Super Smash Bros Wii U

Déjà Vu… huh.

The world of Smash Bros has always been known for being, quite frankly, the best party game of all time. Having a small gathering of your friends standing around the latest Nintendo console getting ready to play Smash Bros has always been where this series has shined. With the newest installment on the Wii U there is a lot to live up to, so how is it compared to previous iterations? Let’s find out!

I have already reviewed the 3DS version of this game which has most of the main core mechanics and modes covered so I will be focusing on what is different from its mobile counterpart and how it compares to previous smash bros. The most obvious thing lacking from the Wii U version of the game is a story mode, such as from Brawl. The 3DS version had the mode ‘Smash Run’ which helped to bring some of the old enemies back into a single stage to fight them, however strangely enough Smash Run is not available in the Wii U version, truly a shame as it was certainly an interesting mode in the 3DS version.

Ahh the classic character selection screen…

Instead of Smash Run the Wii U version gets a completely new mode known as Smash Tour. Here you play a mario party styled board game with your mii as you run about a map, collecting fighters and power ups in preparation for a final battle in which you use all the characters at your disposal to fight in a single battle until the timer runs out. Along the way you can pick up and use trophies to have effects on battles and the board itself and when you meet other players you engage in some crazy battles. Explosive smash, hammer smash those type of things. This mode is certainly interesting however it suffers from one huge problem. Due to the fact that the games take ages to play and that the pace is usually very quick it can often be incredibly confusing to someone who has not played this mode before. This is also bad when combined with a forced split-screen that all the fighters share which makes the UI small and horrible to deal with. I have only played a few matches of Smash Tour as I found it to be quite boring and it took way too long for a game to finish.

Along with this mode there are of course the normal slew of returning modes such as classic and all-star mode. One huge addition however is the ability to now play with 8 players in a single battle in its own dedicated 8 Player Smash. This new addition is only playable on a few maps but it is absolutely chaotic and insane fun. Some might argue that it is maybe TOO chaotic as it makes your character seem tiny and very hard to see when there are so many other characters on the stage. Missing from the 3DS version but on the Wii U version is the stage editor, a map making tool that was introduced in Brawl. This time you can use the Wii U gamepad to create your own maps and publish them online and sue them yourself in battles. This is a huge addition that I missed from Brawl and I’m very glad to see it back (even if all I really do is much around in it). Also returning is the ability to have ‘Special Smashes’ which include being able to have very quick speed, all characters are made of metal etc. This combines with the ability to change the likelihood of music that you want to play on stages to make this version of Smash Bros the most customizable to date and with the ability to customize characters and even make your own character in the form of your Mii it truly makes a great fighting game with a lot of replayability.

One of the new fighters, Greninja!

The amount of stages between the 2 games are split between them, with many classic and new stages being exclusive to either version. Some of my favourite stages are on the Wii U version, such as Onett. Comparing this game to the previous iterations on console, the mechanics are somewhat in the middle between Brawl and Melee. It’s faster than Brawl and takes away the ridiculous tripping habits while still retaining features such as final smashes and several other mechanics. Professional players will probably still stick with Melee but this version is still pretty good to dip your foot into the competitive scene. The online modes however are not as great. This is mostly from personal experience so it might be different for all of you but I found that the button input lag was present on every online game, which made me terrible at it. There are plenty of modes sure and some of it is not to be taken seriously, but the fact that I can’t use my shield at the proper moment is incredibly annoying. Also this game is aiming to be giving out plenty of DLC characters that I believe should have been in the original game, such as the recently released Mewtwo.

All in all this is still Smash Bros. It’s big, it’s fun, it’s Smash. If you have never enjoyed playing smash bros with a friend on your couch then you are seriously missing out. It’s currently in my opinion the best game on the Wii U and even though I pointed out a lot of flaws they are trumped by the core gameplay and the chaotic nature of Smash itself. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go train a bit more with Little Mac.