"It's like an expansion pack for melee only a bigger price tag"

Now before we begin let me remind you that I am in no way trying to say that Brawl is a bad game. It's actually quite good, not much of an improvement over melee, but still quite good nonetheless. If you own a wii then I recommend highly that you consider getting this game, however saying that now I must also make note that this game is not without it's fair share of problems. It is by no means a perfect game and shouldn't be thought of as such. Anyways without further ado heres my review of Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

For starters Brawl has quite a large roster of characters, 35 I believe, and yet when compared to melee it just doesn't seem to deliver. Now allow me the chance to try to explain this for you, melee also had quite a large roster. Infact it was only slightly smaller then brawls. Now the thing is that when you really think about it, Brawl's roster is only a slight improvement over melee's. The amount of new characters is extremely small, and most of them are just replacements for previous characters. Young Link became Toon Link, Mewtwo became Lucario. So the point that I am trying to make is that Brawl's roster is actually quite sad when compared to it's predecessor. Melee which added so many new characters to the roster compared to Brawl, the sequel, which only adds 5 or so new characters. Infact the only reason why Brawl's roster is as large as it is, is because of all the characters from melee. If melee never existed and you only included the original cast and the newcomers from brawl, and you'll see just how small Brawl's roster really is.

Anyhow I don't feel like spending any more time commenting on how much of a disappointment the roster is. I am now going to spend time commenting on how much of a disappointment the characters are. Now when you look at the list you'll probably cream yourself at how awesome most of these new characters are. Zero suit Samus? Lucas? Meta knight? Um... Rob? Now allow me to disappoint you by telling you that most of these new guys are just clones of old guys. Lucas is Ness with a cowlick and a snake in his pants, Zero suit is pretty much just a more agile version of any of the sword users, and Metaknight is just the blue offspring of Kirby and Pit. Now although most of these characters aren't necessarily clones in the general sense, there close enough that you can play as just one and master over half of the roster due to similar playing styles. I found myself playing as Pit once and discovered that I had now mastered Link, Kirby, Metaknight, Jigglypuff, Toon Link, and Rob. Okay, I lied about Rob but my point still stands. The thing is that for a roster of 35 or so, there are only a few truly unique characters to play as.

Final smashes, great aren't they? Having one appear and fighting each other over it can be a real thrill sometimes. However alot of these final smashes are kind of weak, and some are even useless depending on the level. Fox's, Falco's, and Wolf's landmasters for example aren't so effective when there's a roof over everyone's heads. Speaking of which, three landmasters? What was Sakurai thinking? I mean, canonity wise it doesn't even make sense. Falco hates using the landmaster, and there is no way in hell of Wolf ever getting his hands on one. But that's not the point that I'm trying to make. The point is that most of these characters final smashes are quite unbalanced, just try comparing DeDeDe's and Sonic's for example. Sometimes it seems like the only reason I have for going for the smash ball is just so the other guy doesn't get it. So yeah, balancing issues, bigger problem then you think.

Further more there is another thing in this game that irks that me quite a bit. Tripping, yes tripping. In this game you can trip, I've heard that it happens only when you dash too much. But looking at the slower gameplay that this game seems to boast, it's kind of hard not to dash around alot. However that's not the problem, the problem is that it exists in the first place. I mean, why include a feature that only seems to detract from the fun? That's like making a large and expansive world, and you can only explore a tiny part of it. In short things that make games less fun should not exist in the first place. There is no excuse for this, none.

Hey guys, guess what! Brawl has a story now and it's being written by the same guy who did FF7's amazing story! Ain't that great? More or less... Starting from the top SE's story is a mixed handbag. On one hand it makes no sense and simply detracts from the whole experiance, on another people have managed to come up with some pretty out there theories based on this game's lack of plot. Now as great as that last part is, a game should not rely on it's community to make better. The game should of had a good enough story that we wouldn't feel the need to try to come up with all these robust theories. Although saying this now makes me feel like I have to tell you about a theory that I came up with on my own. My theory is that the guy writing the story purposely made it suck in order to make FF7 look better in comparison, that's what I think. Point is that this story is also quite unbalanced. Some of the characters, Game & watch, Ice climbers, play only small parts in this games storyline. Infact aside from opening cutscenes and a few minor cameos later, most of the cast don't play much of a role either. For example do you know that a large amount of the boss battles are either fought by Fox or Lucas? Infact Kirby and DeDeDe seem to be a primary focus in this games plot, then again it was Sakurai who created them afterall.

Aside from the games miserable plot or lack thereof, there are still quite a few problems with the games story mode. First of all co op mode is quite unfair, secondary characters can't open doors, and if by any chance 1p dies the game ends even despite whether or not 2p is still alive. It's like story mode co op was an afterthought or something, it's a waste if you ask me. It could have been much better.

Trophies, I like them, I like looking at them and reading the bios. So imagine my suprise when I was told that the simple system of find and collect had been turned into some poor quality pokemon knock off. Don't understand? Let me spell it out for you. You collect trophy stands, weaken your opponent, and then throw the stand to try to catch it. In pokemon you collect pokeballs, weaken your opponent, and then throw the ball to try to catch it. If you still don't understand then you my friend are an idiot. Now this at first didn't seem like too much of a problem until I started to try it out for myself.

A) They are rare, and just like so they are also quite easy to waste.
B) You can't take them into other rooms, so if you've already killed everyone in a room and there is no one else to turn into a trophy. Or if you already have a trophified version of everyone one, then your trophy stand is now without a purpose. Yipee.
C) You can throw it from side to side but now up or down, which makes it a real pain trying to capture flying enemies. Where your more likely to throw it off an edge then you are to actually hit anything.
D) The amount of damage needed to catch anything. Do you know how many times I've hurt a boss to such an extent where while I'm in the middle of waiting for a trophy. A stray shell or a bomb comes out of nowhere and kills him? Okay, this isn't really a problem, I'm probably just doing it wrong. I just felt the need to get this off my chest is all.
So to wrap it up, the new trophie collection system sucks, so does the defender rip off they used, but I'm not going to get into that part.

Challenges, I really dislike the idea of doing sometimes near impossible tasks just for a vague prize. Especially when I waste a hammer only to find out that I needed to do something either equaly or of higher difficulty. Especially seeing as you only seem to get a few hammers. Now this wouldn't be so much of a problem if you could just see all the challenges from the start. Now I know this is a way of teaching us to be conservative, but saving doesn't help much when you figure out that to get this super hard challenge to appear. You have to beat a task that's only slightly less frusterating.

Stages are gimmicky, nuff said.

Okay I have alot of other problems with this game but I'm getting tired of typing so I'm just going to leave this as it is. I may go back to it later and add more, but I think this expresses the point well of enough.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/24/08

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