Mario or Zelda? Fox or Kirby? Only one way to find out.
The concept and gameplay made Super Smash Bros. stand out at the time. You take control of one of eight characters (four unlockable) from across the Nintendo spectrum and you beat the crap out of each other until either time runs out or you run out of lives, depending on what settings you choose. However, unlike most fighting games you don't beat your opponent by draining health. Instead, you beat each other up enough times until someone flies off screen. The higher your percentage rate goes, the more you are prone to fall off the screen. It's a rather simple gameplay concept that really sticks and makes it accessible to a wider audience. You don't even need to pull off complicated combos or finishers. Couple that with the smooth and simple controls to help make it even more accessible and fun. The game includes a rather excellent character roster, however it would have been nice to have a few other characters included, as well as stages. Other characters were planned, but the limited budget and storage prevented that from happening.
The game includes the basic modes you would find in a fighting game: A single player mode, Versus Mode, and Training Mode. In single player you choose a character and adjust the difficulty and the number of lives to your liking and go through a series of battles. There are a couple of occasions where you'll be fighting multiple clones of a character like Yoshi and Kirby, a giant Donkey Kong, and a metal Mario. In between certain stages are bonus rounds. Break the Targets has you breaking all of the target spheres in an area under a time limit. Board the Platforms has you you jump on platforms to activate them while also under a time limit. Each character has their own unique layout for these bonus rounds. Some are rather simple while others can be more challenging. Meeting certain criteria within the single player or multiplayer gives you an opportunity to face off against one of the four unlockable characters. Just beat them once and their yours to use any time. While single player is a nice little distraction, it just doesn't have the appeal that the multiplayer option has. Each time you want to repeat single player you'll end up just facing the same order over and over again.
Speaking of which, multiplayer, like any good fighting game, is where the game truly shines and it's the mode you'll be coming back to time and time again. The game has a few options to choose from. You have the option to have a free-for-all stock battle, meaning a limited number of lives, a free-for-all timed battle, and a team battle of either stock or timed. You can customize the difficulty of computer AI characters form 1 to 9. You can have up to 99 lives in the stock battles.You can even go up to infinity in the timed battles.
The game also puts various items from across various Nintendo games in the game. Some can help you out while most of them are used as weapons. In multiplayer you can set what kind of weapons you can have in the match and how often they will show up. These customizable options do make matches more interesting and the overall addicting gameplay will keep you coming back.
Considering that the game had a rather small budget, I'd have to say that the developers still put a great deal of effort into the design and look of this game. Honestly this is still one of the nicest looking games on the N64. While some of the characters appear a bit blocky they still look great and have great animations as well. All of the environments are based off of the 8 original characters and they all look great as well, and add a nice nostalgic flare. There are even little graphical touches like various things flying in the background. The music is also exceptional. A majority of the songs are remixes of classic themes, like the Mario theme, Zelda theme, and Donkey Kong jungle theme and they are some of the best remixes of the songs you can find.
PROS:
-Impressive production considering it had a low budget
-Excellent multiplayer
-Match customization adds a few twists
-Smooth and simplistic controls that are accessible to anybody
-Great music from some of your favorite classics
-Decent 1-player portion
CONS:
-More characters and stages would have been nice
-One-player mode doesn't have the lasting appeal of multiplayer player
If you are out looking for a fantastic and interesting fighting game that you can invite a few friends and family over and have a blast, then SSB is right up your alley. It's really a game that virtually anybody can play and have a blast with. It's just awesome, mindless mayhem.