Super Smash Bros. Brawl

"Brawl; the greatest game to ever exist or the biggest disappointment of the year?"

I was always a big fan of the Super Smash Bros. series. I got the first Smash Bros. game for the Nintendo 64 and enjoyed it immensely. Melee came out--it was pretty good, but now that I've played it a really long time, I can point out quite a number of large flaws that keep it from being a great game. And then the Wii came out. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was announced. I never even had a Wii until recently, so naturally, I was drooling over this game the whole time I was saving up for it. I had read numerous reviews both positive and negative. Some people said it was the best game they had ever played. Others said it was the biggest disappointment they had ever played. I was a bit puzzled. I now have the game (as I am writing the review about it), and I've played it enough to shed much light on the matter.

Normally, I divide my reviews into sections like Graphics and Plot, but Brawl is different; there are so many ways haters are wrong about it, I can't just go through it like normal. So we'll be going over The Subspace Emissary, Boss Battles, new characters...we're going through it all so we can reveal what each category is really like.

If you want to just see a summary of what's good and what's bad, see the Pros and Cons at the end of this review.

HOW TO PLAY

In case you're new to Smash Bros., let's go over the basics. Attack your opponent to build up its damage meter. The higher their damage meter, the farther they'll fly when hit. Your goal is to hit them so far, they fly or fall out of the stage's boundaries and become defeated. You can try to score multiple points in a timed battle, brawl in a stock match to have lives and be the last one standing, and attack each other to pick up coins and have the most coins when the match ends. You can also play Special Brawls, where you can have high or low gravity, turn metal, giant, or tiny...a long list of options.

THE NEW CHARACTERS

There are about 15 new characters in Brawl, totaling 35 characters in all. Among these newcomers are Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake. What are these new characters like? I think Nintendo couldn't have included better Smash Bros. characters. You have characters like Ike from the Fire Emblem series, slow but strong, and Pit from the Kid Icarus series, who can fly and shoot guided arrows. These characters are very unique, and it's very easy to pick and choose your favorites. (I, personally, find Ike and Pit to be nearly unstoppable fighters.) You start with Diddy Kong, Pit, Meta Knight, King DeDeDe, Pokemon Trainer (who can switch between Ivysaur, Squirtle, and Charizard much like Zelda can turn into Sheik), Ike, Lucas (from the Earthbound series), Wario, and Olimar. Maybe you've heard of these characters, maybe you haven't. Like I said, these characters are very unique. The clones of Melee are practically nonexistent.

Speaking of clones, let's go over them a second. First of all, some of the stupid clones in Melee, like Dr. Mario and Pichu, were removed, so you can breathe a sigh of relief. Others, like Young Link, were replaced by newer versions. Secondly, it looks as if Nintendo has heard the grumbling about clones and done something about them; the clones are not so much near-carbon copies of one another, but are merely based on another character. Falco, who was practically another Fox in Melee, has had most of his moves and stats changed in Brawl. So, he's not a carbon copy, he's just based off of Fox.

THE NEW STAGES

There are a total of 41 stages in Brawl. These, in my opinion, are either truly breathtaking or utterly uninspired. One or the other. The majority, I think, are truly breathtaking. An example of a good stage is Norfair; it's kind of like Brinstar from Melee (which, by the way, shows up as a "Melee Stage" here), but lava walls come in from the sides and background, forcing players to scramble for safe spots and run for incoming giant fireballs. Another inspired stage is PictoChat (you know, the little function in your Nintendo DS), where platforms and hazards are drawn to change the stage a bit. A third neat stage is WarioWare, Inc., where you frequently get thrown into a microgame and have to do something; if you successfully do it, you get gifted; if not, you get nothing. You may have to avoid damage from an oncoming car, be the first to chisel a statue, or simply not move at all. Now for the UNinspired stages...Yoshi's Island is little more than a small stage with a single platform that has changing background scenery. Frigate Orpheon is only mildly inspired; it's mostly a flat stage with a platform or two, and it occasionally flips upside down to another area. Smashville...don't even get me started. It's just a small, flat area with a single moving platform. But out of the many stages, I think the majority of them are more inspired than any other Smash Bros. stage in the whole series. Those complaining about remakes of previous stages aren't looking at it right. When I say that, I mean that they recreated stages like Mute City and Brinstar so that those cherished stages wouldn't just disappear from the series. They've also upgraded them, so if you're thinking that a lookalike is bad, remember that you don't want some of the good stages disappearing. (Only a couple are clones, anyway.)

FINAL SMASHES

One of the most anticipated features of Brawl...the Final Smashes. When a Smash Ball appears on the stage and floats around, attack it repeatedly to break it open. Then you can unleash a devastating move known as a Final Smash. These can range from transforming into something huge and ugly (like Giga Bowser), firing a laser of destruction across the stage, or beating somebody repeatedly with your sword. Unfortunately, there ARE some copies of Final Smashes; Fox, Falco, and the third Star Fox character who is a locked newcomer all have the same Final Smash; come down with a Landmaster and wreak havoc. These copies are annoying, and it would have been much better just to give them separate Final Smashes. (Many people have speculated that, since Falco says "Personally, I prefer the air" when he does his Final Smash, that he should be given an Arwing, not a Landmaster, and I'm inclined to agree with those people.)

Some people complain of imbalance between Final Smashes; one Final Smash is super-deadly while one is pathetic. First of all, every Final Smash is dangerous, so it doesn't matter what Final Smash you do, you're probably going to kill a couple of people before it's done. Secondly, if you don't like a character's Final Smash, choose a different character! Use it to help you choose your favorites. And thirdly, you have to know how to use them right. You can't just use your Final Smash whenever; you've got to get the timing and location right and learn how to control some. I still think it was a good idea to include Final Smashes, because not only are they cool to watch, but it's fun when everybody scrambles for the Smash Ball. It creates an aura of fun and excitement.

THE SUBSPACE EMISSARY

Alongside Final Smashes, The Subspace Emissary (often just abbreviated to "SSE") is in Brawl. Remember Melee's pathetic Adventure Mode? I was pretty disappointed with it. I was told that there would be "side-scrolling action" in the Adventure Mode, but out of about nineteen total levels, about four were side-scrolling levels; the others were just fights with characters. In SSE, almost every stage is a side-scrolling level. It also lasts between 6-9 hours instead of Melee's 20 minutes.

So what do you do, exactly? Pick a character and go through a level. This usually involves a side-scrolling stage, but you may also fight a character or even a boss. Now, this boss isn't a Giga Bowser-type boss; these bosses have health bars and moves that would make Mewtwo drop his jaw in fear. Excluding Master Hand and Crazy Hand, there are eight of these bosses, all inside SSE. After you clear SSE, you unlock the Boss Battles mode under Stadium, where you can challenge them one after the other in All-Star Mode style, meaning with limited recovery items and keeping your damage from previous battles.

The enemies in each level have miniature health bars as well. They have various attacks that increase your damage meter (as always, the higher your damage meter, the farther you fly when hit, and if you fly out of the "blast lines," or boundaries, of the stage, you die). Unlike the enemies in the Adventure Mode in Melee, these enemies typically don't hurt you if you simply touch them; they attack all on their own. The enemies are varied, and you'll learn which strategies to use to defend yourselves from the nastier ones.

Some people complain of the characters not being cut out for this kind of thing. If you're talking about secret ninja moves, guns blasting off, pulling an 800-hit combo, then no, I guess they don't. I was keeping this in mind as I played through it, and I discovered just the opposite; I don't know what characters they're talking about, but they worked excellent. Fox can shoot enemies from afar with his Blaster, Pit can smack enemies multiple times with his damage-building moves, and Ike can do what he does best: Beat the crud out of enemies with his gigantic sword and, of course, give no sympathy.

What's a shame is SSE's practically-nonexistent story. Nobody speaks, and there's nothing written to help you understand what's going on. It really is drivel just to push it along.

Some people complain of puzzles being too simple. Let's be honest here; there are no puzzles in SSE. I'm not sure what they thought was a puzzle, but there really aren't any. Carrying a key to a door five steps away is putting it mildly; more like carrying a key five steps to a door guarded by fire pillars and dangerous enemies. SSE focuses more on action than puzzle-solving.

What's a good sign, though, is that my older sister loves SSE more than anything else in the game. This may be due to the fact that two players can play at once and you must use teamwork and cooperation to get by, but she's not necessarily big on video games, so when SHE'S asking ME to play with her...well, like I said, it's a good sign. If you have a buddy, SSE will be much more fun. In fact, the whole Super Smash Bros. series has been based mostly around battling with friends, so if you don't have friends to play with, Brawl might not be for you. But, of course....

WI-FI

...There's Wi-Fi to make up for that. You can battle other players across the world with Wi-Fi and even trade Custom Stages with friends. (I never mentioned anything about the fact that you can create your own stages to brawl on, did I? We'll get to that.) As is to be expected, the fights are often laggy, 'cause hey, you're fighting some guy who doesn't even speak your language. The Wi-Fi is pretty good; however, you'll meet all kinds of people there, like ones eight times your skill level and ones which make you wonder how they can fight at all. There are also cheap little cheaters who act like cowards and use the same move over and over again, so be aware of that. (The people I've fought with have mostly been honorable players, fortunately.) It's extremely fun to fight someone on Wi-Fi; even if you don't have a buddy to play with, if you've got wi-fi, you can play with somebody anyway.

STAGE BUILDER

You can create your own stages here. You can set your own platforms, traps (like spikes and falling blocks), moving platforms, treadmills, Ferris wheels, blocks, slopes, stairs...it goes on for awhile. First, you choose how big you want your stage to be. Then, you build it by using a grid; certain objects take up more space than others. Some more people complain about the limitations of Stage Builder. I wish they wouldn't be so picky; you can build stages on Stage Builder that put Hyrule Temple and Brawl's New Pork City to shame, they're that huge. There are limits, yes, but you only have to stop building once you've constructed a stage the size of Rhode Island. (If you think I'm kidding, go on YouTube or something and type in "Custom Stages" and see what you come up with.) Once you're done, you can give it a name and select which song you want to play in it. And speaking of songs....

MUSIC

Brawl has done a very nice thing to us indeed involving music. You can unlock CDs, which can change the music in the stages. You can get multiple songs for each stage and adjust how often you want each song to appear when you select the stage. And you can use ANY song you've unlocked for Stage Builder. Which is very neat. (It's pretty cool listening to Live and Learn from the Sonic the Hedgehog series while you play in your Custom Stage.) The Sound Test is now cooler than ever since you can listen to such a huge selection of songs. The songs chosen are either remixes or direct rips from previous games. Again, picky people complain about unoriginality; I guess they don't care for nostalgia. And besides, if you don't like the song, you can always turn it off. The songs chosen are incredible. Nintendo made a good pick. There's Live and Learn from Sonic the Hedgehog (like I said), Waluigi Pinball from Mario Kart DS, Dragon Roost Island from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker...it goes on and on. Not all songs are really good songs, but most of them are, I think. You can have lots of fun adjusting which songs will appear in My Music.

STADIUM

There are four areas in Stadium: Target Test, Home Run Contest, Multi-Man Brawl, and, eventually, Boss Battles. What's cool is that you can do each with up to two players. (Just imagine two people beating up Sandbag in the Home Run Contest.) The Target Test has been downgraded, as I and many other people think; instead of each character having his or her own individual Target Test (where your goal is to destroy all the targets in the stage as quickly as possible), there are just several tests that any character can do. It isn't terrible, but I think I preferred the individual Target Tests more. You have to unlock each Target Test by completing them on the various difficulty levels on Classic Mode (where you defeat random enemies to move on). In the Home Run Contest, barriers have now been placed around the edges of the platform to prevent Sandbag from accidentally being knocked off; I like this addition, since it was always frustrating beyond belief when I would accidentally hit Sandbag an inch too far and lose the perfect combo I was getting. Multi-Man Brawl is the same as Multi-Man Melee, but now we have Alloys instead of Wire Frames. These take after four different Brawl characters and are as easy to knock away as ever. Boss Battles takes you through all ten bosses in the game, including Master Hand and Crazy Hand, and has you beating them all up, only given the option to heal after each battle. You can only heal three times. At the end is SSE's final boss. The Boss Battles mode is immensely fun and helps you develop strategies for defeating each boss and learning their moves and techniques easier.

CLASSIC MODE

The Classic Mode is the standard 1-Player Mode featured in all Smash Bros. games. Your goal is to battle through multiple opponents--sometimes you team up with another character and fight two other people, sometimes you fight a metal enemy, and sometimes you fight a gigantic enemy--until you reach the end, where you battle Master Hand. The Very Easy difficulty level has been replaced with the Intense difficulty level, which is a step up from Very Hard. The Very Easy difficulty doesn't even exist in this game. So if you're looking for more challenge, well, here it is. People complain of it not being as random as Melee. I have to agree, actually; some teams are the same as always, like Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, Link and Zelda, and what's worse, your ally is always the same depending on the team you're squaring off against. And there are no bonuses at the end of each level, either, which either stinks or rocks, depending on how you look at it; no more rewards (and no more Bonus mode in standard brawls, either), but no more Coward penalties to make you feel bad, either. Classic Mode's probably even more fun in this game than it was in any other game, mostly because the AI has been fixed. Wait, what?

THE COMPUTERS

Let me just say something: I hated the computers in Melee. Talk about poor programming. They were both stupid and annoying. They always used the same move over and over again; A, A, A, A, A, throw, A, A, A, throw...they were so predictable and yet so annoying. And the very moment danger arose, like rising acid in Brinstar, they'd go and duck for cover. Even if the acid wasn't even close to touching the stage, they'd go and act like cowards. In Brawl, the AI has been fixed. They are now, what do you know, FUN to fight. And they're not complete cowards, either. Level 8 and level 9 computers are now real challenges since they actually use skills instead of cheap and annoying moves.

ALL-STAR MODE

Once you've unlocked all the characters, you can go on All-Star Mode. You'll be battling characters with the amount of damage you took last fight carrying over to the next one. You can heal three times total. You can also go on All-Star Mode with two players. Some changes have been made; first of all, it's not in a random order like it was in Melee. You fight the Mario cast first, then Zelda...all the way until you reach Olimar. Also, you will never face more than two enemies at once. Some people complain about this. My response? OH, HECK YES!! Do you know how ANNOYING it was, having three level 9s on you at once, with added powers like freezing and paralyzing you? (And, of course, the obnoxiousness.) I'm GLAD to finally be given a fair fight. Maybe you don't think so, but that's just my opinion.

THE EVENT MODE

Okay, I'm going to have to be honest here: Brawl botched up the Event Mode. "Events" are specific challenges you can complete, like fighting a giant foe or defeating a whole army of opponents. This is one of the few things Melee did better than Brawl. There were several fun events in Melee that I wanted to do over and over again. No such feelings here in Brawl. Almost every event is just an ordinary match between another character, or perhaps just an event that's too basic and simple to be appreciated. One event has you merely playing as Fox and using a Landmaster repeatedly to defeat your enemies as many times as possible before time's up. This is so boring that even the fact that you have a high damage percentage doesn't change the fact that it's practically impossible to die. Another event is simply waiting for a Smash Ball to appear and then using your Final Smash. A third is a basic fight between Meta Knight and Kirby on the Halberd stage; nostalgic, yes, but easily replicated by playing an ordinary brawl. You get the picture. There are 41 solo events and 21 co-op events that can be done with a second person, but it feels like a chore to go through all of them. Despite the fact that you can complete events on various difficulty levels, which would typically add replay value, there is no incentive to go back in the first place.

THE "SLOWNESS" OF BRAWL

Perhaps one of the biggest (and stupidest) complaints I've seen about Brawl is it's "slowness." I didn't know what this meant for awhile, but now I finally see what they mean. I also see what the actual translation of what the complaint is (and it's kind of funny). Matches take longer than the ones in Melee. So they say, "I don't like Brawl because of its slowness." Translation? "The level 9 computers in Brawl are smarter, so now I actually have to work for a KO." Guess what, guys? Spamming a move doesn't work anymore! Hiding out in a corner while everybody else fights doesn't work anymore (they all flock to you anyway)! Pulling a clever trick to make computers suicide themselves doesn't work anymore! Now, you're actually going to have to (gasp) use some skills! Man, I'd think you'd be HAPPY to see smarter computers. In Melee, the computers were so predictable, it was almost boring. No computers ran except when they got really close to you, they liked to use one too many standard A moves and grabs, and some computers (cough--Zelda and Bowser--cough) would get a Stale Moves penalty if you let them. Zelda would use her down A move about fourteen times if you let her, then throw you. Bowser would use his Fire Breath repeatedly even if you were on the opposite side of Hyrule Temple. I don't think I'll EVER be able to predict Brawl's computers' moves. It's like they have minds of their own.

Let me put it this way: A slower but better match is more fun than a fast but stupid one.

PROS

Lots more characters!

Lots more stages--and the best ones in the series, too

Final Smashes that add thrill and excitement to the game

An awesome new Adventure Mode that's actually fun to play

Bosses!

Teamwork and cooperation optional in Stadium tests

Three taunts per character--more ways to tick off your opponent

You can play with Classic Controllers and GameCube Controllers to make it easier

A Stage Builder which lets you let your imagination fly

Lots of Trophies to collect so you can learn about Nintendo history

The ability to take pictures almost anywhere just by pausing

The ability to record Stadium matches and brawls under three minutes

An All-Star Mode which is actually fun

No more direct clones

You can air dodge multiple times, making defense easier and minimizing the stupid accidental suicides when you mean to dodge an attack and wind up plummeting to your doom

More Special Brawls, and you can mix them, too, like Metal Brawl and Giant Brawl together

Awesome music and an option that lets you customize your CDs

Perhaps best of all, fixed AI

CONS

The limits on recording brawls are frustrating

Target Tests have been dumbed down

SSE barely has a plot to speak of

You sometimes trip when running; we could have done without this

The Event Mode is completely boring and a chore to go through

CONCLUSION

Now, some people say that you shouldn't buy a Wii just for this game. Well, of course; you don't buy a Wii for any one game. But Brawl should definitely be a part of your collection, especially if you have friends. Unless your expectations are set too high, Brawl should keep you entertained for a very long time.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 02/19/09, Updated 03/03/09

Game Release: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (US, 03/09/08)