Title: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Console: Nintendo Wii
Release Date: 03/09/08
Genre: Fighting
My Ranking: #32
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Super Smash Bros. isn't a traditional fighter. Instead of getting hit points down to zero, your health starts at zero and the more you get hit, the higher your percentage goes up. The higher your percentage, the farther you get hit off the stage. If you fall too far from the stage, you lose a life. The original Super Smash Bros. was the first to use this system, and was completely innovative for its time.
Brawl stays in the says format but the real draw of Brawl is the sheer amount of playable characters. Brawl is the first commercial fighter to allow you to play with 35 characters from all different Nintendo and third-party universes. Brawl has scratched that itch that every gamer has had. Who would win in a fight between X and Y?
Notable new characters in Brawl were of course Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog. I thought the inclusion of Sonic was especially awesome since every gamer who was alive during the Nintendo vs. Sega war wanted to see these two duke it out. However, I was a little frustrated when I finally got Brawl (it was delayed for about four months) that I had to go through the entire one-player mode to unlock Sonic.
The inclusion of a one-player mode called the Subspace Emissary was necessary since previous versions of the game had lackluster one-player modes. This story-adventure mode pitted (almost) all of the characters against a new enemy and had players going through platforming and boss levels to complete it. It took a couple hours to complete and was kind of fun, but the platforming levels seemed sort of thrown in at the last moment and just weren't that fun. It also was annoying that the fastest way to unlock characters was using this mode, making it seem forced.
You don't buy Brawl for the one-player mode though. You buy it for the multiplayer experience, which is where the game truly shines. The controls for Brawl are simple and smooth. You have two attack buttons, and a direction chooses a different attack. No crazy quarter-circle punch, half-circle, back flip and stand on your controller madness. Simple, efficient and fun.
This isn't new for the smash series though and everything that's great about Brawl was already done well in Melee. Brawl had some interesting new additions, like the smash ball which gives a character a limit break move which looks awesome and does massive damage. However, the final smashes are unbalanced and ruins the game's balance as a result. The other problem with Brawl is tripping, which just seems to randomly happen, causing your character to lose all momentum and fall helplessly to the ground completely open for attack.
Despite these new flaws though, Brawl is great game to play with friends. Unfortunately, the game only seems to be fun with items off as most of the items are just annoying or uninteresting. Brawl is definitely the worst in the series, but it never gets old to beat the crap out of Sonic.
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My Top 52:
#52 --- Star Fox 64 (N64)
#51 --- Kirby's Adventure (NES)
#50 --- Roller Coaster Tycoon (PC)
#49 --- Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)
#48 --- Metroid Prime (GC)
#47 --- Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
#46 --- Bomberman 64 (N64)
#45 --- Guitar Hero II (PS2)
#44 --- Super Street Fighter II (GEN)
#43 --- Pokemon Puzzle League (N64)
#42 --- Soul Calibur II (GC)
#41 --- Gears of War (Xbox 360)*
#40 --- Elite Beat Agents (DS)
#39 --- Call of Duty 4 (PS3)
#38 --- Super Metroid (SNES)
#37 --- The Orange Box (PS3)*
#36 --- Metal Gear Solid (PS)
#35 --- Doom (PC)
#34 --- Super Mario Kart (SNES)
#33 --- Mischief Makers (N64)
#32 --- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
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Oh and sorry for the lack of updates recently. Final projects in NYU are hitting hard now, so the posts will be less frequent for a little while as I really need to focus on schoolwork. I'll put up small stuff though as the days go along to keep you guys entertained.
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4 comments:
While I thought it was cool that sonic made an appearance in the latest version of Smash Bros, it was only a mild surprise.
No, as one who remembers the Sega vs. Nintendo wars rather clearly, that moment of triumph and general "Bwahahahahahahaha"-ing came the day I saw a sonic game for sale on a Nintendo console. Sure the war technically ended as the Dreamcast slowly sank beneath the waves, but for me it was truely over once I started seeing it's sad refugees whoring them selves out on the richer streets of Nintendoland.
Lolz. I do have the Sonic Mega Collection for my Gamecube. FTW indeed.
Glad I'm not the only one to think that Brawl was a disappointment.
To be fair, there was no way they could have met the level of hype Brawl was generating, and it was a very well done game. Great graphics, amazing soundtrack, and a much more approachable game than Melee was. With Melee it was much easier to abuse things like the heavy gravity and wave dashing to completely destroy anyone not as skilled. In Brawl it's easier to recover and the physics feel much better, which helps create a level playing field.
Single player definitely blew though. It felt like Kirby Superstar without the heart and good level design, but with generic enemies and annoying platforming. My biggest complaint is the very lackluster online support. Online is almost unplayable with lag and extremely annoying to set up with all the friend code exchanging (not Brawl's fault, just Nintendo's horrible policy). Quick matches had no options whatsoever - just 4 player melees on a 100% random map with items. No ranking, no match-by-skill setups, and most people playing were 10 year olds that compare to about a level 5 cpu player.
Complaints aside it's still my favorite Smash game and a blast to play with friends.
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