SUPER SMASH BROS.

'''Super Smash Bros.''', known in Japan as , is a crossover fighting video game developed by HAL Laboratory, Inc. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 video game console. It was first released in Japan on January 21, 1999, April 27, 1999 in North America, and on November 19, 1999 in Europe.^[1]
Players are able to choose from up to twelve characters (four of whom need to be unlocked) from various games in Nintendo's history, such as Mario, Link, Pikachu, and Kirby. In all the Smash Bros. titles, the characters appear to be toys or trophy figures representing Nintendo characters brought to life for the purpose of combat.
''Super Smash Bros.'' is the first game in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series. It was followed by the very successful ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' for the Nintendo GameCube and the upcoming ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' for Wii.

Contents

Gameplay

Single player

Multiplayer

Playable characters

Development

Reception

References

External links

Gameplay

''Super Smash Bros.'' uses a battle system different from the average fighting game. Choosing from a variety of characters, two to four players fight on various different stages, all while trying to knock their opponents off the stage. Instead of using health bars like other fighting games, the game features percentage meters. At the beginning of the match, the meters start at zero percent. As the characters take damage, the percentage meter goes up, causing the characters to fly farther back each time when hit. When a character is knocked off the stage, they lose either a life or a point depending on the mode of play. The characters can attack each other with a variety of different fighting moves. Each character can perform an array of attacks when prompted with the press of a button in conjunction with a tilt of a control stick. In addition to basic attacks, such as punches and kicks, characters have access to more powerful smash attacks as well as three special character-specific moves (although, starting with Super Smash Bros. Melee, characters have four special moves).

There are nine playable stages: eight based on each of the starting characters (such as Princess Peach's Castle for Mario, Zebes for Samus and Sector Z for Fox) and the unlockable Mushroom Kingdom. The stages are three dimensional (although players cannot move with depth, save for a few types of dodges) arenas that are mostly based on levels from the represented series of the game. They range from floating platforms to moving stages where the characters have to keep up. Each stage has a boundary that cannot be passed, or the character will be "KO'd", thus losing a life. The characters can make use of a variety of weapons, ranging from projectiles to melee weapons. Each item has a different effect on the characters around it. Some heal a single character, while others hurt any character in its vicinity. Single items and crates and barrels, which often contain an assortment of items, fall onto the stage randomly throughout the battle.

Single player

The game's single player mode always followed the same series of opponents, although the player could choose from five difficulty levels. Bonus stages in the single player mode included a "Break the Targets" stage and a "Board the Platforms" stage - each of which was specialized for the player character - as well as a "Race to the Finish" stage, which was the same regardless of the player character. Also included in the game is a Training mode, where a single player could practice his or her skills in any of the playable stages, and practice areas for each of the character-specialized Break the Targets and Board the Platforms stages.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer mode up to four people can play, with the specific rules of each match predetermined by the players. In "Time Battles", each player can be knocked out an infinite number of times. When the predetermined fight-time is up, scores are determined by subtracting a player's TKOs from their KOs, and a winner is determined. If there is a tie, the contenders are returned to the fighting stage and given a large amount of damage, so as to quickly determine the winner. In "Stock Battles", each player can be knocked out a fixed amount of times, and there is no time limit. The winner is thus selected by process of elimination.
Team Battles of the stock and time modes are also selectable. These have the same rules as the above modes, but players instead choose their teams and work cooperatively to win as a team. When teams are activated, members of the same team color (red, blue, green) are unable to cause damage or flinch each other by direct combat. Friendly fire can be turned on in the options menu so that team members are actually able to damage each other. When the match is over, KO totals are added up for each member of a team and taken as a whole, and then a winning team is declared. In a team stock match, when one member of a team has lost the total allotted number of lives, they are permitted get a life from their partner, provided that their partner has more than one life left themselves.
In the regular game, there are nine stages playable in Versus mode - eight based on each of the starting characters (such as Princess Peach's Castle for Mario, Planet Zebes for Samus, Sector Z for Fox), and the unlockable Mushroom Kingdom stage.

Playable characters

Main articles: Super Smash Bros. (series)#Playable characters, l1=''Super Smash Bros.'' playable characters

There are twelve playable characters in ''Super Smash Bros.'', all drawn from games developed by Nintendo. Eight characters are available at the beginning of the game, while the other four can be unlocked by achieving certain goals within the game. All characters are designated a symbol that is used for identifying them throughout the fight. The symbols are indicative of the franchise that each character is from, a system that continued throughout the Super Smash Bros. games. For example, all ''Pokémon'' characters have a Poké Ball symbol, while all characters from ''The Legend of Zelda'' have a Triforce symbol.
When a player selects a character, he or she can choose from four available color schemes for that character using the C buttons. A fifth color scheme is sometimes available using Team Battles, as each character is required to adopt the color scheme of their team. For example, although green Mario and blue Samus are unavailable in regular play, they can be used in the Team Battles by selecting these respective teams. If the same character was selected multiple times for one team, each one would be given varying degrees of color fading in order to distinguish them. Additionally, blue and pink Yoshis can be seen during the Yoshi Team battle in the 1P Mode, though only green, red, azure, and yellow Yoshis are available outside of this mode.
''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' does away with this system by always giving the player free selection of each character's four to six available colors using the X and Y buttons, with the exception of during Team Battles.

Development

''Super Smash Bros.'' was developed by HAL Laboratory, Inc., a Nintendo second-party developer through 1998. The game had a small budget and little promotion, and was originally a Japan-only release, but the huge success saw the game released worldwide.^[2]
There are differences between the Japanese version and the North American version, most notably, in the Japanese version, "Jigglypuff" is named "Purin", the "Beam Sword" weapon sounds like a lightsaber from ''Star Wars'', and the sound effects are significantly different for most attacks.^[3]
The promotional artwork is done in the style of a comic book, and the characters were portrayed as dolls that come to life to fight. This presentation has since been done away with in the sequels, opting instead for a more serious art style (such as using in-game models for the characters in place of hand-drawn art) and replacing the dolls with trophies.

Reception

'Reviews'

Compilations of multiple reviews
Game Rankings	80% (based on 20 reviews)
Metacritic	79% (based on 11 reviews)[4]
Publication	Response
''Electronic Gaming Monthly''	8.62/10
''Game Informer''	8.5/10
''Famitsu''	31/40[5]
''GameSpot''	7.5/10[6]
''Nintendo Power''	7.7/10
IGN	8.5/10

Reviews for ''Super Smash Bros.'' were mixed, but usually positive,^[7] with a lot of the praise going to the multiplayer mode of the game. There were, however, a few criticisms, such as the removal of the traditional health bars.^[8] In addition, the single-player mode was criticized for its perceived difficulty and lack of features.⁶ However, both of these criticisms are addressed in ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'', which was released in 2001 for the Nintendo GameCube.
The game was very popular and quickly became a Player's Choice title. In Japan, 1.9 million copies were sold^[9] and 2.7 million were sold in the U.S.^[10]

References

1. Super Smash Bros. review
2. Super Smash Bros. Melee
3. Super Smash Bros. preview
4. Super Smash Bros Reviews Metacritic staff
5. Famitsu Scores Smash Bros. IGN staff
6. Gamespot Super Smash Bros. review
7. Super Smash Bros. reviews
8. Game Critics Review
9. Japan Platinum Game Chart
10. US Platinum Game Chart

External links

★ ''Super Smash Bros.'' official site

★ ''Smash World Forums''

★

★ ''Super Smash Bros.'' site at nintendo.co.jp