The official site for the Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl is live! The website has displayed a countdown timer for the past seven days but now the waiting is over and Masahiro Sakurai (Sora Ltd) promises to deliver ‘personal, straight-from-the-creator reports on the project,’ with daily weekday updates.

The site features seven categories: characters; how to play; game modes; stages; items; music; and notices. Sadly, only three categories are unlocked so far so Super Smash Bros. fans can only learn more about how to play, stages and music for the time being. An official launch date has yet to be announced with the site merely stating that the game is ‘planned for 2007 release.’

Smash 101

Gamers can watch two movies on the site, the E3 movie from May 2006 and the Nintendo World Movie from November 2006. For those interested in how to play, Sakurai has endeavoured to explain what Smash Bros. is, with a promise to ‘periodically update this site.’ An entry titled ‘The Basic Rules’ is dated the 22nd of May and reads as follows:

“This is Smash! What is “Super Smash Bros.”? It’s a brawling, battling, action-packed video game that features a varied roster of characters for four-player simultaneous melees! When you hit an opponent, his or her damage meter builds up. The number at the bottom is the damage meter. The more damage that builds up, the farther an opponent flies each time he or she gets hit! An opponent with higher damage flies farther. Soon, people are flying around like rockets. And when you fly off the screen in any direction…You lose a life! Also, in some modes, each time you KO an opponent, you earn points. As an example, you can fight for a mere two minutes in a competition to see who can shoot their opponents off-screen the most. If you had to call it something, I’d say it’s almost like a sport.”

Brawl ‘til dawn!

Another entry titled ‘Battlefield’ is also dated the 22nd of May and expands on the Stages in the game. It reads as follows:

“Battlefield is the type of stage where you can enjoy the most basic of matches. There is one large platform with three pass-through platforms. Despite its simplistic design, it gives birth to a wide array of strategies during battle. This time, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, many stages will undergo elaborate changes during battle. On Battlefield, the main platform will not change…But then evening comes…And then comes night. You can brawl til dawn! You’ll play this level many times, so it’s nice to see it change a little. The song called Menu 1 found under the topic The Musicians plays on this stage.”

The Musicians

The final entry is also dated the 22nd of May, titled ‘The Musicians’, it reads as follows:

“This is dangerous. It’s a little risky. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, it’s the line-up of musicians who are contributing to Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Just take a look at this list! To have so many of these individuals providing music for a single work may very well be an historic event in the history of video-game music! It’s almost unthinkable! Of course, Smash will let you enjoy music from a wide variety of Nintendo games. A number of individuals have put their touch on these arrangements. Using the game music that has entertained so many as the base for new arrangements by so many famed musicians… Not too shabby, eh?

Here on Smash Bros. Dojo, we will share that music with you through occasional trial listening. Since this is my first post, I thought I would give you an arrangement of the song you probably heard most often in Super Smash Bros. Melee, Menu 1. Motoi Sakuraba headed up that arrangement!

We’ve asked our group of arrangement supervisors to listen to an elite selection of Nintendo music and asked them to arrange several of their favorite songs…which means there will be quite a number of songs. You’ll have to look forward to which ones.”

For those of you who are interested, here is a list of the musicians:

Akihiro Honda (Konami) - Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns Of The Patriots /

Metal Gear Solid Portable OPS

Arata Iiyoshi - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon / beatmania II DX

Asuka Ohta (Nintendo) - New Super Mario Bros. / Yoshi Touch&Go

Hajime Wakai (Nintendo) - Pikmin series / Star Fox series

Jun Fukuda (grasshopper manufacture inc.) - killer7 / contact

Kazumi Totaka (Nintendo) - Animal Crossing series / Yoshi series

Keigo Ozaki (GAME ARTS Co.,Ltd.) - PROJECT SYLPHEED

Kenichi Okuma - Melty Lancer series / Welcome to Pia Carrot!! 3

Kenji Ito - ROMANCING SAGA series / CULDCEPT SAGA

Kenji Yamamoto (Nintendo) - Super Metroid / Metroid Prime series

Kentaro Ishizaka (HAL Laboratory, Inc.)

Koji Hayama - Cho Aniki / Ape Escape 2

Koji Kondo (Nintendo) - Super Mario Bros. series / The Legend of Zelda series

Masaaki Iwasaki - MOTHER3 / Chelnov (Genesis)

Masafumi Takada (grasshopper manufacture inc.) - killer7 / GOD HAND

Masato Kouda - Monster Hunter / Devil May Cry

Michiko Naruke- Wild Arms series

Minako Hamano (Nintendo) - Metroid Fusion

Motoi Sakuraba - Golden Sun series / Mario Golf & Tennis series

Noriyuki Iwadare - GRANDIA series

Ryoji Yoshitomi (Nintendo) - WarioWare, Inc. : Mega Microgame$!

Seiji Momoi - METEOS / The Glory of Hercules III - The Silence of Gods

Shogo Sakai (HAL Laboratory, Inc.) - Super Smash Bros. Melee / MOTHER3

Shota Kageyama - Luminous Arc

Takahiro Nishi (GAME ARTS Co.,Ltd.) - GRANDIA series / PROJECT SYLPHEED

Tomoko Sasaki (TOKIOHEIDI) - NiGHTS

Toru Minegishi (Nintendo) - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Toshiyuki Sudo (Nintendo) - Everybody Votes Channel

Tsukasa Masuko - Star Force / Magical Starsign

Yasufumi Fukuda - Kamaitachi no Yoru 2

Yasunori Mitsuda (PROCYON STUDIO CO., LTD.) - CHRONO TRIGGER / XENOGEARS

Yoko Shimomura - Kingdom Hearts series

Yuka Tsujiyoko - Fire Emblem series

Yusuke Takahama (TARGET ENTERTAINMENT INC.) - Digital Pinball series

Yutaka Iraha (GAME ARTS Co.,Ltd.) - SYLPHEED series

Yuzo Koshiro