"This Game is Silly!"

Super Dodgeball Brawlers is an odd little game.

I just randomly picked it up one day because it had the name Aksys emblazoned upon it, and, giving it a second look, the characters looked like the guys from River City Ransom, which I loved to bits. I got it on the spot.



Yay, Dodgeball!

This is basically a dodgeball game. Two teams face off and try to bean each other with the dodgeball. The court is a large rectangle divided through the center, and each team gets a side. Four guys on each team are positioned in each side of the court, and three additional guys from each team stand in the outfield opposite their side, boxing in the guys in each infield. The players scramble for the dodgeball and try to hit the guys on the other team with it. The other guys try to avoid getting hit, either by dodging the ball or catching it. But this game definitely isn't standard dodgeball.



This Game is Hot-Blooded!

Now, take all those rules of dodgeball, and imagine if someone made an anime around it. The story is nonexistent; you're the Nekketsu (Hot-Blooded) High School Dodgeball Team (or whichever team you choose) and you want to kick the crap out of all the other Dodgeball Teams in the world. Now, compose the entire team out of stereotyped Japanese high school hoodlums, and you have the basic premise of this game.

They have basically no respect for the rules of the game, or for their rival teams. You can throw punches and kicks at your opposition, and chuck whatever you find lying around at them along with the actual dodgeball. And of course, no anime-style dodgeball game would be complete without crazy, over-the-top super-shots unique to the players.

Imagine this: Your opponent catches your well-placed shot, and begins to beeline towards the center-line in order to deliver his high-flying ultimate shot to your groin. But right as he's about to leap for the shot, you take two steps over the center line and deliver a hay-maker to his jaw and kick him onto the floor. Then you pick up the ball he just dropped and bean him with it to actually score the hit. Then you chuck the vending machine at his head. Situations like this come up all the time, and I love it.



This Game is Silly!

Normally in dodgeball, you hit a guy and he's out. Not in Brawlers. In here, you hit the guy with the ball, and then you continue to hit him with the ball until he stops moving. The game has an oddball sense of humor, too. The players made ridiculous faces when you hit them with the dodgeball. They do silly little dances when they win a game (or throw tantrums when they lose).

The game is also quite racist (!?). The protagonist team is a Japanese high school, and the main character is a hoodlum. Naturally, for his signature throw he leaps up and beans you in the nuts. The Mexican team is so poor that they have to play on a mud court, with the lines drawn into the floor with sticks. The Canadian Team plays in the snow, and has a special shot called the "Salmon Shot" (it speaks for itself). The European teams are all blonde with slick hair. And the American team is a bunch of scary black guys with no eyebrow hair.

Their humor is sometimes crude and always incredibly silly.


This Game Handles Nicely!

The game controls tightly and has a quick learning curve. I picked up the game and was chucking special shots and catching balls in minutes. There is no tutorial, however, so you have to pick all of this up through experience and by actually reading the instruction manual. Everything is intuitive and simple, though, so it won't take long to figure out. The entire game has a rather leisurely pace to it, so rather than feeling frantic, it feels deliberate and tense. It uses conventional buttons almost exclusively. The touch screen of the DS isn't used for any weird gestures (thank the gaming gods), just to activate your Spirit ability once you've filled up your Spirit Meter.



This Game is Old School!

The look and feel of this game is of something that was pulled from the 16-bit era. The character sprites are crisp, stylized, and goofy. The animations are rather choppy and retro, but they get the point across. The special effects for the special shots are all cool to watch, without hurting your eyes or covering up the playing field. Functional, but not flashy is the basic philosophy of the graphics, and it works nicely towards a nostalgic look.

The sound is noticeably dated. Players clop noisily when they run, shots zing out of the players hands, and the music is all up-beat midi tracks. Again, it's functional, but not particularly impressive. It works well in context of the game, but you won't be comparing it to anything.



These Players are Dumb!

The AI, very unsurprisingly, is exceptionally stupid at times. Your opponents don't have much of a mix-up game, and for the most part they either run up to the center line and throw it at you, or run up to the center line, jump, and THEN throw it at you. The challenge for the most part in the single player tournament mode comes from learning to dodge the diverse array of special shots your opponents will be throwing at you. You might see the shot coming from a mile away, but you won't necessarily be prepared to actually catch it when it comes out.

Unfortunately, the AI is this game is extremely easy to abuse once you've learned their habits, so people who opt for cheap wins will soar throw this game easily. Also, your teammates are pretty useless, but at least they do a good job of staying out of your way.



This next statement is basically going to determine whether or not you'll care for Brawlers:

This Game is Really, Really Short!

It only takes about an hour to get through Tournament Mode for the first time. Another hour to do it again in Hard. Longer if you decide to try for the Special Matches, too. It only took me one day to beat Normal Tourney, Hard Tourney, the Special Matches, get all the equipment, and level my team all the way to 20. It's a short game meant to be played in short bursts.

The replayability of this game really depends on what kind of person you are. If you're a gamer who plays a game just to get to the end, you'll get there the same day you start playing. This game isn't for you. On the other hand, if you're the kind of person who likes to master all the nuances of the games you play, you'll be pleased with this next feature:



This Game is Customizable!

This is the saving grace of Brawlers—you have control over the rules. You can choose not to have garbage lying around if you don't want the chaos of random trash bins flying across the screen. You can choose to omit punches and kicks from the game if you need a challenge, since the AI is so susceptible to fisticuffs.

But most importantly, you can create a custom team! You have full control over all the aspects of the team: the name, your team's colors, the formation you play with, and the players in it. You can pull players from the other teams, or you can craft them yourself. The player editor is surprisingly satisfying, as there are over a hundred different faces hairdos (or un-hairdos) to mix and match to create your avatars. You can also distribute points to their skills, and decide on their special shots (sadly, some shots remain exclusive to the standard characters). You can also purchase and equip items with the prize money you win from Tourney games.

Most of the replay value of this game comes from trying to perfect your team. You'll make them, play them, and along the line decide that you really don't use the dodge move at all, or that you want to sacrifice your mobility just to bean things harder, or realize that your special shot sucks and swap it for another one. The process of striving for the ultimate team is enjoyable and keeps you playing long after the initial game is over.



This Game was Made for Multiplayer!

Naturally, making your custom team would be pointless if you didn't have anyone to challenge with them (the AI, even on Hard, and without cheating the AI, isn't all that challenging once you get used to them, and bringing a fully-leveled, fully-equipped team to trash them with is just cruel). Fortunately, Brawlers offers plenty of multiplayer options.

There's the expected My-Team-versus-Your-Team 1-on-1 face-off, available via wireless. You have the option of single-card download, but I don't recommend it: it forces you to play Nekketsu High School (the protagonists) versus Hanazono High School (the first team, therefore the dodgeball fodder team). To add insult to injury, the host gets the good team while the guest gets the crappy one, so this isn't the best way to show the game to a friend.

You have to play multi-card to play with any of the other teams (including your customs), but unfortunately you can't play with more than two players or bring your equipment to this mode, which is a shame since some of the equipment have really funny effects on the game. You also can't have both players on the same team, which is disappointing since your AI teammates aren't much for catching and dodging.

The other mode available for multiplayer is Brawl mode. In this mode, eight players are dropped onto an empty field with no sides, a dodgeball is dropped in the center, and all eight players are pitted in a free-for-all for survival. This mode is available for 8 human players, and is entertainingly hectic as everyone rushes to the ball and kicks each other for control over it. This mode is available in single- and multi-card modes, but again, the host system gets the best player if you choose single. It's much less of a big deal here though, and this is actually the way I got my friends into this game.

You NEED friends who have this game in order to fully enjoy it, so keep that in mind if you decide to get it. There is no Internet capability to speak of, which severely limits your multiplayer options.



So there you have it. Super Dodgeball Brawlers is a fun, goofy little game that doesn't try too hard to impress you, but does anyway through sheer silliness and action. It's short, really short, but whether that's a boom or a bust really depends on your taste in games. The multiplayer element is incredibly important. If you really want to enjoy this game, you must be prepared to force all of your friends and all of their friends to get this game, too, or even resort to carrying around an extra copy of the game.

It's a game that harkens back to an older generation of gamer, before the age of the story-driven game, before arcade joysticks had more than two buttons. It simply pits you against another team, with a single, simple goal: KICK THEIR ASS.

Is that your kind of game? If it is, Brawlers will appeal to you.

I give this game a 7/10. It's a lot of fun, but it's lacking the multiplayer options to make it readily accessible to people who don't own it, making it difficult for the people who do own it to fully enjoy it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/08

Game Release: Super Dodgeball Brawlers (US, 05/27/08)