"Botched Fighter great Game."

The most anticipated and hyped game in Nintendo's history also shattered Nintendos fastest sold title record. Brawl is by far the most in depth unique fighter of them all, able to capture watchers and turn them into players and turn players into addicts. The game is great and totally above par, it's better than many, many other games of the fighter genre but it's no where near perfection in places that needed it.

I won't be talking about the WFC issue due to that not appearing to be a software issue.

Story: 5/10
SubSpace... is probably the worst story ever put together however it has nostalgia and fun factor. The 2 player workings of it were pathetic as both players worked on a shared lives system and player two can't fall and die but player one can, it's almost like player two was being carried along for the ride, which took away from the possible fun that playing two players could of had. But the single player Story is much better as you wont game over even half as fast, so you can progress without disturbing the flow of the story. Seriously SSE was just adventure modex15 (melee) with CGI.

So where does the 5 come from for SSE? Simply 2 for effort, 1 for nostalgia and 2 for the story at least wrapping it self up in a non Square-Enix (blame religion) way.
The SSE is just a good way to unlock the characters of the game, it's only 8 hours long so the pain isn't horrible, it has no replay value and as a stand alone game I would download the ROM of it instead of paying a penny.

Music: 10/10
This is just perfection, hell if the other parts of the game was as perfect as this then I'd give it a 10/10. The Music is clearly where they went all out. Even if you don't like one song theirs at least 6 others for that stage and one of them your bound not to mind, plus theirs over 40 stages so eventually you'll find a few stages you like with the music you like. The quality in some of the songs, the nostalgia, the vigoration it gives you to fight or just laugh or get competitive is in culmination sheer perfection.

You can even set the the chance of the song being used on that stage in the options menu so, I can't say anything bad about this part, if I can't say anything bad then it must be perfect.

Graphics: 9/10
I always give Wii games 9/10 for graphics, not because I'm a graphics hound but because I know that 1080p is the alleged 10/10, but that aside the game does deserve a 9/10 because of the blur (which you can change) effect, when you have a collage of items all you can see are a blotch of colors (specially when theirs a pokeball mixed in with the food.) The screen is just too cluttered at most times, theirs always some flashy crazy stuff going on in the back ground with the colors. N64 Smash had much less graphical noise than Brawl which I'm weighing against brawl right now, Melee was a nice middle ground but brawl leaves my eyes dazzled long after playing it. The good thing is you can still play the game through it with minimal effort. I use component cables when I play and their is a huge difference in how the details stand out than when viewed using AV cables. Also the adding of slow motion for hard connecting hit's is a total bonus.

Replay Ability: 10/10
Brawl can always be played again, this is the truth if you have friends in real life that you can chill out with over this game, other wise I'm not quite sure if WFC with all it's non-percision glory can be an good enough substitute. Brawl is a game you can play for 2 years and still go back to for the next 3 years, as is the case with Smash Bros. I don't mean once a year either I'm mean like 'you just got the game played.' The game has so many modes, even up to 32 player torny mode that players in real life can enjoy, the items are a whole other thing that keep the game interesting.

Sound: 10/10
The sound effects are perfect also, the game lets you know that the hit you just landed hurt them or tickled them, when certain hits connect you can hear the bones crunch, and with certain visuals going off when you do these things; it pulls you into the game. The voices (Wha, Whoo) or battle crys the characters bellow have nothing wrong with them aside from the nagging ones (kirby) but that's just the way he sounds.

Game play: 4/10
This is what kills this game, I'm not expecting melee in fact I want something thats not melee. But this is just a developer on an acid trip, the game is so horribly imbalanced it only helps you get frustrated. I sit using each character in training mode for a few hours a day trying to figure out what works, from what angles and I realize the game is broken in this area. Certain elements melee had that gave certain characters a unique advantage was ripped away or forgotten and this makes the game much less absorbable as it should be, instead of looking at possiblities you look at impossiblities due to the games stand alone physics. It's like the standard was flipped around and common sense thrown out the window, instead of building % damage now your just using 1 hit that does massive % to kill someone.

Using a character with moves that multihit rather than do a strait hit for 16%-30% will lead you to the wall of things you can't do, simply because any range of damage sends them flying sure however 25+25+25 = 75. So while they are coming back trying to survive you just need to hit them two more times to get massive amounts of damage before the game begins to lower that attacks damage % by that point enough damage has been placed to perform a kill. These characters (who shall remain nameless) can essentially land 5 moves from 0% to kill even the large characters. While characters from 3% - 15% are stuck doing the same kind of knock back but need two maybe three times as many hits to get the same effect, and their knock back though roughly the same as the harder % givers lack that 5th move (usually) to send them out instead they need to continue working that target to 150% - 180%.

That may be understood however in most cases the characters with higher % have higher priorities (training mode tests) meaning poke for poke the higher % pokes tend to win out.

Clearly a character doing lower % damage shouldn't be doing equivical knock back to a character doing higher % damage, it makes no sense, it just leads into a chase where the odds are against the lower % person chasing someone who shouldn't have flown that far from a 8% move and they only have 40% damage.

Hit boxes are insane for some characters also, I've used a mid ranged move (long reaching kick that kept my character stationary) and was grabbed by another character out of range of the kick. I quickly put this to the test with my friend in training mode and it's just how that character grabs.

This is where the 7 comes from in the over all, even though the story brought it down also.

Over All: The game is in your face Melee 1.1 but in reality it's not melee at all, if you think it is, then you haven't played it enough or you never played melee enough. This game is great, better than many other games I've played in a while, in fact this game is my new bar for what a good game is. But it deserves no more than a 7.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/08

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