Story:
The story takes place in "the World of the Trophies" where 32 out of the 35 (Wolf,
Jigglypuff, and Toon Link are extras) are all in a massive battle. It starts with the
beggining of a tournament match between series favorites Mario and Kirby when
out of the blue, the stadium sinks into darkness and the Subspace Army attacks
our unfortnate heros. Unfortunately, Mario gets knocked away by Petty Pirana and
Kirby and they Princess you rescued (Zelda or Peach) are forced to escape from
the armies Subspace Bomb, which devours all into a portal of darkness.
One thing you'll notice about the whole story is, aside from Solid Snake and
Captain Falcon, it's all tongue and cheek, or body language and grunts. Although it
may turn a few away from the plot it keeps the plot at times humerous:
Or at other times with short but sweet action:
Although they don't speak, each character acts the way they do in their own
games, Lucas is nervous, Ike is noble, and Ganondorf is a ruthless as ever.
Also almost every character gets the intoduction they deserve:
Gameplay:
Unlike other games of the fighting genre which stress draining the opponents life
bar down to zero, the Super Smash Brothers Franchise requires player to ring out
there opponents as much as possible. In place of a life bar is a stamina meter,
which when you take damage increases from 0% to a maximum 999%. As your
stamina meter increases, the distance you're knocked back is increased, making it
harder to stay on the stage.
If you get knocked off, its imperitive to return to the stage as soon as possible by
recovering. You recover by jumping in the air and then using your special attack to
return to the stage. Some characters, like Pit or Meta Knight, can easily return
to the stage from massive distances, while others, such as Ike or Yoshi, can barely
make it back from a few feet away. In competitive play mixing up you recovery is
key, Meta Knight can use all 4 of his specials to return to stage making recovery a
breeze, while Snake can C4 himself back to the stage, giving him infinite recovery.
Each character in Brawl has 1 regular attack, 3 strong attacks, 3 smash attacks, 1
grab, 4 specials, and 4 aerial attacks allowing for alot of diversity, but player must
keep an important game physic in the back of their head: Priority. If two regular
attacks were to land on one another at the smae time, they other cancel each other
out with a "cling" noise and a white spark:
But if a smash attack lands at the same time, the smash attack lands because it has
a higher priority. However, there is a tradeoff since smash attacks are much
slower. You might now be asking, "Samejamebond, whats the higest priority
attack?", the answer is easy, you grab is always the higest priority attack, making it
very useful.
One of the major problems with Super Smash Bros. Melee was the large amount
of clone characters, such as Mario and Dr. Mario or Marth and Roy, Brawl has
gotten rid of the problem and each of the 35 playable characters each have
unique and entertaining fighting styles for players to enjoy:
Almost all of the have returned from Melee, such as the Pokeball that summons a
pokemon to dish out massive damage or the the Home-Run bat that can 1-Hit-KO
your opponent in one swing. But the item that has everyone talking is the smash
ball. Once you crack the thing open, you'll be able to use your most powerful
move and like the Fatalities of Mortal Kombat they always impress:
Another excelent feature added to Brawl is the custom stages. If the reular stages
are getting a little stale, you can pump your creativity in and create new stages
using various parts such as falling blocks or turn-tables to keep things interesting:
Wnother exelent feature to keep things fresh is the Special Brawl mode. You are
given various options such as player size, gravity, or speed of gameplay to add
new depth to the gameplay:
The genious feature added to Brawl is the challenges feature. As you progress
you'll unlock challenges which provide you with a specific task to unlock a stage or
a new feature. Each one you unlock also reveals the tasks of the other surrounding
challenges making it addicting to find out every single one:
For large parties, Brawl still keeps everything smooth with both a tournament
mode for huge parties or a rotation mode for a small group of friends. Each
allowing everyone a piece of the action.
If you've finally gotten sick of playing these modes, both Classic mode and
All-Star mode make their triumphant return for Brawl. In Classis you go level to
level fighing computers in various conditions until you reach the legendary Master
Hand, while in All-Star mode you fight every character in the game with the same
stamina bar, with only 3 Heart Containers to heal yourself for the ride.
But if evern those modes are getting a little boring, you have Boss Battles, which
plays like All-Star mode except it's against the stories bosses and there are no
continues, making it brutally difficult on Intense difficulty and only the best players
can survive:
If these modes are getting a little stale, Home-Run Conest still provide for players
with some crazy fun. In Home-Run Contest, the goal is to deal as much damage as
you can in 10 seconds to the sandbag until smashing it with the Home-Run Bat to
launch it as far as you can. It may seem simple at first but players will soon realize it
takes stratagy to knock it extremely far. Unknown to many gamers, Homer-Run
Contest is
extremely competitive, and players train weeks upon weeks to launch
the sandbag as far as possible:
Wait, you're still bored? Well Target Smash is always entertaining. Unlike Melee,
Brawl doesn't have individualized Target Smash stages, an instead has 5 levels for
players to choose to get the fastest time. Like Home-Run Contest, Target Smash is
just as competitive, and it's amazing to see how quick they can do it:
You must have alot of free time to still be bored. Back from Melee is the Event
match mode. In Event Matches, you have to fufill the specific requirements to
complete the stage, creating a lot of diversity to the gameplay:
...Back again? Another excelent mode returning from Melee is the Multiman Brawl
mode. You are pitted against the polygons, which are clones of characters such as
Mario or Captain Falcon, and you are required to take them out in the fastest
possible time and it gets very competitive:
Still need more? Back from Melee are the Trophies along with the brand new
Stickers. Collecting every single one ais both a challenge and an adiction, players
can collect trophies via a simple, yet entertaining trophy snag mode in which you
shoot the coins you collect in the various mode to shoot various objects for
trophies and stickers. and it's an excelent distraction for those who need a simple
game to play.
If boredom still follows you around, Nintendo's WiFi is also available which will
annonymously pit you against random players around the globe for some simple
fun, but remember your miliage may varry.
Graphics:
Talk about a breath of fresh air, Brawl is one of the best looing Wii games around.
Each stage is very diverse from one another and contain simple features that keep
things unpredictable. WarioWare Inc. for example can cause random minigames to
appear for players to complete, 75m is the completely unchanged 75m from the
origional arcade machine, and the Pirate Ship is Cel-Shaded like Wind Waker.
WarioWare Inc:
75m:
Pirate Ship:
Sound:
Brawl has a masterpiece of a soundtrack that can be heard over and over again
and never get old, because of it's huge diversity and brilliantly remixed tunes.
Underground Theme (Super Mario Bros.):
Ending Theme (Super Mario World):
The Legend of Zelda Main Theme:
The Dark World (A Link to the Past):
Metroid Main Theme:
Theme of Samus Aran:
Team Galactic Battle (Pokemon Diamond/Pearl)
Meta Knight's Revenge (Kirby's Super Star):
Sickerbrush Symphony (Donkey Kong Contry):
Yoshi's Island:
Tetris Type B:
WarioWare Inc. Medley:
Fire Emblem Main Theme:
Theme of Tara (Hideo Kojima's favorite Metal Gear song) (Metal Gear MSX):
Angel Island Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 3):
And of course the Main Theme:
Overall:
Super Smash Brothers Brawl is gaming perfection, if you like video games you
must add this masterpiece to your collection.
Brawl is also very popular in the machinima department with various directors
creating very humerous skits:
The only flaw to Brawl is the balancing, Solid Snake and Meta Knight have much
better attacks than the rest of the characters making them serious tournament
favorites.
Official Tier List (as of Feb. 26, 2010):
S: Meta Knight
A: Snake, Diddy Kong, Falco, Ice Climbers, Marth, Wario
B: King Dedede, Pikachu, Olimar, Lucario, Mr. Game & Watch
C: Pit, Toon Link, Zero Suit Samus, Kirby, R.O.B.
D: Donkey Kong, Peach, Fox, Luigi, Wolf
E: Sheik, Pokémon Trainer, Sonic, Ness, Bowser
F: Lucas, Ike, Yoshi, Mario, Captain Falcon, Samus, Jigglypuff
G: Zelda, Link, Ganondorf
(You can discuss below)
But if you can look past it, Brawl is a game that will rock the house for months to come.
A perfect 5/5.
(This is actually the second time I did this, i lost the first because I accidentally hit
my Google Link. I was so mad, but now it's officially up so no complaining.)
Linear Mode
