Fox's Review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

[Fusion]

There's something to be said about the world of Nintendo going awry and every character from nearly every Nintendo-exclusive series coming into one game and beating the crap out of each other.  Normally, this would be perfect bait for a Kingdom Hearts game but since Square are jackasses about their franchises, we get Super Smash Bros from Nintendo instead.  This game has been treated as the 'last Smash Bros game ever' because Sakurai thought it would be the last Smash Bros ever made.


(Graphics 10/10):

Every Smash Bros game has set a graphical landmark somewhere along the line, and Brawl is no different.  All of the characters carry over their unique artwork style and mix it in with the sorta Twilight Princess-ish look, even some of the more cartoony characters.  While I'd normally be against Cartoons being rendered realisticially, the way it has been executed is simply astounding, and this game proves that you don't need shiny graphics with shaders out the arse, motion blur and all that crap to make a good-looking game.  Nintendo kept things simple this time around, but they also kept them clean and well-designed.  I have trouble telling the textures' resolution on any given character, and that's simply the attention to detail they have pulled off.  The animations are well done, new and old.  All in all, I'm impressed with how this game looks.  It really shows off the power of the Wii and since it runs constant at a high frames per second, this is likely the best-looking game on the Wii yet, even beating Metroid Prime 3.


(Sound 10/10):

*Covers American voices*
There's something to be said about this game's sound work: Incredible.  Every single piece of music ranging from the fast techno remix of Star Fox 64's main theme to Brawl's own original soundtrack are well composed, and fit in no matter what.  As for the sound, same marks there.  The english voice acting is surprisingly not unbearable to listen to, as with most english dubs of japanese games today.  The voices, even though they may sound bad on their own, actually don't sound as bad in-game.  In fact, you might not even notice a single bit of bad voice acting.  Not even Pit's voice sounds bad in-game.  For you Sonic fans, Jason Griffith once again does the voice of Sonic.  The truth is, Griffith has actually been getting BETTER at doing Sonic and Shadow, which can't be said for the rest of the 4kids cast.  I don't have a problem with Griffith, I don't have a problem with Drummond, though I think that Griffith does a better job in the long run.  Overall, I'm pleased with the voice cast, excluding Snake's VA.  The voice is right but... The spoken lines are a bit too raspy and deep plus there's some errors in emphasis.  But I know it's the same voice actor.  I can't let one VA ruin the entire score, can I?


(Gameplay 9/10):

9 out of 10?  Am I serious?  There's more to this game than just the fighting, and such, which we all know is still there.

A kind of finisher move has been added, also known as the Final Smash.  What is special about this Final Smash?  That it is the ultimate attack of a character, and all characters have one if you didn't read the manual.  They range from a big laser blast, to an epic set of slashes leading to your ultimate demise, or boiling your opponents alive.  The problem with these Final Smashes is that unlike the characters, some are easy to use and some are nigh impossible to use, and others are just not plain fair.  For instance, Kirby's FS is nearly undodgable, and most of the over Final Smashes will screw you over in their own unique ways, but that's not to say as soon as someone gets a Final Smash the match is over.  No, sometimes you can recover and come back to win.  Otherwise, the items and such are standard-fare, no item complicates things too much or anything.  Nothing much new, and that's all good.

There are a few additional modes though. Aside from the event matches, the revised Home Run contest, and the like, we've got the Coin Launcher mini-game.  What you do is, with these coins, you shoot enemies, and shoot trophies & gain stickers all at the same time.  It's always 1 coin per shot, and sometimes you'll get an extra bunch of coins, sometimes you'll get a valuable trophy, and sometimes you'll get so many stickers you don't know what to do with them.  The only problem I can find here is that prepping a coin is pointless if you want to hit all the enemies that appear as well as all the missiles that fly at you.  if those missiles hit you, you lose 20 coins so there's some incentive to fight back.

Then there's Brawl's version of achievements, called 'Challenges'.  These involve doing random things to ludicrous things to outright insane things, and each unlocks a trophy, stage, music or whichever.  You can also gather hammers to break open challenges that you don't want to do.  Of course the amount of these hammers are limited and they're also hard to come by.

Lastly, there's The Subspace Emissary, which, if you don't want to play 3,000,000 Brawl matches to unlock every character, is a suitable alternative as all characters in the game can be unlocked in 1 playthrough and 3 stage visits.  Subspace Emissary is a sub-game of it's own, being like the Adventure mode but with far more depth added in.  It isn't just Classic mode with some stages thrown in.  There's actually a game to be had here, and it's refreshingly nostalgic but at the same time, completely new.  You won't find a 2D platformer experience like this one.


(Overall 9.5/10):

9.5 is there because even though Brawl is not as perfect as advertised, it is about as close to perfect as you can get with a video game.  Fun to play, easy to pick up, hard to master.  This is what gaming was like during the 90s, and seeing Brawl come out makes nostalgia fly out of my nose.

There are some things that make me think, though.  Where did that Arwing design come from?  It didn't look like that in any Star Fox game so far.


This Matsuda A.K.A Fox McCloud A.K.A Fusion, signing out for now to play some Basic Brawl.  I've got to kick that Down+B abusing Pikachu's ass some day!

[UHMEEEEBA]

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GAMETRADERS ROBINA