Super Smash Bros. out summer for 3DS, winter for Wii U

A 40 minute long Nintendo Direct has revealed a ton of new features, including new playable characters Charizard and Greninja.

Despite all the revelations about Super Smash Bros., including what a deep voice director Masahiro Sakurai has, the only one that’s not going to make fans happy is the most important: when it’s released.

Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS (it’s official name, as awkward as it sounds) will be out sometime this summer but Super Smash Bros. For Wii U is only ‘targeting’ winter 2014.

By default that makes it Nintendo’s big game for Christmas 2014, with the only other exclusives likely to be released around that time being Bayonetta 2, Monolith Soft’s X, and Hyrule Warriors. Nintendo will no doubt reveal new games at E3 in June, including a first look at Zelda Wii U, but it’d be very unusual if any of them turned out to be scheduled for this year.

But at least Super Smash Bros. does look worth the wait, with a mountain of content and some impressive technical features. Even the 3DS version will run at 60 frames per second, dropping down to 30 only for assists and pokémon.

Despite the difference in release dates the content between the two versions is broadly the same, but there are some important differences. Each game will feature the same characters and franchises, but the stages will be different. So for example on the 3DS one of the stages is based on portable game Zelda: Spirit Tracks while the Wii U has stages based on Wii game Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Super Smash Bros. For Wii U – Zero Suit Samus goes it alone

Both games will have online multiplayer, against both strangers and registered friends. When playing strangers you can choose to do so in For Fun mode, which has all items and picks a stage randomly, or For Glory where it’s always the flat Final Destination stage and there are no items. (Although each normal stage has it’s own Final Destination form, so although the layout is always the same the backgrounds do change.)

For Glory mode is also the only mode to record all your loses and wins when you’re playing against strangers, so is clearly meant for pros. When you’re playing against friends though you can customise anything you like, including stages, items, and other more involved options. There was also a hint about custom moves between friends, but the details of that won’t be revealed until later.

On top of this the 3DS will have its own exclusive multiplayer mode called Smash Run, a mix of combat, platforming, and role-playing elements where you beat up computer-controlled enemies (culled from a wide range of different Nintendo games) to collect power-ups to improve your stats.

Each match only lasts for five minutes but it can be played with up to four players, who once the time is up then have to fight it out to choose a winner. No equivalent was mentioned for the Wii U but we suspect it will have its own exclusive modes.

Super Smash Bros. For Wii U – Greninja and Charizard in action

Sakurai never actually confirmed that but he did say that there would be ways to link-up the 3DS and Wii U versions, although these will also only be revealed at a later date. There was also a strong hint that Ridley from Metroid would be a boss character, although the only one that was shown was ‘Yellow Devil’ on the Mega Man stage.

In terms of new characters there were two brand brand new announcements in pokémon Charizard and Greninja. The dragon-like Charizard is a classic starter pokémon and although he was part of the trio of playable pokémon in Super Smash Bros. Brawl this time he fights on his own. Greninja is less established, as he was only introduced in Pokémon X/Y as the final evolution of Froakie.

Other returning characters shown for the first time include Zero Suit Samus, Sheik, and Yoshi. The first two were originally alternate modes for Samus Aran and Princess Zelda, respectively, but it’s no longer possible to transform during a match so, much like Charizard, they’ve become their own separate characters.

There was plenty of footage in the video of the changes and additions made to returning fighters, as well as the moves for previously announced new characters such as Little Mac from Punch-Out!! and Rosalina & Luma from Super Mario Galaxy.