One of the most anticipated games for the Wii, Super Smash Brothers
Brawl is a major hit with casual and hardcore gamers alike, but the
game does have some mess ups.
The story is more fleshed-out than the previous installments due to the
Subspace Emissary. The writer of the story for Brawl, Kazushige Nojima,
who is the scenario writer for the Final Fantasy series, does a good
job for the storyline, but it is a little cliched at times. You start
out seeing Mario battling Kirby. The game then lets you choose who you
want to play as for this battle(Mario or Kirby). After the match, the
villains for the story strike the arena releasing a Subspace bomb,
which sends the arena to an alternate plane called Subspace. The
Nintendo heroes then must unite and repel the enemy forces, which
consist of the villains of Nintendo games such as Ganondorf, Bowser,
and Wario, just to name a few.
The gameplay works the same as the previous installments with the only
difference being the Smash Attack that Brawl has(and a few items). The
thing that separates the game from the previous ones is the ability to
use 4 different styles for controls. A player can use the Wiimote
alone, the Wiimote and the nunchuck, the Gamecube controller, or the
Classic controller. While I use the Wiimote and nunchuck, I would(and
so would many reviewers) recommend that a player use the Gamecube
controller.
Now for the combat. The characters each have their own style of
fighting, even though the controls for doing their attacks are the
same. The tiers are back, however, Bowser and Ganon are still in the
lower tiers, while Sonic and Wolf are some of the characters from the
higher tiers. There are two new things in Brawl, the Smash ball and the
assist trophy. Let's start with the latter first. The assist trophy
calls guest characters from some of Nintendo's other titles to aid the
summoner in battle. The assist trophy is a good advantage to have in
battle, just try and not let the opponent get it.
The Smash attack can be a make or break in battle. The player must hit
it 3-4 times(depending on the strength of the attack) to break it. Once
broken, whoever hit it last to break it, has the ability to unleash
their Smash Attack, which is Brawl's version of finishers. Some are
avoidable though(like Mario's and Samus'), but others aren't(like Pit's
or Luigi's).
The musical score is great. One of the cool things is the game's music
player, which plays the stage music you have collected so far. You can
control how many times a song is played on a stage. If you don't like
listening to the theme song for Brawl, turn the appearance rate down to
zero, if you love it, crank it up! It's all up to you. You find more
songs by fighting in any brawl(including online and in Solo mode). It
takes a long time to get all the songs, but there are a few shortcuts
that you can find on youtube or wikicheats.
The introduction to Wi-Fi for Brawl was a great idea, but badly
executed. The Wi-Fi is a good thing, you can play online with your
friends. The bad thing isn't inputting the 12 digit friend code(that's
a downside, but not the worse thing), but the connection in battle
that's the problem. Several times I have been playing online and I
would be disconnected from a match. I tried all the tips Nintendo Wii
support has said to do. I changed my channel, which was the best tip,
but matches still lag sometimes. Even if it's not you, you can see
others who are lagging. I know Nintendo did a good job cutting down the
lagging from the beta testing to launch, but I wouldn't mind if they
took a little more time to reduce the lagging even more.
Another technical glitch is the tripping that the characters do. The
Havok engine is one of the most powerful physics engines in the gaming
industry. While Nintendo might of had fun using this engine, they must
of forgot to take out characters tripping on nothing. You might think
I'm crazy for saying that, but if you play a match for 5 minutes,
without any items, you will see a character trip on nothing. My
character even tripped when I slightly tilted the nunchuck.
With all of this being said, the game is a great title for Wii owners.
It has been a very long time since the last Super Smash game, and Smash
fans deserve a game as good as Brawl. Brawl has many things that will
keep the player coming back for a few months to the least.
