The Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Nintendo Direct pretty much confirmed our belief that the Super Smash Bros. for 3DS was just a $40 demo for the Wii U version all along.
Nintendo came out of the gate slinging megaton bombs and never stopped. As much as we’d love to sit here and cover every single one of these announcements, none of you reading this are going to sit through all of them and you’ve likely already seen the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Nintendo Direct.
In light of that, we’re going to list what we feel are the standout points that aren’t lost in the flurry.
8 player Smash!
I just wrote about Nintendo being the kings of couch co-op, but this is ridiculous. It’s limited to offline only, as the online would just die if it tried to manage eight players at once, but what they’ve done is no less insane. I still can’t believe this exists. I know it was hinted at with some creative snooping, but you’d think stages just wouldn’t be able to handle so much frantic, hectic action. And you would be right. 8-player Smash is limited as to what stages you can play it on, but to compensate…
Bigger Stages
In light of 8-player Smash mode, there needs to be battlefields large enough to accommodate the action. Thankfully, the Wii U can manage quite nicely here, unlike the 3DS where wide shots would make characters unbearably small. Not only that, but some older stages have been modified to be larger, such as Big Battlefield. It’ll be interesting to see how the camera angles and frames work here, but all in all we’re pretty excited that we’re getting some gigantic playing fields to help bring together an ultimate smash party.
Two Plane Stages
Nintendo really outdid themselves here. As if a 4-8 player battle wasn’t crazy enough, they decided to add a second plane to keep an eye on. Players can move back and forth between them and can sometimes attack players in the other plane. Not only that, but the background plane has a special property that makes players go further when sent flying, making it a dangerous game.
Ridley
Ridley was finally announced for Smash, so why is the salt everywhere? Well, Ridley was added as a stage hazard or boss-like assist that will fight alongside players and and not exactly a playable character himself, which is what a lot of people were clamoring for.
Sakurai is showing that he listens to fans, but also loves trolling them, even adding a stock icon as the sweet cherry in the bottom of a glass of fans’ tears.
More Battle Modes
The Special Smash options allow for some crazy and off-the-wall battles, but you can also turn smash into a more traditional fighting game with Stamina. Coin battle also makes its triumphant return to the joy of many. With so many options, there are virtually limitless variations to play through.
Though we all know the most common settings will be “Only pokeballs, high frequency” or “Off, Off…Off, no items, Final Destination.” What can we say?
More Music
A major complaint about the 3DS version was the lacking soundtrack compared to other entries in the series. Well that’s because it was all put into Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Music can be unlocked through collecting CDs in game, of which can be earned through completing Challenges.
Here’s hoping they brought back the absolute best feature from Brawl: The Brawl Final Destination Theme. Please, Sakurai!
Smash Tour
Smash Tour is the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U replacement for the 3DS exclusive Smash Run. Up to 4 players will control Miis on a game board, moving around to collect power-ups and Smash characters. When two players end up on the same spot, all four will be thrown into battle using characters in the order they were collected. Power-ups go into effect for each battle and the winner will take a character from the defeated.
At the end of the game, all players will participate in a stock battle. Each player’s stock will be determined by the number of characters gathered during play. This sounds amazing and superior to Smash Run in virtually every way.
Master Fortress
Exclusive to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Master Core has a new final form that’s even larger than Master Giant mode. On higher difficulties, players will be able to battle the Master Fortress. The inside appears to be maze-like and filled with platforming and enemies as players seemingly hunt down cores to destroy.
The amiibo
The extent to which the amiibo can be used with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U seems pretty satisfactory, to say the least. Players can scan their amiibo in order to sync them into the game as a Figure Player (FP) and fight against it to give it experience. From this training, amiibo FPs will grow smarter and stronger, eventually becoming as good as or better than the players themselves in theory.
FPs can also be used as partners in battle or sent off to battle other FPs by themselves. If we can set up FP tourneys, rank and spectate them, then amiibo just got a lot more interesting.
The biggest amiibo–Smash feature is that can feed them unwanted equipment to give them an increase in level. In return, they’ll bring rewards to you as spoils from their conquests.
Tournaments
Players can finally–and more easily–host and join tourneys with customized rules. On top of that, Nintendo will be holding online Tournaments with large numbers of participants.
It’s nice to see the complete 180 Nintendo has pulled from the days of trying to get Smash removed from the tournament scene. Plus, they’re embracing online play while facilitating it with their own Tournaments. Sadly, this feature will not be ready at the initial release, but will be coming soon.
Create and Share: Stages, Photos, Mii Fighters, and More
The rumored stage creator mode was confirmed. It also looks a million times better than what was present in Brawl. The ability to draw your own landmasses with the stylus is just plain awesome. I can’t wait for the Super Smash Bros. community to wow me with their creations. That’s not the only outlet for creativity though. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U also features an in depth photo studio where you can create outlandish scenes and immortalize them in screenshots. There’s also Paint mode, where players can use the game pad to enhance their photos much like the Miiverse drawings but with color. Speaking of Miiverse, creative, character related posts will be taken and displayed in the upcoming Miiverse stage and displayed when relevant fighters are battling. Created stages, photos, custom Mii fighters, and replays can be sent to friends or posted for the entire world to see. Again, these sharing features will not be available on release but will be coming in the future.
Mewtwo Returns
Mewtwo was revealed to be returning to Super Smash Bros as a free downloadable character coming in spring for players that register both the Wii U and 3DS versions of Super Smash Bros.
Depending on whether or not you have the 3DS version, I’m sure you’ll eventually be able to buy him outright in the future. However,that isn’t the important thing here. Nintendo just showed us that the door for DLC characters is wide open. This means that any missing character or any popular characters from existing and upcoming Nintendo franchises can make an appearance in Super Smash Bros. as time goes on. In a genre where new fighters are the lifeblood of a title, this is incomparable news. I know characters take a long time to create and balance, but I would be surprised if the team that gave us so much in this single package would settle for having just Mewtwo ready for release in spring 2015.
Well,there you have it! Those are what we feel are the highlights of the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Nintendo Direct. This post is already getting unwieldy as is, but there were just so many great announcements (1080p and 60fps, custom controls, movie viewer, more stages, more trophies, more everything) that we couldn’t do everything justice.
If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and watch the following link. After that, jump on the hype train because there’s less than a month to go until you can get your hands on the largest fighting game ever.
