Super Smash Bros. was introduced in 1999 for the Nintendo 64. It was released worldwide after selling over a million copies in Japan.[11] It featured eight characters from the start (Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox, and Pikachu), with four unlockable characters (Luigi, Captain Falcon, Ness, and Jigglypuff), all of them created by Nintendo or one of its second-party developers.
In Super Smash Bros., up to four players can play in multiplayer (Versus) mode, with the specific rules of each match being predetermined by the players. There are two match types that can be chosen: Time, where the person with the most KOs at the end of the set time wins; and stock, where each player has a set number of lives and are eliminated from play when their lives are depleted.
This game's primary single-player mode, named "Classic Mode" in later series entries, features a series of predetermined opponents the player must defeat. Other single-player modes exist such as Training and several minigames, including "Break the Targets" and "Board the Platforms". All of these were included in the sequel, with the exception of "Board the Platforms".
There are nine playable stages in Versus mode, eight based on each of the starting characters (such as Princess Peach's Castle for Mario, Zebes for Samus, and Sector Z for Fox) and the unlockable Mushroom Kingdom, based around motifs from the original Super Mario Bros., even containing original sprites and the original version of the Overworld theme from that game.