BRAWL! My Impressions (not a gay tournament thread)

[dickie]

We were anticipating this game's release for a *long* time. We picked it up the day it came out and set to playing. I have been playing with my roommate, fiancee, brothers and other random friends since then - which highlights the game's playability factor - and it seems to have no MAJOR flaws so far.

Multiplayer is the most important part, obviously, and so making sure it's fun for everyone is iparamount. That being said, it is VERY easy to turn friends into enemies and put your girl's tenuous grasp of gaming enjoyment to the test. The auto handicap does little more than negatively affect the better players' damage percentage (nothing new here), and if you have a veteran playing against a newcomer not even 100% advantage makes much of a difference. The curve is very steep for newbies :P On-screen battling can be confusing in fierce competition resulting in losing your character in the middle of the fracas. The problem is compounded if you enter your name; the icons above your character become shades of gray instead of the normal color-coded numbers.

Collision and hit detection are even worse than they were in melee (which was markedly worse than the original SSB); you can actually kick/punch through your enemies even at extremely close quarters. Additionally, priority of attacks seems to be random - you can counter or block an enemy's attack at a set range , but the very next time you attempt it, their attack will get through. We tested this extensively and Samus seems to be the best off with a high rate of priority in her attacks, but it's still not perfect. I suppose since this isn't really a hardcore technical fighter, fans of the series will likely overlook this in favor of the games ability to be played highly drunk where technicalities don't matter as much.

The "gimmicks" like the Super Smash moves add a new dimension of play, unfortunately this isn't always beneficial to the overall experience. Some attacks are effective to the point of being, "cheap" and some make you wonder why they were even included at all.

Character selection is broader than ever, but some characters make you wonder what the hell the creators were thinking. Does anyone regularly play as Ice Climbers? Sonic and Solid Snake, both potentially awesome contenders, seem unbalanced as far as their available moveset. Snake's attacks are all weapon based and out-of-place in the SSB world indicative that he is only there as a nod between the creators of the respective franchises. Sonic - who you figure would be at least as versatile and balanced as Mario - has all of one attack for his B-moves. neat?

its nice to see Falco and Ganondorf back with slightly different moves and the inclusion of Wolf is pretty neat, though. With all the characters it would be nice to see a tag team battle option in multiplayer.

Singleplayer has actually been improved by the inclusion of Subspace Emissary, but it gets very tedious fighting the same enemies and platforming over and over and over. The cutscenes are beautiful and pretty damn funny.

Overall, I'd say SERIOUS players may be disappointed by the games mechanics. It feels like PAL concentrated on form over function, and I still firmly believe the first game of the series is the best as far as gameplay is concerned (I miss Captain Falcon's original flaming kick smash move), but this game is acceptable and remains unique.

What do you think about it?

[OldmanPurdy]

I liked each ssb game more than the previous because they never become stale, each game changes the mechanics enough to make them feel different while adding more and more to the overall package. In regards to gameplay I have had zero issues with attacks not connecting I like the slowed pace of the game, its more in line with the original while melee became a bit hard to follow at high levels of play.

[dickie]

guess i just appreciate a game with flawless mechanics over one with flashy graphics and gimmicks. I don't care if the gameplay dynamic remains the same over several installments; as long as its well executed, the number of polygons per model increasing is just icing on the cake.

seems to have worked well for the other fighting game franchises.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Does anyone regularly play as Ice Climbers?

Yes. I do.

I like playing as the characters that are HARDER to play. The ones that are more interesting. Ice climbers meet both criteria and are a lot of fun. I would have been extremely mad if they were left out of Brawl.

Overall, I'd say SERIOUS players may be disappointed by the games mechanics. It feels like PAL concentrated on form over function, and I still firmly believe the first game of the series is the best as far as gameplay is concerned (I miss Captain Falcon's original flaming kick smash move), but this game is acceptable and remains unique.

Serious players should probably go find a serious game to play then.

I never owned an N64 for fear of it turning me stupid (comment directed at Nintendo, not N64 owners), so I only have very little experience with the original SSB. I liked Melee a lot, and I like Brawl a lot. But they both have highs and lows. It's not a situation where you might as well never play Melee again because you have Brawl. They're different enough to be individually desirable.

I still don't see why Snake or Sonic are in the game, and the fact that they both play like crap compounds my annoyance. I dislike the MGS series because of it's fanboy-inspiring BS, and the fact such a bland, stupidly written game series became popular is baffling. Snake has no business appearing in Brawl.Sonic makes more sense, but his appearance in the Subspace Emissary was stupid and he plays like crap. And it's not the "interesting" hard to play like the Ice Climbers. He just plays like crap.There are other character choices I wonder about, too. But the ones I really care about are all there, so I'm happy.

guess i just appreciate a game with flawless mechanics over one with flashy graphics and gimmicks. I don't care if the gameplay dynamic remains the same over several installments; as long as its well executed, the number of polygons per model increasing is just icing on the cake.

I could not agree more. Assuming the mechanics were good to begin with, I wouldn't complain if a series remained EXACTLY the same mechanically for 17 installments as long as content keeps things interesting.

However, that doesn't mean I'm totally against any change, either. Different can be bad from the old perspective. But the new collision detection isn't necessarily bad. It's sloppier, yes. And it changes how fights work. And at that point it becomes a matter of taste.

The "gimmicks" like the Super Smash moves add a new dimension of play, unfortunately this isn't always beneficial to the overall experience. Some attacks are effective to the point of being, "cheap" and some make you wonder why they were even included at all.

Yeah, I agree there. They're an interesting addition, but they really don't serve to add anything significant to battles. Maybe if the item switch system allowed individual spawn likelihoods they could be made to work well. But as it stands they're either too frequent or too rare to do anything other than totally destroy the balance of a fight. That can be interesting and even good, but they seem sort of "outside" the normal flow of the game.And the fact that some are crazily powerful and others are nearly useless is strange.

Lastly:Where the hell did Kirby's fireball dash attack go?!

[OldmanPurdy]

guess i just appreciate a game with flawless mechanics over one with flashy graphics and gimmicks. I don't care if the gameplay dynamic remains the same over several installments; as long as its well executed, the number of polygons per model increasing is just icing on the cake.

seems to have worked well for the other fighting game franchises.

So do I but as much as I liked Melee its game play wasn't flawless, character balance was laughable and there were plenty of exploitable bugs. Brawl on the other hand has great character balance and the removal of direction air dodges gets rid of 2 of the most prelevant glitches. Also MOD Snake rocks he plays.........differently but once you get good at placing explosives everywhere get a hang of his strange timing he's quite good.

[dickie]

i think melee was the bastard child of the series too. the original was the best as far as gameplay because it was simple and effective. skill mattered so much more than luck.

i guess i should reference tekken, whose gameplay mechanics have changed VERY little since the second game across 3 generations of consoles. introduction of new play modes, better graphics, more characters and the tag feature was innovative, but none of it really changed how the game was played.

ssb was never supposed to be a true technical fighter as it has elements of a party game that make it approachable by all kinds of people. thats cool as long as you dont **** with the basics - hit detection, priority and smooth consistent play.

im really glad that the GC controllers work for this game, but i think the n64 had the best layout and i hate teh GC's throttle shoulder buttons.

[OldmanPurdy]

I agree with all of that except the hit detection and smooth gameplay I just haven't really seen any issues there, Everything else about the gameplay reminds me more of SSB than Melee which is good. The smash balls I feel add alot of skill to the game, most can be more or less avoided with good timing and recently I've been ignoring the ball alltogether and just pounding on everyone when they blindly rush for it.

[ferak]

Brawls pretty fun the online function is pretty cool and the game play isnt that flawed. I will say the smash balls are lame though certain characters supers are auto kills while others can be completely avoided. Oh and Snake is actually pretty good once you get his play style down but he doesnt really feel like he fits into the game. Lucas is def my fav character though, didnt think they would make a better version of ness.