Super Smash Bros : A Smashing Retrospective

By: Benjanime

A long, long time ago during the Spring of 1999 during a slow going weekend afternoon, I made plans to go outside when I took notice of a hilarious Nintendo commercial involving a group of Nintendo characters starting a beatdown as an ad for Super Smash Bros., a new fighting game that just hit the market. It was an ordinary sunny day so I ran outside to let my friends know about it. I had an N64 myself, but one of the friends amongst talking to also had one, though it was going to be a while before we could rent it for ourselves, as somebody else had beaten us to the rental, but we were hyped.

Production art for the game

Come next weekend, my friend chanced upon nabbing the rental, but on the same day we scheduled to do some Pok'emon trading card playing/trading. So our plan was to bring the other friends over, play just an hour of Super Smash Bros., and then go back outside for our Pok'emon card game business. To our dismay, we were hooked and we set our other activity aside. The previous guy to rent the game did kind of ruin the surprise of character and level unlocks though, as everything was already there, but it didn't hold us back. To see all these fighting stages based on Nintendo's gaming library was like a love letter to fans, and beating the snot out of familiar characters like Yoshi, Samus and Donkey Kong made for a thrilling and fun experience, and for its time it was like a fighting game like no other.

Ness being included in the roster had some players scratching their head for those who had never played Earthbound on the Super Nintendo, and from what I heard those who didn't play it saw this as their first time being introduced to the character.

We did rent the game a couple more times, but eventually the novelty did get tiring after playing so frequently. I rented the game for myself one summer just to play through the story mode with different characters, and obviously the experience wasn't as fun as multiplayer with friends, but it still made a good time waster. The fight against Master Hand is still a challenge even on hard difficulty, and it made for a good closing of the book upon finishing my time of enjoying an otherwise great game in the N64 library. As fun as it was playing other multiplayer games with my friends on the system, none matched the competitive rivalry of fighting with the many characters in Smash.

What are your memories of Super Smash Bros.? Leave a comment and as always, see you next article!

Looking for more from Benjanime?

READ 117297 TIMES

Retro Ramblings: Green Stamps and Oatmeal Cups

Unfortunately, when the site crashed last year, my articles on random retro things bit the dust, and I wasn't able to retrieve them. But have no fear...

Retro Magazine RoundUp: Black Belt

Welcome to the 2nd edition of Retro Magazine Round-Up, where I explore the pages of old school periodicals and boy do we have something special today....

Top 80s Songs with Handclaps in them

Percussion can come from beating a stick on all sorts of objects or can come from striking almost any two objects together (or a machine simulating th...

My Five Favorite Full House Plot Holes

Shocking enough, the reboot of “Full House” is reaching its third season on NetFlix and is going on to its fourth, and I could not be more stu...

When Pizza Hut Was King

As a kid in the early-‘90s, my family never ordered take out from Pizza Hut. No, it was strictly a dine-in option for us. We didn’t have too many ...

Retro Holiday Recipes

I recently came across an issue of McCall's magazine from December of 1967, and while getting lost in all the great advertising, I stumbled upon some ...

ThatDudeintheHoodie's Favorite Nontraditional Christmas Songs

After the turkey has been gobbled, naps have been had, and the madness of Black Friday has ended, it's time to get in the holiday spirit if you haven...

Action Figure Reclamation Project Phase 2

The Action Figure Reclamation Project continues as we dive into the second round of retro toys I've recently added back into my collection. As we outl...

Trading Card Treasures Vol. 2

In the first edition of Trading Card Treasures we looked at several unopened packs of movie cards produced by Topps, but this time around we've got 6 ...

MOST RECENT RETRORATING FEATURED OFFICIAL

Go to page: