Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 10th October 2008

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Mario and co head to the ring for a brawl on the Wii.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Details:

	Beat 'em Up
	Nintendo Wii
	Nintendo
	Nintendo

Out Now

1-4

Super Smash Bros Brawl is the third instalment in the Smash Bros series that began on the N64, some time ago now. With each instalment the game gets bigger and better, and this latest version is no exception to the rule.

The basic principle of the game has not been changed from the previous games, for people who have played a Smash Bros game before you will find this very easy to pick up. For the uninitiated among you it’s a beat‘em-up featuring many famous videogames characters with a twist. Unlike in normal fighting games, there is no health bar, instead attacks cause opponents a damage percentage to increase, as this damage percentage increases the opponent flies further away when hit with powerful attacks. To win you must smash your opponent off the side of the screen, or off the top or bottom of the screen. Each character has a double jump and a move that allows them to try and recover form being knocked off the stage. Obviously, you must try and avoid being knocked off. The premise is simple enough, but this game is fast and furious with most battles involving 4 players at a time, so you’ve always got to be on your toes waiting for the best time to strike. So the basic way to win is to smash as many people out of the arena as possible and avoid being smashed off yourself!

Add to this frenzied assault, a multitude of power-ups and items ranging from melee weapons such as the beam sword, fan and hammer, ranged weapons, ray guns and rocket launchers, food items that reduce your damage percentage, or the curry that makes you constantly fire fireballs for a short time, and many more than I am able to list here. There is also the pokeballs and assist trophies that when activated call upon a Pokemon or a character from a random game to help you with their own special attacks, which damage your opponents but not you. The newest aspect to this game is the item known as the Final Smash Ball, it pops up and floats around the level, the first player to break it open it begins to glow, and press the B button to unleash their unique Final Smash attack that can deal some serious damage and send several opponents flying.

There are no real combos to learn like traditional fighting games, there is still an impressive move set for each character. The A button is used for your physical attacks, usually punches and kicks, but different attacks can be used by holding a direction (up, down, left or right) and then pressing the A button, or pressing a direction at the same time as the A button, this combination usually controls the Smash moves, which need a short time to charge but are devastatingly powerful and are the most likely moves to KO an opponent. The B button is used for that characters special moves, these are unique to each fighter, and can be used in the same way as the physical attacks by holding a direction and then pressing the B button, a different attack is activated. The Up and B attack is usually the recovery move that can be used in conjunction with a double jump to allow you to reach the stage again if you have been knocked off. There is also the ability to grab your opponent with the Z button and throw them off the stage by pressing left or right or send them upwards with a flick of the analogue stick upwards.

The impressive variety of fighters ranging from the famous franchises, Mario, Kirby, Samus, Link and (amazingly) Sonic the Hedgehog to the more obscure Mr Game and Watch (from the old Game and Watch handheld LCD games), Pit (from the game Kid Icarus on the NES), R.O.B. (a toy robot that was released for use with the NES, that picked up coloured discs) and even Captain Olimar (from the Pikmin series on the Gamecube).

With such a range of characters to choose from, each with a different approach to fighting, mastering each character will take a long time. Some are easier than others, but there is a character to suit every single playing style you can think of. Not all the characters are available to begin with though as some have to be unlocked in the single player modes.

The modes of play are split into three sections Solo and Group and Nintendo WFC. The solo mode has the traditional Classic mode, which is a series of bouts against different opponents, with each win you progress onto the next opponent, until you reach the Boss battle at the end. Some battles are team battles where you will have an ally and a couple of opponents, others may involve opponents who are giant in size or metallic making them more difficult to defeat. Then there’s the Adventure Mode known as the Subspace Emissary, which is like a side scrolling beat‘em-up in various Nintendo worlds, imagine Streets of Rage or Golden Axe in the Mushroom Kingdom and you’re almost there! Its basically a story mode, which takes you through several worlds based on the characters involved in the game, the main storyline seems to be that an evil force is destroying places in the Nintendo universe using bombs that create patches of Subspace. You begin in small teams of two to four characters, switching from group to group as they try and stop the forces of evil taking over their homeland, but eventually you meet up with everyone else and you have a small army to pick your team of fighters from. To aid you in this mode, you can collect and use stickers to power up your characters to make it easier to complete the challenges. The stages often have secrets where bonus stickers and trophies can be found, to obtain a 100% rating in this mode you will have to re-visit some levels, and find the secret rooms. There are several Boss battles in this mode to complete as well, and the adventure is quite long, taking an experienced Smash Bros player (not to brag) at least 8 hours to complete to just 85%!

Bolstering the Solo mode is the Events mode, that sets you a series of challenges to complete using specific characters, the challenges are varied and range from simply defeating the opponents to using your Final Smash to eliminate all the opponents in one go or racing to get into a survival pod before you are engulfed in lava!

Then there is the Stadium mode containing the highly addictive Home Run Contest that sees you trying to smash a training sandbag as far as you can! There are also Multi-Man Brawls requiring you to beat 100 opponents as quickly as possible or to survive 15 minutes against a constant stream of enemies. There are also the 5 Target Smash levels to complete with each character; this is basically a platforming section where you have to break 10 targets without falling off the bottom of the screen. In previous games, these levels were unique to the character you chose and required you to use their specific attacks to break all the targets. In Brawl though, they are generic and the same for all the characters which makes them much easier but less satisfying than before.

The Group mode is the multiplayer mode where you can customise your brawl against your friends. You want a Brawl with giant characters, with light gravity and the only items on the levels are curries…no problem! In this mode you can also set up tournaments for up to 32 players, with 4, 3 or 2 fighters competing at a time in a tie.
The Nintendo WFC mode is the online mode where you compete with your online friends or random people across the globe in a tradition brawl, there is occasionally some slow down in this mode, but the majority of the time it works fine and does not affect the gameplay.

Graphically, it’s a big leap from the Gamecube version, with the character animation being top notch, and some glorious stages to battle on. Even when the fighting is fast and furious there isn’t a hint of slow down and it looks fluid in motion, with an impressive frame rate!

The soundtrack contains many favourite Nintendo themes remixed to perfection, as well as some original music for the game, that will have you humming the Mario Bros Theme tune in your sleep. The sound effects are great too, with the weapons making the noises you expect and the characters speech is superb, right down to Pikachu’s whimper as you smash him out of the way with a baseball bat with a satisfying “zingggg”!

This game is packed to the rafters with stuff to do and complete, and with a huge roster of fighters to master, this will keep you entertained for a long time. You could argue, its essentially Smash Bros version 3, and it’s true it’s not a revelation, but if it isn’t broke don’t fix it! They’ve just made it bigger and more beautiful than ever before, and that’s fine by me!