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The thought of a fighting game featuring a cast of characters plucked from Nintendo's heritage was so unthinkable that for a while its thinker, Mashahiro Sakurai, kept it entirely to himself. Knowing the chances of securing Nintendo's permission to pitch Princess Peach against Luigi in a commercial cat-fight were slim, Sakurai made a prototype of his idea in secret.Even when he eventually showed Nintendo his work - a hyperactive 2D brawler featuring Mario, Donkey Kong, Samus and Fox McCloud - and the company quietly agreed to fund the full game, expectations were low. The Kyoto publisher warned Sakurai that an overseas release was unlikely. But Super Smash Bros. sold close to 5 million copies in Japan and America on its release in 1999 and, perhaps more importantly, sold the fighting game to a demographic for whom Street Fighter's showboating combos had grown inaccessible.
Despite this success, almost 15 years on and no other company has attempted to replicate Sakurai's secret recipe - until now. Then again, what game-maker has enough big-ticket mascots in the vaults to flesh out a full roster of combatants?
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