Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros., known in Japan as Nintendo All-Star! Great Fray Smash Brothers (ニンテンドーオールスター! 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ), is a crossover fighting video game developed by HAL Laboratory, Inc. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 console. It was first released in Japan on January 21, 1999, and released on April 27, 1999 in North America, followed by November 19, 1999 in Europe.

Players are able to choose from up to twelve characters (four of whom need to be unlocked) from various games in Nintendo's history, such as Mario, Link, Pikachu, and Kirby.

Super Smash Bros. (1999 - 2001) was the first game in the Super Smash Bros. series (1999 - present). It was followed by the very successful Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001 - present) for the Nintendo GameCube and the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008 - present)  for the Wii.

Gameplay
Super Smash Bros. uses a battle system different from the average fighting game. Choosing from a variety of characters, two to four players fight on various different stages, all while trying to knock their opponents off the stage. Instead of using health bars like other fighting games, the game features percentage meters. At the beginning of the match, the meters start at zero percent. As the characters take damage, the percentage meter goes up, causing the characters to fly farther back each time when hit. When a character is knocked off the stage, they lose either a life or a point depending on the mode of play. The characters can attack each other with a variety of different fighting moves. Each character can perform an array of attacks when prompted with the press of a button in conjunction with a tilt of a control stick. In addition to basic attacks, such as punches and kicks, characters have access to more powerful smash attacks as well as three special character-specific moves.

There are nine playable stages: eight based on each of the starting characters (such as Princess Peach's Castle for Mario, Hyrule Castle for Link, Zebes for Samus and Sector Z for Fox) and the unlockable Mushroom Kingdom. The stages are three dimensional arenas (although players cannot move with depth, save for a few types of dodges) that are mostly based on levels from the represented series of the game. They range from floating platforms (Donkey Kong's Congo Jungle for example) to stationary land stages (e.g. the Mushroom Kingdom). Each stage has a boundary that cannot be passed, or the character will be "KO'd", thus losing a life and counting as a "fall" against that player. The characters can make use of a variety of weapons, ranging from projectiles to melee weapons. Each item has a different effect on the characters around it. Some heal a single character, while others hurt any character in its vicinity. Single items and crates and barrels, which often contain an assortment of items, fall onto the stage randomly throughout the battle.

Single player
The game's single-player mode always follows the same series of opponents, although the player can choose from five difficulty levels, Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. Bonus stages in the single player mode include a "Break the Targets" stage and a "Board the Platforms" stage - each of which is specialized for the player character - as well as a "Race to the Finish" stage, which is the same regardless of the player character. Also included in the game is a Training mode, where a single player can practice his or her skills in any of the playable stages, and practice areas for each of the character-specialized Break the Targets and Board the Platforms stages. The end of single player ends when you defeat "Master Hand", although if you have met a certain requirement, you may fight a bonus character. If victorious, you unlock the character. For example, the first time one beats the game, Jigglypuff may be unlocked.

Multiplayer
In multiplayer mode up to four people can play, with the specific rules of each match predetermined by the players. In "Time Battles", each player can be knocked out an infinite number of times. When the predetermined fight-time is up, scores are determined by subtracting a player's falls from their KOs, and a winner is determined. If there is a tie, the contenders are returned to the fighting stage and given a large amount of damage, so as to quickly determine the winner. In "Stock Battles", each player can be knocked out a fixed amount of times, and there is no time limit. The winner is thus selected by process of elimination.

Team Battles of the stock and time modes are also selectable. These have the same rules as the above modes, but players instead choose their teams and work cooperatively to win the match. Members of the same team color (red, blue, green) are normally unable to cause damage or flinch each other by direct combat; however, friendly fire can be turned on in the options menu so that team members are able to hit each other. When the match is over, KO totals are added up for each member of a team and taken as a whole, and then a winning team is declared. In a team stock match, when one member of a team has lost the total allotted number of lives, they are permitted to use a life from a teammate's stock, provided that they have more than one life left themselves.

Development
Super Smash Bros. was developed by HAL Laboratory, Inc., a Nintendo second-party developer through 1998. The game had a small budget and little promotion, and was originally a Japan-only release, but the huge success saw the game released worldwide.

There are differences between the Japanese version and the North American version, most notably, in the Japanese version, "Jigglypuff" is named "Purin", the "Beam Sword" weapon sounds like a lightsaber from Star Wars, and the sound effects are significantly different for most attacks.

The promotional artwork is done in the style of a comic book, and the characters were portrayed as dolls that come to life to fight. This presentation has since been done away with in the sequels, opting instead for a more serious art style (such as using in-game models for the characters in place of hand-drawn art) and replacing the dolls with trophies.

Reception
Reviews for Super Smash Bros. were mixed, but usually positive, with a lot of the praise going to the multiplayer mode of the game. There were, however, a few criticisms, such as the game's scoring being difficult to follow. In addition, the single-player mode was criticized for its perceived difficulty and lack of features. However, this criticism is addressed in Super Smash Bros. Melee, which was released in 2001 for the Nintendo GameCube.

The game was very popular and quickly became a Player's Choice title. In Japan, 1.9 million copies were sold and 2.7 million were sold in the U.S.