Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Review

Sorry for the delay on this review everyone, the holiday season is a hectic time indeed! There were a number of delays with this review, and I did want to personally apologize to the readers for how late this came out.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is the fourth installment of Super Smash Bros., and is the console counterpart to Super Smash Bros. for 3DS. It is a  fighting game, developed by Sora Ltd. and Bandai Namco, and published by Nintendo. While a fighting game, it’s more renowned for it’s easy to pick up and play party style gameplay. Note that due to this game’s complete lack of anything resembling story, a story mode section would be pointless to write. 

Gameplay- 

The core gameplay of Super Smash Bros. has always been how fun it is to play with friends, and this game does deliver on that front. Without getting too deeply into the game modes, that’s the paragraph down below, the game is a huge amount of fun with friends and family to play with. Unfortunately this game’s best aspect is also arguably it’s biggest flaw. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, much like the 3DS version, is much less enjoyable if you don’t have people to play the game with. While the Wii U version does have more modes to play without any additional players, they don’t last particularly long altogether. The fact that literally every character and stage can be unlocked in about an hour or two also means that there isn’t a whole lot of really fun stuff to unlock either. The other issue is the fact that players who bought and played the 3DS version have already done a majority of the things this game wants you to do. Beating Classic and All Stars a second time in such a short amount of time is considerably less fun than the first, and the changes don’t make doing everything over 50 times again a whole lot more fun. That being said, this game is definitely fun with friends. Playing on the TV, playing with seven other friends is a really fun time. If you have friends to play this with or you never played the 3DS version, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a lot more fun than it is for players playing by themselves. The events and the new challenges do give single players something to do, but as I mentioned before, they don’t last very long. A weekend or so is all it would take for a reasonably skilled player to complete just about everything in this game, save for beating each mode with everyone. It’s still fun for single players, but the longevity of the game lies solely in the sheer amount of things to do with friends. Now if you have not picked up the 3DS version, then chances are the amount of entertaining things to do increases exponentially for you. Beating all of the modes, completing all the challenges and events, that’s considerably more fun if you haven’t done all there is to do in the 3DS game. 

Game Modes- 

While the relative lack of single player things to do is disappointing, the multiplayer is a huge amount of fun. There are several different modes and variations that give more ways for players to enjoy the game together, such as Smash Tour and Eight Player Smash. While the hyped up Eight Player Smash having no more than a fourth of the stages to play on is a minor disappointment, playing a fast paced game like this with seven friends is an amazing time. Playing it for several hours with friends wasn’t repetitive, and while I see only being able to play on less than a majority of the stages as something that would get repetitive if played on a daily basis, it’s not at all problematic in moderation. It should also be noted that you cannot play Special Rules in Eight Player Smash, which is a bit of a disappointment as well, but that may be because of systems restrictions. Still means no Eight Player Stamina Smash though. Smash Tour is surprisingly boring, and the fact that it’s on average a twenty minute round just for a four minute Time Battle is disappointing. That’s also not a rule you can change either, you can’t make it a Stock Battle. Another flaw of it is how random it is. It’s designed in a manner that skill isn’t a huge factor in how well you do in the mode, as you can gain or lose several fighters There is an entirely new mode, Master Orders and Crazy Orders, that actually is a lot of fun even by yourself due to the fact that you unlock stuff for beating the various challenges and it doesn’t feel particularly repetitive. Completing various special battles at different difficulties and unlocking new trophies, CD’s (new stage music), and character equipment  is genuinely enjoyable, and they help give the player something to do with their coins other than get more trophies. That leaves the returning Event Mode. which is surprisingly difficult due to having new conditions to fully beat an event, such as defeating it on Hard without taking damage. It’s nice to have a mode tailored more to single players (though co-op events are also available), even if the increased difficulty, mandatory for players looking to complete all challenges, can get extremely aggravating at times.  All in all, the new game modes are a lot of fun, and give players something new to experience with their friends. However only the Master and Crazy Orders really add something new and enjoyable for single players, considering event mode is a returning feature, which is unfortunate, since half the fun of Smash Bros. games was how much stuff there was to do regardless of whether or not you were playing with people. The new modes are so much fun, but they’re only fun if you have people to play with. You can’t hop online with Eight Player Smash or Smash Tour either, so you need friends locally that could play them with you. Almost all of the fun for people that can only play single player comes from beating the modes with everyone, which isn’t half as fun for 3DS owners that have already done that. 

Difficulty- Hard

Surprisingly enough, this game is actually noticeably harder than the 3DS version. You’re forced to beat the multi-formed boss Master Core at difficulty 5.5 or higher as opposed to 8.0, there are multiple challenges that are very difficult and require you to play as a specific character, such as getting 4 K.O’s in Cruel Smash as Pit, and the AI overall just seems more difficult even at lower levels. Several of the events are very difficult as well, as previously mentioned, and the requirements for just beating them can be brutal sometimes as well. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U definitely requires more skill than the 3DS version, even taking into account the different controller options allows players to use just about every control combination possible so they can play at their best. That being said, this game challenges you just enough that it seems like certain things are borderline impossible, but not to the point where you’re so angry that you give up. The difficulty is just high enough to make you want to persevere without giving up on the game altogether. That being said, this game is noticeably challenging more often than not.

Graphics-

There’s no doubt about it, this game is stunning. The high level of detail, the various beautiful stages and character models, and so much more will attest that this is currently one of the most stunning games on the Wii U. The framerate is higher as well, allowing Pokemon and Assist Trophies to look much more animated than they did in the 3DS version. The game is also very seamless with how well any style of character or stage model mesh with each other. Realistic characters on a more cartoony stage do still look incredible, and it isn’t disorienting to see the different styles either. The only noticeable flaw is that many of the characters do look rather dead-eyed, which can get a bit creepy if you stare too long. The amount of detail, from every character and stage, to the 700+ trophies in the game, is absolutely incredible and definitely one of this game’s finer points.

Sounds-

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U may have the biggest soundtrack out of any game ever made so far. There are over 400 unique songs to listen to, and the option to pick and choose which songs you hear on which stages is back as well. To put that in perspective, if the average run time of these songs is three minutes, then it would take over 20 hours to listen to the full extent of this game’s soundtrack. It goes without saying that a library made up of many of Nintendo’s greatest songs is incredible, but the fact that you can listen to every single song in it’s entirety is absolutely amazing. Another bonus is the fact that just shy of every character is voiced by their original voice actor, when a relatively small detail like that could have been overlooked. Everything about the sounds, both music and voices, is very well done and suited to please longtime Nintendo fans extensively.

Buy It?

As I’ve stressed numerous times, this game is so much more fun if you have friends to play with. If you don’t, you’ll likely find yourself getting very bored, much faster than you would with others. This game is by no means lacking in content, and there’s plenty to do even if you are by yourself, but a lot of it is less fun if you already played the 3DS version or if you’re playing by yourself. I think this game would be a lot more fun for single players if they did not pick up the 3DS version previously, due to the fact that beating every mode with every character is something we already did once less than two months ago. Because of that, this game just felt a lot more repetitious than it would have without the 3DS version. To make a long story short, it’s worth getting if you didn’t play the 3DS version or if you have people to play. If you did play the 3DS version, then this game is just something to borrow so you have every character and stage unlocked on your console. There’s not a lot to do in this version that is brand new to this version, so this game just isn’t worth buying if the idea of doing everything twice doesn’t sound fun to you or you don’t have anyone local to play it with, as many of this game’s best features are for multiplayer.

Overall, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a really fun game, but due to it being released just shortly after the 3DS version, I felt burnt out at the idea of completing everything twice. The most fun I had with this game was with friends, and I’ll absolutely play this with them many times in the future. However when alone, this game just wasn’t as fun. It didn’t have enough to truly differentiate it from the 3DS aside from graphics and songs library, and it really did feel like one game for the price of two. While a lot of the smaller features cut from the 3DS version are thankfully restored here, there weren’t any new or exciting modes that really made it stand out as anything more than ‘the console version’ of Smash 4. It’s a great game, but it just felt like it was missing something that made previous entries so enjoyable. I definitely see myself playing this with friends until Super Smash Bros. 5, but I don’t see myself spending weeks playing it as much as I can by myself. It just doesn’t have a huge amount of fun stuff to do without multiple players.