The Outfoxies

The Outfoxies was released in 1995 (even if the title screen says 1994, the actual release wasn't until the following year), which is four years before the release of the game that it most resembles - Super Smash Bros.

The concept of the game is the same, but with a grittier twist. You need to defeat your opponent in any way necessary. This can take the form of fist-fighting, the use of weapons that drop into the arena, environmental hazards, and even just picking up objects that happen to be nearby and throwing them.

Stages are interactive, and usually have a developing element within them. The first stage that you're likely to fight an opponent in has a helicopter on the roof, for example. Stages have multiple levels, similar to a platform game, and your fight will mostly take place underneath this parked vehicle. However, a series of charges will shortly detonate blowing the helicopter up, and causing its mangled wreck to slowly break through floor after floor. This progression affects the layout of the stage, and triggers other hazards. Another level, set in an aquarium, sees the building slowly flood. As if that wasn't bad enough, the sharks have escaped.

Character design is also quite unique. At one point I found myself as "Dweeb", a chimpanzee donning a top hat and dinner-jacket, desperately throwing whatever I could find to defend myself from a gun wielding wheelchair-bound professor.

Could this have inspired the Smash Bros series, perhaps? Gameplay is certainly similar, and as a Japan-only release it's possible that Masahiro Sakurai or Satoru Iwata may have encountered it. Either way, it's certainly worth a play on its own merit.