Okay, it's been more than a year after Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, but I think this is a good time to review it. At this point, we've all gotten past the hype and we've had time to see exactly what we like and what we don't about Brawl, some of our opinions colored yellow with a certain Anglo-Australian's ranting. I'm not one of the Melee guys who needs Fox on Final Destination with no items, but I do take versus matches pretty seriously, so I try to have more than a little knowledge about Brawl and the mechanics thereof. All in all, I want this review to be balanced, and anyone else is free to bring up their experiences after a year of Brawl.
Single-Player Mode
I'm not going to mention Classic or All-Star mode since they are, at their core, largely unchanged from previous installments. The only thing they did was make the order somewhat predictable (Classic mode level one involves the Zelda series, level two is minor Mario characters, things like that), though in most other fighting games you don't know who you're going to fight. Being that the Super Smash Bros. franchise isn't a traditional fighting series the point is pretty much moot, but probably worth pointing out because in Melee (yes, I'll be comparing it to Melee a lot just because it's Brawl's only real competitor) you had no idea who you were going to face until you fought him/her.
Adventure Mode, "The Subspace Emissary," is an eight-to-ten hour romp that crams all the characters together into just one universe and one combined quest. Despite all the sound and fury that went into this mode, it seems like the energy Sakurai spent touting it could have gone into actually making it good.
It all just feels really lazy. Most of the enemies look like the came out of a grade-school boy's art-class doodles, especially bosses like Galleom and Duon. I understand the need for mooks that aren't just pick-and-choose from the various franchises represented in the game, but they should really show a little bit of creativity, and perhaps some fitting enemies for each environment.
Additionally, the final two to three hours of Adventure Mode (not counting the last boss fight) are a near-complete retread of everything before it, and the cutscenes are completely pantomimed, no dialogue at all, even by the characters who tend to actually speak (you don't realize just how many characters in Nintendo's history are silent protagonists until you think about it). I mean, it works, but I can't help but feel that at least a little dialogue would have made it work that much more.
At least the pantomime makes the gameplay seem fitting - you normally don't see cutscenes like that or side-scrolling beat-em-ups in any game made today. It's more fifth-generation fare than anything, which is okay - I mean, what other stuff can you do with Super Smash Bros. anyway?
I just think that the direction they went with Adventure Mode was entirely wrong. It probably would have been better if each adventure mode was different for each character, and only took about fifteen to thirty minutes to complete: that's at the very least 8.75 hours of gameplay from a much more varied experience than the utter sameness of "The Subspace Emissary" at approximately the same length. I played Adventure Mode one single time when I got the game (just to get Sonic), and I haven't played it since. I do not regret that decision.
Nitpicks
Overall, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a fun game with way more polish than the original and Melee, and it doesn't stop my friends and me from having fun during the actual multiplayer modes. I'm not going to talk much about multiplayer because it's largely a solid experience. The only real problem I have with it is the camera. It zooms out too far, especially with three and four players, so it makes it difficult to keep track of the characters. In stock matches, this problem is compounded on some stages where the tally of lives you have left blocks the view of your character.
This section is just the nitpicks, the minor things in the game that bug me and sort of ruin parts of the experience. The problem is that I don't dare make a comprehensive list of the things that bug me about the game because of space issues. I'm going to touch on the major things, but probably won't go into too much detail...I'll let the good fellow Escapist members help that along.
Half the cast of characters has no place in the game. I don't want a debate about whether this character or that belongs or doesn't, but I'm going to list the ones I don't feel are fitting: Diddy Kong, Toon Link, Pit, Ice Climbers, ROB, Olimar, Falco, Wolf, Lucario, Jigglypuff, Ike, Lucas, and Mr. Game & Watch. Either the characters are too obscure or insignificant or are too recent to be called Nintendo All-Stars (and isn't that what the Super Smash Bros. franchise is all about?
Additionally, it seems like most of this game is just touting everything Nintendo did since the Melee. There is a stage from Electroplankton in the game. Olimar, Lucario, Lucas, Toon Link, and Ike are all from games exclusively on sixth- or seventh-generation consoles (and it didn't help that Lucas is in the game and they aren't releasing Mother 3 in the rest of the world like Fire Emblem after showing Marth and Roy in Melee). I haven't heard of half the characters they used for Assist Trophies. There are stickers from Elite Beat Agents.
And speaking of stickers, the sticker system is completely pointless. Stickers are only usable in Adventure Mode, and once you die, oops, you just lost all those stickers! I don't understand why they didn't make using stickers in multiplayer mode even an option (without losing them, of course), something you could turn on and off, which has been done in, probably among other things, the Dragon Ball Z fighting games, a fact that I loved about those games.
Verdict
Overall, it's a fun game. Taking a couple friends and using a bunch of Nintendo characters to beat the tar out of each other makes for as much fun as it was back in 1999, and it makes for a good party game among good, familiar company. I just can't help seeing so much misplaced potential that would have made this game so much better.
Again, feel free to share your own opinions about the game, hopefully we can see what nerves each poster touched on for everyone else.
Single-Player Mode
I'm not going to mention Classic or All-Star mode since they are, at their core, largely unchanged from previous installments. The only thing they did was make the order somewhat predictable (Classic mode level one involves the Zelda series, level two is minor Mario characters, things like that), though in most other fighting games you don't know who you're going to fight. Being that the Super Smash Bros. franchise isn't a traditional fighting series the point is pretty much moot, but probably worth pointing out because in Melee (yes, I'll be comparing it to Melee a lot just because it's Brawl's only real competitor) you had no idea who you were going to face until you fought him/her.
Adventure Mode, "The Subspace Emissary," is an eight-to-ten hour romp that crams all the characters together into just one universe and one combined quest. Despite all the sound and fury that went into this mode, it seems like the energy Sakurai spent touting it could have gone into actually making it good.
It all just feels really lazy. Most of the enemies look like the came out of a grade-school boy's art-class doodles, especially bosses like Galleom and Duon. I understand the need for mooks that aren't just pick-and-choose from the various franchises represented in the game, but they should really show a little bit of creativity, and perhaps some fitting enemies for each environment.
Additionally, the final two to three hours of Adventure Mode (not counting the last boss fight) are a near-complete retread of everything before it, and the cutscenes are completely pantomimed, no dialogue at all, even by the characters who tend to actually speak (you don't realize just how many characters in Nintendo's history are silent protagonists until you think about it). I mean, it works, but I can't help but feel that at least a little dialogue would have made it work that much more.
At least the pantomime makes the gameplay seem fitting - you normally don't see cutscenes like that or side-scrolling beat-em-ups in any game made today. It's more fifth-generation fare than anything, which is okay - I mean, what other stuff can you do with Super Smash Bros. anyway?
I just think that the direction they went with Adventure Mode was entirely wrong. It probably would have been better if each adventure mode was different for each character, and only took about fifteen to thirty minutes to complete: that's at the very least 8.75 hours of gameplay from a much more varied experience than the utter sameness of "The Subspace Emissary" at approximately the same length. I played Adventure Mode one single time when I got the game (just to get Sonic), and I haven't played it since. I do not regret that decision.
Nitpicks
Overall, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a fun game with way more polish than the original and Melee, and it doesn't stop my friends and me from having fun during the actual multiplayer modes. I'm not going to talk much about multiplayer because it's largely a solid experience. The only real problem I have with it is the camera. It zooms out too far, especially with three and four players, so it makes it difficult to keep track of the characters. In stock matches, this problem is compounded on some stages where the tally of lives you have left blocks the view of your character.
This section is just the nitpicks, the minor things in the game that bug me and sort of ruin parts of the experience. The problem is that I don't dare make a comprehensive list of the things that bug me about the game because of space issues. I'm going to touch on the major things, but probably won't go into too much detail...I'll let the good fellow Escapist members help that along.
Half the cast of characters has no place in the game. I don't want a debate about whether this character or that belongs or doesn't, but I'm going to list the ones I don't feel are fitting: Diddy Kong, Toon Link, Pit, Ice Climbers, ROB, Olimar, Falco, Wolf, Lucario, Jigglypuff, Ike, Lucas, and Mr. Game & Watch. Either the characters are too obscure or insignificant or are too recent to be called Nintendo All-Stars (and isn't that what the Super Smash Bros. franchise is all about?
Additionally, it seems like most of this game is just touting everything Nintendo did since the Melee. There is a stage from Electroplankton in the game. Olimar, Lucario, Lucas, Toon Link, and Ike are all from games exclusively on sixth- or seventh-generation consoles (and it didn't help that Lucas is in the game and they aren't releasing Mother 3 in the rest of the world like Fire Emblem after showing Marth and Roy in Melee). I haven't heard of half the characters they used for Assist Trophies. There are stickers from Elite Beat Agents.
And speaking of stickers, the sticker system is completely pointless. Stickers are only usable in Adventure Mode, and once you die, oops, you just lost all those stickers! I don't understand why they didn't make using stickers in multiplayer mode even an option (without losing them, of course), something you could turn on and off, which has been done in, probably among other things, the Dragon Ball Z fighting games, a fact that I loved about those games.
Verdict
Overall, it's a fun game. Taking a couple friends and using a bunch of Nintendo characters to beat the tar out of each other makes for as much fun as it was back in 1999, and it makes for a good party game among good, familiar company. I just can't help seeing so much misplaced potential that would have made this game so much better.
Again, feel free to share your own opinions about the game, hopefully we can see what nerves each poster touched on for everyone else.
