I had the chance to have some quality time with Super Smash Bros. Brawl at the Nintendo media event in San Francisco this past Friday. As you all know, I’ve been following this game very closely and have been eagerly awaiting the release of this game.
Check out my extensive report on what I thought of it and read about some of the new stuff that have yet to be revealed on theDOJO.
Veterans of the series will be pleased to know that this feels and plays just like the pastSmashgames. With that said though, it was very hard getting used to playing the game using the Classic Controller. This was actually the very first time I’ve ever had this controller in my hands so that really didn’t help matters much. I eventually got used to it, but my hands were so mapped to theGameCubecontroller that I would have trouble here and there during battles. I tried playing the game with just theWiimoteitself, but I quickly decided to never ever playBrawlwith theWiimoteagain. The analog stick is the only way I can ever move a character inSmash. I think theWiimoteby itself will be very good for a beginner, but for seasoned vets and pro players, they will either need the Classic or the ‘Cube controller to really be good at this game.
All of the matches were 2-minute K.O. battles and Mario, Donkey Kong, Link,Samus, Fox,Pikachu,DiddyKong, Pit, Meta Knight, Ike, Peach, Yoshi, Sonic andBowserwere all available to play with. Most of the characters that were from previous Smashes all had the same basic moves. Some had extra animations, for instance, now whenBowserswipes at you, he’ll jump into the air with you and do a body slam.
As for the new characters, my favorite has to be between Meta Knight and Ike. Meta Knight is all around super fast with his moves and his Smash attacks will inflict plenty of damage on your opponents. Ike however is extremely strong (Imagine Roy orMarthbut ten times stronger). His moves inflict a lot of damage and will send you flying.DiddyKong is also a very fast character and has a lot of great combo style attacks. Pit seemed very similar to Link in control and fighting style — well except the whole flying thing. It may be hard to knock Pit off of a stage too since his Up Smash attack allows him to fly for a long time. Sonic, of course, is very fast. Overall, I felt his moves were weak but his speed will allow him to do the run in and retreat tactic (a.k.a cheap little bitch move).
11 stages were also available to battle on, most of which have been revealed already at theDOJO. Overall, I really didn’t like any of the stages. Either the stages were too small, or the stages would transport the players from location to location in short periods of time. That happened inMelee, but it happens a lot more often inBrawl. It just felt like the stages that would transport you would take away from the battle. It may just have been trying to get used to the levels that was throwing me off though.
A fewgameplayelements have changed as well. For instance, if you do a dodge in the air, you’re able to still do a jump afterwards. InMelee, if you did midair dodge, you couldn’t recover until you landed on the ground. Another change is the fact that you can catch items that are thrown at you. You could do this in the previousSmash, but it was extremely hard to time it right. It’s much easier to do it inBrawlnow though. And yes, if someone throws aPokeballat you and you catch it, the Pokemon will now be under your control. Another great new addition to the items is that you can also grab them in midair when they’re falling from the sky. You don’t have to wait until it lands to grab the item.
Items weren’t on extreme heavy rotation, but I did catch a few new things:
That’s some of the new items that haven’t been shown at theDOJOyet. There’s also a few other things like Bob-ombs, Fire Flower, Poison Flower and a few other things that were in the demo too that were from past Smashes.
Some new Assist Trophies were also revealed. First thing you should know though about the Trophies is that the second you grab them, they shatter automatically and your Assist character will come out. A lot of theAssistcharacters that were in this demo were revealed before too, but here are a few new ones:
A few new Pokemon were also shown off. Now I don’t know what the hell their names are, so I’ll attempt to describe them as best as I can.
I also spotted a few old ones like the green dinosaur with a leaf on it’s head andSnorlax.
Finally, I’ll talk about the Smash Ball, the item probably everybody is really curious about. I’m glad to say that the Smash Ball won’t be anywhere near as cheap as I thought it would be. For starters, you have to “break” the Smash Ball open. Once the Smash Ball comes onto the stage, it will float around in the air and you have to smash it open. It will take several hits before it finally opens. Of course, there will usually be a lot of people trying to go for it, so if you do grab the Smash Ball, watch out! It can be knocked out of you and it’s another free for all for the Smash Ball. For most of the Final Smash attacks, you’re going to have to be near a character to use them. You have only one shot at it and if you miss, you lose your power up.
In order to activate your Final Smash attack, you just have to press the neutral Smash button (don’t point the directional stick). Most of the Final Smashes have been revealed already so I’ll just mention the ones that haven’t yet. First, Peach’s Final Smash causes the camera to just zoom in on her while a couple of graphics from thePeachDSgame come on the screen. When the camera zooms out, your opponents have fallen to sleep and dozens of peaches have appeared for you to eat and regain health with. Ike’s Final Smash is identical to Link’s Final Smash. Ike will slash at you several times and then knock you into the sky or off of the stage with his sword. Meta Knight will grab his opponents and just do a slash at whoever gets trapped by him which usually results in an instant K.O.Pikachutransforms into a dark energy ball and can fly anywhere on the map. I was playing with Dyson most of the time and he had no idea he could fly with Pikachu’s Final Smash. So he just stood there asPikachuand I decided to walk right into him. I instantly got near 600% damage. It’s very hard to control Pikachu when you’re flying (it’s also very similar toSonic’sFinal Smash) but it will inflict a lot of damage. Finally, Zero SuitSamus’sFinal Smash is just getting her suit back and also radiating a lot of energy around her that will hurt you, but won’t do significant damage.
All in all, I was very pleased with what I played.Super Smash Bros. Brawlwill be out on February 10th next year and look for the first public demo of the game atE For All next week.
[Update: I’ve been playing Melee since 2001 and never knew I could catch items midair with the Z button. God damn it.]
