Check out the pre-tournament coverage here

With the Super Smash Bros. Invitational Tournament in the rearview mirror, what can we take from the melees and brawls that we saw via the live coverage from E3?

I certainly wasn’t disappointed with the new things that I did see as they made a point to show off nearly all of the new characters without spending too much time detailing each one. It should come as no surprise that Mega Man was one of the crowd favorites, despite finishing 3rd place in the group 4 quarterfinals. Greninja and Little Mac were also crowd favorites, leaving the Rosalina/Luma combo, Villager, and Wii Fit Trainer lagging in the polls. We were also given some other breaking news, such as Pac-Man being in the game! Exciting stuff, indeed!

Audience members were pumped and overly amped as evidenced by their Mario, Luigi, and Zelda attire, to name a few. The tournament hosts brilliantly passed out large character posters for audience members to hold up when cheering for or voting for their favorite player. The arena was filled with classic tunes from the Super Smash Bros. series, yet it was apparent that these were updated tunes leaving us to believe they belong to the new Smash game.

Nerd Bacon Favorites

• One of our favorite stages was Little Mac’s stage, which is a large boxing ring inside an arena. Hovering above the ring is a rickety lighting fixture that can be attacked until it falls down, causing damage to anyone underneath. Doctor Wily’s castle is also an exceptional battle stage with its detailed castle background and other tidbits that pay to honor the Mega Man series.

• We loved seeing Mega Man just as much as the audience did, but he wasn’t the only impressive newcomer! Call me crazy, but I was blown away by the Wii Fit Trainer, largely in part by my exceptionally low expectations. She has a very lengthy 1st and 2nd jump, and has great front and back attacks, making her primed for a 4-player rumble as opposed to one-on-one. In fact, Wii Fit Trainer actually advanced to the final match, but fell short of the grand final, finishing in 4th place. Wii Fit Trainer was the only new character to make it into the final round.

• Despite Super Smash Bros. Melee’s age, gamers still view the GameCube controller as the go-to for competitive Smash battles. I love this because it proves that gimmicks are rarely as effective as simple and straightforward.

• We loved seeing fighter PPMD, a North Carolina native, win the fan favorite invitational with my personal favorite character, Fox McCloud.
• Sportsmanship was extremely respectable as the losers were shaking hands, hugging, and congratulating with great humility while the winners weren’t celebrating beyond reason.
• Bringing out Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, to give a small speech and present the trophy to the winner of the tournament. Great move Nintendo. E3 2014 was excellent for y’all!

3DS Game Mode Introduction

The Nintendo Treehouse representative introduced a game mode exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS Super Smash Bros titles Smash Run. Essentially you select a character and instantly get dropped into an enormous maze. You have 5 minutes to get your character as beefy as possible. Traverse the maze and defeat enemies to collect attributes and power-ups. You can skill up with more and more power-ups. At the end of the 5 minutes, you will face off against all of the other players that will be going through the maze at the same time via internet connectivity. Attributes affect your character in realtime. Some of the collectibles can be found in Smash Run, too.  The Treehouse emcee left a damn good cliffhanger at the end of his Smash Run expo when he said “I would explain what these new items are, but you’ll have to get it for yourself.”

Conclusion

Overall, the Super Smash Bros Invitational tournament was extremely enjoyable and thorough. Nothing is more annoying than when you see a movie trailer, go to the movies, and feel like all the best parts were in the trailer. While this tournament was lengthy, going on for roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes, and spanned across 16 different fighters, a celebrity match, and a fan favorite tournament bracket. Fans were far and away most thirsty for Mega Man and with good reason. Mega Man was really amazing and should be a great addition to the series!

There is so much to see and so much to do with this new installment. But we were only able to view the tournament from an outside perspective! We’re extremely psyched to get our hands on both versions of Super Smash Bros. Expect the Wii U to be released just in time for the 2014 holidays, and the 3DS version to see a release on October 3rd, 2014. How about it? You excited to get your hands on these? Regardless of what you or I think, Super Smash Bros. is sure bound to move some hardware.

Check out all Nerd Bacon coverage from E3 2014 right here!