System: GameCube
Price: $50 (unless you somehow get it on sale)
Rating: “T” for Teen (Violence)- but
a hockey or football game is much more violent than this! It’s not
enough that younger kids should be
held back from it.
You should know the scale of 0-4 stars by now. 0 is very poor, 4 is excellent. Enough said there.
Normal Characters:
Mario (hit Y for Wario look)
Pikachu (Pokémon)
Bowser
Peach (hit Y for Daisy look)
Yoshi
DK
Captain Falcon (hit Y for Blood Falcon
look, his evil twin)
Fox (StarFox)
Ness (Earthbound)
Ice Climbers (Ice Climbers game on
the NES)
Kirby (Kirby games)
Samus (Metroid)
Link (Legend of Zelda)
Zelda/Sheik (same)
Unlockable Characters:
Jigglypuff (Pokémon)
Pichu (same)
Mewtwo (same)
Marth (Japanese RPG Fire Emblem)
Roy (not Roy Koopa, same as above)
Luigi
Dr. Mario
Young Link (Legend of Zelda)
Ganondorf (same)
Mr. Game & Watch (Game & Watch
games, including Galleries 1, 2, and 3; this guy’s been around since 1980!)
Regular Courses:
Peach’s Castle
Rainbow Cruise
Icicle Mountain
Hyrule Castle
Great Bay
Jungle Japes
Kongo Jungle
Corneria
Venom
Mute City
Pokémon Stadium
Onett
Brinstar
Yoshi’s Island
Yoshi’s Story
Mushroom Kingdom
Fountain of Dreams
Green Greens
Hidden Courses:
Big Blue
Poké Floats
Fourside
Brinstar Depths
Mushroom Kingdom II (Sub-con)
Yoshi’s Island (original)
Kongo Jungle (original)
Dream Land
Flat Zone
Battlefield
Final Destination
Finally, the way the game works: Hitting your opponents with attacks or items will cause their percentage to go higher and higher. Your goal is to knock them off the platform. The higher the percentage, the farther they’ll fly. You can be knocked off in these three ways:
Too far up
Too far to the left or right
Falling off beneath the stage
In Time mode, you get one point for
each KO, -1 for each time knocked off, and -1 for each time you fall
off on your own as well. Whoever has
the most points after the set time wins.
In Stock mode, you get a set number of lives, and whoever survives wins. There is no time limit.
In Coin mode, you cause coins to appear
by hitting your opponents. The harder you hit them, the more and
better coins will appear. You must
then collect these coins, or the player who dropped them could collect
the coins themselves, or others not hit could collect them. Gold = 10,
silver = 5, bronze = 1. If you get knocked off, you lose half your points.
The most points in the set time wins.
In Bonus mode, you get points from different circumstances, explained in the Data section of this game. Whoever ends up with the most points in the set time wins.
Usually there are two to four players (live or computer), but sometimes there are six in all. Those are only in certain modes, however.
Now I’m finally ready for the Review!
Graphics: ****
This is a category in which I wish I never gave a different game four stars, because this game deserves it much more than any other. Just look at some of those characters. Bowser looks real, not like a turtle with paper spikes taped to his shell. Peach’s dress has texture to it, as does the overalls of Mario and Luigi. Master Hand looks real, too, not like five fingers glued together like last time. After Luigi’s Mansion and PS2 games, this isn’t a knockout surprise to me, but the only bad graphics are when you zoom in too close to a character. You’ll see the old octagon instead of a circle again, which I hate. That’s too minor to lose any stars over. The Fighting Wire Frames are a big improvement over the Fighting Polygons, because it makes a statement that the graphics are at a new level now. Think of this game as the opposite of Paper Mario. Paper Mario had 2D characters able to move in three dimensions, while this game has 3D characters able to move in two dimensions. You'll only see better graphics in Final Fantasy X.
Sound: ****
Another time where I hate previous four-star
ratings, because it blows them totally away. This game has tons
of songs from previous games. Many
of you know the Mario themes, but the better tunes are the ones from
the F-Zero courses, Brinstar, and Onett.
Some of you may even remember the Pokémon theme song. What makes
the rating better is the voices (including a different voice when bigger
and smaller) and the sounds made when attacks are performed. The best music
in this game? It’s a battle between the Dr. Mario theme (the Fever music)
or the Fire Emblem music. No, wait, it’s the Super Mario 3 music (World
1-1 plus Grass Land remix). No, the best is the music from the Big Blue
stage. That’s one of the few songs I like to get stuck
in my head. There’s way too many to
choose from.
Difficulty: **1/2
It’s hard to rate this category. The game can be set from very easy to very hard. Naturally, the game will be as hard as you set it, but the Event Stages are different. They are made to be very hard, so that’s where that extra half-star comes from. And that 15-Minute Melee... ugh! Otherwise, this game is as hard or as easy as you want it to be.
Characters: *
Finally, my first complaint! Sure, there
are all kinds of classic Nintendo characters, and a lot of good choices,
especially for the regular characters. But there are four pairs that I
complain about: Marth and Roy, Young Link and Link, Fox and Falco, and
Pikachu and Pichu. These four sets of characters have minor attack differences
in power, and only three or four of their twenty moves that are different
from each other.
Basically, why put four characters
that are the same as other ones in a game? Out of ideas? Try putting in
Diddy Kong or K. Rool from the Donkey
Kong games. Donkey Kong has been around much longer than Link and deserves
more than one character from his games, while there are two characters
(Marth and Roy) from a game only released in Japan! That is completely
wrong and needs to be changed, even if the game must keep the Japanese
characters. It’s not fair to the rest of the universe! Eliminate Young
Link and Pichu, who even look exactly like their counterparts with very
similar names! And why not Wario? He has his own series right now. I don’t
consider that cheap Mario in Wario’s clothing Wario. It’s at least nice
that Peach can look
like Daisy, so she’s actually tolerable
to watch. Some good stuff? Well, I really like the F-Zero series and
Captain Falcon’s my favorite character
to battle with, but other characters that were good choices were the
Ice Climbers, Dr. Mario, and Mr. Game
& Watch. Nintendo at least came back to its roots with those three
old
characters.
Trophies: *
I like the concept a lot. Get trophies
from doing things. Unfortunately, they needed some more trophies of some
old-time characters, not just these new ones like Pikmin. And they put
the Moon from the Link games
on a trophy instead of putting in a
real character, like K. Rool from Donkey Kong or Tatanga from Super
Mario Land, but they think Link is
so great or something. How about the Koopalings? You could put all
seven on a trophy! They’re going to
be in a game soon, whether Nintendo likes it or not! How about some other
old-timers? Why not something about classics like Mega Man and Gradius?
I may be going way before the time of some of you, but these were NES classics
that deserved to be on a trophy. Why not other systems besides the GameCube
on trophies? The NES was sold more than all other systems combined! Give
us a flashback, or nostalgia, or something! And why do they call it the
GCN? GameCube Nintendo? That sounds idiotic! But, some trophies are worth
seeing. Of course, there are at least ten for games never released anywhere
but Japan, but that’s all right because they’re only trophies, not playable
characters. Koopalings? This was such a good chance AGAIN, but Nintendo
blew it. Again!
Controls: ***
Good controls, although not perfect.
A is your normal attacks, B is your special attacks, X or Y jumps, Z
grabs, L or R shields, Control Stick
moves, Control Pad Up taunts, and C-Stick moves camera or does normal attacks,
depending on the mode. Of course, I forget the mode a lot and end up messing
up the camera angle with the C-Stick. Also, Up on the Control Stick confuses
me. It sometimes jumps, but sometimes doesn’t. Why not one or the other?
Why both?
Gameplay: ****
This is spectacular! I explained all
of it above, and it is so fun, and so easy to do, and a lot faster, that
it makes this game really worth playing, whether you like Nintendo, fighting,
and the characters or not. It is so much better than a normal fighting
game. If you know a Dreamcast or PS2 fighting game, you hit a whole bunch
of buttons at once, and that’s it. You just face your opponent, and that’s
it. No items, not much jumping, nothing like that! But in Super Smash Bros.
Melee, you have items, you have tons of attacks, you have more strategy,
you have jumping, ducking, and dodging, you have everything! It’s so much
better than
a normal fighting game, which I would
hate if it was.
Items: ***
Most of the items I really like, especially
the new ones. Use the ! Block to become metallic, the bunny ears to jump
higher and move faster, the Warp Star lets you fly across the screen and
come back, nailing any opponents that are standing where you grabbed the
star, and the Party Ball spills out tons of food and items at once. In
this game, as opposed to the original, you can now use health items (food,
Maxim Tomatoes, or Hearts) while holding an item if you push A. It’s really
a good thing. The only bad things? The Super Mushrooms and Poison Mushrooms,
which make you big or small, look almost exactly alike. Plus,
sometimes items explode on you, making
them too much of a risk to use. Poké Balls? They were better in
the original because the Pokémon would take control of the game,
while in this one they have much more
limited power. Of course, the Pokémon
aren’t made of paper now.
Classic Mode: **1/2
This is basically eight battles against
opponents, with not much difference. You have three bonus rounds in
between (Break the Targets, Snag the
Trophies, and Race to the Finish). It’s nice because you’ll play a lot
of opponents, but it’s a little boring after a while, although the opponents
are random this time. The final battle is against Master Hand. Here’s a
tip: Make sure you don’t get grabbed by his Big Grab. It will give you
about 59% damage. Supposedly Crazy Hand is supposed to appear when you’ve
halved Master Hand’s hit points, but I’ve never seen him appear. Then again,
I’ve only played Very Easy in Classic mode, mainly to get a feel of the
game and easy victories and easy trophies.
Adventure Mode: ***1/2
This mode is a little better than Classic
Mode. You go through a few side-scrolling stages (one that has a
resemblance to Super Mario 1) and a
few battles, which are the same every time, instead of being different
and random. The F-Zero race is one
of my favorites, as is the Mushroom Kingdom stage. You’ll also have
one-on-one battles, which all culminates
in a one-on-one battle with Bowser (and in Normal or harder, if you don’t
have to use a continue, you’ll then battle Giga Bowser). It’s more fun
than Classic Mode because there’s more variety than just battles.
Event Stage Mode: *1/2
All right, this is a good concept, but
they made it way too hard. If I can’t beat 30 Yoshis in two minutes,
which seems easy, I don’t know how
I’ll beat two Master Hands with one life or some of those other match-ups.
I think it was a very good idea, but the harder levels should have been
saved for last. It gets an okay rating for a very good concept.
Home Run Contest: ***1/2
Not much to this, but I haven’t had
more fun with a 10-second mode ever! You beat up on Sandbag and then
let him have it with the bat! The Ice
Climbers (hold Up+A) have the best distance (my record is 1420 feet).
Grab the bat first, except for a few
characters (Peach and Young Link, I think), use an attack that won’t
make the bat go left or right but up
or nowhere at all, and then smash with the home-run bat. Captain
Falcon must first use the bat on the
Sandbag and then Falcon Punch (B) it. The shortest distance with a
character? Here’s a surprise. Donkey
Kong. Anyway, this is a great mode for having fun, and you’ll even
unlock a course with a good distance
here.
Multi-Man Melee: ***
This is last year’s Fighting Polygons battle only with better looking graphics. I really like the way they made it. It’s hard, of course, but to unlock Falco, you must win the 100-Man Melee. As Misty Koopa told me, use B+Down with DK to completely destroy your opponents easily.
Break The Targets: **
I’m not a huge fan of this mode because
I’d rather play the other modes. In the original, this was a huge part
of the game (for Luigi), but not now, except as a different way to get
Mr. Game & Watch. Sure, it’s a
challenge, but not one that’s very
fun now. I’d much rather battle it out in the Melee mode.
Stages: ***1/2
This was another very good part of this
game. There are so many stages, and so many of them are excellently made.
How about the Mushroom Kingdom (hit the ? Blocks for items) and those great
F-Zero stages? Simply spectacular. One complaint: Sub-con. Why not use
the grass for items? Use A to pull up on the grass and get an item. That
would be excellent. Also, you could use the jars as warps, as the pipes
could have been used in Mushroom Kingdom, but they weren’t. The strange
thing is that the Pppes were used in the original, and not this one. Oh
well. Icicle Mountain never will end. It isn’t called Infinite Glacier
for
nothing!
Camera Mode: 1/2
This was the worst part of the game.
Everything is run like a normal battle, but you can take pictures with
the fourth Controller. First of all,
the camera views are so hard, backward, and disorienting to use. Also,
items still fall in, and each character
should be able to be frozen in place for a good shot. Plus, the picture
takes up almost as much room on the Memory Card as does the game itself!
I’m very disappointed in this mode.
Tournament Melee: *1/2
I was upset about this mode too. If
you want to battle by yourself in a long tournament, you can’t just play
your battles. You have to go through
every computer battle and hit B to skip watching it. That takes so long
that in a six-battle tournament for yourself, it could take a half-hour!
It is fun if you have 63 friends, but how can you even fit that many in
your house anyway?
Special Melees: ***1/2
These are very clever ideas. All invisible, all giant, all tiny, fixed-camera, and single-button are some melees, to name a few. I wish there were more, like all metal or all bunny-ears, but that’s not the case. Anyway, this is a brilliant mode.
Vs. Melee: ****
Finally, the best mode of all! This is simple, two-to-four-player mode. Computer or live players can compete. Everything about this is said above in the rules and the gameplay sections. It’s perfect. In fact, this is the most fun four-player mode in any game, period.
Loading Time: ***
Yes, I wish this wasn’t a factor, but
with discs now, there has to be some kind of a wait. However, in this game,
you don’t have much of that. Ten seconds is a maximum loading time, which
is excellent. The only
part where this fails to be perfect
is that sometimes it seems like the game has frozen, but it’s loading,
and in Stamina Mode, I got a huge slowdown in the middle of a match at
Mute City, when my players started moving really slowly. They’re too minor
to hurt the rating much. It’s not quite as fast as Luigi’s Mansion (which
was like lightning!), but this is more like thunder, if you know what I
mean.
Replayability: ****
This game is like Super Smash Bros. I could still play that game as if I just bought it, if I hadn’t used that GameShark on it and made Mario the only character usable in one-player mode. But that’s the original, anyway. It’s still fresh now, and this game will be used over and over, possibly more than any sports game I own. You won’t be able to stop playing it. Trust me.
Fun Factor!: ****
I’m out of words. There’s no other way
I can describe this game now. Luigi's Mansion is the most boring
thing on the planet compared to this.
Fun? Yes. This game is the definition of fun.
OVERALL: ****
Well, what did you expect? This game
is better than those others I’ve given four stars. It’s the best multi-player
game ever. Better than Mario Kart. It’s even very fun playing it alone.
I can’t say enough about it. It makes me forget about Luigi’s Mansion and
even Madden 2002. If you own a GameCube, you’d better buy it!