Super Smash Bros. Brawl Review

Yep, it’s finally here! My review of Brawl can be read after the cut. For those of you who actually read this blog, feel free to comment if you agree or not. Also, be warned that there are spoilers in this review. Don’t come crying to me if you get spoiled! The game’s been out two weeks now. Go get it!

Also, happy Easter to all! May you receive many goodies on this day. Also, a shout out to those on Spring break. Don’t get too drunk..

Okay, so after countless amounts of delays and week after week of hype, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has finally come out to the collective masses. For the last few weeks now, Wii owners and hardcore Nintendo maniacs have been dutifully playing the game, unlocking masses upon masses of hidden goodies in the process and brawling with either friends at home, or over the internet using Nintendo’s Wi-Fi connection. But now that most people have played the game thoroughly, The question now is, does all the hype Smash Bros. Brawl had coming into it’s release live up to the result? Not really, no. But it’s still an awesome, incredibly deep game that any Wii owner with a brain shouldn’t pass on.

Now, I’m gonna break down the two modes that I’ve played the most out of so far, excluding standard Brawls. Then, the rest of the stuff.

Subspace Emissary

This is basically a retooled version of the Adventure mode that debuted in Melee. It has a story and will take you way more than ten minutes to beat. I “finished” it around the eight hour mark with 75 percent of the game complete. I basically got what I needed to though, so the problem is..is it good enough to the point where I would want to complete the entire game and get 100%?

Nope.

For one, the story is really..eh. Since this is a Nintendo game, there’s no voices, so most of the story is just a minute or two of introducing the scene. There’s not really any substance to it, like most Nintendo games, and the ending is just lame- it basically just shoots right through the credits once you beat Tabuu. Really disappointing, but pretty much expected.

Then the levels themselves..they get boring at times. It’s basically just hack and slashing enemies while solving a few puzzles to get to point A to point B. The maze, however, is just boring. It feels like the developer felt like he needed to add a few more hours of game play into the mode, so they made you play every stage again and beat every brawler you’ve unlocked so far. That’s just plain lazy here.

Speaking of lazy, though, Brawl at times feels just like that- lazy. I’m not saying theirs much to offer, because really, there is..it’s just that they could have added more than they delivered in specific modes. For example, Sonic doesn’t appear until the very end of Subspace Emissary. That felt really tacked on in my opinon. There could have been at least some sort of cut scene where Mario and Sonic meet up and team together (and maybe there is, I haven’t played anything past the story) but what they delivered just felt rushed.

But overall, Subspace is a relatively fun six to eight hours. There could have been so much more to offer in this mode, and the story definitely could have been better, but hey..it’s an improvement over Melee.

Online

Like what Nintendo normally does with online play, Brawl’s is, at best, archaic. While you can play online with your friends, and the game is relatively lag free, there’s some flaws that definitely need to be addressed.

For example..friend codes. Seriously, they feel like passwords from old NES games twenty years ago. Why do I need a friend code for not only my Wii system, but also for Brawl? It’s just so unnecessary. And I’m pretty disappointed with how there’s no voice chat or the ability to play with user created stages, even with friends (what’s with that?) but in the end, it’s definitely better than nothing. It might take a while, but eventually online is pretty fun to play like expected.

The Rest

There’s TONS of stuff to collect, and it’s fun doing it in the process. I still haven’t collected all the songs yet, and I’m far, far away from completing my sticker and trophy collection. So if you’re the type of gamer that loves to collect stuff, this is seriously your game. The shooting mini mode is pretty fun to play as well and it will take a lot of your time getting new stickers and trophies to add to your collection. You can arrange them to your liking, too, so you can create fun dioramas with your trophies and play around with the stickers as well. Good stuff.