Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

Dangerous thing there buddy, that there "hype." Because hype can keep a gamer waiting through the harshest weather for eons just to finally play a game they've only been fed scraps of. Dangerous thi

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  • System: Nintendo Wii
  • Genre: Fighting
  • Max Players: 1-4
  • Age Rating: Teen 13+
  • US Release: March 2008
  • Developer: Nintendo
  • Publisher: Nintendo
  • Similar Games: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2

smashbrosbrawl

Dangerous thing there buddy, that there “hype.” Because hype can keep a gamer waiting through the harshest weather for eons just to finally play a game they’ve only been fed scraps of. Dangerous thing there buddy, that there hype.

Hype can destroy a good game, and it can breathe life into a bad one. Hype can fool gamers into spending their hard-earned money on games that they won’t dig after only three days.

Hype lead me hanging on for days, weeks and months (three whole months); Super Smash Bros. Brawl took too damn long to come out in Europe. By the time it was released here, everybody knew everything about the game. Websites such as GameFAQs were filled with spoilers for me that were all too well known by the people who had owned the game for months.

I almost succumbed to the demon of hype and was moments away from pirating/importing the game before finally containing myself.

So what was it worth, in the end?  Well, at first, I was delighted to hold SSBB in my hands, in some kind of boring limited-edition sleeve. And when I got it home, I was delighted with the game itself. But not for long, because…

Brawl enrages me.

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I have an issue with the majority of fighting games (particularly brawlers) that I play. Seems that there is an overall lack of balance (I’m looking at you, Naruto Ultimate Ninja).

In SSBB, there are Final Smash attacks. These are unfair instant kills about 75% of the time.

With Super Smash Bros. Melee, apart from Mr. Game and Watch, it was hard to find a “cheap”character—a character that can claim quick and easy kills without any skill required. But in Brawl, if the computer secures Snake’s Final Smash, you’ll be seeing Zanzibar soon enough, as your character goes flying off into the distance, “blasting off again!”

It’s best that I don’t mention the bloody Dragoon. For a fair multiplayer match, disable “Dragoon Parts.”

In an attempt to make the game more single-player friendly, the development team spent a lot of time creating a vast adventure mode. The Subspace Emissary is easily the best part of the whole game. It is even co-operative enabled and, better yet, playable over the Internet, so you and your CoD buddies have no excuse to avoid getting a Wii now (or admit to owning one).

I’m a huge fan of the Kirby series, and Subspace Emissary mostly reminds me of Superstar and Amazing Mirror, two absolutely smashing Kirby adventures. Even the final boss resembles a villain from the main Kirby canon—a humanoid figure hell-bent on conquering the world, and destroying all that is good in the process. As clichéd as it may seem, it plays fantastically, and that is the one area of the game which I can find only a few faults with.

Subspace Emissary acts as the main character-unlocking system, and all the characters in the game can be unlocked with a single playthrough and a few level repeats. It is the bestest thing HAL has made since Kirby’s Air Ride, this I guarantee.

Oh, and I’m not one of those assholes who hates on Air Ride. It is a good game (seriously!).

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The large change in the game engine that Subspace Emissary necessitated means that, while that mode plays perfectly, the multiplayer is tainted. It’s tainted in a way that’s hard to explain.

So I won’t try to.

The increase in items is welcome, as are the new stages, which range from tiny to expansively large, and each caters to a different style of gameplay. Like in Melee, I fell in love with the new Hyrule stage straight away. In Brawl, the Melee “Hyrule Temple” makes an appearance, but also the new Bridge of Eldin stage from Twilight Princess. It is a flat stage with only a few interruptions, which occasionally breaks into two halves.

Other fantastic stages include the WarioWare stage, which transforms into minigames from the series. There is also a Pictochat stage (kind of unfitting) where the characters are thrown into a Pictochat lobby to brawl to their death.

The stages are incredibly well built and are the best part of the multplayer mode, without a single doubt about it.

The main audience for the original Smash Bros. games has been catered to, but also cast aside. It’s about casual gamers now. And because of the necessity for pick-up-and-play gaming, the characters have been made unfair.

I still hate the Smash Balls and the Final Smash attacks. They take emphasis away from the combat. Players race around the screen (forgetting the combat), trying to smash a floating ball that somehow bestows upon them the great energy to perform one move. Usually, this one ball allows for very easy kills.

Solid Snake’s smash attack is lethal and completely unjust. I understand that he walked through a microwave oven and survived, but this just takes the piss.

Nintendo loves me enough, though, it seems, as moreorless every Nintendo-themed musical piece is in here—even a remix of themes from Shin Onigashima.

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Brawl’s soundtrack is perhaps the second best part of the game. It’s vast, and it encompasses some of the best tracks across all the series that the main characters represent. One even greater element is that even the third-party characters’ sources have been catered to—with firm fan-favourite (now that really is sarcasm) Sonic Boom making an appearance on the soundtrack.

The graphics are also splendid, and the FMVs in Subspace Emissary are beautiful. Online play is great but laggy (especially once you start leaving the borders of your country), but it’s present and at least works.

I cannot say harsh things about Super Smash Bros. Brawl, except for words concerning the multiplayer. As a single-player adventure game, it exceeds expectations. As a multiplayer game,though, Melee still reigns.

And this isn’t entirely a good thing—SSBB is meant to be a multiplayer title, yet it’s this area where I feel the game takes the most damage. But…it’s just the damn Smash Balls and Dragoon Parts. Disable them and…aaaah, MUCH better!

I shouldn’t have to sell this game to you—it’s a Wii exclusive and a first-party title. If you don’t already have it, rush out and buy it, just to help keep Nintendo’s gears grinding out more top-quality first-party software.

I’m serious. So long as there is a demand for quality titles, Nintendo can’t ignore the serious gamers. Now, I await my execution by nerd hands, for not having given Super Smash Bros. Brawl a 10/10.

  • GameCola Rates This Game: 8 - Great
2 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 102 votes, average: 7.00 out of 10 (You need to be a registered member to rate this post.)
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About the Contributor


From 2009 to 2016

They asked me to share a little biographical information about myself. My name is Matt. Good night, everybody.

15 Comments

  1. Wow, why didn’t anybody tell me about this Subspace Emissary mode before? I don’t have any friends, so would you say it’s worth it to get Brawl for that mode alone?

  2. Well, yes! Especially if you’ve played a Kirby game before and enjoyed it – it’s basically a Kirby game with over 20 characters! It is very fun, and has a ton of mode-exclusive bosses and long, beautiful scrolling levels. It is my favourite part of the game, no doubt about it.

  3. I played nothing but the Subspace Emissary mode, and didn’t like it. In fact, it was when Marianne switched to single-player mode that she agreed the game isn’t very fun.

    It’s like…Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but you don’t get to play as the turtles; you play as characters you’ve never heard of before, fighting enemies you’ve never heard of before. And it goes on for twenty hours.

  4. See, I think I probably have heard of most of these characters, and since I love cross-overs almost as much as I love Ninja Turtles-style gameplay, that probably means I’ll think this mode is super awesome.

  5. It’s not much of a crossover; they just sort of threw all the various characters together randomly. It’d be nice if there was an actual plot or character interaction, but since none of the characters can talk, they didn’t include that stuff.

  6. The story is partly hit-and-miss, I will agree. They’ve obviously tried to tell a narrative of some kind, even if it is an excuse to fight more monsters.
    But I thoroughly enjoyed this mode regardless. It is a sturdy, long single-player game, that could have easily existed on its own.

  7. Two-player co-op, both online and offline. In battles where characters go 1-on-1, both players play as the same character (effectively making it a 2-on-1 match).

  8. jesus fluffing christ. what to say about this game i mean personaly 100 out of 10, its brilliant, i hold smash bro’s on a high almighty pedastall that even falcon couldnt punch it off. i would recomend this game if your looking for a good laugh and a brilliant multiplayer game. For example if your a sore looser and you have atleast 7 lifes less then another player, why not just bowser belly flop/flip them off the side of the stage, atleast its a life well spent ;).

    a downer is that the majority of characters are no where near equal grounds, some are far stronger then other but the fun is out smarting bigger characters as they are slower etc. i mean mines behind pillars for big guys? INSTANT WIN!…..well sometimes. its well worth a good brawl about and better with friends, just make sure your the one to get the multi coloured floating orb that for a odd reason gives you insanely awosmne powers. …….. WOW…….thats a breath and a half 😉

  9. 8 sounds about right for me as far as a score goes. It’s a very good game, but people treat it like it’s the second coming of Christ – it’s a real hypemonster. The Subspace Emissary mission is, by far, the best single player mode in a Smash Bros game to date but if you take out all the classic Nintendo references (plus Sonic and Solid Snake) you’ve just got a mediocre platformer. If you have a Wii though it’s easily in the Wii’s top 5 best games.

  10. I am relieved someone else has the same opinion as me. Hype killed Brawl for me. I was checking the website everyday, and i knew sonic was in it before i even got the game. The controls are a train wreck unless you have a constricting gamecube controller. The game does indeed feel tainted. And the single player game is repetitive, as they should have done more with all the characters specific home planets. Seriously who cares about Pit?

  11. Smash Bros Brawl allowed me to homebrew my Wii, so that was a big plus!

    I think giving it an 8 is definitely worthy. It’s definitely one of the best Wii games.

    For me, even when running a wired connection, the online play was essentially unplayable. Even playing with dedicated friends online kinda sucked.

  12. I’m a bit confused. Shouldn’t the game suffer a bit more in terms of overall rating for introducing gimmicky gameplay? Call me a hypocrite, I guess, because despite all of the ways you could die with one hit in Unreal Tournament, it was still a fun game.

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