After six years Nintendo has finally released the next game from their wildly popular series, Super Smash Brothers. A two-dimensional fighting game featuring fighters from numerous Nintendo franchises, the series saw its first release on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. The game features 12 iconic characters, such as Mario and Luigi. This game is popular with all kinds of gamers.

Intended to be a casual game to play with friends, the original Super Smash Bros. featured simplistic and unique controls and moves. These characteristics were what separated it from traditional fighting games.

Instead of memorizing specific inputs to perform a set amount of attacks, the player would instead choose from four kinds of attacks. With these attacks, the player could then create their own string of attacks into combos. The diversity of the attacks and kinds of combos are what made the game appeal to serious gamers. This sparked a following that would eventually evolve into a competitive gaming scene.

The last two versions of the games have each broken records by improving graphics and adding characters, game modes, and editing core game mechanics. Smash brothers for WiiU was also released earlier on the Nintendo 3DS, however each game does have separate features. I will be focusing on the WiiU release and features unique to it.

Nintendo released a video debuting over 50 new features unique to the Wii U’s version, which was released on October 23. This included big reveals such as a Mario Party-esque board game, stage builder, 8 player smash, bigger maps to support it, and the return of MewTwo.

As of December 4th, I have played a total of 500 versus matches. I have had plenty of time to examine all of these features that are currently available. I have found that the custom stage builder makes great use of the gamepad to draw the map. It is a solid editor that shows great potential for fun maps as well as more competitively viable stages, assuming there is a fast, reliable way to access them.

I have always preferred one versus one games over four player free-for-all’s. This is because my playing style tends to having more success is an open environment and when focusing intently on one enemy instead of paying less attention to more enemies. However, eight player games are very fun. The game is so chaotic that no one can take them seriously and instead just tries to have fun instead of winning. Whether you play to win, or for fun, I guarantee you will enjoy this mode.

If you enjoy Mario party or just board games in general you will love this game. SmashTour is set on a game board where players will travel around unlocking fighters to play as and equipment to make them better when you encounter and fight another player. Picking different sized boards allows for different lengths of playing time. Whether you want to play for 15 minutes or a few hours, you control the game.

Here’s the big news: after leaving him out of Smash Bros: Brawl in 2008, the popular character MewTwo is back from Smash Bros: Melee, which was released in 2001. I am a bit disappointed that he will be paid content instead of an update. However, I am still excited to play using him come spring 2015.

I have played a total of over 500 versus matches and completed the classic mode with most characters. I have experienced much enjoyment from this game. Much like their past games, I expect the popularity of the game to last upwards of eight years. I have played Smash Brothers: Melee & Smash Brothers: Brawl since I was ten years old. I have had just as much fun with the new game in the few weeks that it has been out that I have had with all of Melee and Brawl.