01 If you ever wondered who’d come out on top in a
brawl between Metroid heroine Samus or Pokémon
singing sensation Jigglypuff, Smash Bros had your
weird fantasies covered.
02 Target Stages were brutally taxing agility tests.He might not have been the most effective
fighter – Pikachu’s electric attacks were distinctly
overpowered – but seeing a character like Ness in
battle with vastly more popular characters was a
startling moment. It was obvious Sakurai didn’t just
want to celebrate Nintendo’s best-loved heroes, but
to give its underdogs a chance to shine, too.
CLASSIC HERO
It’s no longer a big deal, but witnessing a
collection of beloved mascots at one another’s
throats was genuinely unexpected back in 1999.
Letting Mario and Luigi settle their sibling rivalry
with fists, feet and fireballs demonstrated that
Nintendo was willing and able to poke fun
at itself.
CLASSIC MOMENT
S
ensing that fighting games
were growing ever more
impenetrable to the masses,
Masahiro Sakurai set out to
create an accessible kind of brawler
which would accommodate more
than two players at once. Having
assembled a prototype with the help
of HAL colleague Satoru Iwata, Sakurai
cheekily decided to pep it up by adding a
host of Nintendo characters – without
Nintendo’s permission. With Iwata
putting in a good word on his behalf,
Sakurai finally dared to show Shigeru
Miyamoto, and eventually got the go-
ahead to develop his idea.
The decision to replace the standard
health bars of most beat-‘em-ups with
a damage meter – steadily increasing
the knockback for each hit landed – was
a stroke of genius, allowing vulnerable
players who stayed in the fight long
enough to earn surprise comeback wins
by smashing their rivals off the screen.
Compared to more recent entries the
original was limited in its scope, with
12 characters and just nine stages, yet
the novelty value of seeing Nintendo
favourites smacking each other around
was all the greater. Sakurai’s daring
gave Nintendo an unlikely hit, and
the series went on to become one of
Nintendo’s biggest.