Super Smash Bros. Brawl: First look
I’ve put a few hours into Smash Brawl now, and so far it’s holding up pretty well. Mainly I’ve just played the new single-player "adventure" mode, called “The Subspace Emissary.” It’s pretty much a full-featured action-platformer in its own right, and much less like a weird little bonus mode than Smash Melee’s was. Various characters are introduced in story cutscenes, and then you choose which one you’ll play as (or the order you’ll rotate through them if you die) and go run and jump and punch and kick.
It plays pretty well, though the controls seem a little stiff; that’s probably because they’re fighting game controls being twisted into a platformer, and as such they’re a bit more punishing than seems appropriate sometimes. The different characters play noticably differently from one another (though you’re more than welcome to treat all of them as “run around and mash A” if you so desire; Smash is traditionally a great button-masher), and from what I’ve experienced of the new ones, they’re definitely fun. The returning characters play much like they did in Melee, with a bit of tweaking and the occasional different special attack; sometimes this will get you in trouble if you’re a veteran of Melee, since you’ll expect to be able to do the Mario Tornado to back off some punks steppin’ all over your business, and all you get is this wacky squirt gun instead. Some attacks that used to be very weak (such as Yoshi’s… everything) have been beefed up a bit, and some attacks that were overpowered (yes, I’m talking about Pikachu’s Thunder, you jumpy fools) are toned down a bit.
My favourite of the new characters so far is the Pokémon Trainer; the only Pokémon I’ve gotten to play with so far is Squirtle (you need to unlock the different types in the adventure game), but I like the way he plays. And it seems that the ability to switch up my play character would be a pretty strong one. Mind you, I’ve not played with all the new characters yet.
There are hidden characters, even though the web site made it sound like there wouldn’t be; I’ve unlocked one already, and I’m aware of five more besides that I’ve yet to find. No doubt there are more than just that, also. There are lots of trophies and stickers to collect as well, though, sadly, the game appears to be missing the “bonus superlatives” that I found so enjoyable in Melee. Or if they’re there, I can’t find them.
So we’re off to a good start, and the game shows a bunch of promise. I’ll have more to say after I’ve spent more time with it and checked out the other modes.
