Anniversary: Super Smash Bros. Melee Launched 20 Years Ago Today In North America

And some players haven't bathed since!

@Paraka Snaps Darn you, you made it before me.

But i'm still making a bathing pun.............Wash out? Aw forget it.

That is a spectacular opening animation, I have got to say.

I guess after the kids get home from school, we will be firing up the Wii for some smash instead of the switch for night. GameCube controllers and all.

To 20 years and thousands of hours of gaming, thanks Nintendo

I have played Smash Ultimate for too long, too many hours. Seeing as people constantly rank Melee as the best game in the series, I love to see it's aged well! Happy birthday, Melee, and thank you again, Sakurai!

One of the greatest games of all time. One of the only games Ive been playing my entire life. The community is goated too

As someone who never got to play Smash Bros 64 before despite at the time begging and begging to be get it as a gift, and then finally getting Melee, at the time it felt like the ultimate fighting game, it really was something special. And that intro cinematic is just a nostalgia overload for me.

This and Luigi's Mansion were my first two gamecube games. Good times.

Still have it... .still play it occasionally. And mr man does it still rock!

One of the most overrated games of all time.......

Let the name calling and controversy of this statement commence.

I recently got it again after not having it for 15 years and not playing it in over 10 years.

I got to say, as a Gamecube it's definitely an essential addition to any collection, but as a Smash game it's so unbalanced and broken I wonder how it got its reputation as the "best in the series".
Sorry, it really is, I still really like it, but the best in the series? Nah, I don't think so.

Now that I replayed it and without nostalgia googles, I'm convinced it was rushed a bit to make it for its Christmas release.

While I've never played Melee, I can't ignore its significance. This is the game that brought loads of rather (at the time) obscure characters to the series such as Game & Watch, Ice Climbers, Marth, and Roy.

Marth and Roy are particularly significant because their inclusion in Melee is what sparked interest in the Fire Emblem series in the West and is what caused all future games in the series to be localized. If it wasn't for that, the series likely would've been cancelled by this point and wouldn't have the significance it does today (Three Houses winning 2 Game Awards for one thing). It's crazy since they were originally considering dropping Marth and Roy from the Western release of Melee entirely. No other Nintendo franchise has had this much of a turnaround from obscurity to worldwide popularity.

Not to mention Marth and Roy were the first "true" swordfighters of Smash. (Link was more of a multi-tool character while the latter two used nothing but their sword skills.) And I imagined that Marth and Roy laid the groundwork for every other sword-based character that was added after them such as Ike, Shulk, Sephiroth, and even Sora.

So yeah, even though my first game was Brawl, I'm still happy that Melee exists. It's partially because of it that my favorite RPG (Three Houses) is even a thing.

Ahh. Great memories of playing this with buds in the college dorm when it first released.
My roommate (a foreigner) kept wanting to choose the “chicken-rat” character, a.k.a. Pikachu.

Edit; oh wait. MELEE is 20 years old?! I thought we were celebrating the original Smash. Wow now I feel even older…

Why does the Smash community prefer Melee over Ultimate? Don't really get it

The game that made me want a Game Cube. Good times.

@Clyde_Radcliffe - Depends on the group. Many professional players will excuse the removal of "wave dashing" ruined the future Smash games since, thus Melee being apparently superior for it.

Others are just nostalgic, though Melee was great for me I would still choose Brawl if it weren't for prat falls.

But Ultimate fills the sweet spot I believe was the in-between, so I got no guff with it.

Still my favourite opening FMV of any game ever.

EVER.

I still have my copy, and I still have my gamecube...

What a perfect game, that is.

The only thing I feel is missing from Smash Ultimate is Museum mode. I remember with Melee, I loved unlocking more and more entries and learning about Nintendo lore over the 20 years prior to the game's release. As others have pointed out, wouldn't take much to patch it into ultimate, just some nerds with keyboards over a few days adding text boxes to the spirits.

Irrelevant to Melee but I just unlocked Elite Smash on Ultimate and this is the first I’ve ever heard of it. Came as a total shock

Even after we got Smash Bros for the Wii U the kids in the gang would still want to fire up the Game Cube for Melee. LOL. Except when they wanted to play 9 player local.

Expand the roster all you like but this is still the best one. Plenty of secrets, lovely trophy museum and a meaty single player mode.

Ultimate wasn't so ultimate because it didn't have any museum mode (which could easily have been written and patched in over the last 3 years) nor a solid single player adventure mode.

@mandlecreed I def agree. I think this is when Masahiro Sakurai wasn't overworked with making the sequels that came after. I think when you're squeezed dry by Nintendo, the passion gets lost after Melee.

Dec 3rd 2001, was a rough day. I recall going store to store for Melee and all saying it would arrive tomorrow. No one had it on the 3rd, even though in it was it's release date. (Stores claimed that's when it shipped). I was able to get it on the 4th easily.

Man I can’t believe I’m older than melee but I never really played it I started with original Nintendo and a ps1 and 2

@Clyde_Radcliffe
It's more of a 50/50 split and part of that comes from the two games being very fundamentally different on a more advanced level.

One reason why Melee holds its popularity was that for the longest time ever, it was the only Smash game that offered players a level of freedom. Brawl and Smash 4 were way too slow paced that it became more of a reading and grabbing game than something actually competitive. Smash 64 was very balanced, but it was also very flawed and outdated. It was long enough to the point where players simply got used to Melee's meta and find it much more enjoyable than Ultimate.

Ultimate has a much shallower learning curve and it technically more fair because it doesn't rely on physics exploits (ie: wave dashing) to make the game fun to play. Performing combos are also a lot more difficult due to weighting and speed differences, as well as angle changes and mechanics. Ultimate is simply not a Melee player's cup of tea because the gameplay is much more safe and less high risk high reward.

In a sense, it becomes more of a subjective case. Some people prefer fair gameplay like in SSBU. Some people prefer high risk like SSBM.

Has it been 20 years already?

Tons of love for Melee, but Ultimate is officially better for me, and I enjoy the competitive scene of Ultimate more too.

You likes to make us feel old!

I wasn't even born yet

Not my favorite Smash (I put more time into the 3DS version of Smash 4) but you better believe I picked it up that day and put 100s of hours into it with my best friend for the following 4-5 years.

Ultimately though, I'm just not a fan of platform fighting games and will probably skip the next one.

Capcom Vs SNK 2 (Xbox version for online, but also owned the GC one too) remains my all time favorite fighting game