The Top 10 Wii U Games You Should Have Played

In a couple of days, the Nintendo Wii U will become the console of the past, as the Nintendo Switch will become the current Nintendo console. The 4-year lifespan of the Wii U, especially in the light of the 6-year lifespan of Wii, seemed kind of short. At some times, the Wii U felt like an HD version of the Wii. At other times, the Wii U game pad felt like an iPad with buttons. Together, the Wii U felt like an all-around disappointment. In the beginning, it had so much expected potential. It was supposed to have the most up-to-date graphics. It was supposed to have multiple uses online. It was supposed to attract 3rd party developers to produce more games for it. Near the end of its life, it didn't seem to deliver on any of them. By the time Nintendo caught up with 1080p graphics, PlayStation and Xbox began developing 4K graphics. The online uses felt slightly better than the Wii, but still worlds behind PlayStation and Xbox. Instead of attracting more 3rd party developers to Nintendo, more 3rd party developers dropped out of Nintendo, leaving the Wii U with the same 3rd party developers as the Wii. In fact, by the Wii U's 4th birthday, it had only 39 1st party games and 118 3rd party games, for a total of 157 games, an all-time low for a Nintendo console. With so few games in light of other consoles, owners of a Wii U might feel like owning a Wii U was a waste. I sometimes felt like that myself. While I was quickly impressed by my Wii HD with an iPad with buttons controller, my Wii U console quickly became a virtual console, as I only played the throwback vintage Nintendo games on it. If I wanted to play a recent video game, I went back to my Xbox 360. Still, I found 10 games that made me appreciate the Wii U for what it was, for the Wii U displayed the game in a way that only Wii U could and the PlayStation, Wii and Xbox could not. Here, I present you to The Top 10 Wii U Games You Should Have Played if you owned a Wii U console. As these games get reduced for clearance to make room for Switch games, if you do not own them, I highly recommend you take the opportunity to by them, so you can feel you got the most use out of this console. And of course, to make it dramatic, I will go in ascending order.

10) Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

The Fatal Frame series is one of the scariest franchises of the horror video game genre. What makes it so scary is that, as the main "weapon" is a camera, the game forces the player to stare at the scary thing. The player cannot look away. What a better way to add player emersion than to make the Wii U gamepad the camera! Now not only does the player have to look the scary thing, he needs to hold the Wii U gamepad in front of the scary thing, looking at it closer to his face. It's a shame this game only made it to North America as a digital download. It used the gamepad in a way that did not feel gimmicky, but in a way that added to the game and made it better. It's almost like they made the Wii U with Fatal Frame in mind.

9) Super Mario Maker

When I first heard the announcement of this game, I wasn't a fan of it. It really did feel like that the Super Mario Bros. game designers had ran out of ideas, and now left the designing into the hands of the fans. After all, there were emulators out there that you could download to your computer and make your own Super Mario levels. Look it up, if you don't believe. What you'll notice when you look it up is how hard these fan-made levels were. This did not change when Super Mario Maker came to the Wii U. The fans continued making these hard levels, bringing new and innovative ideas to the Super Mario Bros. games. What a better way to do that with the Wii U game pad. Even if you're not the creative designer type, this game is perfect for the player for the same reason: it offers the player the chance to play these difficult levels. One criticism that I do have for New Super Mario Bros. U (spoiler alert: it appears later in the list) is that the levels were too easy because they were the same old, same old. It almost felt like you were playing the same old Mario game, just with graphics updated for the Wii U. Super Mario Maker provides an endless list of challenging and difficult levels. In essence, Super Mario Maker feels like the endless Super Mario Bros. game. No wonder why Nintendo brought this game to the 3DS as well.

8) Wii Party U

This might be a choice that might make you scratch your head. There wasn't much in the game. In fact, the game offered so little, it was available as a free download for pre-ordering Mario Kart 8. Why put this game on the list? Pretty much, Wii Party U is everything that Mario Party 10 (spoiler alert: this game appears later on the list) was not, but should have been. Although it had various game boards, the game boards felt more like game boards than Mario Party 10 (in fact, I would say the game boards reminded me of Mario Party 8). Wii Party U had more use of mini-games than Mario Party 10. Wii Party 8 fully utilized the game pad in order to "roll the dice" (that is, select the number of spaces to use) than Mario Party 10. Wii Party U even had some games which only utilized the game pad, making players face each other, just like Switch intends to do. Overall, Wii Party U was more of a Mario Party game than Mario Party 10! If I were to invite friends over to play Wii U, I would play Wii Party U with them over Mario Party 10 any day.

7) Splatoon

Nintendo must have found itself between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it wanted to stay as the family friend gaming system it had been known to be over the years. On the other hand, Nintendo really wanted the attention of the hardcore gaming young adults, but they loved their bloody, gory shooter games way too much. Nintendo found the perfect compromise in paintball. Take the shooting of the shooter games, make it less bloody and gory with paint, and you get Splatoon. It's the perfect compromise. Besides, what adult doesn't like paintball, anyway? Go figure that this compromise was also a brand new idea, and not simply remarketing an old franchise. Splatoon is also one of the games that follows through with the online multiplayer Nintendo promised with the Wii U. Personally, what I like best about this game is that if shooters aren't your thing, you can be the guy on your team painting the battlefield with a paintbrush or paint roller. Not a challenging single player mode until the final boss, but the multiplayer is loads of fun.

6) Zombi U

Overall, Nintendo did not follow through with its promise that the Wii U would have up-to-date graphics, focus on online and attract 3rd party developers and hardcore gamers alike. One of the few games on the system that did make the Wii U look like it fulfilled the promise was Zombi U.  Zombi U had all of it. Leave it up to Nintendo teaming up with Ubisoft, my personal favorite 3rd party developer, to create such a game. This game was meant for adults, and I mean beside the M rating the game received from the ESRB. The game does a good job with the first person shooter mechanic. It would be very familiar to any FPS player. The graphics make blasting zombies into smithereens as real as it can possibly get. The survivor mode challenges the best of the best hardcore players to put their skills to the ultimate test. Even if they chose not to play survivor mode, I really like that idea that you play as a new player ever time you die, and that new player has to chase after your old, zombie character. If survivor mode is still not enough a challenge for those hardcore gamers, they can take it to multiplayer and challenge each other of like ability. On top of all this, the game utilize the Wii U gamepad well, especially using it as inventory bag. Even though this game eventually went to other consoles, it plays best on the Wii U.

5) Nintendoland

You might be scratching your hard at this choice, too. After all, this game is virtually a demo game. Well, I believe there are good demo games and bad demo games. Nintendoland is a good demo game. This game allows you to see all the things the Wii U can do, not just with the game pad, but the Wiimotes as well. What makes this demo game even more impressive is that it uses the famous Nintendo franchises, like Super Mario Bros., Yoshi's World, Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Pikmin to demo the Wii U's capability. It's almost like Nintendo is showing the fanboy all the potential Wii U games that could come out for the console. This game provides a wide array of game genres, which can be played as single player, cooperative multiplayer and competitive multiplayer. For the hardcore game, he has high scores and medals he can chase after. No wonder this game become a Nintendo Select, beside the fact it was the first game packaged with the Wii U. If you're only going to have 1 game for the Wii U, this is the game to have.

4) New Super Mario Bros. U / New Super Luigi U

I'm pairing these 2 games together because New Super Luigi U was more an expansion pack to New Super Mario Bros. U than it was a sequel. You also might be scratching your head on this one, especially after I gave it many criticisms earlier. Yes, at some points, it felt too easy. Yes, at some points, it lacked originality, especially compared to New Super Mario Bros. Wii. But that small difference between the Wii version and the Wii U version made all the difference. See, after playing the Wii U version, I went back and played the Wii version, for I played the bare minimum of the Wii version, and now I wanted to complete the game in full like I did for the Wii U version. Let me tell you, I noticed differences right away, and I missed the improvements of the Wii U version. At first, I didn't think the graphics would matter for a game that originally flourished in the 8-bit world, yet when I went from the 1080p of the New Super Mario Bros. U to the 480p of the New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I wanted to go back to the 1080p of the New Super Mario Bros. U! I noticed a big difference of the flight mechanic between the two games. There's a difference between the straight vertical flight of propeller hat versus the lofty glide the flying squirrel suit (you'll notice the different directly when you unlock the propeller hat in the bonus land of New Super Mario Bros. U. The final Bowser battle is much more challenging in the Wii U game than the Wii game. In the Wii game, after you grab the ax to cut the bridge, all the rest becomes a platforming  race. The Wii U version has Mario (and Luigi and the Toads if you're playing with friends) fighting Bowser directly head on. As for the other similarities and so-called "lack of originality," that's called nostalgia. It's supposed to remind you of the Super Mario Bros. games of old. The flying squirrel suit reminded me of the Tanooki suit of Super Mario Bros. 3. Then comes New Super Luigi U. While that had even less originality, if you see it as an expansion pack and not a sequel (like I do), it provides even more challenges, like racing a clock with less time on it. If you're still with Nintendo because you will like Mario 22 years later, you'll want this game.

3) Mario Party 10

You've probably gone from scratching your head to banging your head at this point, or at least giving yourself a serious facepalm. Didn't I just criticize it easier? Yes, yes I did. In fact, I would declare this the worst Mario Party game of the 10 games that have come out on the consoles. But this isn't a list of the best Mario Party games. This is a list of the best Wii U games. I'm not looking at what this game isn't, but what this game is. I'm not sure if you realized this, but this is the first Mario Party game that has 5 players. It's in the form of "Bowser Party" where 4 players using Wiimotes try beat Bowser, played by a player using the Wii U gamepad, to the finish line before Bowser takes all their points. Bowser Party utilizes each controller well, taking advantage of the capabilities of the Wiimotes and Wii U gamepad alike. If you don't like Bowser Party, but you liked Mario Party 9, Mario Party 10 brought it back in the form of what they call "Mario Party." If you don't like either Mario Party 9 or the Bowser Party in Mario Party 10, there's "Amiibo Party." Amiibo Party has the feel of the Mario Party games of old. You use your amiibo of choice as a game piece, moving it around the board, collecting coins, so you can collect  star. Yes, you have to pay extra for an amiibo so you can play this mode, but I liked it, for the amiibo really felt like the game piece of a board game. Besides, this is the only Mario Party games that came out for the Wii U, so if you want to have a Mario Party on the Wii U, this is your game.

2) Super Smash Bros. Wii U

Over the years, this game has received minor updates, and with each minor update, this game only got better. Without a doubt, I personally feel like this is the best Super Smash Bros. game yet. Yes, I do miss a story mode, but not that much. Yes, I do miss the Ice Climbers as a playable character, but I don't miss Snake (he felt out of place to me on Brawl). What made this game so great is that they had the Super Smash Bros. fanboys in mind. Probably the biggest evidence of such is that they knew how much the fanboys loved playing with the GameCube controllers that they added a GameCube controller port, and then they made brand new GameCube controllers to go with it. Super Smash Bros. Wii U best utilizes the amiibos, seeing that this game came from the idea of Nintendo figurines coming to life to fight each other. It's fun customizing them and leveling them up, although it would have been more fun to fight as them, not just alongside them or against them. This game had the fanboys in mind as it kept adding characters and levels in the form of DLC. I would highly recommend purchasing all the DLC characters and stages, even if together it cost the same as the game. This is one of the few games that actually shows off what the Wii U can do in terms of online multiplayer. It's fun fighting against people all over the world, and it became even more fun when later updates would allow you to talk to them. I easily logged over 100 hours on this game, and you will too because it has so many ways to smash. This is the best fighting game on the Wii U. This game alone should make you want to own the Wii U.

1) Mario Kart 8

This game underwent 4 major updates, so major that the Mario Kart 8 you're playing is version 4.0. Every update improved an already great game. Without a doubt, this is the best Mario Kart 8 out there. This 1st party game represents everything the Wii U is and should have been. Mario Kart 8 utilizes the 1080p graphics to fullest. This game will romance your eyeballs in the elegance of its design. This game is fun to single player, but it's more fun to play multiplayer, especially online multiplayer. Nothing beats shelling your Japanese opponent to beat them to the finish line for 1st place. Every CC is at the perfect level of easy, medium and hard, allowing the player to naturally enhance his skills. Even the Mario Kart fanboy, who thought that got 150cc down, will be surprised at the 200cc, where they actually have to use their brakes! As if the original edition of this game wasn't good enough, the game added DLC races, characters and karts to add even more to fun to the game. This game also gives you another reason to buy amiibos by providing suits for your Mii to wear. To me, it is no surprise that this game is the best selling Wii U game (besides the pre-ordering deal and packing with future Wii U consoles). It is the best racing game for the Wii U and the Mario Kart game out there. This game alone is a good reason to own a Wii U.

Just like the consoles of the past, the old Nintendo console end and the new Nintendo console will begin with the same Legend of Zelda game. Perhaps if Breath of the Wild came out earlier, it would have made the list. But no surprise to me, a lot of game announced for the Nintendo Switch are sequels to the games mentioned on this list. It's because that, even though the Wii U might have been an overall flop, these are the games that made it look like a success. I hope the sequels will bring more success to Switch than the Wii U ever had.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Exclusively for the Nintendo Wii
Rating: 5 stars

When the Wii came out in November 2006, we know it was only a matter of time until Super Smash Bros. would becoming to the Wii. Sure enough, in March 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Wii. Brawl makes the improvements that Melee failed to make, making this an excellent game.

First of all, no one could say this game wasn’t an improvement unless new characters were added, and sure enough, they were. The number of playable characters goes from the 26 in Melee to the 35 in Brawl. But it’s not just simple to say they’ve added 9 characters because Dr. Mario, Pichu, Roy, Young Link and Mewtwo don’t reappear. Is this heartbreaking? I wouldn’t say so. As I said in my review of Melee, Dr. Mario is really just regular Mario, and Pichu is just like Pikachu, so there’s nothing missing out. Truthfully, they are the only ones completely gone. Roy and Mewtwo are replaced by Ike and Lucario respectively, and they virtually have the same attacks and same powers, so it seems to be the same characters with a different look. And I truthfully think that Young Link and Toon Link look the same, act the same, so it’s not really a replacement. It’s just a different name. I liked how Nintendo picked more characters from their already used Franchises, like getting King Dedede from Kirby, Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong and Wolf from Star Fox. I really liked how they went to other franchises like Wario from Warioland and Olimar from Pikmin, but went even further back to Pit from Kid Icarus. But the most impressive was getting third party developers to agree to lease their characters to this fighting game. The headliner characters for this game were Sonic, from Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series and Snake, from Konami’s Metal Gear Solid series. The abundant choice of characters is enough to make every Brawl you have a new game. But that isn’t the only thing.

Brawl wouldn’t be an improvement without new stages. Brawl has a total of 41 stages. The reason it may have so many is that most of the stages from Melee have transferred over to Brawl. So you won’t be missing out on any of the old stages. A new feature added to Brawl is the stages become interactive with the characters. Some will move around, some will change between day and night, others will float, others can be destroyed, and still others can do a whole slew of things. But even if you don’t like any of those stages, Brawl offers a stage creator, and as its name suggests, you can build your own stages to have Brawls in. With 41 new stages, plus being able to make your own stages, where you battle never becomes stale.

With these new characters on these new stages, you once again have your same Brawl modes. You also have your special brawl, which in a way is the same as Melee, but is also updated. In Melee, you could only choose one special feature, but in Brawl, you can choose multiple features. So if you want a brawl where all the characters are giant, metal, on fire, with a bunny hood, go ahead. Once again, it makes Brawl fights seem newer every time you play.

Items are back in Brawl. You have all your old items returning, as well as have a bunch of new additions. I could go on and on about all the items, but the one most important to game play has to be the Final Smash Orb. This colorful orb that is in the same shape as the Super Smash logo is a slippery one to get, but worth it. Once you have it, all you have to do is press B and your character unleashes a unique attack that packs a powerful punch and is hard to evade. One last thing I will say is items and item quantity is customizable. You can choose for an item often, seldom or not at all. So if you don’t like an item, you can turn it off. But if you want to let the Final Smashes fly, you can select many of those.

But if you don’t have the friends around to play multiplayer, Brawl brings back the 3 solo modes that Melee introduced. Classic mode is back and it hasn’t changed since the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. All-Star mode hasn’t changed since Melee. If there is change, it’s longer because there are more characters. But the best improvement was on Adventure Mode. The Adventure Mode is a legitimate Adventure Mode. It is literally an Adventure. It has a name (“The Subspace Emissary”), a plot, cut scenes, a unique villain with unique henchmen. This is everything a true Adventure mode needs. Sure it made some characters bad guys, and sometimes it was mere platforming, and yes, you virtually have to play through it twice, but it does a good job of meshing the characters together. You do have to play as every character (or at least given the chance to play as every character). The story even provides plot twists here and there. For a story that sometimes seems thrown together, it’s pretty good.

Training mode brings back a few of the training features, updated to the Brawl, but also a new feature in it. First, Target Smash is back, and is updated for the Wii and its new characters. Once again, Home Run Contest is back to see who can hit the sandbag the furthest, now improved, such as Captain Falcon being able to swing. The Multi-Man Brawl is back, yet the characters are updated again, and for the better. In the original, it was polygons. In Melee, it was wire frames. In Brawl, it is alloys, made up of the Wii’s finest graphics. In the old game, the multi-man was limited t 10-man and 100-man. Brawl has not only those 2, but also 3-minute Brawl, 15-minute Brawl, Endless Brawl (you don’t stop until you die) and Cruel Brawl (hardest difficulty, no items). The last training is Boss Battles, taking all the main enemies from the story mode. Even Training mode is new and improved, giving another thing for the player to do.

For the gamer who needs to unlock and collect things, Brawl provides plenty of that for you. Players can unlock characters, trophies, stickers, music, stages, even Virtual Console demos. But some of this can be a pain in the neck. Only half the characters are available for play right away. Same goes with the stages. Only about half the stages are available, and the other half you have to unlock. And some of the unlocking can be crazy. To unlock the rest of the characters, you have to play the solo mode. It can simply be done in the Adventure mode, but that’s still going to a 7-10 hour play through. So you don’t want to bring this game right off the shelf to play with friends. Unlocking trophies and stickers can be found brawling in both solo and group brawls, but it can take a while. Remember how last game had the gumball machine that gave trophies instead of gumballs? In its place, Brawl has made up a minigame where you shoot your earned tokens to hit trophies and stickers to unlock. While it may sound fun, the problem is it is easy to repeat trophies and stickers. At least with the “gumball machine” you didn’t have to worry with repeats to a point. For all the others things that need to be unlocked, there are challenges to be done. Some of them are simple, like playing on a certain stage a number of times, but some of them can be downright ridiculous, such as bringing every character through All-Star mode on the hardest difficulty. This might drive the collecting gamer insane. Well, if they have to do it over time, Brawl has a nice way of sorting this out. Brawl has kept this nice and neat for the player by giving the player a trophies tracker and challenge wall.

Despite the graphics pretty much staying the same from the GameCube to the Wii, the graphical design for Brawl has seemed to improve. As I said before, the generic multi-man brawl going from wire frames to alloys demonstrates this alone. But character design is carefully drawn out. You can see everything in detail, from Zelda’s hair to Mario’s overalls. For characters that have had a continuing role in the Nintendo world, all of them kept up-to-date with their looks. The attacks and explosions can be very colorful experiences, too.

The one thing that does baffle me is the controls. Now Brawl was smart by allowing four possibilities for controllers: Wiimote alone, Wiimote with nunchuck, Wii Classic Controller, and GameCube controller, my personal favorite. They were even smart by allowing customization of buttons. But there’s one thing I don’t get. We all know the Wii for being the frontrunner for the motion controls. Yet no motion controls can be used in this game at all. Heck, you can’t even use the Wiimote pointer to run through the menus. You have to use the control pad or joystick. Yes, I know it’s probably because they wanted to allow other controls without motion censor to be used, but this can be easily fixed by replacing the motion control action with a button. Wii games have done this. The first examples that come to mind are Dragonball Z and Mario Kart Wii. I think the only thing that could have made this game better would be motion controls.

Besides that, I think this is a wonderful game. Brawl made every improvement they needed to make from Melee. This game can be played solo just as much as multiplayer. With a plethora of characters and stages, every game feels new. The avast amount of collectables not only satisfies the collector gamer, but also keeps you playing over and over. Customizations make the game your own. This game was everything Melee was, and more. One last thing I want to mention is this game fully catalogs the Nintendo games and Nintendo franchises. This game is definitely needed in the library of anyone who calls himself a Nintendo fanboy. With a new system on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what new, great improvements the next Super Smash Bros. will have.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Exclusively for the Nintendo Wii
Rating: 4 stars

With many Nintendo franchises, when Nintendo comes out with a new system, they make a new game to update the franchise. With the worldwide success with Super Smash Bros., Nintendo of course had to come out with a new Super Smash Bros. The game for the Game Cube they called: Super Smash Bros. Melee., called just "Melee" or SSBM for short. While not fully improved to the best it can be, Melee was a big step up for its predecessor. Since for the most part the game play has stayed the same, I'm not going to go too much into that. If you want to, see my review on the first game. What I will focus on this review is the improvements.

The first improvement is there number of extra characters. It went from 14 to 26. 12 more is a huge jump up, taking fully ahold of the GameCube's memory capacity. For the most part, the character additions are good. They add new characters, like the Ice Climbers and Game & Watch, sidekicks, like Falco and Roy, and even enemies, like Bowser and Ganondorf. The bad news is a lot of these characters a virtually repeats of other characters, with the exception of stat changes. Marth and Roy are virtually the same. Pikachu and Pichu are virtually the same. Mario and Dr. Mario are virtually the same. Link and Young Link are virtually the same. Fox and Falco are virtually the same. But this isn't limited to see characters within the same game. Ganondorf and Captain Falcon are pretty much the same, except Captain Falcon is faster and Ganondorf is stronger. Mewtwo is like a cross between Samus and Ness. I'm not sure what's worse: the repeats within the same game franchises or with characters from two different franchises being the same. And I'm not sure I'm a big fan of having characters from Japan only games. Sure the Japanese audience relates, but not the American Audience. And some of these characters can be a pain to unlock. For example, Mewtwo is so hard some gamers just left their systems on for 24 hours instead of try to earn him the other way.

Stages are also improved. There are now 29 stages, much more than the last game, another sign Nintendo is using the full power of the GameCube. Some stages take a while to earn, but once you get them, they are so worth it. With so many stages, it's hard to get tired of them. They give a whole new experience. And once again, they continue to bring back good nostalgic memories to fanboys as they remember these locations from franchise games.

But probably the best addition is adding more to the single player mode. Of course, they kept classic SSB solo mode: 10 stages leading up to Master Hand. But on top of that, they added "Adventure Mode." Adventure Mode is when a player chooses a character, brings them through a level made up from a familiar setting from a well-known Nintendo franchise. While there is still no story to this, it's fun because it allows you to have Nintendo characters go through a world from another Nintendo character. It's more than the typical multiplayer play, while still involving a bit of it. But wait, there's still more. Another mode can be unlocked called "All-Star Mode." All-star Mode is when the player has to beat every character on one life, with only 3 times to replenish health. While this is similar to Classic mode in the sense it's just the regular fighting, it at least gives the challenge to endure. In ordering which solo mode I like, it would be first Adventure mode, second All-star Mode, and third Classic Mode.
Multiplayer also has some improvements. Along with more characters and more stages, more items are added to game play, making it new every time. On top of 3 B moves from SSB, a 4th B move is added with a side B. A new game play is added to multiplayer. In "Coin play" coins come out of a character depending on how hard he is hit. The other player can collect these coins, and the richest one at the end wins. While it's not really popular, it at least makes things news if the gamers need a change up.

Under Training, there are more improvements. On top of the previous training, there is now "Home Run Context," where you have a few seconds to beat up on a sand bag, and then send it launching with a homerun bat to see how far it goes. There is also "Special Melee", which consist as such things as beat 10 wire frame enemies and beat 100 wire frame enemies. Also, there is "Events," which has the player perform a certain task against certain enemies on a certain stage. More events unlock as previous ones are defeated. Simply put, there's more to do in this game, for both the multiplayer and single player.

Even unlocking things is an improvement. Not only do you continue to unlock characters and stages, you also unlock trophies for doing certain things, like getting through a classic mode, adventure mode or all-star mode with a character. More trophies can be unlocked with vending machine in the shape of a gumball machine, using the tokens earned in gameplay. The only problem with trophies is with so many of them, it can take a long while to earn him, almost too long. For example, each character has 3 trophies: one for classic mode, one for adventure mode, one for all-star mode. Do the math: 26 characters x 3 gameplays = 76. A collector would go crazy playing this game so much for these simple trophies.

Heck, even the graphics are improved. No longer are there the 64-bit graphics of the N64, but the Nintendo takes full hold of the graphical power of the GameCube. Characters look more like they game they came from. Even the blank characters have improved. They've gone from Polygons to Wire Frames.

In conclusion, Super Smash Bros. Melee made many improvements from its predecessor Super Smash Bros. I've been trying hard this review not to think about its successor, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but I can't help it. And it shows Melee is still lacking some things. More characters could be introduced, and characters could be much different. Stages could be way different, too. While Adventure was a better solo mode, it still lacked a story. Hello! Super Smash Bros. is the most epic Nintendo crossover! Fanboys have been writing crossover stories for years! Surely professional writers could do it. So while Super Smash Bros. Melee is better than Super Smash Bros., it is still not the best it could be.

Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros.
Exclusively for the Nintendo 64
Rating: 3 stars


Nintendo is known for many franchises, including the Mario series, the Legend of Zelda series, the Metroid series, the Donkey Kong series, the Star Fox series and the Kirby series. But each of these franchises stays apart. What if they were all put together in an epic crossover? Fans have done this for years in their fanfics. Well, Nintendo is about to become fanfic game writers because they make a Nintendo crossover video game called "Super Smash Bros."

The game starts with 8 characters: Mario (Super Mario Bros.), Link (Legend of Zelda), Samus Aran (Metroid), Kirby (Kirby), Fox McCloud (Star Fox) , Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong Country), Pikachu (Pokemon), and Yoshi (Super Mario Bros. and Yoshi Island). Later on, 4 more characters can be added: Captain Falcon (F Zero), Ness (Earth Bound), Jigglypuff (Pokemon again) and Luigi (Super Mario Bros. again). And it's simple as this: you fight. Your basic attack is the A button. Your special attacks are the B button. They vary with the directional button you pick (up, down, or B alone). The trigger Z is throw and the L/R buttons are shields. With these buttons, you attack one another. The more damage you receive, which is measured in percents, the more likely are to fall off the stage and die. There are 2 ways to play. First, you can play stock lives, which means each player starts out with the same number of lives, and once you lose all your lives, you're out, and the last one standing wins. The second way to play is time. You fight as much as you can in a set number of minutes. You get a point for knocking someone out, but you lose a point for getting knocked out. Player with the most points at the end wins.

This is mad fun to play with your friends. You get to see your favorite Nintendo character, play on stages from familiar Nintendo game settings, and even use items you recognize from other Nintendo games, like Pokeballs, and at the same time, use items newly invented for this game, like the Beam Sword. You can get so into this game with your friends, you will be playing for hours non-stop!

But if you're playing alone, there aren’t too many options. There is a single player story mode, but I use the term "story" loosely. There is not really a story. The "story" is that the Master Hard is playing with this toy box full of dolls from the Nintendo games. The solo mode brings you through 10 stages, leading up to the 10th stage, fighting the Master Hand, who is measured in HP. The 3 of the 9 stages before test the player’s ability to control and manipulate the character with breaking targets and board the platforms and race to the finish. The other 6 of the 9 are just random player fights. Sure, they change it up once a while with a metal character, a giant character, a team battle and numerous enemies, but it's still virtually the same. So there's not much more to do with single player. At this point, you might as well just play multiplayer with a CPU.

Speaking of breaking the targets and boarding the platforms, you can play those individually outside of solo mode. But once again, it's not too exciting. The only reason you do it is just to unlock things, and then you're done with them. In the same area, there is a training mode where you can practice. While it is geniusly made, it's once again nothing exciting.

As I went through my review, I tried my best not to compare it with its sequels that were yet to come. But I can't help it. The sequels show us how much more they game developers could have done, but didn't. Like I said before, this game is really only for its multiplayer use: to play with a bunch of friends. And we all know how socially well a gaming nerd does :P The solo mode is lacking tremendously, and is only played to unlock things. It wouldn't have hurt to think up a better story, as we see with the sequels