Super Smash Bros. For Wii U aims to please all who attend its raucous celebration

In their stead, the stage selection is populated with “traveling stages,” mobile arenas that swoop around and sink into the ground, allowing fighters to duke it out somewhere new before showing up again and whisking them away to another venue. They strike a nice balance between dynamism and fairness. Meanwhile, players who prefer Smash at its most spectacular need look no further than Orbital Gate Assault, a Star Fox-themed level where the melee jumps from spaceship to spaceship as the crafts explode or warp in and out of combat amid a huge space battle.

Another advantage of moving away from the 3DS is that players finally have options when it comes to how they want to control the game—a lot of options. The Wii U’s touchscreen-clad gamepad is a perfectly functional default if you don’t have any other controllers handy, but Smash Wii U supports six other types of inputs. Nintendo is even selling a device that’ll let you plug in your old GameCube controllers (or one of its newly minted reprints). And as silly as it sounds, the fact that these controllers all work at the touch of a button and can be used together in any combination is impressive. Provided they have the necessary device on hand, anyone can jump into a game using their preferred controller.

This unprecedented controller support really comes in handy during one of Smash Wii U’s big exclusive features: eight-player battles. Unsurprisingly, these expansive brawls are non-stop chaos when they break out on mid-size stages. In larger ones like Palutena’s Temple, a sprawling collection of narrow trap-laden hallways and platforms, fighters often pair up and battle on the stage’s outskirts, only coming into contact with the rest of the combatants when isolated clashes collide. In these cases, the madness might be better contained, but the stages are so large and the characters so spread out, you need a huge TV to stand any chance of making out what’s going on at any given time. Eight-player Smash might not be the best way to play if you’re looking for a pure test of skill, but when it comes to delivering anarchic spectacle, nothing can compare.

While the 3DS version felt rightfully tuned for solo Smashers, Smash Wii U puts in extra effort to accommodate any number of players. There’s still plenty to do for those going at it alone. For one, the online multi-player is better than it ever has been. In my experience, one-on-one matches were close to universally flawless. Full four-player fights were more likely to experience some slowdown, but it was negligible compared to the stuttering of the 3DS version and the unplayable Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

The real star when it comes to human-on-artificial-intelligence violence is the Event Match mode, which triumphantly returns after skipping Smash 3DS. These are special missions that task players with weird idiosyncratic challenges, like Fitness Junkie, where you play as the Wii Fit Trainer and beat up on a couple of giant Warios who won’t stop eating. Each Event you clear comes with a reward—like some gold you can use to buy your way into special modes or dish out for a number of doodads—but the greatest motivating factor of all is the chance to see what ridiculous, thinly constructed scenario is unlocked next.

Unless you’re a fan of the stripped-down test of wills that is one-on-one Smash, it could be hard to find things for just two players to do in Smash Bros. past. Smash Wii U has a simple remedy: All the single-player modes can now be played with at least one other person. The specially designed cooperative Event Matches steal the show. A duo can brute force its way through most of them without much planning, but some demand levels of harmony usually reserved for world-class synchronized swimming teams, like the stiff challenge of defending Star Fox’s space cruiser from a horde of invading Mr. Game & Watch paratroopers.

Some people will argue about how Smash Bros. “should be played” until the end of time. At one point, with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it seemed Nintendo had put its foot down and decided for all of us. But something changed the company’s mind in the time since. A cynic might see the mind-boggling scope and total flexibility as giving up, an admission that, just like the people who love it, Nintendo has no idea what Smash Bros. should be. But really, it’s a confirmation of what Smash Bros. has been all along: a raucous, reverent celebration of Nintendo games and the people who play them. And the best part is everyone’s invited.