Nintendo Wii First Impressions: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Published March 05, 2008
For months, Wii owners have been besieged with delays and waits for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. They've sat through leaks and a constant stream of information via the Smash Bros. Dojo site, but next Sunday, the game is finally released to a fanfare normally reserved for the Halos and Maddens of the gaming world. There will be tournaments and midnight release parties... but will the game itself be worth all the hoopla and wait?
I've had some extended sit-down time with the Japanese version of the game. Not enough to come out with a full review of the game and all its components, but enough to give you my thoughts on the game.
The short answer is yes; it is, worth the wait. Even without voice chat, leaderboards and a few familiar faces, Brawl is an all-around solid title and the first major Game of the Year contender to arrive in 2008.
You've seen how the game looks in motion by now, and I can tell you that it does indeed look wonderful. The graphics are polished and the background vibrant, but the key is the animations of the characters themselves. Nintendo and Masahiro Sakurai have gone to great lengths to make sure these animations looks as fluid and natural as possible for each character, and the end result is the best-looking game on the Wii to date.
The soundtrack contains some 300-plus songs, from original remixes to rips straight from the games they come from. The older stuff is nice, but the newer stuff is absolutely fantastic, thanks in no small part to the armada of famous video game music composers working on this game. It also serves to support every complaint we've had about Nintendo not orchestrating some games like Twilight Princess, because the difference in sound is huge. The ability to customize how frequently songs come up on stages is also pretty neat.
- Nintendo Wii First Impressions: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Published: March 05, 2008
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Gaming
- Filed Under: Gaming: News
- Writer: Brian Szabelski
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Maybe we should boycott SSBB as they are staggering the release dates to an awful effect.
I think the Smash series can still improve. Melee was a huge improvement over the original, and back then it seemed like it couldn't get any better. Now we have Brawl with limited online and an SSE that some people have been criticizing. I think the next Smash will have online brawls that capitalize on new online features (assuming Nintendo updates it beyond those crappy Friend Codes), and then make a more refreshing single-player experience. I would also love to see more character balance. So many people chose Marth in Melee, and we'll probably be seeing the new pro favorite(s) soon...
send me an email 4 my ssbb code. yes ppl, i need friends. [CONTACT INFO DELETED - PLEASE DO NOT POST PERSONAL CONTACT INFO HERE]
"online voice chat clients like Skye or Ventrillo"
What's Skye? What's Ventrillo? I've heard of Skype and Ventrilo, but not Skye and Ventrillo.
Ok, now that that's out of the way, I think it can improve. Not just adding more 3rd party characters, not just fixing the Wii things (friend codes, no voice, etc.), but also polishing the gameplay. Yeah, it plays great. It looks great, and it's a lot of fun, but some of the controls don't work with me that great. For some reason, all the characters feel SLOW AS CRAP. Even Pit, who is more of a "speed" type character, feels slow. It may have something to do with me playing SSE all day yesterday (my sister didn't want to play with me :( ), and I hope this is not the case, but it feels a lot slower to me.
oh, and Mario's V+B sucks!!!!
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found your article via gonintendo, thanks for your impressions.
No game is too good for its own good. There is always something to improve, as I'm sure Sakurai would agree.
the next place for Smash Bros. to go is back to basics, back to the fundamentals of smash. I think that though SSBB is a well rounded game, it also comes packed with a bunch of fluff that is not really essential to the smash experience. It feels bloated. Yeah, coin shooting is great, but if I want to shoot coins i'll buy a game thats about shooting coins. Collecting trophies doesn't seem like much of an achievement anymore.
Which isn't to say that all I want in a smash game is 1-2-3 fight... I love the level builder, I love the idea of smash balls and assist trophies, and theres tons of stuff i'm probably forgetting..
I can understand the point in having certain types of game modes for skill building, but some stuff just seems arbitrary. I would love to see a more fleshed out SSE styled game released on its own, whether that be a metroid, megaman, castlevania or a spinoff smash bros. title, I'd be totally happy to buy em all! Just as long as they are fully featured and pay a little closer attention to story and gameplay mechanics. SSE is too barebones.
I don't really care much about voice chat, but I think the next version will have it. I'd also like to see quarterly roster, music, and level additions. ;)