Reloading: Super Smash Bros WiiU: The Definitive Edition

With Smash Bros WiiU now out and about, I’ve finally had my chance to play the darn thing. As you can expect, here’s my review. Yes, I know, pointless because you either already knew you wanted it and bought it (like I did) or you don’t own a WiiU and never wanted one to begin with so you don’t have it. There are some of you in the middle this review might be for… But I’m not expecting those people will go out seeking this blog to see a review by some random guy on this game they’re on the fence about.

To start off, remember SmashBros 3DS? Go check out that review if you want my thoughts on the basics of the game involving the mechanics, character roster, and MOST of the modes as nothing is really different in those regards. What I will say is that Smash Bros WiiU is the superior version both visually and functionally. It not only offers more things to do but more options on how to actually do them. A lot of the weaknesses of the 3DS version are still here but some of them have been removed simply because now we can use an actual controller instead of a handheld. All that being said, let’s focus on differences from the 3DS version and review those.

Single-Player content is actually where the WiiU version shines in differences from the 3DS most (no surprise since that’s what I like to focus on). Classic Mode functions differently where instead of going down different paths with unknown enemies, you move your character piece on a board to different groups of character pieces to battle based on what rewards you see being offered or how big a fight you want to get involved in. Sadly, the final battle doesn’t give you an “easy route” option as it is based on the difficulty you picked. If you’re on Level 5 difficulty, you will fight both hands no matter what. Lack of an option sucks, but there’s also Co-Op classic which makes those harder difficulties somewhat more fun to try out.

All-Star Mode is exactly the same as before except your fights are in reverse order from the 3DS game. For those not aware of what that means, the 3DS game has you fight groups of enemies in the order they were created (Mario is an old game, so you fight him and other old game characters first). So for WiiU, you start with the newest characters like Greninja and Rosalina. This can also be done via Co-Op but you only get ONE extra healing item for your friend. So this actually seems like a harder way to play.

Event Matches are back from Melee/Brawl. These are specific matches where the characters you fight and the character you play are predetermined and you fight under special conditions or with special rulings. This are fun and offer some unique prizes for completing them under very specific victory conditions like “taking no damage” or completing it on a certain difficulty. Though the “taking no damage” feels almost luck based when it’s one-v-two and one of your opponents has projectiles and you really don’t. These can also be done co-op, but you have a different set of events for co-op.

Stadium modes are the same from the 3DS version except these can be done via co-op or versus with other players locally. Trying to do Homerun Contest in Co-op requires WAY more coordination than I initially expected, but it isn’t bad. There’s also more than one layout for Target Smash, but it is still an Angry Birds clone and in no way replaces the original “Break the Targets” mini-game. And Multi-Man Smash is… yeah… the same thing.

There are new modes offered to single player on the WiiU version known as Master Orders and Crazy Orders. These actually add a lot more than I expected, but not as much as I had hoped. Master Orders give you a set of matches to pick from. Each match has different enemies, sometimes a teammate, item settings, difficulty settings, and a stage indicated in the background. Harder matches have better prizes like with any other mode. Downside is, like in the 3DS game, prizes for custom gear are still entirely random and you tend to get repeats fairly often. I can’t tell you how many things I did as Ganondorf and STILL haven’t unlocked all his moves yet.

Crazy Orders are more expensive and have a bigger twist to them. Match information is still the same as before but now other conditions may be present. Furthermore, your damage remains consistent through each match you do until you die, quit, or fight Crazy Hand (more on that in a moment). You heal a little bit between each match and the amount doesn’t change between difficulties, so managing your damage is important. The bonus is that the more damage you have going INTO Crazy Hand, the more HP you have to fight him with as it becomes a stamina battle of you against Crazy Hand and 1-3 possible other NPC opponents (depending on how many matches you’ve done). The more fights you do before getting to Crazy Hand, the better rewards and harder the final fight will be. But doing all this requires either a lot of gold up front or a “Crazy Orders Ticket”. It may not be worth it for the money, but those tickets are not too hard to get if you grind for them in other modes.

Another new mode, and possibly one of my favorite new additions, is Smash Tour. It’s a game mode in which you and up to three friends (or NPCs) mode around on a board-game style map to collect power-ups, items, and fighters while screwing each other over (like Mario Party but with Smash Bros). When you bump into one another you initiate a fight with one of the fighters you’ve collected (but you can’t choose which one you play as unfortunately). Sometimes you may not fight and it may be a homerun contest or something very similar.

At the end of the last turn there is a final fight where all the power ups are finalized and you can only fight with the fighters you have remaining (which may not be many or it could be a lot). The final fight is a stock match, but the winner is determined by most KOs. The stock (lives) are determined by the number of fighters you collected and each “life” is a different fighter. So if you collected 10 fighters, you have 10 lives but you’ll be playing as ten different fighters. What I like about this mode the most is it pushes you into playing characters you normally wouldn’t pick up and either you learn to get good with them or you lose them fairly quick. That being said, some matches are luck based either because someone will use an item to hurt you before the match starts or it’ll be the conditions of the match where the person who gets the hammer first wins.

The other big addition is 8—Player Smash. I’m mixed on this, but consider me in favor of the ability to host larger groups of players in Smash. It means we don’t have to rotate players out if they all want to play and it makes for a more chaotic feeling to the brawl. That being said, my only criticism is that I can’t really envision how often this option will be used for hosting 8 actual people. The max gamecube controllers you can use is 4 (if you’re like me and also use an external harddrive), meaning that half of your party has to learn another controller type and some people are assholes and too stubborn to do that. It also means needing to have seven other people with the time and availability to meet up for Smash Bros. And while this might appeal to younger audiences, it doesn’t really work out so nicely for adults like myself with responsibilities or friends with other responsibilities like families and so forth. It’s a nice feature, but I don’t see myself using it as often as I would have maybe even a year or two ago.

Moving on from gameplay, the visuals are the best in the series, really popping in terms of color and details. The face animations that you likely won’t see in an average game are all very details and make for some great pics if you manage to catch them in time. But everything looks so clean and detailed and knowing how much work was put into certain aspects (the StarFox Assault stage too an entire year just by itself to make), you know that every single piece of this was made with lots of care and attention to detail. Sakurai, has once again done a FANTASTIC job giving the fans what is basically a love letter dressed up with all their favorite game characters (both classic and new).

The bad? Like I said before, random reward drops are crap when I know what I want specifically (custom moves) and I can never actually get them. On top of that, the gold you accumulate now has more uses (for the Master and Crazy Orders specifically), but it sucks to spend thousands of gold on a game mode only to leave with stuff you already got before. And the random rewards don’t even take the character you play into consideration. I got lots of Charizard and Dedede moves when playing as Ganondorf. Thank Christ I play as Dedede or I’d feel like I was getting ripped off entirely. Instead, it just feels like a cock-slap to the face.

The custom characters still feel like an afterthought though. Combining the randomness of the equipment drops with the inability to use your custom creations online is still the biggest flaw I have with this game. I get that some are worried about the balance of the game. But if there was an online option that was JUST custom builds, then we’d have nothing to complain about because we’d all know going in the balance wouldn’t be perfect and if it was that big a deal we’d just go to one of the other modes. Again, this still feels like a missed opportunity that would have gotten me excited for the online modes. But without the option, I really don’t give a toss about the online modes much.

I’m also mixed on the lack of a campaign/story mode. I get why it isn’t there. Furthermore, I know I wasn’t particularly thrilled with Brawl’s SubSpace Emissary, which felt like just walking through a repetitive session of corridors to fight swarms of enemies that weren’t particularly interesting. But not having one or unlocking characters through one does feel a bit off to me. Not to mention the number of characters you unlock here is lessened as some of the hidden characters from the 3DS game are available from the get-go on the WiiU, which is sort of a minor disappointment on its own.

But all these petty gripes I have are outweighed by the fact that this is truly the best Smash Bros game in the series thus far. It’s more open and accessible than Melee, but still feels tighter and more focused on competitive aspects than Brawl. It’s the compromise of the two games that allow it to be a much better game on its own. And if you own a WiiU, then there’s no question you need to get this as one of the few truly amazing games the console has (aside from Bayonetta). So, yes, this gets my recommendation. I just hope some of the issues I brought up will be fixed at some point or even in the next installment of the franchise. See ya next time.