Crossover Smash Bros. Crusade

Crossover Smash Bros. Crusade is a 2005 crossover fighting video game developed by 1-Up Studio and published by Konami for the GameCube. It is the second installment in the Crossover Smash Bros. series. It also features characters from Television series such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Danny Phantom, The Fairly OddParents, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and The Powerpuff Girls. The stages and gameplay modes reference or take designs from these television series as well.

Gameplay
See also: Gameplay of the Super Smash Bros. series

Like its predecessor, Crossover Smash Bros. Crusade differs from traditional fighting games as the objective is to force their opponents beyond the boundaries of the stage.[1] Most attacks inflict damage and can, if enough damage is dealt, knock back the enemy. Each character's health is measured by a meter that represents damage as a percentage.[2] The higher the percentage value, the farther the player gets knocked back, and the easier they are to knock off the stage, which will result in the character's death and the loss of a stock, or life.[3] Unlike other games of the same genre, in which moves are entered by button-input combinations, most moves in Super Smash Bros. Melee can be accessed via one-button presses and a joystick direction.[4]

During battles, items related to Nintendo games or merchandise fall onto the game field.[5] These items have purposes ranging from inflicting damage on the opponent to restoring health to the player.[5] Additionally, most stages have a theme relating to a Nintendo franchise or a specific Nintendo game and are interactive to the player.[6] Although the stages are rendered in three dimensions, players can only move on a two-dimensional plane. Not all stages are available immediately; some stages must be "unlocked" by achieving particular requirements.[6] Some stages feature moving elements and platforms and hazards that harm players, while others lack these elements.

Single-player
Single-player mode provides the player with a variety of side-scrolling fighting challenges. The applicable modes range from "Classic Mode", which involves the player battling multiple opponents and a boss character,[7] to the "Home Run Contest", a minigame involving the player trying to launch a sandbag as far as possible with a Home Run Bat.[8] Some of these modes are personalized for the character; for example, the "Target Test" sets out a specialized area for a character in which they aim to destroy ten targets in the least amount of time they can. These areas may include references to that particular character's past and legacy.[9] The "Board the Platforms" minigame from the prequel was not included in Melee. Melee introduced "Adventure Mode", which takes the player to several predefined universes of characters in the Nintendo franchise. "All-Star Mode" is an unlockable feature that requires the player to defeat every character in the game while having only three health supplements between battles.

Multiplayer
In the multiplayer mode, up to four players or computer-controlled characters may fight in a free-for-all or on separate teams. The central processing unit (CPU) characters' artificial intelligence (AI) difficulty is ranked from one to nine in ascending order of difficulty. Individual players can also be handicapped; the higher the handicap, the stronger the player. Victory is determined in five ways, depending on the game type. The most common multiplayer modes are “Time mode”, where the player or team with the most KOs and least falls wins after a predetermined amount of time, and "Stock mode",[10] a battle in which the last player or team with lives remaining wins. This can be changed to less conventional modes like "Coin mode", which rewards the richest player as the victor. Players must collect coins created by hitting enemies and try not to lose them by falling off the stage; harder hits release higher quantities of coins.[11] Other options are available, updating from Super Smash Bros., such as determining the number and type of items that appear during the battle.[12]

Trophies
Trophies (known as "Figures" in the Japanese version) of various Nintendo characters and objects can be collected throughout the game. These trophies include figures of playable characters, accessories, and items associated with them as well as series and characters not otherwise playable in the game. The trophies range from the well-known to the obscure, and even characters or elements only released in Japan.[13] Super Smash Bros. had a similar system of plush dolls; however, it only included the 12 playable characters. One trophy is exclusive to the Japanese version of the game.[14]

Playable characters
See also: Characters in the Crossover Smash Bros. series

Super Smash Bros. Melee features 25 (26 if Zelda and Sheik are considered separate) characters,[15] 13 more than its predecessor. Fourteen are available initially, while the other 11 characters require completing specific tasks to become available. Every character featured in the game is derived from a popular Nintendo franchise.[16] All characters have a symbol that appears behind their damage meter which represents their series, such as a Triforce symbol behind Link's damage meter and a Poké Ball behind a Pokémon species. Some characters represent popular franchises, while others were less-known at the time of the release; Marth and Roy represent the Fire Emblem series, which was not released outside Japan at the time.[17] The characters' appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee led to a rise in the popularity of the series.[18] References are made throughout the game to the relationship between characters of the same universe; in one of the events from "Event mode", Mario must defeat his enemy Bowser to rescue Princess Peach.[19] Furthermore, each character has recognizable moves from their original series, such as Samus's firearms from the Metroid series and Link's arsenal of weapons.[20]

Development and release
HAL Laboratory developed Super Smash Bros. Melee, with Masahiro Sakurai as the head of production. The game was one of the first games released on the GameCube and highlighted the advancement in graphics from the Nintendo 64. The developers wanted to pay homage to the debut of the GameCube by making an opening FMV sequence that would attract people's attention to the graphics.[21] HAL worked with three separate graphic houses in Tokyo to make the opening sequence. On their official website, the developers posted screenshots and information highlighting and explaining the attention to physics and detail in the game, with references to changes from its predecessor.[22] The game was in development for 13 months, and Sakurai called his lifestyle during this period "destructive" with no holidays and short weekends.[23] Unlike the experimental first Super Smash Bros., he felt great pressure to deliver a quality sequel, claiming it was the "biggest project I had ever led up to that point". Despite the painful development cycle, Sakurai proudly called it "the sharpest game in the series... it just felt really good to play", even compared to its successor, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.[23]

On the game's official Japanese website, the developers explain reasons for making particular characters playable and explain why some characters were not available as playable characters upon release. Initially, the development team wanted to replace Ness with Lucas, the main character of Mother 3, but retained Ness in consideration of delays.[24] The game's creators later included Lucas in the game's sequel, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.[25][26] Video game developer Hideo Kojima originally requested the inclusion of Solid Snake to Sakurai, but the game was too far into development. As with Lucas, development time allowed for his inclusion in Brawl.[27] Marth and Roy were initially intended to be playable exclusively in the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee. However, they received favorable attention during the game's North American localization, leading to the decision for the developers to include them in the Western version.[28][29]

Sakurai stated that the development team had suggested characters from four other games to represent the Famicom/NES era until the developers decided that the Ice Climberswould be in the game.[30] The developers have noted characters that have very similar moves to each other on the website;[31] such characters have been referred to as "clones" in the media.[32]

Nintendo presented the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2001 as a playable demonstration.[33] The next major exposition of the game came in August 2001 at Spaceworld, when Nintendo displayed a playable demo that updated from the previous demo displayed at E3. Nintendo offered a playable tournament of the games for fans in which a GameCube and Super Smash Bros. Melee were prizes for the winner.[34] Before the game's release, the Japanese official website included weekly updates, including screenshots and character profiles.[35][36] Nintendo followed this trend with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in which there were daily updates by the game's developer, Masahiro Sakurai.[37] Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reported that Nintendo advertised the game in between showings of Pokémon 4Ever across movie theaters in Japan.[38] In January 2003, Super Smash Bros Melee became part of the Player's Choice, a marketing label used by Nintendo to promote video games that have sold more than a million copies.[39] In August 2005, Nintendo bundled the game with the GameCube for $99.99.