Super Smash Bros. has arrived on iOS in the form of Super Smash Bros. Mobile, but outside of the name, and a few somewhat recognizable characters and levels, it plays almost nothing like the entries in the popular Nintendo franchise.
That probably has a little something to do with the fact that “Super Smash Bros. Mobile” is a completely unauthorized — and certainly trademark infringing — game created with a tool called Game Editor. The game is available for free on Cydia’s BigBoss repo, so it’s not like Apple has any control over removing it from public availability.
Game Editor is a tool that, according to its official website, allows users to “Create 2D games with little or no programming knowledge” — a fact becomes instantly apparent once you fire up Super Smash Bros. Mobile for the first time.
Needless to say, despite the best efforts of the developer, Super Smash Bros. Mobile is a pretty poor representation of the real thing. Not only is it extremely difficult to control with the on screen buttons, the animations run at a really low frame rate, there’s no sound during game play, and the character selection list is lacking heavily.
Most of that can be glossed over when you consider the fact that the game is still in development (it’s in “beta”). But the bottom line is this, even if all of the aforementioned problems were alleviated, it’s still a radically loose translation of the original, and by no means will it satisfy the needs of those waiting for Nintendo to start development for iOS.
Since the likelihood of Nintendo ever “stooping down” and developing for iOS is about as likely as Super Smash Bros. Mobile winning game of the year, this is about as good as it gets outside of using an emulator.
Unfortunately, as good as it gets, in this case, just isn’t very good. You can’t honestly claim to be surprised, can you?
