Geekscape Games Reviews: ‘Super Smash Bros.’ For Wii U

Note: At time of publishing, the online functionality of Super Smash Bros. had not yet been activated. Impressions are based on single player and local multiplayer only. I also did not have an opportunity to test out the Amiibo functionality, so I haven’t touched on that in the following body.

Remember when gamers everywhere were whining and groaning that the Wii U didn’t have any games?

Oh, they’re still saying that?

Have they seen the console’s library of freaking exclusives?

Well, Nintendo is about to add another universally-acclaimed title to their roster, and if trends continue, maybe opinionated gamers won’t deem the Wii U such a failure for much longer (well, they probably still will for some reason, but I still love the thing).

Enter Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.

Now, we’ve all been playing Nintendo’s stellar mobile edition of Super Smash Bros. for nearly two months. Many of us have been through blisters, weeks of strained eyes, broken circle pads, or far worse, so I was beyond looking forward to giving my hands (and my overused 3DS) a much needed break. I grabbed my Pro Controller (which never, ever needs charging apparently), popped in the disc, and instantly witnessed near perfection.

The 3DS edition is almost perfect as it is (aside from a few sub-par modes), but the fact that I could play a match and not want to re-enact the end of Saw on my hands (it would be a less painful alternative, clearly) solidified the Wii U version’s greatness. The beyond-cramped screen and where-did-I-go characters are gone, and seeing our favourite fighters and the beautifully designed stages on a bigger screen and in full HD is an absolute treat. It’s totally silly, but I often find myself pausing (single-player of course) matches at choice moments, panning and zooming the camera, and simply basking in just how freaking beautiful everything looks (and it looks even better in glorious 60FPS motion). Right from the menus, to the backgrounds, to the arenas themselves (a huge 46 stages) to the characters (of which there are 51) and trophies, it would be impossible not to call Super Smash Bros. strikingly gorgeous.

Aside from the (again, stellar) presentation, this edition of Super Smash Bros. adds to the already expansive list of features contained in the 3DS release. Nintendo actually detailed 50 interesting facts about the Wii U version a few weeks back (if you’ve got half an hour, check that out below), but by far the biggest addition to the title is the insanely fun and insanely frustrating 8-player Smash. If you’ve ever thought that four-player Smash Bros. was sometimes too hectic, you will not have a second to even breathe when you double the participants. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a total blast, but in playing this mode with seven lucky friends, we experienced countless “where am I” and “what the heck happened” moments. And then there’s the damned ‘Great Cave Offensive’ arena, where the frustration grows exponentially whenever a fighter leaves the pack (the stage is HUGE). Still, playing with up to eight players means that none of your real-life friends ever have to sit out (nobody has more than seven friends, right?), and the mode is so damned hectic (especially with items on) that someone who has never or rarely played Smash Bros. still has an opportunity for victory, even against a seasoned veteran (I witnessed this many, many times). Of course, to be able to experience 8-player Smash, you need a lot of controllers, which segways me right into one of the coolest aspects of the title (and most first-party releases in general): the controller options.

Nintendo has released a lot of controllers in the 13 years since the GameCube came out. You’ve got the classic GCN controller, the sought-after WaveBird, Wii Remotes, Wii Motion + Remotes, Nunchuks, Classic Controllers, Pro Classic Controllers, Wii U Gamepads, Wii U Pro Controllers, and I’m probably missing a few in that list too. It’s pretty incredible to note that (with an optional adapter to go back to the GCN days) that all of these controllers and attachments are compatible with Super Smash Bros. This means that if you or any of your friends own a Nintendo controller from the last 13 years, you’re set. That’s amazing, and between a group (especially of eight people) it should not be hard to get an entirely full game going. You can even force one of your friends to use a 3DS as a controller if you really, really hate them. My only wish for the GameCube support and optional adapter is that the extend it into other titles down the road. I get that it’s the preferred method of input for competitive Smash play, but what if any game that could feature the Pro or Classic controllers could also utilize the GCN pad?

I think that the thing that I love most about Super Smash Bros. is that I can be completely terrible at it and still have a smashing good time (it was as hard to type that pun as it must be to read it). I’d consider myself a Smash Bros. beginner (aside from this title, I’ve put less than 8 hours into the franchise), and yet, even while playing against friends who have put an uncountable amount of time into the series, and who describe ‘advance techs’ and other mechanics that I can’t even begin to understand, I still have fun. These people absolutely destroy me, each and every match we play, and yet I’m never at a point where I’ve had enough. It’s an incredibly balanced title (or so it seems to this n00b), and each time I’m knocked out, I feel it completely justified. I can see the wrong direction or button that I pushed, I can see the counter my opponent had ready, I can see that my timing was off. It’s alway frustrating to be blown off the map, but it’s also always fair, which is something that I feel a lot of games miss out on these days.

Smash is also an extremely simple title to grasp the basics of. Simply watching the game’s short tutorial video is enough to get you off the ground (pushing or flicking the analog stick in different directions will all lead to different attacks, etc.), and it’s such an easy to understand title that I can imagine a few young children who would very quickly be able to surpass my ability. On the flipside, the game can be as complicated as you want it to be, and if you plan on playing competitively, prepare for it to get really complicated, really fast. The fact that I can hand a controller to a 100% non-gamer and within a few minutes see them smiling and throwing punches is a pretty powerful thing. In fact, at the end of a long night of local multiplayer, instead of hearing a “well let’s never do that again” I was instead asked “so when are we playing again.” It’s pretty amazing that a single game can do this, and especially a fighting game, which I always found to be the most frustrating and non newbie friendly genre of them all.

Multiplayer is obviously key in a game of this genre, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not a lot to love when you’re playing by yourself. The always fun Classic Mode, where you fight a ton of dudes and then fight a really hard dude (and you can totally scale the difficulty to earn more gold) is still present, as is the timeline-spanning All-Star Mode. Smash Tour is a boardgame-style mode that has you collecting fighters and power-ups (starting a battle with an item in-hand for instance) that starts out convoluted but ends up being pretty fun whether you’re alone or with friends, while the extremely-welcome Events have you completing super-specific and sometimes super-challenging tasks. I’ve nearly thrown my controller more than a few times playing that mode, so maybe you should use a wrist-strap for that one (you should definitely use a wrist-strap for that one). As always, there are tons and tons of collectibles to get your hands on, which should leave completionists beyond busy for quite some time.

Another issue that Nintendo has solved in this iteration is that fact that younger players may not have the slightest idea where some of these characters are from. To help (and to again help with those nostalgic feelings for us older players), Nintendo has built in three-minute demos of a lot of their classic titles. It’ll probably make them a ton of money too, seeing as all of these titles are available on the Wii U eShop (and have handy buy links after the demo times out). It was a very cool experience to be able to jump into the SNES F-Zero when a friend asked “What the heck is Captain Falcon from?”… and then immediately jump back out because that game is impossible.

It’s hard to put my finger on what really does it for me here; whether it’s the insane roster of classic and recognizable characters (and Shulk), or that warm nostalgic feeling I get from each and every stage, or maybe it’s that I really like collecting things and there’s seemingly no limit to the collectibles in this game. It could also be the fact that Nintendo has again developed another knockout that I can experience while sitting right beside my friends: they can swear at me in person instead of over a mic, and that’s a major oversight of most games these days. Whatever it is (it’s more than likely a culmination of all of these things and more), I’m absolutely enamoured with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and with the revelation of DLC and the idea that bugs can be patched (sorry advanced tech-ers), as well as its sheer addictiveness, people are going to be in love with this game for a long, long time. Me included.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U scores a smash-tacular 5/5. Go buy it, go buy it right now.