Man, I keep telling myself that Brawl is good and that I have to play Brawl. All of my friends play it so I have to play it and be better than them. But no, it's not. Brawl actually sucks. It was, is, and probably forever will be one of the most disappointing games I've ever played.
Right now, I'm in a bad mood, which is why I am typing this rant. I just got off of Smash Bros Brawl after trying to get some trophies in the SSE. First of all, I went around and tried to capture Ridley in the Research Facility level. Unfortunately, throwing a Trophy Stand at him isn't enough to capture him. He actually falls directly off of the edge if you do it that way, and you can't pick him up. I tried that twice, after going through the level over again twice. Then I finally figured I would just wait for a Trophy Stand to appear and only use it when he does his ground-scraping attack where he's not hovering 20' from the stage. Unfortunately, he ran head-first into a Bob-Omb and killed himself.
Afterwards, I went into the SSE to try to get Meta Ridley in the Bomb Factory level (at least that's where I think he is). I got a Trophy Stand on the last guy in the room where you have to kill like 100 guys. He's one of those Armank guys (tank with an arm). It turns out you actually have to throw the Stand into the slit when he pops his head out. No problem, I just kept breaking his arm and making him appear. After I finally captured him, the level immediately finished and there was no way to pick him up. All that time wasted again.
Really, though, you didn't have to read those two above paragraphs. How about I rant in here in such a way that Yahtzee should have done last week (as opposed to his rant about fighting games in general and had little to do with Brawl at all).
Let's start on something I think we can all agree with- the online play. Tell me, did Masahiro Sakurai have absolutely no intention of allowing people to play online? It seems like he wanted it to be single-player and offline multi-player. The online play is like nothing else you would ever imagine. It's not like every other online-capable game, where it's got different rooms and you can join them. Talk to people in between matches, add people to your friend list, or block others that you dislike. No, you start a match, wait for people to join, and everything is entirely anonymous. The worst part is, if someone either drops or joins, you have to wait an additional 70 seconds before the match starts. Last night, it was me and one other guy waiting for a match. About 10 seconds were left on the clock. A third player joined. We waited. It got down to about 10 seconds again, and he left, starting the clock all over again to 70 seconds. You know what else is bad about online play? You can't choose the rules. All items are active, the stage of choice is random between the four players, and worst of all, it's always set to 2:00 matches. Really, why couldn't they have set it up so there are rooms. That way everyone gets what they want. And if they like what they see, you can add people to your friend list. Not to mention that online play in Brawl is so horribly laggy, it's like playing World of Warcrap. The "With Friends" feature is left cold for me, because all that feature does is make me really angry at my friends, and them angry at me. With really laggy gameplay, it's impossible to actually be better than people without luck, and luck just makes people mad, I'm sorry.
Let's move on to some of the other features of Brawl that really disappoint. Final Smashes. When I first read about these on Dojo, I was so thrilled. I thought, "Wow! Something to really turn the tide of battle if things are going the wrong way." But no, they made them either really weak or really over-powered, and they show-up once every 5 seconds. And since a Smash Ball can break from anywhere between 1% damage or 100% damage, the person who gets it is also pretty much random, eliminating all signs of strategy or skill involved. Another thing about items. Most of the things they created for Brawl are items I turn off. A smoke ball? What the heck does that do? That Cracker Launcher won't kill anyone unless they're at 200%+ damage, and accidentally picking one up means you can't do anything.
That's actually another point I'd like to make about Brawl. Picking up items is really weird. Half the time, you pick up an item that you don't even know was there, and you didn't even know you picked it up until you're too late. I don't know how many times I've accidentally picked up a Super Scope and started firing hundreds of useless energy shots instead of charging up a Smash Attack. Many times, I've pressed "A" to pick-up something like a Hammer, but instead my character attacks. "Gah! Got-to-pick-up-hammer!" I say with my character's hand going right through it. Then here comes the computer player. He runs into me, picks it up, instant death. I also like how they didn't at all fix Melee's problem of attacking things instead of picking them up. I don't know how many times I've had to continue on All Star because a Bob-Omb popped right where I was charging a Smash Attack.
Speaking of All-Star, have you noticed how as you increase the difficulty, the amount of coins it costs to continue actually increases? Why would they do that? I'm all for making it more frequent to continue, but why would they make it so detrimental? If you continue on Easy in any mode, it costs 10 coins to re-start, but if you continue on Intense difficulty, it costs 100 coins. Now, on Intense mode, remember that a lot of characters can easily one-hit KO you, no matter what character you are.
Brawl is a game that hates its player. On top of several Bob-Ombs or Gooey Bombs appearing in front of me as I charge-up a Smash Attack, it's very apparent that computers just absolutely hate the player. They actually won't go after each other at all, even if you're invincible or off the screen. If you are star-KO'ed (when you fly upwards off the screen), any computers left standing will taunt, even if one of them has 150% damage, and they're right next to each other. But if you knock one off and you try to taunt... Well, you get the picture. Computers also have this thing where one will grapple you, and the other will throw a Bob-Omb into you and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Even the stages hate you in Brawl. For example, in Battleship Halberd, the cannon, arm, or laser will always pretty much travel in a straight line to try to kill you. No matter what you do, you can't shake any of them off, and they will always try anything to make sure your life is miserable.
Now, I can understand them killing-off Dr. Mario, Pichu, and Roy, but why Mewtwo? He was a fun character to play as, albeit useless against skilled players. They really upped the balance in Brawl, so they couldn't have kicked him out solely because he was the bottom of the tier list. Now it stands as all of the characters are equal except Olimar. He does have one thing going for him, though. An entirely unavoidable one-hit KO Final Smash that attacks the entire screen. This is especially great because he's the last guy in All-Star, and is the only character that will go after items in said mode. Of course, in All-Star, you only get one life, so... sorry bud.
Finally, there's the stage editor. I was so obnoxiously excited about this feature when I first read about it, I almost wet myself, seriously. But wow, they really lamed it up. I mean, there's only three backgrounds and three sizes, but that's not the problem. One of the main problems is the lack of parts. There's really only a few useful parts, and the rest take up too much room to make them any cool. However, the worst part is that you can't play your maps online with your friends. That might have made both the online "With Friends" mode -and- the stage editor mode way more fun.
I've covered Trophy Stands, online play, items, CPU, and the stage builder. Still, Brawl isn't the worst game ever. I may have been a little harsh in my bad mood in the above paragraphs. In terms of ranking between the three Smash games, though, I'd have to rank it last. The first one was the most fun and had the most useful B moves, and Melee was pure skill and strategy. Brawl is more like any other fighting game, where all you have to do is mash buttons and you can win.
In conclusion, Brawl may not be the worst game of all time, but it's by far the biggest disappointment to 2008. It had so much promise and everything looked so great, but they really just shaved-off the edges that made the other games more fun. Now, I know a lot of people are going to just take this like the hate-speech that it is and give me tons of negative feedback, but I hope that you guys understand that this is complete opinion and I just kind of mentioned only the bad parts of the game. So, if I do get banned for throwing this in the wrong section, or for any other reason- it was fun!
Right now, I'm in a bad mood, which is why I am typing this rant. I just got off of Smash Bros Brawl after trying to get some trophies in the SSE. First of all, I went around and tried to capture Ridley in the Research Facility level. Unfortunately, throwing a Trophy Stand at him isn't enough to capture him. He actually falls directly off of the edge if you do it that way, and you can't pick him up. I tried that twice, after going through the level over again twice. Then I finally figured I would just wait for a Trophy Stand to appear and only use it when he does his ground-scraping attack where he's not hovering 20' from the stage. Unfortunately, he ran head-first into a Bob-Omb and killed himself.
Afterwards, I went into the SSE to try to get Meta Ridley in the Bomb Factory level (at least that's where I think he is). I got a Trophy Stand on the last guy in the room where you have to kill like 100 guys. He's one of those Armank guys (tank with an arm). It turns out you actually have to throw the Stand into the slit when he pops his head out. No problem, I just kept breaking his arm and making him appear. After I finally captured him, the level immediately finished and there was no way to pick him up. All that time wasted again.
Really, though, you didn't have to read those two above paragraphs. How about I rant in here in such a way that Yahtzee should have done last week (as opposed to his rant about fighting games in general and had little to do with Brawl at all).
Let's start on something I think we can all agree with- the online play. Tell me, did Masahiro Sakurai have absolutely no intention of allowing people to play online? It seems like he wanted it to be single-player and offline multi-player. The online play is like nothing else you would ever imagine. It's not like every other online-capable game, where it's got different rooms and you can join them. Talk to people in between matches, add people to your friend list, or block others that you dislike. No, you start a match, wait for people to join, and everything is entirely anonymous. The worst part is, if someone either drops or joins, you have to wait an additional 70 seconds before the match starts. Last night, it was me and one other guy waiting for a match. About 10 seconds were left on the clock. A third player joined. We waited. It got down to about 10 seconds again, and he left, starting the clock all over again to 70 seconds. You know what else is bad about online play? You can't choose the rules. All items are active, the stage of choice is random between the four players, and worst of all, it's always set to 2:00 matches. Really, why couldn't they have set it up so there are rooms. That way everyone gets what they want. And if they like what they see, you can add people to your friend list. Not to mention that online play in Brawl is so horribly laggy, it's like playing World of Warcrap. The "With Friends" feature is left cold for me, because all that feature does is make me really angry at my friends, and them angry at me. With really laggy gameplay, it's impossible to actually be better than people without luck, and luck just makes people mad, I'm sorry.
Let's move on to some of the other features of Brawl that really disappoint. Final Smashes. When I first read about these on Dojo, I was so thrilled. I thought, "Wow! Something to really turn the tide of battle if things are going the wrong way." But no, they made them either really weak or really over-powered, and they show-up once every 5 seconds. And since a Smash Ball can break from anywhere between 1% damage or 100% damage, the person who gets it is also pretty much random, eliminating all signs of strategy or skill involved. Another thing about items. Most of the things they created for Brawl are items I turn off. A smoke ball? What the heck does that do? That Cracker Launcher won't kill anyone unless they're at 200%+ damage, and accidentally picking one up means you can't do anything.
That's actually another point I'd like to make about Brawl. Picking up items is really weird. Half the time, you pick up an item that you don't even know was there, and you didn't even know you picked it up until you're too late. I don't know how many times I've accidentally picked up a Super Scope and started firing hundreds of useless energy shots instead of charging up a Smash Attack. Many times, I've pressed "A" to pick-up something like a Hammer, but instead my character attacks. "Gah! Got-to-pick-up-hammer!" I say with my character's hand going right through it. Then here comes the computer player. He runs into me, picks it up, instant death. I also like how they didn't at all fix Melee's problem of attacking things instead of picking them up. I don't know how many times I've had to continue on All Star because a Bob-Omb popped right where I was charging a Smash Attack.
Speaking of All-Star, have you noticed how as you increase the difficulty, the amount of coins it costs to continue actually increases? Why would they do that? I'm all for making it more frequent to continue, but why would they make it so detrimental? If you continue on Easy in any mode, it costs 10 coins to re-start, but if you continue on Intense difficulty, it costs 100 coins. Now, on Intense mode, remember that a lot of characters can easily one-hit KO you, no matter what character you are.
Brawl is a game that hates its player. On top of several Bob-Ombs or Gooey Bombs appearing in front of me as I charge-up a Smash Attack, it's very apparent that computers just absolutely hate the player. They actually won't go after each other at all, even if you're invincible or off the screen. If you are star-KO'ed (when you fly upwards off the screen), any computers left standing will taunt, even if one of them has 150% damage, and they're right next to each other. But if you knock one off and you try to taunt... Well, you get the picture. Computers also have this thing where one will grapple you, and the other will throw a Bob-Omb into you and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Even the stages hate you in Brawl. For example, in Battleship Halberd, the cannon, arm, or laser will always pretty much travel in a straight line to try to kill you. No matter what you do, you can't shake any of them off, and they will always try anything to make sure your life is miserable.
Now, I can understand them killing-off Dr. Mario, Pichu, and Roy, but why Mewtwo? He was a fun character to play as, albeit useless against skilled players. They really upped the balance in Brawl, so they couldn't have kicked him out solely because he was the bottom of the tier list. Now it stands as all of the characters are equal except Olimar. He does have one thing going for him, though. An entirely unavoidable one-hit KO Final Smash that attacks the entire screen. This is especially great because he's the last guy in All-Star, and is the only character that will go after items in said mode. Of course, in All-Star, you only get one life, so... sorry bud.
Finally, there's the stage editor. I was so obnoxiously excited about this feature when I first read about it, I almost wet myself, seriously. But wow, they really lamed it up. I mean, there's only three backgrounds and three sizes, but that's not the problem. One of the main problems is the lack of parts. There's really only a few useful parts, and the rest take up too much room to make them any cool. However, the worst part is that you can't play your maps online with your friends. That might have made both the online "With Friends" mode -and- the stage editor mode way more fun.
I've covered Trophy Stands, online play, items, CPU, and the stage builder. Still, Brawl isn't the worst game ever. I may have been a little harsh in my bad mood in the above paragraphs. In terms of ranking between the three Smash games, though, I'd have to rank it last. The first one was the most fun and had the most useful B moves, and Melee was pure skill and strategy. Brawl is more like any other fighting game, where all you have to do is mash buttons and you can win.
In conclusion, Brawl may not be the worst game of all time, but it's by far the biggest disappointment to 2008. It had so much promise and everything looked so great, but they really just shaved-off the edges that made the other games more fun. Now, I know a lot of people are going to just take this like the hate-speech that it is and give me tons of negative feedback, but I hope that you guys understand that this is complete opinion and I just kind of mentioned only the bad parts of the game. So, if I do get banned for throwing this in the wrong section, or for any other reason- it was fun!
also, rotating fall-through platforms could have been very interesting. thats my biggest dissappointment in the game
