Brawl will sell well. I know people that have absolutely no interest in Nintendo but still love the Smash series. There's no doubt in my mind that Brawl will sell for years. However, complaints would be if we bought the game and went to Nintendo and complained that it didn't work. This is actually more like critical feedback. Nintendo is (what now?) seven years behind of what we wanted. I already said that this roster looks more of what Melee should have been, what we wanted back then but it lacks what we want now. That's where I think Nintendo went wrong; they should have added what was lacking in Melee and add what we were expecting now. Instead they added what we wanted in Melee and forgot what we wanted and expected in the year 2008.
Plus, you have to admit that the DK and Metroid fans were once again hit with the short end of the stick; Even 12 year olds are aware of it, an acquaintance of mine had her younger brother whine "They should have at least added a space pirate or two!!"
I hope it sells well. Because all huge efforts at impressing the long time gamers have only yielded modest sales.
Being a huge Metroid fan myself, I am satisfied with having Samus go it alone again. Ridley being turned into a playable character would have made him a joke, Ridley wasn't smart enough to pick up items and fight tournament style. He's a giant monstrosity who just wants to destroy everything, so his place in the game makes sense. I always thought that a possible, although unnecessary addition would be one of the Hunters from the two Metroid Prime games they appeared in, however, they were all one shot deals that didn't mean a whole lot to the series. Samus goes it alone, and that's the way I like it personally. I was a little disapointed when only Norfair was announced being another lava level, but my worries were calmed when they also showed off a second Metroid stage from the Prime series, which I thought was going to recieve no recognition whatsoever. Plenty of Zero Mission references including the Zero Suit, the Subspace Emmisary.. I mean I could go on and on... there are so many more important things that they remembered to include, and it all looks like it turned out really well.
Also happen to be a big Donkey Kong Country fan, and they finally got it on the money. Donkey Kong isn't the big oaf that he has been in the Mario series anymore with Diddy Kong at his side. The Donkey Kong influence in the stages, and music is leaps and bounds vs. any effort there has been to reference DKC since they stopped making them.
Meta-Knight, Dedede, New Ganondorf, Wolf and Snake are all new characters that I'm supremely impressed with.
Every single previous Smash Bros. character having their moves and attacks tweaked is another thing that impresses me. I was relieved to see my old favorites make their returns, as I was worried they were going to get shafted.
I guess some people just got what they wanted. These are some of the things I appreciate about the ample roster. Sure, there were characters that I wished for, but y'know, it was a gamble. Couldn't have everybodies characters there, and I understood that from day one. If one can say that there are clones, I still say that 30 some characters is huge, and 5 extra clones is just bonus material vs. no clones and just 30 characters.
But whether it's the stages being so dynamic, the character roster being too small, the concentration on items, the Subspace Emissary (a huge single player adventure that people are blaming for lack of content elsewhere), the Wi-Fi... it just feels like people are concentrating on the negative and it's been like this since we seen the first screenshots. People crying that Kirby didn't change much. Please. You can only put so many graphics into a small pink ball. It's just disappointing is all when you compare it to other Nintendo efforts in recent that this game isn't more appreciated. They did their very best, and I appreciate the fact that I'm going to have years of enjoyment for $49.99. That's like the price of 5 movie tickets without popcorn, 10 hours of enjoyment, vs. 1000's of hours of enjoyment like Melee did. Destroys mostly any other game on the Wii and matches the best efforts of other consoles arguably, and still, people concentrate on the negative. It's just blows my mind is all.
It's sad is all. I hope it's just a phase. I'm not saying people are not allowed to express disappointment, but I'm just disappointed at all the disappointment and quite frankly don't understand it. And if Brawl even passes with modest sales, that won't be enough to encourage Nintendo that they did something right. They did do something right, they are giving us a great game that doesn't just cash out on the Touch Generation. If we want to see more of this, we have to show support, otherwise no more Zelda, no more Metroid, just: Mario Party and Brain Games for the rest of Nintendo's history.
