Long time no hateful review, huh?
Truth be told, I've been too poor to buy new vidja games to review, but Yahtzee's review of Super Smash Bros Brawl has inspired me to espouse an (old and unwanted) incredibly timely review!
So, let's begin!
***
Super Smash Bros Brawl is the ideal college gaming experience, and a good time for anybody who owns a Wii, a few controllers (Gamecube preferred) and two-to-three friends to play with. It, like Super Mario Galaxy, is a stellar casual gaming experience and a good example of what the Wii is best suited for.
As you likely know, Super Smash Bros Brawl is the third game in the terribly popular Nintendo All-Stars franchise, and it hasn't deterred from its basic premise: you can play as any one of your favorite Nintendo characters, from the cute-and-cuddly to Kirby to the sleek, metallic, skin-tight, bosomly bastion of fanservice that is (Zero Suit) Samus Aran, and place them into a fun-filled, magical arena based upon their most recent/popular games, and then proceed to have them kick the living shit out of one another.
It's a fantastic premise, because it banks upon Nintendo's biggest money-making feature: it's history. Franchises are the lifeblood of the company, and the Smash Bros games have always been a celebration of those franchises, their characters, and a gift to the fans of both. With hundreds of trophies detailing sometimes obscure and generally interesting information on characters, items and the like, tons of unlockables, and a simple, pick-up-and-play fighting system, it's the kind of game that you can easily waste half an hour to an hour (or longer, if you and your friends are more nerd--I mean "hardcore") just smashing each other to pieces.
There's a huge movement out there that seeks to make the Super Smash Bros games big, tournament-level fighting game extravaganza's, akin to Bungie's Halo series, the Unreal Games, Tekken and Street Fighter, and basically any other game that people have found a way to play professionally, and it is this group that our esteemed Yahtzee, I believe, takes offense at in his reviews.
But, if I may digress, I feel that the reviewing community--so used and accustomed to the more intense, hardcore gaming experiences of yesteryear--go about looking at Wii games all wrong. Mario Kart Wii is a good example--most of the nit-picking and negative points it has garnered on sites like 1UP and the like seem to rail upon it's lack of "depth", but...well, who exactly buys Wii games? You don't see a lot of super nerds rallying to the system as much as you used to. Those guys keep to the PS3 and Xbox 360s, where spending multiple hours on games is a norm. Instead, the Wii is a video game system that doesn't exactly sell itself to "video gamers", in the sense we now see them. Instead, it's target audience are people who DON'T play games, and people who only play the newest Nintendo or Grand Theft Auto game--the casual audience.
Since we've gotten a Wii, almost all of my non-gamer friends have been plugging enormous amounts of time into it, giggling in sheer delight at how fun it is, and happily putting down the controller after half an hour to and hour to go do something else. This is what the Wii is, ostenibly, for. It is, like many recent Nintendo Consoles, a multi-player system geared towards bringing new groups of people together in order to enjoy short bursts of gameplay, and the best games for the Wii take advantage of this to the utmost. Super Mario Galaxy is the pinnacle--you can play for five minutes and get something quite meaningful done and that's it. You don't have to play longer if you don't want to, yet you can if you do.
This is where Super Smash Bros Brawl shines the most. The tedious act of unlocking is a multiple path system, and all of the characters have two or three ways to be unlocked, depending on what you use the system for.
There's the single player, which deserves quite a bit of exposition because, frankly, if you've ever loved a Nintendo game, you'll likely love the single player, despite it's somewhat poor level design and repetative nature because it is, hands down, the single most epic celebration of Nintendo characters around. The basic premise is that there is, in fact, a "Nintendo Land", where all of the Nintendo characters live, outside of their otherwise seperate, multi-verse games, and they can team up to save the day from evils far bigger than themselves. You have Mario and Pit teaming up to fight Bowser, who has teamed up with Ganondorf and Wario to wreak havoc, and you can have Pikachu and Samus blowing up a high-tech space ship to liberate a bunch of...well, I don't really know what Pikachu and Samus are doing, but the point is that the single player mode is the ultimate cross-over ever seen in video games, and it works well in that aspect.
You have two-player co-op for the Single Player, which is a welcome addition because then you and a friend can spend an hour blasting through levels, killing bad guys, solving basic switch puzzles and, at the end of it all, unlocking a new character or music track. The unlockables, which Yahtzee was so aggravated at, are now easily unlockable without needing to refer to vague strategy guides (except for a few super-secret characters) just by playing through an already entertaining, two-player romp--something my room mate and suitemate, both general non-gamers, instantly became addicted to.
Sure, the single player has a number of downsides--annoying jumping puzzles, insanely hard boss fights, and a lot of cheap deaths ensue, but these are really irrelevant because you can just put the controller down if you get frustrated and come back a few hours later to try again and succeed.
The biggest flaw with the single player is actually the game's biggest flaw in general, and that is the controls. Now, when I say "controls", I basically mean the Wiimote and Nunchuck. These are not controllers geared for fighting games. It's hard to accurately describe, but trying to do difficult platform jumping and special attacks can be a bit frustrating on the Wiimote until you get the hang of it. Personally, I prefer to play on teh Virtual Controller, or especially the Gamecube controller--things which the gamemaker himself said were more ideal ways to play the game. Still, it's a bit aggravating that the bloody game--which was built for the WII--is much harder to play if you actually try to do it with the Wii's controller. Even Super Mario Galaxy was more tailored to the Wiimote than this, and, like Yahtzee said, it would've been just as playable on the Gamecube controller.
However, it should be said that there's a lack of gimmicks here. No fancy motion-controlling here, which may be initially upsetting, but once you play, you'll realize that if they had tried to implement such things, the game would've become a huge mess.
However, you aren't buying this game for single player, even if it is co-op. You want multiplayer, and SSBB delivers with aplomb. With a plethora of stages, most of which are unlocked along with characters, or just by playing enough melee matches, assures a constant amount of variety to your battlegrounds. Some stages are pretty much big hits or misses--the New Pork City stage, for example, is so fucking BIG that you'll easily lose track of your diminutive characters, and the Animal Crossing stage (yes, I know. An ANIMAL CROSSING stage.) is so small that you'll die just by trying to do a dash attack. There are a few others, but there are also some stellar good stages. The Pictochat stage is a standout, providing a simple arena with plenty of surprising and unpredictable alterations that give it variety and change the flow of battle constantly, keeping things fresh. My favorite stage is an unlockable one, and thus a spoiler, but there's plenty good to go around--and, even better, they included a handful of some of the better Melee stages to, like the hectic Big Blue racetrack or the fan-favorite Hyrule Temple stage. There are, for some bizarre reason, two Pokemon Arena stages, but hey, whatever. There are tons of Pokemon characters anyway, so I suppose it makes sense.
On the subject of characters, there are over 30 altogether, and besides Jigglypuff (who, I guess, HAS to be in a Smash Bros game), none of them particularly "suck." There are far less clones in this game, and each character offers something for each type of character. It's easy to pick one favorite, but most everyone I know who plays the game has three or four favorites they like to play with,and the roster is so large and varied that if you get tired of one character, there's always another to pick. True, Sonic and Snake are unlockable, but they're not hard to unlock, and Sonic even comes with his own stage to go with it, so it's all good.
In conclusion, there's not really much to say. Yes, the combat is basically button-mashing, and yes, some stages have terrible camera zoom, but the basic thing is that the game is fun. It's simple, easy to pick up, easy to play, and unpredictable enough to make even basic matches fun and exciting. There's tons to do, tons to unlock, and just tons of fun.
If you own a Wii, then you likely already own this game, because you likely have a bunch of friends to call together and play with your Wii for countless hours. The Wii is a system that can bring in a diverse collection of people, players and non, and in the end, that's why the Wii exists, and that's why Super Smash Bros Brawl WORKS: not because it is the deepest and most technical fighting game around, but because it's one of the most fun.
Truth be told, I've been too poor to buy new vidja games to review, but Yahtzee's review of Super Smash Bros Brawl has inspired me to espouse an (old and unwanted) incredibly timely review!
So, let's begin!
***
Super Smash Bros Brawl is the ideal college gaming experience, and a good time for anybody who owns a Wii, a few controllers (Gamecube preferred) and two-to-three friends to play with. It, like Super Mario Galaxy, is a stellar casual gaming experience and a good example of what the Wii is best suited for.
As you likely know, Super Smash Bros Brawl is the third game in the terribly popular Nintendo All-Stars franchise, and it hasn't deterred from its basic premise: you can play as any one of your favorite Nintendo characters, from the cute-and-cuddly to Kirby to the sleek, metallic, skin-tight, bosomly bastion of fanservice that is (Zero Suit) Samus Aran, and place them into a fun-filled, magical arena based upon their most recent/popular games, and then proceed to have them kick the living shit out of one another.
It's a fantastic premise, because it banks upon Nintendo's biggest money-making feature: it's history. Franchises are the lifeblood of the company, and the Smash Bros games have always been a celebration of those franchises, their characters, and a gift to the fans of both. With hundreds of trophies detailing sometimes obscure and generally interesting information on characters, items and the like, tons of unlockables, and a simple, pick-up-and-play fighting system, it's the kind of game that you can easily waste half an hour to an hour (or longer, if you and your friends are more nerd--I mean "hardcore") just smashing each other to pieces.
There's a huge movement out there that seeks to make the Super Smash Bros games big, tournament-level fighting game extravaganza's, akin to Bungie's Halo series, the Unreal Games, Tekken and Street Fighter, and basically any other game that people have found a way to play professionally, and it is this group that our esteemed Yahtzee, I believe, takes offense at in his reviews.
But, if I may digress, I feel that the reviewing community--so used and accustomed to the more intense, hardcore gaming experiences of yesteryear--go about looking at Wii games all wrong. Mario Kart Wii is a good example--most of the nit-picking and negative points it has garnered on sites like 1UP and the like seem to rail upon it's lack of "depth", but...well, who exactly buys Wii games? You don't see a lot of super nerds rallying to the system as much as you used to. Those guys keep to the PS3 and Xbox 360s, where spending multiple hours on games is a norm. Instead, the Wii is a video game system that doesn't exactly sell itself to "video gamers", in the sense we now see them. Instead, it's target audience are people who DON'T play games, and people who only play the newest Nintendo or Grand Theft Auto game--the casual audience.
Since we've gotten a Wii, almost all of my non-gamer friends have been plugging enormous amounts of time into it, giggling in sheer delight at how fun it is, and happily putting down the controller after half an hour to and hour to go do something else. This is what the Wii is, ostenibly, for. It is, like many recent Nintendo Consoles, a multi-player system geared towards bringing new groups of people together in order to enjoy short bursts of gameplay, and the best games for the Wii take advantage of this to the utmost. Super Mario Galaxy is the pinnacle--you can play for five minutes and get something quite meaningful done and that's it. You don't have to play longer if you don't want to, yet you can if you do.
This is where Super Smash Bros Brawl shines the most. The tedious act of unlocking is a multiple path system, and all of the characters have two or three ways to be unlocked, depending on what you use the system for.
There's the single player, which deserves quite a bit of exposition because, frankly, if you've ever loved a Nintendo game, you'll likely love the single player, despite it's somewhat poor level design and repetative nature because it is, hands down, the single most epic celebration of Nintendo characters around. The basic premise is that there is, in fact, a "Nintendo Land", where all of the Nintendo characters live, outside of their otherwise seperate, multi-verse games, and they can team up to save the day from evils far bigger than themselves. You have Mario and Pit teaming up to fight Bowser, who has teamed up with Ganondorf and Wario to wreak havoc, and you can have Pikachu and Samus blowing up a high-tech space ship to liberate a bunch of...well, I don't really know what Pikachu and Samus are doing, but the point is that the single player mode is the ultimate cross-over ever seen in video games, and it works well in that aspect.
You have two-player co-op for the Single Player, which is a welcome addition because then you and a friend can spend an hour blasting through levels, killing bad guys, solving basic switch puzzles and, at the end of it all, unlocking a new character or music track. The unlockables, which Yahtzee was so aggravated at, are now easily unlockable without needing to refer to vague strategy guides (except for a few super-secret characters) just by playing through an already entertaining, two-player romp--something my room mate and suitemate, both general non-gamers, instantly became addicted to.
Sure, the single player has a number of downsides--annoying jumping puzzles, insanely hard boss fights, and a lot of cheap deaths ensue, but these are really irrelevant because you can just put the controller down if you get frustrated and come back a few hours later to try again and succeed.
The biggest flaw with the single player is actually the game's biggest flaw in general, and that is the controls. Now, when I say "controls", I basically mean the Wiimote and Nunchuck. These are not controllers geared for fighting games. It's hard to accurately describe, but trying to do difficult platform jumping and special attacks can be a bit frustrating on the Wiimote until you get the hang of it. Personally, I prefer to play on teh Virtual Controller, or especially the Gamecube controller--things which the gamemaker himself said were more ideal ways to play the game. Still, it's a bit aggravating that the bloody game--which was built for the WII--is much harder to play if you actually try to do it with the Wii's controller. Even Super Mario Galaxy was more tailored to the Wiimote than this, and, like Yahtzee said, it would've been just as playable on the Gamecube controller.
However, it should be said that there's a lack of gimmicks here. No fancy motion-controlling here, which may be initially upsetting, but once you play, you'll realize that if they had tried to implement such things, the game would've become a huge mess.
However, you aren't buying this game for single player, even if it is co-op. You want multiplayer, and SSBB delivers with aplomb. With a plethora of stages, most of which are unlocked along with characters, or just by playing enough melee matches, assures a constant amount of variety to your battlegrounds. Some stages are pretty much big hits or misses--the New Pork City stage, for example, is so fucking BIG that you'll easily lose track of your diminutive characters, and the Animal Crossing stage (yes, I know. An ANIMAL CROSSING stage.) is so small that you'll die just by trying to do a dash attack. There are a few others, but there are also some stellar good stages. The Pictochat stage is a standout, providing a simple arena with plenty of surprising and unpredictable alterations that give it variety and change the flow of battle constantly, keeping things fresh. My favorite stage is an unlockable one, and thus a spoiler, but there's plenty good to go around--and, even better, they included a handful of some of the better Melee stages to, like the hectic Big Blue racetrack or the fan-favorite Hyrule Temple stage. There are, for some bizarre reason, two Pokemon Arena stages, but hey, whatever. There are tons of Pokemon characters anyway, so I suppose it makes sense.
On the subject of characters, there are over 30 altogether, and besides Jigglypuff (who, I guess, HAS to be in a Smash Bros game), none of them particularly "suck." There are far less clones in this game, and each character offers something for each type of character. It's easy to pick one favorite, but most everyone I know who plays the game has three or four favorites they like to play with,and the roster is so large and varied that if you get tired of one character, there's always another to pick. True, Sonic and Snake are unlockable, but they're not hard to unlock, and Sonic even comes with his own stage to go with it, so it's all good.
In conclusion, there's not really much to say. Yes, the combat is basically button-mashing, and yes, some stages have terrible camera zoom, but the basic thing is that the game is fun. It's simple, easy to pick up, easy to play, and unpredictable enough to make even basic matches fun and exciting. There's tons to do, tons to unlock, and just tons of fun.
If you own a Wii, then you likely already own this game, because you likely have a bunch of friends to call together and play with your Wii for countless hours. The Wii is a system that can bring in a diverse collection of people, players and non, and in the end, that's why the Wii exists, and that's why Super Smash Bros Brawl WORKS: not because it is the deepest and most technical fighting game around, but because it's one of the most fun.
