Brawl Like You Mean itFebruary 4th, 2008 by Gloria
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Ah Smash Brothers, the pinnacle of success every nintendo character aspires to. Where the best of the best can meet, greet, and beat the ever-loving snot out of each other. I love the series so much because it’s such a free-form way to play all my favorite characters. And most of them get serious upgrades in terms of the graphic quality I’m used to seeing them in. I also love it because the designers don’t monopolize the success of the series. They actually approached fans about which characters we would want in brawl and listened to other game directors who wanted a spotlight on their characters. Thus, Sonic and Solid Snake were born…to the world of smash brothers.
Speculation about the game abounded until it was released on the 31st in Japan. Since then I’ve been trying to get my grubby little hands on all the information and videos I can. I’m one of those people who wants to know everything about it, including what characters will be playable, even if I can’t yet play the game. Some of their character choices are, well, unfortunate, but others make me giddy in anticipation of being able to play them for myself.
Oh-kay. I know a lot of ladies out there don’t like Peach, but I love her. She’s one of the lightest characters but let me tell a little story.
Back in the day I was a big anime fan and actually made jaunts to the yearly otakon convention. This was before the con became completely overpopulated, hot, humid, and you could stand in a line without wondering, “Egads, who is it in this line that hasn’t showered today? That is rank.” They did a ton of video game tournaments, blah blah DDR who cares whatever. The one I was most interested in was smash brothers melee. I thought I was a God at the game using Bowser. But doesn’t everyone? Yeah, I got KOed within the first 10 seconds. But I took my lumps with a slight grimace and backed off to let someone else’s palm sweat get smeared all over the controller. The guy who was absolutely dominating the entire contest was using none other than Peach. Prior to that time, I thought she was a terrible character. Her moves were so-so and if she got hit once by an uppercut from DK, she was gone. Plus, I mean, a girl playing a girly pink girly girl? Such a stereotype.
The guy I was watching plowed through the competition, including that one freakin’ asshole who used Marth and just stood there charging his sword the entire time. (I hate players that do that, you cheapasses) He won the tournament, and I was so wowed that I vowed to go home and learn the ways of Peach-fu.
I practiced. OH did I practice. She’s an odd character to master, but when you do, oh man. It’s all a matter of timing to reflect attacks, jump at the right time, all that. But nothing topped the satisfaction of smacking my friend’s Kirby with a golf club as his stone drop move failed for the umpteenth time.
So needless to say, I was jazzed when I found out she’d be back in Brawl.
Honestly, I’ve never really used Samus or Zelda/Sheik. I doubt I’ll be using them in brawl either. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re there representing the ladies, but they just never wowed me at all in terms of smash gameplay. What they should do is put in Valentina from Super Mario RPG. Have her smack some folks with a fan. Her taunt could also be that incredibly annoying cackle. Or hey, toss in the female lead from Secret of Mana. Her final smash could be to summon the mana sword.
I’m also so happy they took Pichu out. I tried to learn how to play him, I really did, but ugh. I gave up after a couple hours because he was more of a liability than an asset.
And WHY did they bring Marth back?! Argh. He was probably the most popular character, I know, but I tend to hate 99.9% of the people that play him. “Oh hey if I stand here in one place while the others beat on each other, I’ll land a lucky sword charge and be able to knock them off screen and steal the kill!” Psh. That type of thing takes me back to the days of Mortal Kombat and the people who would just roundhouse kick the entire time to win. Yeah, you suck.
They replaced Mewtwo with Lucario and eh, I don’t really mind. It makes sense from a marketing perspective. When melee was out, Mewtwo’s movies were still popular. Now around Brawl’s time, Lucario is the new ‘it’ legendary.
Also, Young Link is gone in favor of Toon Link, or Windwalker Link as he’ll be known as in the US. If any of you read my phantom hourglass comments, I’m sure you can imagine how excited I am about it. Toon Link also has the same final smash as his adult er, better designed counterpart so he’s not really bringing much to the table. But then, Lucas has the same final smash as Ness, so eh. Final smash isn’t everything!
Though they are rather entertaining and fun to see. And, thankfully, they aren’t completely unfair. Some of them are very easy to avoid. Others slightly less so, but people needed a reason to want to play the ice climbers I guess. Luigi’s is also pretty awesome, and all I can say to that is: “It’s about time.”
Falco and Fox return, bringing Wolf with them as a new addition. I like that, actually. I also like the way they brought in more Pokemon, King Dedede and Meta Knight. It definitely makes the game seem more expansive in terms of bringing in more characters from certain favorite game series. I was kind of hoping for a kid bowser, though.
Now the major MAJOR thing I love about Brawl is the fact that they’re expanding their roster with characters that are outside certain Nintendo franchises. And they’re doing it in a way that doesn’t seem as campy as the old Marvel vs. Capcom etc. games did. They’re upgrading those characters as if they were their own. Snake and Sonic look fantastic. Plus, they brought in Diddy Kong. To me it shows that Nintendo has evolved beyond that, “THESE CHARACTERS ARE OURS AND OURS ALONE NEENER NEENER YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM EVEN IF IT MEANS THE FANS WILL BE HAPPIER. P.S. WE LOVE MONEY ONLY.” mentality that certain game companies cling to nowadays.
Plus they’ve pretty much constantly asked for input for the game since Brawl was announced. Yes yes, Nintendo, you can continue to pat my fangirl head and give me what I want. Please.
Honestly it’s that mentality that has made me a Nintendo fangirl for so long. I’m not gung-ho and hate other consoles or companies, Hell no. Nintendo will just always have a very special place in my heart.
Brawl has met and exceeded many fans and critics’ expectations so far. Imagine what could be possible for the next incarnation of the game?
February 4th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
SSBB is a lot of fun to follow for a lot of reasons. It has tons of memes associated with it… I could go on and on since I’ve kept up with /v/ for a long time, but I won’t. I actually never played that much Melee (got Gamecube late + no one to play with it), but I played the N64 version a ton and loved it. My main was Jigglypuff.
One thing I’ll mention is that the competitive Melee scene gets a lot of flack for how they’re so serious about what a lot of people think should be just a fun party game. Characters are “tiered” based on how good they’re perceived to be for tournament play (Sheik, Fox, and Marth occupy the top tier, I forget the rest), some stages are banned because they lend themselves to exploitative play, items are usually turned off, and whenever you see a video of a “tourneyfag” playing there’s a very distinctive “CLACK-CLACK-CLACK” of them twitching the analog stick to employ “advanced techs” (arguably exploits, a lot of them were fixed/removed from Brawl, but new ones are being discovered already) such as wavedashing, L-cancelling, SHFFL, etc. I don’t know how to do any of these, but… yea. Look up the Encyclopedia Dramatica article on “tourneyfag” if you want to know more…
Anyways, Brawl looks to be an awesome game largely because it expands on what made Melee awesome as well… tons of extra features. SSBB has 40+ stages, 35 characters, 100+ original songs, 600+ trophies, and a 10-hour single-player game in addition to the stage editor, increased customization options, wifi play, and all the old game options: Target smash, 100-man melee, event mode, All-star mode, etc. etc.
A lot of people were disappointed by the character roster when it became leaked because all of the most interesting characters were already known, and the secret ones are for the most part either clones (Ganon, Ness, Wolf/Falco, some say Lucario?) or old characters (C. Falcon, Game + Watch). That leaves…. ROB, who just made people go “wtf”. Sakurai did a great job of including popular characters (Sonic!), but a lot of the ones that were also hyped up (Geno, Krystal) didn’t get in, which disappointed players.. but you can’t please everyone, obviously.
One thing which kinda disappoints me is that the gameplay seems to be essentially the same as always. Sure, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it… but at the same time, it wouldn’t have hurt to add some new techniques (not the tourneyfag techs) beyond Final Smashes.
February 4th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
As a Sheik main, I have to speak up for the ninja… she’s amazing! Fast and combo-happy, not to mention that chain grab, and the actual chain, and the needles… gyah, so fun. She’s the only character I’m any decent with, but I vow to not let that happen with Brawl!
Nintendo is indeed something special
February 6th, 2008 at 1:47 am
I hate Smash Bros, but I’ll admit, this entry did make me want to look into it…
No…
bad, bad, memories
I think it’s because I played as Pikachu, at a LAN party, and I never recovered from the horrific loss that Pikachu reigned on me. This was back on the N64.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:55 am
I’m a Marth user- hey, put the brick DOWN, please. I am neither a “precision-timed constant counterattack” nor a “stand there charging the sword” player. Marth has mobility, and it’s what I use.
Do I use the counter-attack? Yes, when it is advantageous to do so.
Do I use the charged sword move? Yes- generally as an ‘and stay down’ move after (by myself, not relying on other players) having tossed someone sideways to the limit of their recovery abilities.
But that’s not the point of Marth. The point of Marth is to dance around your opponent, catching them with only the tip of your sword as you twist, flip, and duck out of their way (often by going straight past them with a dodge so you can stab the poor sucker in the back).
I dunno, maybe I just like swords. Marth (like Link) takes zero skill to play passably, but requires a lot of work to play well.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Just pointing out Lucario isn’t actually a legendary, it’s the evolved form of Riolu. It doesn’t change its primary marketing appeal ousting that of Mewtwo’s, though, because the latest Pokemon film was all about a Lucario.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I’m a Link, Peach, Mario, Zelda (not sheik, Zelda), and Ice Climber user.
Ice Climbers can really own and clean some house. they look useless, but in all honesty they’re pretty good. Without their weakness of losing one Ice Climber they could actually be considered to be on the borderline of being overpowered. they have moves that slow and freeze people, they can hit multiple opponents at once, their recovery is pretty good, and they have some good moves for knocking people out of the ring.
Bowser s lauded as the worse smash character, i don’t think that’s going to change in brawl. that’s not to say you can’t be good with him, but his flaws are easily exploitable. I.E., being huge, slower than most smashers, and having a weird mix of moves that are fierce, but too limiting.
April 6th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I’ve been a HUGE Sheik fan in the SSBM for the cube, but now, in Brawl, My favourites are Zelda&Sheik, Pit :), Toon Link & Link, Marth, and Kirby.
I’ve been addicted to SSBM since I got it. When I played in Melee, I usually played with one character and one character only ( Shiek). In Brawl, I find the the Subspace Emissiary lets me play as all the characters, so I like a lot more of them. I also liked how there was a story line in the game instead of the annoying classic mode.
Anyways,
I’m out to go kick some butt.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:11 am
You now that this STILL isn’t out int he UK
But it will be on the 27th of June ^^ Can’t wait 
Mellee was one of my fav games of all time and it caused endless arguments in our flat, not to mention the fact that me and Sean missed the majority of our last year at high school because we were to busy smashing it up ^^
roll on the 27th!!