The Nintendo 64 is a neat little console with some neat games. Included is Super Smash Bros, first game in the series of Platform fighting fun. Does it stand out compared to its successors? That is what the article would like to answer.
A quick little history about this game, the Creator of Kirby, Masahiro Sakurai wanted to make a different type of fighting game. It would not be health bars and complex motion inputs, but it would be percentage based and have simple inputs for moves.
Sakurai would make a prototype for this concept Dragon King. It was considered good by Nintendo but Sakurai wanted the characters to be recognizable so he put Mario, Fox McCloud, Donkey Kong and Samus in the next revision of the prototype and it would then be made into Super Smash Bros. You can get a better explanation of this game straight from Sakurai because he made a youtube channel and a video about this game and the process of making it.
Onto to the game-play, this game was the first of a new sub-genre of Fighting games, a Platform Fighter. This sub-genre is percentage based, you hit the opponent to increase percentage to knock your opponents easier off the stage. You can move and jump around in many directions compared to regular Fighting games. Moves are performed with a direction(Or none) and A or B button. Now, what makes this game unique compared to the rest of the series is the high amount of hit-stun and shield-stun, meaning characters take longer to go back to doing stuff. Combined with Grabs being low risk and this makes the game very combo focused. This game is also lacking the Side special, up and down throws, spot dodging and wallteching.
This game has 8 characters at the start and 4 more as unlockables. Let’s start with Mario who is very iconic and also a basic character in this game. He has a fireball and uppercut for his neutral and up specials. A spin for a down special. He has the alright normals and aerials, notable ones including his down and up aerials which help him in combos and breaking shields. Luigi is a unlockable fighter that is almost similar to Mario except slower, a few changed attributes to a couple of his moves and has a unique dash attack. While Luigi has a unique Up special that deals big damage and knockback if hit at the sweet spot, which requires Luigi to be really close to connect it; his up special also just goes up which makes it bad for getting back to stage. Luigi’s neutral special is a bit unique because it takes inspiration from the Mario Bros Arcade game in which his fireball moves in a wavy pattern and ignores gravity. However the rest of his moves are barely changed from Mario which makes him bland and mostly uninteresting. Overall, Mario is a neat beginner character to show what makes a character and Luigi is largely uninteresting.
Kirby is very good in this game. His regular moves are good with the most notable one being his Up tilt. A very damaging combo tool for starting combos and it has a lot of range for doing many Up tilts. Kirby has good aerials, most notable being Down aerial. This move has high shield stun meaning that Kirby can break shields easily. In retrospect, Kirby is a very powerful character showcasing this game’s high hit-stun and shield-stun.
Fox McCloud is relatively the same to his later iterations, only missing his side special and a few aerials being different. Fox is an aggressive character, he wants to do combos to take stocks. Fox’s normals are pretty fast. Fox’s aerials are great with his most notable being up aerial because you can loop the first hit of up aerial into itself. His neutral special is a laser gun that shoots a big laser that deals hit-stun compared to the other game. This is good to make the opponent go to Fox. His Down special reflects projectiles and has a hitbox for a tiny amount of time. His Up special is just okay as it takes a bit to go up and recover. Overall, this character is pretty awesome.
Donkey Kong is another iconic character that could probably best be compared to Zangief for the inspiration of this character and how Donkey Kong plays. Donkey Kong is a heavy character and thus can live up to higher percentages but opponents have an easier time comboing Donkey Kong in the game with high hit-stun. Donkey Kong has good things though such as his grab. His forward throw does the Cargo throw. This move allows Donkey Kong to move while still grabbing the opponent and gives him the only chain grab in this game. Forward throw, release, Grab, repeat. This isn’t a true chain grab but it is difficult to escape. Donkey Kong’s other options are less applicable. Donkey Kong’s Neutral special is a chargeable punch. If it’s at full charge, it becomes a powerful combo ender to take a stock. The problem is getting it to max charge. Down special is not good but not bad either. Donkey Kong slams the ground but it is a bit too situational. Up special has great horizontal drift but bad vertically so it’s alright for getting back on stage. While this character is lacking in terms of moves, this character still has the core that makes him fun in later games.
Link is certainly struggling in this game. This character’s normals are mediocre, usually being slow which is not a good attribute. Link’s smash attacks are mediocre as they are good for punishing slow moves but not much more than that. Link’s Up special is one of the worst moves in this game. It barely goes up and bad horizontal drift to get to the stage which makes it very easy to take a stock off of Link. Neutral special is a simple boomerang that doesn’t do much. Down Special gives Link a bomb. It has decent knockback which helps. Overall, Link is shockingly bad in this game and also uninteresting.
