Great. Especially when you have friends. If you don't that's okay.

Super Smash Bros Melee, a great game indeed. If you don't own this game or a Gamecube yet, go and buy whatever you're missing. Why? Here's my top seven reasons why.

The gameplay

It never gets old. No matter how skilled you are or how much you've played it, for some reason it's always fun. Whether you're going solo to unlock new characters, stages or trophies in single player mode or challenging your friends in multiplayer mode, the gameplay always seems fresh. You battle with different combinations of foes, allies and stages every time, encountering new battle strategies or adapting your own.

Trophies

It's a huge challenge to try and collect every trophy in the game, but fun nevertheless. Each trophy depicts a character, item, stage or something/someone else from Nintendo games, including Japan only games. Some trophies are won by using coins earned in multiplayer mode in a slot machine, and of course, the more coins you use, the higher the chance you'll get a new trophy. Others are found in one player mode only and the rest by meeting certain requirements, such as having a Pikmin save file on your memory card, beating Adventure mode on normal or higher, or unlocking charachters or stages. After collecting the trophies, you can view them individually in the gallery, where you can rotate them, zoom in on them and view their individual information. Or, you can view the entire collection at once on a tabletop to show off the sheer mass of your collection.

Unlockables

There are many things to unlock in this game. Characters, trophies, stages, messages, the sound test, stage select and item select. The requirements for each is different and either improves the already great gameplay or shows a landmark in your playing. By unlocking characters, you gain more characters to play as and new foes to fight, each with their own strategies. Unlocking stages gives you a wider variety of stages to choose from and new hazards to look out for. Trophies and messages show off how big your collection is or what achievements you have accomplished. By unlocking the sound test, you can listen to your favorite stage music at any time and set it as a background music for the trophy gallery (my favorite would be the Fire Emblem theme). Stage select chooses which stages will appear when selecing random in multiplayer mode stage select, allowing you to remove less favored stages from the mix and play on your favorite battlegrounds. Item select allows you to control what items appear and whether they appear at all, letting you choose wether you want to have an item-less battle of pure skill, a super scope showdown, or a hazardous battle teeming with motion sensor bombs or bob-oms.

Characters

With 25 different characters (with a few similar to others), the full roster consisting of Mario, Luigi, Ness, Ice Climbers, Captain Falcon, Doctor Mario, Pikachu, Pichu, Mewtwo, Bowser, Peach, Jigglypuff, Link, Young Link, Zelda/Sheik, Ganondorf, Yoshi, Roy, Marth, Mr. Game & Watch, Samus, Kirby, Fox, Falco, and Donkey Kong, there's no way you can say it lacks variety. Every character has its own move set with the exception of a few. Although some characters, such as Captain Falcon and Ganondorf have virtually the same move set, the strategies based on them differ because of power, speed and range. When teamed up with other characters, they create strategies which rely on their teammate's abilities to win, such as using Jigglypuff's sing to lull them to sleep, then using Ganondorf's Warlock punch to send them flying.

Music

I find the music to be great, well orchestrated remixes of the original music (with the exceptions of the few songs that aren't remixes). Much of the music sets a tone for the stage or gets you hyped up for the battle and is, of course, reminiscent of whatever the stage is based on.

Items

Not much to say here, but items put a whole different spin on the battle. They may increase your range for A button attacks, set up traps, or bring in new items to the field. Others change your character, making them bigger and more powerful, smaller and lighter, or invisible and resistant to damage % increase. Whether you choose to use these or not is up to you, but battles are definitely more interesting with items around.

Graphics

The graphics are excellent and the framerate is smooth, making it so you aren't annoyed by how blocky Mario is or how bombs suddenly appear in Link's hands without warning. The special effects also improve the game by emphasizing the actions and reactions of the character.

If I haven't convinced you to get this game yet, then the only thing that can is for you to go out and play it yourself. Overall, this game gets a 10/10.

Review by Epsilon