It’s finally here, a new era of Super Smash Brothers! A series so popular, whenever a new installment is announced, speculation runs wild and the amount of “reaction” videos showing people all trying their best to prove why they belong in an insane asylum instantly flood YouTube, and this time was no different. When Mega Man was announced as a playable fighter, the internet nearly exploded. Nintendo was like that person in a race who is so far ahead they don’t even need to try, just announce a new Super Smash Bros. game and you automatically win E3. This time we got two versions, the Nintendo Wii U version, and the Nintendo 3DS version. The Nintendo 3DS version was stellar, so it’s time to find out how the Nintendo Wii U version does. A quick note, this review took so long because I decided to focus on all the new aspects of the game, since the core gameplay has been the same since the Nintendo 64 original. I WILL also be spoiling the character roster.

BASIC GAMEPLAY
For the two of you out there that are unfamiliar with Super Smash Bros., I’ll cut you some slack and explain how you play instead of leaving you in the dust. The dry, dry dust. Unlike a typical fighting game, in Super Smash Bros. the idea is to increase your opponent’s damage percentage by attacking them. The higher the percentage, the farther they’ll fly back when hit. Once you think their percentage is high enough, launch em’ with a Smash Attack! You K.O. someone when they fly far enough off the screen. Attacking in itself is also different. By pressing the attack button in addition to a direction on the control stick (or D-Pad, for anyone actually using just the Wii Remote) to perform one of several attacks. There are specials, grabs, pummels, throws, shields, dodges, and taunts. Every character has the same amount of each one of those as other characters. There are also Final Smashes, one-use moves that require you to grab a Smash Ball, floating spheres that roam the stage waiting for a user to unleash its devastating power. Some transform you, some play a flashy sequence of attacks, and some are just massive attacks. It temporarily transforms the match’s objective from “Beat the ever living snot out of each other” to “GRAB IT GRAB IT GRAB IT” and once someone’s gotten it, you better hope they miss, otherwise you’re in a world of pain. The Final Smash you unleash depends on the character you’re using, as each has their own unique one (except for Shiek and Zelda and Dark Pit, Mario and Dr.Mario, and Marth and Lucina). The character roster itself is pretty sweet.

ROSTER
Oh boy, is it sweet. All of the characters from Super Smash Bros. Brawl return with the exception of Snake (for legal reasons), Lucas (for the fact that his game never left Japan), the Ice Climbers (for Nintendo 3DS limitation reasons), Wolf (for the fact that he was a third clone of the character Fox), and the Pokemon Trainer (for the reason that he used Generation One Pokemon, though Charizard does return). There’s also Dr.Mario and Mewtwo (Mewtwo is future free DLC if you buy both versions) returning from Super Smash Bros. Melee after not appearing in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The newcomers are great. Mega Man (Mega Man), Pac Man (Pac-Man), Duck Hunt (Duck Hunt), Villager (Animal Crossing), Shulk (Xenoblade), Greninja (Pokemon), Bowser Jr. (Super Mario), Rosalina (Super Mario), the list goes on. This also feels like the most balanced Super Smash Bros. game yet, with no character feeling too much stronger than the last (though Diddy Kong has raised some eyebrows). What’s even better is the the ability to create your own fighters!

CUSTOM FIGHTERS
By creating a Mii in the the Mii Maker program on the Nintendo Wii U home menu, and selecting them in-game, you can create your OWN Mii Fighters! You can choose from three types: Brawlers, Swordfighters, and Gunners. The Brawler is a fast and strong, close-range fighter, the Swordfighter is considerably slower and is an average-range fighter, and the Gunner has average speed, and is a long-range fighter. When created, you can choose from one of three specials for each special button input (up, down, left, right), change their outfit, headgear, and equipment (which messes with their stats). The Mii Fighters are cool, to keep it short. You can also, after unlocking custom special moves for them as well, customize the normal fighters. Fighters aren’t the only things you can customize.

STAGE BUILDER
This was in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but it’s been completely revamped so I might as well mention it. Using the Nintendo Wii U GamePad, you can draw your own stages, and then play on them! Choose a theme, a music track, a terrain texture, and start creating! You can also place other things, like cannons, moving platforms, springs, and lava. There’s nothing more to it then that. The normal stages themselves are actually pretty cool.

STAGES
We’ve got plenty of returning stages like “Halberd” (Super Smash Bros. Brawl), “Yoshi’s Island” (Super Smash Bros. Melee), “Pokemon Stadium 2” (Super Smash Bros. Brawl), and “Kongo Jungle 64” (Nintendo 64), but we’ve got plenty of new ones. Some of my favorites are “Windy Hill Zone” (new), “Wily Castle” (3DS), and “Mario Galaxy” (new). Some of these stages even stand out in many ways, like “Wily Castle” and “Pyrosphere” which both use the new stage boss concept, and “Great Cave Offensive” is the biggest stage in the series. The staples are of course still here, with “Battlefield” and “Final Destination” both returning. There’s now also an omega form of each stage, which turns them into flat basic stages, not unlike “Final Destination.” There are few unlockable stages compared to the 3DS version, and that’s a good thing in my eyes! The only downside is that there are fewer new stages in this game than Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and that’s a little sad. The stage settings you have set also affect the other modes like…

SPECIAL ORDERS
This mode is actually two modes, Master Orders and Crazy Orders. Master Orders is where the final boss Master Hand gives you three random tickets to choose from, each with a different challenge and reward based on the difficulty. Crazy Orders is a bit different. In order to even access it, you either need to pay a large amount of coins, or use a pass you can get in several places. Once inside, you again choose from three random tickets that the also final boss Crazy Hand gives you, but these are usually equal in terms of difficulty. The difference here is that after you complete one, you of course get the reward, but you keep almost all of the damage you took (you are slightly healed in between battles). You’re also under a ten minute time limit. Die once, and it’s all over, losing the rewards you won to twist the knife further. At any point during the challenge you can choose to face off against Crazy Hand, who becomes harder the more tickets you complete. Beat him, and you keep all of your rewards. They’re also pretty sweet. You can get coins, trophies, custom moves, Mii outfits, Mii headgear, equipment, and best of all, music CDs which unlock new music tracks. The soundtrack itself is…

SOUNDTRACK
..excellent. The new remixes are wonderful, and all of your favorite tracks from Nintendo games are here. I’ve learned about games I never knew existed just by scrolling through the sound test menu. Sure, a lot of the remixes are from Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. Melee, and one or two are even from the original Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64, but they’re still awesome to listen to regardless. Some of my personal favorites are “Rosalina in the Observatory” (new remix), “King Dedede’s Theme” (Super Smash Bros. Brawl remix), “Mega Man 2 Medley” (new remix), “Spark Man” (new remix), and “Menu (Melee) Version 2” (new remix). Then again, there are some remixes that ruin the original track, like the “Egg Planet” remix, which not only sounds like “Egg Planet” with a crappy filter over it, but also tries randomly throwing in classic Mario themes, and they don’t mix well. You can pick the original “Egg Planet” track, so this is one remix I’m never listening to again. A lot of tracks have different names as well. “In the Final”, which is the Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story final boss theme is now called “the Grand Finale.” The boss theme from that same game, which was once called “They’re Pretty Tough, Should we be Careful?” is now called “Tough Guy Alert!” One change I like is that when you are playing online, everyone gets to listen to track different from what everyone else is listening to. Oh yeah…

ONLINE
Online play was also a feature in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but because it was infamous for having copious amounts of slowdown and input lag, everyone had their eyes on it this time. While the Nintendo 3DS version’s online play was better, it still suffered from slowdown. This time however, it’s nearly perfect. The only problem is that it’s affected by everyone’s connection, so if one person has a bad connection, it ruins it for everyone else. I had a match with someone whose internet was so bad, the game froze every two seconds, and the match had massive slowdown whenever it didn’t freeze! Connection problems aside, there are a few different modes. To play online you first have two options, “With Friends” and “With Anyone” both are self-explanatory. Once you’ve picked one, there are two modes, “For Fun” and “For Glory”, with the first putting you on a random stage in a time match with items on, and the second putting you on the Omega form of a stage in a stock match with items off. You can choose teams, free-for-all, or one on one as well. You can spectate matches and place bets on players/teams using coins, and you can watch replays of old matches. There’s also conquests, which all you need to do to participate in is choose a character in the conquest, and if you win the percentage of that character will rise. It’s tough to explain. You know what’s also hard to explain?

SMASH TOUR
This is the Nintendo Wii U version’s equivalent to Smash Run on the Nintendo 3DS version. Instead of running around for five minutes, killing enemies to get stat boosts, you instead play a sort of board game where you run around for a set amount of turns collecting stat boosts, fighters, and items. Whenever you collect a fighter, it gets added to a list of fighters you can use, and whatever’s first will be the one that’s used, and you can’t change it. Turns begin with everyone spinning a spinner and the turn ends once everyone’s finished moving. The next turn then begins. If at any point you run into someone, at the end of that turn everyone will duke it out. If you get K.O’d you lose the fighter you used. The person who wins not only launches anyone near them across the board, but you also get to keep the last fighter you K.O’d. The big problem with Smash Tour however, is the items. At the beginning of a turn or before a battle, you can use an item, which can have many effects. They can prevent you from getting launched, they can let you start out a battle with a hammer, they can double the number of your spin, they can slow down the spinner, they can warp you to a random checkpoint you haven’t been to, etc. However, many of the items are overpowered. They can make an opponent shrink down for an entire battle, they can make an opponent start out with 100% damage, nearly guaranteeing their loss, and they can warp every player to one spot at any point. These can throw off whatever you were attempting to do. There are also random events, like bosses, enemies carrying stat boosts, and hazards. These are also unfair. The player closest to the stat boost carrying enemies when they spawn will always be the one who gets them, players can just sit still and steal the finishing blow on a boss, and the spinner will always dictate whether or not you’re avoiding a hazard. The most unfair bit comes at the end, where after tallying the players stat boosts, the game will give stat boosts to the players that did the best, as opposed to those who actually need them (except for the “launched ace” boost). After that, players battle with their new stats and all of their collected fighters. I much prefer Smash Run personally. It’s actually much more fun with human players instead mainly because they use the items strategically and not randomly like the CPUs. But overall, Smash Tour is a chaotic mess, and it’s even more chaotic than another new mode.

8 PLAYER SMASH
That’s right. For the first time in the Super Smash Bros. series, you can play with eight players at once. It’s madness. It’s insane. It’s awesome. Unfortunately it’s only available on some stages, and while an update has come out allowing for more to be played on, the stages don’t have hazards any more. Still, now nobody has to be that awkward fifth player waiting for their turn. Good luck getting enough people/controllers though. Thankfully, there are more controller options than ever.

CONTROLLERS
There’s the Wii Remote alone, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, the Wii U Pro Controller, the Wii Classic Controller Pro, the Nintendo 3DS (requires Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS), the Wii U GamePad, and the GameCube controller. The GameCube controller has been what most people have used since Super Smash Bros. Melee, so when Nintendo announced a special adapter, so this was an appreciated move. I personally like the Wii U GamePad the most out of all the controllers, mainly because I like looking at the screen on it. When nobody is playing with the GamePad, tapping the screen during a battle will display information like lives, score, damage percentage, name, and character as opposed to what’s happening on the TV. The GamePad also has a NFC touchpad, which in this game is used for…

AMIIBO
Think of them like Skylanders figurines. By putting them on the GamePad’s NFC touchpad (they can be taken off immediately and will still be active), you can bring them to life as a figure player (FP)! They start off dirt stupid, but as they level up they become both smarter and stronger. The best part is that they adapt to your fighting style, and learn from you. At first, I beat my Mario amiibo every time (I named mine JumpMania, it’s a pun on Mario’s original name, Jumpman). But it learned, and as I fed it equipment to boost its stats, it started beating me. By level 50, it was winning every match. These things are strong. Mine not only takes advantage of its immense power by being very aggressive (it also adapted my Smash Attack heavy strategy, so three hits and you’re at 78%), it could use its speed to easily combo me, and its defense to take a beating and stay on the offensive. This isn’t just mine either, as amiibo have done pretty well in tournaments. In terms of the figure quality, it’s decent. Most of the main body feels tough, but I feel like chipping off Mario’s hat or fireball would be easy with enough pressure. They’re plastic figures, what do you expect? The detail on them is rather nice though. While it’s fun to play against them, I wish you could play alongside them in Classic mode.

CLASSIC & ALL STAR MODE
While being a mode in every Super Smash Bros. game, it’s been completely revamped this time around. Instead of fighting random enemies one after another, you get to choose by moving a trophy around a field, and by running into another fighter (or group of), you start a battle. You also have rivals and intruders to mix things up. After a few battles, you face off against the Fighting Mii Team, which uses Miis from the Mii Maker application regardless of whether they’re Mii Fighters, and then after that you battle Master Hand. This mode also uses the Kid Icarus: Uprising difficulty system, where you can bet coins to make your adventure harder (or easier), and narrow the difficulty down to exactly what you want. The higher the difficulty, the stronger the opponents and the better the rewards, but if you die, you can watch as you lose most of your rewards. I like this, as it adds a risk reward system that encourages risk taking. If you set it to 3.0 or higher you’ll fight Master Hand and Crazy Hand. If you set it to 5.5 or higher however, you’ll fight a new boss: Master Core. The higher the difficulty, the more forms he has. On the some of the highest difficulties, you’ll even encounter his Master Fortress form. Master Fortress is a giant… fortress that contains several enemies and lava that instantly kills you if you’re over 100%. It’s more dangerous than dark. Your goal is to destroy the cores that pretty much scream “INSERT DEATH HERE” and after you’ve done just that the fortress explodes and you’re left to beat up on the hopeless core of… Master Core. Overall, this is probably my favorite incarnation of Classic mode.That’s all for Classic mode, but All Star Mode is back too. In this mode, you fight all the fighters in the game in groups, with rest areas in between the fights where you can restore your health with one of the limited recovery items. You get one Maxim Tomato (which heals 50%), one new item, the Fairy Bottle (which heals 100% as long as you’re over 100% damage, otherwise it’s about as useful as a ship-in-a-bottle), and two Heart Containers (which each heal 100% damage no matter what). These items do not respawn once they have been used. Your judgement will come in handy here, and this is another thing I like. You fight the groups of fighters in reverse chronological order of when they first appeared in a video game, so if you’re dream is to fight Mario or Pac Man as the final boss, look no further… sort of. The one thing I don’t like is that if you die once, it’s all over. You will have moments where either you make one mistake and die, or the CPUs gang up on you and carry you off the stage, with no way of stopping it once it starts. Otherwise, the new All Star Mode is a fun way to get the Final Smash trophies. Unlike previous games, you have All Star Mode from the start, but in order to get most of the challenges centered around it you must unlock every character.

CHALLENGES
Remember how I said I was going over every NEW aspect of the game? I do. Anyways, the Challenges are back, and just as tedious as they were last time. They’re simple in concept only. Fulfill certain conditions and get a reward. The rewards can range from Pokemon, CDs, Equipment, Crazy Orders Tickets, and hammers. You can use the hammers you unlock to break challenges you find too hard and get the reward for free, but the hammers can only be used once and you only have five of them. Unfortunately, some of the Challenges are pretty infuriating. A few examples are “Collect every special move,” “Collect over 700 trophies,” or the infamous “Clear Solo Classic on 9.0 intensity without losing a single life.” The problem is that most of the hard Challenges can not be broken by hammers, so what’s the point of having the hammers? Some of the Challenges involve random events in Smash Tour, and that’s annoying. I must admit, it is nice seeing the Challenge board fill up as you complete them.

THE VERDICT
In my eyes, this is the best Super Smash Bros. game yet. The roster is enormous, the graphics are dazzling, all of the new modes- er, most of the new modes are excellent, the selection of stages is nice, and the soundtrack has some of the best game music I’ve ever heard. And the gameplay, oh the gameplay. It’s fun, it’s fluent, it’s amazing. This gets a 9/10. Buy it. Buy it NOW!