Posted on September 25, 2012
My Top 100: #81 – Super Smash Bros. Melee
2001 – Nintendo (GameCube)
Back in the late 90’s, I was lucky enough to have access to a satellite dish with American programming. I was able to watch shows most of my classmates didn’t even know existed, thanks to having channels that weren’t available north of the border. ZDTV was one such channel, focusing on technology and all the latest gadgets and computer goodies.
Naturally, they had a few gaming shows to go along with that. GameSpot TV was the main one, and it had all the latest news from all gaming fronts – including what was happening in Japan. One episode highlighted this crazy-looking N64 game with well-known Nintendo characters – the “all-stars”, from what little I could distinguish, there was so much going on on the screen – and they were fighting?? Donkey Kong beating the piss out of Pikachu… imagine that.
I excitedly told my friends all about it, and when Super Smash Bros. was released in North America a few months later, we played it a ton at our Halloween party that year. We played it at other gatherings too, but at those parties, great times were had.
The first game was nice, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of game I’d spend tons of hours on. I wanted more unlockables, more characters, more levels, more references to obscure Nintendo titles… I didn’t have to wait that long, really.
Nintendo’s GameCube launched Mario-less in November of 2001, but Luigi’s Mansion and Super Smash Bros. Melee were there to fill the void. Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm were the launch titles I’ve barely touched to this day, but Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II – Rogue Leader and Melee have gotten hours and hours of play at my house.
To begin with, the game looks and sounds pretty damn spiffy. Pretty much all of Nintendo’s IP’s are represented with a stage, a playable character, an item, or with music – old tunes are orchestrated and sometimes simply re-mixed, which upped the nostalgia factor quite a bit. An Adventure Mode was also added, which was definitely the highlight for me. A quasi-platformer\brawler using characters from all lots of Nintendo life, spanning everywhere from the Mushroom Kingdom to Icicle Mountain??? Sign me up!!!
On top of that, collectible trophies (each of them highlighted in the video above) gave you that extra little incentive to play the game more and more. For a guy that’s all about the retro gaming, this game was pretty much tailor-made for me.
Not the most complex stage, but my favourite of the bunch!
Uggh I hated that level, a little bump and you would go flying off the side. My favorite was always Hyrule Temple or whatever. I loved the music and the level was huge.
This is the one game I am overly proud to be good at.
I loved the music in that stage, but I never really liked the layout. That little underground passage was a pain in the arse to get stuck in… I think my favourite in terms of layout is the Brinstar level with the lava. I loved using the terrain to my advantage.