Super Smash Brothers (Original)
Super Smash Brothers is a fighting/party game developed by Nintendo. It lets the player play as a range of Nintendo characters and participate in fights with up to four other people. The mechanics involve using attacks to hit other players and increase their damage percentage, which makes them fly farther when hit, and eventually try to knock them off the stage to win. This makes it very unique, as it steps away from the usual formula of health bars and knock outs. There is also a very unique game feel to go along with its style.
Real Time Control
During a fight, a character is able to do following actions:
- Move left and right on the 2D stage (walking and dashing)
- Jump, and double jump (depending on the character, sometimes having up to 5 midair jumps)
- Crouching
- Guarding
- Dodging (rolling to the left and right)
- “Normal” attacks, which are mostly physical hits
- “Special” attacks, where the character uses special actions unique to them
- Grabbing and throwing other players (forward and backward)
- Picking up items
- Using items
- Throwing items
- Hanging on to ledges (can climb up, or use an attack or dodge roll to get up)
Doing any of these actions will make the change to the character instantaneously, unless the character is being stunned by another character’s hit, or otherwise in a position where the character cannot preform the action. As a fighting game, it is very important that all of these actions occur quickly enough to keep up with the player’s reactions to new situations. Some actions, such as pulling oneself up a ledge or getting up from the ground, however, have a slight delay between when the input is received and when the action is preformed. This time is used to highlight the difficulty of the character pulling themselves up, and adds a certain realness to the feel of playing a character.
Spacial Simulation
A fight in Super Smash Brothers takes place inside a 2 dimensional space, represented as a 3 dimensional stage. As much of the fighting in Super Smash Brothers takes place in the air, the stages are usually made to feel very open, with no ceiling, walls, and a number of bottomless pits for characters to get knocked into. There are two types of structure in the stages: walls and floors that the player cannot move through, and floating platforms that the player can jump onto through the floor, and can move down through by crouching while standing on them. Characters will hit walls and floors with a hard thud, sometimes bouncing off of them if their damage is high enough. The stages themselves are made to mimic levels from other Nintendo games, making them varied in theme and atmosphere.
The characters have different movement speeds and weights to further highlight their differences as well. For instance, the character Kirby is very light, jumps as if he were floating on air, and flies far when hit. Another character, Link, is far heavier, and can only jump so high.
Polish
There is a high level of polish in Super Smash Brothers to make fighting feel satisfying and brutal. When characters move and jump, dust clouds are left behind at their feet. Successful hits on characters make a matching sound and effect, such as blue triangles for a sword hit, circles for a blunt hit, and the character going black and white for and electrical hit. Just about every other action is also accompanied by a graphic and sound as well, even things like grabbing ledges and picking up items, displaying to the player that these actions were preformed successfully. When characters hit a surface, there is a brief impact crater to show the force. If they are hit especially hard, the character will pause for a split second while the character, and the player, takes in the sheer power of the blow that was dealt, before flying off and leaving a smoke trail in their wake. If the character somehow make it back to the stage from such a powerful hit, the sound of an unseen audience will cheer in excitement. Finally, when a character gets hit off the stage and loses a life, a large explosion appears from the character met the edge of the stage.
Conclusion
Super Smash Brothers is an excellent example of how different forms of feel can be combined to make a solid experience. The amount of detail and polish that is put into every action in the game, and the extent to which the character becomes an extension of its player is nothing short of impressive.
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