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March 4, 2008 - With more than six million copies sold worldwide since its release seven years ago, Super Smash Bros. Melee remains – easily -- GameCube's best-selling title. The 3D fighter, a sequel to 1999's surprise hit Nintendo 64 project Super Smash Bros., packed in more characters, more stages and a seemingly endless supply of nostalgic trophies and collectibles to become one of the system's most beloved efforts. There was so much content squeezed into Melee, in fact, that the multiplayer fighter kept devoted fans entertained not just for months, but years. Yet, compared to the Whopper that is Super Smash Bros Brawl, a Wii game dripping with different play modes, characters, stages and online components, Melee has been reduced to a plain old hamburger. (And by the way, we're hungry.)
Hungry, that is, for some epic offline and online multiplayer fights, and thankfully Brawl – like its predecessors – satisfies. If you want numbers, we've got them. Nintendo's latest fighter features 35 mascots – a figure up from 12 in the original and 26 in Melee. It also includes more than 40 different levels, each a throwback to classic franchise stages, both from Nintendo and also from the likes of SEGA and Konami, but we'll get to that. Point is, it's a much meatier package -- we honestly don't know why we can't seem to break from our hamburger analogies – and we haven't even started in on the customization options, online support, and more.
Video Review
With Brawl, famed series director Masahiro Sakurai and his Sora development team have spared no expense to bring to life the full Smash Bros. universe with a meticulous attention to detail and a decidedly un-Nintendo approach to presentation. For example, whereas the Big N chose not to spring for orchestrated music for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, one of the company's biggest titles, Sakurai has enlisted the aid of the industry's greatest musicians to record a largely orchestrated soundtrack for his fighter. In what other game will you be able to listen to music from Masafumi Takada (of Killer 7 fame), Kenji Ito, Koji Kondo and Akihiro Honda (who recently helped score Metal Gear Solid 4)? There are nearly 40 musicians providing songs to what is one of the greatest Nintendo soundtracks available.
Meanwhile, if you're a longtime Nintendo fan, you will be amazed by the presentation of the story sequences in Brawl's unnecessary, but nevertheless lengthy (eight-plus hours) single-player mode, known as the Subspace Emissary. Crisp, colorful full-motion animation sequences tell the story of a ridiculously epic battle between dozens of Mushroom Kingdom characters. It's clear from the opening cinematic that the studio has put a lot of time and thought into crafting the action-packed snippets, which successfully bridge the gap between the traditional platformer-esque challenges comprising the single-player affair. The storyline itself seems almost randomly compiled – a pieced together jigsaw puzzle of different factions coming together. Only after you advance halfway through are you likely to grasp the tale's underlying purpose, but at least it looks and sounds great along the way.
Mario and Sonic face off in Brawl
Brawl looks like an enhanced version of Melee. The title runs in both 480p and 16:9 widescreen display for the first time, and it also hums along at an uninterrupted 60 frames per second. This is true despite the fact that the in-world characters are comprised of more polygons and skinned with more detailed textures, likewise for the many environments (some of which are destructible), and that the title features some of the most beautiful particle explosions in any Nintendo entry yet. It's certainly a good looking Wii game, and yet many of the backgrounds are kept very simple in an effort to the keep the framerate up and character animations, while speedy, typically ignore the laws of physics, weight, and momentum. These minor nitpicks will be tossed to the side, however, the moment you're engaged in an intense four-player battle overrun with explosions and background destruction, all without so much as a hiccup in fluidity.
That said, there are some presentational deficiencies, too, although these shortcomings aren't nearly as blatant as the fighter's many qualities. The cartridge-fast speed in which you can navigate Brawl's character and stage selection screens is marred by a 20-second front-end load, a truth that clashes with the majority of other Nintendo-published titles. Meanwhile, the Subspace Emissary's flow is broken by similarly too-long loads between in-game progress and the animation sequences that complement them.
Of course, like its N64 and GCN counterparts, Brawl is a game about multiplayer matches, which, this time around, transpire both in the offline and online arenas. But if you can't seem to find a single friend, you can always turn your attention to the Subspace Emissary component so long as you lower your expectations of the experience, as it is simply not as balanced or entertaining as the stages designed for multiple human opponents. Nintendo devotees will argue that the mode is but a complementary piece to the meat and potatoes of the game and they will be right, and yet that does not mean we can give it a free pass. The single-player missions are an adequate distraction from the multiplayer selections, but as a standalone endeavor, they aren't likely to hook you or keep you glued to your television in anticipation of the next major story arch, even with all of the classic Nintendo characters housed within.
The biggest problem with the mode, which to its credit does support two-player cooperative games, is that Sora has merely kidnapped the control schemes designed for a 3D fighter and transplanted them into vertical and horizontal-scrolling platform-heavy stages. While these schemes are perfectly suited for fast-paced fights, they are only passable for more traditional levels. The second problem is that the levels and arbitrary characters (many of whom have little association to the stages you navigate) are largely uninteresting and quickly become repetitive. Thankfully, Nintendo has devised a clever system which enables completionists to unlock all of the many fighters in a variety of different ways so that if you would prefer to completely avoid the Subspace Emissary and instead focus yourself on the multiplayer modes, you have that option. In contrast, players who want to traverse through the single-player mode will be able to unlock characters by doing so.
Look out for newcomers like Captain Olimar and the Pikmin.
Brawl's multiplayer components, though, take the winning control and fight mechanics polished up in Melee and enhance them more, adding further balance, tightening maneuverability and developing the move sets for the majority of the 35 characters. The end result is a fighter which plays incredibly fast, is highly responsive, and whose inner-depth is a rabbit hole with no discernible end. Unskilled button mashers will be able to jump into the bouts with a façade of prowess, but skilled players will draw upon each fighter's unique strengths, avoid their weaknesses, and capitalize on properly timed smashes; eventually, the men shall be separated from the boys. It seems almost silly to suggest that a fighter whose move sets revolve around two buttons and an analog stick or direction pad could offer so much in the way of on-the-fly fight variety, not to mention control flexibility, but there's no denying the truth and the more you play the more you will come to believe it.
Nintendo has with Brawl injected welcomed layers of strategy to the fights with the inclusion of both assist trophies and final smashes. The former are special pick-ups which call upon trademark characters to swoop in and inflict damage on opponents, and the latter execute spectacular finishing moves sure to blast enemies off the screen. These additions can in an instant dramatically alter the shape of matches, potentially rendering knock-outs as quickly as any hammer. Final smashes appear randomly during battles and float around the screen in smash balls, which must be broken apart, and you will find yourself in a race to the item with your friends, each doing everything in his power to stop the other. Those lucky enough to unload a final smash will be rewarded with some of the most impressive animations, filled with a stunning array psychedelic overlays and particles, in the game.
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