Tom Powter reviews Super Smash Bros. 3DS…
Have you ever wanted to see Mario clash with Link? Maybe Pikachu duking it out with Donkey Kong? Or Marth from Fire Emblem take on Animal Crossing’s Villager in a fight to the death?
You’ve come to the right place.
It’s been six arduous years since the last Super Smash Bros. game, Brawl, was released on the Nintendo Wii in 2008. Since then, Nintendo has changed – times have changed. New characters have emerged at the forefront of popularity, while some old favourites have dropped into obscurity. Nintendo themselves have risen and fallen over the years but one thing will always remain a constant – everybody loves Smash Bros.
So when Nintendo announced back in 2011 that Super Smash Bros. would be coming to the 3DS, everybody was ecstatic. At long last, a portable Smash! Take your favourite characters with you and beat up characters that you maybe didn’t like as much. Except, not everybody was ecstatic. In fact, many were sceptical that Nintendo’s multi-man mascot brawler wouldn’t translate so well to a smaller screen.
Well, fear not for most of those fears can be put aside – most of them, anyway. Let’s start with the good.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS fundamentally is Smash as you know and love. Up to four players can take control of one of 36 (51, if you include unlockable characters and Mii variants!) Nintendo faces to fight in arenas. The object of the game? Knock your opponents off the screen – any way how. As their damage percentage skyrockets, so do they. It’s a now classic system that, in my opinion, is unrivalled. Its cute and cuddly Nintendo exterior might fool you into thinking it’s a simple party game, but Super Smash Bros is, and always will be, a deep fighter with combos and tactics.
This Smash Bros. is no different. The core gameplay, in fact, is the best it’s ever been. You might have heard this a lot already, but the speed of the game really does sit nicely in between Melee’s ultra fast pace and Brawl’s more defensive, thoughtful play (without the random tripping). The controls work surprisingly well too, and it’s satisfying seeing Smash Bros. actually work on a handheld. It might take a bit of getting used to, as the system certainly isn’t as suited as say, a Gamecube controller to the fast-paced manic action, but perhaps the best thing we can say is that it actually works. The issues of playing on a handheld do become obvious at times however, as four player matches can become difficult to discern, with characters becoming little more than specks on the screen. It can really take you out of the game.
Not only that, but all of the characters are well-balanced, each one wielding a number of interesting moves and abilities to make them viable competitively. Speaking of characters, the new roster is the most diverse and best yet.
Your usual characters like Mario, Link, Samus and Pikachu are all accounted for (except for Smash veterans the Ice Climbers – an unfortunate, but glaring, omission) but director Masahiro Sakurai and his team have worked hard to ensure that almost all of the newcomers look and play completely different from one another, making for one of the most varied rosters we’ve ever seen. Characters such as Xenoblade’s Shulk, Punch-Out!!’s Little Mac, Kid Icarus’ Palutena and Fire Emblem’s Robin each have distinct and unique attributes – meaning there’s a character for everyone.
Nintendo didn’t stop there though – where they had Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog representing the third parties in Brawl, this time Capcom’s Mega Man and Namco’s Pac-Man join the blue hog, while Snake has been sadly retired. Not only that, but Smash Bros. 3DS allows you to create a Mii Fighter of your very own, to use in battle. Each one of the colourful cast can be taken through a single-player Classic Mode, where you choose a path and fight a number of enemies in differing situations before finally confronting series big bad Master Hand. Classic Mode is distinctly shorter and more compact than before, but is better for it. With over 50 characters to use, the tighter, more varied Classic Mode is the best version the series has ever seen.
If you’re bored of Classic however there are a few other modes available to test your fancy – Home-Run Contest returns, allowing you pick a character and beat up a sandbag before sending it as far as possible with the home-run bat. Alongside that, Multi-Man Melee pits you against the fighting Mii team in a number of game modes and Target Blast, a new version of Break the Targets that, unfortunately seems to have less thought put into it. Smash Run is also a new, heavily touted feature of the solo-experience. Run through five minutes worth of enemies from various game series, building up your character’s individual attributes before entering into a final climactic battle with up to three friends.
The issue Smash Run has however, is that an awful lot of it feels pointless and disconnected. Despite the fact that you can play with your friends locally, there’s no online option, which is baffling. Not only that, but you can’t see your friends while you’re playing through the first section of the mode. Finally, five minutes of build up for potentially a single minute match is awfully anti-climactic and feels like a waste of time. Smash Run definitely disappoints, which is a shame as Nintendo have crammed an awful lot into the mode – plenty of the enemy characters are interesting throwbacks to Nintendo history.
Unfortunately, all of this outlines one glaring issue with the 3DS Smash Bros. – lack of content. Even for Smash Bros., the solo game is severely lacking, with mainly Classic Mode likely to hold your attention. All-Star Mode is also a welcome addition, but where are the Event Matches? Why are there so few Challenges? Smash Run just doesn’t compensate for lack of a true story mode. It’s lucky then that single player isn’t the reason you’re here.
Once again, Super Smash Bros. proves why it is the king of multiplayer. You can fight up to four friends in a number of different modes, both locally and online. Team battles, stock matches, time battles – it’s all here. Each game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second, proving that the 3DS really can run a frenetic game of Smash Bros. Seriously, the game looks absolutely gorgeous in both single and multiplayer, with character models oozing colour and personality. The sound is equally stunning, as is the norm for Smash Bros now, with many excellent tracks. It’s just a shame that each stage is only limited to two, but there are many other tracks to hear in the music player too.
You can also venture online in both For Fun and For Glory modes. For Fun allows you to battle with friends in matches that allow items, whereas For Glory is tailored more towards competitive play. In For Glory, the maps are limited to their Final Destination forms (meaning they’re totally flat with no hazards) and no items are allowed. It’s quite good to see Nintendo embracing what the community has set as the way to play Smash competitively, but it also seems restrictive. In fact, Smash 3DS’s online suffers from a lot of the same issues that plague most of Nintendo’s recent online attempts. It’s just too limited. They make a concerted effort as always, but once more they lack the general infrastructure necessary for a true online experience. What’s more, there’s no ranking system – so what do you have to play towards? Playing the game because it’s great is one thing, but for the online to have any real longevity, I hope Nintendo implements a ranking system in a later patch.
Multiplayer comes with more of its own set of strange and peculiar omissions. For instance, items. The items in this game are a wonderfully varied mix of old and new, with some new ones being the awesome Cuckoo from The Legend of Zelda and the spiny Blue Shell from Mario Kart. However, some of the items are just plain unfair, such as a gusty wind weapon that literally blows you off the stage and doesn’t let you back on. Not only that, but for some reason, you can’t change the frequency of the items, meaning item matches tend to become more about who can grab which items first, rather than actual Smash. This strange divide between genuine greatness and ridiculousness is something of a trend in this game and that also is the same where the stages are concerned.
Super Smash Bros. 3DS comes packed with new stages, most of which look and play great. Tortimer Island, the new Animal Crossing stage, is a beautiful stage that changes every time you play on it. Meanwhile, Prism Tower of Pokemon fame is a cinematic stage that looks gorgeous as the sun goes down while you battle alongside the great tower. Other stages new to this version include Mute City, which is a great throwback to the SNES original and Pac-Maze, which is a super neon version of the original arcade game. All-in-all, the new stages on the 3DS are an excellent mix and, despite the fact that Mario is slightly over-represented, they reflect the variation of Smash excellently.
Which is why the returning stages from Brawl and Melee are such a huge disappointment. For starters, there’s too many. Almost an entire third of the stage list is made up of returning stages and only two of them are any good. Corneria and Yoshi’s Island are both excellent stages, but when surrounded by the likes of Mushroomy Kingdom and Distant Planet it really brings down the stage list. Why Mushroomy Kingdom!? It was one of Brawl’s worst stages! Not only that, but Jungle Japes and Brinstar return yet again. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a sting if these stages didn’t completely replace new stages for their respective franchises, but since they do, representation for those franchises becomes extremely poor.
Playing Super Smash Bros. 3DS is like a game of two halves – there are plenty of things to absolutely love about the game, such as the fact that it works and plays wonderfully. The game looks stunning almost all of the time, with only Assist Trophies and Pokemon dipping to 30 frames per second. A lot of the new stages are well-designed and fun, but many of the old stages are just awful choices, which really weighs down the list. Meanwhile, the characters on offer are an excellent bunch, though some choices do leave a bit to be desired (Dr. Mario? Really Sakurai?). In this sense, it’s almost a difficult game to rate. However, I’m going to try and do so now.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is an excellent game, with a few glaring flaws. Some are the fault of the handheld itself, some of the game. The main game feels thin, almost like Smash Light, which may be what you’re after in a portable Smash. At the end of the day, the core multiplayer is as good as it’s ever been – perhaps even better. After six years, it’s definitely time to get Smashing again. But really, who ever stopped?
Pros
+ Core gameplay is the best it’s ever been, with tight controls that actually work
+ The graphics and frame rate are stunning – it’s truly a technical achievement
+ Excellent cast of characters make for the most diverse and interesting roster yet
+ Most new stages are well designed and overall fantastic
+ Smash Bros’ multiplayer is still the best there is
Cons
– The issues of playing on a handheld do make themselves known – occasionally tiny characters being the biggest example
– Online play lacks any real substance
– Returning stage choices are mostly poor
– The game lacks features and content found in more robust Smash titles
– Smash Run is a disappointing mode
Rating: 8.5/10
Tom Powter
