Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros. is a series of crossover fighting games published by Nintendo that pits characters from franchises established on Nintendo systems against one another in multiplayer melees.¹² Known in Japan as Dairantō Smash Brothers (大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ, “Great Fray Smash Brothers”) and commonly abbreviated as Smash Bros., the series has been directed across all its entries by Masahiro Sakurai?.¹² It began in 1999 with a Nintendo 64 title of the same name and has grown into one of the medium’s largest crossovers, drawing together the casts of dozens of game franchises.¹²¹³

Origins

The concept originated as a passion project from a small team at HAL Laboratory?, the studio behind the Kirby and EarthBound games.²⁰ Satoru Iwata? and Masahiro Sakurai, co-creators of the Kirby series, began work on a prototype fighting game in 1996.²⁰ Iwata, who disliked traditional fighting games built around lengthy combos, wanted something more strategic and accessible to a wider range of players than a typical brawler.¹³²⁰ The two developed the prototype without official approval from Nintendo, working during off-hours in the hope that a working build would convince the company’s leadership.¹³ Iwata programmed the game in his free time on weekends; he later became the president and chief executive of Nintendo.¹³ Once Nintendo gave HAL the go-ahead, Sakurai and Iwata set out to make a game accessible to a wider range of players than a typical fighter, in contrast to arcade fighting games where, as Sakurai put it, character development could take a backseat because players were content with the fighting itself.²⁰

The early prototype, titled “Dragon King: The Fighting Game,” featured generic human fighters rather than Nintendo characters, though core mechanics such as smash attacks, midair jumps, and dashes were already in place.¹³ Sakurai then proposed replacing the generic cast with Nintendo’s most famous mascots to turn the game into a crossover.¹³ Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus, and Fox McCloud were the first characters added.¹³ To reconcile the sight of beloved characters attacking one another, Iwata and Sakurai devised a framing story in which the fighters are toys brought to life by a child’s imagination.¹³ Sakurai confirmed in a 2015 interview with TIME that the games “do not represent the Nintendo characters fighting against one another, they actually represent toys of Nintendo characters getting into an imaginary battle amongst themselves”.¹³

The original game

The first game, Super Smash Bros., was introduced in 1999 for the Nintendo 64, and released worldwide after selling over a million copies in Japan.¹²¹³ It launched in Japan in January 1999 and reached North America by April.¹³ The game featured 12 playable characters — eight available from the start and four unlockable — all created by Nintendo or one of its second-party developers.¹² The roster included Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Samus, Captain Falcon, Ness, Kirby, Yoshi, Fox McCloud, Pikachu, and Jigglypuff.¹²¹³ Characters that had to be unlocked were earned by completing in-game challenges.¹³

The series draws its cast from long-running Nintendo franchises, with characters and stages themed after the games they originate in — among them Donkey Kong (1981), The Legend of Zelda (1986), and Metroid (1986).²¹ Stages in the original game were each based on a starter character, including Peach’s Castle for Mario, Congo Jungle for Donkey Kong, Hyrule Castle for Link, Planet Zebes for Samus, Yoshi’s Island for Yoshi, Dream Land for Kirby, Sector Z for Fox, and Saffron City for Pikachu, plus the unlockable Mushroom Kingdom stage.¹² The game’s music was drawn directly from past titles, so players heard the Legend of Zelda overworld theme, the Super Mario Bros. tune, and other pieces of incidental music, lending the whole a “greatest hits” feel.⁴

The game’s core mechanic departs from conventional fighting games: rather than depleting a health bar, each hit builds up an opponent’s damage meter, and the higher that percentage climbs, the farther the character flies when struck.²¹⁰ The object is to knock opponents off the stage — sending them flying off the screen costs a life — rather than to reduce their health to zero.⁶² Up to four players compete simultaneously in Versus mode, choosing between Time matches, where the most knockouts within a set period wins, and Stock matches, where each player has a fixed number of lives.¹² Characters can double jump, and several have attacks usable to recover upward, so knocking a fighter off the stage is harder than it appears.⁴ Random items appear during play, ranging from bats, swords, and guns to the Donkey Kong hammer and the Poké Ball, which releases a random Pokémon.⁴

Single-player content in the original included an adventure-style mode, then labeled “1P Game,” that always followed the same sequence of opponents and ended in a battle against Master Hand, a floating glove who served as the final boss, alongside Training and the bonus mini-games Break the Targets and Board the Platforms.¹²¹³ Of these, all but Board the Platforms were carried into the sequel.¹² Contemporary reviewers praised the game’s multiplayer chaos and nostalgic use of music lifted from past Nintendo titles, while noting its shallow single-player mode and a scoring system that made it hard to track one’s standing during frantic four-player matches.⁴⁶ GameSpot judged that it would “never be confused with Street Fighter or Tekken” but called it possibly the best multiplayer game on any system ⁶; IGN rated it 8.2 and GameCritics 8.0.³⁶ One reviewer noted that of all audiences, it was Bomberman fans rather than fighting- or platform-game devotees who would feel most at home with its lively multiplayer battles.⁶

Sequels

Super Smash Bros. Melee, first released in 2001 for the Nintendo GameCube, achieved even greater success, becoming the best-selling game on that system with over five million copies worldwide.¹²⁷ It expanded the roster to more than 20 characters, replaced most of the original’s pre-rendered backdrops with fully polygonal, more interactive stages, and introduced a quest-style single-player Adventure mode with side-scrolling levels themed to each character and cinematic introductions and endings.⁷ It also added new features such as a Home-Run Contest, a coin-collecting contest, and a 64-player tournament mode, along with per-character themes rendered in CD-quality audio.⁷ Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata served as producers on the game.⁷

The third installment, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, was released on the Nintendo Wii in 2008, adding a story-driven Adventure mode, cooperative play, and online combat.¹²¹⁵ The fourth game, Super Smash Bros. 4, appeared on the Nintendo 3DS? in September 2014 and on the Wii U? in November 2014, introducing eight-player battles, amiibo support, and custom Mii Fighters.¹²¹⁵¹⁷ Its promotional campaign highlighted newcomers such as Robin and Lucina from Fire Emblem, the Villager from Animal Crossing, and the Wii Fit Trainer.¹⁷

The most recent entry, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, was released for the Nintendo Switch? on December 7, 2018.¹²¹⁹ It brings back every fighter in the history of the series, adds newcomers and over 100 stages, and introduces an adventure mode called “World of Light”.¹⁵¹⁶ The base game launched worldwide at midnight local time, accompanied by a day-one patch, and Nintendo supported it with a long sequence of post-release updates extending through 2023, when version 14.0.0 delivered the final fighter adjustments.¹⁹¹⁷ All five main games have been directed by Masahiro Sakurai, though HAL Laboratory handed the series to a new developer for Brawl.¹²

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - Overview Trailer feat. The Announcer - Nintendo SwitchNintendo of America