Super Smash Bros.: Melee is a fast and fun title that provides great fun for both single- and multi-player sessions.
User Rating: 9.7 | Super Smash Bros. Melee GC
Nintendo's greatest asset is its history; with many of gaming's revered and well-loved franchises in its own stable of properties, Nintendo has more nostalgia and familiarity to draw from than any other game developer/publisher on the market. And when Nintendo adds such a benefit to a game that's great to begin with, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the end result is just a hair's breadth short of perfection. While known more as a multiplayer brawler, SSBM's ace in the hole is it's surprisingly engaging single-player mode. With two seperate single player play through modes, a lengthy Challenge list, and a few neat minigames, the title would easily have enough going for it to maintain a serviceable single-player experience for when friends aren't nearby. Luckily, Nintendo's HAL Laboratories wasn't comfortable with just doing enough. With a hidden mode and loads of hidden characters and stages, SSBM has lots that isn't initially available to the player, but it's the game's trophies that really make single-player so compelling. WIth well over 200 trophies available to be unlocked, the player earns coins while playing the game, and the more coins they get, the better the odds of getting a new trophy are, and as the player unlocks new trophies, getting new ones consistently requires more and more tokens, and again, they're easier to unlock in single player mode. Overall, HAL went to great lenghts to make single player fun, and it worked out very well indeed. So well, in fact, that multiplayer pales a tad in comparison. It's fast, furious, and involves loads of customizable options, sure, but it lacks the focus or compulsion of playing solo, which means that although it is a quite entertaining mode, and definitely capable when it comes to this, only when the full four players are present does this mode feel as fully formed as the surprising single-player content. The game's mechanics are actually fairly simple, and due to the game's hyperactive pacing and on-screen madness, this is a good thing. All moves involve no more than a button press and a directional tug on the joystick, and this lends towards a very basic execution style that ends up being both strikingly easy to get into and yet very deep, with varying attack angles, special moves, defensive maneuvers, and the plethora of items that appear and quickly become snatched up for use during battles. The items are a big compenent of gameplay, and the way they come into play during fights spices up the fighting system greatly, adding a sense of random chaos that doesn't break with skilled players losing ground because of luck. There is a very large cast of characters, and they range from obvious choices like Mario and Bowser to some neat niche characters, like Game & Watch from the classic Nintendo handhelds, and Roy and Marth from Fire Emblem, which at the time had not yet seen an American release. Each character plays a bit differently (although a few have similar styles, like Pichu and Pikachu and Mario and Dr. Mario), and the character styles range from the heavy brutes to the quick lightweights. The stages themselves often steal the show, however, with some very inventive courses, from F-Zero course stages that must contend with racing to Zebes missions that involve the ever-present danger of molten lava. There is a stage for most every Nintendo franchise, and every player is boudn to have some absolute favorites. The game's graphics are excellent, brilliant and colorful, emlbematic of Nintendo's superior eye for art direction. Instead of using the GameCube's graphical muscle to try to render more realistic environs, HAL Labs has instead focused on crisp clarity and nonstop action, and the end result is a game that looks great zoomed in or pulled back, with two characters fighting with fists our four characters shooting and blowing each other up. The way each stage is colored also factors in very well; the art direction on the Game and Watch level alone has to be seen to be appreciated. It's minimalist beauty at its best. Still, as good as the graphics are, the sound is even better. With great, orchestrated renditions of a truckload of Nintendo classics available when playing, it's absolutely great to play through and listen to the classic Mario theme, the Legend of Zelda theme- even the DK Rap. It's all excellent music, and it all just heaps on the nostalgia with these full, lush versions of songs from the past 15+ years of Nintendo. The characters don't speak but they do make little noises, from Mario's "Wah-hoo!" to the growls and roars of Bowser. They don't do more than their signature noises, but in fighting games, more noises and less bad dialogue is much better than the other way around. There's no posturing; just "PIKACHU!!!" when a thunderbolt attack comes striking down from the heavens. Super Smash Bros.: Melee is the complete package, being both an engaging single player brawler and a multiplayer fighter, with loads of unlockables and extras and lots for the Nintendo completist to discover. It is as if Nintendo wanted players to lexperience the company's illustrious franchises in an encyclopedic manner, and decided to take a great franchise and mix the two. There is more in this game than almost any two fighting games on the market, and is one of the best values on the market, at $50 or $30. Anyone who ever bled Nintendo owes it to themselves to at least try out this encapsulated Nintendo experience; it's a brilliant example of great gameplay and vision, and a game that gamers of all ages can play together.
