"Reviewed by a Casual Smash Veteran since '99"

- Intro -

I'll start off by saying that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a difficult game to review. It is, easily, the best game yet. It out-does both Super Smash Bros. 64 and Super Smash Bros. Melee. That being said, it's definitely not as amazing as they worked it up to be, or as amazing as it could have been.

Also, please keep in mind that I am not an elite player by any stretch of the imagination. I like to think that I'm a good player and know the previous Smash titles inside and out, but I'm completely a casual player.

- Single Player Content -

Classic Mode is relatively boring and dull. It's the same old battles against solo/team/giant/metal, with mini-games sprinkled in. Unfortunately there are only two and they're both Break the Targets, this time. There's no Race to the Finish or Polygon Team. The mode, of course, ends with a battle with Master Hand, who hasn't learned any new tricks.

Break the Targets is disappointingly easy, as there are only five stages for five difficulties, so the stages aren't creatively built around using your character's abilities wisely. They throw items in and even make it two-player to make it even easier.

The Subspace Emissary is a disappointing 8 hour romp. If you're a Kirby veteran, the stages will feel extremely predictable in that you practically have a sixth sense for where doors are hidden. Familiar side-scrolling levels with familiar enemies make the adventure better, but unfortunately, all you'll see is two levels against Mario enemies and a remake of a Donkey Kong Country barrel stage. Everything else is original and typically boring. A very few amount of the stages actually have flat, horrid sprite-based backgrounds. Again, this number is very few, but it's still inexcusable in a game of this magnitude. The adventure also has enough self-scrolling stages that made me want to puke.

There are only five familiar bosses, and two of them are Ridley. Palutena is also the only NPC that shows up throughout the duration, and only in a single cinematic. The final boss is a generic dark energy Kirby-esque boss that teleports around frequently and unleashes bizarre, powerful, but easy-to-dodge attacks.

Stickers add a nice level of depth and can make some characters horrifyingly powerful, but the added depth doesn't save this mode.

In general, I consider the Subspace Emissary a failure. Super Smash Bros. is a multiplayer party game. Treat it as such. We're not looking for expansive single player adventures. If we were, we would have gotten Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3 or Super Mario Galaxy instead.

All-star Mode is a nice upgrade from Melee's. It's kept the same format, but the matches are pre-set franchise-wise. You fight Mr. Game & Watch first, then the four Mario characters, etc. It later gets pleasantly creative with the match-ups. Clearing the mode earns you a sweet looking trophy of your character's Final Smash. You can also play this mode with two players, making it easily more enjoyable than the Subspace Emissary.

Boss Rush mode is done like All-star mode, where you fight the game's bosses (all Subspace and the two Hands) in a randomized order. Except, you can't continue, so it's sort of like a "how many can you defeat" high score kind of thing. Can also be done co-op and is pretty fun.

I haven't done much with HomeRun Contest, Multi-Man Brawl, or Events.

- Multiplayer Content - Stages -

Brawl fixes the problems Melee had with stages, but adds a few new problems. They wisely keep most franchises to one stage per, instead of Melee's two stages per, even for undeserving franchises like F-Zero and Yoshi. However it's still unbalanced; Mario has four stages (if you count Luigi's Mansion), while Zelda and Metroid have only two, and Kirby has a measly one.

There are also a whopping 10 past stages, which feels like they forced in to fill the stage selection and make it seem more impressive. Half of the past stages are some of the more hated from Melee (like Rainbow Cruise and Big Blue), and honestly, after 6 years of Melee, these stages all feel incredibly dull and stale.

However, new stages are all beautifully done and aren't nearly as gimmicky and annoying as Melee's, save a few exceptions. I personally only have two or three of them turned off, compared to having a majority of them turned off in Melee.

- Multiplayer Content - Physics and Balance -

I won't go too in-depth with this part. The physics do indeed feel floatier and different than Melee. It feels like a step backwards to Super Smash Bros. 64, but that's not at all a bad thing. I've frequently played Melee with people that just seem to have trouble keeping up with it's speed, and Brawl's nice mesh of 64 and Melee physics is a welcome change.

Veterans mostly play differently. Expect all of your familiar tricks to be nerfed. But, every character has received new tricks that await being discovered. Example: Link's up special is significantly weaker and has little to no KO potential. But, his up smash got a nice tweak, and opponent caught in the three-hit combo have a hard time getting out of it and almost always take all three shots, and it has nice KO potential.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl requires a little thing called adjustment. It is not at all a bad thing, it's just a change. Old veterans that remember the transition between 64 and Melee will have no problem taking in this new transition. I personally adjusted just fine in just an hour or two. But younger players that might have only known Melee might have a little harder of a time. Brawl is, in fact, different. But not bad.

- Multiplayer Content - Roster -

The roster is probably (currently) the most controversial aspect of Brawl. I'm not going to try and say that the roster is bad, because it's not. It's a nice, full roster with a lot of variety and anyone can find a character they enjoy to play in it. But as I said in the first paragraph of this review; it's not as good as they made it out to be, or as good as it could have been.

My biggest issue with the roster is the fact that it goes back on everything they claimed they wanted to do during development. They wanted to add more female fighters; they forced Zero Suit Samus in and then called it a day. They wanted to add more villains, and at the most we got a handful of anti-heroes and rivals, which I just don't count as a villain. Lastly, they wanted to remove clones. Surprise! They're still here, and we didn't even get any new ones.

Here's a simple equation I use when referring to the game's roster:
- 35 characters, all fleshed out and completely original = great
- 49 characters, with new fighters, and clones both old and new = even better
- 35 characters, with new fighters, and old clones = not so good

- Multiplayer Content - Stage Builder -

The Stage Builder is a welcome addition, especially with the number of stages feeling relatively underwhelming. The builder gets the job done and is a nice start, but you'll quickly find out it lacks a lot of depth.

There seems to be only three packs of unlockable stage parts, and all three only give you two new parts each. You can't place destructibles or stage hazards, except for the very basic and boring floors of spikes. There's falling "donut blocks" and moving platforms, if you want to count those as hazards, but I really don't. Another minor issue, I think, is that there should've been two "layers" to work on, so you could have built intricate structures in the stage's background. Instead you're stuck with the still image they have back there, and there are only three options at that.

- Closing -

There are other sections of the game that I felt unnecessary to devote entire sections to, but I'll briefly cover them here. Some modes I didn't try at all include Special Brawl, Tournament, Rotation, and Masterpieces. I also can't comment on the Challenges much, as I don't know japanese, but I'd say we cleared a good half of it on accident, which still leaves a significant amount to complete.

Items typically feel better balanced and are fun and chaotic to have on. The only problem I have is how they made it so easy to pick items up. Basically, if there's an item on top of your character when you're pressing A in any way (including dashing and aerial attacks), you can pick it up. I used to be proud that I knew how to grab items in mid-air in Melee, but now any newbie can do it without really trying.

Final Smashes, sometimes, feel as if we weren't ready for them. Like they may have committed to adding them to the game, and then later realized they didn't have enough ideas for them, but couldn't just cut them out. A good amount of Final Smashes are lame and feel uninspired, and some are straight out worthless. Some others feel amazingly polished and super powered, though. Also, some Finals are repeated between characters.

The Coin Launcher is surprisingly fun, and I easily found myself blowing through thousands of coins playing it to get trophies. Trophies themselves are as entertaining as they were in Melee with obscure characters and (usually) impressive modeling jobs. There are also, apparently, over 500 of them.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is definitely worthy of succeeding the past two games and is the best one yet. Every true complaint I hear about it being different than Melee will easily be worked around in time as everyone experiences the game for themselves and re-learns it. Keep in mind that adjustment is a part of evolution, and Brawl is a sequel, not a rehash.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/08

Game Release: Dairantou Smash Brothers X (JP, 01/31/08)