Super Smash Brothers - Nintendo Wii U

This game is absolutely amazing. I have never played any of the other Super Smash Brothers players. I will say that this game is VERY easy to learn. It is an absolute blast to learn about all of the different characters and their different special moves. Never having played the older games I quickly learned that this is primarily a game to play with others (either on your console or online). The single player modes are rather limited. There is not campaign mode like a lot of games have. This game is really geared towards 2 - 8 people having these big battles, which are a ton of fun. My 2 boys (7 and 10) absolutely love this game and regularly destroy me.Some of my favorite aspects of this game are1) The ability to play with 4 - 8 people all together is great. On Thanksgiving, as the adults were watching football the kids were playing this game for hours. It never got old, they would just pick new players and new arenas to battle in.2) The graphics and music is fantastic. There is no lag at all, which is amazing because the fighters are constantly in motion3) The arenas (where you battle) are VERY dynamic. What I mean by that is that most of the arenas are not just a room that you fight in. There are platforms that move, bridges that sometimes break, buildings that get destroyed, and all kinds of others gems. Very different than the old fighting games I grew up playing.4) You can take your MII players and create new characters to battle with. When you do this you select 3 powers that your fighters has and which special moves he can do. It's a lot of fun to create these new characters to see what you can come up with.The only parts of the game that I do not like are (and these are very minor, not enough to bump it down to 4 stars)1) Limited integration with the touch screen on the game pad. For example, even if you are using the game pad you still need to use the controls to select fighters instead of just touching on the fighter you want. This is probably the biggest oversight I found.2) As you are fighting it's not clear who is willing (until the fight is over). This is determined by how many times your fighter got knocked out of the arena. It's clear when this happens, but during the fight you can't see how many times each fighter got knocked out (at least I have not found a way).Overall, this game is AMAZING. Easily my boys favorite game on WII U (especially the 7 year old). The controls are very simple to use, the concept is very straight forward, and the game is just a LOT of fun.

There's nothing I can add to this review that others haven't said already. I was into the competitive smash scene for melee. When Brawl came out, like other competitive players, most of us were upset. A vocal majority would disagree, but they're the ones that weren't competitive players. I left a review for brawl as a game that was fun but in my opinion, I couldn't take seriously. Fast forward 6 years, I waited to play the game instead of diving head first and buying the console like I did for Brawl. From a melee point of view, it lacks a lot of the crazy stuff you see that keeps the playing real fast.Pros:- Fast paced compared to brawl, really fast paced- Variety of characters that bring unique play styles- Tripping was removed from Brawl- Heavyweight characters get an edge with super armor attacks making attacks in the past that were impossible actually possible, Ganon's warlock punch for example- Custom moveset for characters. This was the selling point for me, and my golly is it awesome. Don't like the way a move functions, switch it out with something more along your play style- Large selection of stages, and some actual unique ones as well- Not to be a fanboy, but pacman and megaman- I feel the game is actually really balanced this time around- This game is actually playable online. I've had little to no problems playing online with people from places all overCons:- The game has a similar gamecube controller issues where the input is taken by direction instead of precision. Running and trying to quickly use a smash with the c stick or a jump attack with the c stick will be read by the game as you tackling or jumping in mid air using a neutral attack. I can't confirm this with any other controllers however.- Needs some fairly high damages to kill- Playing with items is actually not as fun. Playing with items on high does not make the spawning of items crazy. In melee, having items on high had items appearing every 5 seconds. Items on high in this game pretty much means an item every 20 seconds or so. Playing coin matches with pokeballs and explosives on high didn't yield the excitement I was hoping for.- For a game that encouraged knocking your opponent or keeping your opponent off the stage, they made it really easy for anyone to recover, and I mean easy.Other thoughts: If you like to play for fun, get it. Its a real blast with friends and awesome smash modes. If you like to play competitive, give the game a chance. It isn't as speedy as melee, but it also isn't melee. If you find and play at tournaments in the areas you live, encourage tournament organizers to allow custom moveset for characters and allow more stages to be selected. This isn't melee and the tournaments are already being run as if it is. Again, I can't add more to what other reviewers said, but this is my insight as a competitive smash player