Late to the Party Video Game Review: Super Smash Bros. WiiU

                I’m old enough to remember the first iteration of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64, and while I am no connoisseur of fighting games, I enjoyed seeing Mario versus Donkey Kong, etc.  Personally, I thought Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii was the perfect fighting game.  It had great characters, the fighting game aspect was everything you remembered and loved about the series and the sidescrolling adventure that mixed in classic gameplay with bouts of fighting was the perfect addition to make it a fun game for the single player.

                Nintendo smartly decided to create a new Smash Bros. for the WiiU, adding more characters and beautiful graphics to go along with their new system.  Unfortunately, they replaced the sidescrolling adventure mode with a Mario Party-esque digital board game.  I played it, and I have to admit, for 90% of it I had no idea what was going on, until it was time to fight.  That was the biggest let down of the game, because at that point, there’s not much left to the game for the single player.  Is it fun to fight against your friends (or in my case, my son, who always has to be Little Mac for some reason)?  Of course it is.  Beyond that though…there’s not much to keep me there.  It’s fun to pick up every once in awhile and try out a new character, play through the game with a new set of moves, maybe even try to master the Duck Hunt Dog or Wii Fit Trainer, but beyond that, it doesn’t hold a lot of replay value.

                The graphics are great, as expected, the controls are relatively easy (though easier with the WiiU pad than the stick controller) and the amount of and variance of characters is awesome.  Unfortunately, as fighting games are expanding to add longevity to their “shelf life” Super Smash Bros. U to a step back.  Even Mortal Kombat added different modes of play to keep things interesting. 

                One final word about the Amiibos, Nintendo’s “Toys to Life” game companions:  they are completely and utterly useless.  In Skylanders, you can play as the toys you collect, in Disney Infinity, you can play with the toys you collect, with Amiibos, you bring them in to the game to earn experience…and that’s it.  There have no utility in the game itself.  You can fight against them, sure, but why would I go out and buy a Donkey Kong Amiibo only to fight against it?  I want him on my team!  This, plus hearing that any progress made with the Amiibos in Smash Bros. needs to be erased before you can use them in the upcoming Marioparty 10 makes me wonder what the hell Nintendo is thinking.  The sculpts are great, they all look beautiful, for the most part, but where Skylanders seems to have perfected the genre from the get-go, Nintendo seemed like it threw something together to avoid being left in the dust.

                All in all, Super Smash Bros. WiiU is about what you’d expect from a fighting game, but not enough to make it a good next-gen fighting game.  I still love kicking ass and taking names as Bowser, but it’s nothing I would do with any real regularity.