Super Smash Bros. Brawl

"The ultimate must-own Wii game!"

Like many GameCube owners, I played Super Smash Bros. Melee way more than any other game available for that system. Melee was a game that was not only amazingly fun to play and one of the best offline multiplayer titles ever made, but it was also packed to the brim with options, different ways to play and awesome music from all the biggest Nintendo franchises. Many years after its release, Melee was still the game to play when friends came over, hungry for multiplayer action. Unsurprisingly, when the sequel Super Smash Bros. Brawl was announced for the Wii and hyped up more and more, until it promised to outclass Melee in ways we hadn't dared to even imagine, the expectations were out of this world. And guess what? Brawl actually manages to meet the expectations, and delivers a complete package that surpasses Melee in almost every way. Here's the story of how it does it.

Concept

On the off chance you're unaware of the game's basic premise, Brawl can simply be described as a 2D fighting game with 3D graphics, in which all the biggest and most famous Nintendo stars are pitted against each other in the ring of battle. As follows, you'll see fights between Mario and Link, Donkey Kong and Kirby, Captain Falcon and Pikachu, as well as more obscure heroes of old, like the Ice Climbers, and Pit from Kid Icarus. Brawl is the third Super Smash Bros. game, the first being made for the N64, the second being the aforementioned Melee for the GameCube. New to Brawl is the inclusion characters from other companies than Nintendo (though they have previously appeared in games available on Nintendo consoles), and in this case those characters are two real heavyweights, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog and Konami's Solid Snake.

The many levels available in Brawl are also taken from various Nintendo franchises, each franchise already represented with a fighter also being the basis for at least one stage, making for an incredibly varied selection. The fighting itself deviates from the genre's norm, as your goal is not to kill off your opponent by depleting his energy bar, but instead to knock him off the screen. The more you manage to hurt your opponent the easier this becomes, as your blows will smack the opponents further and further the more damage they've accumulated (this being kept track of with a percentage-meter, starting off at 0 and going all the way to 999, in which case a light tap will send your opponent off screen at the speed of light). A great concept which still holds up superbly, it ensures that you'll have to balance the desire to slam your foes with your strongest attacks and the necessity of gradually weakening them to set up the coupe de grace.

Mixing things up further you have items, kinda like you do in Mario Kart, only Brawl features a great many, many more items. A lot of these are Nintendo-themed (like fire flowers, bomb-ombs, pokeballs and the screw attack) and a lot aren't (like the beam sword, the ray gun and the fan). There are items for healing, items for stunning, items that can pull off instant K.Os, items that make you run faster and jump higher and so on. New to Brawl is the Smash Ball, which sometime appears during battles and can be broken open (easier said than done) to enable the lucky character to unleash his or hers ultimate attack, which really packs a punch. The items help make Brawl what it is, but of course, if you don't like a particular item you have the option to disable it, or even disable all the items if that's what you want.

Graphics

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is easily one of the best-looking Wii games available, right up there with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Super Mario Galaxy. The characters are very detailed (way more so than in Melee), the animation is superb (play a slow-mo mach using the special brawl option to really get a chance to admire it) and the stages are incredibly varied in terms of looks (just compare Yoshi's Island or the Pikmin stage to the Bridge of Eldin), the one thing in common being that they all look great in their own different way. Whether the subject is the stunning Final Smashes, the amazing background action on stages like Lylat Cruise and Final Destination or the lovingly recreated retro stages, Brawl is one great-looking Wii game. It also runs incredibly smoothly, no matter how fast or hectic the action gets, the framerate remains consistent. A huge leap from Melee, Brawl reminds you of just how poor a job many third parties are doing of utilizing the Wii's true potential.

Music & Sound

If you thought Brawl looked good, that's nothing compared to how it sounds. See, most games have on offer maybe two-three really great music tracks, while really good games can maybe boast a dozen. Brawl has quite literally hundreds of them. Everything about the soundtrack is stunning, starting with the variety: Not only is there plenty of awesome music from the likes of Zelda, Mario, Metroid, F-Zero, Kirby, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Pikmin, Kid Incarus, Fire Emblem, Animal Crossing, Mother, WarioWare, Pokemon, Sonic and Metal Gear, but there's also music you may never have expected to hear in Brawl, music from games like Golden Sun, Excite Truck, Tetris, Clu Clu Land and on and on and on. There's remixes, there's enhanced versions of established themes, there's untouched music from the original games, there's all the best Melee music and there's brand new made-for-Brawl music. With such a massive scope, there will always be some disappointments with regard to certain remixes not living up to their potential and certain notable music tracks being absent, but overall you'd have a hard time arguing against Brawl having one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming history. Simply amazing!

The sound effects by the way are great too, and there's even plenty of high quality speech on offer in Brawl, in the form of various excellent Metal Gear and Star Fox Easter Eggs (check them out on YouTube if you're too lazy to access them in Brawl yourself).

Gameplay

The Fighting

A great concept can easily be let down by bad controls, fortunately the controls in Brawl are great. In fact, they are more than just great, seeing how you not only have four different controller setups at your disposal (the Wiimote, the Wiimote-Nunchuck combo, the Classic Controller and the GameCube controller can all be used), but also the option to customize the controls to perfectly suit your style, decide which button does what, whether to jump using the analog stick or button pushes, and so on. The GameCube controller suits the game like a glove, but I've also had very good experiences with the Classic Controller. The Wii's motion-controls are not utilized at all, seeing how they didn't have much to add to the game.

The basic fighting in Brawl is easy to learn, but hard to master, a cliche that actually applies perfectly to this game. See, pretty much all of your attacks are very easy to pull off in Brawl, no elaborate button mashing combos that you'll have to memorize or anything like that. Dodging, defending and using items, it's all extremely simple and intuitive, even for someone who has never played a SSB game before. However, actually mastering any of the characters, learning how to string together good series of attacks, how to overcome character weaknesses and neutralize particular opponents, how to recover effectively when your opponent is waiting for you at the edge of a stage, learning the proper timing for all the different attacks, learning to distinguish between situations where a charged-up smash attack is called for as opposed to situations when a quick, weaker attack is your best bet, that's stuff that will have to be learned, and it will all make a big difference when fighting even a somewhat skilled opponent.

As for the fighting itself, it's pretty fast and intense, though not quite a speedy as in Melee, meaning you'll be approaching the battles slightly differently, with tactical play potentially being of greater importance. Another change is aerial combat being much more important than in Melee, seeing how the characters fall more slowly and are somewhat more floaty this time around (don't worry though, it's not as if you're fighting on the moon). Some advanced techniques/glitches/errors from Melee are also removed from Brawl, making various competitive players who spent way too much time learning how to exploit those glitches very angry, while the rest of the 8 million + Brawl owners are left wondering what all that fuss is about. The one annoying gameplay change is tripping, a feature that will cause a player running to simply trip over once in a while, which doesn't add anything of value to the game, except maybe cheap laughs during a multiplayer match. Fortunately it doesn't happen all that often and overall combat in Brawl is if anything even more enjoyable than in Melee, being more refined, balanced and accessible.

There are also plenty of different ways to fight even ordinary matches in Brawl. First of all, you can choose between various standard game modes (playing with adjustable sets of lives, time limits or playing a coin match), play in teams, bring up to three computer players into the mix and customize down to the tiniest detail what items appear when, set a handicap and so on. Then there's the Special Brawl mode, which enables you to mess with the game in all sorts of crazy ways, from making the gameplay superfast or superslow to altering gravity, making your characters tiny or gigantic or even invisible. You can also mix together these changes for tons of different combinations, like setting up a fight where the characters are gigantic, superfast, breathing fire and made of metal, but where they also start the match with 300% worth of damage. Basically, even if the standard game fails to capture your imagination, there are ample opportunities to simply go nuts experimenting and find new ways to play.

The Character Roster

Brawl's character roster is a lot bigger than Melee's, featuring a total of 35 fighters (39 if you take into account that some characters, like the Pokemon Trainer and Samus, are actually multiple fighters in one). Most characters are very much true to their established franchise, which is not only reflected by the enormous attention to detail paid to their presentation, but also how so many of their attacks are taken directly from various games they've taken part in (Link will for example not only fight using the Master Sword, bombs, arrows and hookshot, he'll also use a specific wind-based boomerang from Zelda: Twilight Princess, faithfully replicated). There are a handful of clone characters in Brawl, but the most lazy ones from Melee (like Doctor Mario) have been removed, while even the remaining clones are significantly more unique fighters in Brawl than in Melee. Aside from the clones, the character roster in Brawl is stunningly varied, featuring an incredibly diverse cast of characters.

The third party characters Sonic and Snake are great additions to the game, being very unique, true to their roots and at the same time very capable Brawl fighters. In fact, you'll find that pretty much all the characters can prove to be great fighters in the right hands, with each character boasting a great deal of hidden depth, meaning no fighter should be dismissed just because he or she appears weak initially. The balance between the characters is also improved by the fact that the strongest characters from Melee are toned down while the worst have somewhat improved (and hopeless joke characters like Pichu removed altogether), and though some of the new characters have a lot of impressive abilities, it's nothing that can't be dealt with. As a result, the balance between the characters is way better than in Melee, doubly impressive considering the increased size of the character roster. Apart from the ill-advised removal of Mewtwo and the absence of Mega Man, I have a hard time finding faults with Brawl's character roster.

The Stages

To give you an idea of the effort that has gone into making the stages in Brawl, lets take a closer look at the Animal Crossing stage, Smashville. At first glance this stage is nice, but basic, with a beautifully detailed Animal Crossing town serving as scenery for a stage with one main platform to fight on and another smaller platform floating slightly above you. As you play the stage a couple of times however, you'll notice there's far more to it than that. For starters, the stage features a night & day system that is controlled by the Wii's internal clock, which is really neat. A number of Animal Crossing characters fans of the series will recognize are also present in the background, serving as spectators on this stage, their facial expressions frequently changing depending on how they view the on-stage action. However, the makeup of spectators can change from match to match, one group of spectators being totally different from the previous one, with dozens of unique characters appearing over the course of a couple of matches. As if that wasn't enough, if you were to play on a Saturday 8.00 PM-12.00 AM, the canine musician K.K. Slider will appear on this stage, performing one of out of six different songs, most of them exclusive to this time-specific appearance. Of course, this presentation mustn't fail to mention other neat stuff that goes on in this stage, like a taxi arriving in the background town, or a UFO flying at night, or how red balloons will sometimes float onto the stage, bringing with them useful items. Pretty impressive, considering this is just one stage, no?

Now consider that there are a whopping 41 stages in Brawl, and how even that number underestimates what's really on offer. Some individual stages are more like 3-9 stages in one, as you're time and time again transported to new fighting locations. The variety and creativity on display is simply fantastic, ranging from how new objects and obstacles are constantly drawn on the PictoChat stage, to the various micro-games you're taking part in on the WarioWare stage and how the Super Mario Bros. stage contains not one, but two authentic SMB levels remade for Brawl. There are stages which you can temporarily lay waste to with your attacks, stages where everything from gravity to controls can be altered, even stages with nothing crazy going on on-stage, but with jawdropping action and events displayed in the background.

Again I have to point out how astonishing the attention to detail is, and the various stages include so many subtle nods to past Nintendo games that you have to be in awe of all the effort that went into making them. On top of the original Brawl stages you also have plenty of classic stages from Melee to enjoy, and if that's not enough for you there's also a stage editor. It's pretty basic, but you can still make a lot of clever and creative stages with it, and even receive stages online. Simply put, if you thought Melee was impressive in terms of stages, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The Subspace Emissary

In Melee the adventure mode was a mere afterthought, and could be completed in half an hour. In Brawl, the adventure mode (known as the Subspace Emissary) will last you longer than many full-price 2D platformers. At its core the SSE is a combat heavy 2D platformer, and while it is far from perfect (the lack of specialized platformer controls and physics limit it, and it drags on towards the end) it is nonetheless a very solid adventure that can provide plenty of fun. Featuring many varied levels and enemies, cool boss fights, hidden goodies and even some fairly clever puzzles, the SSE has plenty on offer for gamers even besides all the stuff you can unlock while playing through it. The story itself (incorporating almost all of Brawl's fighters without any form of dialogue or text) barely approaches fanfic quality, but truckloads of awesome FMVs manage to keep it enjoyable nonetheless.

The Singleplayer

Brawl is primarily a multiplayer game, but even for solo players it provides with so much to do it could last hundreds of hours. There's the standard brawls, Special Brawl the Classic mode (fight after fight after fight until you reach the mighty Master Hand), the Subspace Emissary mode, Event Matches, Target Smash, Home Run Contests, various forms of Multi-Man Brawl, as well as various unlockable modes. One particularly big improvement over Melee is the artificial intelligence of your computer opponents. While there still are some persistent issues with them even on the highest difficulty setting, they are nonetheless much smarter than in Melee, more aggressive, more tactically sound and much less prone to making obvious mistakes. While there's still plenty of room for improvement, it's nice to note that Melee's maybe most glaring weakness has been ably addressed.

The Multiplayer

As an offline multiplayer game, Brawl is not just close to perfection, but also a good candidate for being the game with the best offline multiplayer ever made. Yeah, it's that good. I've already explained the incredible variety and diversity of Brawl's fighting experience, what I should add is that it's also unpredictable and enormously entertaining. No two fights are the same, and the gigantic amount of different character, item and stage match ups ensure there's always something new to try out, tons of memorable battles to experience, and all that's without going into the amazing Special Brawl mode. With items involved luck will be a factor, but never to the degree it is in Mario Kart, let alone Mario Party, the balance struck here being much better than in those games. What matters in Brawl is not just who gets the items, but also how they are being used, and that makes a big difference. Something that really sets Brawl apart from Melee is the co-operative multiplayer additions, as you and a friend can now play plenty of different game modes co-op, most notably the SSE and the special co-op Event Matches. This adds another dimension to Brawl's already stunning multiplayer.

It's only when you go online that Brawl's one big weakness reveals itself: When playing online with random people, the game that in so many other ways embarrasses 99% of Wii games available is actually behind the curve itself, with an online multiplayer far inferior to the likes of Medal of Honor Heroes 2 and Mario Kart Wii. Finding any opponents to fight can take a long while, you might get disconnected frequently and when you actually get to fight the matches are often laggy. Even when none of these problems manifest themselves, you'll be hampered by an extreme lack of options. See, when playing with random people, you'll always be forced to play a 2 minute timed match involving 4 players (and as someone preferring stock matches with 2 players, that's not to my liking at all!), and even if you only find one other person to play with, the game will often then force upon you two extra computer opponents, because you know, variety is really scary.

Start registering other gamers using Nintendo's Friend Codes and things will quickly start looking up though. When playing with friends almost all the great options you're used to will be available again, lag will be minimal and you can even play the likes of Multi-Man Brawl and Home Run Contests co-operatively online, which can be surprisingly fun and addictive. Playing Brawl online using Friend Codes can actually turn Brawl into a good online game, just make sure you register more than just a handful of people, to make it more likely you're going to find opponents online when you are searching for them.

Longevity

Merely unlocking most of the stuff available in Brawl will take you months, the amount of content being simply staggering. And I'm not only talking about all the characters, stages, music, modes and options available, I'm also talking about the collectibles, like more than 500 trophies and 700 stickers. And guess what, even if you're done with all of that the replay-value of Brawl is still stunning, not just due to the multiplayer, but also due to the fact that there's just so many modes with high-score challenges to test you, so many difficulty levels to conquer and because the main fighting is itself so fun and addictive. Of course, you can also kill a lot of time building stages yourself, experimenting with Special Brawl, taking snapshots, playing the coin launcher mini-game, recording replays, listening to the amazing music or checking out the Subspace Emissary FMVs in their own section. If you were buying the Wii solely for this game, chances are that Brawl would provide you with so many hours of entertainment that every dollar would still seem well invested.

Closing Comments

Living up to my insanely high expectations, Brawl is the one game every Wii owner simply must own. It's very easy to get into even for novices, and once you're hooked there's so much to do, so much to see and discover that you'll be playing for hundreds of blissful hours. Brawl is not a perfect game, but for every one thing it does wrong it does a hundred things right. Easily surpassing Melee, Brawl gets my highest recommendations and all I have left to say is BUY IT NOW!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/28/09, Updated 03/03/09

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