Hey guys, this is my first thread on the smash boards...
So I got Brawl like 4 or 5 days ago, and the reason I got it was because I loved the first two smash games. They are my FAVORITE fighting games ever (and yes, I have played numerous fighting games before I played smash). Why? Because it's nothing but a collection of my favorite Nintendo characters, environments, items, trophies, etc.
I loved Smash 64.
I loved Melee.
Brawl is pretty good. It's still growing on me.
The thing with Brawl, though, is that it takes a completely different type of skill than Melee did. In terms of gameplay mechanics, Brawl is a lot like Smash 64: movement is a tad slower, there is slightly less gravity, and your opponent needs a higher damage percentage in order to get knocked off.
In Melee, you knew you were a skilled player if you could move fast to keep up with your opponent. You also had to time your midair attacks because you could only stay airborne for a short time. Also, 60% spelled danger for you. Both Melee and Brawl are tactical games--you cannot mash buttons if you expect to beat someone who has even a pint of skill in the game. That goes for both games. Neither one is more balanced than the other, IMO. I have played them both, and have adapted to the play style of each one.
So if you liked Smash 64 a LOT, chances are you'll adapt to Brawl in no time. Now that we got the gameplay style out of the way, I'll talk about all the good stuff in Brawl.
1--It does have online capabilities.
2--It has so much oldschool stuff in it! Pit is a playable character, and he was from an NES game (which rocked, by the way). Sakurai really made sure that he would captivate retro gamers in his audience, and he did a good job. From using retro characters (Game & Watch, R.O.B., Ice Climbers, Pit), to even putting in retro items (spring, hothead, deku nuts from OOT), and making old-themed stages too (Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Arcade, Green Hill Zone, Mushroomy Kingdom). He even put in Pokemon Trainer from the first pokemon game, and that says something.
3--Stuff from the newer games is also used, but it's not overdone. Sure, he included Delfino Plaza and Luigi's Mansion, as well as 2 recent Zelda-themed stages. But he had to--he can't just appeal to those of us who have been with Nintendo ever since the NES. It's all about widening the target audience. I think Toon Link is an awesome character. Pirate Ship is an awesome stage. The Dragoon is an awesome item.
4--The music selection is near-perfect. Anybody remember the Dark World theme from A Link to the Past, or the Bramble Blast song from Donkey Kong Country 2? Those were two of the best songs from any Super Nintendo game ever. I was surprised to hear them in Brawl. Sakurai made sure to only use songs that were the definition of awesomeness. Boy did he do a good job on that. Also, the mountain theme from Zelda: Link's Awakening...lemme tell you, I love the gameboy Zelda game, and I always thought that the mountain theme was AMAZING. And then BAM--I beat Classic mode with Link in SSBB, and what do I hear? The mountain theme!
5--Subspace Emissary is awesome too. The best adventure mode of any fighting game ever.
6--The Summit Stage. Hey, it's better than Icicle Mountain. I count that as an improvement. Same goes for Flat Zone 2 being better than Flat Zone.
7--The new alternate costumes are more game-specific than they were in Melee. Look, we finally get firepower Mario, and Luigi wearing Waluigi's outfit. You know what else? Toon Link is wearing the classic tunic from the original Legend of Zelda game!
...Those are only some of the good things, OK, if I were to do all of them, we'd be here all day...Now, to make it a fair review, there are some not-so-great things in Brawl:
1--Tripping! It seems like whenever I want to dash, I trip! That's stupid.
2--Ledge-grabbing is far too easy in this game. First of all, in Brawl, you don't even have to be facing the ledge to grab it. Secondly, you can be kinda far away from the ledge and you'll still automatically grab onto it. Neither of those flaws were present in Melee.
3--Sound effects in Brawl don't sound as powerful as they did in Melee...allow me to explain. In Melee, whenever you hit someone, a cool sound effect would follow. Slashes, punches, kicks, etc. Amazing, power-inducing sound effects.
In Brawl the sounds are a little more "flowery," so to speak...the sound seems a little dull to me, I don't know.
4--Although Sakurai did bring back a bunch of Melee stages, he completely ignored the original Smash game. I want my classic Mushroom Kingdom and Sector Z stages, please.
5--Stuff is way too easy to unlock in this game. You get most of the characters from Subspace Emissary, even on the easy setting. There's no point in unlocking them if they're THAT easy to get. The same goes for the stages--we might as well have started with all of them.
6--The Zelda-themed trophies cater WAY too much to Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. There were a bunch of other Zelda games too, you know.
Those flaws are very insignificant in the grand scheme of things, trust me. And who knows, since Brawl is online-capable, Sakurai could maybe release a patch or update of some sort to fix some of these minor things. Now let's take a look at the characters.
MARIO--Basically the same, except his Melee down B is now his midair down A, and his new Down B is F.L.U.D.D., which is a terrible move. I can find little to no use for it.
LUIGI--Meh, basically the same, except his "karate chop" is not nearly as powerful, and his up B lands him on his head. But, you can still do the Luigi Cyclone glitch and use it as a recovery move, which is cool.
PEACH--Peach Bomber is better in this game, that's the only difference I'm finding.
BOWSER--His over B, Flying Slam, is much better than the one in Melee. That's the only difference.
LINK--Gale Boomerang replaces boomerang, and his aerial down A attack got a significant power reduction from Melee.
ZELDA--Not a whole lot of differences here, but then again, I don't use Zelda often. Same goes for Sheik.
TOON LINK--He's kind of like Young Link from Melee--his Aerial Down A is a meteor smash, his boomerang has more control but less range, his up B on the ground sucks in players instead of launching them pinball-style, etc.
GANONDORF--A stupid character. He was awesome in Melee, but now he's just lame. He's much slower and a little weaker too.
Ah well...you get the idea. Some characters changed, others didn't. In most cases, good changes were made. For example, remember how Ness wasn't all that great in Melee? Well now he is. And Lucario is a slightly better replacement than Mewtwo.
One character change I'm not happy with, however, is Mr. Game & Watch. He was a powerhouse if used effectively in melee, but now he's not.
That's my review of Brawl. Overall it's a great game, probably the best Wii game to date. Only a few "bad" things about it. And remember: none of the smash games take more or less skill than the other.
So I got Brawl like 4 or 5 days ago, and the reason I got it was because I loved the first two smash games. They are my FAVORITE fighting games ever (and yes, I have played numerous fighting games before I played smash). Why? Because it's nothing but a collection of my favorite Nintendo characters, environments, items, trophies, etc.
I loved Smash 64.
I loved Melee.
Brawl is pretty good. It's still growing on me.
The thing with Brawl, though, is that it takes a completely different type of skill than Melee did. In terms of gameplay mechanics, Brawl is a lot like Smash 64: movement is a tad slower, there is slightly less gravity, and your opponent needs a higher damage percentage in order to get knocked off.
In Melee, you knew you were a skilled player if you could move fast to keep up with your opponent. You also had to time your midair attacks because you could only stay airborne for a short time. Also, 60% spelled danger for you. Both Melee and Brawl are tactical games--you cannot mash buttons if you expect to beat someone who has even a pint of skill in the game. That goes for both games. Neither one is more balanced than the other, IMO. I have played them both, and have adapted to the play style of each one.
So if you liked Smash 64 a LOT, chances are you'll adapt to Brawl in no time. Now that we got the gameplay style out of the way, I'll talk about all the good stuff in Brawl.
1--It does have online capabilities.
2--It has so much oldschool stuff in it! Pit is a playable character, and he was from an NES game (which rocked, by the way). Sakurai really made sure that he would captivate retro gamers in his audience, and he did a good job. From using retro characters (Game & Watch, R.O.B., Ice Climbers, Pit), to even putting in retro items (spring, hothead, deku nuts from OOT), and making old-themed stages too (Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Arcade, Green Hill Zone, Mushroomy Kingdom). He even put in Pokemon Trainer from the first pokemon game, and that says something.
3--Stuff from the newer games is also used, but it's not overdone. Sure, he included Delfino Plaza and Luigi's Mansion, as well as 2 recent Zelda-themed stages. But he had to--he can't just appeal to those of us who have been with Nintendo ever since the NES. It's all about widening the target audience. I think Toon Link is an awesome character. Pirate Ship is an awesome stage. The Dragoon is an awesome item.
4--The music selection is near-perfect. Anybody remember the Dark World theme from A Link to the Past, or the Bramble Blast song from Donkey Kong Country 2? Those were two of the best songs from any Super Nintendo game ever. I was surprised to hear them in Brawl. Sakurai made sure to only use songs that were the definition of awesomeness. Boy did he do a good job on that. Also, the mountain theme from Zelda: Link's Awakening...lemme tell you, I love the gameboy Zelda game, and I always thought that the mountain theme was AMAZING. And then BAM--I beat Classic mode with Link in SSBB, and what do I hear? The mountain theme!
5--Subspace Emissary is awesome too. The best adventure mode of any fighting game ever.
6--The Summit Stage. Hey, it's better than Icicle Mountain. I count that as an improvement. Same goes for Flat Zone 2 being better than Flat Zone.
7--The new alternate costumes are more game-specific than they were in Melee. Look, we finally get firepower Mario, and Luigi wearing Waluigi's outfit. You know what else? Toon Link is wearing the classic tunic from the original Legend of Zelda game!
...Those are only some of the good things, OK, if I were to do all of them, we'd be here all day...Now, to make it a fair review, there are some not-so-great things in Brawl:
1--Tripping! It seems like whenever I want to dash, I trip! That's stupid.
2--Ledge-grabbing is far too easy in this game. First of all, in Brawl, you don't even have to be facing the ledge to grab it. Secondly, you can be kinda far away from the ledge and you'll still automatically grab onto it. Neither of those flaws were present in Melee.
3--Sound effects in Brawl don't sound as powerful as they did in Melee...allow me to explain. In Melee, whenever you hit someone, a cool sound effect would follow. Slashes, punches, kicks, etc. Amazing, power-inducing sound effects.
In Brawl the sounds are a little more "flowery," so to speak...the sound seems a little dull to me, I don't know.
4--Although Sakurai did bring back a bunch of Melee stages, he completely ignored the original Smash game. I want my classic Mushroom Kingdom and Sector Z stages, please.
5--Stuff is way too easy to unlock in this game. You get most of the characters from Subspace Emissary, even on the easy setting. There's no point in unlocking them if they're THAT easy to get. The same goes for the stages--we might as well have started with all of them.
6--The Zelda-themed trophies cater WAY too much to Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. There were a bunch of other Zelda games too, you know.
Those flaws are very insignificant in the grand scheme of things, trust me. And who knows, since Brawl is online-capable, Sakurai could maybe release a patch or update of some sort to fix some of these minor things. Now let's take a look at the characters.
MARIO--Basically the same, except his Melee down B is now his midair down A, and his new Down B is F.L.U.D.D., which is a terrible move. I can find little to no use for it.
LUIGI--Meh, basically the same, except his "karate chop" is not nearly as powerful, and his up B lands him on his head. But, you can still do the Luigi Cyclone glitch and use it as a recovery move, which is cool.
PEACH--Peach Bomber is better in this game, that's the only difference I'm finding.
BOWSER--His over B, Flying Slam, is much better than the one in Melee. That's the only difference.
LINK--Gale Boomerang replaces boomerang, and his aerial down A attack got a significant power reduction from Melee.
ZELDA--Not a whole lot of differences here, but then again, I don't use Zelda often. Same goes for Sheik.
TOON LINK--He's kind of like Young Link from Melee--his Aerial Down A is a meteor smash, his boomerang has more control but less range, his up B on the ground sucks in players instead of launching them pinball-style, etc.
GANONDORF--A stupid character. He was awesome in Melee, but now he's just lame. He's much slower and a little weaker too.
Ah well...you get the idea. Some characters changed, others didn't. In most cases, good changes were made. For example, remember how Ness wasn't all that great in Melee? Well now he is. And Lucario is a slightly better replacement than Mewtwo.
One character change I'm not happy with, however, is Mr. Game & Watch. He was a powerhouse if used effectively in melee, but now he's not.
That's my review of Brawl. Overall it's a great game, probably the best Wii game to date. Only a few "bad" things about it. And remember: none of the smash games take more or less skill than the other.
