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GC

North America

Super Smash Bros. Melee

by David Trammell - May 21, 2001, 4:29 pm EDT

As Nintendo fans, you all know that Super Smash Bros. rocks. Now just imagine that game with insane graphics, new arenas, a better one-player mode and new characters. Excited yet? I thought so...

During the pre-E3 press conference, Nintendo kind of hinted that too many sequels were being made. Thus when they opened their footage reels with Super Smash Bros. Melee, I probably wasn't the only one who thought it a little hypocritical. Still, I don't think anyone cared, and with good reason. The footage that followed was the most awe-inspiring thing I've ever seen. The footage was a ton of intro scenes that demonstrated the characters in stylistic ways that didn't have much to do with gameplay. However, it was very effective judging by the cheers from the crowd. When this footage ended, the characters were introduced by name followed by a little footage showing them in action. It seems that quite a few secret characters were left out of this footage.

At E3, we got to play SSBM and it was awesome. The graphics in this game range from subtle and effective, to gratuitous. For example, the Pokémon Center stage has a giant projection screen in the background that turns on periodically. Sometimes it zooms in on your character showing the insane detail (which you can also see by pausing the game and rotating the camera) and other times it shows the raw power of the GameCube by showing the entire screen that you see, including cascading repeats of the projection screen. Another very cool stage is Mute City from F-Zero. The fight takes place on a series of moving platforms that ride around the track and periodically stop (at which time you can stand on the track itself). When stopped, plenty of F-Zero cars come flying by which can hit you. Naturally, while all this mayhem is taking place, you and your friends are beating the snot out of each other. This level is insanely fun. Other levels are interactive as well, but in simpler ways. The new Metroid level features the same rising lava stuff, but it doesn't come up nearly as often and the level also features platforms tethered together by alien "growths". You can destroy this things causing the platforms to break free and move. Finally, the graphics are rounded out by some bad-ass animation. The animation received the next-gen treatment from Nintendo just like everything else in the game.

The fighting engine has been refined and seems to have more oomph! Everything just seems a bit more responsive and I didn't mind the slightly changed button configuration on the new controller either (X and Y jump and R blocks while Z throws instead of both functions being on R). The playable characters in the demo were all from the previous game, with the exception of Bowser. The sounds effects that go with each successful move carry a lot of punch now thanks to the nearly bottomless storage of disc media. In the clips, all of the previous characters were shown in one form or another implying their return, along with new ones. New characters include: King Bowser, the Ice Climber (from an ancient Nintendo franchise), Princess Peach and Sheik. Those four are practically confirmed, but there is at least one more character. My candidates: Ganondorf (as seen in the SpaceWorld footage with that giant sword). There is a shot in the footage with three hands that have a triforce emblazoned on them. One was Link, another was Zelda and the third could only have been Ganon. Another possibility is Ridley (Miniboss 2 in Metroid). He was actually seen fighting Samus in one FMV clip, but that may only be in the one player portion of the game (or not at all). I hope they put him in. My final candidate is Pit, better known as Kid Icarus. He would make an excellent character with his tiny wings giving him Kirby-like jumping abilities and someone apparently saw a Pit statue or something in the game somewhere.

The demo was rounded out with beautiful orchestrated music (I couldn't tell whether it was the sound chip or just straight up CD-quality music) and a huge variety of items including some new ones like the Super Scope (of SNES fame). Ultimately, the game doesn't have much in the way of pure innovation, it's just bigger, badder and better than it's little brother in every way possible. And that can only be good news.

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GC

Game Profile

Genre Fighting
Developer HAL Laboratory
Players1 - 4

Worldwide Releases

na: Super Smash Bros. Melee
Release Dec 02, 2001
PublisherNintendo
RatingTeen
jpn: Dairantou Smash Brothers DX
Release Nov 21, 2001
PublisherNintendo
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