Game Review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Although it has numerous "problems", Brawl manages to revamp the SSB gameplay in a positive way and end up my favorite out of the series so far.

Pretty much anyone who can call themselves a gamer (excluding hardcore "old school" PC junkies who haven't left Doom 2 since it first came out) knows about the Super Smash Bros. series. With its focus on "ring outs" over KOs, frantic fights between four players, and an ever increasing roster of Nintendo characters which have made certain members of the gaming community experience wet dreams on multiple occasions close to each game's release, it certainly is worth at least a majority of the praise which it has recieved over the past nine years.With the North American release of "Brawl" just over a week ago, gamers were once again brought into the frey, this time with a mixture of good and bad. As with the previous games in the series, Brawl has an extremely solid, albiet not perfect, character roster, sampling virtually every modern Nintendo series, and, in this installment, even some third party characters. Players can stay with previously seen characters such as Fox, Captain Falcon, Kirby, and obviously, Mario, yet they also can try out a wide variety of new, and extremely cool characters such as Wario, Pokemon Trainer, Sonic The Hedgehog, and yes, even Solid Snake. A majority of the characters which players can use are unique and well-designed, however, as with previous installments, there are some occasional problems.

First, and most evident to me, is that there are still clone characters in this game, despite being promised during development that there wouldn't be any. Gannondorf is still pretty much a slower version of Captain Falcon, new character Ike, who replaced Roy, is still pretty similar to fellow Fire Emblem character Marth, Ness and Lucas are almost exactly the same, and for some unknown reason, there are now THREE characters from Star Fox, who all play pretty much the same. Toon Link is pretty much the same as regular Link, however, his significantly nimbler nature, and undeniable charm let me make an exception with him.

Second, is the fact that the combat is still unbalanced. In more casual "brawls", it isn't as evident, however, in more intense fights, going up again Fox or Captain Falcon with Jigglypuff obviously isn't a good decision. This isn't a tremendous flaw in my mind, but it still exists as a potential problem, especially for those who don't like using the same characters over and over again.

Third, which ties a bit into the above, is that some characters seem kind of useless. King Dedede is an extremely slow character when compared to Sonic, Captain Falcon, etc. and unlike Bowser and Donkey Kong, he doesn't do a large amount of damage with each attack, either. Mr. Game & Watch still sucks. Pokemon Trainer isn't very effective when he uses Charizard, which is essentially a gimped Bowser. Jigglypuff, while improved quite a bit in my opinion, still can't emerge victorious against a good portion of the fighters, especially in four-way matches.

Fourth, is the issue of "Final Smashes". These new maneuvers are Brawl's equivalent of "Specials". At random times during matches, an orb will appear and start to float around. Players vie to do the most damage to this orb, and thus, break it open. Whoever breaks it starts to glow different colors, and with a simple press of the "B" button, can activate their Final Smash. As with the basic combat, these are quite unbalanced. Some characters have rediculously overpowered moves which result in numerous kills, as is the case with characters like Sonic and Fox. Others simply increase the character's damage, size, and/or speed, as is the case with Wario, Bowser, and Gannondorf. There are some characters whose Final Smashes don't do much at all unless in small stages, such as Ness. And then there's Luigi, who goes into a Drug Trip and causes people within a small orb to fall asleep and get dealt extra damage. While a majority of the other characters' Final Smashes are understandable if one has ever played their respective series, Luigi's simply doesn't make much sense at all. One would think he'd pull out a big vacuum cleaner, or just disappear like he does in most Mario games.It may sound like there is quite a bit to complain about, and not much to praise, but that isn't the case at all. Most of the characters are extremely fun to play, especially Meta Knight, Wario, and Solid Snake. Meta Knight feels like a cross between Kirby and a Dynasty Warriors character. He can do some pretty rediculous combos and can "fly". Wario is hilarious to watch in action, and decently strong too. He can pull a motorcycle out of nowhere and ride it around the stage, doing a great deal of damage to each character which he hits. He can also build up gas the more he fights, eventually unleashing an atomic fart which shoots him up into the air and sends out a shockwave that hurts any character that it hits. Snake is a "different" character than most. He is meant for evasion and tactics. He has the fastest and most controllable "jump" move that I've seen in the series, and uses quite a bit of CQC combos. He can also set up explosives such as mines and claymores throughout the arena and use a mortar to hit characters above him.The basic Super Smash Bros. matches are top-knotch, with excellent level design through a majority of the game's arenas, a wide variety ot rules, and the ability to hold 100-player tournaments. However, the newer modes feel quite tacked on, and, not all too much fun.

Subspace Emissary stands out the most as a "tacked on" mode. Replacing Melee's awesome Adventure mode, Subspace focuses primarily on side-scrolling and Boss Battles. While the Boss Battles are always thrilling to experience, and the side-scrolling portions are fun initially, Subspace is significantly longer than it needs to be. Clocking it at around 4-7 hours, depending on your ability and the difficulty, it certainly seems to become tedious, especially when half of that time is spent re-visiting the same levels from the first half in order to reach the final boss. After about 3 or 4 levels, the side-scrolling becomes quite boring. You'll be able to defeat most enemies with ease no matter which difficulty you play on, and you'll be quite confused by the mode's lackluster story. Even for a Nintendo game, I found myself questioning what was so horribly wrong with the plot. Something seems a bit strange when Captain Olimar is ambushed by enemies, and Captain Falcon suddenly comes out of nowhere and kills the Pikmin. Luckily it isn't the bulk of the game, and it does give you some cool music for the game's mediocre level editor.

Subspace also makes the game rediculously easy, allowing you to unlock all but 2-3 of the game's characters. Remember how it took you 200+ hours of game time and/or dozens of tough events to unlock every single character in Melee? That doesn't happen with Brawl. After beating Subspace Emissary, you really only need to beat the Classic Mode and about 15 event matches to have the entire roster at your disposal. Perhaps this was designed to allow for the maximum amount of players to experience every single character, or to make people less angry when they play online and see characters they have to work to get, but I found this to be a tremendous flaw of the game and very damaging to the replay value of solo experiences. This seems to be the deal with a majority of the game. Excluding some event matches which force you to play as weaker characters and try to accomplish tasks which require you to survive long enough, and the initial adjustment to using the Wiimote (which isn't necessary) I can't recall seeing any form of "game over" or "failure" screen over the past 9 days.

Speaking of the Wiimote, let me talk about the controls for a bit. Despite not even utilizing any motion-sensing features, Brawl still manages to make it into my Top 5 games for using the Wiimote/Nunchuck effectively. The reason why is because it doesn't force the controller upon you. There are no features unique to the Wii, which is a strength. Instead of making you play with clumbsy controls and completely altering the gameplay, as most games on the console have done, it sticks to what made the first two games great. You can also use the Classic Controller. For those of you who, like me, didn't blow $30 on a repositioning of a 7-year-old controller, you can also use your Gamecube controller. I'd strongly suggest using this, as the buttons are all well placed, you likely have one if you are a fan of Nintendo's games, if you don't they cost about $15, and you aren't prone to start moving the controller around to no use, like I initially did when using the Wiimote.

As mentioned earlier, the game has Online play. As one of the few games with this feature on Nintendo's newest platform, it deserves some props. It is also the most solid setup out of those few games. There isn't too much lag, and other than some issues with playing on the release day, I haven't encountered many problems with logging in. I don't appreciate Nintendo's silly "everyone must be anonymous, and everything must be adjusted for children" mentality which appears with Brawl, nor do I appreciate using "Friend Codes" which I have been pretty vocal about since Nintendo started using them in 2005. That said, other than that, there aren't many problems. There is generally a large amount of people to play with/against, and despite my opinions against playing fighting games online, Brawl's fighting style seems to prevent the usual occurrance of that one Japanese guy who wins every single match and is one of the three people who play it on a normal basis.

Also mentioned earlier was a Level Editor. While this does seem like a neat idea, to be honest, it isn't really in-depth, and thus, pretty much limits you to creating poorly made levels, and generic SSB levels, with the one large platform and the two smaller, floating ones. I've made roughly 20 levels, and while they are pretty fun to play, don't approch the level of awesomeness or variety which the real levels provide. Think of it like a Tony Hawk skatepark editor, only with significantly less space and objects, and you pretty much know what Brawl's level editor is.

So, I feel I've covered most of the gameplay and mode issues, so, I'm going to talk about the graphics. Graphics aren't all that important to me in most games. As long as they are consistant, don't cause any problems, and fit the game, I'm generally fine. Unlike a majority of reviewers and gamers out there, I don't see anything wrong with Brawl's visuals. Sure, it may not be as shiny as Super Mario Galaxy, and some textures are REALLY flat, but the game is locked at a high framerate, and each character and level mimicks those of their respective series. Everything is distinctly Nintendo here, with the pronounced animations, cartoonish style of visuals, and general impressiveness of effects.

My last topic will address loading times, which are a big turn-off with this installment of the series. The load times may not approach minutes in length, and are certainly shorter than a wide variety of more recent games, but for a game from Nintendo, and even more specific, a Super Smash Bros. game, load times before and after each match, and an initial load time of roughly 25 seconds is inexcusable. What makes them even worse is that the team didn't even try to cover them up. You'll simply see the screen freeze, hear your Wii spinning the disk (*waits for someone to laugh as if this was a perverse statement*) and then the battle will start 7-13 seconds later. I'd have preferred to at least have a screen change to the traditional "VS." screen of most fighting games, or have the screen go dark, but alas, this isn't so. Although I wouldn't consider this a tremendous flaw with most games, it isn't as if there is much to warrant the load. Four characters, with essentially the same graphics as the previous game, on a 2D arena. Doesn't seem all that demanding when compared to something like Call of Duty 4, with its semi-photorealistic settings.

If, after reading this review, you have recieved the feeling that Brawl is a horrible game, filled with flaws, let me stress that this is not true. My review has mainly focused on the negatives because what has already been established by the previous installments in the series is still rock-solid. Four-player, offline brawls will still likely be the mode of choice, and can get pretty instense, especially with some of the newer characters involved. What Brawl has brought back from Melee and the original game, it has, for the most part, improved upon greatly. In conclusion, it is one of if not my favorite game on the system, despite its flaws.

Pros:
-Excellent "Smash" signature gameplay
-Large, varied character roster
-Four player "brawls" are still among the best that the fighting genre has to offer
-Classic "campaign" is still fun to play, even if it feels the same as it did 9 years ago
-Solid control usage with multiple options
-Best Online multiplayer implementation on the system at this point in time
-Boss Fights are a great new addition to the series
-Event and Stadium matches are still fun to play

Cons:
-Clone characters still exist
-Combat is still a bit unbalanced
-Subspace Emissary becomes tedious quickly
-Even a blind person without arms could unlock every character within a weekend
-Mediocre level editor
-Unwarranted and frequent load times

Overall, an excellent game with several problems which keep it from approaching perfection.