One thing I vowed to do when I got my Nintendo Wii was to not own only three games. Unfortunately, with games being $50 a pop and consoles being expensive as well, you can’t go out and buy a new game every week. You have to be careful which games you buy as your chance of finding a dud on the Wii is rather high. Thankfully, one truth still remains when it comes to Nintendo: the games Nintendo makes themselves are usually well worth the price.
I found out this weekend that the new Super Smash Brothers Brawl is no exception. Believe it or not, this was another game I bought sight unplayed. I’ve been reading about it forever, it seems, but I never played the N64 version of the game – so for all purposes, it’s a completely new game. All I knew is that it was a fighting game, and I like fighting games.
However, Smash Bros. is not your ordinary fighting game. It certainly lives up to the “brawl” moniker because that’s exactly what it is – just out right button smashing. You won’t find any combo moves or fatalities here. No rolls. No towards-towards-away. Just mashing. All you need to do to play Smash Bros (and be decent) is hit buttons feverishly while walking the in the right direction – that being towards your opponents.
So far, Smash Bros. delivers for both single-player and multi-player modes. Alone you can fight the computer in one-off matches or in a story mode. The story mode is great for learning as it forces you to use different characters, of which there are plenty. Possibly the game’s greatest strength is the wealth of characters it has, and they’re not all Nintendo-brand faces. I must admit one notch in the “want it” column for me was the inclusion of Metal Gear’s Solid Snake in the game.
There are also tons – and I mean tons – of collectible items throughout the game. Call them tokens, or stickers, or unlockables…whatever…there’s a bunch of hidden things to collect while playing alone and with others. For me, this type of collecting isn’t very motivating because you don’t get to see any immediate effects, at least not like you do with other fighting games. But the laundry list of unlockables should prove to keep the game open for a long, long time.
You can play with others either on your console or over the internet. While Nintendo doesn’t have all the kinks worked out in the downloadable contest arena yet, their over-the-net play is pretty solid. Fighting against multiple opponents is fast furious and chaotic. This is really not a game if you can’t stand a fighting game that requires almost no skill whatsoever. In fact, if you learn what few “moves” there are and try to use them in a 4-player battle, you’ll lose. There’s just no time to plan your moves that far ahead and there’s not way to really know what your opponents will be doing.
There are two things going against Smash Bros., however. One is the controls. You can play the game with any number of controller types or combinations. Since I only have the remote that’s what I had to use. Let me tell you the remote is not the best controller to use. It works, but I’d prefer something with more substance. Since you have to hold the remote like a normal controller the buttons are too small and poorly positioned to lend itself to a fighting game. Of course, since you just need to button mash it’s far from unusable.
The other down side of Smash Bros. is the zooming of the game. When you have four players fighting at once, each level is constantly zooming in and out to show all of the action. This is necessary but very annoying and will make your player very tiny, very fast…at which point all you can do is mash since you have no way of knowing what your fighter is really doing.
Super Smash Brothers is a different type of fighter. It’s not DOA, it’s not Mortal Kombat, and it’s not Street Fighter. It’s a fighter for everyone, literally. Anyone can grab and go on this one. The entry barrier is extremely low. But at the same time, it makes it hard to gauge how good you are in the end. Since there isn’t a long list of moves to memorize it almost doesn’t seem challenging. Yet the fast and furious play keeps you determined to continue fighting. But if there was ever any sort of “casual fighter” game, this would be it.
What is that screen capture you have there? It looks nothing like what I see when I play Smash Brothers Brawl. It looks like you have many more characters to choose from, yet the game says I unlocked all the characters. This my first Smash Brothers game as well, and I found the instructuions almost worthless. I felt that they were written assuming you knew how to play already. I had no idea what the percentages were at the bottom of the screen, and I couldn’t understand why a character didnt die when it reached 100% and was shocked to see it go oever 100%. The tasks you have to preform are very unclear (how am I supposed to get a total of 400 combos if I don’t even know what moves constitute a combo?). It took forever for me to learn how to play in a “coin match” because nothing told me how to set one up. If it wasnt for the internet, I never would have figured out how to propperly play this game, and I still don’t understand it all because so many sights are so hardcore that they don’t tell you about the basics of the game.
I grabbed that screen shot from GameSpot, it was in their gallery. I think it might be for a non-US version? Not sure entirely.
I’m still playing through story mode and it’s taking forever. Of course, too short and it’s no fun, but too long and it’s no fun either. I’m finding the play control a little hard to deal with. The game “plays it safe” with your characters but having them auto-grab edges, ledges, and certain things when I totally don’t expect it and then it throws off my entire plan. The way characters move within the space is annoying too — all too often my character will be off-screen but still getting the beat down…and I can’t fight back because I can’t see him!
I too had to check on-line to see what the point of everything is. I still don’t know what purpose the little stickers serve, but I keep collecting them when I see them. I’m also disappointed to find it hard to play on-line – not because it’s slow, but because there’s never anyone to join my game (or a game to join).
It is organized chaos and the more I play the more I’m finding it’s a little too chaotic for my tastes. I’m hoping Wii Kart as strong as everyone hopes it will be.
From what I have read, the stickers are supposed to be placed on the character trophies. The correct sticker, placed on the arm of a characters trophy will increase that characters punch, on the leg it will give them a stronger kick, ect. I just have been unable to figure out how to place these stickers on the trophies. Websites just say to do it, they dont give step by step instruction as to how… or at least tell us where in the menu it allows you do that.
The story mode was ok, but I found it, overall, disappointing. The beat-em-up style, and percentage “life bar” of Smash Brothers doesn’t lend itself well to a side scrolling platformer.
The maker of this game (or at least the ones who wrote the insructions, and designed the menus) gave no consideration to the first time player.
Well, after some light digging I found out how to use the stickers. I actually looked up the game on Wikipedia and found the source that way. The answer is on the official Dojo site, although finding information on that site is frustrating. Here’s the link
http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/modea/modea12.html
Basically, the stickers only apply in the story mode. On map screen you can use the “Sticker” button — stupid me for not noticing that before — and then can go through your album and pick which stickers you want to apply.
I was also reading on another forum about how after you use a sticker you can’t use them anymore — sorta like a powerup. The stickers stay in your “album” for stats reasons, but you can’t apply them to the characters again. Nice to know this after I’m halfway through the story mode…oh well, better to know half way than when I’m already done.
While I appluad their attempt to make simple and fun fighting game, I’m dismaided (sp) at the result. This is one of the most frustrating games I have ever played, and not because it’s hard, but because it’s basic. This game would be better served as (ironicly) a game found on a watch or in a ceral box.
I love fighting games in general. They don’t need to be complex, al la DOA 4, nor do they need ourstanding graphics but I do require that they be compelling. SSBB is neither complex nor compelling. The game play is basic (in a 1985 way), it doesn’t make use of the Wii’s defining motion controls nor is it all that fun. The novelty of playing a Mario, Link or Samus runs out after 30 minutes and you are left with a game that you feel should be really good, yet isn’t.
I imagine this game will be hitting the used games stores in force right about now.
It’ll hit the used bins once Wii Kart comes out and every needs the $20 to buy that. I’ll probably keep my SSBB…it can be frustrating but it does take some time to get used to. Plus the on-line play (when you can find someone) is far more engaging than single player, especially when you have four other gamers on-board. I also think there’s a lot to SSBB that I haven’t found or used yet. As I noted, I just discovered how to customize characters, so it’s almost a new game now…but story mode is a bit too long b/c it’s the same thing over and over.
I figured out the combos now too. As I said before, one of the “challenges: is to have to total combo of 400 or more in training mode. Well, it seems that a combo is just a series of consecutive hits (I thought it would be more complicated then that) Well, I managed to get a 999 combo with Kirby, by just backing my opponent against a wall and holding down his basic attack button for a very long time.
I also feel a little stupid now because I found the little movie in the game that is called… guess what… “How to Play”. It shows all the basics of the game that the manual and websites don’t go into.
Hey Brian!
As you see, I’m on a “response tour” today.
Anyway – have you tried renting? Blockbuster has a deal that lets you rent games for a little over a month.
I was lucky and got talking with a cool sales guy there. He explained that you can keep games for 30 days past the “due date” with no penalty. You get an automated call on the due date, but don’t really have to bring it in.
What I like about it is that my boys and I get to try out games before buying them. In most cases (with the Wii games) we found that the game was worth a few plays for a few bucks, but no worth buying – so it’s worth it.
best,
Pete
I’ve thought about Blockbuster and renting. We went there around Christmas and saw their per-night renting was crazy expensive, and I couldn’t justify their subscription service because I don’t play *that* many games. But maybe I’ll get more info and look into it again.
I’m thinking Brawl was just the grey hair of games, honestly. Nintendo’s first-party games are usually really good. Now playing Brawl for a while I’m finding it was a series game, so if you loved the previous Brawls you’d like this. I totally skipped the previous titles and started with this one and it was not what I expected.
But having just bought Mario Kart, my faith in Nintendo’s franchises has picked up. Kart is exactly what I expected and a lot of fun. Review coming soon.
I really loved Double Dash on the GC, and was very impressed with the controls of Excite Truck on the Wii. I have been hoping for a well done amalgam of the two in Mario Kart Wii for a while now, but I have to say that what I have seen so far is not thrilling me. The preveiws I have seen have been very lackluster. I have yet to play it though, and am still wiating on reviews before I decide to buy it or not.