May 23, 2008 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl is one of the most anticipated Wii games to date, and on the surface, it’s easy to see why. The Smash Bros. series has been a multiplayer staple since its inception on the N64 a decade ago, and always a favourite at parties. Unfortunately, the formula is beginning to wear a little bit thin. Aside from a massive character roster and online play, there’s little here you haven’t played already in past iterations of the franchise.

For the uninitiated, SSBB is an over-the-top fighting game that pits famous Nintendo characters across several titles against each other in crazy four player battles. It can become difficult to keep track of what exactly is going on sometimes as the game can be incredibly hectic and chaotic. The levels themselves are just as lethal as your opponents and have lots obstacles to overcome. Rather than draining health by pummelling your opponents, you increase their percentage as seen on the bottom on the screen. The higher the character’s percentage, the more likely the character is to fly off screen when hit and lose a life. You’ll also lose a life if you fall off the screen of your own accord.

Beyond your character’s abilities, you’ll have access to a wide variety of items of varying usefulness. You’ll encounter such Mario staples such as stars, mushrooms, and fireflowers. These are in addition to more practical tools of destruction like the hammer from Donkey Kong and a baseball bat. There’s roughly forty different items to use, and almost all feel useful in some capacity or another.

If you’ve played either of the previous games in the franchise, you will be right at home with this one. In an excellent move to encourage multiplayer play, there are four separate control schemes, each with their benefits and downfalls. The first is with the remote and nunchuck, for all those arm wagglers among you. The scheme works fine, but I prefer my fighting games to use a lot less motion controls. You can also play with just the Wii-mote while forgoing the nunchuck, but this scheme lacks the necessary buttons to be truly precise in your movements. For this review, it comes down to a choice between the classic controller or a GameCube controller. For those weaned on the GameCube, it still works great and there’s zero adjustment period. However, I prefer the overall feel, button layout, and wireless play that the classic controller offers. No scheme works poorly, and you’re sure to find one that suits you best. It’s nice that Nintendo made it possible to use older controllers with the game, since few people have four Wii-motes.

No matter which scheme you choose, you’ll find making precise movements to be a chore. Pressing up makes you jump, which can easily result in accidental deaths. If you push the analog stick too quickly, you’ll dash forward instead of walking. Even using a classic controller with enough buttons, the blocking shield and grab buttons use the same button. Also, some characters have very awkward movement which makes making exact jumps and specific move a real hassle. I’m thinking mostly of Lucas and Yoshi here.

At the same time however, the controls are the same for every character, taunts, special moves, basic attacks, blocks, grabs, and the use items. Since all characters control the same, there’s only a minimal adjustment period when you change characters and learn a slightly different move set. All characters can double jump, and most have a special move that allows for a third burst upward, which can really save your life if you’re about to fall to your doom.

While having the same controls for every character is great for getting new people to jump into the fray for some multiplayer fun, it means the game lacks the depth of more intricate fighting games like Tekken or Street Fighter. Granted, different characters have different moves that can be executed in different manners, but it’s entirely possible to master every character in the game after only a few hours of play. Furthermore, those who have played Smash Bros. before will have a decided advantage over any newbies, which may put off those new players.

Odds are that if you’ve ever played a single Nintendo game across their entire history, you’ll see it referenced here. There’s dozens upon dozens of characters to use, and you have many choices about how to go about unlocking them. If you only want to play multiplayer, you’ll unlock characters through the simple course of beating up your friends. After roughly 1,000 brawls, you should have all the characters unlocked. The roster includes Smash Bros. staples such as Mario, Zelda, Samus, Link, and Pikachu, but also features a plethora of new comers like Solid Snake, Sonic the Hedgehog, Diddy Kong, Meta Knight, Falco from Star Fox, among many others. One thing this game has going for it is the enviable ability to pit former cutthroat mascots Mario and Sonic against each other.