Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Nintendo Wii

...

Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Nintendo Wii

...

- The Subspace Emissary. I heard so much on the DOJO! before this game came out about the Subspace Emissary would be the single player adventure game everyone's been waiting for. It's honestly just busy work. You have to fight each boss twice, and there is a TON of backtracking towards the end (The Great Maze, the level is called - more like great waste of anyone's time). It takes too long, and the videos are terrible. Why are they terrible - there is no dialogue, and you cannot discern what the hell is going on. Since I couldn't figure out what was going on, I really got taken out of the "Emissary" very quickly. Something about the Subspace and robots working for some non-existent character the Ancient Minister and Tabuu. Also, those bombs that seem to destroy areas of the world and the robots are all sad - well they shouldn't be, because when you go into those bombs (which you spend probably 5 or 6 levels simply running from) there is the other world where the final boss lies.

No.3 - Unlockables gallore, to the point where its annoying and ridiculous. Beat the 100 man brawl under 4 minutes, unlock a trophy. Beat it again under 3 minutes and 30 seconds, get another trophy. Beat it with every character (there are 35), how tediously appropriate for a trophy. My beef with the trophies, is that the information supplied is purely basic. In Melee, when you won a character trophy it at least described the players special moves and what they were good at.

No.4 - Items. I didn't realize that more items was supposed to mean more awesome-ness. I didn't get that memo. In Melee, my favorite levels were plain stages - Battlefield, Final destination, even Corneria and Pokemon Stadium - and I always played with items to appear, umm, NEVER! Melee didn't really have an item addiction, but this game has final smashes, which are gimmicks much like Mario Power Tennis (which ruined that game as well) and the Dragoon. Items which offer instant kills. Oh, and there's a golden hammer, which is like a better regular hammer. What happened to good old fashioned melee's and seeing who is the better fighter and player in the game? This game in it's single player modes becomes whether you or the CPU can get to the Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher first.

No.5 - Repetition and Re-Hashing. I don't really mind that Final Destination and Battlefield appear again with some minor improvements on the backgrounds, or that many other good and great Melee stages appear (I actually want to play on Saffron City from the original). But when this game creates new stages for DK that are exactly like Melee's Ice Climbers stage, that is only the start of it. Fox's final smash is getting in the Landmaster, his giant tank which fills up most of many of the stages. He can fire his cannon, fly into the air for a bit and spin to kill enemies. Guess who has the same final smash. Falco. Why? He's a bird. Wouldn't he jump in his arwing? The answer is that it was easier to make 1 final smash for 3 characters. I don't want to ruin who the final character from Star Fox is, but don't worry, it doesn't add anything to the game. By the way, Falco and Gannondorf are the two characters which they absolutely ruined for Brawl. I still don't know why Sonic is in the game. His B-Special moves are all the same. Spin dash this, spin dash that. Almost too fast to handle. Big Spoiler - instead of Young Link, you have Toon Link, who like Young Link is exactly like Regular Link except a little faster and has slightly different graphics. Pokemon Stadium 2 is a bad bad stage. The air field and the electric field ruin it completely. Why would you have treadmills at the edges spinning you off? It just doesn't make sense? Beat Classic mode with every character, all 35. Beat All-Star mode with every character. Beat Boss mode with every character. Beat Level 1 Target Smash with every character. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Conclusion time: There aren't really any improvements to this game from Melee, and that's the simple answer. There is a lot of running around and doing the same damn thing, and the actually Brawl's aren't much different from Melee either. You have some different characters and some different stages, but everything is really there. Gimmicks are what sell this game. Just playing Brawl mode with friends is what this game is for, so if you want it for that, great. That's where the fun is. Not in the Subspace Emissary or Classic mode, or target smash. I still don't know why this game is for the Wii. Nintendo really missed the boat there. I rationalize the poor graphics of the Wii for spectacular gameplay and groundbreaking controller interface. I can't even use the wii remote to point to the screen? I have to use the D-pad?! The designer of this game is the creator for Kirby games. Big mistake. Wait until the game gets cheaper.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Nintendo Wii

...

- The Subspace Emissary. I heard so much on the DOJO! before this game came out about the Subspace Emissary would be the single player adventure game everyone's been waiting for. It's honestly just busy work. You have to fight each boss twice, and there is a TON of backtracking towards the end (The Great Maze, the level is called - more like great waste of anyone's time). It takes too long, and the videos are terrible. Why are they terrible - there is no dialogue, and you cannot discern what the hell is going on. Since I couldn't figure out what was going on, I really got taken out of the "Emissary" very quickly. Something about the Subspace and robots working for some non-existent character the Ancient Minister and Tabuu. Also, those bombs that seem to destroy areas of the world and the robots are all sad - well they shouldn't be, because when you go into those bombs (which you spend probably 5 or 6 levels simply running from) there is the other world where the final boss lies.



No.3 - Unlockables gallore, to the point where its annoying and ridiculous. Beat the 100 man brawl under 4 minutes, unlock a trophy. Beat it again under 3 minutes and 30 seconds, get another trophy. Beat it with every character (there are 35), how tediously appropriate for a trophy. My beef with the trophies, is that the information supplied is purely basic. In Melee, when you won a character trophy it at least described the players special moves and what they were good at.



No.4 - Items. I didn't realize that more items was supposed to mean more awesome-ness. I didn't get that memo. In Melee, my favorite levels were plain stages - Battlefield, Final destination, even Corneria and Pokemon Stadium - and I always played with items to appear, umm, NEVER! Melee didn't really have an item addiction, but this game has final smashes, which are gimmicks much like Mario Power Tennis (which ruined that game as well) and the Dragoon. Items which offer instant kills. Oh, and there's a golden hammer, which is like a better regular hammer. What happened to good old fashioned melee's and seeing who is the better fighter and player in the game? This game in it's single player modes becomes whether you or the CPU can get to the Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher first.



No.5 - Repetition and Re-Hashing. I don't really mind that Final Destination and Battlefield appear again with some minor improvements on the backgrounds, or that many other good and great Melee stages appear (I actually want to play on Saffron City from the original). But when this game creates new stages for DK that are exactly like Melee's Ice Climbers stage, that is only the start of it. Fox's final smash is getting in the Landmaster, his giant tank which fills up most of many of the stages. He can fire his cannon, fly into the air for a bit and spin to kill enemies. Guess who has the same final smash. Falco. Why? He's a bird. Wouldn't he jump in his arwing? The answer is that it was easier to make 1 final smash for 3 characters. I don't want to ruin who the final character from Star Fox is, but don't worry, it doesn't add anything to the game. By the way, Falco and Gannondorf are the two characters which they absolutely ruined for Brawl. I still don't know why Sonic is in the game. His B-Special moves are all the same. Spin dash this, spin dash that. Almost too fast to handle. Big Spoiler - instead of Young Link, you have Toon Link, who like Young Link is exactly like Regular Link except a little faster and has slightly different graphics. Pokemon Stadium 2 is a bad bad stage. The air field and the electric field ruin it completely. Why would you have treadmills at the edges spinning you off? It just doesn't make sense? Beat Classic mode with every character, all 35. Beat All-Star mode with every character. Beat Boss mode with every character. Beat Level 1 Target Smash with every character. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.



Conclusion time: There aren't really any improvements to this game from Melee, and that's the simple answer. There is a lot of running around and doing the same damn thing, and the actually Brawl's aren't much different from Melee either. You have some different characters and some different stages, but everything is really there. Gimmicks are what sell this game. Just playing Brawl mode with friends is what this game is for, so if you want it for that, great. That's where the fun is. Not in the Subspace Emissary or Classic mode, or target smash. I still don't know why this game is for the Wii. Nintendo really missed the boat there. I rationalize the poor graphics of the Wii for spectacular gameplay and groundbreaking controller interface. I can't even use the wii remote to point to the screen? I have to use the D-pad?! The designer of this game is the creator for Kirby games. Big mistake. Wait until the game gets cheaper.