Smash Bros. for PC? Intense!

One thing I’ve been doing more often on ZeldaBlog is pointing out various interesting projects made by members of the greater Zelda community (or at least people online who love Zelda enough to do something cool with it). Even though the Internet has made communication so much quicker, the Internet is a huge place, and it would take forever for one person to search every nook and cranny to find every last cool thing somehow related to Zelda. So when I find something that simply blows my mind, I feel the need to share it all with you, you know, just in case you haven’t heard about it yet.I found today’s cool thing thanks to the zelda_lovers LiveJournal community.Today’s cool thing: Super Smash Bros. on your PC.The game is Super Smash Flash, and you can find it over on NewGrounds or, even better, at the developer’s site McLeod Gaming. Wonder of wonders, if you have Adobe Flash 8 on your computer, get ready for a melee like you’ve never seen. (Or rather, you’ve already seen it, just on the N64 and the ‘Cube.)This fangame is not just some senseless port of either of the two versions. In fact, I would dare say that it’s the creator’s fantasy of what SSB:B would be (but won’t be, due to a few missing characters) or what SSB:M should have been (but wasn’t, for much the same reason). The classics are all there: Mario, Luigi, Kirby, Link, Zelda, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Samus, Fox McCloud, and Captain Falcon… but unlike the previous versions of Smash Brothers, this one dips heavily into other game series, other game consoles… and (don’t groan, please) animé series. Just to name a few, you’ve got Sonic from the Sonic series, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, and Inuyasha from his TV program.(All the characters. Batteries and some unlocking required.)Most of the familiar characters from SSB and SSB:M have their familiar moves. Link has his sword and boomerang, Mario has his fireballs and spin attack, and Zelda has her wonderful kick and her conversion to Sheik. But this is a Flash game, not a commercial product; the controls have had to be simplified (since there’s no analog stick on your keyboard with which you can smash attack). As such, you’ve got a jump button and an attack button, giving you five major attacks: Attack, Up+Attack, Down+Attack (aerial), Down+Attack (ground), and Left/Right+Attack. (Some lucky characters actually are able to attack just by jumping; unfortunately, none of our Hyruleans are in that group.) So just because you can kick butt with character X doesn’t mean it’s still possible. (I think Samus and Kirby personally got the short end of the stick in this.)As far as “single player” goes, you’ve got pretty much the standard options. They’ve ported the Classic, Adventure, and All-Star Modes from SSB:M, although there are heavy changes in the levels and the characters you battle. (Master Hand is still, as always, the final boss.) You can also do the Target Test and the Multi-Man Melees, and you’ll be spending time in both to unlock all 28 characters. “Multiplayer” mode allows you to go head to head with a second player (if you have a second player who is geeky enough to play SSF with you) and/or up to three computer players at various difficulty levels. (Or you can lock four computer players in a closet and see which one comes out alive. That’s just as entertaining, really.)The most surprising part of the game is that there is some semblance of AI in the game. (How you can code that in Flash completely boggles me; I wouldn’t have believed it possible!) The computer can be pretty easy to fool, so I’m sure you’ll easily find about a thousand cheap ways to send the computer players off the screen. (Hint: Anyone with projectile weapons is extremely deadly.) At the same time, the computer can also be insanely cheap at times as some characters have a virtual immunity to flying off the screen (*cough* Fox *cough* Kirby).The game probably won’t take eons of time to get past (I unlocked everything within four hours of gameplay), but it’s still incredibly fun to at least mess around with. It’s probably not the most elegant or finished fangame out there, but it is one of the very few that have drawn me into playing it beyond the first 15 minutes.So play, smash, and be merry! Enjoy!