Published by: Nintendo
Developed by: Nintendo/Game Arts
Score: 70

I’ve never played Super Smash Brothers (SSB) before. The reason is because I never had an N64 and also because I didn’t have a Gamecube. I was still able to live a happy and peaceful life in spite of never throwing Mario off a space ship and sending him into hyperspace. However whenever I explained this to others who had played the game I was looked at with wrinkled brows like they had found the missing link. Looking right into my eyes asking themselves “how has he not popped his SSB cherry yet?” Days leading into the launch of Super Smash Brothers Brawl (SSBB) I felt the invisible push into Best Buy. Leaving the store I did feel a sense of ease because after all I had picked up a first party Nintendo game that was considered a major release. However upon inserting the disc and playing a few rounds I quickly realized that what I though I had been missing had not been much at all.

Let’s get something straight here. I don’t care that there are a bunch of Nintendo characters in the game. And as such, I don’t think it should be apart of the criteria used to judge the game. Unlike most who gave the game favorable reviews, I take no novelty in watching Princess Peach beat the shit out of Kirby and I don’t get any nostalgic feelings from seeing Pit or Marth either. To be honest, I wouldn’t give a damn if it was Sonic curb stomping Cream the Bunny.

“Oh but don’t you remember when-” NO. BAD. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

-Besides, how many of you actually remember Pit?
-*some hands raise*
-Okay, let me change the question. How many of you give a crap about him?
-*all hands drop except one*
-…c’mon Shigeru, be honest. *hand drops*

I don’t mind these characters, but let’s be objective here and say at best it’s interesting if nothing else. These aren’t new characters created for this game, so there’s no way of saying that character X fits in or doesn’t etc., simply because it’s a collection of characters over the past 2 decades. Aside from the quality of characters, the quantity is unmatched.

Fighting seems to be simple across all gametypes and characters. It seems to be that if you can do one or a few attacks for one character, you can do them all for any character which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Since Nintendo wanted to keep it open for big groups of people, it works well. The game still has the same mechanics as the first game. You have 2about 4 types of attacks with varying strength, throws, and a smash attack. I didn’t come in expecting Virtua Fighter 5 or anything like that, but I did hope for some more attacks and movements dedicated specifically to the character. The Final Smash is actually a nice touch which is basically the equivalent of a super move that requires you to break open a Smash Ball and use the special attack button. This is the thing though, you don’t need half of the stuff that’s on the screen or presented to you. Items and powerups are falling from the sky, literally, and rather than going for a Final Smash, it was really just easier to try beating the crap out of whomever you’re facing, literally, and just use your attacks. As many already know, you can do fine just by rubbing the controller on the floor, and there’s a good chance you’ll win, especially playing against the AI. It seems like a problem between balance and playability and in the case of SSBB, playability won over. This isn’t to say that an expert player will be bested by someone who is having a seizure and playing the game, it’s just that there may be no consistency in actually playing it. Again, it’s easy to pick up and play, so maybe if you’re into that, it’s not a big deal.

The common argument for anyone who didn’t like the depth of SSB has been that the multiplayer was tons of fun. For the most part that’s the case. You gather 4 people around and the frantic pick-up-and-play style of the game can instantly make this game last for a few hours. For a game of this magnitude, I was happy to see Nintendo take a stab at online play in an attempt to recreate the sought after style of play. However, reality sank in and it didn’t really go that well. You can choose quick match and custom match which are usually the staples of online fighting. Mimicking an arcade, you can also watch matches going on as well and get an idea of what everyone is doing and how you can become better. I guess my biggest problem is with the online service Nintendo has provided and not necessarily SSBB. First off, the lack of voice capabilities really brings down the experience. Having pre-made messages to send to others like “Good game” or “I need to leave” simply can’t come close to screaming obscenities in a microphone. Sure the good players and all around nice guys will suffer for it, but for a game like this, it’s just about necessary if you’re going to do online right. It’s relatively smooth online, but there are some hiccups with its reliability. Most of the time it works right and then sometimes for no reason, it’ll take forever to find a match. When it does get rolling, however, the game is very smooth with only a little lag in some of the matches I participated in. Practicing before a match is a good idea implemented into the multiplayer as well as saving battles and making screenshots. Of course doing things like the latter require the usage of those horrible friend codes which just reek of laziness (again, a comment on Nintendo’s online, not SSBB).

Probably the worst feature of this game was the single player mode, in particular, Subspace Emissary. Some fighting games do this where they take the fighting elements of their game and place them into a side-scroller that usually is average at best. Tekken 5’s Devil Within comes to mind at first and I am thankful that the fighting element is so well done that I don’t feel the obligation to go into how shitty that extra is. Note I said the word “extra,” because it’s not obligatory to get half of the amount extras and items in the game. The problem here is that no one told Nintendo that side scrolling fighters and platforming are usually an average mix at best. To make it into a fully fledged story mode that becomes necessary to get some of the characters and extras you want makes the situation worse. Basically, you have a side-sroller that has you going to various locations and using you regular moves and special moves to take down bosses. The enemies are fairly similar, and usually have some variations. Some can fly, some have cannons, etc. And of course there is the obligatory boss fight which has some highlights, but not many. The actual level design is what’s sad. You start off in an area and have to do the usual platforming stuff, jump, find that really high place, beat up enemies, etc. It’s the same as usual but it gets boring and tedious quickly. I found myself completing a level hoping that my progress percentage would’ve jumped more than 2 points, but it never did. The whole thing just felt sloppy. Trying to defeat multiple enemies on both sides became an exercise in frustration because it feels like every single move has to be carried out, you can’t cancel and go into your next move which may be a jump in order to avoid enemy fire. I would try to jump, but I would still be in an animation of using a hammer or throwing some damn object. Maybe it’s not a problem either the fighting or the levels, but rather a problem with mixing them both, creating this horrid mixture.

You control a variety of characters throughout the whole thing which gives you at least some chance to use some of the characters you might not normally use. The story is fairly paper thin, but I can’t fault them for that since there has never been a really good fighting game storyline that was based solely on the game. Don’t believe me? Okay, fine, go ahead look on Google, or ask that fat wheezing guy who hangs out at Gamestop constantly. Nothing right? Alright, let’s move on.

There is the option to use 1 of 4 controller schemes (nunchuck + remote, remote solo, classic controller, and the GC controller). I primarily used the nunchuck + remote scheme and found that it worked fairly well. Using the remote alone, I found it was a little cramped. With the B button on back, if you have shorter fingers it becomes a little bit cumbersome. The D-Pad is also not well suited for this type of game which requires constant movement especially when being knocked off a stage.

Unlockables act as the carrot at the end of the stick in SSBB. I remember seeing Snake in a trailer for the game at E3 and then looking frantically for him in the character select screen in my very first run through. He wasn’t there. *HYPERBOLE ALERT* It was at that point that Mario leapt out of the screen, bitch-slapped me, and said, “Bitch, you’ll get Snake when I’m damn good and ready, now kiss my ring, KISS IT DAMN IT!” *END HYPERBOLE ALERT* Of course I may have exaggerated, but the real deal is that so much of the game is locked up from the start you can’t simply start a simple arcade mode style single player tournament with Sonic or Snake or any of the other characters you might’ve been looking forward to using. I understand not wanting to put everything out all at once, but c’mon, throw me a bone at least. What’s become a trend in many fighting games is the inclusion of an arcade mode. No, this is not the typical fight 9 AI opponents in a row, but rather it acts like a real arcade. This means that data taken from people who’ve played the game has been put into the game so that AI you’re facing uses a similar way of fighting. This is sadly absent from SSBB, and I think would’ve made a fine addition to the game and acted as a better method of getting extras rather than Subspace Emissary.

Visually, the game looks fantastic. There is a lot of detail and emphasis placed into each character and their respective movements. All the special effects like particle effects and lighting all work great and provide fuel to the excitement and spectacle that is SSBB. As in previous installments, many of the various Nintendo locales are still there. Fox’s spaceship, the Pokemon stadium and tons of others all have there place as fighting arenas and have their own unique characteristics. Nintendo really did a nice job of incorporating all the Nintendo series music in game as well as keeping it varied. Voice acting is okay, in usual Nintendo style, the story uses little to no voice acting. In SSBB’s case, it’s the latter. The cutscenes though rendered beautifully in CG have no voices except for the gasps and other wordless vocal expressions. I would normally complain but because this is such a common theme in Nintendo games, I’ve become fairly numb to it. In addition, it’s not really a loss.

Now, I have nothing against Nintendo, contrary to what you might have seen on the site previously, but I genuinely did not like this game. Coming with a clean slate and as someone who had no prior experience with it I think I gave it a fair chance, but sadly it’s really not as great as it had been hyped up to be. SSBB’s chaos is fun for a while, but then it gets a little stale and leaves you wanting more depth and the game can’t deliver. Its presentation, however, is done extremely well and remains a simple yet different style. Nintendo wanted to keep it open to a variety of players which is admirable, but I can’t help but shake the feeling that it came at a cost. Hardcore Nintendo fans will love it as expected and will already have and played the game for months now. I’m more than willing to try its future iterations but I must say my first run with the SSB series in the form of SSBB has left me a little disappointed.