Review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the follow-up to the highly successful Super Smash Bros. for the N64 and the system selling Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Gamecube. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is one of the most highly anticipated games to be released for Nintendo?s newest home console the Wii. But can it live up to the hype? Or will it be a disappointment like a few other highly anticipated games released recently?
Story:
As with every game in the Smash Bros series, all of Nintendo's main characters have come together in a knock-down drag-out free for all to the bitter end, and only one may leave the arena with the title Champion. Included are characters from Pokemon, Zelda, Mario games, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, Fire Emblem, Ice Climbers, Star Fox, Earthbound, Metroid, and more, but this time they are joined by some characters from 3rd party publishers that have published games for Nintendo consoles including Sonic the Hedgehog, and Snake from the Metal Gear games.
Graphics:
There have been a lot of good looking games released on the Wii in the past year, Metroid Prime Corruption, Super Mario Galaxy, being high among them. Good news folks Super Smash Brothers Brawl can be included in this list. Visually the game looks as good as it can, the stages look great, like exact representations of games that they were meant to emulate, and sometimes going as far as looking even better than the games that they are representing.
Music:
The music in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, as it was with it's predecessor, is top notch, actually using remixed or orchestral versions of the main Scores used in each characters game, and utilizing such renown composers as Yasunori Mitsuda, Shogo Sakai, Masafumi Takada, and Nobuo Uematsu. the sound and voice acting is extremely well done for each character, especially in some of the more comedic moments (in the case for Snake and Luigi) and the stages have their own unique sounds and effects which add to the rich layered sounds that are pulled off, which help lend them selves to the belief that this collage of characters have found themselves in other games and different surroundings battling to the death.
Control:
Super Smash Bros. Brawl's controls are tight and very responsive, as well as easy to pick up and difficult to master. Quite literally the game can be played by even the most inexperienced novice, but will inspire many to train to be superior at only a handful of characters. A nice touch is the fact that you can control the game with either the Wiimote alone, or the Wiimote and Nunchuck, or the Classic Controller or how most of us will play it, with the Gamecube controller. Each character plays like how you might think that they might play like in a real battle situation. but there is a problem in that even if you do manage to master the difficult techniques you may find yourself sticking to a few combos that you find highly effective, and lesser experienced players will just mash on the buttons to potential victory, but you will find that those whom take the time to learn the nuances the of game can beat almost anyone that they face, and find the work very rewarding. But what makes this game interesting is the intense 4 player multiplayer which on its own makes this game worth owning, you and your friends will be playing this for days on end like my friends and I ended up doing.
Design:
The Design team did a great job here! Each character is unique as are the stages designed after the games the characters are originally from represent them well. There are a million and one different game modes options and hidden characters to unlock and play through that add almost unlimited depth to this title and make the available options in Super Smash Brothers Brawl look minuscule by comparison, I for one just keep running into new things to do and new things to accomplish every time I play the game. Then we come down to the online play. Once again done with friend codes as all Wii games seem to be but the game play is worth it, I have yet to run into slowdown, and my connection has been suspect for weeks, bout you wouldn't be able to tell it through the online play, it plays as well as if you were playing in the room with 3 other friends. If there is one thing that I was hoping to see though it was more 3rd party characters, especially from Game Arts, since they made this game I would have loved to see at least one character from either the Lunar, or Grandia series, or even the Castlevania, or Skies of Arcadia since they had gotten the license to use other characters from Sega and Konami
Super Smash Bros Brawl, is a fun and outstanding experience! All Nintendo Wii owners should have this game already, and if you don't go buy it now, call your friends, and throw a party!
Super Smash Brothers Brawl:
Pros:
More Characters
Fun Multiplayer
Easy to control
There should be a character for everyone
Long replayability
Cons:
Still can break down to button mashing
Still only feels like a slight upgrade
Still would have liked to see more characters