The Weekend Review: Super Smash Bros for Nintendo 3DS

In which I review a selection of last weekend's entertainment.

Preface - In preparation for an interview that I have on Thursday, I am currently staying with Becky (who lives just a few blocks away from where I will be interviewing).  Unfortunately, this means that I will be without cable for this week, which will naturally delay this week's installments of Piece of the Puzzle.  I will be sure to watch and review those episodes just as soon as I am able to, but just understand that they will not be posted as promptly as they have been over these last several weeks.

Despite spending my weekend camping in Lake Bloomington, I still found the opportunity to start playing the latest installment of the exceptional Super Smash Bros. series: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.  Ever since the original Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64 hit the shelves in 1999, it has been hands-down my favorite fighting game.  It combined all of the silliness of Screw Attack's Death Battle with all of the fun of Nintendo's roster of protagonists in a remarkably balanced and dynamic virtual setting.  Despite having its share of flaws (a full roster of only twelve characters, Jigglypuff being a significantly weaker version of Kirby, a surprisingly low max difficulty for CPUs and uninspiring single-player gameplay), it succeeded at surpassing fighting genre mainstays like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat in mine and others' esteem.

Nintendo has certainly come an incredibly long way since the original Super Smash Bros.  Hell, they've come a long way since even Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii.  Instead of a scant number of playable characters that I've become used to when starting a new Smash Bros. game, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS' starting roster was so large that I briefly wondered if there was simply no unlockable content hidden in the game.  After my first ten battles, however, I unlocked Ness, which put that fear to rest.

The game's full roster consists of 51 unique characters: allowing even the pickiest player to find at least one character that works with his or her fighting style.  What's remarkable to me is that all of the new characters that I wanted to play right out of the gates were already part of the starting roster: Mega Man, Charizard, Greninja, Little Mac and Pac Man.  I would have guessed that such high-profile new characters would have been hidden away as unlockable content, which thankfully was not the case.

What's obvious right out of the gate is that Nintendo has redoubled their efforts at balancing their vast roster of characters.  In Brawl,  it was generally agreed that Pokemon Trainer - who allowed players to switch between Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard - was the weakest character.  While having the option of changing fighting styles mid-combat was certainly an appealing prospect for more flexible fighters, Ivysaur was a wasted transformation and only Charizard seemed to have any real power behind him.  In the 3DS game, Pokemon Trainer has been replaced with the much more satisfying Charizard, who now is a full character in his own right.

Meta Knight, however, has definitely been toned down from the franchise's previous installment.  His fast sword attack no longer covers the area immediately behind him, which in the past allowed him to keep multiple surrounding enemies at bay.  His tornado attack - in which his body is enveloped in a small twister that allows him to race around the screen, damaging any enemy he touches - lasts only a fraction of duration that it used to, drastically limiting his ability to outpace opponents and rack up an obscene amount of damage against opposing players.  While I am sad to see one of my favorite characters nerfed like this, I can understand the reasoning.  Meta Knight was arguably the most powerful fighter whose small, incremental advantages allowed him to outperform far more experienced players.  I am more than happy to see characters balanced against one another like this, even when that means that the ones that I liked take the brunt of depowering.

My biggest complaint about Brawl was little I wanted to play a perennial favorite of mine: Samus.  She was always my favorite ranged character, who immensely powerful charge attack could take out enemies with only moderate damage done to them and who could still hold her own in a close-quarters melee.  When she unleashed her ultimate power, however, she would lose her power armor and transform into Zero Suit Samus, whose play style favored speed, agility and guerrilla tactics.  As far as I was concerned, the game punished the Samus player for unleashing the character's ultimate smash attack by forcing them to transform into a downgraded fighter.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS solves this problem by separating Power Armor Samus and Zero Suit Samus into two different characters.  This way, players can choose which play style they would prefer and select their character accordingly.  In fact, a number of characters that used to transform have now divided into seperate characters.  Shiek / Zelda, which allowed players to trigger transformations between a fast character and a heavier-hitting character, are now two distinct characters.  Pokemon Trainer has been replaced with just Charizard and Greninja feels like a more powerful version of Squirtle.  Although I am sad to see Brawl's most interesting innovation be abandoned so soon, I can't deny that the transformations often ranged from unused to incredibly frustrating.

Of the newcomers, I am suprised that Mega Man didn't turn out to be my favorite.  He's an amazingly versatile character whose directional move set allows him to easily adapt to any situation.  He can unleash an incredibly powerful electric shock that launches enemies into the air or an equally powerful fire attack that engulfs nearby enemies on either side in great plumes of flame.  A mini tornado can carry opponents into the air while dealing an increasing amount of damage, a saw-blade can hit far-off enemies for reasonable amounts of damage (and can be picked up and used as a weapon) and he can quickly attack through to the opposite side of the screen with either a spinning or sliding attack.  He's an incredibly balanced, medium-strength character who can easily rack up damage against any number of more narrowly-focussed opponents.

It turns out that Little Mac is simply a character that is much better suited to my particular play style.  He's an incredibly fast melee character whose punch-based move-set allows him to both quickly rack up damage and smash opponents clear off of the screen.  He has a charged punch similar to Donkey Kong's, although it has the advantage of projecting him across the battlefield in exchange for not being able to store the charged punch for later use.  His ultimate smash attack even Hulks him out to do even greater amounts of damage.  He basically plays out like a better version of Kirby, Meta Knight, Shiek and Mega Man, given what I like to use all of those characters for.

So far, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS honestly looks to be the best game of the series.  It balances the game in ways that its predecessors were unable to and increases the character roster to a truly ridiculous size.  The fact that it's now portable is a massive upside, allowing players to "settle it in smash" anywhere they happen to be.  I won't give a rating to it quite yet, as I haven't sufficiently explored its other features yet, but I am confident that it will end up coming in at, or just below, a perfect 10.

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