Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS Review

After playing Super Smash Bros. I think no one can complain. What's present in the game is fun, entertainment and so many nostalgic memories if you are a person born in the 90's. You get to relive every character with whom you've spent your childhood, for eg, Pac-Man, Mega Man, Pokemon, Zelda and many more. You get to step in the shoes of Mega Man and fight your opponents. If you pick up the game you can do well enough, but if you take your time to master it then you will learn the deeper intricacies that lie beneath the entire experience. For the uninitiated, the core of Super Smash Bros. is a kind of supercharged sumo battle where up to four players wail on each other in an attempt to weaken their opponents and send them flying off the screen, and a lot of the fun comes from the dynamic between the desparate characters. Want Pac-Man to take on Pikachu and Yoshi outside Princess Peach's castle? Done. And best of all, the look and feel of the different games those characters and levels are taken from are kept more or less in tact.

Learning the special moves of each character, unlocking all the hidden content and exploring each stage is a blast, but in the scheme of things it won't take too long which is why it is fortunate that Smash 3DS is packed to the gills with content and different ways to play. Playing the game on a handheld feels odd for about five minutes - but after that, your fingers will comfortably find their grooves, whether you're playing on a classic 3DS or an XL. The graphics, which are a rainbow of bright colors and snazzy visual effects, look crisp on the 3DS screen, though the 3D effect doesn't add to the experience.

One of the smartest additions is a you-can't-miss-it graphical effect that lets you know whenever you connect with a powerful attack, so even when the camera's zoomed out on the 3DS screen, you will still know exactly what hit you 3,000 feet off the stage. Playing Single-player is cool but a game like this cannot be thought without a multiplayer feature and the platform delivers it in such an awesome manner. The For Fun mode lets you join up with like-minded players for some lighthearted, items-on matches, while competitors looking to truly test their skills can square off in the bare-basics For Glory mode. The latter offers timed matches (no thanks) and 2-stock survival matches in 1v1 or 2v2 team play. When your connection isrunning smoothly and when you are playing against an opponent of equal skill, the online play is an absolute blast, letting you train up and play Smash the way it was meant to be played. Unless you’re playing with your friends, you won’t be able to play anything but two-minute timed matches, but even those are great. They are short enough that the pain is over quickly if you’re getting knocked around by someone much better than you, and because you don't have long to get invested in the results, each match leaves a sweet aftertaste.

The one mode that makes the game stand apart from every other game is the much hyped Smash Run mode, although it isn't that much fun and proves to be one of the weaker parts of the game. It lets you wander around a gigantic, maze-like stage, collecting stat boosts by beating up minor enemies that aren't fun to fight, before plopping you into a randomly selected contest. What this boils down to is five minutes of monotony for around 20 seconds of unpredictable excitement, a gameplay loop that loses its appeal almost immediately.

Smash Bros. is a video game museum and an extraordinarily accessible fighting game rolled into one, and both these aspects are present and accounted for in this first portable version. The action is fast and fluid, sound design and music is spot on, controls feel great despite the cramped dimensions and all the characters look and feel just the way they should. But in a game from a series that's so well-known for its enjoyable multiplayer, it's disheartening to see the local wireless be so inconsistent in delivering smooth, uninhibited fun. If you want to get ahead of the Wii U pack and don't mind the bare-essentials feel of one-on-one duels, this 3DS version is worth playing.