Super Smash Bros. Brawl review
So now we’re at Brawl! This game in the Smash Bros. series was an expansion to what already made Melee great. It has even more characters, more stages, more music, more modes, and a legitimate campaign mode for once. Did Brawl live up to the high expectations set by its predecessor? Let’s find out!
(Plot) For once and as far as the Smash-a-Thon goes, only, there’s a plot for a Smash Bros. game. The Subspace Emissary was one of Brawl’s major selling points and for good reason. It shows some nice interaction between Nintendo’s different characters that is certainly present in every game, but doesn’t feel as authentic as it does in the cutscenes of the Subspace Emissary. The plot itself is a bit hard to follow, but basically the villains in the game’s roster band together to turn every other character in the game into trophies to give to their leader, Master Hand. Master Hand ends up betraying them, and Master Hand is revealed have literally been a puppet of Tabuu, some weird humanoid-shaped evil spirit that serves as the final boss of the game. While the plot itself is nothing to write home about, it’s worth it so see all your favorite Nintendo characters (and Sonic and Snake) together in very well animated cutscenes. A large portion of Brawl’s development went towards the story mode alone, which isn’t particularly amazing but has really nice cutscenes so it’s a bit of a mixed bag. How does the rest of the game hold up though?
(Gameplay part 1) In Brawl, there are all of
the modes Melee had and then some. The aforementioned Subspace Emissary is just
ok gameplay wise. You pick a certain number of characters to play through
levels that are kind of like Melee’s Adventure Mode. Some of the enemies are
taken from Nintendo games, but only a few of them are. Most of the enemies are
made up just for the game and aren’t very memorable. The collectables and boss
fights are great, though. You can use
stickers that give each character some small upgrades, which can vary from stat
boosts to holding an item every time they spawn. I don’t use these much, but
they’re nice for what they are. The iconic Vs. mode remains mostly unchanged in
terms of what you can do, but it does have a stage creator where you can make
your own stages. It feels a little bare bones, but it’s a nice addition. Also,
stages have a lot more different themes on them. You can change the frequency
of certain themes appearing when playing a stage to your liking. You can even
unlock CDs that give you even more theme! Among the new items introduced in
Brawl are the assist trophies and the Smash Ball. The assist trophies summon
characters from Nintendo franchises (and Shadow and Gray Fox) to help the
player out. They’re just like Pokéballs, except they include characters that
aren’t Pokémon. The Smash Ball is a glowing ball that floats around the stage.
Whoever manages to break it open can use their final smash, an all-new mechanic
that allows characters to use a very powerful and flashy move. Most characters have their own unique Final
Smash. Final Smashes are fun to mess around with and really throw a monkey
wrench into the battle. Classic mode is back and isn’t much different from how
it was in Melee. A new type of difficulty has been added called Intense Mode.
It’s available in the Subspace Emissary too. It feels a bit redundant to have
hard, very hard, and intense, but it’s still a good challenge. Trophy tussle
and race to the finish are gone though.
Break
the Targets is back, but this time instead of every character having their own
level, it’s the same for every character. However, there are 5 levels of Break
the Targets so there’s not too much of a loss here. There are even more
trophies to collect in this game as well. You can now take snapshots of your
battles and save them to an album. It’s really fun to mess around with every
now and then. There’s a new mode called Masterpieces where you can unlock short
demos of games that the fighters come from. This is a pretty nice feature, but
the time you’re given for the demos is a bit more limited than I’m used to with
demos. There are now challenges, which are basically achievements. You get
rewarded a number of things from this, including stages, masterpieces, Pokéball
Pokémon, CDs, Assist trophies, and trophies. There’s also a mode called
Chronicle, which gives you a catalogue of the games the characters come from. It’s
ok, I guess. There’s nothing to really unlock from it, but it is good for brushing
up on some gaming history. The trophy machine has changed to be a shooting
minigame of sorts. Eh. All-Star Mode returns and is pretty much the same as it
was in Melee. Stadium is mostly the
same, but except for wireframe characters, you’re fighting these guys called
alloys, which are kind of like the wireframe characters, except they’re not
wireframe characters anymore and they all have these little white cores in
their bodies. You can now upload your records online, or at least you could
until Wi-Fi was discontinued for Wii and DS games. That’s a perfect Segway into
the next mode and one of the most exciting additions to the game, an online
mode! You can fight against random players or friends you’ve exchanged friend
codes with. With random players, there aren’t custom rules you can set, so
they’re usually pretty casual matches, which is disappointing for those wanting
to hone their skills that are the no items, tournament-legal stage-type person.
The online is pretty laggy and feels a little phoned in. Or, at least, was,
because you can no longer go online in DS and Wii games because the servers
were shut down. There are ways of getting around that, but the official method is
no longer usable. Possibly the biggest
addition to this game is the Final Smash. Each character has their own that can
be activated by pressing B (or the equivalent on the wiimote) after hitting a
glowing, floating ball to activate a powerful move. Some Final Smashes come are
inspired by moves from the characters’ games such as Sonic transforming into
Super Sonic, while others are made up for the game such as Link and Toon Link’s
Triforce Slash. Before I get into the playable characters, there’s one thing I
want to go over, and that’s the physics of the game.
People
loved Melee’s feel. It was fast and frantic with plenty of intricacies that
hardcore players took to the game’s advantage. Brawl is the exact opposite of
that, being slower with fewer technicalities than its predecessor. Also, the
air speed is a lot slower, having people label it as “floaty”. It’s also a lot
harder to execute combos, especially in quick succession. There’s also a new
mechanic known as tripping where your character will randomly trip during the
battle, leaving you open for attack, giving the match a more random outcome.
Competitive players were enraged by the changes made to Brawl and a bad taste
has been left in their mouths ever since. It made people so upset that a whole
group of people banded together to make Project M, and easy to access mod to
the game where a lot of Melee’s mechanics taken out from Brawl are put back in
with the physics engine being much closer to Melee’s. It also has extra stages,
character alts, and puts Mewtwo and Roy back in among other neat additions, so
it’s a pretty good mod. Even with Smash 4 and its more aggressive and frantic
feel with higher speed than Brawl, people have still decided to stay loyal to
Melee and/or just play Project M. So what’s my take on all of this? Well, I
don’t think the game’s physics are nearly as bad as people make them out to be.
Yeah, sure, tripping is annoying and I feel like they could’ve made combos
easier to execute, but it still feels very fun to play and is highly addictive.
While watching people play the game competitively isn’t as fun as the other
Smash games and a lot of players in the competitive scene rely on a lot of
shielding and camping, you can play the game however you want, so you can play
the game more aggressively if you wish. Sure, it’s not the same, and there are
more things I will talk about regarding this with the characters, but I feel
that it’s still a very fun game to play regardless of what the physics are.
Brawl does have more of a fun factor than Melee in my opinion, which could be
due to its more casual appeal, explaining the shift in the speed and physics. I
do like Melee’s physics better, but Brawl is still very enjoyable to play.
(Gameplay part 2) All right, now onto the game’s meat and potatoes-the playable characters! This time, I will only cover the returning characters that I feel have a big enough difference to be talked about. I will talk about all of the newcomers, though.
Mario is mostly the same as in Melee, but his tornado move has been replaced with Mario charging up FLUDD to spray some water that just blows his opponents away without doing much damage or knockback. I don’t really see the purpose of this move but it’s cool that they added FLUDD to his moveset to represent Mario Sunshine.
Link has
gotten quite a few upgrades from Melee. For one, his design is updated in this
game to match how he appears in Twilight Princess. His arrows come out faster,
but are a little less powerful. He now has his Gale Boomerang from Twilight
Princess, which goes through opponents and blows them away a little bit or
drags them back without stunning them. This is known as a windbox. His Up B is
now chargeable too. Honestly, even with the cool new upgrades, I feel that this
is the weakest version of Link in the Smash Bros. series. He just feels off and
Toon Link, who I’ll discuss later, far outclasses him in my opinion. It feels
weird to play as him being a Toon Link main. His control feels numb compared to
Toon Link’s and not very fluid.
Zelda hasn’t
received many changes from Melee, but she feels better than in Melee. Her
design is also updated to reflect her Twilight Princess appearance. She’s fun
to use from time to time.
Sheik is
pretty much the same, except she’s not considered one of the Brawl’s best
characters like she is with Melee and Smash 4. While she didn’t appear in
Twilight Princess, this probably would’ve been how she looked in Twilight
Princess if she were in the game.
Ganondorf has
received a number of changes from Melee to Brawl to further distance him from
Captain Falcon. For one, his design has changed, and like Link and Zelda, his
design is also reflective of his Twilight Princess appearance. His Side B now
chokes opponents and drops them to the ground, allowing for a quick follow-up.
If he uses it in the air, it’ll slam them down to the ground, or to the abyss
if you’re not right above the ground. I find Ganondorf very fun to play as in
this game. He’s actually one of my pocket mains. He’s considered to be bad,
even the worst character in the game by many people. I wouldn’t say he’s the
worst, but he is a hard character to win with. He’s the slowest character in
the game and while his moves are very powerful, they’re really slow and easy to
dodge because of that. I use him as much as I do partly because he’s considered
so bad. When I first heard that before playing Brawl, I couldn’t believe it since
Ganondorf as a character is super powerful-he wields the triforce of POWER! A
bunch of stabs to the chest and light arrows can’t even kill him off for good.
So no, he’s not great by any means, but it doesn’t stop me from enjoying him.
Marth has received a few changes from Melee to Brawl. His side B feels easier to chain together and his neutral B is now a chargeable thrust that better compliments his tipper sweetspot than what he had in Melee. His Side B also feels easier to connect. This is my personal favorite incarnation of Marth in the Smash Bros. series. He just feels the most appealing to me in this game out of the 3 he appears in.
Pikachu didn’t
change much from the transition from Melee to Brawl, but there’s something in
particular I want to talk about regarding Pikachu in Brawl- Pikachu is really
annoying to fight in this game. I feel that Pikachu is somewhat broken. My
nickname for Brawl Pikachu is Spamchu because Pikachu’s moves are easy to spam.
On the ground, it can just keep sending Thundershocks your way and it also just
has quick moves giving it good combo ability. When you’re in the air and
Pikachu is on the ground, it feels like it’s especially easy in this game for
Pikachu to just spam Thunder until you die. This is all from me fighting Lv. 9
CPU Pikachus in Brawl, I’m not sure that’s how competitive players use Pikachu
in Brawl, but the fact that it’s so easy for Pikachu to do makes me feel
infuriated every time I fight this guy in Brawl. Pikachu is an example of the
characters that are either unbalanced in this game or have things about them
that could’ve been balanced out better.
Jigglypuff has
received severe nerfs in this game. Jigglypuff is on the opposite ened of the
tier list that it was at in Melee. The physics just don’t complement Jigglypuff
well. It’s easier to execute Rest when you have a character already in hitstun,
but due to this game’s ability for characters to cancel hitstun and the overall
general reduce in combo ability, it’s harder to utilize that as well as some of
the other things that made Jigglypuff perform well in Melee tournaments. I
would personally say that Jigglypuff is probably the worst character in Brawl,
but can still be useful in casual matches.
Mr. Game and Watch is back and feels generally better in this game than in Melee. His Up B
now has a second part to it in which he pulls out a parachute and floats slowly
to the ground, giving him so better recovery. He’s also a good character to use
in boss battles, especially for Tabuu, the final boss of the Subpsace Emissary.
The parachute neutral air has been replaced with an attack where he lets some
fish out of a fish bowl. How amusing.
Captain Falcon has
also suffered a substantial nerf in this game. The reduced general combo
ability is what hurt him the most among other nuances. I guess this game’s
physics don’t compliment him well. At least he’s still fun to play as.
Now time to go over the newly
introduced characters! The most notable additions in this game are the 3rd
party characters as that had never happened before Brawl in the Smash Bros.
series and has since opened the door to other non-Nintendo characters joining
the fight to cement Smash Bros. even further as the ultimate crossover video
game franchise.
Meta Knight is
infamous for being “broken” in this game. Before I talk about how he is in this
particular game, I should mention that Meta Knight is generally just a really
cool character and I always look forward to his appearances in Kirby games. He
was the best choice for another Kirby representative along with another
character I’ll cover later. Now, do I think Meta Knight is the threat that a
lot of people claim him to be in this game? Yes, I do. Like some of the other
characters I’ve mentioned in this review, I feel that Meta Knight was given
some ridiculously good attributes that any weaknesses he may have don’t
competently keep in check. In a game with relatively low combo ability, Meta
Knight has a lot of quick and devastating combos in Brawl. His moves come out
very quickly and because of that are very easy to use in quick succession due
to almost no end lag, which is what keeps characters from using certain moves
right after landing previous hits. He’s also a spammy character. His recovery
is also ridiculous, arguably better than Pit’s due to having multiple options
of recovery. Meta Knight doesn’t have a huge weakness, the closest thing he has
to a weakness is that his moves aren’t exactly the most powerful (though some
of them really pack a punch) and his defenses aren’t the best either, but
neither of those hinder him much at all. Meta Knight comes with a gliding move
that starts off with a bat-like swoop and a vertical drilling move, both of
which give him great air game and hard to predict recovery. He also has a move
where he fades and reappears with a quick slash. This move can also be used for
recovery, though it’s not as reliable as his other recovery options. Meta
Knight’s Final Smash is like his down B, except it’s a large diagonal slash that
takes longer to pull off. Overall, Meta Knight in Brawl is a character that was
not balanced as well as he could be and has the lowest skill ceiling of any
character in the Smash Bros. series to date.
Zero Suit Samus was a pretty neat addition to Smash Bros. It’s cool that you can now
play as Samus with and without her iconic suit. Because Samus is stripped of
her heavy armor, she is much more agile in this form with some lower defenses.
She’s quick and is effective for both up close and ranged playstyles. He
neutral B is a charge up paralyzer shot that stuns enemies when fired. Her side
B has her lash an energy beam from her gun. Her down B involves her doing a
jump of sorts that can be turned into a kick when done in succession. Her up B
is an upward beam whip. Her Final Smash involves her absorbing the armor that
turns her into regular Samus, which regular Samus’ final smash is the reverse of along with the firing of a
giant laser. You have to do a specific button input on the character select screen
when chosing Samus to start battles as Zero Suit Samus, though. A lot of Zero
Suit Samus’ moves rely on her using the aforementioned whip, which honestly
makes it feel like her moveset was somewhat lazily designed. She’s a good
character and I get why she was added, but it feels like more love and
attention could’ve went into constructing her. I feel that in the game that
succeeds Brawl gave her the TLC she needed, but I’ll get to that in my Smash 4
review.
Wario is a
comical character with some pretty crazy moves. He’s a mid-weight character
with some rather strong moves in his arsenal. He relies greatly on physical
moves. His neutral B is a large biting attack that can eat items and
projectiles and can trap opponents for a few seconds, acting as a second throw
of sorts. His side B has him get his motorcycles out and riding it across the
stage. He can jump off his motorcycle if you want him to, and the motorcycle
can be picked up by other characters and thrown at him with the remains lying
on the ground. You can throw the remains of his motorcycle. His up B is an
upwards-spinning attack. Wario’s down B is his signature move, being a fart
rocket move that charges up as you fight. Wario has pretty good recovery as you
can see with his 3 options. His final transforms him into Wario Man, a faster
and lighter version of Wario. Wario can be played as in his biker outfit from
the Warioware series, which is his default appearance, or his original design
with purple overalls. Wario is a pretty cool character and a nice addition to
the Smash Bros. roster.
Snake was
the first third-party character to ever be revealed for Smash Bros. I wasn’t a
fan of the series, heck I didn’t even know what Smash was when the reveal
trailer for Brawl was first shown but from what I can tell, the fans were over
the moon about the inclusion of Snake. I can imagine how it felt when he was
first revealed. A character that is mostly associated with the PlayStation
brand appearing in a Nintendo crossover? A character not owned by Nintendo in
Smash? That must’ve been downright unbelievable at the time! Snake opened the
door for more third party characters to join Smash as time went on. Snake comes
equipped with many weapons, including grenades, missiles, and boobytraps to
name a few. Snake’s Final Smash involves him firing from a first person-like
view at opponents on screen. As a side note, Snake’s taunts involve him hiding
in a box that can be removed to do a little damage if it hits you. If used on
the Shadow Moses Island stage, he can talk to his friends about the character
that he is fighting. It’s a pretty neat and funny feature. While Snake was a
great addition, I feel like Snake is another character in Brawl that could’ve
been given more exploitable weaknesses. While he’s not on Meta Knight levels of
broken, he has a pretty low skill celling and is good in almost every
perceivable way. His moves are pretty quick; he has a good close-up game as
well as being a good character to keep distance with. He also has pretty good
recovery that, while is rather easy to exploit, covers plenty of distance. He
is a little susceptible to being hit though because of his heavy weight and
size. Overall, Snake was a nice addition that despite not being too well
balanced, was a fun character and is missed by many.
Pokémon Trainer was the most interesting addition to this game’s roster in my opinion.
It was really cool to have 3 characters in one. You can switch between the 3
starters Ivysaur, Charizard, and Squirtle. The 3 starters have different
playstyles and weight classes. Here’s a quick rundown of them-
Ivysaur is
mid-weight, being the middle evolution representative, and is good for racking
up damage. Ivysaur’s grabs are also good because they have plenty of range with
the vines. Ivysaur also has a projectile with Razor Leaf, its side B, which
acts similarly to the Link/Toon Link’s boomerang.
Charizard is
heavyweight and the powerhouse of the trio, being the fully evolved starter
Pokémon. Charizard can also fly, giving it pretty good air game for a heavy
character.
Squirtle is
the lightest of the 3, being the base evolution stage starter of this group.
Squirtle is my personal favorite of these 3 in both Smash and in the Pokémon
games and I miss being able to play as Squirtle in Smash 4. Squirtle is a
rather slippery character and can rack up damage pretty well.
There’s a stamina mechanic
with these characters where after a certain amount of time passes, they become
weaker, making you want to switch to another one of the Pokémon in the trio.
There’s also some type effectiveness factored in with Squirtle taking less
damage from fire moves, Ivysaur taking less damage from water moves, and
Charizard taking less damage from Ivysaur’s moves, mirroring the type
effectiveness from the Pokémon games. The final smash of all 3 of these
characters is Triple Finish, where all 3 of the Pokémon fire powerful beams
that can blast away opponents. It was interesting to see the experimentation
done with Pokémon Trainer, but the removal of transformations in Smash 4 saw
the removal of Ivysaur and Squirtle, leaving Charizard as its own character. I
would like to see this mechanic return in a future Smash game and possibly
improved upon.
Ike was the
new Fire Emblem representative chosen for Brawl. Being able to carry a 2-handed
sword with only 1 hand, Ike can deliver some powerful blows. He has a counter
like Marth, but all of his other moves are different. His power is balanced out
with slow moves and movement. Ike’s Final Smash is Great Aether, with involves
him hacking and slashing the living daylight out of his opponents with his
sword. Ike is a pretty cool character; he was one of my favorites in Brawl for
a while. His power can be a little overwhelming to face at times, but I
wouldn’t say that he’s broken.
Lucas is a
cute little character. His moves are similar to Ness’, but he has tether grabs
with his snake. He also uses PK Freeze instead of PK Cross, which can freeze
enemies, hence the name. His PK Fire doesn’t stay on the ground like Ness’ and
his PSI Magnet is more offensive than Ness’ and can draw in enemies to do some
damage. It’s also put out in front of him instead of it surrounding him. He
also has different tilts, smash attacks, and aerials from Ness, but most
notably his up smash, which is very powerful and has great range. Lucas is a
very fun character to play as in my opinion and I prefer him to Ness. If only
Nintendo could localize the game he came from…
At long last, the most
obvious third party character to be in Smash joins the battle in this game, Sonic. I’m surprised Sonic wasn’t put
into the game before Snake was. So yes, it’s awesome to see Mario and Sonic
square off in Smash Bros. and it put the hype for Brawl through the roof
pre-release. So the most apparent thing about Sonic that was carried into Smash
Bros. is that he’s really fast. Sonic is the fastest character in the game. He
has very quick moves and movement that can be useful for racking up damage.
However, Sonic can’t deal a ton of damage in a few hits and is rather frail. A
lot of his moves involve him balling up and I can’t help but feel that his
moveset feels a little bit lazy. I understand that it was because Sonic was
added late into Brawl’s development so corners were cut to get the game out
sooner. It still got delayed regardless, but I guess they didn’t want to delay
it by too much. Sonic’s homing attack from the 3D games is in his moveset and
works similarly, except he jumps up first and then launches the homing attack.
He has his signature spin dash too, one that charges up like in the games and
one that’s more instant. Some of his moves are taken from the arcade game Sonic
the Fighters, which isn’t exactly the most well known game out there but it’s
still cool that they took his moveset from one fighting game and put it into
another. Sonic’s recovery move involves him jumping off of a spring from his
games that can fall on the ground to do a little damage. Sonic’s final smash is
Super Sonic, who can dash across the screen at very high speeds. It can take
out a bunch of stocks, apparently Smash Balls were allowed at some tournaments
but were banned in part due to Sonic’s final smash. I think that Sonic is a
pretty fun character to play as every now and then. It’s especially fun to spam
his taunt where he goes, “you’re too slow!”
Diddy Kong is
an agile character that can very easily annoy opponents. The primary reason for
this is that he can toss out a bunch of banana peels that make opponents trip
even more than they already might’ve been. However, I feel that Diddy is pretty
well balanced. Sure, he can be annoying, but his recovery isn’t exactly the
best and neither are his defenses. Other moves Diddy Kong has include shooting
peanuts from his Peanut Popgun, a flip kick of sorts that can also have him
attach to his opponents, and blasting off from a jetpack made of barrels. I
guess Diddy Kong is pretty cool, but there are other characters I prefer over
Diddy Kong in this game.
King Dedede is
a pretty entertaining character is this game. I feel like Sakurai took pointers
for how he’s portrayed in the TV show Kirby: Right Back At Ya! I feel this the
most with his portrayal in the Subspace Emissary. Anyway, Dedede is a
heavyweight hard hitter like most villains in this game, but he has multiple
jumps like Kirby does. He can also swallow enemies, but can’t take their
abilities. He can rise up and crash back down kind of like Bowser or Yoshi. He
can charge his hammer up and release a really strong attack. He can even throw
out his minions; it’s great for camping! I feel like Dedede is pretty annoying
to fight. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, I guess it’s because he’s a heavy
character with above decent recovery and powerful moves with good range too
thanks to his minions. The only real weakness King Dedede has is that he has
slow movement and his attacks have plenty of lag. I’ve always found Dedede to
be a difficult matchup for me; it might be because I tend to use characters
that are either light or mid-weight. Dedede can be pretty fun to play as
though, I’m not a huge fan of him in Smash but he’s not a boring character to
play as by any means. He does have some pretty cool alts, I must say.
Olimar has
an interesting concept. He utilizes his Pikmin for pretty much everything, but
his Pikmin are exposable. He can pick up to 8 Pikmin from the ground to help
him in battle. He can toss them onto enemies to leech some damage and use them
for smashes, tilts, grabs, and aerials. He can even call them back to him if
they don’t perish. The quality of his recovery relies on how many Pikmin he has
with him as they create a string for him to do tether recovery with. Despite
all of this, Olimar is probably my least favorite character in the game. I just
don’t care for his playstyle. It just never appealed to me. His defenses are
pretty low and you need to keep track of the Pikmin to be able to really get
anywhere with him. However, he can be a really good character as shown with how
Olimar mains utilize him. I also find him annoying to fight. He has an
interesting premise; he’s just not my cup of tea.
Lucario is
in my opinion one of the most interesting additions to Brawl as well as my 3rd
favorite character to play as in the game. Lucario has a mechanic known as
aura, being the thing that he controls. The more damage Lucario takes, the more
powerful its moves become. It’s already
not too shabby at low percentages, but can be a threat at high percentages. It
comes with Aura Sphere, which works a lot like Mewtwo’s Shadow Ball in Melee,
Extremespeed, its recovery move that reaches more height at higher percentages,
Force Palm, a secondary grab of sorts, and Double Team, a counter where it disappears
and reappears kicking its opponents. Its Force Palm can do some ranged damage
if used from further away. It feels pretty rewarding to play as Lucario. I also
feel like I’m rather good at making comebacks, which is what Lucario is all
about. Lucario is also one of my favorite Pokémon, which is probably another
reason why I really enjoy using it. However, there’s a common misconception
that Lucario is a clone of Mewtwo, the character that many believe Lucario to
be the replacement of. It does have one similar move, that being Aura Sphere,
but other than that his moveset and playstyle is completely different. As far
as the replacement part goes, I really can’t say for sure if it replaced Mewtwo
or not. I don’t think it did replace Mewtwo, I just think that Lucario was a
very popular Pokémon at the time so when it came to adding new Pokémon, Lucario
fit the bill. Mewtwo’s relevancy was pretty low at the time and I think Sakurai
prioritized putting other characters in the game over Mewtwo because they were
either more relevant or more popular among the fans. I guess the aura was just
stronger with this one.
ROB has got
to be the most off-the-wall addition that Smash Bros. has ever seen. The
Robotic Operating Buddy can barely even be considered a character because ROB
was an accessory for the Famicon/NES needed to play Stack-up or Gyromite. ROB
has made cameos in other Nintendo games, one of which being Mario Kart DS where
it was a playable character, so I guess ROB somewhat counts as a character.
Sakurai had to get creative with ROB and I feel like he took it upon himself as
a challenge to make this character happen. ROB has a laser that charges up over
time, not by holding a button, but just as the battle goes on. It has a
blinking bulb on its head that lights up more to indicate a stronger beam. ROB
can also charge up and let go of gyros as if they were beyblades. They can be
picked up and thrown by anyone. ROB also has a move where it spins its arms in
a forward direction like a helicopter of sorts. I find ROB to be a little
annoying to fight and a character I don’t play as very often, but still, ROB is
a very interesting addition that might not have been a popular fan request, but
still a charming addition nonetheless.
Wolf is an
interesting case. He has similar moves to that of Fox and Falco, but has a
different enough moveset to be considered a separate character from the two and
not a clone. Well, he does have a blaster, reflector, and rush down recovery
move, and even a landmaster for a final. However, His blaster is a lot slower
than the other Star Fox characters with less range but more stun. His up B has
a lot less reach than Fox and Falco’s and has a pretty different animation. His
up and down B are both fires and flashes like Fox and Falco’s, but they have
very different properties to them. His tilts, smashes, grabs, and aerials are
all different too. As far as I know, his reflector is pretty much the same
function as Fox’s and his landmaster is the same as the other 2 spacies. So
with that said, do I consider Wolf a clone? I would say that he is to some
degree, but he’s probably one of if not the most different “clones” in the
series from the source material character. It’s a bummer he didn’t make it into
Smash 4, not even as DLC, but I suppose it’s another case of him not being very
popular among the fans and not being a terribly relevant or important character
that would prioritize him enough to return. Maybe someday, but not in Smash 4.
I like Wolf and find him interesting to play as and against every now and then,
but again, he’s not exactly a favorite of mine.
Overall, Brawl has a great
roster. I would argue that it has the most balanced series representation in
the series. It has many characters new and old and has taken the series from
just being a Nintendo all-star cast to a gaming all-star cast. However, I do
feel like something is missing from these characters, and that is TLC. It
doesn’t feel like as much love and attention went into the characters as in
Smash 4, which makes playing, the characters in this game nowadays feel a
little soulless. That’s not to say there wasn’t a great amount of detail in
each character, it’s just that I’ve seen the series do better.
(Music) Ok,
this is going to be quick like last time. Anyone who knows enough about Brawl
knows that its soundtrack is absolutely incredible. It’s a collection of some
of gaming’s best tunes in one disk with some awesome remixes to boot. While
Brawl does tend to reuse its main theme a lot, it doesn’t even hold a candle to
the sheer quality of this game’s soundtrack.
(Overall) To
make a long story short, Brawl is an awesome game. It has endless hours of fun
and oodles of content. Like Melee, it’ll keep you coming back for years and is
sure to become a classic. Now here comes the ultimate question: how does it
stack up to Melee? Well, in my opinion, Brawl and Melee are equal in quality.
They both have their own qualities and shortcomings. If you’re looking for a
more technical Smash then Melee is definitely the one for you, but if you’re
not really into that, then I’d recommend Brawl. Ideally though, you should buy
both games and enjoy what each of them has to offer. I would recommend this
game to anyone in general and you should get this game for your Wii if you
haven’t already (as unlikely as that may be). Brawl is my favorite Wii game. And
now we’ve reached the end of the Smash a thon at long last with Super Smash
Bros. for Wii U and 3DS, or Smash 4 for short. I’ll see you next time for that
review!
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