Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is the fourth console entry in Nintendo’s fighting series, and it is the one that finally learned how to fill a room. Developed by Sora and Bandai Namco Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii U, the game arrived in 2014 with a bigger roster than any of its predecessors and, for the first time, battles that support eight players at once. The result is a fighter that keeps the formula gamers have loved since 1999 and stretches it in a direction that matters.
Trailer, via Super Smash Bros..
Eight Fighters on One Television
The headline addition is eight player battles. Previous entries in the series were built around four fighters trading blows on a single stage, and that number shaped everything: stage size, camera framing, how chaos was managed and how much a player could track at once. Doubling the count to eight changes the math. A match stops being a duel and becomes a crowd.
That is not a small tweak dressed up as a feature. It is the kind of change that forces the rest of the design to answer for it. Stages have to hold more bodies. The side view perspective, which the series has used from the start, has to keep eight fighters legible on screen at once. Sora and Bandai Namco Studios built the game around that problem rather than bolting it on, and the mode works because the studio treated it as a real mode and not a party trick.
A Roster Built to Fill the Screen
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U ships with an even larger roster of fighters than its predecessors. That is the through-line of the series — each console entry adds names — but the size of the roster matters more here than it did before. Eight player battles need eight distinct picks to feel worth playing, and a thin cast would have exposed the mode as a gimmick. The larger roster is what keeps it from being one.
The game covers a lot of ground in tone as well. Its themes run across action, fantasy, science fiction and party, and the roster is where that mix shows. A fighting game that draws from fantasy and science fiction at once can put wildly different characters on the same stage without the screen looking like a mistake. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U leans into that. The cast is the argument for the game’s range.
Single Player, Multiplayer, Split Screen
The game supports single player, multiplayer, co-operative play and split screen. That list is broader than it looks. Single player gives a lone player something to do without a second controller. Multiplayer covers the standard competitive match. Co-operative play lets two players fight on the same side. Split screen keeps the whole thing working on one television.
The modes matter because they answer a question the eight player mode raises. A game built for eight people in one room is a game that needs eight people in one room. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U does not leave it there. The single player and co-operative options mean the game still functions when the room is empty or when only one other person shows up. That flexibility is what separates a feature from a fixture.
The Formula Since 1999
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U continues to add to the formula that gamers have loved since 1999. That sentence could describe almost any sequel, and most sequels treat it as a license to coast. This one does not. The series has been running since 1999, and the fourth console entry is the point where the additions stop being incremental.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is the fourth console-based entry in the popular Super Smash Bros. series of fighting games.
What the game gets right is restraint in the places that matter. The side view perspective stays. The fighting and platforming genres stay fused. The series has always been a fighting game that lets you move vertically as well as horizontally, and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U does not abandon that to chase a different audience. It keeps the foundation and spends its ambition on the roster and the player count.
Where the Ambition Actually Lands
Eight player battles are the reason to play this entry over the ones before it. Everything else — the larger roster, the mode list, the theme mix — supports that one change. A bigger cast gives the mode enough variety to survive repeated play. The mode list gives it a fallback when the room is not full. The themes give it a look that holds up when eight characters from different worlds are on screen at once.
That is a coherent piece of design, and it is rare in a long-running series. Most fourth entries in a franchise play it safe and sell the same game again with better lighting. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U takes the one number that defined the series — four fighters — and doubles it, then rebuilds around the consequences. The eight player mode is not a bonus tucked into a menu. It is the spine of the game, and the rest of the package is arranged to support it.
The cost of that choice is that the game asks something of its players. Eight player battles need eight people, and not every household has eight people who want to play a fighting game on the same couch. The single player and co-operative modes soften that, but they do not erase it. This is a game that is at its best when the room is full, and it knows it.
What the Fourth Entry Proves
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is the strongest console entry in the series up to this point, and it earns that on the strength of one decision. Eight player battles are the addition that changes how the game is played, not just how it is marketed. The larger roster gives that mode the depth it needs. The mode list keeps the game playable when the couch is not crowded. The themes and the side view perspective keep the series’ identity intact while the player count grows.
The score reflects how completely the game commits. A fighting game that supports eight players on one screen, with a roster large enough to make those eight slots interesting, is doing something its predecessors could not. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U does it without breaking the formula that made the series work since 1999. It is a sequel that adds rather than replaces, and the thing it adds is worth the space it takes up.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
