Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review
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Posted May 21st, 2008 at 11:09am
by Kit Pierce
Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a sloppy wet kiss from Nintendo to its fans over the year. The Smash Brothers franchise was this to begin with — a pinnacle of fanservice (the good kind, you pervs), but more than your typical fanservice. The basic mechanic of the entire series is bound to the idea that Nintendo threw together characters from its most popular franchises to let them whallop on each other outside of any story continuity. It’s silly, over the top, and has twice already succeeded in becoming that game, you know the one that you buy with the console. So, does Nintendo capture that same lightning in a bottle for a third outing?
If you don’t know how the Smash Brothers paradigm works, it can be a little disorienting at first, especially if you’ve cut your teeth on pretty much every other brawler known to man. Every other brawler gives you a life meter and you proceed to pummel your opponent to the point of zero life meter, equalling unconsciousness. Smash Brothers takes a different approach.
Probably stemming from presenting their properties in the best light possible, a character never dies/passes out/loses consciousness in Smash Brothers. Rather than a life bar, characters have a damage meter. The more they get hit, the more damage they take, and the easier it is to knock them out of the Arena. The damage meter turns the entire brawler mechanic on its ear, transforming this fighting game into a huge round of king of the hill, and it works. The Nintendo characters never get bloodied, and the mechanic is dynamic and interesting beyond the standard Street Fighter scheme.
So, the question is, does the game stand?
What Works
First thing that stands out is the visual presentation. The Wii is not a graphics powerhouse, at least not by the standards set by most of the current gen of hardware, but that doesn’t mean that the dev team didn’t work magic with what they have. Smash Brothers Brawl is a gorgeous game. You can see the denim on Mario’s overalls, particle systems abound, and at any given time, the screen is crackling with activity without skipping a beat.
Once the visuals sink in, you can settle in and see the game proper. It’s obvious a great deal of care went into the level design and overall package. This version isn’t just about the brawling. There are a number of single player options, in case you can’t drum up a friend to play with. For instance, there’s an entire single player adventure that ties in all of the characters into a storyline. It’s not a terribly coherent storyline, but it’s a story adventure all the same. Adventure mode will take you about 10 hours or so to just hammer through. About 15 if you want to unlock everything.
Playing the game is a excercise in good design and availability. Each character has the same basic set of activation moves. Smash moves with a direction stick and super moves with a direction stick. There are no tap three times, or forward back half circle punch, or anything like that. Now, each main character has a different set of moves to activate — on the up super, for instance, some characters fly, others have an up attack — but by and large, you can fiddle around with random characters and hold your own no matter the match. This opens up game options for any player and really extended my enjoyment of the game.
If the control schemes are good, the controller schemes are equally accessible. The Wiimote can be used alone (my favorite scheme), likewise you can use the nunchuck-Wiimote combo, and even plug in your old GameCube controller if you have one lying around. Other seasoned Smash Bros. players report enjoying their GameCube controller the most, but I can hold my own quite well with the Wiimote turned on its side. If you don’t like the default layout, Brawl allows you to set your own button assignments and remember it in your player profile.
Wi-Fi is a nice touch as well. This is the Wii’s first serious title to feature online game play. Don’t get me wrong — there are other online titles, but this is the first one that sold off the charts. The implementation is, by and large, as good as the Wii is going to get as long as we’re tied to those awful friend codes. Most of my online games were quite enjoyable. Sure, you could peg the serious players quickly from the button mashers, but this is one of those games where both types of players can hold their own pretty well.
The level editor is a welcome addition. It’s amusing to see how levels go together when you’re creating your own. The ability to share those levels is also fun with your Wii-playing friends.
Smash Brothers Brawl also has a large number of game modes for both single and multi-player mayhem. Add in the vast number of characters, levels, trophies, and other sorts of assorted goodies to unlock, and there are hours and hours of playtime to be had with Brawl.
What Doesn’t Work
THe unlockable content gets put into this column as well as the “What Works” section above. It’s lovely that there’s so much to keep a person playing, but when you tout certain characters so highly before launch, then give the players a game that has to be unlocked before you can see the characters behind the hype — that’s a problem. Before your friends come over to play, you’re going to have to put some time into the game if you want to show off all of the cool stuff the game has to offer.
The Wi-Fi connection works quite well most of the time, but when it doesn’t work, it’s spectacularly bad. Seconds-per-frame bad. I’d say about 20% of the online games I played started lagging so severely that they couldn’t be played. That’s pretty high. I was hoping it would get better as time goes on, but my experience is that it’s going to stay like this for the lifetime of the game.
The lack of online leader boards is a shame as well. Mario Kart Wii has them, why not Smash Bros.?
My last nit to pick is the size of some of the levels. Some of them are so ridiculously huge that, when zoomed out to accommodate all of the action, the avatars are mere dots on the screen. Teensy critters that make big flashes but lose all detail.
The Verdict
Coming in with highly accesable and fun gameplay, beautiful visuals, and a ton of content, Brawl overcomes its criticisms handily. Simply put, the good outweighs the bad. Or in other words, my six year old and I are still having fun with it over a month after release. It’s become a favorite game in the house, and is good for 30 minutes to an hour of togetherness at game time. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty dang good, and a fun game value.
Review, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Wii
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