Four Nintendo characters enter one stage. Only one is left standing when the match ends. Super Smash Bros. builds a fighting game around that simple contest, and the result is one of the strongest titles on Nintendo 64.
Twelve Fighters, One Screen
Super Smash Bros. gathers twelve characters from across Nintendo’s games into a single fighting title. Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Fox and Ness are among the fighters players can choose. Eight are ready from the start; the rest must be earned through play. The mix of characters gives the game a personality no other fighting title on Nintendo 64 shares.
The Fighting System
The game breaks from the usual rules of the genre. Health bars are gone. In their place is a damage count that rises as a fighter takes hits, and the higher that count grows, the farther a fighter flies when struck. Send a fighter far enough off the stage, and that fighter is out.
This single change changes the pace of every fight. Battles move fast, and a fighter with a low damage count can still be sent flying by one strong hit near the edge of a stage.
Stages Built for Four Players
Super Smash Bros. sets its fights on stages drawn from each fighter’s home game, and some include moving platforms or hazards that change the course of a match. The game supports up to four players at once, a feature that makes it as much a party game as a serious contest between skilled players.
Beyond fights between friends, Super Smash Bros. offers a mode for one player to face a line of foes in turn. It is a smaller part of the game, clearly built to sit beside the multiplayer fighting rather than stand equal to it.
Where the Game Comes Up Short
The mode for one player is thin next to the fighting between friends. Waits between matches and menus can be felt. The look of the game is simple next to other Nintendo 64 fighting titles, with plain character models and stages built more for play than for detail.
None of this takes away from what the core fighting system achieves.
Send a fighter past the edge of the screen, and that fighter is out.
The Verdict
Super Smash Bros. works because it changes what a fighting game rewards. Reading a fighter’s damage count and choosing the right moment to strike near an edge matter more than any set chain of moves. Twelve fighters is a small number by later standards, but each one plays enough its own way to keep matches fresh.
Nintendo built a fighting game that turns familiar faces into a new kind of contest, and that idea has carried Super Smash Bros. far beyond its own console.
Super Smash Bros. earns a score of 7.9 of 10.
