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- Intro -
Brawl is different. In terms of character moves-sets, game play mechanics and features. Most are great, others I find are not so great and are merely recycled oldies tweaked to look new.


- Changes –
There have been numerous changes and tweaks to Brawl mechanics that differ from Melee. For one you can’t L-cancel anymore meaning shield grabbing is a lot easier and spacing is even more important. Next is wave dashing so Fox has been severely nerfed from a lot of his combo’s. You move at almost the same speed as Melee on the ground but ariel movement has been slowed significantly though still faster than SSB64.


- Single Player Content -
Classic Mode is relatively boring and dull. It's the same old battles against solo/team/giant/metal, with mini-games sprinkled in. Unfortunately there are only two and they're both Break the Targets, this time. There's no Race to the Finish or Polygon Team. The mode, of course, ends with a battle with Master Hand, who hasn't learned any new tricks.

Break the Targets is disappointingly easy, as there are only five stages for five difficulties, so the stages aren't creatively built around using your character's abilities wisely. They throw items in and even make it two-player to make it even easier.

The Subspace Emissary is a disappointing 8 hour romp. If you're a Kirby veteran, the stages will feel extremely predictable in that you practically have a sixth sense for where doors are hidden. Familiar side-scrolling levels with familiar enemies make the adventure better, but unfortunately, all you'll see is two levels against Mario enemies and a remake of a Donkey Kong Country barrel stage. Everything else is original and typically boring. A very few amount of the stages actually have flat, horrid sprite-based backgrounds. Again, this number is very few, but it's still inexcusable in a game of this magnitude. The adventure also has enough self-scrolling stages that made me want to puke.

There are only five familiar bosses, and two of them are Ridley. Palutena is also the only NPC that shows up throughout the duration, and only in a single cinematic. The final boss is a generic dark energy Kirby-esque boss that teleports around frequently and unleashes bizarre, powerful, but easy-to-dodge attacks.

Stickers add a nice level of depth and can make some characters horrifyingly powerful, but the added depth doesn't save this mode.

In general, I consider the Subspace Emissary a failure. Super Smash Bros. is a multiplayer party game. Treat it as such. We're not looking for expansive single player adventures. If we were, we would have gotten Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3 or Super Mario Galaxy instead.

All-star Mode is a nice upgrade from Melee's. It's kept the same format, but the matches are pre-set franchise-wise. You fight Mr. Game & Watch first, then the four Mario characters, etc. It later gets pleasantly creative with the match-ups. Clearing the mode earns you a sweet looking trophy of your character's Final Smash. You can also play this mode with two players, making it easily more enjoyable than the Subspace Emissary.

Boss Rush mode is done like All-star mode, where you fight the game's bosses (all Subspace and the two Hands) in a randomized order. Except, you can't continue, so it's sort of like a "how many can you defeat" high score kind of thing. Can also be done co-op and is pretty fun.

Multi Man Brawl is still the same as it was in Melee. Home Run Contest has had a few changes. There’s a barrier around the platform that can take several hits before breaking and the sandbag flying out, I haven’t spent much time on it but it seems the old bat-drop combo was taken out so there’s going to be some rather unique and interesting records set for this.

Event mode hasn’t changed, there’s only 41 now but each one has 3 different difficulty levels. I’ve done them all on normal so I’m not sure what happens if you do them all on hard. Probably just a trophy/message >_>


- Multiplayer Content - Stages -
Brawl fixes the problems Melee had with stages, but adds a few new problems. They wisely keep most franchises to one stage per, instead of Melee's two stages per, even for undeserving franchises like F-Zero and Yoshi. However it's still unbalanced; Mario has four stages (if you count Luigi's Mansion), while Zelda and Metroid have only two, and Kirby has a measly one.

There are also a whopping 10 past stages, which feels like they forced in to fill the stage selection and make it seem more impressive. Half of the past stages are some of the more hated from Melee (like Rainbow Cruise and Big Blue), and honestly, after 6 years of Melee, these stages all feel incredibly dull and stale.

However, new stages are all beautifully done and aren't nearly as gimmicky and annoying as Melee's, save a few exceptions. I personally only have four or five of them turned off, compared to having all but six turned off in Melee.

A nifty little feature they put in is the ability to change the song playing for each stage. You can find CD's during 1P modes and unlock a few randomly that give you more choices.


- Multiplayer Content - Physics and Balance -
I won't go too in-depth with this part. The physics do indeed feel floatier and different than Melee. It feels like a step backwards to Super Smash Bros. 64, but that's not at all a bad thing. I've frequently played Melee with people that just seem to have trouble keeping up with it's speed, and Brawl's nice mesh of 64 and Melee physics is a welcome change. It’s still a lot faster than 64 is though.

Veterans mostly play differently. Expect all of your familiar tricks to be nerfed. But, every character has received new tricks that await being discovered. E.g Marth can rarely do his down-air spike now, but instead his back-air and up-b have been given significant power boosts and kill at around 130% even with DI.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl requires a little thing called adjustment. It is not at all a bad thing, it's just a change. Old veterans that remember the transition between 64 and Melee will have no problem taking in this new transition. I personally adjusted just fine in just an hour or two. But younger players that might have only known Melee might have a little harder of a time. Brawl is, in fact, different. But not bad.


- Multiplayer Content - Roster -
The roster is probably (currently) the most controversial aspect of Brawl. I'm not going to try and say that the roster is bad, because it's not. It's a nice, full roster with a lot of variety and anyone can find a character they enjoy to play in it. But as I said in the first paragraph of this review; it's not as good as they made it out to be, or as good as it could have been.

My biggest issue with the roster is the fact that it goes back on everything they claimed they wanted to do during development. They wanted to add more female fighters; they forced Zero Suit Samus in and then called it a day. They wanted to add more villains, and at the most we got a handful of anti-heroes and rivals, which I just don't count as a villain. Lastly, they wanted to remove clones. Surprise! They're still here, and we didn't even get any new ones.

Here's a simple equation I use when referring to the game's roster:
- 35 characters, all fleshed out and completely original = great
- 49 characters, with new fighters, and clones both old and new = even better
- 35 characters, with new fighters, and old clones = not so good


- Multiplayer Content - Stage Builder -
The Stage Builder is a welcome addition, especially with the number of stages feeling relatively underwhelming. The builder gets the job done and is a nice start, but you'll quickly find out it lacks a lot of depth.

There seems to be only three packs of unlockable stage parts, and all three only give you two new parts each. You can't place destructibles or stage hazards, except for the very basic and boring floors of spikes. There's falling "donut blocks" and moving platforms, if you want to count those as hazards, but I really don't. Another minor issue, I think, is that there should've been two "layers" to work on, so you could have built intricate structures in the stage's background. Instead you're stuck with the still image they have back there, and there are only three options at that.


- Closing -
There are other sections of the game that I felt unnecessary to devote entire sections to, but I'll briefly cover them here. Some modes I didn't try at all include Special Brawl, Tournament, Rotation, and Masterpieces, which are just unlockable 2-3 minute trials of old Nintendo games(Lylat Wars, Zelda, Mario bros). I also can't comment on the Challenges much, as I don't know Japanese, but I cleared a good half of it on accident, which still leaves a significant amount to complete.

Items typically feel better balanced and are fun and chaotic to have on. The only problem I have is how they made it so easy to pick items up. Basically, if there's an item on top of your character when you're pressing A in any way (including dashing and aerial attacks), you can pick it up. I used to be proud that I knew how to grab items in mid-air in Melee, but now any newbie can do it without really trying.

Final Smashes, sometimes, feel as if we weren't ready for them. Like they may have committed to adding them to the game, and then later realized they didn't have enough ideas for them, but couldn't just cut them out. A good amount of Final Smashes are lame and feel uninspired, and some are straight out worthless. Some others feel amazingly polished and super powered, though. Also, some Finals are repeated between characters.

The Coin Launcher is surprisingly fun, and I easily found myself blowing through thousands of coins playing it to get trophies. Trophies themselves are as entertaining as they were in Melee with obscure characters and (usually) impressive modelling jobs. There are also, apparently, over 500 of them.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is definitely worthy of succeeding the past two games and is the best one yet. Every true complaint I hear about it being different than Melee will easily be worked around in time as everyone experiences the game for themselves and re-learns it. Keep in mind that adjustment is a part of evolution, and Brawl is a sequel, not a rehash.


Graphics - 8.5/10
Overall very good but there are far too many "that looks ugly" parts.

Sound - 10/10
Fantastic, the new tunes are great as well as many remastered classics add to the feel.

Gameplay - 9.5/10
Easy to pick up and great fun with a few mates around. Online is ok if your within the same state.

Lifespan - 8/10
At the moment I cant see this game being as big as Melee was, but it's early days.

Overall - 9/10
Great follow up to Melee that will keep fans happy, pros/veterans might think otherwise.


Character Reviews:

Marth:
Hooray my sweety’s back <3, and he’s just as broken as he was before. He has the best and most prioritized aerials in the game. His b-air can now kill as well as his up-B. It’s a lot harder to tip with the sword but its not really needed. His forward B moves have been given a buff in attack purpose but as a recovery there terrible. Easily one of the best character in the game and still has the most combo potential out of all characters bar Sonic.
Rating: 9.5/10 (if B could recover it would be 10)

Ike:
One of the best edge games I’ve seen. His counter is incredible and his U-tilt is broken. His Side B can be used as a form of recovery unlike Marth’s, and mobility around the stage. Some of his attacks are slow but………..
Rating: 7.5/10

Snake:
Snake is a weird character. When you know what your doing, you’re unstoppable. He has so many different play styles that you can adapt it to any match up. Also has the strongest projectiles in the game. Has a less than average air game whoever with priority and speed, but when his attacks make contact they send the opponent flying. All of his ariels can kill as well as his smash attacks. Best camper in the game, every move can KO. Has excellent recovery, as I said he’s very slow but he has long range as well as high impact attacks. As is the case with most characters, you’ll need a lot of time to work out his quirks and find the right play style.
Rating – 8.5/10


Ness:
Ness is back and in a big way. His ariels have been given a buff but his back-air was nerfed a bit. Has great smash attacks (the yo-yo actually does something know!!) but his b-throw was greatly gimped. But that doesn’t matter cause know his f-throw has more power than his melee b-throw did. His PK Fire does more damage and you can combo it into anything.
Rating: 8/10

Sonic:
Ahhh Sonic, everyone wants to play him. He’s easy to pick up but hard to master. Easily shield grabbed. Has insane priority, and a great Up-B. It’s hard to rate him because I can tell that he needs a lot of time put into him. However in my early opinion I put as easily one of if not the best character in the game. He’s fast, has a great up-close pressure game and excellent edge guarding. He has very strong aerial attacks as well as combo ability. He will probably become the fastest developed character as everyone will want to play him.
Rating – 9/10


Lucas:
Best. Taunts. EVER! Lucas is a weird character and won’t be used much. His PK Fire comes out very fast and has great knock back. His f-smash is ok and his U-smash could be the strongest in the game, but it’s near impossible to land. Ness is much better though.
Rating: 6/10

Mr. Game & Watch:
In Melee Game and Watch’s main way of killing was a down-throw to a parachute, but they’ve taken out the parachute. Other than that, he's the same old G&W. He still has his comboing ability but without l-cancel he’s highly disadvantaged and very susceptible to shield grabbing. His new Nair doesn't have a lot of knock back, but it does decent damage. He also throw a lot more at you know like bacon, chicken legs, potatoes and more >_>
Rating: 5/10


More to come.

dash dancing - completely useless
wave landing - no
shield drop through platforms - i think so, my mate did it
pivot smashes - retarded
jump canceled attacks - not many, shines cant be jumped out of
does crouching cancel running animation instantly or slowly - cant crouch-cancel dashing/running at all anymore

I can't really say until I actually play a human opponent, but there aren't too many "fake out" techniques you can pull off in Brawl.

Tripping is completely random. But it doesn't happen too often so there's no need to worry about it.

Yes you can U-smash out of shield, but not with the C-stick. On the other hand, you can do running U-smashes with the C-stick alone now. Trying to use any other smash attack while running, however, will result in a dash attack.

Oh. No, it happens too quickly. You get no warning whatsoever. From what I can tell, there's a small chance to trip every time you start a dash. That's why Fox trotting is a bad and stupid idea.

It not being like melee aside, I'm sure it'll develop its own in way of crazy asian supierority. I am a little worried though, I'm playing it sometime next week with moose so I'll get back to you guys.

Question time:
1. Is Lucario just mewtwo?
2. Is snake roy slow or bowser slow?
3. Metaknight actually useful at all?
4. Floaty like everyone's samus in the air?

Lucario isn't quite as bad as Mewtwo.
Snake is Roy slow.
Metaknight has some nasty combo-capabilities and is pretty effective in Brawl.
The game is developed to encourage a more aerial-oriented system of combat. SHFFLing is a thing of the past, imo. Fast falling still exists, however.

Brawl is the most fail competitive game I have played in a long time, it just won't last as long as melee did.

Suprisingly, I'm with syke on this one. I've played a couple of times now and the way things are looking is quite dire. I'm playing Meta and Sonic and things seem way too 'scissors paper rock'. I'm waiting to see what happens with this but i'm nnot gonna be throwing my money at tourey's.