Mario chucks fireballs. Link swings his master sword. Samus drops ball bombs. Fox
McCloud beams up Scotty. Donkey Kong apes out. Yoshi slurps his tongue. Kirby
whacks you with his rod. Pikachu [PEE KAH CHEW] bolts lightning. Is bolts a verb?
Who cares? Super Smash Bros. unites all the big Nintendo mascots in one cartridge to
do nothing more and nothing less than kick each other's heinies and Poke-Balls.
The control scheme in this game is quite different from other fighting games. Both taps
AND tilts on the control stick are vital to performing moves and attacks. A tilt is what
you normally do with the controller - just hold it in any direction. A tap is a quick jerk in
any direction that is not held down.
Combining taps and tilts with the A and B buttons is the foundation for game play.
Special moves are executed the same way for each character. B plus up or B plus
down. This makes things nice and simple. Each character may have the same
COMMANDS for special moves, but the result of each command is unique for each
character.
The two biggest problems in this game are as follows. First, you can't change
characters at any time during the game. You have to reset and start all over if you want
to do that.
Second, after you jump, you can't change the direction you're facing until after you've
landed. This is definitely a necessity, because sometimes a fighter will move rather
quickly even while you're in mid-air. You need to be able to switch target areas quickly.
If a fighter is in one place when you jump, and then switches sides with you, you can't
land with an attack. This limits a lot of the action.
The best feature in the game is under the Training Mode. You can fight any character
in any location… in slow-motion! Now that's cool. It's also a good way to learn controls
and see how moves are best performed.
Still, Super Smash Bros. never rises above kid's fare. It's a nice concept with some
neat features, but overall, the average game play limits the strong character appeal.
Publisher: Nintendo