originally emerged on the old Nintendo 64. It was a game where all Nintendo characters would fight each other in weird obstacles, and no rules whatsoever! The main thing I want to emphasize about Super Smash Brothers is the fact that it was meant for only Nintendo characters. It's funny to see that there are new characters in the mix in the recent Wii version, like Snake, and especially Sonic the Hedgehog. It was definitely a new thing to see other characters in Super Smash Brothers that are not made or endorsed by Nintendo. Before even talking about SSBB or SSBM, we need to look at how it all started.

Super Smash Brothers is a game where all the Nintendo characters come to fight each other, like I mentioned. You pick a character, you fight another one. Sounds simple, but it's honestly a masterpiece when it comes to how the game was built. It's a whole new technique that's original. Your life bar is based on a percentage. You start at zero, and your percentage goes up, depending on how brutal the attack was. Like all fighting games, when you're hit, you go flying back, but unlike other fighting games, the higher your percentage, the farther back you go when hit.

For an example: If you're percentage is 0%, you will not be flung as far as you would if your percentage was 50%.

Percentages don't max out at 100, rather, they max out at 999. Thus, you cannot lose a life by running out of lives. The only way to lose a life in Super Smash Brothers is by leaving the boundaries (going off screen). Now it's pretty obvious what the percentage does! The higher your percentage is, the more in danger you are of being hit and knocked off screen!

It doesn't matter if your percentage is 10 or 100, if you get hit and go off screen, you die. Sometimes you may be lucky enough to rack up a high percentage and get saved by a wall in the way of your death. Some attacks give you different results. Being hit with a bomb will immediately increase your percentage to 30, but other attacks may only increase your percentage by 1.

Funny enough, some characters in the game are better than others. There are some characters like Jigglypuff and Yoshi that lack a triple jump move, which is unfortunate, since having a triple jump is essential for saving your life from falling into a bottomless pit. Most people select a certain character because they like the character, and not because of how the character performs in this game. This can be unfortunate to see your favorite character suck at fighting! It's almost an insult to some players that like the character, and it's an insult to the character! For an example, some say that Samus is one of the worst characters, because her attacks aren't that effective, and her double and triple jumps aren't very high; that's an insult to fans of Metriod, and to Samus herself Why? Look at Samus in Metriod games! Look at her jump all those platforms, all those barriers, and attack and kill enemies in one hit. Many will be deluded by Super Smash Brothers and question it.

Then there are characters like Kirby where you can tell that the who the makers of this game were in favor of. Of course though, since HAL Laboratory Inc. is the creator of Kirby, now it all fits into place, right? With Kirby, it's so easy to cheat, since he has the ability to suck other characters in and spit them out. You're not the only one who thought about sucking them in and spitting them out at the bottom of the stage where they can't jump back up to. However, Kirby can make it back up with his moon jumps, how convenient. A better way to have the game set up is have all the characters set with strengths and weaknesses that all equal each other out. Instead, it's not well-balanced at all!

Now that it's pretty easy to figure out how to play, it's time to move on. Super Smash Brother is good because it's great to finally see a game where everyone is mixed into the same game. All your Nintendo characters are finally here to duke it out to each other, and it's enjoyable to see what they can do, and all the levels you can do it on. The fighting techniques are pretty advanced, and every button on the Nintendo 64 control comes in use in some way. You can grab characters and throw them, you can punch characters, you can slide into characters, and then don't get me started with the special attacks! Plus there are items that are taken from the old Nintendo games, like the hammer from the original Donkey Kong, which does a ton of damage, a Pokeball which selects a Pokemon to attack the other players, a heart to replenish your health (taken from Legend of Zelda), a whole ton of other items that can be used in the game. There's also an option to deactivate items temporarily in the game so they don't show up. Most characters have their own level with it being their themes. Donkey Kong's stage is a rain forest with barrels, Fox's (from StarFox) level is in space, Kirby's level has Wispy Woods in the background, etc. Nintendo and HAL Laboratory Inc. did a good job with the graphics and detail of every character and every level excessively. In other words, they did more more than they needed too. It's almost as if each level pops right off the screen, but that's typical for a 3D N64 game. Some characters can't be used until you unlock them, which requires beating the game certain ways. Since there's a way to unlocks levels and characters, the game has great replay ability.

The sound is amazing. All the music, some of which was taken from 8-bit games and 16-bit games, were beautifully rendered to sound great on this game. Even the introduction, which was entirely new music, was pretty well thought out. When it comes to the sound, there's an audience (almost like a laugh-track on sitcoms) which is in place during the game. You may hear chants, clapping, screams, anything to make the battles more exciting. All of the characters have their own voices, although some of the jumping sounds were recycled for some characters. The sound is near perfect.

There's a one-player mode where you can verse each character individually, as well as characters in teams, and then there's also a free-for-all mode where you can have up to four characters playing at once. Regardless if you have two people in your house, four, or even if it's just you alone, you can still have a fun time in the free-for-all mode since computer characters can be assigned characters and levels. This is one of the greatest things about this game! There's also a team battle mode which allows for teams to be place, whether it's two against two, or one against three! You're not going to get bored very easily.

Some people are wondering what I mean about being the best technique, or concept, since Tetris. You look at a game like Tetris, or Super Mario Bros. and you see a game that's totally new, and hasn't been done before. Tetris is a whole new concept that's original, which created any new concepts that other video game companies stole, like the game Columns, or Dr. Mario. Then you have Super Mario
Bros. which was pretty much the first ever platformer which spawned 13,000,000 other platformers like Mega Man, Adventure Island, and Castlevania, although these similar releases have differences in their own way, at least most of them, but you look in the past and see where the concept of jumping from one platformer to another came from. Although Super Smash Brothers is a platformer too, it's a brand-new style of fighting that was never done any time before that. A game like Street Fighter wasn't set up in this manner.

This game started a new concept which consisted of Nintendo characters fighting to win. It was a brand new way of fighting, and a great edition for the Nintendo 64. It was a concept which made two more sequels, one for the Gamecube, and one for the Wii. I'm willing to bet that there will be another one once the Nintendo 3Wii comes out, or whatever it will be called. Maybe it will be the Nintendo Revolution, or the Nintendo Woo, or the Nintendo Who! Maybe it will be the Nintendo M!! for all we know. I wonder why there wasn't one for the Nintendo DS... that doesn't make any sense. You'd think there would be one for that system since it's portable and it has Wifi. It would be the perfect game to play with other people from other places with! Maybe they will make one for the Nintendo 3DS for all I know. Anyway, thanks for reading. I graduated high school a few days ago, and I thought I'd write some more reviews!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/10

Game Release: Super Smash Bros. (US, 04/26/99)

The game also won the Game Informer Game of the Year award in 1999.