Super Smash Bros. Brawl

"How is it possible to fit this much brilliance into such a small disc?"

This game is easily one of the most hyped games of all time. After the release of the universally acclaimed Super Smash Bros. Melee, Nintendo announced that they would be making a sequel for it. For years fans were kept in suspense, and there was even a site which was updated daily telling news about what would be in the game. Then, over six years after Melee, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was finally released. Like with Melee, the game was given lots of glowing reviews by critics and gamers. And I must say that I agree with them.

The gameplay is very similar to what it was in Super Smash Bros. Melee. If you don't know how that game works, here's how the game works. You and your opponent are in a 2D arena, and you have to try and knock each other off the stage. The more damage that a person has done to them, the further they get driven backwards by each move. You cause damage by doing several moves. You use the A button and the B button to do attacks, and by using the analog stick in conjunction with them you can do more attacks. There is also a button to jump and to block, and you must use these correctly to beat your opponent. The game takes very little time to learn how to play, but it takes ages to learn how to master it.

The characters in this game consist mainly of ones that have appeared in famous Nintendo games, such as the Legend of Zelda, Mario, Pikmin etc. However, there are also two characters not from any Nintendo series: Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. You start off with 20 characters, but once you've unlocked all of them there are an incredible 37 characters available (39 if you count Pokemon Trainer's Pokemon as separate characters). That's 37 characters to play as and master. The choice here is immense.

The stages in the game are based on environments that you see in various Nintendo games. For example, there are stages that are based on Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and many other series. And there aren't just different in terms of the backgrounds either. Some are compact; others are spacious. Some have two or three levels of platforms; others only have one. And in some of them are really cool events that occasionally occur. For example, in the stage based on Mario Kart, a number of Shy Guys driving karts will go by, and if you get hit by them you're in for some major hurt. There are a total of 41 different stages in the game, all of which are inventive and fun to play in.

It's also possible to build your own stages! If you have the time and patience to do it, you can construct an almost infinite amount of stages in whatever way you like. You can put in all sorts of different features, platforms and many other extras. This is great for people who like to use their imagination.

As well as tons of stages and characters, you can also unlock lots of different trophies and stickers. They don't particularly do all that much; they're just there to look nice. You can unlock certain trophies and stickers by doing particular tasks or beating certain missions, but you can unlock others by playing a coin shooting games. You tilt your shooter, and the coins act like missiles, and if you hit trophies or stickers two or three times then you win that trophy/sticker. You can then arrange the trophies and stickers in any way you fancy so that they look good. It's always cool to see what achievements you've made.

But while you're fighting, don't think it's all simply doing the same attacks over and over again. As well as doing moves to cause damage, items also occasionally fall into the arena. These can be picked up, and then either thrown or used in some other way to cause damage, or in some cases to defend yourself. The sheer amount of items you can get is incredible. Throughout the course of the game you will see explosive Bob-ombs, swords, guns, flame throwers and dozens of other items. A particularly cool item is the Smash Ball, and if someone breaks it, they are given the ability to do a Final Smash, a very deadly and flashy move which often causes your opponent to ring out. These items add an extra dimension of fun to the game, but if you think they aren't very fair, you can always turn them off in the match options section.

You will also occasionally see Assist Trophies and Pokeballs. Assist Trophies, once activated, will assist you in some way (as the name implies). This may be by attacking your opponent, throwing stuff at them, by protecting you, by obscuring part of the screen, or one of many other methods of help. All of these trophies are based on various Nintendo games once again. For example, Resetti from Animal Crossing may give your opponent an extra long rant, or Kat and Ana from Warioware will attack your opponent from all directions.

I haven't even yet mentioned all of the fantastic modes this game has. The first single player mode in the game is Classic mode. Quite simply, you have to go through eleven stages of opponents so that you can get to the final boss: the dreaded Giant hand. However, as well as facing regular opponents, you may also face a 2 vs. 2 battle, a giant version of a character (so it's harder to knock them off the stage) or a team version of a character (there are many of them, but they only require one hit to kill). Overall, this mode is very fun, and it will take you a long time to beat this mode with all 35 characters.

The next mode is the deepest within the game: Subspace Emissiary. The story of this mode is wacky, and often a bit confusing. From what I can tell, numerous black orbs are absorbing everything near it, and you must defeat hundreds of enemies across many levels in order to stop it. Along the way evil characters like Bowser will try and steal character trophies after defeating them. The story doesn't make much sense, but the actual gameplay is pretty good fun. It's sort of a cross between traditional 2D platformer gameplay and Super Smash Bros fight mechanics. You have to beat up opponents by using your moves, and you lose lives in the same way you do in normal Brawl fights: with your opponent knocking you off the stage. Occasionally you will fight a boss which has a ridiculously high amount of health. Certain stages of this mode are a bit boring, but for the most part I found this mode to be quite interesting, and it lasts a reasonable amount of time as well (about 8-10 hours).

There is also a mission mode. What you do is that you have to go through numerous short missions, which usually involves you defeating one or more enemies under a certain handicap, like a time limit or being lighter, although there are some exceptions to this rule. In total, there are about 41 missions in the entire mode, a highly respectable amount. These missions are very varied and interesting, and can be a fun thing to do if you've gone overkill on the rest of the game.

There are also three minigames that you can play. The first one is Target Smash. Multiple targets are strewn across a level, and you must use your moves to smash them all before time runs out. This is initially fun, but once you've done all the levels, there isn't much left to do in this minigame. The next is Home-Run Contest. In this game, you beat up a sandbag repeatedly, racking up as much damage as you can, and before time runs out, you do a move which sends it flying, and you see how far it goes. The concept is original, and it's pretty quaint, but it ends up feeling more like a novelty than anything else. Multi-Man Brawl is definitely the best of the three. As the name suggests, in this mode you have to fight off multiple enemies with little health. However, there is more to it than that. You have several choices concerning how you play the game. You can pick a set time limit to defeat as many as possible, a set number of enemies to beat as quickly as possible, or you can pick Endless Brawl, where you try and defeat as many as you can before you're defeated. This minigame is actually pretty challenging, and damn good fun too. Plus it takes a while to beat every available option.

Another cool mode you can unlock is All-Star mode. Basically, you pick a character, and then you must fight every single character in the game one at a time, in order of the franchise they were from. As you can probably guess, this mode is pretty difficult. If you're knocked out, you either lose most of your points and coins, or you simply lose the whole thing and have to start over. This mode is just as fun as the rest of the single player modes.

The final mode is Training mode. Obviously this is where you go to do your training. You pick a character and a stage, and you can go through what your character's moves are. You can also make your opponent do several different things, and pick any item you want to see what they do. There's also an option to speed up or slow down the action, but that's just for fun. Overall, the training mode is quite helpful and allows you to get the gist of what you have to do.

But even though the single player modes in this game are good fun, they don't compare at all to the multiplayer modes in this game. It's a fact: this game is so much more fun at parties. Bring over a few friends, pick whichever characters you fancy, whatever match options you want, and play. No mess, no fuss. The gameplay gets very frantic in multiplayer, especially with four players, and you can all have a laugh over how one of you got defeated by a lucky item. As well as the core gameplay, the amounts of options for the match are immense. You can pick one of three types of battles: a timed battle, where you try and KO each other within a set time, a stock battle, where you try and get rid of a set number of lives, and a coin battle, where each hit on an opponent sprays out coins. You can also change the amount of time/stocks that you have. You can turn several other parts of the game on or off too, such as items and whatnot. With all these options to twiddle around with, no two matches will ever be the same, lengthening the replay value almost infinitely.

Not got any friends who like Super Smash Bros Brawl? No problem; simply use Nintendo WiFi. Online matches work the same way as multiplayer matches, except that you can play people scattered across the globe, rather than just in your living room. You can either choose, ‘Play with Friends' or ‘Play with Anyone'. If you pick Play with Anyone, you don't need friend codes, but it often takes a long time for anyone else to appear, so I recommend choosing Play with Friends. In the Play with Friends mode, you need a person's friend code, and they need yours. This may sound like it limits who you can play with, but really it doesn't. Go onto a Brawl board, say you want a match and post your friend code, and someone else will almost certainly take the offer of playing with you. If you start the Brawl, you can pick the options of how the game goes; if you join a brawl, you can't. Like with multiplayer, no two matches will ever be the same, and since there are so many people out there to play with, you could keep playing for months, maybe even years, without getting bored. There is occasionally a bit of lag, but then when you're fighting people thousands of miles away that's to be expected. It almost never affects the gameplay profoundly though, so you can usually ignore it.

Whilst all this brawling is going on, you'll be gazing at what are definitely some of the best graphics on the Wii. The character models are rendered beautifully, and the textures look surprisingly realistic. The animation in this game is extremely fluid, and there are almost no clipping errors or other glitches within the game. The backgrounds are similarly well done. There are no noticeable edges anywhere to see, and there are dozens of objects that you can see in the backgrounds, yet there is very little slowdown. The detail in the game is brilliant, with many intricate little touches to make the graphics feel magical (like with Peach's dress). Overall, the graphics in this game are absolutely fantastic.

The sound in this game is just as good as the graphics. The music in this game is definitely the best point of the sound. This game has quite possibly the best music I've ever heard. As well as brilliant original tunes, there are some very well done remixes of classics like the Super Mario theme as well. In total, there are 258 music tracks in the entire game. No, that isn't a typo. Most of these are unlockable, via picking them up when they appear during a brawl. You can listen to these songs whenever you want, if you wish, and in case there are any you don't like, you can simply turn them off in the My Music section! Nintendo thought of everything. The sound effects and voice acting effectively pale in comparison, but that's not to say that they're at all bad. The sound effects fit well with the fantasy style setting of the game, and the voices are good enough for a game like this.

As well as all of the things already mentioned, there are numerous tiny details which make the game that little bit more special. For instance, the ability to take pictures of gameplay and to save replays is pure genius, and allow you to look back on fond memories of this game. It's also possible to change the control set-up of the game, which is a relief to anybody out there who thinks the controls of the game are a bit awkward (although I don't see it that way). You can also pick numerous different types of control. You can use the Wiimote and Nunchuck as a combo, or the Wiimote on its own, or even the classic controller! Whichever suits you best, feel free to use it, because the game supports it. You can also play really old games in a section called masterpieces. You can only do it for about a minute or so, but it's still a nice bit of nostalgia added to this already very hefty package.

So, is the game perfect? No, not quite, but then again no game is. There's one tiny flaw that I feel the need to point out. Every now and then, the game seems to take a fair bit of time to load. This seems to happen when you backtrack mostly, but it also happens shortly after selecting a character. It doesn't happen often, but it's still a bit annoying when it does. But then again, this flaw is easily forgivable; looking at how much content there is in the game.

Overall, this is easily one of the best, if not THE best, fighting game I have ever seen. There are so many characters to master, so many stages to try out, a deep single player adventure mode, tons of wacky items, fantastic graphics and brilliant music. Plus with the amazing multiplayer and online modes, this game has an almost infinite replay value. What more could you possibly ask for? No game is completely flawless, but this game comes really, really close. This game couldn't possibly have been made more fun. If you see this game in store, then for goodness sake buy it, even if you hate the genre! Don't think this is anything like Tekken or Virtua Fighter. This is a fantastic fighting game that any Wii owner should have in their collection. To conclude, I can safely say that this game thoroughly deserves the 10 that I'm giving it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/02/08, Updated 09/15/09

Game Release: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (EU, 06/27/08)