Smash Bros. Brawl- Biggest disappointment of 2008.

[Dragonwriter69]

Actually, I think I will say one notable thing: in my experience playing Smash Brothers, the thing that set the Smash Brothers series apart from other fighting games (besides the massive, massive, massive differences in system) was the sense of uncontrollable chaos that was thrown into the fighting. Even in the original, the stages were not just blank pieces of art that fit into the background and occasionally formed a rough battlefield-style shape, but they were unique places that each had their own hazards, and were often in themselves a strong influence on the outcome of a match. Also, the right items could easily swing the tide of an entire match if you were lucky enough to get the right one at the right time (do we all remember going absolutely bonkers whenever a hammer would show up in the original?). That being said, what made the sense of chaos fun was that, to me, it was never so strong as to completely overtake the game. Indeed, I still think that it is not chaotic to the point of the game being pointless. Yes, it was possible that you could get really unlucky and lose a match, but that was never common and certainly not frequent. Thus, what sets the Smash Brothers series apart from other fighting games the most in my opinion is that Super Smash Brothers is a game that is all about trying to control the chaos around you; trying to thread your way around it, survive through it, or (most especially) turn it to your advantage; developing strategies to overcome all of the different types of chaos that can come at you so that you AREN'T just getting fucked, and might even benefit from it.

So yeah, that's my two cents. I think that a lot of the complaints you guys are lodging are against the random chaos that they put into the game, but that is actually the aspect of the game that I find most enjoyable and most challenging.

 

[windfish]

Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about, on almost any of your points. I'll just throw that out there. Bo-bombs are supposed to be dangerous, so you're supposed to be careful about them. If you accidentally smack a bomb instead of picking it up, it's not unfair - it's hilarious. What probably happened is that it started walking the instant that you charged at it, so your character hit it, instead of grabbing it.

On the stage editor - I think you unlock more parts as you go. I personally really like it, and I've made some stages that my friends really like. The parts are simple, yeah, but they get the job done.

Most of your quips seem to come from having all items turned on, at Very Frequent. You can turn off smash balls, or set just the items you like, down to very infrequent. It's really fun.

I agree with the guy above that chaos is part of what makes Smash fun.

I really, really have to disagree with the your assertion that "all you need to do is mash buttons and you win." I'd accuse you of not playing the game, but that's a little low, and you wouldn't have written this much of you hadn't. So I'll just assume that you're accidentally playing on training mode, or against level 1 CPUs.

Anyway, I'll agree with you that items tend to make it more a of a luck-fest, similar to Mario Kart Wii. However, my friends and I play with the items off, or occasionally just with Smash balls, beam swords, and pokeballs and assist trophies turned on very low, and we get along just fine. And we have fun.

I also agree that the single-player sucks, and it really sucks that they force you to play it to unlock many characters and stages. I haven't tried the online (my friends live nearby), so you may have something there.

 

[Stammer]

Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about, on almost any of your points. I'll just throw that out there. Bo-bombs are supposed to be dangerous, so you're supposed to be careful about them. If you accidentally smack a bomb instead of picking it up, it's not unfair - it's hilarious. What probably happened is that it started walking the instant that you charged at it, so your character hit it, instead of grabbing it.

I'm talking in All-Star Mode, you're about to win, then suddenly a Bob-Omb pops right in front of your already in-progress attack. You can't turn off items in there, and it's not hilarious having to lose 100 coins and having to start a huge fight all over again because of it.

On the stage editor - you know that you unlock more parts as you go, right? I personally really like it, and I've made some stages that my friends really like. The parts are simple, yeah, but they get the job done.

I've actually done all of the challenges, including the three sets of new stage parts. The only two decent parts are already available, and everything else takes-up so much space that they're pretty much nothing more than a pain to put in.

Most of your quips seem to come from having all items turned on, at Very Frequent. You know, you can turn off smash balls, or set just the items you like, down to very infrequent. It's really fun.

I do turn off Smash Balls. I'm talking in online play and single-player, where you actually -cant- take them off. And I do turn off all of the items I dislike. My items are always set to medium unless I'm practicing or doing a Sticker Factory.

I agree with the guy above that chaos is part of what makes Smash fun. Lastly, I really, really have to disagree with the your assertion that "all you need to do is mash buttons and you win." I'd accuse you of not playing the game, but that's a little low, and you wouldn't have written this much of you hadn't. So I'll just assume that you're accidentally playing on training mode, or against level 1 CPUs.

I play it with my friends, online, and single-player all the time. I've owned the game since the very day it was released in North America. I know it's not really just mashing buttons. I mean you can just spam the same one or two attacks over and win. In Melee, you had to jump around, beat on things, then smash when the time is right.

In closing, I hope you'll pardon my snarky tone. You'll understand if I'm "just in a bad mood," right?

lol

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

you know i have seen this with gta4 as well, "biggest ANYTHING of 2008" cannot be decided yet due simply to the fact that it's not even half over yet hell it's not even totally 1/3 over yet, so i highly disagree on that point,

 

[GloatingSwine]

You know, I don't know what people were expecting from SSBB? A voucher for hookers in the box?

All throughout development you should have known what it was going to be. The same as SSBM, but slightly better balanced, and with a tweaked character roster, and Nintendo's broken and silly online system.

 

[EinDose]

I think people don't like Brawl simply because their standards were so high they'd only be happy if it did their taxes, sent away their annoying neighbors and while it was at it solved all the world's problems with a massive light show.

It started with the trailer. People's bars were set by the Final Smashes. And almost immediately raised by Meta-Knight, Pit, Zero Samus and Wario. And then skyrocketed by Snake. Later it only served to look more awesome. Everything was tailor-made for the Drool Factor. From the Stage Editor, the almost expected newbies like Dedede, the Pokemon Trainer, Lucas and Olimar, the groundbreaker of Sonic, and even the comparatively little things like the Mushroomy Kingdom, the Assist Trophies, Stickers. It was all made to be exactly what everyone wanted, and nothing more.

You hear that? People wanted to see Dedede enter the fray. People wanted to see Ridley in. Everyone was holding out hope for Sonic. A comparatively lesser crowd wanted to see Mother get more representation, to see the 'clones' done away with or improved, even little things like seeing Ganon's pig form, orsome form of representation for Golden Sun.

You got EVERYTHING YOU WANTED. What's wrong with that?

 

[windfish]

Frankly, I don't know what you're talking about, on almost any of your points. I'll just throw that out there. Bo-bombs are supposed to be dangerous, so you're supposed to be careful about them. If you accidentally smack a bomb instead of picking it up, it's not unfair - it's hilarious. What probably happened is that it started walking the instant that you charged at it, so your character hit it, instead of grabbing it.

I'm talking in All-Star Mode, you're about to win, then suddenly a Bob-Omb pops right in front of your already in-progress attack. You can't turn off items in there, and it's not hilarious having to lose 100 coins and having to start a huge fight all over again because of it.

On the stage editor - you know that you unlock more parts as you go, right? I personally really like it, and I've made some stages that my friends really like. The parts are simple, yeah, but they get the job done.

I've actually done all of the challenges, including the three sets of new stage parts. The only two decent parts are already available, and everything else takes-up so much space that they're pretty much nothing more than a pain to put in.

Most of your quips seem to come from having all items turned on, at Very Frequent. You know, you can turn off smash balls, or set just the items you like, down to very infrequent. It's really fun.

I do turn off Smash Balls. I'm talking in online play and single-player, where you actually -cant- take them off. And I do turn off all of the items I dislike. My items are always set to medium unless I'm practicing or doing a Sticker Factory.

I agree with the guy above that chaos is part of what makes Smash fun. Lastly, I really, really have to disagree with the your assertion that "all you need to do is mash buttons and you win." I'd accuse you of not playing the game, but that's a little low, and you wouldn't have written this much of you hadn't. So I'll just assume that you're accidentally playing on training mode, or against level 1 CPUs.

I play it with my friends, online, and single-player all the time. I've owned the game since the very day it was released in North America. I know it's not really just mashing buttons. I mean you can just spam the same one or two attacks over and win. In Melee, you had to jump around, beat on things, then smash when the time is right.

In closing, I hope you'll pardon my snarky tone. You'll understand if I'm "just in a bad mood," right?

lol

I agree that most of the newer stage pieces are a little too big - I think the trick there is minimalism - most of the stages that I made that have been successful use the special pieces sparingly.

I was under the impression that using Friend Codes makes it possible to fully customize a match, including items...am I wrong? I might be - I haven't tried.

I argue that while Brawl isn't quite the dodge-fest that Melee was, there's still a great deal of timing and strategy involved, just different forms of it. For instance, there's no longer nearly such a tier system:

One of the Major, GAME-BREAKING flaws of Melee is that at a certain skill level, there was a HUGE tier system, with 4 characters clearly dominating over everyone else - Marth, Sheik, Fox, and Peach. The tier 2s, Cpt Falcon, Jiggles, etc, came close as well, but there were about 16 other characters that simply didn't stand a fair shot in a tournament. The reason for this was that the developers mistakenly thought that smaller, faster characters would get balanced out by the stronger, slower characters simply on weight. However, at the upper levels of skill, the faster characters had the ability to never get hit by the larger ones, and so the advantage went to the most spastic characters with no reload time and killer smashes. The developers mistakenly gave the fastest characters some of the strongest moves in the game - Fox's broken upsmash, and Marth's impossibly-cheap tip. Brawl fixes this partially not by making everyone slower, but by making most of the them even. The fastest characters have no seriously broken killing moves to my knowledge, and the airgame has been more-or-less equalized by the ability to airdodge continuously.

Brawl is an improvement of melee, in my opinion, because a good player should be able to win with his/her favorite if he's good enough. Yes, I know, there are really, really good Link players at melee tournaments. But the winner is always Marth or Fox. And nobody ever won with Bowser. Everybody is good in Brawl. Even Dedede. The physics have been sharpened (although tripping is REALLY ANNOYING), and there are no (to my knowledge) physics-breakers, so no need to fear Wavedash-tards. Edge-bitching, the bane of fun, has also been severely hampered. Seriously, I don't know how those people sleep at night.

Anyway, I can see we're both in better moods now, so perhaps there's not so much disagreement to be had. Personally, I don't see Brawl as that much slower than melee - the only characters who are really slower were the ones that were broken in Melee anyway - but maybe it's simply been so long since I last played melee that I've forgotten.

 

[Ultrajoe]

Well it is good to see a negative opinion be greeted on an internet forum with even handed debate or passive dismissal.

that said, i do support Brawl as a button masher, after reducing 'hardcore' (they could just be crap, but they play this game every time they get together, they certainly look impressive) players to frustration with my eyes crossed and my tongue out slapping the controller, i partook in the ultimate humiliation by killing them a stupid amount of times by rolling the buttons over my forehead while singing 'Master exploder' by tenacious D...

if thats not mashing, then please inform me what is, it can only be comedy gold.

that said, i did not win all the time, all i'm saying is that Button Mashing is as viable a strategy as any other out there, there are counters for it like any other, and to the unprepared it is a whirlwind of death (id say after the razor-edged games of 1337 v 1337 they had partaken of so often, my uncoordinated assault caught them off-guard)

 

[Fire Daemon]

I enjoyed the First SSB but never got into any of the newer titles. I did not enjoy this review. This more of a "I just got my arse handed to me by robots and I need to vent my PMS (Painful marble steals, when you lose in a game of marbles and run out of good marbles [similar thing here]".

This is not the place for venting your anger, especially in the form of reviews that we take quite seriously. You just found something that pissed you off, described why it pissed you off and then called it a review. Usually reviews have a sturcture to themselves. An intro, a bulk, a conclusion. You have the Introduction and conclusion down (even though they are just hate) but your bulk (or body) is just one paragraphy followed by another then another and then another. They are all just points you found to piss you off, you didn't seem to link the paragraphs, you just ramble on like a drunk on the street (yes I see the hypocripsy in that hiccup).

Most reviews tell me why I may want to/not want to buy a game. All you have done is tell yourself why you don't want to buy it. Your review is shallow at best and is hardly worthy to be sitting next to those that put effort into creating a reviews, not spewing up a bunch of biased hate.

I'm sorry if this pisses someone off but really, this is just game hate thrown up on a page. Unlike most gamehate vomit you don't even back up your reasons despite the fact that it "pissed you off"

 

[assassin18]

I disagree with the post above, to a point. I thought the review has some valid criticisms and give you a pretty accurate view of some of the more frustrating points in Brawl. However, I still consider Brawl on of the top games out there. Sure, it has it faults, ala Dead Rising stupid one-slot save system and annoying targeting system, BUT it is amazingly fun. Still, one of the best games to play with casual and veteran gamers. Conceded, I don't usually play with the smash ball or item on, but I can convince girls who don't even touch a controller to play as peach and team up with me against some computer players. This post and yahtzee video both have the same problem, its mostly ranting all be it with good points splashed in. No I am not a fanboy for liking this game, nor is it one of the biggest disappointments. Its just above average mulitiplayer game for the Wii.

 

[Raljiktar]

I really wished I never bought the game to be honest.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I disagree with the post above, to a point. I thought the review has some valid criticisms and give you a pretty accurate view of some of the more frustrating points in Brawl. However, I still consider Brawl on of the top games out there. Sure, it has it faults, ala Dead Rising stupid one-slot save system and annoying targeting system, BUT it is amazingly fun. Still, one of the best games to play with casual and veteran gamers. Conceded, I don't usually play with the smash ball or item on, but I can convince girls who don't even touch a controller to play as peach and team up with me against some computer players. This post and yahtzee video both have the same problem, its mostly ranting all be it with good points splashed in. No I am not a fanboy for liking this game, nor is it one of the biggest disappointments. Its just above average mulitiplayer game for the Wii.

It listed the problems and then ended. A review in my opinion should hame more.

 

[Ignotus]

It's still the best game to be released in 2008 :|.

No. It's really not.
For Wii, maybe, but there's still Manhunt 2 and that to look forward too.

 

[Stammer]

Um, this wasn't a review >.>

I said it before and I said it again, this is a rant. If I wanted to go into a review, I would have done so. I was just discussing a lot of things that disappointed me about this game. The fact that a lot of you people are now just adding to this thread the things that make the game good isn't really changing anything. Like I said before, I like the game, it's just not all that I was hoping for. Everything they said they were going to give was just watered-down.

But that's another thing "Windfish" brought up... Why the hell did they give us prat falls? I mean, those things occur at random and have absolutely no positive influence on the person playing. All they do is distract you, throw you off guard, and totally ruin anything you were about to do. In multiplayer matches it's not bad because, well, anyone can do it and it's just for fun, but when you're on boss #9 on Intense Boss Battles, and you die because of it, it's just a pain in the ass.

 

[RentCavalier]

You make a few valid points in your review, and it's good you touched on the level editor, because it does seem pretty irritating. However, I can't really find myself going along with your review because you seem to be overblowing little errors.

Most of the problems you described--example being how you knock the game for having Bombs and Gooey Bombs showing up when you're doing a smash attack, or how you hate final smashes--can be, y'know, TURNED OFF. Really, it takes ten seconds.

Online multiplayer isn't that great, sure, but this game doesn't hinge upon its online multiplayer. The funnest part of Smash Bros is the trash-talking between friends. Get two or three people, copious alchohol, and a few controllers and you'll have a grand time. The online multiplayer seems intended purely and solely as an extra, a bonus to an already complete package. Yeah, it's not exactly easy to work with, but it's not terrible. I've gone online every once and awhile and its not so bad. Try playing on weekends--more people are online on Friday/Saturday Nights.

So, it's an ok review, but you're definitely picking nits and making it look as though you're discovering terribly glaring gameplay flaws. You're looking for a reason to hate the game, and so you're not really reviewing so much as you are ranting. To say that it's the biggest disappointment of 2008 also seems just a little bit excessive.

 

[Melaisis]

This review has bite and raises some good discussion points (as proven by the length of this thread). Personally, I'm also surprised at how grammatically sound it is, even for an angsty outbreak. All in all, I'm not really that much of a fan of Nintendo and thus I don't have any empathic ties to their cloned offspring, so - from an outside prospective - overall I thought it turned out to be pretty good.

 

[Stammer]

You make a few valid points in your review, and it's good you touched on the level editor, because it does seem pretty irritating. However, I can't really find myself going along with your review because you seem to be overblowing little errors.

It's not a review!!! ; ;

Most of the problems you described--example being how you knock the game for having Bombs and Gooey Bombs showing up when you're doing a smash attack, or how you hate final smashes--can be, y'know, TURNED OFF. Really, it takes ten seconds.

You can't turn items off in All Star or Classic modes, which are the only times I'd actually like to have them off. During multiplayer, I always have them on, because accidentally hitting one doesn't go against you in the long run, costing you 1,400 coins.

Online multiplayer isn't that great, sure, but this game doesn't hinge upon its online multiplayer. The funnest part of Smash Bros is the trash-talking between friends. Get two or three people, copious alchohol, and a few controllers and you'll have a grand time. The online multiplayer seems intended purely and solely as an extra, a bonus to an already complete package. Yeah, it's not exactly easy to work with, but it's not terrible. I've gone online every once and awhile and its not so bad. Try playing on weekends--more people are online on Friday/Saturday Nights.

Valid points. Also, wow, someone spelled "solely" right!

So, it's an ok review, but you're definitely picking nits and making it look as though you're discovering terribly glaring gameplay flaws. You're looking for a reason to hate the game, and so you're not really reviewing so much as you are ranting. To say that it's the biggest disappointment of 2008 also seems just a little bit excessive.

I'm pretty sure in my above post, I actually directly said "I'm not reviewing, I'm ranting". *cries* It's not a review, people! If it was, it would have been longer, much more informative, and in the "Reviews" section!

 

[Stammer]

Snap, they moved it?

I should just write an actual review so people will stop calling this one a review lol

It used to be in "Gaming Discussion", which in my opinion is where a rant/discussion belongs. I think I will write a real review. Later. When I have the time. Right now, I'm trying to hit Lv.27 Scholar in Final Fantasy XI though. And since I only have about a week to enjoy my summer (only three days now), I'm trying to get as much done as I can so I don't need to put time into the game.