3DS:

The higher the life percentage the easier it is to get knocked off. This is the basic damage system that the successful Nintendo game, Super Smash Bros. was based upon.

On October 3, 2014 the highly anticipated fourth installment of the Super Smash Bros. game franchise was released for 3DS. The game is a fighting game whose roster consists of characters from different Nintendo franchises, such as Pikachu from Pokemon, Link from Legend Of Zelda, and some third-party characters such as Capcom’s Mega Man and Namco’s Pac-Man.

I’ve been anxiously awaiting this for about six years. I was pretty skeptical when the game was first announced during Nintendo’s E3 conference. With the game having a lot of fighting going on at the same time, I believed it would be pretty difficult to restrict it all into a small screen.

With Subspace Emissary gone, one-player fighting isn’t as exciting as it used to be. However, Classic mode is by far the best out of the previous games. It’s the same concept but this time the more coins players wager, the harder the matches. Smash Run, the new mode, allows you to go through a maze and beat up characters to gain stats.

Six characters from Smash Bros. Brawl didn’t return including Ice Climbers, Lucas, Wolf, Pokemon Trainer and Snake.

The game has then added characters that would be considered to be over-powered among the Smash gaming community, such as how Fox was seen in Melee. Punch-Out!!’s “Little Mac” for example, is a well rounded character, with an amazing counter attack and strong knockouts. He is easily the strongest character in the game with Super Mario Bros.’ Bowser coming around in a close second.

Before there were only four playable female characters. Now there is 13. That’s more than the first ever Smash Bros. roster in the 1999 game.

My favorite part about the new Smash Bros. 3DS game is the fact that players can make any stage into a variation of the basic stage “Final Destination” just by pressing X at the before selecting the stage.

Smash Bros. 3DS has a two online modes called “For Glory” and “For Fun.” The For Glory mode is the competitive option with no items while “For Fun” is just like the title says. Unfortunately, the four player versus can lag quite a bit but this is pretty typical for any fighting game. The really cool part about it, too, is that you are ranked by your For Glory win or lose streak.

Overall I think this game is worth to buy. The variety of new features, characters, and stages makes this new portable hand-held Smash Bros. a great one.

I give this game an 8/10.

Wii U:

Moving on to the Wii U version; Nintendo premiered a 50-fact extravaganza on October 23, to show off new modes, stages, and various things that will be exclusive to the Wii U version.

One of the major reveals of the video was that you can play up to eight players at once. Playing with that many players means bigger stages. And that’s just what we got.

Palutena’s Temple, a new stage in the series, is one of the biggest stages in the Smash series. Also, stages from past games were revealed to be returning. Stages such as Hyrule Temple, a fan favorite in the series, has been modified with new textures to fit with the HD version.

Smash Run was exclusive to the 3DS version so of course the Wii U version had to have something exclusive.

Smash Tour is a new board like “mode” where your Mii, Nintendo’s avatar, guides you across the board picking up power-ups for your characters for the battles, trophies, and even fighters to battle when the Miis collide.

More stage bosses are on the Wii U version. Fan-favorite Ridley, from the Metroid Series was a highly requested character to be playable but what fans feared came true. Ridley interacts with the battle on the Pyrosphere stage, even taking damage by other characters and once hit enough times, Ridley will partner with that player and attack the other fighters.

Classic Mode and Adventure Mode had some changes made from the 3DS version. Classic mode is now more controllable on who you’re going to face. When you fight the new and final boss Master Core, it expands into a huge maze-like area where you have to find the final step to defeat it.

At the end of the video, “fan-boys” of the character Mewtwo, from the second installment of the series, were screaming aloud. Nintendo revealed that Mewtwo would be arriving to the new installment as DLC in Spring 2015. This could mean that your favorite character who wasn’t in the game could have a chance in this new installment of Smash Bros.