Super Smash Bros. BrawlExclusively for the Nintendo Wii
Rating: 5 stars
Rating: 5 stars
When the Wii came out in November 2006, we know it was only a matter of time until Super Smash Bros. would becoming to the Wii. Sure enough, in March 2008, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Wii. Brawl makes the improvements that Melee failed to make, making this an excellent game.
First of all, no one could say this game wasn’t an improvement unless new characters were added, and sure enough, they were. The number of playable characters goes from the 26 in Melee to the 35 in Brawl. But it’s not just simple to say they’ve added 9 characters because Dr. Mario, Pichu, Roy, Young Link and Mewtwo don’t reappear. Is this heartbreaking? I wouldn’t say so. As I said in my review of Melee, Dr. Mario is really just regular Mario, and Pichu is just like Pikachu, so there’s nothing missing out. Truthfully, they are the only ones completely gone. Roy and Mewtwo are replaced by Ike and Lucario respectively, and they virtually have the same attacks and same powers, so it seems to be the same characters with a different look. And I truthfully think that Young Link and Toon Link look the same, act the same, so it’s not really a replacement. It’s just a different name. I liked how Nintendo picked more characters from their already used Franchises, like getting King Dedede from Kirby, Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong and Wolf from Star Fox. I really liked how they went to other franchises like Wario from Warioland and Olimar from Pikmin, but went even further back to Pit from Kid Icarus. But the most impressive was getting third party developers to agree to lease their characters to this fighting game. The headliner characters for this game were Sonic, from Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series and Snake, from Konami’s Metal Gear Solid series. The abundant choice of characters is enough to make every Brawl you have a new game. But that isn’t the only thing.
Brawl wouldn’t be an improvement without new stages. Brawl has a total of 41 stages. The reason it may have so many is that most of the stages from Melee have transferred over to Brawl. So you won’t be missing out on any of the old stages. A new feature added to Brawl is the stages become interactive with the characters. Some will move around, some will change between day and night, others will float, others can be destroyed, and still others can do a whole slew of things. But even if you don’t like any of those stages, Brawl offers a stage creator, and as its name suggests, you can build your own stages to have Brawls in. With 41 new stages, plus being able to make your own stages, where you battle never becomes stale.
With these new characters on these new stages, you once again have your same Brawl modes. You also have your special brawl, which in a way is the same as Melee, but is also updated. In Melee, you could only choose one special feature, but in Brawl, you can choose multiple features. So if you want a brawl where all the characters are giant, metal, on fire, with a bunny hood, go ahead. Once again, it makes Brawl fights seem newer every time you play.
Items are back in Brawl. You have all your old items returning, as well as have a bunch of new additions. I could go on and on about all the items, but the one most important to game play has to be the Final Smash Orb. This colorful orb that is in the same shape as the Super Smash logo is a slippery one to get, but worth it. Once you have it, all you have to do is press B and your character unleashes a unique attack that packs a powerful punch and is hard to evade. One last thing I will say is items and item quantity is customizable. You can choose for an item often, seldom or not at all. So if you don’t like an item, you can turn it off. But if you want to let the Final Smashes fly, you can select many of those.
But if you don’t have the friends around to play multiplayer, Brawl brings back the 3 solo modes that Melee introduced. Classic mode is back and it hasn’t changed since the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. All-Star mode hasn’t changed since Melee. If there is change, it’s longer because there are more characters. But the best improvement was on Adventure Mode. The Adventure Mode is a legitimate Adventure Mode. It is literally an Adventure. It has a name (“The Subspace Emissary”), a plot, cut scenes, a unique villain with unique henchmen. This is everything a true Adventure mode needs. Sure it made some characters bad guys, and sometimes it was mere platforming, and yes, you virtually have to play through it twice, but it does a good job of meshing the characters together. You do have to play as every character (or at least given the chance to play as every character). The story even provides plot twists here and there. For a story that sometimes seems thrown together, it’s pretty good.
Training mode brings back a few of the training features, updated to the Brawl, but also a new feature in it. First, Target Smash is back, and is updated for the Wii and its new characters. Once again, Home Run Contest is back to see who can hit the sandbag the furthest, now improved, such as Captain Falcon being able to swing. The Multi-Man Brawl is back, yet the characters are updated again, and for the better. In the original, it was polygons. In Melee, it was wire frames. In Brawl, it is alloys, made up of the Wii’s finest graphics. In the old game, the multi-man was limited t 10-man and 100-man. Brawl has not only those 2, but also 3-minute Brawl, 15-minute Brawl, Endless Brawl (you don’t stop until you die) and Cruel Brawl (hardest difficulty, no items). The last training is Boss Battles, taking all the main enemies from the story mode. Even Training mode is new and improved, giving another thing for the player to do.
For the gamer who needs to unlock and collect things, Brawl provides plenty of that for you. Players can unlock characters, trophies, stickers, music, stages, even Virtual Console demos. But some of this can be a pain in the neck. Only half the characters are available for play right away. Same goes with the stages. Only about half the stages are available, and the other half you have to unlock. And some of the unlocking can be crazy. To unlock the rest of the characters, you have to play the solo mode. It can simply be done in the Adventure mode, but that’s still going to a 7-10 hour play through. So you don’t want to bring this game right off the shelf to play with friends. Unlocking trophies and stickers can be found brawling in both solo and group brawls, but it can take a while. Remember how last game had the gumball machine that gave trophies instead of gumballs? In its place, Brawl has made up a minigame where you shoot your earned tokens to hit trophies and stickers to unlock. While it may sound fun, the problem is it is easy to repeat trophies and stickers. At least with the “gumball machine” you didn’t have to worry with repeats to a point. For all the others things that need to be unlocked, there are challenges to be done. Some of them are simple, like playing on a certain stage a number of times, but some of them can be downright ridiculous, such as bringing every character through All-Star mode on the hardest difficulty. This might drive the collecting gamer insane. Well, if they have to do it over time, Brawl has a nice way of sorting this out. Brawl has kept this nice and neat for the player by giving the player a trophies tracker and challenge wall.
Despite the graphics pretty much staying the same from the GameCube to the Wii, the graphical design for Brawl has seemed to improve. As I said before, the generic multi-man brawl going from wire frames to alloys demonstrates this alone. But character design is carefully drawn out. You can see everything in detail, from Zelda’s hair to Mario’s overalls. For characters that have had a continuing role in the Nintendo world, all of them kept up-to-date with their looks. The attacks and explosions can be very colorful experiences, too.
The one thing that does baffle me is the controls. Now Brawl was smart by allowing four possibilities for controllers: Wiimote alone, Wiimote with nunchuck, Wii Classic Controller, and GameCube controller, my personal favorite. They were even smart by allowing customization of buttons. But there’s one thing I don’t get. We all know the Wii for being the frontrunner for the motion controls. Yet no motion controls can be used in this game at all. Heck, you can’t even use the Wiimote pointer to run through the menus. You have to use the control pad or joystick. Yes, I know it’s probably because they wanted to allow other controls without motion censor to be used, but this can be easily fixed by replacing the motion control action with a button. Wii games have done this. The first examples that come to mind are Dragonball Z and Mario Kart Wii. I think the only thing that could have made this game better would be motion controls.
Besides that, I think this is a wonderful game. Brawl made every improvement they needed to make from Melee. This game can be played solo just as much as multiplayer. With a plethora of characters and stages, every game feels new. The avast amount of collectables not only satisfies the collector gamer, but also keeps you playing over and over. Customizations make the game your own. This game was everything Melee was, and more. One last thing I want to mention is this game fully catalogs the Nintendo games and Nintendo franchises. This game is definitely needed in the library of anyone who calls himself a Nintendo fanboy. With a new system on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what new, great improvements the next Super Smash Bros. will have.
First of all, no one could say this game wasn’t an improvement unless new characters were added, and sure enough, they were. The number of playable characters goes from the 26 in Melee to the 35 in Brawl. But it’s not just simple to say they’ve added 9 characters because Dr. Mario, Pichu, Roy, Young Link and Mewtwo don’t reappear. Is this heartbreaking? I wouldn’t say so. As I said in my review of Melee, Dr. Mario is really just regular Mario, and Pichu is just like Pikachu, so there’s nothing missing out. Truthfully, they are the only ones completely gone. Roy and Mewtwo are replaced by Ike and Lucario respectively, and they virtually have the same attacks and same powers, so it seems to be the same characters with a different look. And I truthfully think that Young Link and Toon Link look the same, act the same, so it’s not really a replacement. It’s just a different name. I liked how Nintendo picked more characters from their already used Franchises, like getting King Dedede from Kirby, Diddy Kong from Donkey Kong and Wolf from Star Fox. I really liked how they went to other franchises like Wario from Warioland and Olimar from Pikmin, but went even further back to Pit from Kid Icarus. But the most impressive was getting third party developers to agree to lease their characters to this fighting game. The headliner characters for this game were Sonic, from Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog series and Snake, from Konami’s Metal Gear Solid series. The abundant choice of characters is enough to make every Brawl you have a new game. But that isn’t the only thing.
Brawl wouldn’t be an improvement without new stages. Brawl has a total of 41 stages. The reason it may have so many is that most of the stages from Melee have transferred over to Brawl. So you won’t be missing out on any of the old stages. A new feature added to Brawl is the stages become interactive with the characters. Some will move around, some will change between day and night, others will float, others can be destroyed, and still others can do a whole slew of things. But even if you don’t like any of those stages, Brawl offers a stage creator, and as its name suggests, you can build your own stages to have Brawls in. With 41 new stages, plus being able to make your own stages, where you battle never becomes stale.
With these new characters on these new stages, you once again have your same Brawl modes. You also have your special brawl, which in a way is the same as Melee, but is also updated. In Melee, you could only choose one special feature, but in Brawl, you can choose multiple features. So if you want a brawl where all the characters are giant, metal, on fire, with a bunny hood, go ahead. Once again, it makes Brawl fights seem newer every time you play.
Items are back in Brawl. You have all your old items returning, as well as have a bunch of new additions. I could go on and on about all the items, but the one most important to game play has to be the Final Smash Orb. This colorful orb that is in the same shape as the Super Smash logo is a slippery one to get, but worth it. Once you have it, all you have to do is press B and your character unleashes a unique attack that packs a powerful punch and is hard to evade. One last thing I will say is items and item quantity is customizable. You can choose for an item often, seldom or not at all. So if you don’t like an item, you can turn it off. But if you want to let the Final Smashes fly, you can select many of those.
But if you don’t have the friends around to play multiplayer, Brawl brings back the 3 solo modes that Melee introduced. Classic mode is back and it hasn’t changed since the original Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. All-Star mode hasn’t changed since Melee. If there is change, it’s longer because there are more characters. But the best improvement was on Adventure Mode. The Adventure Mode is a legitimate Adventure Mode. It is literally an Adventure. It has a name (“The Subspace Emissary”), a plot, cut scenes, a unique villain with unique henchmen. This is everything a true Adventure mode needs. Sure it made some characters bad guys, and sometimes it was mere platforming, and yes, you virtually have to play through it twice, but it does a good job of meshing the characters together. You do have to play as every character (or at least given the chance to play as every character). The story even provides plot twists here and there. For a story that sometimes seems thrown together, it’s pretty good.
Training mode brings back a few of the training features, updated to the Brawl, but also a new feature in it. First, Target Smash is back, and is updated for the Wii and its new characters. Once again, Home Run Contest is back to see who can hit the sandbag the furthest, now improved, such as Captain Falcon being able to swing. The Multi-Man Brawl is back, yet the characters are updated again, and for the better. In the original, it was polygons. In Melee, it was wire frames. In Brawl, it is alloys, made up of the Wii’s finest graphics. In the old game, the multi-man was limited t 10-man and 100-man. Brawl has not only those 2, but also 3-minute Brawl, 15-minute Brawl, Endless Brawl (you don’t stop until you die) and Cruel Brawl (hardest difficulty, no items). The last training is Boss Battles, taking all the main enemies from the story mode. Even Training mode is new and improved, giving another thing for the player to do.
For the gamer who needs to unlock and collect things, Brawl provides plenty of that for you. Players can unlock characters, trophies, stickers, music, stages, even Virtual Console demos. But some of this can be a pain in the neck. Only half the characters are available for play right away. Same goes with the stages. Only about half the stages are available, and the other half you have to unlock. And some of the unlocking can be crazy. To unlock the rest of the characters, you have to play the solo mode. It can simply be done in the Adventure mode, but that’s still going to a 7-10 hour play through. So you don’t want to bring this game right off the shelf to play with friends. Unlocking trophies and stickers can be found brawling in both solo and group brawls, but it can take a while. Remember how last game had the gumball machine that gave trophies instead of gumballs? In its place, Brawl has made up a minigame where you shoot your earned tokens to hit trophies and stickers to unlock. While it may sound fun, the problem is it is easy to repeat trophies and stickers. At least with the “gumball machine” you didn’t have to worry with repeats to a point. For all the others things that need to be unlocked, there are challenges to be done. Some of them are simple, like playing on a certain stage a number of times, but some of them can be downright ridiculous, such as bringing every character through All-Star mode on the hardest difficulty. This might drive the collecting gamer insane. Well, if they have to do it over time, Brawl has a nice way of sorting this out. Brawl has kept this nice and neat for the player by giving the player a trophies tracker and challenge wall.
Despite the graphics pretty much staying the same from the GameCube to the Wii, the graphical design for Brawl has seemed to improve. As I said before, the generic multi-man brawl going from wire frames to alloys demonstrates this alone. But character design is carefully drawn out. You can see everything in detail, from Zelda’s hair to Mario’s overalls. For characters that have had a continuing role in the Nintendo world, all of them kept up-to-date with their looks. The attacks and explosions can be very colorful experiences, too.
The one thing that does baffle me is the controls. Now Brawl was smart by allowing four possibilities for controllers: Wiimote alone, Wiimote with nunchuck, Wii Classic Controller, and GameCube controller, my personal favorite. They were even smart by allowing customization of buttons. But there’s one thing I don’t get. We all know the Wii for being the frontrunner for the motion controls. Yet no motion controls can be used in this game at all. Heck, you can’t even use the Wiimote pointer to run through the menus. You have to use the control pad or joystick. Yes, I know it’s probably because they wanted to allow other controls without motion censor to be used, but this can be easily fixed by replacing the motion control action with a button. Wii games have done this. The first examples that come to mind are Dragonball Z and Mario Kart Wii. I think the only thing that could have made this game better would be motion controls.
Besides that, I think this is a wonderful game. Brawl made every improvement they needed to make from Melee. This game can be played solo just as much as multiplayer. With a plethora of characters and stages, every game feels new. The avast amount of collectables not only satisfies the collector gamer, but also keeps you playing over and over. Customizations make the game your own. This game was everything Melee was, and more. One last thing I want to mention is this game fully catalogs the Nintendo games and Nintendo franchises. This game is definitely needed in the library of anyone who calls himself a Nintendo fanboy. With a new system on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what new, great improvements the next Super Smash Bros. will have.
