A truly addicting game this is...a recipe for old fashioned fun!!!
The premise of the game is simple... attack all the other characters in either large or small stages, while building up a damage meter. Once this damage meter begins to fill up, each attack against that character makes him/her fly farther... eventually, when enough damage is accumulated, a strong attack can send them flying off the screen, in turn causing a KO. The objective is to gain as many KO's as possible, while still countering the massive array of attacks, items, and dangers of the stages themselves to keep your own damage as low as possible.
The character selection in this game is quite impressive compared to the original... the list grows from all the characters from the previous game, and adds many more from other Nintendo games. The characters vary greatly in terms of attacks and handling, some characters, for example Bowser, are large and cumbersome, but wield massively powerful physical attacks and have much resistance to being knocked off a stage. Others are small and nimble, able to turn on a dime and easily dodge attacks and even run circles around slower characters. The sheer variety of players makes anyone happy, for some characters carry swords, cannons, even hammers!!!
The graphical detail put into the character models is superb... by pausing the game, and then using the c stick to zoom in on a character, you can truly see the fine detail put in. The fabric effect on Mario's overalls can be made out, even the buttons are nicely detailed, with little shortcuts taken. The environments vary in size, the largest being the Hyrule Temple, and the smallest being tiny floating arenas with a few platforms. All are interesting in themselves, having various traps such as sinking islands, lava pits, and falling platforms.
The gameplay is where this game truly shines... using fairly simple controls, you attack with either the B or A button, and by using combinations with the control stick, you can execute a large variety of attacks to pummel your enemies in almost any way imaginable. Uppercuts, trips, punches, kicks, mid air stomps, almost anything you can think of... even items that regularly appear on the stages can be used to cause damage or even KOs. There is even strategy involved... sometimes jumping against a tough opponent set on a high difficulty is suicide, mainly because the AI can be fiercely dead set on countering every one of your moves. With an excellent dodge system, it is entirely possible to make your opponent look dumb as you expertly maneuver around their attempts to KO you.
Sound is, as expected, a good part of the game as well. Each character has a large set of attack sounds, battle cries, and other wildly different things... attacks themselves get louder and more piercing the stronger they are... and there's even an ingenious crowd that roars when you execute damaging moves that send you opponent flying!!! When you are knocked off a stage, and you manage to grab the edge just barely, you'll hear a "AWW!!!" as the "audience" is wowed by the death defying stunt. Not to mention there's a huge gallery where you listen to the sounds... and perhaps pull together some really odd dialogues by pasting non-related voice clips together...
All this combined with a variety of single player adventures, and a killer multi player mode... you've got the ultimate party game. Bring a few friends over, and plug in some controllers, and you've got a recipe for old fashioned madness. A truly addicting game this is... you'll find once you experience the heat of a battle with 3 other friends, you won't want to stop. Coupled together with simply superbly thought out details, endless replay value, and enough characters to satisfy the pickiest of players... its one of the best GameCube games out there, even today. Regardless if you like or don't like Nintendo... this is a game worth checking out.