"Under all this hype it would appear to be a game little above average."

Introduction:
Alright, so we've finally got the game we've been waiting seven years for. Open up the shiny packaging, and put it in the Wii. You're excited. You're now ready to Brawl. I'll give you the good and the bad in this review. Note that since this is coming from a person who has been waiting for Brawl, that I'm not being biased when I give the bads.

Gameplay: (6/10)
The first thing you want to do when you boot up your game is go on either Multiplayer, or Wifi. If you're a person who likes to finish story mode first then you go in Solo mode. Let's break down Solo mode; it appears to be little more than Melees' single player at a first glance, but with a second look you'll see that some things have been upgraded, most, however are still the same as they were on Melee. You no longer have the Board the Platform, and now all the characters have the same Break the Target stages. Event mode seems to be the same, just with different events; although now you can choose a difficulty setting of easy, medium, or hard instead of it just being a one-set difficulty throughout it. Training and Classic mode are the same. Adventure mode, however, has been fully upgraded. You now have a new upgraded adventure mode titled The Subspace Emissary. The cutscene in the beginning leads to believe that it's going to be an amazing story; however after little playing the enemies soon become repetitive and boring. There is a boss fight every once and awhile, followed by some more cutscenes. The only real highlights in this mode is being able to unlock things. That somehow makes it a bit more bearable.

Now on to the multiplayer. Brawls multiplayer would be expected to have been a leap forward in competitive Nintendo gaming; hopefully replacing Melee. This, like story mode appears to be little different than Melee. The only new things are the characters, the levels, and some new items. The bad part is that they've slowed down the gameplay. Unlike in Melee, speed will no longer be a major factor, giving Bowser users chances to get hits on people like sonic. You may think this is good, but it leaves this game unbalanced. Other characters need to have speed to match the power of bigger ones. Now sonic is a bit faster than bowser, but quite a bit lesser in power. I would have hoped they could have perfected the imbalance from Melee a better way in Brawl.

Moving on to Wifi. Wifi is the biggest highlight in Brawl. We've all wanted to brawl against fellow players from across the world. Well, now you can. There are also some new features such as being able to preform Multiman Brawl and Homerun Contest with two people now over Wifi. You can brawl from a range of 1v1 to a four person free-for-all. Team battles are also available. The only major letdown in this feature is Nintendos' servers. The lag online is horrendous. I suppose it's nothing that should be complained about though, after all the servers are free. Yet again though, we have to deal with tedious friend-codes. There is a good side however, you can now add people in your friends games by sending a friend request, meaning that you don't need to fuss with getting a code from them.

Controls: (8/10)
The controls on the Wii are indeed innovative, but for some odd reason they feel so un-natural parse. Most vets will find themselves going back to their old Gamecube controls because so. Getting used to the new controls will probably allow the game to be played to it's fullest, however. Nintendo also added a new feature that allows for you to preset any control for any of the four controls, allowing you to fully customize what each button does. This allows for complete freedom in the game through the controls.

Story: (4/10)
As I said above, the features on the story are lacking. The Subspace Emissary gets boring and repetitive after an hour. You are always going on side-scrolling screens fighting the same enemies over and over. Some people like it though because you get to unlock things, I however am a person who likes diversity and interesting things in a story-line. There is a bit of diversity to a extent by being able to use more than one the characters throughout the adventure mode. It's a gigantic leap from being only able to use one in Melees' adventure mode.

Classic mode is also nothing special. It's based around the one that was in Melee and the original Smash Brothers; meaning that their is twelve stages and a couple of bonus stages. This time however, you only have Break the Target as a bonus stage.

Graphics/Sound: (10/10)
Aside from wifi, these are indeed one of the biggest perks of this game. The graphics are indeed amazing. All the cutscenes look amazing. So much detail was put in to each character that it's truly enjoyable to the eyes; even the pikmin for Olimar have great detail. Final smashes are also neat to watch.

The sound is also great. They redid a ton of their former music just for Brawl. Doing so makes the music feel new, refreshing, crisp, and enjoyable. They had to of spent a ton on the orchestra part. If you're one who likes the original things, they also have some of the original tracks. Categories vary from Zelda, to Sonic, to Fire Emblem, and even to original Donky Kong theme.

Over all, whether it be the detail on the cutscenes, to the newly redone Zelda songs; I definitely give this part of the game a 10/10.

Extra's: (7/10)
Well, I'm assuming you've all guessed what main bonus thing Brawl will obviously have; Trophies. Another new thing they've included is stickers. In addition to being able to collect trophies as you did in Melee, there is also an updated way to earn them. Instead of the lottery in Melee, you now have a thing called 'Coin Launcher'. In this little feature, you're in a replica of a space fighter and shoot out coins as your weapon. Occasionally trophies will come across the screen, by hitting them with about three coins they break and become part of your collection; you also have little enemies that you can shoot, and by destroying their whole fleet you usually get a sticker. Beware though, sometimes there are missiles that come towards you, and if they hit you'll lose around ten coins.

Masterpieces are a new thing added. It's a sample of some of Nintendo's older games; ranging from the Nintendo Entertainment System(NES) to the Nintendo 64. They have a preset time-limit though that limits how long you can play each game. Games such as Donkey Kong only allow you to play for thirty seconds, while games such as StarFox 64 allow you to play for up to three minutes. All in all this is a great feature that lets you sample some games that you may later even end up buying on the Virtual Console feature of the Wii.

Play Time/Replayability: (6/10)
This is the hard part to decide. See, I'm positive the story mode is worth never even going into again once you've finished it; however the multiplayer modes allow for countless matches time and time again. If you're a former Melee fan, and you can get used to the slowed down gameplay, then I'm positive that you'll enjoy this game for years to come. If Nintendo fixes their server problems, then this game will be literally flawless on multiplayer. Another advantage is that the computers in this game are now far better than the ones in Melee, leaving for a slight better challenge to the elitists.

Final Verdict: (6/10 Not an average)
This game appears to be little more than Melee, with the exception of Wifi and the graphics/sounds. If you're a person who likes the speed factor like me, then you'll soon be yearning to go back in the fray of Melee. This game is one of the biggest letdowns, but it was to be expected after all that hype.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/08, Updated 03/17/08

Game Release: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (US, 03/09/08)