Punching people never felt so good. Welcome back to Gamerscore, the bi-monthly blog that discusses games of all kinds, which brings me to our first topic. Not long ago, our fearless leaders at Nintendo spat out another beautiful title to help extend their dwindling life. This game is known as Super Smash Bros. (Seriously, what is up with game series these days? You can’t just name it the same thing you did at the beginning. Tomb Raider? That’s the best you could come up with?) Since it may be confused with the first title in the series, I will refer to it as Smash 4. It’ll be easier for all parties involved.

In this series, you play as different characters from the several different Nintendo franchises available. The goal is to launch opponents off of the stage to eliminate them. Have you ever felt the need to beat up Link as Donkey Kong? In Super Smash Bros, you can! Have you ever wanted to see Bowser beat Mario in a fight? Easy! Maybe you’re feeling like being your own hero. How about beating up Bowser as Princess Peach? In Smash Bros, these things are all possible! Smash Bros is a strange place, where all of the strongest Nintendo characters come to compete in several fighting arenas (All from Nintendo games, as you might expect). But wait, there’s more! In Super Smash Bros Brawl, there are a few third party characters. Now you can use Solid Snake from Metal Gear to fight. Maybe you feel like playing a speedy (and very annoying) character? Sonic might just be your guy!

Smash 4 brings many new things, as well as old, to the table. As everyone expected, there are many new fighters brought into the fight. There are several, but I will list the most notable. As requested by the masses, Little Mac from Punch-Out makes an appearance. He’s a very speedy and hard-hitting character, but to compensate for this power, he lacks in recovery. If you get knocked too far away from the stage, there isn’t a way to get back. The generation six Pokemon, Greninja made his way into the fight. He is very agile, as you would expect a frog to be. He has many moves to cause illusions, such as a counter. He also has a move known as Shadow Sneak, where his shadow moves, and he does not. When your shadow is under the opponent, you attack them from out of the air. Very hard to predict, unless you see the shadow move.

If you feel like playing as some characters that literally nobody asked for, how about the Wii Fit Trainer? Maybe the Duck Hunt Dog? (Seriously Nintendo, we would rather have the Ice Climbers than these garbage ideas. Nobody wanted this.) The WIi Fit Trainer uses exercise to attack. You might do an overhead serve of a volleyball to hit a fighter in the face. You could do some deep breathing exercises to restore your health, and do more damage. The Duck Hunt Dog uses several different attacks, all involving the reticle of an unseen gunman. You can throw a tin can, which is secretly filled with explosives. The unseen gunman shoots this can to move it along the screen. You could throw a clay pigeon which would be shot by this gunman to deal damage. Overall, an annoying character to deal with.

But now it’s time to deal with the meat of the game. Smash 4 adds different game modes, like classic mode. In this mode, you pick between some paths, and fight who is at the end of each one. The blue path is the easiest, so it gives you less rewards than the other paths. The green path is medium difficulty, so it gives you decent rewards. The red path is the real deal, which gives you good rewards, but you can expect a challenge at the end. After eight challenges, you are met with a boss that is seen in many other Smash Bros games, Master Hand. Or, if you are in one of the harder difficulties, you could take the black path. This path leads to Master Hand and his brother, Crazy Hand. After you defeat one of them (you fight both at the same time) one starts to freak out. The camera shifts to the middle of the screen. The remaining hand will start to do motions that are not possible for regular human hand to do. Black smoke (known as The Swarm) erupts from this monstrosity, and when it clears, you see something worse than disembodied floating hands. You see a monster made entirely of smoke, named Master Core. Master Core is an entirely different beast altogether. He has four forms. The first is the final boss from Brawl, Tabuu. After Tabuu is defeated, he turns into stage two, called the Chimera. After that, Master Core morphs into five giant black swords. After they are defeated, on comes the final form. Yourself. A larger, black version of yourself comes out, ready to fight. It shrinks as you fight, making it weaker. After defeating this stage, you finally reach the end. All that is left is a single, multicolored ball. Just beat the snot out of it, and win. Oh, did I mention you have to beat all of the stages of this boss in five minutes?

Next up is Smash Run, a mode that is rather underwhelming. You run around a labyrinth collecting stat boosts for your character. You have to defeat enemies and open chests for these boosts. After you spend five minutes in the labyrinth, the time is up, and you use these boosts to win a contest. If you get speed boosts, you hope for a race. If you get offensive boosts, you’ll want to be in a regular battle. If you get lots of jump boosts, you’ll probably want a climb stage. This is underwhelming because some characters just aren’t meant for this mode. You need agility to effectively get around the maze, so characters like Bowser are a no-no. You need to jump around a lot, so Little Mac and his bad vertical game are out.  And all of my games usually end the same. My stats usually don’t pertain to the tasks I get. I get loads of jump? It’s a race! I get huge attack power? It’s climb time! It’s just disappointing.

Overall, Smash 4 is a game with loads of good ideas and fun gameplay. It’ll have you sitting down for hours, playing alone or with friends. This game has lots of potential, and I think when the Wii U version comes out, it will really shine.  With it’s cast of quirky characters, it’s fun and unique style, and it’s entertainment value, you’ll be sure to get your money’s worth for this gem. Great game, but it has room to grow.

Gamerscore is a bi-monthly blog posting on the 10th and 20th of each month, written and created by Jeffrey Wilkinson, highlighting gaming through its ins, outs, triumphs, and tribulations. 

Jeffrey Wilkinson is a freshman at Shawnee Mission South, and is an active participant in Debate. 

Opinions written in blogs on smsouthnews.com only reflect the opinions of the writer of the post and is not in any way the opinion of The Patriot staff as a whole.