Super Smash Bros. Brawl Related content
-
Exclusive: Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Rumble
-
Latest Super Smash Bros. Brawl screenshots
- Interview Miyamoto and Sakurai on Nintendo Wii [21]
PreviousSuper Smash Bros. Brawl Review
Wii Review by Tom Bramwell
Page 3 of 3.
Page 2
Sheltering all this functionality and balance together like heart-patterned umbrellas are more than enough modes. There's Brawl, the basic two- to four-player fight mode; Special Brawl, the less basic alternative where you can apply various modifiers (speed, gravity, permanent hats, etc.); Tourney, an elimination-based tournament, startlingly; Rotation, where up to 16 people can fight in sequence; and the option to fight as teams within them. That's before we get on to the single-player/co-op stuff. Subspace Emissary may be the dominant bit, but Classic mode still lets you fight a sequence of enemies, punctuated by mini-games and culminating in the usual encounter with series badguy Master Hand; Events mode tasks you with completing specific goals, like collecting dragon pieces and fighting a metal Dedede; and Stadium mode lets you tackle the throwaway mini-games like Home-Run Contest individually.
What else? There's a Stage Builder, where you can design levels out of simple components, save them and share via WiiConnect24; the Vault, where all your trophies and unlockable objects (music! stickers! etc!) reside; and online multiplayer.
This is a first for Smash Bros., obviously. You can play against randomers, waiting for them in a warm-up room where you can mash Sandbag around; you can input Friends codes to play with people you actually know; and Spectator mode allows you to watch other people on the Internet and bet gold coins on the match outcome. With no contextual information, like performance records and names, it's basically guesswork, so you usually go for the guy with the character buried deepest in the game, but its inclusion - while ultimately pointless - does at least save you turning the game off while you eat your supper. We had no lag in any of this, playing on a usually robust DSL connection, and only the typical Wi-Fi Connection caveats apply: communication is limited to stock phrases and built-in d-pad taunts, and Friends codes are cumbersome.
Zero Suit Samus (bottom-left) and regular Samus can switch to the other form with a Final Smash. Sexy.
There are other complaints. Subspace Emissary is longer than ideal, meaning you won't get to play as some of the biggest novelties for a good while, and the quality of the cut-scenes and level designs here is inconsistent - there are a few clever conceits, but levels also drag on unnecessarily, with doors as red herrings and other minor frustrations. Control is also a little imprecise overall - there are four schemes available, taking in Wiimote, Wiimote and nunchuk, Cube pad and Classic controller, but none is without minor grievances - and particularly in single-player, where performing big leaps and landing them is fine but small positional movements from standstill are fiddly.
However, control and structural quirks will struggle to compromise your long-term entertainment - and Brawl really does offer that. It's consistently satisfying over long periods, fulfilling its usual role of dominating a willing crowd's evening into the early hours, and now allowing you to sustain that after everyone's gone home using the Internet. Really the only reason you wouldn't feel that way would be if you didn't stick with it past the dizzying first quarter of an hour, or if you don't like Nintendo characters - and if you don't in either case then you probably aren't reading this anyway, and the prospect of Triforce-smashing your friends to death won't mean anything. Otherwise, persist, and enrich yourself, and wonder where on earth it all goes next.
Are you excited about Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii?
View Eurogamer readers most anticipated games
Related Games
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Latest Features
Latest Videos
Exclusive: Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Rumble [2] 20 March, 2008
Exclusive: Super Smash Bros. Brawl gameplay [9] 20 March, 2008
Latest News
-
Smash Bros. user content to stop [19]
-
Mario Kart Wii tops global charts for 2008 [23]
-
GTA IV is biggest global seller of 2008 [35]
-
UK chart: Smash Bros. still victorious [11]
-
UK charts: Smash Bros. is smash hit [19]
Latest Screenshots
18 March, 2008 [31]
Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!
|
0
I imported this and got the amazingly-useful-sounding codejunkies Freeloader, which doesn't work for me (and a few others) despite having a new Wii and the same firmware and whatelse as others it does work for, so don't let that put you off. Just don't order from codejunkies directly would be my advice, abysmal service in my experience, and the returns process is taking a....... long..... time....
|
|
0
Zsinj, have you tried booting your freeloader into alternative boot mode? That's where you stick it in once, it does the funny screen wipe thing twice, then you eject it and put it back in for another two screen wipes, then try smash bros?
Worth a try. As for Brawl - It's got a few minor annoyances but other than that, it gets a 10 from me! |
|
monkie_king
27/03/08 @ 14:36
0
"What? A mario game featuring mario?"
What? A retarded commenter making a retarded comment? |
|
0
I'm still not sure about this one. I mean, I love the Nintendo characters and all that; I just don't really like playing beat 'em ups that much. Soul Calibur II was the last one I bought and I pretty much went through the story mode once and haven't played it since.
If I'm playing multi-player I'm far, far more likely to get out Wii Sports or (soon) Mario Kart. In a way, it's mainly the fact this has gone down so spectacularly well in the US and Japan that has me interested. |
|
0
When will somebody make a brawl style game with a roster of non Nintendo characters.
The headline characters are great, but a lot of the lesser ones feel like they are scraping the barrel. I would love to see a truely multiformat Brawl style game with charcters from all of Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Namco, Capcom, Konami, Sega ect. i know it will never happen, but heres to dreaming |
|
gingerlink
27/03/08 @ 14:49
0
@zsinj
I had the same problem, but listen to viper_h, because that worked for me, it gives the alternative method in the manual, I tried it (why would it make a difference inserting it twice I thought), then it worked fine. Well, when I say fine, I mean in black and white until I routed it through my DVD recorder to sort out the signal incompatability... Didn't have any control difficulties, especially if you edit it a bit for yourself (stupid tap jump that's been annoying me since melee), also, I have no idea what they mean about inconsistencies in the cutscenes... @myiagros Give is a few more years and there might be another smash bros. like that, just without the top sony and microsoft characters, unless they're really desperate. |
|
MoGamer2006
27/03/08 @ 14:54
0
@Rash'
I think you should man up and grow a pair. If 'your girl' and family find your hobby so juvenile (and you're so insecure that you let their comments affect you) then I doubt it matters whether your playing Mario or a space marine - to them, either way you're still 'playing games' (with all the juvenile connotations those words have). |
|
GingerNathan
27/03/08 @ 15:02
0
Where's the Wii's Pro Evo review?, the game's out tomorrow. Reviewing that is far more important then the dateless Brawl, regardless how good it is.
|
|
thedaveeyres
27/03/08 @ 15:04
0
Is this review written in English?
What, or indeed who, the hell is Subspace Emissary? |
|
rhubarbandcustard
27/03/08 @ 15:06
0
In 2008 a 2D beat-em-up deserves no more than a 3 out of 10. Are people seriously going to spend £30 on this?!
|
|
Muddtallica
27/03/08 @ 15:14
0
Rash': Whilst I wouldn't take MoGamer2006's slightly harsh tone, I think he's right; exactly which games do you have in mind as somehow looking more legitimate to non-gamers? Only in my experience, a person who fundamentally disapproves of videogame culture will perceive a testosterone-soaked alien-killing shooter or a tech-head racer as being every bit as sad and geeky as a cartoon platformer, just in a different way. Unless you're willing to forgo any and all "gamers' games" and stick exclusively to outsider-friendly fare like Wii Sports and Lost: The Videogame, then you should probably start forgetting what other people think and just buy games that actually interest you for their content, rather than their image.
Anyways, good read, that review. I'm unlikely to bother waiting much longer for the UK release, so I might just bite the bullet, buy the Freeloader and import the US version, which I will then play and play forever, in the same way I've been playing Melee since I bought it with my Cube seven years ago. Best value-for-money series of games ever. |
|
thedaveeyres
27/03/08 @ 15:17
0
I've re-read the review and vast swathes of it still make little sense. Maybe it's because I've never played a SSB game before but that's no excuse for really poor writing. :(
|
Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!
