it’s kind of silly that the first game i played at all thoroughly on the n64 i got off of ebay was super smash bros. since i played the gamecube sequel super smash bros. melee to the ground. as is my wont, i’ve played bits of several other n64 games, but even though it’s been only a few months since i got over my SSBM obsession, i still found myself intrigued by the n64 version. there were some enticements: the previous owner of the game hadn’t unlocked 3 of the 4 extra characters, so i tackled that first. then i finished all the bonus stages, which in the orig. includes the “break the targets” rounds as well as “board the platforms” rounds which i enjoyed even more. it was interesting to see the differences in the moves; the biggest differences were that you don’t power up smash moves by holding down the A button and there are no special right + B moves (they’re the same as the standing B moves). my hands got used to the new controller fairly quickly, and although the controls aren’t as smooth as SSBM i found that they were just as satisfying and at times they added a sort of deliberateness that made good hits even more satisfying. there were quite a few moves i’d either forgotten or are different in this version, and some moves are more powerful or less powerful between versions. and with all the characters in melee i found the shorter roster in SSB made me focus my attention on characters i’d either ignored or never gave enough time to (which come to think of it was prob. most of them b/c in melee i played as zelda/sheik a lot of the time). all in all, good times, and i could easily play it for longer but i should shelve it in favor of finishing some other games i’ve had lying around. (although now i want to pick up melee again to compare the two from the other direction.)
i’ve been enjoying using ign’s collection feature (a bit obsessively actually), which lets you build up your list of games w/ your ratings (although i think it’s a bit silly to give games ratings that aren’t integers so i don’t bother). it was hard to decide how to rate SSB. melee gets a def. 10 from me, but it’s not quite fair to compare the two since SSB came out first and originated so much of the greatness. in the end i gave it the benefit of the doubt (i.e. a 9 instead of an 8). this reader review from ign gives some interesting context of how different SSB was from the other fighting games around at the time. thinking back i remember how strange it first seemed to me to have damage percentages and not hit points, but now of course we all see how perfect it is.
to wrap up, here are some other SSB-related links i dug up:
– there are several good SSBM guides around, but this is the best SSB site i’ve come across
– a guide to the soundtest
– the wikipedia article has some interesting details and trivia … like i hadn’t known you can use the warp pipes in the secret level! i’m going to have to try that tomorrow
oh, and one last thing: i’m still waiting for the day that i’ll have nintendo-playing friends! some day i’ll be able to play SSB and SSBM with someone other than myself! sad, i know.