Welcome to the Weekly Nintendo Corner! Every week as the weekend nears, Smashboards will be covering a title from the Nintendo pantheon. Most of the time, these are new releases or games that are coming out soon, but do expect surprises – every once in a while, there may be a blast from the past
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
This week’s topic is the 2008 release Super Smash Bros. Brawl, commonly shortened to “Brawl”. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the third game in the series. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the sequel to Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. (for those who missed Melee and 64, for 64 and for Melee. Super Smash Bros. Brawl added a story mode along with new features, gameplay, characters, and more from the Nintendo universe to continue duking it out.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl contained many large changes from the previous entries. While many of the same basic mechanics stuck, speed was heavily changed, an online mode, and a big emphasis on the Subspace Emissary
Premise in Development
Unlike the previous titles, Super Smash Bros. Brawl had a lot more development time. The development officially started in October 2005 and continued until January 2008; over 24 months of time. That’s more time than the previous two games combined! Much like the previous games, practically everything in the Wii is used to make it work. It ended up using a dual-layer disc due to the size of the game data; some Wii’s had a problem reading this due to a contaminated laser lens. Nintendo ended up offering free repairs to any with this problem.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl was first announced in a pre-E3 2005 press conference. Sakurai was not informed of the intent of releasing a new game in the series; despite this, he came back and agreed to work as Director. When development began, Nintendo opened a new office in Tokyo to make it happen and received help from many games studios, including, but not limited to, Game Arts, Paon, Monolith Soft, several Third-Party companies, and The Pokemon Company. While 100 worked on the project full time, hundreds worked on the game in assisting.
Easily the most interesting aspect during Development was the Super Smash Bros DOJO!! over here. This was a site that updated every weekday with new information about the game – it was always a surprise, though. Whether it was a new stage, a character, or whatever else. This ended up returning in a variation for Super Smash Bros. Wii U & 3DS but Brawl had it as a Smash First, and it had quite the shocks.
Of course, Super Smash Bros. Brawl came with its own development problems. When given too much, it’s easy to get greedy and ambitious at a rapidly fast rate. Fortunately, the team was able to stay in scope, but it wasn’t easy to stay in scope. At many times, it felt as if the game would never come out with having not one but two delays!
Much like Super Smash Bros. Melee, many aspects of Brawl are not discussed from the development stages; heck, much more is cryptic. There’s more information out to speculate than what’s actually known.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, despite being a very ambitious game with a legacy to live up to, still ended up being released in a realistic time frame and being a quality game.
Result
The result of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was quite the feat for a console like the Wii. With twelve million in sales, being one of the greatest selling Wii games, and a huge helper of the trio of major games before the drought (Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart Wii came in-between), continuing a series trend of fantastic reviews across the board, and still noticed for an early release in the year? Simply amazing.
Of course, that isn’t all to the story. Community reception wasn’t the most positive, but looking at a different angle, this game truly displays the Smash community’s love of Smash from many different angles.
For a start, this was easily one of the most speculated games of all time before release. There was almost always something new to talk about from announcement trailer until release. What is Snake doing in Smash Bros.? Will characters be cut? What other newcomers will be present? What about stages? – The questions continued onwards until release.
More was had for it too; a fresh taste of something new to keep the series relevant while remaining different – The huge focus to a lean of reads opponents needed made a huge difference in overall skill of Smash. One other big change was more multiplayer modes being added in; Subspace Emissary being a big one to attribute to this.
Pre-release and launch? That’s not all to the game’s hidden success. Considering the Wii was a pretty easy console to mod, quickly after the Game’s release, many took it upon themselves to modify the game to stuff they wanted – Even with all the content, Nintendo fans could always imagine more, but now they themselves could create! What’s amazing is still the amount of hours put in to modify the game – Project M, a modification of Brawl to make it faster, more competitive, and more engaging, - was recorded to be over 10,000 man hours from all team members. That’s madness!
While Brawl may have taken a while to gain respect for, it was still a game of passion from all ends and easily one of the most interesting games ever to watch; from pre-release to all the modifications that came with it
Project M
Project M started out as an attempt to change Falco to play more like Melee. Quickly, though, the potential was realized and a team came to truly make this game plausible.
While it does take inspiration from Melee and carries over many aspects of Melee, it still uses Super Smash Bros. Brawl for a base – all of the cast from the Roster stuck in, so it’s quite the treat.
Of course, Project M also does bring upon its own new content. Many custom outfits, different stages, a debug mode, a turbo mode, All-Star Versus, and much more! Project M is so big as it's own entity that it's even been listed as a top Ten game.l
While this is a mod made by many talented people, the amount of polish put into it, especially for a fan project, is the amount of work hardly ever seen in the Games industry. If you're a fan of Smash and haven't already, check it out here!
About the Team
Ad Hoc Development Team (many studios) is a group of many studios that worked together. It’s hard to put the credits on just one company for a game so huge; many companies contributed a piece.
The most interesting one is easily Sora Ltd.; this is Masahiro Sakurai’s own independent company. They’re known for contracting employees with two main full time employees – Masahiro Sakurai and his Wife.
The other works from Sora Ltd. Thus far are Meteos, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
For more information of Sora Ltd., check here and for more information about Brawl's development, check here
Music
And to think there’s over 250 songs with many remixes!
How to Obtain Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl ranges from about $30 for a new copy with a used copy being about $15. 2GB SD cards or lower for the Wii range about $5-15 bucks with this recommendation . With it using the Wii and being able to play Melee and 64, and the Wii’s being at a low price, if you’re in looking for a copy of Brawl, now is easily the time!
Fondest memory with Super Smash Bros. Brawl? Did you ever stay up speculating? Enjoy Project M? Did this medium length piece manage to give good coverage to Project M and Brawl? Let us know in the comments below, and just hang in there a bit longer, as we’re almost done with the month of Smash!
Thethirdkoopa is a Game Producer, Collector, Musician, and Smash Fanatic at heart. He’s continuing on his reign of being back in action with more content than ever before! He has a lot of fond memories with Brawl as well and is excited for APEX, CEO, and Evo. Chat with him about Brawl and other Smash Memories on @Thirdkoopa so he’s not alone.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
This week’s topic is the 2008 release Super Smash Bros. Brawl, commonly shortened to “Brawl”. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the third game in the series. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the sequel to Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. (for those who missed Melee and 64, for 64 and for Melee. Super Smash Bros. Brawl added a story mode along with new features, gameplay, characters, and more from the Nintendo universe to continue duking it out.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl contained many large changes from the previous entries. While many of the same basic mechanics stuck, speed was heavily changed, an online mode, and a big emphasis on the Subspace Emissary
Premise in Development
Unlike the previous titles, Super Smash Bros. Brawl had a lot more development time. The development officially started in October 2005 and continued until January 2008; over 24 months of time. That’s more time than the previous two games combined! Much like the previous games, practically everything in the Wii is used to make it work. It ended up using a dual-layer disc due to the size of the game data; some Wii’s had a problem reading this due to a contaminated laser lens. Nintendo ended up offering free repairs to any with this problem.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl was first announced in a pre-E3 2005 press conference. Sakurai was not informed of the intent of releasing a new game in the series; despite this, he came back and agreed to work as Director. When development began, Nintendo opened a new office in Tokyo to make it happen and received help from many games studios, including, but not limited to, Game Arts, Paon, Monolith Soft, several Third-Party companies, and The Pokemon Company. While 100 worked on the project full time, hundreds worked on the game in assisting.
Easily the most interesting aspect during Development was the Super Smash Bros DOJO!! over here. This was a site that updated every weekday with new information about the game – it was always a surprise, though. Whether it was a new stage, a character, or whatever else. This ended up returning in a variation for Super Smash Bros. Wii U & 3DS but Brawl had it as a Smash First, and it had quite the shocks.
Of course, Super Smash Bros. Brawl came with its own development problems. When given too much, it’s easy to get greedy and ambitious at a rapidly fast rate. Fortunately, the team was able to stay in scope, but it wasn’t easy to stay in scope. At many times, it felt as if the game would never come out with having not one but two delays!
Much like Super Smash Bros. Melee, many aspects of Brawl are not discussed from the development stages; heck, much more is cryptic. There’s more information out to speculate than what’s actually known.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, despite being a very ambitious game with a legacy to live up to, still ended up being released in a realistic time frame and being a quality game.
Result
The result of Super Smash Bros. Brawl was quite the feat for a console like the Wii. With twelve million in sales, being one of the greatest selling Wii games, and a huge helper of the trio of major games before the drought (Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart Wii came in-between), continuing a series trend of fantastic reviews across the board, and still noticed for an early release in the year? Simply amazing.
Of course, that isn’t all to the story. Community reception wasn’t the most positive, but looking at a different angle, this game truly displays the Smash community’s love of Smash from many different angles.
For a start, this was easily one of the most speculated games of all time before release. There was almost always something new to talk about from announcement trailer until release. What is Snake doing in Smash Bros.? Will characters be cut? What other newcomers will be present? What about stages? – The questions continued onwards until release.
More was had for it too; a fresh taste of something new to keep the series relevant while remaining different – The huge focus to a lean of reads opponents needed made a huge difference in overall skill of Smash. One other big change was more multiplayer modes being added in; Subspace Emissary being a big one to attribute to this.
Pre-release and launch? That’s not all to the game’s hidden success. Considering the Wii was a pretty easy console to mod, quickly after the Game’s release, many took it upon themselves to modify the game to stuff they wanted – Even with all the content, Nintendo fans could always imagine more, but now they themselves could create! What’s amazing is still the amount of hours put in to modify the game – Project M, a modification of Brawl to make it faster, more competitive, and more engaging, - was recorded to be over 10,000 man hours from all team members. That’s madness!
While Brawl may have taken a while to gain respect for, it was still a game of passion from all ends and easily one of the most interesting games ever to watch; from pre-release to all the modifications that came with it
Project M
Project M started out as an attempt to change Falco to play more like Melee. Quickly, though, the potential was realized and a team came to truly make this game plausible.
While it does take inspiration from Melee and carries over many aspects of Melee, it still uses Super Smash Bros. Brawl for a base – all of the cast from the Roster stuck in, so it’s quite the treat.
Of course, Project M also does bring upon its own new content. Many custom outfits, different stages, a debug mode, a turbo mode, All-Star Versus, and much more! Project M is so big as it's own entity that it's even been listed as a top Ten game.l
While this is a mod made by many talented people, the amount of polish put into it, especially for a fan project, is the amount of work hardly ever seen in the Games industry. If you're a fan of Smash and haven't already, check it out here!
About the Team
Ad Hoc Development Team (many studios) is a group of many studios that worked together. It’s hard to put the credits on just one company for a game so huge; many companies contributed a piece.
The most interesting one is easily Sora Ltd.; this is Masahiro Sakurai’s own independent company. They’re known for contracting employees with two main full time employees – Masahiro Sakurai and his Wife.
The other works from Sora Ltd. Thus far are Meteos, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
For more information of Sora Ltd., check here and for more information about Brawl's development, check here
Music
How to Obtain Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl ranges from about $30 for a new copy with a used copy being about $15. 2GB SD cards or lower for the Wii range about $5-15 bucks with this recommendation . With it using the Wii and being able to play Melee and 64, and the Wii’s being at a low price, if you’re in looking for a copy of Brawl, now is easily the time!
Fondest memory with Super Smash Bros. Brawl? Did you ever stay up speculating? Enjoy Project M? Did this medium length piece manage to give good coverage to Project M and Brawl? Let us know in the comments below, and just hang in there a bit longer, as we’re almost done with the month of Smash!
Thethirdkoopa is a Game Producer, Collector, Musician, and Smash Fanatic at heart. He’s continuing on his reign of being back in action with more content than ever before! He has a lot of fond memories with Brawl as well and is excited for APEX, CEO, and Evo. Chat with him about Brawl and other Smash Memories on @Thirdkoopa so he’s not alone.
