Friday, July 8, 2016

Super Smash Bros. Brawl review


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!


(Graphics) Brawl looks really nice for a Wii game. It was a pretty big step up visually from what Melee looked like. The characters all have a more realistic look to them then in any other Smash game to date. While this is certainly not normal for Nintendo, I feel that the jump to realism worked pretty well. Mario’s overalls have never looked more realistic! While it’s more Nintendo-like for it to be cartoony with brighter, less washed-out colors, this was an interesting change of pace for sure. The cutscenes for the campaign mode, the Subspace Emissary, look great without even being in HD. The game runs at a pretty smooth framerate too. It looks pretty good visually.

(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.


Bowser has received a change to his Side B in this iteration of the Smash Bros. series. His Side B is now kind of a secondary throw, where he grabs you and body slams you down. Overall, Bowser is a good bit better in Brawl than in Melee in my opinion, but nothing compared to how he was changed up for Smash 4. He’s still a fun character to fight as every now and then, though. The infamous Giga Bowser from Melee is now officially playable via Bowser’s final Smash. There was a glitch/cheat in Melee that allowed you to take control of the big guy, but now you can do it without exploiting the game. It feels pretty nice to play as him!

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.









Falco has also gotten changes to make him less of a ‘clone’. Some of his aerials, tilts, and smash attacks have been changed. His down B reflector is now kicked out, giving it more range. He’s considered to be really good in this game and among the best characters like in Melee. I agree with this statement. Falco has a lot of what made him good in Melee and Brawl’s physics compliment him well.



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.

Kirby is my 2nd favorite character to play in Brawl. He’s very fun to play as like he usually is, but I feel that they actually made him above decent in this game. His dash attack is now a spinning kick of sorts taken from Yo-Yo Kirby’s dash attacks and his Side B now hits horizontally in the air rather than in a circle like in Melee. Kirby just really resonates with me in this game, he felt right for me from the start. He’s pretty fast, his moves are quick, and he has some pretty powerful moves to boot along with his quick attacks. Kirby is also really useful in the Subspace Emissary, especially the boss battles. He’s bigger, badder, and cuter.

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.


To start off the newcomer portion of this review, we have Pit. Pit comes from a video game series named Kid Icarus that had gone relatively unnoticed for over 20 years until the inclusion of Pit in Brawl. I’m sure plenty of people knew what Kid Icarus was before Brawl, but it wasn’t as well known as some other Nintendo classics. It only had 2 games, one released for the NES and one for the original Gameboy. Brawl was the first time Pit was truly in the limelight for since the release of Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters in 1991. Pit’s redesign and inclusion grew some demand for a new game in the series that was eventually made by the creator of Smash Bros. himself and ever since then new energy has been put into the Kid Icarus series. This is yet another case of a character’s game getting more recognition due to an inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Anyway, on with how Pit plays in this game. Pit is a rather light character with fast moves that might not have very high knockback, but are really good for racking up damage…some too good in that category. He also has ridiculous recovery, you pretty much can’t not make it back onto the stage with Pit given that you’re not KO’d. Pit’s neutral special involves him shooting an arrow from his bow. The bow can also break into 2 blades for some of his attacks. This arrow has very fluid control, allowing for you to change the direction it shoots in even after firing it. This can be very annoying to deal with on the receiving end. His side B has him spin his blades together in the shape of a ring. It’s a very quick move that is also pretty powerful and can reflect projectiles. Pit’s up B allows him to glide after already having 5 jumps, giving Pit nearly unmatched recovery. His down special involves him taking out a shield that will block any move if used at the right moment and can even push opponents back. His Final Smash involves him calling Palutena from the heavens, who summons centaurs that attack opponents. Overall I would say that Pit is kind of broken in Brawl. It was great for Sakurai to shed light on a long forgotten Nintendo series but I feel like his strengths and weaknesses weren’t balanced out well enough. He feels very cheap and is easy to spam moves with along with ridiculous recovery. The only things that keep him from being completely broken are his rather low defenses and KO power, but it feels like his weaknesses aren’t weak enough to balance out some of his ridiculous strengths. However, Pit is nothing compared to the next character.

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.

And last but absolutely not least, Toon Link. Toon Link is honestly my favorite character in the entire Smash Bros. series, not just in Brawl. To be honest, I didn’t really like him at first; I thought that it was pointless to have a weaker Link in the game. However, after playing Wind Waker, falling in love with it, and playing Toon Link some more, I became hook (shot) ed. Toon Link is pretty quick and light and it is very fun to mix up his different projectiles and stringing them with his up close moves. He can be a terror both with projectiles and melee attacks. Toon Link does share a lot of the same moves as Link, but his boomerang is more like how Link and Young Link’s boomerang was in Melee. He also has some different tilts and aerials and some of his tilts, smashes, and aerials have different properties than those of Link’s. I don’t know, I’ve just grown very attached to using this character in Smash Bros., as well as attached to him in general, I love the guy. His facial expressions are captured very well from Wind Waker. He’s so adorable! He’s badass and adorable. I’m glad they kept him in Smash 4 and hope for him to be a staple of the series.

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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