The Full Brawl

By Shawn White / Wednesday, 24 October 2007

After four days of impressions on Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it's only fair to detail every little nitpicky factor for hardcore gamers who must wait four months more than originally anticipated. The developers do not feel the game is ready for a 2007 launch, and we're behind them all the way, but gamers still should have an idea of what to expect.

Section 1: Presentation

Don't doubt for a minute: Super Smash Bros. Brawl is beautiful and displays on progressive scan televisions splendidly. The colors are very rich, drawing a lot of attention not only to the characters, but also to the moving backgrounds. Explosions in Lylat are exciting, the flying platform circling around Delfino is really fun to watch, and preparing for Norfair's lava eruptions are an absolute blast.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl maintains a decent speed. Although arguably a bit slower than Melee, it is difficult to say whether the slowness was due to controller, the demo, or an intentional decision by the designers to help keep online matches fair. Regardless, the vast majority of gamers will never, ever notice - it's that close.

For experts of fast-action characters in Melee, this could pose a problem, however. I wasn't absolutely certain of the miniscule speed issue until I heard another group of gamers say that they hope the GameCube controller style will fix this. Of course, there's still more than enough time to polish this aspect.

Unfortunately, the audio can not be covered in a feature like this. Because the room was too loud at all times, I could not hear half of the songs. Many tracks from various franchises will definitely be in the game, though, with more to be unveiled in the coming months.

Section 2: Items

Those who played Melee will notice a variety of changes in Brawl. The Star item that launches riding characters into the air from the Kirby franchise is noticeably slower in this game than earlier entries. In Melee, the star flies up into the sky and comes crashing down at amazing speeds. The attack is so fast that most players will instantly dodge just to avoid the chance of being hit. Sadly, the Smash Bros. Brawl demo had a significantly slower star coming down from the skies. In fact, it's so easily avoided that I may consider turning off this item if it remains this slow.

Other items remain quite responsive. The Fire Flower has returned to its 2-D roots (hey, I made a funny!), keeping those creepy pong-paddle eyes placed between oval layers of white, yellow and orange. The item is of a different variety from the one in Melee, although only aesthetically. Other than that, there weren't any memorable changes to the standard item pack. This is certainly good for the hardcore gamers, or just anyone looking to retain the old method of play.

Continue on for Section 3: Stages!

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Section 3: Stages

The stages seem relatively fair. Most stages in the demonstration were built up similarly to Battlefield and Final Destination, but there are a few that feel otherwise. Norfair can be difficult, and even unfair, when lava fills over 90% of the screen in one giant swoop, successfully taking out several players at once. The Bridge of Eldin from Twilight Princess can be outright annoying when it collapses. Players should be able to cross with some double jumps, or perhaps land safely with a triple jump, but the split tended to result in projectile battles. That is, if the player has projectiles.

Of all the demonstration stages - and there was a limited number of them - the Star Fox stage had to be the most fun to play. The balance of colors and transitions from one warp hole to another while witnessing space fleet attacks, stratosphere battles and Arwing appearances makes for a memorable gaming experience. Diving into a planet's atmosphere and into the clouds is unforgettable, so look forward to any images or video of this area.

New stages, like Meta Knight's Halberd and Pit's Skyworld, maintained a classic platform feel. Skyworld had little going on other than detachable platform points, and Halberd managed to float around the platforms with a few lock-on sections from the ship's artillery. If the artillery is inescapable, players might as well run to their friends to kamikaze the points.

Pokemon Stadium 2 was available, and the stage retains everything that the Melee version provided: stage-morphing intrusions to the battle and platform changes. The Wiire reported earlier that the stage would feature new transformations like ice and wind forms. The wind form was pretty generic, but the ice stage had very slippery floors that affected battle. Other exciting new stages, like WarioWare and PictoChat, sadly made no appearance. If the demonstration stages are any indication of the final product, however, they should prove to be pretty fun.

Continue on for Section 4: Characters!
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Section 4: Characters

The new colors for each character are quite wonderful for some and disappointing for others. For players wanting Link versus Shadow Link battles, prepare for one awesome match. In Melee, the only colors that changed were some clothing articles and slight variations of tone. Rest assured, Dark Link has crimson eyes, gray hair, darkened skin, and black clothing. Dark Link is not a new character, but a change of costume. Another Link change grants him gold armor, which provides some really nice shiny effects that are subtle enough not to distract.

Other characters received the shaft. If Shadow the hedgehog doesn't make the roster, there's no way of making Sonic look like him. In fact, the only outstanding change from one outfit to another is Sonic's wristband. Sonic's blue skin stays relatively the same, leaving little to the imagination of Sonic vs. Shadow battles.

Meta Knight appeared to be the other darkly-suited character with a costume featuring crimson eyes. The effect is really fun for an evil Meta Knight, but the character appears to be evil regardless of what a player puts on the masked, winged marshmallow. More characters will hopefully have this luxury.

This brings us to the analysis of each of the new characters and how they battle:

Meta Knight. Meta Knight will seem cheap at first, but four days of game time proved that players went from defeat to creative jumps and avoiding the barrage of slices. While Meta Knight won a great number of battles on the first day, the character typically fell into third or fourth place in the days that followed.

Meta Knight should not be encountered from the front or diagonally alongside the front. Attacking the character when vulnerable from behind or ending an attack is the key to knocking this combo-crazed lunatic. Also, it's good to trick the player by jumping at the right moment, leaving Meta Knight to finish a barrage while you slip past him. It might take a few tries, but it's possible to knock that Friday-the-13th, Jason-Vorhees wannabe out of the ring. Meta Knight appeared to take slightly more damage than most characters, so the combos are balanced by his weaknesses.

Pit. Pit is your standard warrior character - a combination of Link and Sheik, allowing some decent combo time while being held back by the same rough slashes. Any experienced Link character knows that if a combo doesn't land the correct way, there may be punishment afterwards. Like Link, Pit also has an arrow attack that can be useful at a distance. There really isn't much more to it than that; if you can picture the angelic child of Link and Sheik, you have Pit.

Diddy Kong. Diddy Kong is a bizarre character. His actions are faster than Donkey Kong, but he's still a rather slow character. The motions between the two are quite similar, but Diddy Kong's banana throw and peanut shooter make him a nice obstacle course creator. His jetpack ability is not as easy to control as it looks, and this is especially true during his Final Smash. Diddy Kong is enough of a variation of Donkey Kong to not seem like a cheap rip-off, but close enough to resemble the motions of the other.

Zero Suit Samus. While Zero Suit Samus appears to only be available after normal Samus performs a Final Smash, there was a need to find out what she was like without the Chozo armor. While appearing to be a lot like Sheik, this character's special abilities are rather annoying and not very useful for an independent fighter. In fact, Zero Suit Samus almost felt like punishment for performing the Final Smash.

Pressing left/right or up with the smash button initiates a sort of laser whip, but it's not flexible nor is it very handy, except for maybe grabbing onto ledges. Shooting her gun is adequate, but it doesn't have the same power as the suit. Perhaps some players can master Zero Suit Samus, but even Fox/Falco/Sheik players from Melee might not want to stray too far.

Finish it off! Section 5: The Final Smash Attack!

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Section 5: The Final Smash Attack

And the greatest disappointment of all: The Smash Ball.

I can't believe I'm saying it, myself! The Smash Ball is not as entertaining as it seemed to be. Of all the unfair advantages and lacking balance, it had to come from the Smash Ball.

The Smash Ball is not an item. Rather, it's a floating essence that roams the stage until a character hits it enough times. Having done so, the character will go into a trance and be able to perform his or her Final Smash special move. Sounds fun and balanced, right?

Wrong. Link's special attack is powerful, but can only be performed if the first slash hits an enemy, and it's not as easy as striking a character with a standard slash. Only by holding down the special move button can players initiate this, so Link has to follow the enemy and hope that the attack hits. If not, the Smash Ball is wasted. The same can be said for Ike and others.

Similarly, some characters have less useful abilities. For instance, Peach puts all enemies to sleep for a short period of time. The closer you are to her, the longer you'll sleep. During this time, food drops from the sky and scatters around the stage. This could be useful if Peach can grab a homerun bat or if she has taken heavy damage, but it seems like other characters have more useful abilities. Samus has an infinite firing range in one direction, which is certain to kill all in her path. The same can be said for Sonic, who can freely fly around the stage as Super Sonic and kill anyone in his path.

The real issue is that players aren't bothering to really fight each other; they're just waiting for the Smash Ball to appear. When it does, players stop killing each other and begin attacking the ball. Someone wins, and the effect is either minuscule or insanely deadly, depending on each character's Final Smash. This takes away from the real challenge of Super Smash Bros., which is a fair fight among players who don't have a natural advantage over one another outside of maybe reflexes. Now, with the Smash Ball, they do have an advantage. For some, that advantage is massive.

Unless this can be turned off early in the game, it will be difficult to play with friends using the Smash Ball and walk away not hating them. Also, despite promises of the Smash Ball only appearing once per stage, the demo provided the Smash Ball multiple times during a match. I transformed into Super Sonic twice in a matter of two minutes, and I began to feel bad for my opponent.

Brawl will be discussed in upcoming podcasts, news updates and more. If there are any further questions, feel free to e-mail Rob at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .