88| Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

Released: November 21st, 2014

Definitive Version: Wii U; Also on:3DS (sort of)

I have a very...complicated relationship with Super Smash Bros. The thing is that, for the most part, I find the games pretty boring. I don't care playing the latest game on-line. There are at least a dozen other fighting games I would rather play. However, due to the fact that everyone and their mother asking me if they could play the game when my Wii U is around, that has led to a lot of great memories. Now I'll just say it right off the bat. Playing Super Smash Bros. local multiplayer is obviously where the fun is at. I actually legitimately enjoy playing the game in this mode as it can become very frantic with more than two players and there is a lot of satisfaction seeing your friends face after you have pummeled them. The key to the series success is its accessibility. There are no inputs, combos, or six buttons to memorize. The entire game is primarily played by an analog stick and one button, with a trigger as a block and occasionally one other button for strong attacks. What's more is that for the longest time there were up to four players in the game so due to the lack of focus on every player and the chaos going on in the screen everyone can get their lick in on an opponent compared to other fighting games where a new comer wouldn't even be able to get a hit in. And with this iteration of the series, there are now up to eight players.

To point out the elephant in the room, the series is mostly known for the ability of having all of the most popular Nintendo franchise character duke it out in a fighting arena. And due to the game's popularity many third party characters have been added in the latest releases including Sonic, Megaman, Pacman, Ryu, Cloud, and Solid Snake (RIP). Slowly the game is going from a Nintendo Battle Royal title to a Video Games in General Battle Royal title. This alone would make the game absurdly popular, but add in the fact that the game is so accessible and presented a unique take on fighting games and the series became a mega hit.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game very much. I love the fact that it is different than other fighting games. I really like being able to play with more than one player at a time. It is very cool being able to play a game as some of my favorite video game characters. Bashing my opponents sky high and out of the ring gives me a lot of satisfaction. The problems I have with this game are essentially what makes them so appealing to most in the first place. For starters is the accessibility. It is great and all that there are hardly any inputs to memorize. That said this seriously limits the amount of attack each characters have. On top of that there is very little execution in actually performing these moves. Games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Skullgirls are extremely fun to play to see just how much you can exploit the character's movement and moveset to do over the top combos and attacks. With Smash everything is done with a simple push of a button, so there isn't much to play around with. The other problem is the fact that everyone who plays can get a lick in on an opponent. Sure getting constantly overkilled in fighting games is not fun. However, that is what makes the genre so magical. You have to actually work to get good at the genre. There is a huge satisfaction training and practicing for dozens of hours until you go up against a player who would previously spank you but due to all of your hard work you actually managed to get out a win out of them. Smash is not like that at all and is in fact designed not to be like that. Hence why for competitive play the community has to alter the game significantly to even make it such as only playing on two stages or omega stages, only playing as a handful of characters,  as well as turning items off.  Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a great game that I enjoy playing. It just frustrates me that I feel like a lot of my positive experiences came by being practically forced to play the game as nobody wants to take the time to learn how to play more traditional fighters.

Like you said, local multi-player is where its at for this series. I guess in a way this game was built around that old N64 strategy of fun party games and has carried that on probably more than any other Nintendo series.

Without that, its kind of meh.