As some of you Smash Bros. fans may (or may not) know, today marks the 10th anniversary of the groundbreaking Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube. Damn, that game was bad-ass and had possibly the greatest intro video eveeeerrrr. /excuse the French
What was it about Melee that was so awesome? The game was made rather quickly, in just over a year in fact.

Well for starters, it was a massive improvement over the original installment in every way. Control over your character was much greater than in the original, which was helped by the improved controller design. Another improvement was the increased play speed. The original Smash Bros. had a slooooowww speed of play. I mean really, I grew a beard waiting for my attacks to fire off. Attacks were slow, jumps were often frustrating and the hitstun was annoying as hell (for those who don't know, hitstun is the time it takes for you to gain control over your character after being hit). And though Melee didn't improve on that last point (at ALL...), it was just better, much more so, overall.



Jeez, I'm tired of the word improved...
One of the new additions to Melee was the staggering amount of Trophies that could be acquired through various means, with around 290 being the total number of them. They covered Nintendo history of the well known and the obscure, they were quite fun to collect and read the accompanying text. Other neat-o features were the post-battle bonus records, which were basically points awarded to players for accomplishing something such as throwing an opponent in all four directions (which awards you the "Compass Tosser" by the way ) and the special messages, which were fun to see and actively search for.


Who else was I gonna use




All the control improvements in the world won't help if the gameplay is bad. Thankfully, Melee's is very good. There are many new actions, as well as new, nuanced tactics and skills to learn, from Wavedashing to perfect shielding. Each of these new tactics can help you master the game; I myself played the game "professionally" for a few years.
The gameplay is what truly made Super Smash Bros. Melee stand out. It had awesome four-player action, allowed nearly complete control over game settings, which when combined with a crazy assortment of Nintendo franchise spanning stages an items, the latter of which were just plain fun to mess around with at get togethers.
Melee was also well known for its numerous game modes and special play styles. It introduced a coolio Adventure Mode and crazy All-star Mode, as well as the a special series of matches known as the Event Matches, in which you took on a special series of challenges across 51 "Event" Matches. Twas good fun. :3






Melee was also a showcase of what the GameCube could accomplish graphically, which was quite good back in the day, evidenced by that awesome, CG intro. Everything was clean and smooth, and ya know, Falcon Punch was shaped like and actual Falcon this time.
As is a staple with Nintendo games, there were so many awesome tunes in Melee, due to encompassing many of Nintendo's franchises. Hell, this game had the DK Rap; Need I say more?

Seriously though, if you haven't checked this game out, your missing out on quite the experience. Like many other games, my brother and I break this out every so often and have some good, Pokeball only fun.