Super Smash Bros. Melee

Super Smash Bros. Melee (also known by the acronym SSBM) is a fighting game for the Nintendo GameCube. It is the sequel to Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 and the predecessor to Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii. Super Smash Bros. Melee is the best selling game for the GameCube.

Super Smash Bros. Melee is a fighting game where various characters from Nintendo's popular franchises battle on different courses, also taken from Nintendo franchises. The game has a huge focus on multiplayer mode, but also has some single-player modes.

Game Play
Players can use their attacks to damage other players. This causes damage, measured in percent. The higher the percentage is, the faster the player is knocked out. The damage can exceed 100%, but its maximum is 999%.

General Actions


Players move around on the linear, side-view stages using the GameCube Controller's control stick, and can jump by pulling the control stick up or pressing the X or Y button. It is possible to jump again in the air a single time. Some characters also have the ability to multi-jump in the air. By moving the control stick down, the player can crouch or move a layer down on the stage.

A basic attack is performed with the A button. When moving the control stick into a direction, the player can attack upwards and downwards or to either side. Some characters have a special ability, which allows them to perform multiple attacks on after the other when the A button is pressed repeatedly. When the hit of the A button and the movement of the control stick are timed right, the player can perform a Smash Attack. These are very powerful, chargable attacks which cause a lot of damage. Each character's attack works a little bit different, and the Smash Attacks upwards and downwards are special, too.

Character Special Moves
Each character has his/her own set of special moves, which are performed with the B button. When moving the control stick in a certain direction, or not moving it at all, a different special move is performed. Most character's Up+B move involves jumping, which makes it possible to perform a third jump in the air to prevent the character from falling down. In comparison to Super Smash Bros., a sideways special move was added.

Usage of Items
Randomly, items appear on the stage and can be used by the players. When the character is standing next to an item, the player can use the A button to pick the item up. Some items have effects that are activated when the item is picked up. These effects involve reducing the character's damage percentage. Other items can be used as weapons. When holding it in the hand, a weapon can be used with the A button. With the Z button, or L or R in combination with A, the weapon can the thrown away. This thrown item can also hurt other characters when it hits them.

Shielding
When pressing the L or R triggers, the character's shield is activated. The shield is a bubble (except for Yoshi, where it is a Yoshi Egg) which protects the character from any attacks. The shield's power is decreasing every time it is used, and when the shield breaks, the character is unable to move for a short period of time. Light characters may even be knocked out by the shield break.

The character can also to do roll to the side to protect him/her when moving the control stick while pressing L or R.

Grabbing and Throwing
When holding no item and standing next to another character, the player can press Z, or L and R in combination with A, to grab the other character. The player can now attack the grabbed character, which is unable to respond, using the Z or A button, and can also throw the other character in any direction or smash him on the ground. While being thrown, the character can hit and hurt other characters as well. The higher his percentage of damage is, the faster he flies off the screen.

Other Actions
In Single-Player Mode, the player can use the C-Stick to zoom the camera in or out. In VS Mode, the player can move the C-Stick in any direction. The player's character then performs an uncharged Smash Attack in the given direction. When pressing Up on the D-Pad, the player's character performs the Taunt move.

Rules Settings
There are four standard fighting modes in Super Smash Bros. Melee. When there is a tie between two or more players in any of these modes, there will be a Sudden Death. It is a quick stock battle, where each of the players who are tied will fight. All start with 300% damage. The winner of the Sudden Death wins the match.

Time
Players gain points by knocking out other players, and lose points by going knocked out. When the time limit has run out, the player with the most points wins. It can be set by the player whether self-destructs cause players to lose 0, 1 or 2 points. A special function displaying the players' points during battle can also be unlocked.

Stock
Players have a set number of lives. They lose lives when getting knocked out. The last player standing wins. Optionally, a time limit can be specified. When the time has run out, the player with the most lives wins.

Coin
Players have to collect Smash Coins. Coins appear by hitting an opponent. 999 coins is the most a player can get in the Coin Battle. When a player gets knocked out, he will lose half of his coins. When the time limit has run out, the player with the most coins wins.

Bonus
Players get points for their fighting style. There are 249 different kinds of bonus points. Bonus points can be simply for knock outs, for jumping a lot, for looking in the same direction all the time, for getting a rare Pokémon out of a Pokéball, etc. They often have humorous names. When the time limit has run out, the player with the most points wins.

Playable Characters
There are twenty-five playable characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Seven of them are from the Mario series.

Clone Characters
Super Smash Bros. Melee introduced a range of characters who were "clones" of other characters, meaning they have a similar move set, however look different. All of these are secret unlockable characters. Unlike "regular" unlockable characters, the clone characters' spaces on the character select screen are completely invisible as long as they are not unlocked, instead of showing a question mark.

Stages
There are 29 selectable stages in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Classic Mode
The Classic Mode is based upon the single-player mode of the game's predecessor. However, it is no longer set what opponents will be fought where. They are chosen randomly. Still, there is a set pattern for the battles. For setup, the player chooses the difficulty (very easy - easy - normal - hard - very hard) and the number of lives (1 - 5) he will have for the whole mode.

All battles are in stock mode, with the opponents having one life, and a 3 minutes time limit. The arena is one of the opponent's home arenas. There are also three bonus stages. When failing in one of them, the player does not lose a life for his upcoming battles.

The player's scores are saved after every stage. The player gets awarded points for the time remaining when a battle ends, as well as for the damage he dealt. He also gets Bonus Points, just as in the Bonus mode. In the Bonus Stages, the player gets points for how many targets he has hit, or how far he made it in Race to the Finish!. Special Bonus points are awarded in the end for hitting all targets in the Break the Targets! stage, collecting all trophies in the Collect the Trophies! stage, beating Crazy Hand, beating the mode on the Very Hard setting, or beating the mode without losing a life. The scores are saved separately for each character, and there is also a total score for all characters combined.

Adventure Mode
The Adventure Mode is a mode taking place in all world of the games featured in Super Smash Bros. Melee. It features some special side-scrolling stages only available in adventure mode. As in the Classic Mode, the player chooses the difficulty (very easy - easy - normal - hard - very hard) and the number of lives (1 - 5) he will have for the whole mode.

The player's scores are saved after every stage. The player gets awarded points for the time remaining when a battle ends, as well as for the damage he dealt. He also gets Bonus Points, just as in the Bonus mode. Special Bonus points are awarded for collecting a trophy that randomly appears in a stage, fighting Luigi, Giant Kirby, the Metal Bros. or Giga Bowser, as well as beating the mode on the Very Hard setting, or beating the mode without losing a life. The scores are saved separately for each character, and there is also a total score for all characters combined.

All-Star Mode
The All-Star mode can be unlocked by unlocking all secret characters. Unlike other modes, the player only has one life for the whole mode, and his percentage of damage is not set back after a battle. However, he can use up to three Heart Containers to restore his health. For setup, the player chooses the difficulty setting (very easy - easy - normal - hard - very hard).

In the All-Star mode, the player has to fight all 25 characters of the game. All battles are in the stock system, with each combatant having one life.

In the first four rounds, the player will fight a single opponent in their home stage. In round five to eight, he has to fight two opponents at a time, and in round nine to twelve three opponents. In the 13th round, he has to fight 30 Mr. Game & Watches in the Flat Zone, five at a time. After each battle, he returns to a stage in-between, with his remaining Heart Containers, showing which characters he has already beaten and which he will fight in the next battle. Occasionally, a trophy can be collected.

The player's scores are saved after every stage. The player gets awarded points for the time remaining when a battle ends, as well as for the damage he dealt. He also gets Bonus Points, just as in the Bonus mode. Special Bonus points are awarded for not taking any of the Heart Containers, beating the mode on the Very Hard setting, or beating the mode without losing a life. The scores are saved separately for each character, and there is also a total score for all characters combined.

Event Match
Event matches are specially designed missions. They have a certain goal to be achieved. All the player can choose is his character, though even that is pre-defined sometimes. Event matches can break the rules of a normal battle in Super Smash Bros. Melee. The following table provides a rules summary of each of the 51 event matches.

To unlock more event matches, the player has to win a certain number of the previous ones, and sometimes unlock additional characters.

Stadium
In the Stadium, special mini-games are available. Each mini-game opens the way to unlock one of the Past Stages from the original Super Smash Bros.


 * Target Test: Here the player can play the Break the Targets! test, as it appears in Classic mode, separately. There is no time limit in this mode, as compared to the one in Classic mode.
 * Home-Run Contest: The goal of the Home-Run Contest is to throw the Sandbag as far as possible. The player gets a Home-Run Bat to do this. He has a limited amout of time to damage the Sandbag before hitting it, so that it will fly farther away.
 * Multi-Man Melee: In this special mode the goal is to fight Fighting Wire Frames.
 * 10-Man Melee: The player has to fight 10 Wire Frames in the fastest time possible.
 * 100-Man Melee: The player has to fight 100 Wire Frames in the fastest time possible. When winning, he can unlock Falco.
 * 3-Minute Melee: The player has 3 minutes to kick out as many Wire Frames as possible.
 * 15-Minute Melee: The player has 15 minutes to kick out as many Wire Frames as possible. When winning, he can unlock the Past Kongo Jungle stage.
 * Endless Melee: The player has an unlimited amout of time to kick out as many Wire Frames as possible.
 * Cruel Melee: As in Endless Melee, there is an unlimited amount of time. However, the Wire Frames are a lot harder to beat and there are no items.

Training Mode
The player can practice here. There are no rules such as Stock or Time, and the opponent can be controlled either by the Training menu, and set to actions such as walking and standing, or by a human player. Items can be created to practice with them specially.

Melee
Up to four players can join the fight, either human or CPU-controlled players. It is possible to only let CPU players fight against each other. Players chose their characters from the selection screen and human players can set names for their characters to be displayed above the characters' heads during battle, and also recognizing the battle for their individual Melee Records rating. It should be noted that multiple players can choose the same character to play as, and the characters then come in alternate outfits for each player. When the same characters are on a team, they appear in different shadings.

The CPU levels range from 1 to 9, with 9 being the most advanced AI. An optional handicap mode also ranges from 1 to 9. The handicap determines how fast a character is knocked out. The average handicap is 5. The higher the handicap, the harder the character flies of the screen, the lower, the easier. When set to Auto mode, the handicap decreases after the match's end for the match's winner and increases for the loser.

In the optional team battle mode, players can set up to three teams. The characters in the team work together and win or lose the match together. In Coin, Bonus and Time mode, the points of each team are added and compared. In Stock mode, after a player of the team has been defeated, he or she can press Start to rejoin the battle, but taking away a life from one of their teammates. Optionally, the Friendly Fire option can be set, which makes it possible for teammates to accidently hurt each other with their attacks.

The battle mode can be set to Time, Stock, Coin and Bonus. For Time, Coin and Bonus, the time limit can be set, and is 2 minutes by default. The default Stock level is 3. Optionally, a time limit can be set for the Stock mode, too. After it has run out, the player with the most lives remaining wins. For the Time mode, it can be determined how many points a player loses when doing a self-destruct. It can either be 1 (default), 2 or 0 points.

A special score display can be unlocked by reaching a total of 5000 KOs in VS mode. It displays the players' current score in Time Mode during the battle, which they would only know after the battle's end otherwise. Another optional setting is the Damage ratio, ranging from 0.5 to 2, default being 1. The higher it is, the faster do all players fly from the screen when hit. Lastly, it can be decided whether players are allowed to pause the battle by hitting Start. Turning this off also prevents players from resetting the battle while it is paused by pressing L+R+A+Start.

On the item switch, the player can turn off specific items, change the chance of items appearing, or turn off items entirely. It can also be set which player is to select a stage for the next battle. By default, everyone can move the cursor and select a stage. It is also possible to allow only the loser of the last match to select, or to let the players select stages in turns, or to make the stage selected by the computer, either in a set order, or completely at random. When the player has unlocked all stages except for the Past Stages, he can alter the random stage selection to exclude certain stages from the random routine.

After all preferences have been set, the players get onto the stage selection screen, which once again allows players to choose a random stage to play on. When all competing human players hold L+R when a stage is selected, the stage's alternate music track will play during battle, if it is available. When a player is playing as Zelda and holding A after a stage has been selected, he or she will start the battle as Sheik.

Tournament Mode
Tournament: In this mode, played as a single-elimination tournament, the winner of a battle passes on to the next round CPU-only matches can be skipped. The number of combatants per battle ranges from 2 to 4. The number of entrants is selected and can be up to 64. It is selected how many humans are among the competing players. The stage selection mode is selected; "Single Random" chooses a stage at random on that every match of the tournament is played, "Always Different" chooses a new random stage for each battle, "Choose First" lets the player select the stage for the tournament in the beginning and "Choose All" lets the player choose a new stage for each match of the tournament. The level of additional computer opponents can be set from 1 to 9, applied to all, or to a random value applied to each CPU player. The rules settings for the battles have the same choices as the VS mode. Each player chooses their character and the tournament begins.

Winner out/Loser out: This mode is for human players only. A number of players fight against each other. The winner or the loser of the match, depending on the setting, gives his controller to the next player waiting for his turn to come. This continues endlessly, until the mode is cancelled. Players are free to change their characters while the tournament is ongoing. When they hold down L and R, their character image changes to a Ditto, the placeholder for a random character. Here, too, the number of combatants per battle ranges from 2 to 4, and the number of entrants can be up to 64. The stage selection mode has the same options as in the regular tournament.

Special Melee
This mode offers a couple of different rules settings for the Melee mode.

Trophies
Trophies can be collected in single-player mode, won in the special lottery mode, or acquired on special events, such as playing a certain number of matches in VS mode. There are 290 trophies in the game (293 in the Japanese version), with an enormous percentage being Marioverse characters, items, locations, and concept. Each of the playable characters has three trophies, and two of them explain their Super Smash Bros. Melee background. They can be collected by completing the Adventure or All-Star mode with them.

Soundtrack (Media)
Each stage has a track from the game it is from, and some stages also have alternate music tracks which are not necessarily from the game the stage is from. The alternate music is heard more rarely than the regular one. However, the player can force the game to play a stage's alternate music by holding the L and R triggers when selecting a stage on the stage selection screen.

When all stages are unlocked, the player gains access to the Sound Test, where he can play all music tracks and voices from the game, and might occasionally hear an alternate music track in the menu.

An orchestrated version of the game's soundtrack was released as a special CD known as Super Smash Bros. Melee: Smashing...Live!.

Critical Reception
Super Smash Bros. Melee received very positive reviews from most critics. The game came in sixth for two GameFAQs events: the Best...Game...Ever contest and as a poll for the 100 best games ever. Nintendo Power named Super Smash Bros. Melee the 16th best game ever to appear on a Nintendo console, and "Game of the Year" in 2001. IGN gave Super Smash Bros. Melee a rating of 9.6 out of 10, and ranked it as the 3rd best Nintendo GameCube game, out of all GameCube games released to date. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game a 9.5 out of 10, and it was ranked 92nd on the Electronic Gaming Monthly's "Top 200 Games of Their Time" list. In fact, it was ranked as the 3rd best Video Game of all time during the 2001 Penny Arcade Award Ceremony.

It was complemented for its increased amount of modes, and characters, as well as improved graphics. The inclusion of the Adventure Mode and Event Match was highly complemented. Overall, the games critical reception was very positive, and the game still continues to be a game favorite.

Trivia

 * Using an Action Replay code, it is possible to access the debug menu. There, characters such as Master Hand or Giga Bowser can be used (while using Master Hand or Crazy Hand it isn't possible to move on sidescrolling areas, to be defeated and to be P1 or P2). It is also possible to play in sidescrolling levels, the health regain area in all-star mode, and a test level.
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be released on December 3rd, 2007; the exact same date as Melee. Many game series tend to release sequels and such around the same date as the game's predecessor.