Everyone's favorite Nintendo characters come together in one game.....to kick each other's asses
To start, there is little to no story to be told other than a cut scene that shows a hand (known as "the master hand") that takes dolls based on Nintendo characters and pits them against each other. The actual single player portion has no more cut scenes though as you just face at least one other character in each stage. Before starting, you are given the choice of what character to play as (everyone has the same stages in the same order, however), what difficulty and how many lives you get. I guess the only reason to set fewer is to challenge yourself but you might want more as you play a harder difficulty. When you beat a stage, you earn points based on your performance. This is mainly for high score but they can also be spent on a continue should you run out of lives. In between certain stages, you will take on a bonus stage that involves you hitting targets or landing on platforms and you earn extra points upon completion. The game can be completed within an hour but playing through the single player never seems to get old, especially when trying out each character and trying harder difficulties.
You are given the choice of 8 characters to star with and as you can imagine, they're all Nintendo-branded characters. Although it may seem a bit small compared to Melee or Brawl, there are some good choices here like Mario, Kirby, Fox, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Pikachu. As you progress in the single player or by playing the bonus stages, you can unlock 4 more characters (Luigi, Jigglypuff, Captain Falcon, and Ness) with a total of 12 fighters to choose from. Each character is unique in their extra abilities and each character is balanced enough to make the game more fun, and nobody seems to feel too overpowered. An outdated number for a fighting game, but a great cast never the less.
Unlike most fighting games where you have to beat up you opponent until their health reaches 0, you have to win Super Smash Bros. by knocking all your opponents off the stage. To do this, you have to beat them up by either punching or using your character's abilities to good use. This will increase their percentage, which I assume means they have a higher chance of flying off the stage. When someone's percentage is so high, they will fly off the stage much easier and have a worse chance at winning. When you die, you lose a life. When you run out of lives, you're out and you have to wait for the rest of the fighters to finish. This is how multiplayer works too but it's a lot more fun, especially when playing with 4 players at a time. This whole idea is simple and different but it works really well and knocking the other characters off isn't as easy as it sounds, mainly because they can double jump their way back onto the stage and fight back.
Each stage feels fresh and distinctive as each one is from another Nintendo game and features substances from that game; complete with a variety of music from other Nintendo franchises. Think of every stage as a chunk taken from a platform game and hanging in the middle of nowhere. You must maneuver around platforms and traps set up to fight your opponent(s) and use the environment to your advantage. Their are also items laying around that will help you like a bob-omb that will blow the others away, a hammer that will make you temporarily invincible as you knock your opponents out of the stage, or a pokeball which releases a Pokemon that attacks the other players. Overall, the stages give you a greatest hits sort of feeling as each stage is remade into a unique fighting level and each one is enjoyable in a different kind of way.
As of today, some will find this entry a little outdated after playing Melee and Brawl, due to their larger cast of characters, stages and features. However, the original is still fun to pick up and play every now and again. It's a simple concept for a fighting game but it's a nice little twist and it combines platforming, fighting and that nostalgic Nintendo feel perfectly. Like I said, this game may feel outdated after playing the two sequels, but it's still a blast to play, by yourself or with up to 3 other friends, and is a great introduction to the series for anyone who hasn't played already.