Super Smash Bros for 3DS tips - An in-depth FAQ for Smash Bros newbies (Part 2)

Missed the first bit? Check out part one.

These are little collectable figures that represent characters, enemies, items, and areas from classic Nintendo games. There are 686 to get and if you're a terrible nerd like me they'll represent the backbone of the game.

You get a trophy for finishing Classic mode with a character, and another for finishing All-Star mode. You will also find more in Classic, All-Star, Home-Run Contest, Smash Run, and Target Blast.

You can buy more in the shop but they're expensive so I wouldn't recommend it.

Instead, spend your money on Trophy Rush mode and use 900 gold to set a 2:30 time limit. Take a fast character (I like Link) and then run left and right destroying blocks. Take special care to break the gold box as that fills your fever meter fast.

When your fever meter is full, trophy and coin blocks will rain down from the top. Destroy them to add them to your collection. If you're fast enough you can add 20 trophies at a time to your hoard.

There are also some that you can only get by finishing challenges.

You'll find these on the main screen. There are 35 panels with challenges like "play endless smash for the first time" or "get a max combo of 10 in training". If you meet that goal you'll unlock goodies like trophies, stages, and equipment.

You can only see the completion criteria for the panels that are near challenges you have already finished. Some challenges also give you golden hammers which can instantly clear a challenge you're struggling with.

If you finish all the challenges you'll unlock another panel with more goals. I wonder how many there are…

Oh, I don't know. I've unlocked three but still have lots of challenges to finish. They get pretty tricky!

Equipment and specials are found in Classic, All-Star, Home-Run Contest, Smash Run, Target Blast, and Trophy Rush mode.

You can then use these to customise all the fighters in the game. You can make your own version of each character with their own appearance; set of attack, defend, and speed boosts (or nerfs); and specials.

You can do the same with the Mii characters stored on your 3DS. Same deal with equipment and specials, but you can also choose their combat style (brawler, gunner, or sword fighter) and headgear and outfit.

Oh, no. It's just that every character has a bunch of alternative colour schemes and you can use one of those as the default getup for your customised fighter.

Some of those costumes are cool though. Mario can wear his gaudy outfit from NES Open Tournament Golf, Samus can don her Metroid Fusion suit, Little Mac can wear his pink hoody, and Mega Man can put on his red suit from Mega Man 6.

More dramatically, Robin, Villager, and Wii Fit trainer use their alt. costumes to switch gender. And Olimar can become Pikmin 2 costar Alph. One hidden fighter can change into eight different characters…

Ah, yes. Just like how Brawl had Sonic and Solid Snake, this new Super Smash Bros has three third-party characters as cameos.

There's Capcom's Mega Man, Sega's Sonic, and Namco Bandai's Pac-Man. They're all given the star treatment, and all are treated with more respect and reverence than their actual parent companies.

Of course. A big part of Smash Bros is playing with friends. Locally (with up to four players) you can play Smash, Smash Run, All-Star, and Multi-Man modes. And online you can play Smash either for fun or for glory.

Playing for fun doesn't affect your rank but you can play on any level and with items. For glory let you boost your rank but you'll play without items and on flat, unmoving stages.

We still need to give it a proper test against European gamers online. During our review we could only play against people in Japan and it was laggy and practically unplayable.

There's also a meta conquest mode where two characters are pitted against each other, and spectate mode where you can watch online battles in real-time.

No. I mean, in some ways it is. The fighter roster will be the same and most of the modes are identical, but the trophies, stages, and assist trophies (cameo characters who help mid-battle) will be different.

This 3DS game is focusing more on handheld games, so you get stages and trophies based on Game Boy and DS classics. The Wii U version will recount the history of Nintendo's console games.

Also you can exchange custom fighters between the two versions and use your 3DS as a controller for the Wii U game.

Yes, but it's a bit rubbish. Smash-owning StreetPassers show up as little discs on a slab of concrete and you try to smash them off the side with your own disc. Eh, you get some prizes for winning I guess.

Well, this article is getting a bit long and I've already split it into two pages. To avoid going for three let's leave it there. If you have any more questions ask away in the comments and someone will answer your queries.