Wii U Plaza features all the latest news, rumors and speculations on everything Nintendo, including the Wii U and 3DS. Expect trailers, reviews and more on your favorite games.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS has been out for just about a week now here in North America. Playing this game has no doubt been a delight. It really has transferred over well to the portable system. One thing I really like is how they've expanded on the simple palette swap and made actual alternate costumes.
However, I believe there's a lot of room for improvement in this area. For instance, what were they thinking with Little Mac? All characters have 8 alternate skins/costumes. But Little Mac has a whopping 16 alternates. It seemed like they just tried to throw in every possible combination for him. Some characters like the Villager were great in this area. Each alternate costume for the Villager was completely unique and a good tribute to the Animal Crossing series. Then, there's other characters who have nothing but simple skin swaps, such as Donkey Kong and Bowser.
My hope is that they can fix this with some DLC. They could do a lot of great things with this. Just imagine, playing as these characters via alternate costumes after the break:
Nintendo has just uploaded the official Launch Date Trailer for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The title launches in North America on November 21st and can be preordered right here.
Twitter user @DavidTendo has posted more evidence that supports a Super Smash Bros. for Wii U release date of November 21st. The tweet's attached picture also supports evidence that Amiibo will be launching on the same day.
We're all familiar with the victory screens after winning a match on Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS. As it turns out, there are also secret personalized victory screens between certain characters after a 1-on-1 match. Big thanks to GameXplain for discovering this cool detail.
As many have already heard, Nintendo has "revealed" three "secret new" characters for Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The characters revealed were Falco from Star Fox, the beloved Ness from the Earthbound (Mother) series, and Wario.
All three characters will be unlockable in the Wii U version of the game, which is rumored for a November release. You take a look at all the new screenshots including these characters after the break.
And don't forget, I’ve created a friend code exchange page for Super Smash Bros. for 3DS. So come and share your friend code to meet new friends and brawl it out on Super Smash for 3DS! You can do that right here.
Three years ago, a group of enterprising Nintendo fans launched Project M, a mod for the 2008 Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The group’s mission statement: Brawl was a terribly flawed game that needed fixing, and through mods they could mend it.
That mission has been accomplished. Project M says version 3.0 of the mod, released today, transforms Brawl into a game worthy of the serious tournament play its predecessor Super Smash Bros. Melee still enjoys.
Nintendo released Melee on GameCube in 2001. The four-player fighting game with an all-star cast of Nintendo characters quickly developed a hardcore competitive fan following. But Nintendo thought the game was “too difficult” and changed things up for the Wii version of the series, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This might have made things easier for newbies, but it alienated hardcore players.
“Super Smash Brothers Brawl was made to appeal to newcomers somewhat at the expense of some of the series’ most dedicated fans,” says Project M senior developer Corey Archer.
But the newer game did have its appeal, since it expanded the character roster from 26 to 37, adding more fan favorite competitors like Pit from Kid Icarus, Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. Project M’s goal was to overhaul the move sets of every one of those characters and bring back characters that were not carried over from the GameCube.
Any Wii or Wii U owner with a copy of Brawl can install Project M simply by downloading the mod to an SD card and inserting it into their console, no hardware hacks or coding required. The group says about 100,000 users have downloaded and installed previous versions of the mod.
“Brawl has a memory exploit in its Stage Builder that allows us to dump an executable on the stack and run it,” says Archer. “We use this exploit to load a code handler, which loads our codebase and assembly hooks into memory when booting the game.”
From there, Project M can make Brawl use assets it created — custom stages, new character models, animations, anything. More than 100 contributors from around the world have worked on Project M over the years, with a select group of senior members forming a leadership council that has made decisions about where to take the mod.
Project M’s makers say they want their version of the game to be accessible to newcomers, but Brawlwill only have lasting appeal if it offers players an environment where they can continuously improve, constantly pushing each other to new levels of competition. This requires that every playable character in the game is more balanced against one another. Project M says accomplishing that in a game with as many characters as Super Smash Bros. is a nightmare.
Nintendo itself didn’t even come close; Archer says that in high-level Melee play, the adorable Pokemon character Jigglypuff and Star Fox‘s Fox McCloud were dominant. In Brawl, it was Metaknight from the Kirby series who could ruin any other character.
Much of the past four years has been spent addressing this issue, and Project M believes it’s finally put everyone on something of an even playing field.
The established Smash Bros. tournament scene will have to get a crack at version 3.0 to determine whether or not Project M has been fully successful at balancing the roster, and that will take time.
As big Nintendo fans, the Project M team hasn’t just used their access to the Brawl code to tweak the gameplay mechanics. They’ve had some fun, too. Sonic the Hedgehog’s homing attack now includes classic animations from the Sonic Adventure series as an homage for fans. Diddy Kong has been given a taunt move in which he pulls out juggling balls, a reference to the Donkey Kong Countrygames.
Archer says that after 3.0 there will likely be only one more major release with a few more tweaks before his team considers the project finished for good. It might add even more Nintendo characters to the mix, he says. “If we come up with any good ideas for the remaining unused character slots we will probably be filling at least a few of those up as well.”
Then maybe they can work on figuring out how to crack Nintendo’s upcoming Smash Bros. for the Wii U.
