Gamer's Education:The History of Smash Bros.

For those who are unaware, Super Smash Bros. is a crossover fighting game featuring many of Nintendo's characters like Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, and Pikachu as well as a few characters from other franchises like Pac-Man, Solid Snake, and Sonic the Hedgehog. 


The series started out as an idea for a video game called "Dragon King:The Fighting Game". It featured no Nintendo characters, just faceless models fighting each other. Then Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Kirby series thought about adding recognizable Nintendo characters to the game and thus the franchise was born. The characters in the first game were Mario, Luigi, Kirby, Link, Samus, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Fox, Ness, Captain Falcon, and Yoshi. Did you know that Peach, Mewtwo, Meowth, Bowser, and King Dedede we're going to be included but we're cut due to disc space? Even Banjo Kazooie and James Bond we're going to be included. The game was unlike any other fighting game of it's time because instead of life bars from games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, the goal of the game was to knock the other play off a platform. Another thing that made Smash Bros. original was the inclusion of items similar to the ones in Mario Kart. Items were a completely new concept that had never been seen in fighting games before. In 2001, Nintendo launched a sequel to Smash Bros. called Super Smash Bros. Melee. It featured many new characters including Bowser,  Zelda, Marth, Pichu, Ice Climbers, Mr. Game & Watch, and Princess Peach. In the original creation of the game they we're planning on replacing Ness with Lucas (another Earthbound character) but they couldn't due to time constraints. It was also confirmed that Konami's Solid Snake was going to be included but was taken out for the same reason. Melee also had a brand new mode called Adventure Mode that was a platforming adventure going around levels fighting enemies. There were a few beta elements in the game that are only available via hacking. The first one is a stage that was set in the middle of Japanese bar and the others are two trophies:Toon Zelda and Mario Riding Yoshi. In 2005, Nintendo announced a sequel to Melee called Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Nintendo finally included Solid Snake as a playable character because the head of Konami practically them to and they also included Sonic the Hedgehog via fan request. This game was unlike no other. Not only did it feature 35 characters, 45 stages, and 100+ music tracks but it featured a brand new adventure mode called the Subspace Emissary. The mode played similar to an RPG and was about going around stages fighting creatures called the Subspace Army. In 2010, Shigeru announced a 4th Smash Bros. game that would feature a lot of new content including Capcom's Megaman as a playable character. The game has yet to come out, but is said to come out around Christmas 2014.