Friday, June 3, 2011

It Came From Nintendo: Super Smash Bros.


Smashing its way onto the Nintendo 64 in the late '90s, a new franchise was born. Super Smash Bros. was a hit fighting game that sold over five million copies.

The game was marked down by fans as one of the greatest fighting games ever created. The 3D fighter took all of Nintendo’s well known mascots from different games and created an amazing crossover game that pitted them against each other in a four player madness.

It was a completely original fighting game.

Gone were the traditional health bars and special meters used in traditional fighters like Street fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. The gameplay was simply mass mayhem, seeing who can knock the other player off the stage.

For gamers who haven’t played any of the smash games yet or those who may have forgot, here’s how the game works.


There is a percentage located on the bottom of the screen along with the lives of your favorite Nintendo character that you have chosen to play as. The lives are called Stocks in the game.

The more you get hit the higher the percentage is on the screen. The higher the percentage, the further you get thrown each time you are hit.

That’s all there is to it.

The game is all about the thrill of beating the heck out of each other using your favorite Nintendo character. Nothing but pure fun. It's all about the multiplayer.

What made it even crazier were the items that were scattered throughout the fighting stage. The items ranged from a sword to a baseball bat. Pokemon would make cameos when you find a poke ball that spontaneously appear. They would attack your opponent helping you win.

Overall it was a must have game. Picturing Nintendo characters facing off and teaming up with each other was every fan boy's dream.
 

This was all made possible by Masahiro Sakurai. A low budget side project exploded in Japan on January 21, 1999 and was later released in the United States just over three months later. Though it started off as a small project, the success of Super Smash Bros. shouldn't have been too surprising.

After all, it came from Nintendo.