You want to know why it took us this long to get a review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl? We were all too busy playing it. Seriously. That alone might tell you how good of a game it is. However, if that was really sufficient, I'd just leave it at that and make you wonder why the scores are the way they are. As a video game site, we owe you an explanation. Particularly since the score is not nearly as high as I'm sure everyone expects. But look on the bright side we didn't let the site founder review Brawl. We still hear complaints about when Search reviewed Super Smash Bros. Melee.
So anyhow, once again we have the third game that finally let people settle the ancient argument over whether Link or Mario was the better hero. The concept is really that simple take classic Nintendo characters, and have them beat the living daylights out of each other. The gameplay is deliberately meant to be simple all moves are done by nothing more complex than pressing a direction on the analog stick along with an action button this game is born for people who don't want to cramp their hands playing a fighting game.
So what makes this one so radically different that we had to make a new one? Plenty this is in fact an even more radical overhaul than Super Smash Bros. Melee was over the original. For starters, we have the news that everyone in video gaming has heard for months Sonic the Hedgehog is in the game, along with Solid Snake. Given that Mario versus Sonic was video gaming's "Kirk versus Picard," and Solid Snake has been one of the most rabidly-loved characters in gaming since the Metal Gear series was revived (though to be fair, the original Metal Gear was an incredible game), I don't need to tell you how many people bought the game for those two alone. Of course, the bitter joke is that both characters, despite being prominently mentioned on the game's back, are unlockable, forcing gamers to go through various modes to get them out.
In my opinion, it's actually the game modes which have shown the most change. Sure, the Classic mode is very much the same although the fact that each level is always the same three or four characters to fight is a bit sad. It's mildly more flexible than the original classic mode, where you fought the same fights in the same order every time. But I preferred the randomness of the second game for all fights. All-Star Mode is back for this game (once you unlock all the characters), now related to when the characters' starting game series debuted. This mode is fun, though always a frustration because one random level hazard can kill the entire game. And there are still the extra things, like the multi-man brawls and the home run contest to keep you occupied switched up a little from their previous incarnations, but overall quite within their original style.
So if all that is the same, what makes the game mode so new? The old Adventure mode (which played much like a side scroller with a plot nobody told you) is now replaced with a massive new one, called The Subspace Emissary. You actually get plot about the world of Smash Brothers, where characters fight to avoid being turned into trophies and to earn glory. At least, that's the idea, but soon various Nintendo villains (all of the ones you'd expect) are seen assisting sinister forces from another dimension to kidnap everyone. And through misunderstandings, setbacks, and odd turns, you deal with those villains, the Master Hand (finally integrated into the plot for the first time since the opening of the first game), and the power that controls everything. It's actually a massive undertaking (probably between eight and ten hours of play), and it can even unlock all the characters for you.
As neat as it is to see that much thought put into the "plot" mode of the game, The Subspace Emissary has a few issues that annoy me. For one, you end up not liking a couple characters from it. Most notable is Lucas yes, he was pretty meek in Mother 3, but damn, if his actions in The Subspace Emissary didn't leave me angry at him. And that's not even getting into the fact that SSE actually spoils the end of Mother 3 either Nintendo is going to finally translate it and everyone is going to know how it ends, or they're just doing it to taunt us with a good quirky RPG that we'll never see. Though I will give them full credit for explaining why there hasn't been another Kid Icarus game since around 1991 apparently, the game's hero Pit has been too busy watching Smash Bros. tourneys to actually go on a quest. Good thing Medusa hasn't decided to come back.
One final complaint is that you technically can't get three characters from The Subspace Emissary, though, until after you've beaten the final boss (and on top of that, Sonic isn't unlocked until you get to him). So you not only have to beat the game, but you have to take time beyond that to go through and poke around where you thought you already beat it. Look, I was interested to see Wolf O'Donnell from Star Fox, really (his squad had some of the best theme music ever), but I didn't want to have to deal with an insufferable final boss and end credits to do so. But I didn't want to have to backtrack to do it. Even if they were a bit out of the way, the three hidden characters should have been more accessible.
So I suppose the question has to be asked how are the new characters overall? Well, I can't complain with who they chose, really entrants from the newest Fire Emblem and Mother games, an alternate version of Samus, and even the old Robot Operating Buddy are playable characters. Conceptually, all of the new additions are great, although I know how much people are complaining about Wolf being Yet Another Fox Clone (patent pending). One problem does arise in that many of them were given, to be honest, useless moves. Pit, for example, has two moves that reflect projectiles but one also does damage and the other doesn't. Guess which one nobody uses? Or when the Pokιmon Trainer uses Squirtle, it can use Water Gun, which doesn't even do damage, only knockback. Someone should have said during the play-testing section that quite a few moves would literally never be used. This team is a bit different than the one that worked on the previous Smash Bros. games, and it's through little touches like this that you notice the difference.
One good thing they did with the characters, though, is that they eliminated many of the clones. Falco stayed in but got a much different move set, and Young Link was overhauled into the similar Toon Link. But other than that, the clones were cleared out, and new characters in many instances took their place. There are still some similar characters they should have done more to make Ness and Lucas play differently, and Wolf should be much different than Fox, as opposed to being Melee Falco Reborn. One good thing I can definitely say, though, is that Roy's replacement Ike plays radically differently than either Roy or Marth did.
I know some people are hailing the game's Assist Trophies as something new and exciting for the game. And I'll admit, it's... interesting to see a Nintendog suddenly appear on screen and obscure everything. But let's be honest, it's just like the random Pokιmon that would appear out of items in the previous games. It's just from other series to increase the number of characters in there. While they're neat and certainly add new value to the game, they're nothing new.
However, the Final Smashes are certainly a new element to the series. Every so often, a glowing ball with the Smash logo (the off-center cross in a circle) appears, and whoever breaks it can perform a game-changing attack. Some just fill the screen with damage, like Ice Climbers' Glacier or Jigglypuff's Inflate. Others spam the level with projectiles, like Ness and Lucas with PK Starstorm or King Dedede with Waddle Dee Army. You also get some that transform who you control, like Wario becoming Wario Man or Mr. Game & Watch becoming an Octopus. And finally, you get some that hit a narrow band but guarantee a knockout if they hit, like Link's Triforce Slash or Captain Falcon's Blue Falcon. Using your own Final Smash (and surviving those of your foes) is a huge part of the game, and adds much to play strategy.
One thing that will definitely force a change in strategy is that this game is much slower than Melee, and about on par with the game speed of the original Super Smash Bros. I can handle it either way, but a ton of combos that worked before won't work anymore, as the speed change is quite dramatic in some instances (Link is just plain slow now, for example). Even some characters who didn't lose that much speed had some moves become slower Ness is a prime example, as his Smash attacks are among the game's slowest now. I don't think it's a big deal, though they probably should have included an option to change the speed (similar to what Capcom has done in most of their recent fighting games) to satisfy everyone.
Though I can think of one thing that would have definitely satisfied many gamers if Nintendo had not taken out the end-of-match bonuses given out. It was one of the odd quirks that made Super Smash Bros. fun you'd get points for all sorts of strange things. Like using all your smash attacks. Or flying off each direction of the screen. Or getting a knockout on a foe while you were shrunk. There were hundreds of bonuses before. And they're all gone now, and I miss them. Is it too much to ask for those back? They probably don't matter much to some, but to veterans going back to the original game, they were an integral part of the experience. I'd love to see them again.
Given that there are a ton of ways to interface with the Wii, Nintendo came up with the fairly bright idea to actually make all of them work for Brawl. You can use a Wii remote by itself, with either a nunchuk or classic controller attached, or by plugging in a Gamecube controller. Overall, I imagine Smash veterans will want to stick to the Gamecube controller the default layout is exactly the same as it was on Melee. Meanwhile, the only way you'd want to go with the Wii remote-only setup is if you somehow did not have any attachment for it whatsoever and given that each Wii comes with a nunchuk, I don't know who that might be. The game does let you remap any and all controllers, but the option is somewhat buried in the game's menus. This is a minor problem, because two of the setups (Wii remote alone and remote with nunchuk) are begging for redefinition. It's bad when I know of three different jump buttons for the nunchuk combo but have to spend time to figure out how to throw. It's good to give options, but Nintendo should have considered how they presented the defaults much more carefully.
However, what each has in common is that once you map the controls to your liking, they are rather responsive (except when there's obvious interference, like the stopwatch item). Even when the move is slow, you know the game is responding, and you're just hoping the windup comes with a delivery. While some might have to adjust to the timing, the game does make it easy to do so with sharp response time.
In all this, you might be wondering where the discussion of online matches is. After all, one of the biggest promises for Brawl would be the online matches, and that certainly helped move copies. Well, that's where things are a bit hampered. To some extent, I know part of the problem is that literally millions of people are trying to get online to play across the world. And Nintendo wasn't exactly possessing the strongest online system before that's code for "bad connections, and you still have to trade freaking Friend Codes." But unless you're playing with only one person or on a sweet connection, you're going to deal with lag. Tons of lag. If a bit part of your game is precision timing, then you're absolutely screwed. Projectile spamming, however, is an artform online, as is timing a powerful attack to set up during lag so that people can't respond properly in time. The online theory is great (as is the idea that you can actually have some people in your home and others connect via the Internet). However, until Nintendo sorts out many of the online issues (which might even force Nintendo to eliminate the online spectator mode, due to bandwidth issues), anything beyond a one-to-one connection is an exercise in frustration.
Graphically, the game is rather sharp, although it might throw people off at the radically different style used in various instances. In some cases, it works Sonic fits right in with Mario, for example. Others seem a bit off like the ultra-realistic Link from Twilight Princess next to Yoshi. And then there's Toon Link, in which they tried to rerender a cel-shaded character as a regular polygonal figure, and it looks like something out of a nightmare. I'm not sure what will cause more people to avoid Toon Link that he can't cause knockback for the life of him, or that he looks like he's coming to eat your freaking brains.
The backgrounds in many instances are lush, and have tons going on from the Aurora Borealis at the Ice Climbers' Summit or various Sonic characters running around in the background of Green Hill Zone, the game is full of different moving sights to grab your attention. I think this might be working against the game, though unless your Wii is perfectly clear of any dust or the like, quite a few levels will cause slowdown as the next match loads up. If you want the game to have less load, you'll either have to take a can of air to your Wii or send it off to Nintendo for a free cleaning. Though you certainly can't complain about the graphics each stage is lush and detailed down to the bricks you walk on.
One thing to note I'm positive that the graphics are pretty much the only reason the game has a Teen rating. I mean, the violence is rather cartoony, and there's no blood or cursing. But some of the realistic characters are, well, putting their sexuality a bit forward. I never thought I'd see a chiseled man's ass in a Smash Bros. game, but that was before Snake's outfit left nothing to the imagination. Zelda's Sheik transformation leaves the barest hint of detail in interesting spot. And Zero Suit Samus' form-fitting catsuit? Where the heck was she hiding those breasts before? Carnivale? What's going to scare me is finding out in a couple of years how many people used Zero Suit Samus as a masturbation fantasy. And given that you can take snapshots of game action, save them, and even trade them with friends online, I'm convinced that the graphics alone are where the rating comes from.
I might be a bit unusual in this, but I actually find the music to be the best part of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The game literally has hundreds of songs from dozens of video game composers. Pretty much everyone who cares about video game music sat up when they found out that Nobuo Uematsu (the man responsible for the earlier Final Fantasy soundtracks) was doing the main theme, and the official Smash Bros site lists dozens of others who did work on the soundtrack. To be honest, they did an incredible job in nearly every instance. Some of the Metroid tracks were a disappointment but out of 200+ songs, one or two minor foul-ups is astoundingly good. The only complaint about the songs I can think of is that outside of the challenges, you unlock songs by grabbing a CD that randomly appears during brawls and they pop up so infrequently (except, oddly, during online play) that it can take forever to get a large amount of music. It reminds me of going to a candy store when I was five so many goodies, but I had to wait until mom reached out and handed me one to finally get the sweets. There really should have been another unlock procedure for songs beyond "wait for the game to feel like giving you a song."
Slightly related to the collecting CDs are the other random items that appear to collect. You still get trophies, which can be viewed in a room that describes all about the games they came from. And these trophies hit on everything from classics you know like Super Mario Bros. to obscure foreign-only titles like Densetsu no Stafy. It's a neat place to catch up on Nintendo history, even if there are times (like the Ouendan trophy) when you'll curse regional systems that kept these games out of our hands. One can only hope the Virtual Console will one day accommodate these. There are also stickers, which not only can be arranged in an album, but even provide power-ups during The Subspace Emissary. There are hundreds of these, and these cull from all sorts of original artwork in case any of the kids out there really wanted to know how Link was drawn in the manual to the first Legend of Zelda, this game will show you. They don't say anything about the stickers, as opposed to the trophies, but that's fair, I suppose they're smaller, easier to come by, and the sheer number would bog down the game even further with description.
Overall, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is still a frantic fighting game that's easy to pick up, has tons for you to do even in single-player mode, and it's still one of the best fighting games to pull out with company with four players and intuitive controls, anyone can pick it up easily. However, there are way too many little areas to pick at monstrous lag online, relying on the goofy friend codes setup, eliminating bonuses for end-of-match victories... and that's just my list. I know there are some other areas I let slide that others have complained about. Don't get me wrong, this game is still good enough to basically eat over half of Netjak's staff upon release. But let's be honest while a great reason to own a Wii, this isn't going to be the game to end all games. It's quite obvious that the team behind this one wasn't quite used to working with the concept, and there's still quite a bit of room for improvement.
