Today Nintendo put on a 35-minute presentation detailing 50 facts unique to the Wii U version of Super Smash Brothers. If you have the time, you can check it out here.
If you just want the short version of the most exciting announcements from this Nintendo Direct, look no further. I will attempt the impossible task of condensing this information-filled presentation down into the ten most important things we learned from the October 23rd Nintendo Direct presentation.
The following facts are ordered chronologically by their announcements during the Nintendo Direct presentation.
10. Up To 8 Player Smash Battles
Absolute chaos has been confirmed for Super Smash Brothers for Wii U.
The presentation announced that up to 8 people can play in the same Smash battle. As a Smash vet who is familiar with how unruly a regular 4-player match can get, I'm both dreading and eagerly anticipating the opportunity to wade into an 8-player KO fest. It'll be like the WWE's Royal Rumble, except with less rules and possibly a giant green dinosaur. WWE never did that gimmick, right?
The announcer mentions that only certain larger stages are able to be played in 8-player mode, so don't expect a Yoshi's Island KO-a-thon anytime soon.
9. Stage Specific Content
One of my favorite things to do in previous Super Smash Brothers games was have Fox's teammates talk to him on the Corneria stage in Melee or go through all of Snake's Codec conversations on Shadow Moses in Brawl. Nintendo isn't slacking off on the extra stage content for Super Smash Brothers for Wii U.
First up, the special character conversations make a big return. This time around you can use Pit on the Palutena's Temple stage to trigger conversations with Palutena, Viridi, or both. There are also new conversations for the Star Fox characters on the Orbital Gate level.
One of the coolest pieces of stage content is on the Pyrosphere stage and the introduction of recurring Metroid villain Ridley. He'll fly around and do his best to get a few potshots in during the match, but that's not all he does. If you attack him enough, he may join your side and fight for you. That's right, you can have a boss character help you fight your battle.
Ridley can also transform into Meta Ridley during the fight, making him even tougher. If you're able to KO him, however, you get a point just as you would KOing a regular fighter. I can see a few matches being decided with a timely KO of Ridley.
8. Returning Smash Modes
There are a number of Smash Modes returning to the Wii U version that were lacking on the 3DS. Along with regular Smash and Team Smash, you can now play in the classic Coin Matches where you collect coins by beating them out of your opponent. Also returning are Stamina Matches, which play out like a traditional fighting game where you must deplete your opponent's HP to 0.
The biggest returning mode, however, is Special Smash. This mode allows you to customize your matches to add crazy stipulations, like making everyone metal, have them spit fire, and get their life sapped by a flower all at the same time. Special Smash results don't count towards your overall totals, so you don't have to worry about giant mushroom matches messing up your Win-Loss ratio.
7. Classic and All-Star Modes
The Classic mode in Super Smash Brothers for Wii U is an entirely different beast than its 3DS brethren. instead of simply choosing paths to determine how hard the next fight is going to be, the Wii U version will decide that for you based on your skill. If you're destroying challengers as Little Mac, you'll get harder fights. If you're barely pulling through with Rosalina, however, you'll get easier matchups.
You'll also get challengers and rivals appearing during your time in Classic mode who will give you items once defeated. You can also now play co-op with another player if you so choose.
All-Star mode, however, is largely the same. The main difference is that the order of fighters are reversed from the 3DS version, meaning you'll be fighting fighters with origins in more recent games before you go up against those with NES roots. This mode also supports co-op as well.
6. Smash Tour
While Smash Run will remain exclusive to the 3DS version, Smash Tour will take its place in Super Smash Brothers for Wii U. The mode plays a lot like Mario Party, forcing players to take turns walking around the board grabbing powerups and new fighters. If two players land on the same space, all players will play in a quick Smash battle using the characters they've acquired. The player who wins gets to steal a fighter from the losing players and add them to their lineup.
Why is collecting fighters so important? It's because when the board game portion is over, the final Smash match will begin. The final match is always a stock match where the number of stocks you have is the number of fighters you've collected. That means the player who collected seven fighters will have a huge advantage over the player who only collected three.
Like in Mario Party, the board will also have random events occur, like Bullet Bill showing up to wreck somebody's day. I predict a few friendships may end during this mode.
5. Special Orders Mode
A mode entirely unique to Super Smash Brothers for Wii U, the Special Orders mode is divided between Master Orders and Crazy Orders.
Master Orders is a mode where Master Hand presents you with three tickets representing different challenges. Using your acquired gold, you can "buy" a ticket and attempt to complete its challenge. Success will net you an item based on how difficult the challenge was (harder challenges cost more gold). Failure means that ticket is gone for good. No retries allowed.
Crazy Orders plays a bit differently. You spend gold or use a pass (the presentation didn't go into details about how to get a pass) to enter the mode. You can do as many challenges as you want with each challenge being harder than the last.
The catch is that you have a 10-minute timer counting down. Once you think you've had enough, you can choose to fight Crazy Hand. Beating him means you keep all the prizes you collected during the mode. Failure to beat Crazy Hand or letting the timer run out will result in you getting nothing. It's an all-or-nothing mode and has better rewards because of it.
4. Controller Options
The official options for controllers are as follows:
- Wii Plus Remote
- Wii Plus Remote w/Nunchuck
- Wii U Gamepad
- Classic Controller
- Classic Controller Pro
- Wii U Pro Controller
- Nintendo Gamecube Controller
- Nintendo 3DS
Each controller allows for button customizations.
Wii U owners might be wondering how Nintendo plans to let you use a Gamecube controller in a system with no GC controller inputs. The answer lies in the Wii U GameCube Adapter. Nintendo is also releasing a Smash Brothers Edition GameCube Controller, which is basically a GC controller that can plug into the Wii U's USB slots. I'll be interested to see what kind of cable length those controllers have and if they have any kind of input lag.
3. Amiibo Functionality
Amiibos were introduced during Nintendo's E3 Nintendo Direct. The idea is that they contain a chip that, when scanned using the NFC interface, transmits data between the figure and the game. Think how Skylanders or Disney Infinity figures work and you've got the basic idea.
In Super Smash Brothers for Wii U, Amiibos can be scanned in to be used as a "Figure Player". They start out really weak, but they can level up by fighting in battles or "feeding" them equipment you don't need. They also seem to be tougher when they're used on different consoles and will bring back things like equipment and trophies when they come back to their home console.
There will only be a few available at launch, but more Amiibos will become available overtime. Personally, I just want to collect them because the figures look awesome.
2. Wii U Gamepad Paint and Voice Chat
We went over controller options earlier, but the things you can do with the Wii U Gamepad deserves its own section.
First of all, you can use the Wii U Gamepad's touch screen to draw on any screenshot you take in the game. After a future update, you'll be able to share your altered screenshots online.
While the painting option is neat, the far cooler option is being able to use it in the game's stage builder. You can actually draw freeform platforms and hazards using five different themes. As someone who loves making their own stages, this is going to be one of my favorite and most abused features of the new Smash Brothers game.
The game also takes advantage of the Wii U's microphone, allowing you to talk with other players before and after matches. Microphones are disabled during matchups to prevent latency issues.
1. Mewtwo Is Back!
Probably the most requested character in Super Smash Brothers history, Mewtwo makes his long awaited return as free DLC...sort of (more on that in a second).
Mewtwo was last seen in Super Smash Brothers Melee and was a fast favorite thanks to his psychic attacks and being genuinely intimidating. After dud Pokemon like Pichu took Mewtwo's place, people have been clamoring for his return ever since.
The presentation noted that Mewtwo was still in development and wouldn't be available until Spring 2015. He is being advertised as Free DLC, but you have to own both the 3DS and Wii U versions of Super Smash Brothers in order to get him. If you weren't already planning on getting both versions, that would make Mewtwo one of the most expensive DLC characters of all time.
Super Smash Brothers for Wii U is slated for a November 21st release.
Published: Oct 23, 2014 04:15 pm