Super Smash Bros Wii U review: Sheer unapologetic mayhem

Jigglypuff has no business wielding a hammer at Hyrule Castle but I love it

(Nintendo)

With nostalgia for 90s/early 2000s games at a peak and a palpable wistfulness for the 'all sat in a room together shouting at the screen' style of multiplayer, this month was the perfect time for Super Smash Bros to make its return.

Whether it was 64, Melee or Brawl that you mastered, the series probably hoovered up all your free time at one point in your life. For me it was the 64, hammered away on during free periods (and a few lessons I should have been in) during school, but more than a decade later can a style of gameplay that has since been largely ditched for more complex and nuanced styles still have me playing until the controller batteries give in?

Absolutely.

Nintendo has thrown everything at Super Smash Bros Wii U – every character under the Sun (some non-Nintendo ones, slightly annoyingly), all manner of absurd and often utterly confounding weapons, a dizzying array of dizzying levels and a gleeful disregard for the laws of physics (did I just kick Donkey Kong into Space using a football? Yes I did).

(Nintendo)

It's a self-gifting love letter to Nintendo, pulling in characters from other franchises that have no business on a fighting stage and just seeing what happens. It's kind of like that 'who would win in a fight, Batman or Superman?' debate you would have as a kid, but with seemingly endless pairings of opponents.

If there's a downside to the variety in Super Smash Bros Wii U it's that there's such an abundance of characters that you end up being strong with a few of them but master of none, unlike when there were was just a handful of fighters and you had one completely nailed. This will give the online longevity though, and it should take the forums a pretty long time to decide definitively on the strongest character.

Like the equally excellent Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros is just bloody good fun. While this type of game is never going to be an odyssey in one-player mode it is riotous in multiplayer, making you want to throw down the headset, buy a bunch of Doritos and invite your best friends over.

Also, Smash Bros aficionados will be pleased to find 'Pikachu down+B' is still a thing.