“ Something's gone wrong in the happy-go-lucky world of Nintendo! ” —North American commercial

Super Smash Bros. (also called Super Smash Bros. 64, Smash 64 or Super Smash Bros. N64), released in Japan as Nintendo All Star! Dairantō Smash Brothers (ニンテンドウオールスター! 大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズ, Nintendo All-Star! Great Fray Smash Brothers), often shortened to "SSB", retronymously "Smash 64" or "SSB64", is the first game of the Super Smash Bros. series.

The game released in Japan on January 21st, 1999, in North America on April 26th, 1999 and in Europe on November 19th, 1999 for the Nintendo 64. Subsequently, it released on the iQue Player in China on November 15, 2005. The Wii's Virtual Console version released on January 20th, 2009 in Japan, a day before its 10-year anniversary and later that year in Europe and North America. However, because the Wii Shop Channel ceased operations on January 30th, 2019 (with the ability to add Wii Points permanently removed on March 26, 2018), the only way to currently obtain the game is by purchasing a used copy or playing it on an emulator.

Super Smash Bros. received positive reviews, with most praise going to its multiplayer mode, while its single-player mode received criticism. The game has sold 5 million units worldwide as of 2001, making it the sixth best-selling Nintendo 64 game of all time.

Opening movie [ edit ]

The opening movie in Super Smash Bros., unlike later games in the Super Smash Bros. series, completely lacks pre-rendered footage. It instead opts to use the game engine to render everything in real-time.

When the opening movie starts, two random starter characters are placed by Master Hand on top of a desk, which shortly transitions to a scene resembling Peach's Castle. This process is repeated anew every time the opening movie is played.

As the opening movie concludes, the figures of the four unlockable characters are flashed against a white background. If a character hasn't been unlocked, they will simply be shown as a silhouette; conversely, they will be deobfuscated once unlocked.

Finally, the opening movie segues into the title screen, a trend which would be followed by future installments, along with the announcer calling out the game's title.

Characters [ edit ]

Super Smash Bros. (all characters unlocked). The character-selection screen of(all characters unlocked).

Smash 64. Official artwork of the default cast of

There are twelve playable characters in Super Smash Bros., eight of whom are available from the start and four of whom are unlockable.

The highest amount of character slots are given to the Mario and Pokémon universes with each receiving two fighters: Mario alongside his brother Luigi, and Pikachu and Jigglypuff respectively, with the latter characters in both universes being unlockable.

Two more slots are given to reoccurring Mario characters Donkey Kong and Yoshi as starting representatives of their sub-universes of the same names, Donkey Kong and Yoshi.

The other starter characters are Link, Samus, Kirby and Fox from The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kirby and Star Fox universes, respectively. The final remaining characters, as with Luigi and Jigglypuff, are unlockable: Ness of EarthBound and Captain Falcon of F-Zero.

Stages [ edit ]

Super Smash Bros. The stage select screen of

The game features nine stages derived from each character's universe, exceptions being EarthBound and F-Zero. While most universes receive a single stage, Mario uniquely has two instead: Peach's Castle and the only unlockable stage in the game, Mushroom Kingdom. Besides of that, the other stages consist of Congo Jungle, Hyrule Castle, Planet Zebes, Yoshi's Island, Dream Land, Sector Z, and Saffron City from Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Yoshi, Kirby, Star Fox, and Pokémon respectively.

Versus mode stages [ edit ]

Shown in bold, Mushroom Kingdom is the only unlockable stage in Super Smash Bros.

1P Game-only stages [ edit ]

These stages only appear in the 1P Game.

*The 1P Game-only Yoshi's Island lacks clouds and has closer blast zones.

Non-playable stages [ edit ]

These stages cannot be unlocked or played on in any way without hacking.

Modes [ edit ]

Multiplayer [ edit ]

Tournament play [ edit ]

Unlike its successors, Super Smash Bros. never enjoyed a large professional competitive scene in North America. However, interest in the game has been renewed in recent years with the popularity of its sequels. Players can play Super Smash Bros. online through Kaillera using the Project64k emulator. Every year, there are more and more Super Smash Bros. tournaments due to an influx of new players. Most tournaments are paired with Melee events and most (offline) SSB tournaments are located in California, Canada, New Jersey or Peru.

The standard tournament rules differ little from those of Melee. The most common standard tournament rules are as follows:

The required number of victories to win are generally the best of 3 matches; the only exceptions are finals, in which the number of matches is 5 or 7.

Tournaments run double elimination format.

4 stock with a 10-minute time limit, if possible; the original game does not support time limits on stock matches, but emulators and mods can implement one.

Items are disabled.

Handicaps are off.

The first match is played on Dream Land.

For the first match, characters are chosen double-blind - at the same time, so that neither player knows their opponent's character beforehand.

Players may re-pick characters after each match. However, the loser of each match gets to pick last (known as slob picks).

Development [ edit ]

Masahiro Sakurai was interested in making a fighting game for four players. His initial design for the game was called Kakuto-Geemu Ryuoh (Dragon King: The Fighting Game),[1] which featured simple characters. After presenting the game to co-worker Satoru Iwata, he helped Sakurai continue on with the project. Sakurai understood that many fighting games did not sell well, so he tried to make his game original.[1] His first idea was to include famous Nintendo characters and send them into the fray.[1] Knowing full well that he would not receive permission to do so, Sakurai created a prototype of the game without sanction from Nintendo and did not inform them until he was sure the game was well-balanced.[1] The prototype he presented featured Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus Aran, and Fox McCloud as playable characters. The idea was later approved.[1][2]

Super Smash Bros. features music from Nintendo's most popular gaming franchises. While many tracks are new arrangements for the game, some songs attempt to directly emulate their sources. The music for Super Smash Bros. was composed by Hirokazu Ando, who later returned as sound and music director for Super Smash Bros. Melee. A complete soundtrack was released on CD in Japan through Teichiku Records in 2001.[3]

Reception [ edit ]

SSB reviews Publication Score Famitsu 31 of 40[4] GameSpot 7.5 of 10[5] IGN 8.5 of 10[6] Nintendo Power 7.7 of 10[7] Compilations of multiple reviews Metacritic 79 of 100[8] Game Rankings 78.81%[7] Awards IGN "Best Fighting Game"

Super Smash Bros. was a commercial success, selling 5 million copies worldwide with 2.93 million sold in the United States and 1.97 million copies sold in Japan. It was the 5th best selling game for the Nintendo 64. Reviews were mostly positive, with many critics praising the game's addictive and fun multiplayer gameplay and simple controls, but it was criticized as well, mainly due to the game's lower amount of content and somewhat limited single-player mode.

Gallery [ edit ]

English logo.

Super Smash Bros. U.S. box art (Player's Choice version)

Super Smash Bros. Japanese box art

Super Smash Bros. PAL box art

Super Smash Bros. Chinese box art

Group artwork

Group artwork depicting Kirby, Mario, Fox and Link, including some items like Bob-omb, Star Rod and the Fan.

English title screen

Japanese title screen

Chinese title screen

The logo from the SSB64 Website.

A image of the cast from the SSB64 Website.

Differences from later Super Smash Bros. games [ edit ]

Super Smash Bros. is the only game in the series with the following distinctions:

Staff [ edit ]

Trivia [ edit ]

References [ edit ]







