A concept like Super Smash Bros. caught me completely off guard in the middle of my teens. You're telling me that Nintendo, the company that by this point among fans has been considered the "kiddie game company" amassed some of their more popular personalities together and had them beat the ever-living shit out of each other? Get outta here! But a strong, memorable advertising campaign and creative game design cemented Smash Bros. into one of Nintendo's biggest hits that isn't Pokemon that has left a lasting global impact on not just Nintendo, but gaming itself decades later.

Going back to its humble beginnings, the first Super Smash Bros. began development in 1998 by HAL Laboratories with creator Masahiro Sakurai at the helm of the project. He had always wanted to create a fighting game, but in a field that was already top-heavy by this point and the limitations of the Nintendo 64 missing out on the key tournament fighting franchises such as Dead or Alive, Tekken, and Soul Calibur, he felt the idea of putting Nintendo characters in an arena and brawling it out would get shot down. The original pitch was titled "Dragon King", and the same concept was present; up to 4 fighters wailing on each other in a "King of the Mountain" format. With Satoru Iwata jumping on board, Smash Bros. was a go. 

In the last decade, it's become a topic of irritation to not label Super Smash Bros. a fighting game. I am on record for not holding it in very high regard with its legitimacy as a true fighter (mostly to indirectly troll people who annoy me when I was establishing myself on the internet), but that doesn't mean it isn't good at what it does. Unlike traditional tournament fighters, Smash's roster of combatants don't unique inputs commonly ubiquitous with the genre (quarter-circle, Dragon Punch, charge attacks, etc.), yet each character has a skill set and series of attacks.

Talk about your humble beginnings, OG Smash Bros. started with 12 playable characters (including the 4 unlockables), the "who's who" of Nintendo intellectual properties around this time; Mario, Link, Luigi, Samus Aran, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Fox McCloud, Kirby, Ness, and Jigglypuff. A fairly decent-sized roster for a game in 1999, I'd say. Pokemon was well on the way to dominating the planet, and Fire Emblem was dormant to western audiences, so no Marth and the plethora of sword fighters were introduced to piss off people with roster wish lists 18 years later. 

As far as control, going back to original Smash didn't feel all too different to me. Granted, I am not a regular Smash player, so I'm certain the nuances of each game can be pointed out to me, but beyond some slowness and some set-ups, I feel like very little has changed. The standard attacks, the directional arrows + B affecting which special is unleashed. Smash's meta is utilizing the Smash attacks to increase the percentage of sending your opponent flying out of the ring. 

It's easy enough to understand on a casual level, making the game quite approachable. If there's one thing I never cared about are the weapons that appear. Sure, it's a part of the game, and maybe it's the purist in me, but there ends up being too much shit going on during a match, then suddenly Ness picks up a Super Scope 6 and I'm having lasers fired at me, while Donkey Kong is winding up, ready to flatten me in the dirt. It ends up feeling like a mess, but I suppose that's the idea. It's the video game equivalent of the backyard wrestling federation my brothers and cousins made up when we were 10. I personally prefer to turn the weapons off, but having the option to turn on more of the chaos can satiate the appetite for other players. 

The level designs pulled from each character's respective universe are well designed, and the bright color palette certainly pops on the Nintendo 64. Just the madness alone may turn some heads. While I could pick on the blockiness, Super Smash Bros runs at a smooth 60fps. With zero slowdown and barely any distracting graphical clipping, this game makes the best of the N64's hardware. 

Retrospectively, it doesn't take much to see that this was destined to be a blockbuster for Nintendo. I got some fun out of Super Smash Bros., and the first one is a little bit rocky to revisit, but I feel like it's aged well enough. Don't let the insane Melee bros dissuade you; regular Smash can be a decent visit to scope some archives, even if it's for historical purposes.