Super Smash brothers for WiiU: It's time to "Settle it in Smash"... again...

So last year I did Super Smash Brothers for 3DS, and I get the feeling people were wondering why I didn't review Super Smash Brothers for WiiU at the same time. Well, there are two reasons for that decision (technically three). The first being that I didn't have Super Smash Brothers for WiiU at the time, as I only just got my WiiU at the time it was launched, combined with the fact that I like to give games a bit more time then a week. The other, more important reason is because I wanted to review Project M as they had announced that a PAL version was coming. The reason that's important is because if I were to review mods, which I want to, but I want to apply a rule of "It has to be simple to install with as little hard or soft modifications as possible. If I have to disable region lock, its a no go. Recently Project M was ceasing development, and with no PAL version for 3.6, take a guess at what's become a bit of a pipe dream... so with that out of the way, let's take a follow up look at Super Smash Brothers 4, now on the Nintendo WiiU.

Very quickly, mechanics and character wise, the two versions are EXACTLY the same. Any character you play as in Smash 3DS can be played in Smash WiiU. Most DLC stages are also playable on both versions, however the WiiU version does sport new stages.

"I don't know what's going on" is what everyone says when they play 8 Player Smash

Story wise... I'm going to have to come out and start with a flaw. There is no story more, no real singleplayer mode at all in fact. While I can let it slide for Smash 64 as it was the first game in the series, both Melee and Brawl had some form of singleplayer that wasn't just unlocks. Are there singleplayer things to do? Kinda, you have the return of Classic mode, All star mode and WiiU exclusive Event matches, along with new Master Orders and Crazy orders to help you unlock trophies and costumes. But those don't really excuse a lack of genuine Singleplayer adventure. Now does it need to have something like the Subspace emissary? No, but Melee's Adventure mode would be a nice start. I'd like to do something in the game that can only be done by me playing the game, not having amiibo unlock things for me (one of the benefits of having several fully trained amiibo fighters, which I'll get to in a second)

"Remember that Loony Toons gag, where they'd plug a gun with a finger causing the gun to backfire?"

Instead of Smash Run on the 3DS, the WiiU has a Mario Party esque board game called Smash tour, which is one of the weakest points of the game. Mainly because, no matter how many times I play it, I have no idea how to play it. You go around the board collecting random fighters with random stat buffs and costumes, the more fighter you have at the final round, the more chances you have at winning. The problem is winning though, as there have been times where I've won the final battle, only to come in second or third. I played Smash tour for the things I had to unlock, and then never played it again until collecting my notes for this review.

"Praise be to the goddesses... wait..."

Speaking of unlocks... there isn't a lot to unlock. I got all the characters in the vanilla game unlocked in a day, Christmas day in fact so I wasn't on the TV a lot. Stages I had a few days later as I took a break from the game and trophies... I'm still working on, but at least I have most of them in the 3DS version. I don't really play a lot of the game currently mainly because I've got other singleplayer games to play. When I do pull it out, its mostly for multiplayer or amiibos. In Smash 4, Nintendo's Amiibo figures can be trained as fighters, provided they are characters in the game, you can't have Gannondorf fight an Inkling (yet... maybe?) but you can have Gannondorf fight a Yarn Yoshi as Yoshi is in the game (this one is a "in theory", mainly because I have a fully trained Gold Mario and currently not a Yarn yoshi). Amiibo's level up like Pokemon, can get rewards for you like moves, costumes and precious gold coins, and they can also be fed equipment to become even more overpowered. One easy trick to get prizes is to have 8 amiibo and send them into 8 Player Smash (which is exactly what it sounds like, and it's absolute chaos) and have them fight for about an hour before coming back to see what they got. It's lazy, but it works.

This is no excuse for a lack of singleplayer. I'd have taken a WiiU version of Smash Run over this

This is mostly a follow up review, so a lot of shared things from the 3DS version can be said about the WiiU version, including the characters, which I do have all the DLC at time of writing (7/12/2015 AEDT), Music collection is gigantic and brilliant as always, though I would have selected some different songs for the Club Nintendo Super Smash Brother 4 CDs (Such as the version of Ashley's Song, I like the English version more) that you get for registering both versions of the game, which I did. However one of the biggest problems I have with Smash 4 is the DLC, and how they're handling it. The amount of DLC is fine, but the price is very questionable, especially if you're like me and buying the DLC for both versions of the game. I'd have prefered it to be "Buy the WiiU version (which would be a bit more expensive) and if you have the 3DS version registered, have the 3DS version DLC for free". But that's a personal thing. If you're a Smash fan, then you probably already have this game. If you want to get the game, get either the 3DS version or the WiiU version. Unless you are a dedicated Smash bros fan, then there's no real reason to have both versions of the game. I have one last game to review this year, so up next, we're going to Beijing for an Olympic set of mini games... this is going to be fun...