Lots of characters, lots of action, and lots of fun. Super Smash Bros. Melee is a must have for all Gamecube owners.
Perhaps the greatest feature of Super Smash Bros. Melee is its replay value. Aside from being just plain fun, many characters can only be unlocked by beating the game with specific characters or by playing a certain number of versus matches. Combine this with the fact that both the Classic and Adventure modes must be completed by every character to achieve a 100 percent completion, you are looking at many, many hours of game play.
Although Melee is a fighting game, it is much more accessible than say, the Tekken series. Controls are fairly simple and remain the same for each character. The difficulty can be set at five different levels, and the number of lives you receive can be changed as well, allowing players to varie the challenge of the game to fit their tastes. Another unique feature to Smash Bros. is that the typical "life bar" found in most fighting games is not found here. Instead, the object is to knock the enemy off of the screen, and the more damage you deal, the better percentage you have of accomplishing this. The foe's damage received is represented by a percentile readout at the bottom of the screen. Super Smash Bros. Melee makes a very strong case for nomination as the best multiplayer game ever, and few would deny that it IS the strongest multiplayer title for the Gamecube. Up to four players may go head-to-head at one time, and there is even a bracket system in the game for tournament play. It is hard to find very many negative things to say about Melee. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the game is the advantage some characters seem to have over all the others. Kirby for instance can float quite a long distance while most every other character is limited to two jumps, allowing Kirby to traverse distances twice as far as anyone else. This is counterbalanced by the fact that Kirby is considered "light" and thus is easier to be knocked long distances however. It should also be noted that although Super Smash Bros. Melee has been out for years, it has yet to drop below the $29.95 MSRP mark, and likely never will.
With all of this being said, the bottom line is no Gamecube owner should pass up this game. It is definitely a must-have for the system, and guarantees hours upon hours of Nintendo character-vs.-Nintendo character beat-'em-up action.