Super Smash Bros. Melee
| Super Smash Bros. Melee | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | HAL Laboratories |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Masahiro Sakurai |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo GameCube |
| Release | December 3, 2001 |
| Genre(s) | Fighting game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
Super Smash Bros. Melee (Japanese: 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズDX, Dairantou Smash Brothers Deluxe) is a colorful fighting game released for the Nintendo GameCube, shortly after its launch in 2001. It is the sequel to 1999's Nintendo 64 fighter Super Smash Bros., and builds on that game's broad appeal and involved multiplayer mode, while improving overall quality and adding new features.
In keeping with Nintendo's strategy of emphasizing its back catalog, Super Smash Bros. Melee features a great deal of retro touches, evoking the "golden" 8-bit and 16-bit eras. It stars a large assortment of well-loved characters, including Mario, Link, Samus Aran, Pikachu, Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Kirby. Like its predecessor, Super Smash Bros. Melee is an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master game that, while being child-friendly, has a nostalgic charm and depth to adult gamers. As a Player's Choice title, it is one of the most popular and best-selling titles for the GameCube (in fact the best-selling Gamecube game in America according to IGN). In the Nintendo Power magazine, it was on the top-selling GameCube games chart for over 30 months. This game has established a fanbase called "Smashers", and is regarded as one of the best, if not, the best, fighting game ever and one of the best games of all time.
Gameplay
Super Smash Bros. Melee, like its predecessor, is different from most traditional fighting games in that simply inflicting damage does not guarantee victory. In normal play, winning requires that the opponent be forced out of the stage's boundaries, similar to a ring out. Attacks both inflict damage and knock the enemy back a certain distance; inflicted damage increases that distance, and so sufficient damage must be accumulated before attempting to KO an opponent (usually with a forceful "Smash" attack). Insufficient damage allows an opponent to recover and land back on the stage.
The controls for Melee are easy to learn; every single move in the game can be accessed via one button press and a joystick direction. Melee takes advantage of the GameCube's analog joystick by performing different attacks based on whether the stick is slightly tilted or quickly tapped to one side. This contrasts to most other fighting games, which require the player to memorize complicated and sometimes lengthy sequences of button inputs.
Items typically appear randomly around the arena, where they may be picked up and used by anyone. The items are derived from a number of Nintendo games and peripheral accessories, including, for example, Super Mushrooms which increase a character's size, a Super Scope which can be charged up to cause extreme damage, and Poké Balls which release a variety of Pokémon.
Single-player mode provides the player with a variety of fighting and side-scrolling challenges. One can also practice in Training mode, or use the Stadium to play various mini-games: Target Test, Home Run Contest, and Multi Man Melee. Finally, the Events mode allows the player to attempt to negotiate various scripted challenges (fighting a Pokemon-themed match, for instance, or defeating an enemy in less than seven seconds).
In versus mode, up to four characters may fight, either in a free-for-all or on teams. All characters may be controlled either by humans or AIs of varying difficulty. The victory condition may be to either be the last man (or team) standing, or to have the most KO's at the end of a certain time limit. A variety of other options are available, such as determining the number and kind of items, or playing a match in slow motion.
It is the versus mode that remains by far the most popular part of the game and has lead to an infamously hardcore fanbase. This is best witnessed in the GameFAQs message boards and guides and Smashboards.com where obscure and complex playing techniques (such as "wave-dashing" and "jump-cancelling") are described and strategised. This fanbase is also known to occasionally indulge in large 1-on-1 tournaments, including one in 2005 in which masters from Japan and America competed. There have also been many tournaments throughout the years tending to follow the "time limited stock battle, no item normal matches" idea.
Playable characters
All eight original and four secret characters from Super Smash Bros. return along with 4 new characters available from the start of the game. Two of the secret characters from the original game are now automatically available from the start in Melee. Nine new secret characters have been added in addition to the two remaining secret characters.
Characters available from the start of the game
- Bowser – from the Mario series
- Captain Falcon – from the F-Zero series²
- Donkey Kong – from the Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Country series¹
- Fox McCloud – from the Star Fox series¹
- Ice Climbers – from Ice Climber
- Kirby – from the Kirby series¹
- Link – from the Legend of Zelda series¹
- Mario – from the Mario series¹
- Ness – from the EarthBound series²
- Pikachu – from the Pokémon series¹
- Princess Peach – from the Mario series
- Samus Aran – from the Metroid series¹
- Yoshi – from the Mario series¹
- Zelda/Sheik – from the Legend of Zelda series-
¹These characters appeared in the original Super Smash Bros.
²Captain Falcon and Ness were also available as unlockable characters.
Unlockable characters
- Dr. Mario – from the Dr. Mario series
- Falco Lombardi – from the Star Fox series
- Ganondorf – from the Legend of Zelda series
- Jigglypuff (Purin) – from the Pokémon series³
- Luigi – from the Mario series³
- Marth – from the Fire Emblem series
- Mewtwo – from the Pokémon series
- Mr. Game & Watch – from the Game & Watch games
- Pichu – from the Pokémon series
- Roy – from the Fire Emblem series
- Young Link – from the Legend of Zelda series
³These characters also appeared as unlockable characters in the original Super Smash Bros.
Non-playable characters
There are many non-playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee, though through usage of a Debug menu, these characters may become playable:
- Master Hand: Originally starring as the final boss of the original Super Smash Bros., Master Hand makes a return as the last enemy in Melee's classic mode and Event Match 50. Unlike other characters, Master Hand does not accumulate damage but rather has a set amount of HP, depending on where and at what difficulty the player fights him. Master Hand floats over the right-hand side of Final Destination.
- Crazy Hand: Crazy hand is the left-hand counterpart to Master Hand and is implusively destructive. He is reached by reaching Master Hand and halving his HP within 15 minutes without using continues on Normal difficulty or higher. Crazy Hand floats over the left-hand side of Final Destination.
- Giga Bowser: Giga Bowser is a gigantic, vicious version of Bowser that can be reached in two ways: either by clearing Adventure Mode in less than 18 minutes without using continues on Normal difficulty or high, or by unlocking and attempting Event Match 51. Though much larger than Bowser, Giga Bowser is not appreciably heavier or stronger, but his attacks are much longer-ranged, some of his attacks have elemental side-effects and different knockback/damage qualities, and he cannot be grabbed.
- Wireframes: Possibly descendants of the original Super Smash Bros.' Fighting Polygon Team, the Wireframes are wire replicas of Captain Falcon (Male Wireframes) and Zelda (Female Wireframes) who lack special moves. They generally appear in Event Matches or Multi-man Melees under handicaps that greatly weaken them, although Cruel Melee reverses this situation, allowing the Wireframes to one-hit KO the player character with many attacks.
- Sandbag: a tall sandbag characterized by a pair of eyes and infinite tolerance to pain. Characters try to send Sandbag as far as possible in Home-run Contest; Sandbags enjoys seeing them go all out on him.
Trophies
As another way to incorporate retro references into the game, "trophies" of various Nintendo characters and objects can be collected. These trophies include statuettes of various characters, accessories and items associated with them, and secondary characters not otherwise included in the game. The trophies range from the well-known to the obscure, and include many references that are lost on international (not Japanese) gamers.
There are 290 trophies in all versions of Super Smash Bros. Melee except the Japanese version, which has 293. One trophy, the character Tamagon from a game called Devil World that was released only in Japan, was removed likely because of the religious reference. There are also 2 trophies that were awarded at a promotional event in Japan (Mario and Yoshi, and Samus Aran without her helmet) that are not available in other versions. However, all three of the missing trophies can be unlocked with use of the Action Replay cheating device. (Except in the PAL version, in which Tamagon cannot be gotten at all.)
The Motion-Sensor Bomb trophy originally bore a resemblance to the proximity mine in the game Perfect Dark; the trophy was altered in the U.S. version to resemble a proximity mine from the N64 game GoldenEye 007 for unknown reasons, and its game of origin was changed to "TOP SECRET", akin to the Cloaking Device. One of the ending credits clearly states that "Certain characters and items from Perfect Dark[...]", implying, if not outright stating the source of these items. There is no way to obtain the original Motion-Sensor Bomb trophy outside of the Japanese version, setting the U.S. version's language to Japanese will not work either.
Trophy errata
- Samus Aran (trophy number 10) appeared in Metroid when it first came out in August 1986, but Super Smash Bros. Melee erroneously lists 1989 in the description.
- Meta Knight (trophy number 240) first appeared in Kirby's Adventure, not Kirby Super Star. However, he was not mentioned by name in Kirby's Adventure, which may have caused this oversight.
- Ayuma Tachibana (trophy number 286) was the protagonist of the original Detective Club game, even though the trophy description states that she appeared only in the sequel.
- The "Coin" trophy description speculates that they may be the currency of the Mushroom Kingdom; however, this was confirmed in Super Mario RPG and again in Paper Mario.
- The Master Sword is listed as first appearing in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, thought it was first seen in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. This was corrected in SSBM's PAL version.
- Princess Daisy's reintroduction was in Mario Tennis, not Mario Golf as her trophy claims. She did, however, appear in the similar NES game NES Open Tournament Golf.
- The Great Fox first appeared in Star Fox 64, not the original Star Fox.
- Master Hand is said to first appear on the original Super Smash Bros., but is strikingly similar to a boss in Kirby Superstar.
Stages
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It is of note that the name Mushroom Kingdom II is something of a misnomer. That stage is derived from Super Mario Bros. 2, the events of which took place in Subcon and not in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Sonic and Tails hoax
In 2002, the April edition of the video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly included a "cheat" for the game that would baffle people for years to come. The issue claimed that the Sega characters Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles "Tails" Prower were hidden characters in the game. In order to be able to play as them, the player was required to eliminate 20 of the wire-frame characters in the Cruel Melee mode. Then, both Sonic and Tails would supposedly fight the player simultaneously and, if they lost, would then become playable. The magazine also said that if a player completed Classic mode with either character, they would be given "a special surprise". To convince readers, they included some screenshots of Sonic and Tails in play.
However, this was revealed to be a hoax shortly after one of the readers discovered the date in one of the photos 'EGM' placed. It was included in the April edition for the sole purpose of being an April Fool's joke, reminiscent of their similarly executed Sheng Long joke for Street Fighter II. There are also several other factors that also prove this false, such as Nintendo not joining forces with Sega until after the game was released and that there is a screen that tells the player that they have achieved all of the hidden characters. Also, these characters were not included in any strategy guide.
In a recent issue of Nintendo Power they gave the results of a poll for the character they most want in the next Super Smash Bros. It is interesting to note that one of the most popular choices was Sonic and Tails. There is still some speculation that Sonic and Tails will be in the next one.
Future
At E3 2005, the President of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, announced a third game in the Super Smash Bros. series that is currently in development for the Nintendo Revolution. The game was confirmed to be playable online by taking advantage of the system's Wi-Fi capabilities. This title could be seen as early as March 2006 as launch title for the Revolution, but the release date is currently unannounced.
See also
- Super Smash Bros. (Nintendo 64)
- Super Smash Bros. Revolution (Nintendo Revolution)
- List of GameCube games
- Super Smash Bros. Melee Trophies[[1]]
External links
- Template:Nintendo.com
- Super Smash Bros. Melee guide: Nintendorks.com
- Super Smash Bros. Melee - GameFAQs.com
- Smash World Forums
- Super Smash Bros. Melee at IMDb (The IMDb uses the Japanese titles for video games of Japanese origin.)
- Description of the Debug Menu