The Super Smash Bros. demo was released on Friday, and if you were lucky enough to be, or know, a Club Nintendo member with a coveted platinum ranking then you’ve probably already been playing the hell out of it this whole weekend. Didn’t get to download the demo? Fret not, my child, I have obtained a code and am prepared to funnel all the knowledge I’ve obtained into your filthy “non-platinum” peasant ears.
The demo features one stage, and five characters: Mario, Link, and Pikachu are here representing the old guard while Mega Man and the Villager blaze the trail for the new characters. Link is usually my go to character in the Smash Bros. games, so I chose him and went right into the battle against 3 CPU opponents.
The first thing I noticed is that the game felt much closer to Melee than to Brawl in terms of pacing. The game is faster, and feels more responsive; however, the game play was immediately familiar. Everything runs great on the 3DS XL hardware, and the controls feel tight and natural. Of course it helped that the classic characters are very similar to their earlier iterations.
But who cares about Link? With three Smash Bros. games under his belt I think it’s safe to say he’s old news. What about the new characters? The Villager was interesting, a fast, flexible character, that I can see being popular with the kind of player that likes to run around and rely on misdirection. I usually found it hard to knock opponents off of the platform with him (or her as the female version is available as a palette swap) unless I had an item in my hand. This emphasis on speed over power caused me to abandon the character after a few matches.
Mega Man on the other hand is a much more balanced character. The Blue Bomber has a good mix of speed and power, a jump attack involving Rush that will surely frustrate opponents, and my personal favorite attack, a slide that you can use to hit several enemies simultaneously. This move can even be used to knock enemies off the platform. Prepare to encounter a lot Mega Man players online.
In the classic tradition of Super Smash Bros. games, the matchmaking is awful. The demo only gives you the chance to play with strangers, but I wasn’t able to find a match, despite trying at different times of the day, and often waiting for a while for the room to fill out. It is possible this will change once the demo expands its reach to the general public on the 19th. If I am able to try the online mode, I will amend this article.
Without the ability to go online, there was not much else to report in the demo. The game pretty much played exactly as you would expect a Super Smash Bros game to play. This is great news! I was personally skeptical when the 3DS was announced as a platform, but the demo has proven to me that my fears were unfounded. This demo is limited, but it definitely did its job of getting me interested in playing the full release.
The demo will be released to the public on Friday, September 19th. I recommend you give it a look if you have a 3DS. Once you’ve done that, feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments!
Special thanks to Hector Peguero for providing us with a code for the demo.
