Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Review

Sakurai's team shipped two versions of the same fighting game in one year, one of them on a handheld nobody believed could hold it, and both play remarkably well. The Wii U version is the one that mattered: eight player chaos, a stage list deep enough to argue about, and movement that sits between Melee's speed and Brawl's float in a way that finally satisfied competitive players without locking everyone else out.

Removing tripping was the single most important change anyone has made to the series. The roster crossed fifty for the first time, with Little Mac, Robin and Greninja arriving as genuinely distinct fighters rather than clones. The 3DS version is the compromise, cramped on a circle pad and short on stages, but it turned Smash into something you could play on a bus. Online was rough, matchmaking worse, and the single player content thinner than Brawl's. As a fighting game and a party game at once, this is the entry that got the balance right.