My Current Thoughts on the Smash Games

Hello, hello. How are the Smash Amino fans doing today?

Yesterday (or today, depending on your location), we were treated to an unexpected new stage in Ultimate: Small Battlefield. I haven't played much on the stage, but love the idea of every song playable on Battlefield and Final Destination now!

However, this blog is a small review on how I feel about every Super Smash Bros. game. Recently, I've gone back and played several rounds of the older games and found that I like them more than I may have given them credit for. I will give my revised thoughts on every title alongside a score at the end.

Let's get started!

The original Super Smash Bros. is quite the entertaining game on Nintendo 64. I have much fun just clobbering my family or the AI in silly battles. The 1P Game is also cute, if repetitive...

While it's still my least favorite Smash game, 64 has much to go for it: the introduction of Nintendo greats crossing over in a fighter, cutesy N64 polygons, bright colors, detailed character biographies, and nicely OP versions of Kirby, Pikachu, and my main, Yoshi.

My original score was a 7/10; now I give it an 8/10.

Moving onto Melee, I regard it as a shining example of a Nintendo sequel. It kept everyone from Smash and added a sizable bit of newcomers. More significantly, it brought in a *boatload* of new modes and features.

My favorite inclusions in Melee are Event Matches, Trophies, and Adventure Mode. Even the 1P Game has been retooled into Classic Mode, my favorite version in the series. Other goodies include a fancy Tournament Mode, the challenging All-Star Mode, and the diverse Stadium mode with Home-Run Contest and Multi-Man Melee. You could even do Special Melee.

If that's not enough, SSBM has some nice visuals, and its soundtrack has been greatly expanded from SSB. Seriously, this game boasts a lot of new content...

Considering how much I like revisiting this game's take on Classic, Adventure, All-Star, and Event Matches, as well as the occasional gander at the first depictions of Trophies, Home-Run Contest, and Multi-Man, I don't hesitate to give this game a nice 8.6/10. Before, I gave it a 7.7...

Next up is Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This game has been getting a lot of attention since Ultimate's release; many consider it to be the best Smash game now. Let's see how I feel about it...

To be perfectly honest with you guys, I have always been fond of Brawl. Though its version of Events, Classic and All-Star aren't the best IMO, I still dig the variety of modes brought over from Melee.

I have ripped on its gritty art style before. While I don't exactly like seeing characters like Kirby or the Ice Climbers with realistic designs and subdued colors, the game itself is still one of the best-looking titles on the Wii. I appreciate that the trophy models for other characters or items in cartoony series maintain their bright colors.

One mode that I changed my tune on is The Subspace Emissary. After replaying it again this year, I consider it to be superior to World of Light in Ultimate. Thus, World of Light is now my least favorite campaign in Smash.

At first, I was adamant about SSE not being very fun, but when I replayed it in 2016, I started to realize that most of its stages are rather simple. Even The Great Maze, as annoying as it is, takes about two hours if you know where to go. After playing it this year, my thoughts were reaffirmed.

Now...SSE is still flawed with some levels being uninspired, and The Great Maze is lame. I prefer more simplistic platforming with Smash Run and Melee's Adventure.

All things considered, I find Brawl to be a bit better than Melee. The introduction to Final Smashes, third-party fighters, and My Music is nice. I also like modes such as Coin Launcher and Home-Run Contest. The Special mode has been improved with more options to tinker around with. I also find some trophy text to be funny...

My final score for SSBB is 8.9/10, bumped up from 7.8.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U...is still my favorite Smash game. I love things like the large number of modes, new third-party fighters, bright and silly colors, faster game speed, and even funnier trophy text.

Some of the things I like most about this Smash are the improved modes; Events are a bit more fun than in Brawl, All-Star is the best in the series (in my unprofessional opinion), and I don't hate Classic Mode. The Masterpieces that was introduced in the last game felt buffed in Wii U.

Between the two versions, I like Wii U just a bit more. 3DS, however, has much to like with its amount of content, impressive fighter roster, Smash Run, and fun original stages. I honestly don't have much more to say about either version of SSB4.

3DS gets a 9.2/10; Wii U gets a 9.3/10. Collectively, Smash 4 is 9.5/10 in my book.

...And here we have Ultimate. This game is very nice.

This game easily kicks butt with its roster, music, nicely subdued visuals, and refined gameplay mechanics. It's good to see how many changes the fighters had since previous games.

I understand that this has been said to death, but the roster alone is a huge selling point. Who'd have thought that we'd see an official Nintendo Smash game with every single veteran? Better still, we have some of the most requested new fighters, like Ridley and Banjo-Kazooie.

Another thing that isn't too shabby is the music. We have just under 1000 songs in the game right now, with more to come with the future DLC. That is crazy! I regularly enjoy jamming to custom-made playlists.

Now, I did rip on World of Light earlier. While the mode is better than I thought it would be, Subspace comes off as a bit more focused. I still enjoy doing the occasional New Game+ mode with powered-up Spirits. Speaking of which, Spirits cannot replace Trophies for me personally. The idea is creative, but reading detailed text with 3D models is cooler. I do like that you can rematch them in the Collection mode, though.

One mode that I do like a lot is Classic. This has been modified to be tailored to each fighter's personality or history. Everybody has pre-set opponents, and some have special bosses. My only real gripe is that you just have one life.

I could focus more on Ultimate's nitpicky issues, but it doesn't change the fact that it's my second favorite Smash Bros. game. I now give it 9/10, up from 8. It seriously is a must-have game for any Nintendo fan. If we see a boss rush or Smash Run HD, I may bump up the score a bit.

...And there we have it! My actual rankings of each game is the same as before, but the increased scores are how I felt after digging into them a bit more. I it that it was tough for me to swallow my pride about the Subspace Emissary, but I feel better for it. Super Smash Bros. games are so much fun...

Thanks for reading!