Absolutley the best multiplayer game you're gonna find on the Gamecube.
Gameplay, 9. For those of you who don't know anything about the game let me tell you. All the characters in the game are from some franchise from Nintendo, whether it be the most well known like Mario, or the more obscure like Fire Emblem (which during this game's release was exclusively for Japan). The way the game plays is hat 2-4 players are stuck on some location from a Nintendo game and battle it out. Unlike other 2D Fighters this game doesn't use health bars but damage percentage. The higher your percentage is the further you get knocked way when you get hit. Eventually you get so damaged that you can't make it back or you just get knocked out of the stage period.
There are many modes in this game. In the single player mode ther is Classic, which is just the normal mode you would have played on the original Super Smash Brothers. Unlike in the original game you don't fight the same fights over and over again. You can fight any character under any of the game's different conditions. This gives the Classic mode more replay value and is not just a mode for earning stuff. Break the Targets has returned just the same. Break the Targets is where you have to break all the targets on a stage and each stage is uniqely designed for each character's skills. Practice also has returned but this time you can change more things. For some reason or another the mode where you have to land on the platforms has been cut, but then again this mode wasn't really any good to begin with. There are plenty of new modes in the single player game. Adventure is where you basically do some 2D platforming and fight. This mode is the same fights usually so it's only fun the first few times you play it. Event mode is an interesting one. You basically fight under unique conditions or just fight certain characters. Many of the Event challenges require you to use a certain character so you will have to learn how to use characters besides your favorites. There is a Stadium mode now which consists of Break the Targets, Home-Run Contest, and Multi Man Melee. Home-Run Contest is where you have to knock the Sandbag as far as you can using the Baseball Bat at full blast. Multi Man Melee is where you have to fight a bunch of Wireframed enemies and knock out as many as possible. There are six different ways to play this mode: 10-Man Melee, 100-Man Melee, 3-Minute Melee, 15-Minute Melee, Endless Melee, and Cruel Melee. 10-Man Melee is where you have to knock out 10 Wireframed enemies. This is obiviously the easiest one but things get complicated with the other five. 100-Man Melee is where you have to knockout 100 Wireframed enemies. 3-Minute Melee is where you have to survive for 3 minutes. This may sound easy but believe me it starts to get hard towards the end as the Wireframed enemies get smarter and tougher. 15-Minute Melee is where you have to survive for 15 minutes. Endless Melee is just where you survive as long as you can. Cruel Melee is where you survive as long as you can against huge, cruely strong Wireframed enemies. This one is almost impossible to do. There is another mode you can play but you have to unlock it.
While the single player part of the game certainly isn't bad it's definitley not the meat and bones of the game. The real reason this game is so popular is because of the Vs. mode. There are 4 ways to play the regular matches: Stock, Time, Coin, and Bonus. Stock and Time are the two returning modes. Stock is where the players have a limited amount of lives and the last one standing is the winner. Time is where you you have a limited amount of time and the player with the most points is the winner. You get one point for knocking someone out, you lose a point when you get knocked out, and you either lose one, two, or no points when you self-destruct. Coin is where you have to knock coins out of your opponents and the player with the most coins wins. Bonus is where the player with the most bonus points for doing certain things in the game is the winner. You either gain or lose bonus points for doing certain stuff. There is also a Special Melee where you fight under certain conditions.
There are also records you can look at to see how well each character is doing in kills and other statistics.
This game plays almost flawlessly. The characters for the most part are well balanced. Most of the items in the game are balanced. There are almost zero problems with this game and it is really just fun when you're playing with friends.
Graphics, 10. For this early in the Gamecube's life cycle these are perfect graphics. All the game's characters have been redone so they look great on the Gamecube and not like their blocky, or in the case of some characters pixalized selves.
Sound, 10. There are so many soundtracks from Nintendo's older days in this game that return. All of them perfectly ported on the Gamecube.
Value, 10. This game will last you forever if you have a Gamecube and some friends to play with. If you can't play with anyone at the moment then just play with the computer players or on the single player mode. There is just so much to do on this game.
Difficulty, Just Right. You can choose how hard the computers are on most modes so it's really your choice on how hard this game is. You can choose from Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard.
Tilt, 10. This was probably my favorite Gamecube game ever. If you're a Gamecube owner still then get this game if you don't somehow have it already. This is one of the best games on the Gamecube and for that reason it is why people enjoyed this game for seven years until Super Smash Brothers Brawl came out.