Super Smash Brothers Melee - Nintendo Gamecube Game Review

I'd like to start off by saying that this is not a true fighting game. Yes, you do fight, and yes, the person who has the most KO's or is the last one standing is the winner, but this game both lacks and has more than the average fighting game(but I'll get in to all that later). Because of this, some may find this game to be an acquired taste. But for those of you who absolutely loved the Nintendo 64 version, and for those of you who want a different kind of fighter or a little multiplayer mayhem, I highly recommend you give this game a look.

The graphics in this game are probably the first thing you will notice, especially if you played the original. The characters are amazingly rendered and smooth when compared to their bulky, blocky N64 counterparts. The animation is also excellent with very fluid movements in all the characters. Some of the backgrounds are less than impressive, such as the "Mute City" arena, but because the "F-Zero" cars go by so fast, it's not that noticeable. Other arenas on the other hand, like "Great Fox" and the "Metroid" arenas are visually impressive. Even the small items used in combat like the pistol, bat, crates, and "light sabers"…errrr… I mean beam sword, are detailed quite well.

The sound in this game is great. The sound and voice effects are excellent, but the music in takes center stage. The game designers went to the archives and pulled out some of the music from previous games and gave them a little update. You'll probably recognize the music from games such as "Zelda 2" and the "Metroid". It's a nice little bit of nostalgia.

The control in this game is good for the most part, though once in a while it will piss ya off. It's not that the control scheme is bad, but sometimes little things about the control cause some unnecessary headaches. The control is setup much like the first game, so if you are use to that you should be able to pick this one up and get into the game almost instantly. Some differences are that the L and R buttons are now only block buttons, while the Z "trigger" is used to grab your opponent. That is one of the control problems, the Z trigger is at a very awkward spot on the controller so grabbing can be difficult at times, and in a game as fast as this, little distractions like this can get your ass knocked off the stage. A couple other control problems I have is that sometimes you can run right off the stage very easily. Like with "Captain Falcon", he is one of the fastest, if not the fastest character in the game, and when he runs sometimes you can run right off the stage. And if you use his "Falcon kick" near the edge of the stage, you can go so far off the edge, that even with his double jump, you can't get back leading to a very cheap death. I also really don't like the fact that the throw system is different than in the first one. In the first game, you pressed R and it would grab and throw them, without you having to do anything but press the one button. In Smash Bros. Melee, you press Z to grab them, but you then have to press a directional command to throw. A couple things I do like about that is, first, you don't have to throw them because you can simply grab them, and punch them while they are in your grasp, and I also like that by pressing a different direction on the control stick, determines which direction you throw them. So if you press down you'll slam them against the ground, if you press up you'll throw them in the air, and so on. You can also combine both ideas, you can grab them punch them around a little and then throw them. You can't hold them for very long though, which is a good thing or all people would do is go grab someone and just keep punching them til' their percentage was high, then throw them off the stage. With exception to a couple small problems the control works very well.

Game play is what makes this game. This game provides so much in terms of game play that if I could give replay value a score higher than 5 out of 5 stars, I would. For the most part, this game is a multiplayer game, but sometimes playing against the computer is good enough. Especially since they boosted the computers intelligence on this one. Well, I told ya I'd talk more about why this isn't exactly a fighting game, and I will. First off, there are no energy bars for health. In a standard fighter each player has an energy bar and when it is depleted, the round is over. Not so in Smash. At the bottom of the screen, there is a percentage. This percentage is based on how much damage you have taken. The higher the percentage, the more you've been smacked around. It's like a reverse idea of almost every other fighting game. The only difference is, there really is no limit, though technically the highest you can go is 999%, but if you ever get the high, you've got some skill. The reason for this is, that the higher your percentage, the easier it is for opponents to knock you off the stage and the higher it is, the further you fly off the stage. Once off the stage, you will in most cases have a chance to jump back on using each characters mid-air jump. If your percentage is high enough though, you will fly very quickly off screen when attacked and lose a point. And that brings me to my next reason this is no ordinary fighting game. The whole scoring system, it's not who knocked the other guy out first, it's who was able to knock their opponents off the stage the most. There are two ways of playing, time matches, which is to see who can KO their opponents the most in a given amount of time also getting the most points, and there is stock matches, where every player has so many lives and whoever is the last one standing wins, which is a little more like the traditional fighter. Some of you may be asking about the points. Well, in Smash for every KO you get a positive point and for every time you are KO'd you get a negative point. When the match is over, your points are added up and if your point total is higher than your opponents, you win(I know, it sounds more complicated than Chinese Algebra, but it's not).

My final reason to say this is not a true fighting game is because of all the items. Occasionally items will fall, sometimes in crates or capsules, and sometimes not. These items can either heal(lower your damage percentage) you or be used as a weapon or give you some other advantage. Some past fighters have had weapons or things you could throw, but Smash surpasses that. There are blaster pistols that can be used to shoot opponents, metal boxes that turn the character into metal like on "Mario 64", which make it harder for opponents to throw you off the stage, and there are stars like in the "Mario" series, which grant you invincibility. There are many other very interesting items, which I won't go into but they all play an important role, by giving the game some strategy. The game also has a decent single player mode. There are actually a couple different types of single player. There is Classic, which is like the first Smash Bros, Adventure, which takes you through some single play type levels from different past Nintendo games, and once you beat the game with all the characters, All-Star mode opens, which is where you have one life and you must beat all the characters sometimes two or three at a time, with only a couple chances to refill your health. The single player modes are alright, but multiplayer is still where it's at. To extend the replay value, the game designers put trophies in the game. I'm not sure how many total, but I have damn near 200 now, and I have a feeling there are plenty more. Some trophies you get from beating the game in the single player modes, others you find at random spots in the single player modes and others you get by playing a slot machine of sorts. You get coins in the game for doing various things and with those coins you get one pull of the slot. Sometimes you get a new trophy and sometimes you don't. The odds of course go do with every new trophy you get. Well, as you can see I damn near wrote a term paper on the game play alone, so you can tell that is this games strong point. Which is believe is very true, because a lot of people loved Smash Bros on N64 though the graphics and sound weren't that great, it still had excellent game play and Smash Bros Melee, just improves on that.

The Good!		The Last Word(s): This is probably the best Gamecube game out right now. It has great graphics and sound, great game play and a replay value that's through the roof. If you are looking for a different kind of fighter, or even a different kind of game, I recommend that you check this game out. Final Rating: 99% Iconish
Excellent Gameplay All your favorite Nintendo characters (except for those damn "Pokemon.") Excellent multiplayer game.
The Bad...
Control can piss you off at times.
The UGLY.
Nothing.