Smash for 3DS Review

The time has finally come and Super Smash Bros for 3DS has finally come out to the states. Playing throughout the week with all the characters and modes unlocked have given me some time to play through so it’s a good time to make a review.

GAME PLAY AND MODES

The game play is extremely fun with four different modes including regular Smash, the highly anticipated Smash Run only for 3DS and the Classic and All-Star modes. I usually do these by myself because from what I’ve heard, the online connection for some of these modes are painfully slow and there seems to be no talk of a patch soon so it might be best to wait until a patch comes out.

Other than that it’s excellent, it’s a pain to actually make this post since I want to play more and more! I do think All-Star mode needs some fixing up however. If I recall back to Melee and Brawl All-Star mode had items where in this one there are no items. Then again I could be wrong, it’s been a very long time. But that’s alright, this mode can be cleared in about ten minutes depending on the difficulty. One thing I wish that would come back from Melee and Brawl is a type of Story mode like Adventure from Melee and The Subspace Emissary from Brawl. Sakurai has stated that an adventure type mode was cut due to him wanting people to play the game itself instead of watching cut scenes on various video sites. Understandable, however I would still like an adventure mode so that some of the characters being unlocked wouldn’t be such a pain to unlock.

Home Run Contest, Multi-Man Melee and the new Bomb Rush and Trophy Rush mode has been included. However they’re fun little side modes that can be accessed in Solo Games and More mode. They’re just fun little modes you can get for a challenge checklist so I don’t really spend too much on them.

Another thing that should be stated is some of the internet features like Global Smash Power and Street Smash is well… useless. I really don’t care who the best Smasher in the world is and Street Smash is entirely useless if you live in the middle of nowhere where there are no gamers present. One of the checklist challenges is to get five hits in Street Smash and I’ve only gotten four. I’ve only been lucky to manage to get those four by taking my 3DS to classes with me. It’d be better if the entire Street Smash idea was scrapped or just be a Japanese only feature since they care more about handheld gaming than US/Europe’s take on home console gaming.

CHARACTERS AND STAGES

With a whopping 51 characters, you certainly have lots to choose from, and 12 of those being unlocked, you even have lots of options straight from the get go! I started naturally with my main character, Pikachu! However, Pikachu is just to get warmed up to the game, eventually I started unlocking new characters and stages one by one and play on all of them. A few of my new favorites are Duck Hunt, Greninja, Villager Rosalina and Luma and one of my most favorites of all, Bowser Jr. hides a neat secret. His alternate costumes are of the 7 Koopalings so that means you can play all of Bowser’s “children”.

Tell me that isn’t the coolest thing? Some other fan favorites come back as Ness, Captain Falcon, Sonic the Hedgehog and Jigglypuff.

The stages in this game are also amazing as well, but not as expansive as the characters with a few being recycled from past games. There’s a total of 34 stages with 9 reused stages there is still a nice number to choose from. You can also access their Omega Form as well which turns off items and stage hazards and leaves only a plain platform for you to fight on but that’s only in Smash. I love a few of the newer stages, however that’s only three or four with the rest being a little forgettable.

MUSIC

Pulling all of Nintendo’s talent, the soundtrack is absolutely AMAZING. While having only two songs per stage, you’d think Nintendo wouldn’t try as hard on a handheld console, but they do amazing work with such limited space. From such legends as Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Mario and Luigi RPG series) to Hirokazu Tanaka (Metroid) have collaborated on this wonderful soundtrack. One of the best things about this edition of Smash is that you can go to the sound test area and listen to it, even with your 3DS on sleep mode like your own personal music player! While not complete, GilvaSunner has a majority of the songs on his youtube channel that you can try out for yourself.

The score is not 100% original though. A few songs are ripped from Brawl, noticeably in the Yoshi’s Island and WarioWare Inc. stage. While those songs are as good as they are in Brawl, I’m disappointed that they don’t at least add a new song real quickly to the mix.

OTHERS

One thing I do love about this game is that the fact there is a camera mode when you’re playing a match. This is how I got a majority of these wonderful pictures. I am a little disappointed that you can’t take a picture anytime though. I’d love to have a picture option to take a screen shot of all the trophies I collected.

Speaking of trophies, they’re perfect. I’ve always loved trophies since their inclusion in Melee, you get to learn so much about Nintendo’s history. In this edition, a former writer from the Mother series has taken up putting the descriptions of each trophy and they are hilarious! You’ll get a little bit of information with a little bit of humor. I even snickered when the Pokémon Trainer started to quote the beginning of the theme song. Of course a few of the trophies are a giant collection of puns such as Eggplant (Pit) and the Cuccos but if you are indeed curious about these things you could always look them up if you want more information. These are just small snippets of information.

FINAL RESULTS

I enjoy this game, it’s absolutely unputdownable, so writing this review is a little hard for me because I want to get back to it extremely badly.

Is it perfect? In some aspects no, but it’s the first build of a handheld Smash game so I’ll let it go this time. It’s got it’s flaws like any other game but the positive definitely outshine the negatives for me.

I’d rather not give games a number rating, but based on my emotions, I love it. I will thoroughly enjoy this game until I beat it 100%. In closing, here are some more wacky pictures to leave you with some goodness!