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Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Nintendo's biggest game of 2008 is here. Was it worth the 6-year wait?
March 7, 2008 | 4:40 PM PSTKombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game's About
In 1999, Nintendo released Super Smash Bros., a unique multiplayer fighting game in which the goal of the game was not to kill your opponent by reducing his or her hit points, but instead to knock your opponent off of the stage by racking up as much damage on him or her as possible. The game was fun, sure, but it wasn't what we'd call a triple-A game. That all changed when just a few years later Nintendo developed and released a sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee, for the GameCube launch window. This time, developer HAL outdid itself, creating a truly polished, entertaining and extras-packed multiplayer title. The game scored well when it came to reviews, but more importantly, it ignited what would later become Super Smash Bros. hysteria amongst fans. Indeed, fast forward to E3 2006, where Nintendo unveiled yet another game in the series, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, this time for its at-the-time-un-proven Wii console. All it took was a cinematic trailer with a few cameos to send weak-kneed Nintendo fans into a Smash Bros. comma of excitement. The announcement that Nintendo was creating a new Smash Bros. game was such colossal news that the most-read gaming site on the Net, IGN.com, reported a record amount of traffic upon uploading the trailer. The site even crashed for a few brief seconds, due to an overload of Nintendo-ites trying to view the trailer.
Now that that's out of the way, let us apologize: sorry for the history lesson. We normally try to avoid these things in our reviews, but for a game like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we think it's necessary, so that unaware readers can understand just how hotly anticipated this game is.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is – in its purest form – an extension of its predecessor, Melee. Diehard Nintendo fans will recognize the menu style, the formula, the modes and a whole lot more. That's not to say that it's a copy-and-paste job, though. Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has gone the extra mile; Brawl impresses with new modes, characters and stages. This is the biggest, most jam-packed installment in the series yet.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
What's Hot
There's so much to cover. Brawl is practically overflowing with everything you'd want from a Wii version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. If you want the simple answer, Brawl is awesome. If you want the beefier, more long-winded answer, it's awesome because it has a diverse selection of characters (both new and old); colorful, varied stages (again, both new and old); tons of modes to play through; online play; a plethora of unlockables and much, much more.
The number-one thing that makes Brawl a must-have for every single Wii owner, though, is it's a fantastic multiplayer game. This won't come as a surprise to anyone who has played Melee, but it's true. Ultimately, it's the same formula that makes Brawl such a blast to play with friends, but we don't love it any less because of that. In a first for the series, Brawl also features online play, which means when you don't have any friends to play with in person, you can hop on Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and brawl with friends via the Internet or even match-up with people you've never met before.
In addition to multiplayer, Brawl does have some single-player options, and some of these are better than others. The newest addition to the franchise is Subspace Emissary, which sends you on a full-fledged adventure through Smash Bros. country, playing as over 30 Nintendo and even non-Nintendo characters. Sakurai smartly designed the campaign mode, allowing two to play together. There is also Classic mode, which lets you pick a character to play as and then fight your way through a series of battles, eventually taking on the Master Hand. While there are other modes – like Target Smash, Home Run Contest and Multiman Melee – the final mode that's sure to keep you busy is the Events mode, which challenges you to complete specific tasks while brawling. Simply put, the number of modes to play in Brawl is staggering.
Adding to the lasting appeal is the mind bogglingly number of things to unlock. Even after months and months of playtime, you'll have things to unlock, whether it's in the form of new characters, stages, trophies, music or stickers.
Sakurai has outdone himself when it comes to how many characters and stages there are in the game. First, the characters. There's over 30 of them, and compared to Melee the number of clone/similar characters has been drastically reduced, which means there are in fact over 30 unique characters to play as. Each of these has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you'll keep busy trying to master as many as possible. Character variety is satisfying, with a solid mix of both returning characters from Melee and newcomers to the Smash Bros. series. What's more, Brawl is the first in the franchise to feature third-party characters, like Solid Snake and Sonic. Similarly, the selection of stages is great. There are remakes from Melee, and there are wholly new stages too. Each has its own look, theme, layout and surprises, which means you'll have plenty to choose from when it comes to deciding where to brawl.
Finally, there is the fully-customizable controls and choice of playing with whichever of the four controllers you like most. Between the Wii-mote, Wii-mote/nunchuck, Classic Controller and GameCube controller – plus, again, fully customizable controls – you're nearly guaranteed to have a control setup that you're happy with.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
What's Not
Subspace Emissary is boring. There, we said it. Indeed, the adventure mode is a bit of a snoozer. In fact, between Adventure mode in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Subspace Emissary in Brawl, the former is our preferred choice. Both at first-glance and after all is said and done, Subspace Emissary appears to be a story-based mode. However, we find the complete lack of storytelling disturbing. There is no dialogue to speak of, giving the abundance of cut-scenes a decidedly mute feel. The lack of dialogue means the underlying story is inferred. Most the time, you don't know what's going on. And, really, if you think you do know, it's because you're a diehard Nintendo fan that can see stuff in cut-scenes involving Mario, Ness, Meta Knight and Solid Snake that nobody else is blessed enough to see. Essentially, Subspace Emissary strings together a bunch of random cut-scenes and sidescrolling stages, complete with enemies and bosses to best, and attempts to sell the whole shebang as a full-fledged single-player game. Considering its length, we'd describe it at just that, but it's a rather unexciting single-player mode, nonetheless. Unlike Adventure mode in Melee, you cannot finish Subspace Emissary in one sitting, and that's because the mode is 8 hours long. The problem is that it's a dull 8-hour experience, thanks to repetitive design and unsatisfying gameplay. Here's the rundown: you watch a meaningless cut-scene. Then you run through a sidescrolling stage, smashing things along the way. At the end of the level, there's a cut-scene with no kind of dialogue or underlying point. And then you do it all over again. There's co-op play – thankfully – but it's tacked-on. Player 1's movements control the camera, leaving Player 2 to play catch-up or risk being left off-screen, sometimes resulting in death.
Brawl is the first game in the Smash Bros. series to feature online play, which is a big deal. Fans have wanted online play for Smash Bros. since the Internet was invented. Unfortunately, Nintendo kind of dropped the ball in a few disappointing ways – the worst of which is that there's no voice chat for Brawl. Nintendo's attempt to protect us from child molesters is appreciated, but there are other alternatives to protecting the children (not to mention us). The same complaint can be applied to the fact that Brawl uses Friend Codes, one of Nintendo's most-hated inventions. Other disappointments with Brawl's online play include a lack of leaderboards, limited number of options when searching for a game to play, there is no control over who is host and the only way to communicate in-text messages is by taunting, which means you have to hold still to communicate. Our final complaint about the online play is that when playing with random people over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, you can't play with multiple people on your console. It's a huge mistake on Nintendo's part, and it's really too bad, because it really limits the lasting appeal of Brawl's online mode.
During our pre-release testing of Brawl's online component, we found that the online play suffered from some lag problems. When playing with just two people, the game ran better, but with 4, there were serious latency issues. We hope that this will be resolved by the time of release, and we are not factoring this issue into our review or score of the game.
When we realized that you could play Brawl's Events mode in co-op, we were excited. But the excitement was quickly replaced with disappointment when we stumbled upon the fact that you can't play through every single event with two people. We think we speak for all Smash fans when we say we sighed a loud, confused "WTF?" upon this discovery.
Graphically speaking, Brawl should be one of Wii's prettiest games. In truth, it actually is. But, still, it suffers from some graphical problems it simply shouldn't. The game has a slightly washed-out look, for example, and many of the cut-scenes are overcompressed. Also, background art for certain stages is decidedly low-res, sometimes lacking detail and the graphical quality that makes other stages such a visual treat. Meanwhile, when it comes to character models, certain characters have been given obvious special treatment. These character models feature higher polygon counts, better design, more detail and just more attention to detail overall. Moreover, the game has aliasing problems up the wazoo – especially on HDTVs.
Last but not least, our final complaint is admittedly controversial. In Nintendo's hype campaign leading into Brawl's release date, the company released so much information on Brawl that if you followed the information trail, you're left with few surprises to enjoy in Brawl. Particularly, when it comes to unlockable extras, such as characters, nearly every single unlockable character was revealed months before the game launched. Sure, it's our own fault for reading, but in hindsight, the Super Smash Bros. DOJO site wasn't such a great idea, after all.
Final Word
We won't take any more of your time than we already have. Bottom line: Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a must-purchase for every single Wii owner. If you own a Wii, you have to own this game. Sakurai and team have outdone themselves, creating a video game that is worth every penny it costs to own.
Buy this game.
What the Game's About
In 1999, Nintendo released Super Smash Bros., a unique multiplayer fighting game in which the goal of the game was not to kill your opponent by reducing his or her hit points, but instead to knock your opponent off of the stage by racking up as much damage on him or her as possible. The game was fun, sure, but it wasn't what we'd call a triple-A game. That all changed when just a few years later Nintendo developed and released a sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee, for the GameCube launch window. This time, developer HAL outdid itself, creating a truly polished, entertaining and extras-packed multiplayer title. The game scored well when it came to reviews, but more importantly, it ignited what would later become Super Smash Bros. hysteria amongst fans. Indeed, fast forward to E3 2006, where Nintendo unveiled yet another game in the series, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, this time for its at-the-time-un-proven Wii console. All it took was a cinematic trailer with a few cameos to send weak-kneed Nintendo fans into a Smash Bros. comma of excitement. The announcement that Nintendo was creating a new Smash Bros. game was such colossal news that the most-read gaming site on the Net, IGN.com, reported a record amount of traffic upon uploading the trailer. The site even crashed for a few brief seconds, due to an overload of Nintendo-ites trying to view the trailer.
Now that that's out of the way, let us apologize: sorry for the history lesson. We normally try to avoid these things in our reviews, but for a game like Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we think it's necessary, so that unaware readers can understand just how hotly anticipated this game is.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is – in its purest form – an extension of its predecessor, Melee. Diehard Nintendo fans will recognize the menu style, the formula, the modes and a whole lot more. That's not to say that it's a copy-and-paste job, though. Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has gone the extra mile; Brawl impresses with new modes, characters and stages. This is the biggest, most jam-packed installment in the series yet.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
What's Hot
There's so much to cover. Brawl is practically overflowing with everything you'd want from a Wii version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. If you want the simple answer, Brawl is awesome. If you want the beefier, more long-winded answer, it's awesome because it has a diverse selection of characters (both new and old); colorful, varied stages (again, both new and old); tons of modes to play through; online play; a plethora of unlockables and much, much more.
The number-one thing that makes Brawl a must-have for every single Wii owner, though, is it's a fantastic multiplayer game. This won't come as a surprise to anyone who has played Melee, but it's true. Ultimately, it's the same formula that makes Brawl such a blast to play with friends, but we don't love it any less because of that. In a first for the series, Brawl also features online play, which means when you don't have any friends to play with in person, you can hop on Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and brawl with friends via the Internet or even match-up with people you've never met before.
In addition to multiplayer, Brawl does have some single-player options, and some of these are better than others. The newest addition to the franchise is Subspace Emissary, which sends you on a full-fledged adventure through Smash Bros. country, playing as over 30 Nintendo and even non-Nintendo characters. Sakurai smartly designed the campaign mode, allowing two to play together. There is also Classic mode, which lets you pick a character to play as and then fight your way through a series of battles, eventually taking on the Master Hand. While there are other modes – like Target Smash, Home Run Contest and Multiman Melee – the final mode that's sure to keep you busy is the Events mode, which challenges you to complete specific tasks while brawling. Simply put, the number of modes to play in Brawl is staggering.
Adding to the lasting appeal is the mind bogglingly number of things to unlock. Even after months and months of playtime, you'll have things to unlock, whether it's in the form of new characters, stages, trophies, music or stickers.
Sakurai has outdone himself when it comes to how many characters and stages there are in the game. First, the characters. There's over 30 of them, and compared to Melee the number of clone/similar characters has been drastically reduced, which means there are in fact over 30 unique characters to play as. Each of these has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you'll keep busy trying to master as many as possible. Character variety is satisfying, with a solid mix of both returning characters from Melee and newcomers to the Smash Bros. series. What's more, Brawl is the first in the franchise to feature third-party characters, like Solid Snake and Sonic. Similarly, the selection of stages is great. There are remakes from Melee, and there are wholly new stages too. Each has its own look, theme, layout and surprises, which means you'll have plenty to choose from when it comes to deciding where to brawl.
Finally, there is the fully-customizable controls and choice of playing with whichever of the four controllers you like most. Between the Wii-mote, Wii-mote/nunchuck, Classic Controller and GameCube controller – plus, again, fully customizable controls – you're nearly guaranteed to have a control setup that you're happy with.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
What's Not
Subspace Emissary is boring. There, we said it. Indeed, the adventure mode is a bit of a snoozer. In fact, between Adventure mode in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Subspace Emissary in Brawl, the former is our preferred choice. Both at first-glance and after all is said and done, Subspace Emissary appears to be a story-based mode. However, we find the complete lack of storytelling disturbing. There is no dialogue to speak of, giving the abundance of cut-scenes a decidedly mute feel. The lack of dialogue means the underlying story is inferred. Most the time, you don't know what's going on. And, really, if you think you do know, it's because you're a diehard Nintendo fan that can see stuff in cut-scenes involving Mario, Ness, Meta Knight and Solid Snake that nobody else is blessed enough to see. Essentially, Subspace Emissary strings together a bunch of random cut-scenes and sidescrolling stages, complete with enemies and bosses to best, and attempts to sell the whole shebang as a full-fledged single-player game. Considering its length, we'd describe it at just that, but it's a rather unexciting single-player mode, nonetheless. Unlike Adventure mode in Melee, you cannot finish Subspace Emissary in one sitting, and that's because the mode is 8 hours long. The problem is that it's a dull 8-hour experience, thanks to repetitive design and unsatisfying gameplay. Here's the rundown: you watch a meaningless cut-scene. Then you run through a sidescrolling stage, smashing things along the way. At the end of the level, there's a cut-scene with no kind of dialogue or underlying point. And then you do it all over again. There's co-op play – thankfully – but it's tacked-on. Player 1's movements control the camera, leaving Player 2 to play catch-up or risk being left off-screen, sometimes resulting in death.
Brawl is the first game in the Smash Bros. series to feature online play, which is a big deal. Fans have wanted online play for Smash Bros. since the Internet was invented. Unfortunately, Nintendo kind of dropped the ball in a few disappointing ways – the worst of which is that there's no voice chat for Brawl. Nintendo's attempt to protect us from child molesters is appreciated, but there are other alternatives to protecting the children (not to mention us). The same complaint can be applied to the fact that Brawl uses Friend Codes, one of Nintendo's most-hated inventions. Other disappointments with Brawl's online play include a lack of leaderboards, limited number of options when searching for a game to play, there is no control over who is host and the only way to communicate in-text messages is by taunting, which means you have to hold still to communicate. Our final complaint about the online play is that when playing with random people over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, you can't play with multiple people on your console. It's a huge mistake on Nintendo's part, and it's really too bad, because it really limits the lasting appeal of Brawl's online mode.
During our pre-release testing of Brawl's online component, we found that the online play suffered from some lag problems. When playing with just two people, the game ran better, but with 4, there were serious latency issues. We hope that this will be resolved by the time of release, and we are not factoring this issue into our review or score of the game.
When we realized that you could play Brawl's Events mode in co-op, we were excited. But the excitement was quickly replaced with disappointment when we stumbled upon the fact that you can't play through every single event with two people. We think we speak for all Smash fans when we say we sighed a loud, confused "WTF?" upon this discovery.
Graphically speaking, Brawl should be one of Wii's prettiest games. In truth, it actually is. But, still, it suffers from some graphical problems it simply shouldn't. The game has a slightly washed-out look, for example, and many of the cut-scenes are overcompressed. Also, background art for certain stages is decidedly low-res, sometimes lacking detail and the graphical quality that makes other stages such a visual treat. Meanwhile, when it comes to character models, certain characters have been given obvious special treatment. These character models feature higher polygon counts, better design, more detail and just more attention to detail overall. Moreover, the game has aliasing problems up the wazoo – especially on HDTVs.
Last but not least, our final complaint is admittedly controversial. In Nintendo's hype campaign leading into Brawl's release date, the company released so much information on Brawl that if you followed the information trail, you're left with few surprises to enjoy in Brawl. Particularly, when it comes to unlockable extras, such as characters, nearly every single unlockable character was revealed months before the game launched. Sure, it's our own fault for reading, but in hindsight, the Super Smash Bros. DOJO site wasn't such a great idea, after all.
Final Word
We won't take any more of your time than we already have. Bottom line: Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a must-purchase for every single Wii owner. If you own a Wii, you have to own this game. Sakurai and team have outdone themselves, creating a video game that is worth every penny it costs to own.
Buy this game.
December 28, 2009
