Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii Review) by Zeypher

Super Smash Bros Brawl
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo (Sora)
System: Wii
Release: Mar 9, 2008, US

Story
Super Smash Bros Brawl is a continuation of the Smash Bros series, and since it's a fighter; it doesn't really have a story outside of the Subspace Emissary. But pretty much, The Ancient Minister and his Subspace Emissary are up to no good.

Sound 15/15
Brawl features the best soundtracks from the Nintendo universe. We're talking Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, and much more. Plus, there's soundtracks from Metal Gear Solid and Sonic the Hedgehog. Some works are remixes, while others are the original versions. The best thing about it, is that the soundtracks range from more classical games to newer ones in their particular series. Sound effects are great as well, like the announcer and audience. If a character is doing really good in a fight, the audience will start to chant that character's name over and over again, and it sound really cool. There's a sound test option, so you can listen to all your favorite tracks from there.

Graphics 20/20
Easily one of the most well polished Wii games to date. It doesn't feature super photo realistic graphics that all the little kids love these days, but they still look really nice. It puts off sort of a cartoonish feel, but in a more serious way. Brawl runs at a full 60fps with no slowdowns to report. The menus in the game also look really good, with black outlines and eye catching colors. One of my favorite menus is for the Wifi Spectator mode; the orange in the background looks absolutely perfect with the black outlines. Character models and stages all look great, and some of the backgrounds such as on the Bridge of Eldin stage are amazing. Brawl runs in standard 4:3 and 16:9 widescreen.


Appeal 23/25
Let me get to what I don't like about Brawl right now; the Wifi play. Sure, it has its moments where its a whole lot of fun with your friends, but often times you're either lagged to hell or you can't find a match at all. The only Wifi modes that remotely work are Spectator and anything to to with Friends. You'll still get some lag though, since Brawl depends on the players' internet connection so much. Another drawback to the Wifi is the lack of online leaderboards. It has the perfect system keeping track of pretty much every statistic offline, but it wasn't included into the online portion of the game. Aside from these flaws though, you'll have a ton of fun with Brawl. There's just so much stuff to do offline in the game, as well as a ton of extras. There are modes such as Group, Tourney, Classic, and Subspace Emissary. You'll get arounf 10 hours from the Emissary, and about as much if you go through Classic mode with every character to get the unlockables. Speaking of unlockables, there's a ton of that in Brawl. There's hundreds of stickers and trophies, a 35 character roster, tons of music, and stages to unlock. On top of that, there's playable demos of Nintendo classics in the Masterpieces mode and a list of Nintendo games released before Brawl came out in the Chronicles section. To keep track of everything you've unlocked, and to actually find out how to unlock them in some cases; a Challenges menu has been added. It feels really stasfying to see the blue boxes disappearing everytime you've completed a challenge and unlocked something. Another new feature is the Stage Builder. With the stage builder, you can construct your very own stages from stage pieces. You can name the stage, choose the size, and even give it a soundtrack to play from the list of music that you've unlocked. The actual building of the stages is somewhat limiting, but it is still pretty fun. Stages can also be sent to friends whom you've exchanged friend codes with, and be played on of course.

Gameplay 38/40
The gameplay in Brawl is very similar to that of Melee. You have your basic attack, smash attack, jump, special attacks, defend, grab, and of course combos. The controls can be mapped almost any way you want (smash attacks can't leave the C button, sadly) on any of the four compatable controllers: Wiimote-Nunchuck, Wiimote sideways, Classic, or GameCube. A new feature has been added to the battles: the Final Smash. Final Smashes are the super attack of each character, and they're unique to that particular character. Final Smashes are granted to whatever player breaks the Smash Orb, which is a new item to the game. While we're on the subject, items once again make a return to make battles interesting. They range from a beam sword to a fire flower, and can be turned off if you wish to play without them. There are three modes in brawling: time, stock, and coin. In time players duke it out and the one who had the best KO-Fall ratio after the time is up is the winner. In stock, players battle until there is one left who still has all their lives. In coin players try to collect the most amount of coins possible before the match ends. KOing is the same as in the other Smash Bros games-- You have to keep attacking your enemies until their % goes up and you're able to hit them off of the stage. The gameplay for the Subspace Emissary mode is a bit different, but still has the same idea regarding items and KOs. Players progress through a level in 2D sidescrolling fasion, defeating enemies and bosses along the way as you would in a regular battle. There are also the Classic, Boss Rush, Homerun Derby, Special Brawl, Tourney, and Challenge modes found in the previous entries, as well as others. One of the new features is Rotation. Rotation basically sets up so that more than four players can Brawl by swapping controllers, and it works great.

Overall96/100
Super Smash Bros Brawl is a must buy for any Wii owner. Even though the online multiplayer is laggy at best, there is a ton to do in this game. Local multiplayer with friends is always fun, and with the new Rotation mechanic, more of your friends can play at a time. Even with fun Solo modes, the local multiplayer and unlockables will keep you coming back. Get Brawl now if you don't already have it.

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