04-03-2008, 12:10 AM
A "LMX" Review
We waited two years or so for the third instalment in the already popular Super Smash Brothers franchise. And it has had no problem finding a home in the hearts of Nintendo fans everywhere. Now that we finally have our hands on this game its time to see how it performs after such a long wait. For those to lazy to read the following review I’ll sum it up for you. Brawl plays okay. There, now if you wish for more detail then keep on reading, slackers.
Normally I’d start you off with an overview of the story, but what we have isn’t a story-orientated game. Unless you do count Subspace, in which case come here now so I can slap you. This is still a multiplayer beat-em-up and Subspace alone isn’t going to justify it having a story. However I’ll still give you an overview of stuff, the villains are turning the heroes into trophies and collecting them, then stealing them from each other, and then there’s this guy with wings and a big maze. I give up. Forget describing Subspace’s story, here is the real scoop. Subspace is for every fanboy to drool over their favourite characters teaming up against their favourite villains.
Ridley is mightier than Pikachu, despite what Brawl says.
Storyline in Smash, that’s right. Sakurai went there, or at least he tried his best to do so. You have to consider that Smash Bros. is not a single player game. So I suppose we should feel somewhat lucky that Sakurai took the time to do it.
Having said that I’ll try to go easy on it, to be fair it isn’t Sakurai’s fault it was an under whelming story since it wasn’t’ his idea. The blame rests on the shoulders of Kazushige Nojima, which is strange because he is responsible for the amazing story of one of the most highly acclaimed games of all time, Final Fantasy VII. Unfortunately we didn’t get so lucky with Subspace Emissary. In terms of visuals it works well, the cut scenes are very pretty and easy on the eyes plus seeing Sheik fight Fox only to be broken up by Peach offering them a cup of tea is enough to make any Nintendo fanboy giggle with joy. But it is deeply hurt by the lack of voice acting or at the very, very least text to convey what the characters are saying. Hell, at least Zelda has that feature. But no, Smash lacks that and voice acting and as a result it looses any real hopes at conveying a story of any kind. Let’s face it, grunts don’t do it but at least Nintendo games support text but for some strange reason they didn’t in this game.
This is the primary reason I was so disappointed with Subspace, the story was getting so hyped due to Sakurai’s annoyingly tantalising leaks of trailers and clips only to have us get given a run-of-the-mill storyline that I still am failing to make sense of. I won’t spoil it for you, but when I explained it briefly in the introduction to this review that is still how much knowledge I have on the subject. I mean, where the hell did Tabuu even come from? Why the hell was he controlling Master Hand? And why the bloody hell did he insists on making that stupid, freaking maze? None of these questions were addressed to my knowledge. And thus left me feeling no more but “meh” towards Subspace, a disappointing but passable effort.
Of course one thing we can thank Subspace for is the beautiful cut scenes for which Nintendo fans had been dieing to see in their final, complete state. And this aspect of the game in terms of appearance did not disappoint us. The highlight for me was watching Ridley swoop down upon Samus, grab her and scrape her painfully across the wall and clearly enjoy it only to be struck down by thunder (because clearly Ridley is a flying Pokemon…). It was a Metroid fan boy’s dreams to see Ridley in his glory (pity he wasn’t playable) and that is what these cut scenes are about.
But apart from the cut scenes the game shines in other areas too, when we first set eyes upon Brawl it looked so good. Too good, considering what the Wii was capable of. I personally had doubts of how smooth it would run, but after having played the game for several days now those doubts have been put to rest. The game runs incredibly smooth considering how much action can be going on at any one time. I mean, Final Smashes, immense numbers of items, even more active stages than last time, and plenty of varied characters mean this game has a lot on its plate. But it easily serves it up and does so with style and flair that’ll have your eyes in pleasure town.
A surprising amount of detail has gone into various aspects of the visuals; some stages will absorb you into their world with their depth. And some will just distract you with their beauty. Take for example, Final Destination. It received a minor makeover but it’s traditionally trippy background returns as it flies through some truly breath-taking scenery that may in fact draw your attention away from the battle at hand. Other stages just seek to wow you, like Shadow Moses Island, the constant snow the Metal Gears in the background, its all quite a sight to behold.
Captain Falc- I mean, Ganondorf comes back as bad ass as ever.
The franchise has remained true to its roots in terms of gameplay in the sense that if you’ve played Smash 64 and Melee then you will understand how this game plays. Having said that Sakurai has gone from the fast paced action of Melee to a slower game that plays a bit more like Smash 64 but at the same time is still different. At first I didn’t really like this style, but it’s gradually began to grow on me. As he stated, there is now more emphasis on the aerial combat in the game but I do see the unlimited air dodging as a rather strange idea. I mean, in Melee you had one air dodge and it was a matter of using it wise especially if mid-recovery, in Brawl you can air dodge all you want until you hit the ground. A few elements of the game have become a lot more casually aimed, this is the blame of Nintendo and their casual march of course, but hey… lets not bring that into this or I’ll have those who do enjoy Wii Play and Wii Fit breathing down my necks.
Remember how you had to train yourself to time Link’s Hookshot recovery? No need now. It’s completely automatic, right down to the locking onto the side of the stage. Remember how much you had to practice SHFFL’s in Melee? Well now they feel almost automatic as you short hop your aerials. Maybe its just me but I felt I was about to get less lag if I fast fell to the ground as soon as I performed it after a short hop. If I’m wrong then I’ll gladly admit it, but I definitely thought I noticed less lag.
Subspace is an area of the gameplay I wanted to focus on, its gameplay is one of the major letdowns it experiences. Don’t get me wrong, I love an old school side-scroller action game, but there is a time when too much repetition is far too much. This mode is guilty of it; if I hadn’t been playing it through with a friend it probably would have been far less enjoyable. The enemies are boring and uninspired, plus there is a lack of franchise specific enemies beyond Goomba’s and Koopa’s, which I found heavily disappointing. A lot of the stages felt like the same thing over and over again only with a different background and different characters. And the Great Maze was just plain unnecessary, why did it have to be there? It was just a way to stall time. Had it not been in there the Subspace mode wouldn’t have lasted as long but if Sakurai wanted it to last the maze wasn’t the way to do it. That is the cheap way that is the lazy way.
Mario and Kirby vs. Bowser and Dedede, dream match… right?
Here we come to the part, which it feels Sakurai put a lot of his effort into, the controls. He has literally catered to every single audience who could possibly be buying Brawl. And it’s downright impressive.
If you were a Melee veteran then going from Gamecube control to a Wiimote would be difficult, right? Well no need to fear. Sakurai has taken you into consideration and allowed you to use your war-torn GCN control in Brawl. With the ability to fully customise its button layout, changing them to what you want them to be. Its purely awesome what you can do, and personally one of my favourite elements. Control plays a massive part in Smash. If you can’t handle the controls then you can’t get a proper grip on the game, hence why Sakurai catered to everyone.
This means those who want to come in swinging with the Wiimote and Nunchuck combo are in fact catered for. As a Smasher I find it hard to see it catching on, but the option is there if your curious. I didn’t enjoy it. The horizontal Wiimote option is one of my least favourites though, I tried this one out as soon as I had the game hooked up and it felt too strange for me to handle. With time I think I would be able to adjust but it just doesn’t seem worthwhile, those who are a fan of old school fighting games might get the most out of this layout due to its simplicity. The final option is the Classic Controller, at first I thought this would work well but I found myself having difficulty with it, still its worthwhile if you’ve spent hours on the Virtual Console and have become accustomed to its button map.
A great game needs a great soundtrack, so what happens when you put the stars of several great games in one game? You get one of the most incredible video game compilations ever. Seriously, it nearly has everything. Featuring the memorable tunes by Koji Kondo, a theme by Nobuo Uematsu as well as the epic music by Harry Gregson-Williams. But that is only just the beginning of this soundtrack. This games soundtrack is possibly the greatest compilation ever; I can’t credit it as an original soundtrack however. So if you’re a fan of video game music you’re going to be right at home here. With nearly one hundred CD’s for you to collect and unlock in the game its pretty impressive, some tracks will randomly pop up in battles (offline or online) and others need to be unlocked by completing certain challenges on the challenge wall (which I’ll come to later). A magnificent effort really, amongst all the well-known songs there are a few cameos, for example Wii Shop music and Mii Channel music make an appearance.
The well known, Mario, against the mostly unknown Lucas in a stage that maintains the stereotype that all Metroid has is acid or lava.
But besides music the games audio shines elsewhere as well, lively sound effects are another area in particular. Sakurai has gone all out to ensure classic items have their classic sounds. Pokeballs make the bouncing sound from the handheld games when they hit the ground, Stars have the classic “Invincibility” track playing in the background when you pick of them babies up, Fire Flowers now actually look like Fire Flowers as opposed to that strange version in Melee. The sound effects are heavily improved and your ears will be thankful, especially if you’re a gamer who’s been around since the NES and have come to love the sounds of the classics. The character sounds are for the most part the same, so there’s not a lot to be said about that.
However in this section I will make point of mentioning that the person who wrote the dialogue for characters should not work again. “I fight for my friends” and “You’re not ready yet” are horrible pieces of dialogue. Although blame rests with the horrible people in charge of providing those voices too. Disappointing job, guys!
When it comes down to it we can’t deny that Smash is ultimately a party game, it’s a game people buy for its endless multiplayer value. So naturally the game needs to score high marks in the area of replayability and as you can safely assume, it easily reaches its goal.
Even when you’re done with Classic and Subspace, you have a lot left to play around with. You have a large amount of trophies; stickers and CD’s to collect that will keep you occupied for a long time. Essential to collecting all of these is the challenge wall, which Sakurai has copied over from Kirby’s Air Ride. It features a wall full of blue blocks, each are challenges that need to be completed to collect the item behind the block. This will occupy a lot of your time, especially with some of the more difficult challenge like “Complete 100 Man Brawl with all characters” or “Collect All Stickers” and such.
Not a fan of trophy or sticker collecting? Then welcome please one of the most long awaited additions to Smash. Online. That’s right, now you have a fleshed out online option to use in Smash and although it’s a bit rocky now its still better than nothing. You’ll find yourself experiencing disgusting lag if you play someone too far away, but if they are only a few hours away then you shouldn’t have too much problems. Disappointing I know, but considering I prefer to travel and play Smash online will probably be an after thought for myself personally. Better than nothing but still leaves room for massive improvements. No online rankings is painful, the lag is game breaking at times and friend codes are still something that need to be cast away.
Snake, one of the two people worthy of taking on Ridley.
I saved a section of its own for Stage Builder. Okay, I admit I was wrong, I said for so long it’d never happen and now here I sit eating my hat. Luckily it’s a chocolate flavoured hat in the sense that I enjoy the option, so I’ve got no problem admitting I was wrong. True its shallow and lacks depth, but it’s a start. Much like online you will find yourself with very little options, but what options you have will suffice for now. Expect something bigger and better in the next inevitable Smash Bros. game that is for sure. Choose your background, stage size and music and then assemble the pieces. It’s very reminiscent of the days of Tony Hawk’s Skate park builder. At least that’s what I thought when I used it, right down to the little bar telling you how much space you’d used. It’s a nice feature that we easily could have gone without, so be thankful Sakurai put it in there. Pity he didn’t put more effort into this instead of wasting so much time on Subpar Emissary.
Overall, I enjoy the game. But it still feels like something is missing. It had a roster comparable to Melee’s, and stages to boot. But we all had high hopes for Subspace. Unfortunately for us all it didn’t quite meet said expectations. The online hasn’t turned out as good as it could have, but for now I’m willing to write this off as Nintendo being too amateur with the idea of online at the moment. I expect that it’ll get better with other games. At the same time its sad Smash has such shallow online and it will probably miss out on a lot as Nintendo get more experienced with it.
Brawl on.
Pros
+Runs smoothly.
+Incredible music compilation.
+First attempt at a real storyline.
+Even more trophies to hunt down and also stickers now.
+Third party representation.
+Additional co-op options.
+Subspace FMV’s are fanboy dreams.
+Stage Builder is fun
Cons
-Less advanced than Melee at this time, more of a party game.
-Subspace is boring and repetitive.
-Lack of voice acting or at least text harms any story Subspace wants to convey.
-Online is a bit too laggy over great distances.
-Stage Builder somewhat shallow and limited
-Character clones return despite what we thought Sakurai thought about them.
-Too much Landmaster.
-Ridley is only a predictable boss, not a playable character like he should be.
The scores.
Story: 7.5/10
- Being a fighting game it obviously isn’t expected to have a strong story, so taking that into consideration it does an okay job.
Visuals: 9/10
- A very pretty game to watch, runs very smoothly even with the amount of action that can be happening on screen at any given time.
Gameplay: 9.5/10
- What can be said? The Smash formula returns a bit slower and less advanced than before. But still as addictive as ever.
Controls: 9/10
- Sakurai covered all four options here, the best of which I’ve found to be the classic Gamecube option, otherwise Classic Control, Wiimote, or Wiimote + Nunchuck are available.
Audio: 9.5/10
- Definitely the most amazing video game soundtrack compilations, lacking only because it doesn’t have certain third party franchises.
Replay Value: 9.5/10
- What can I say? 500+ trophies, 700+ stickers, plenty of characters and stages, events, online, co-op, challenge wall. Its got PLENTY of replayability.
Overall: 9/10
- A very strong entry to the Smash series and definitely worth your time. It’ll keep you coming back for more, only if you have a decent online connection or a lot of friends. As usual the single player is nothing to boast about.
Review by LemonManX
*party streamers and silly string*