One Week Later: Fire's Official Review

Ah, so I took the liberty to take an entire week to make a new post here at BrawlMania. I decided not to rush into things, a take in a good feel for the game. So where should I start off?

Well, I don't really know when I first heard about Brawl, all I know is that it was sometime in '06. That epic E3 trailer that was constantly playing on our computer screens, the confirmation of Meta Knight, Pit, Snake, Wario, and others. Everything made us drool in anticipation for this huge game. I still remember the launching of the Dojo site, and we all thought that there was going to be one HUGE update on it, such as a release date or new character. But to our "dismay" we learned that there would only be little updates everyday. At first, I thought we all got ripped off, by building up all of our anticipation. But then, day by day, we heard the coolest things from that site! New items, new characters, new stages: everything! Every morning before school I'd always hop on the computer to read the newest update, it was awesome!

Fast-forward a few months later. We finally get a release date for Brawl: straight from the president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime himself. December 3rd, 2007. Sounds great, right? Wrong. To our despair, Brawl was delayed until February 10th, 2008. How could this be? It was an outrage! We've waited so long for this game, and out of nowhere, it gets snatched away from our grasp, and set aside for the next year. Now, even though it broke my heart just as much as the next guy, I always had predicted it. Its in Nintendo's nature to delay a game like that. But what I didn't suspect was another delay. As January rolls around, we start to hear rumors about various sites changing the date of Brawl's release from February 10th to March 9th. "What could this be?" we asked ourselves. Most of us denied this rumor of a second delay, because these sites didn't really seem reliable. Again, to our absolute shock, we see that on Smashbros.com, Sakurai himself admitted that there would be another delay, and that he was deeply sorry. So there we were, having to wait another month for this game. A lot of people were fed up with the delay, claiming that they just didn't want Brawl anymore. They were just too worked up for something that felt like it was never going to arrive. Fast-forward another month. Its March, Brawl month. Its a weird thought that after years of waiting, this game if finally almost here. I was so excited on March 9th, and I wanted to get to GameStop as fast as possible. Once I got it, I opened it as fast as possible and popped it into my Wii. I took everything in really slowly, and the first thing I got into was classic mode on normal with Kirby. I hardly even knew what was going on because I was still amazed that I even had Brawl and I was playing it right then and there. I played the Subspace Emissary all day and I finished it the next day. I've tried pretty much everything, so I think I'm educated enough on this game to give my review on it. So let's get started!

Fire's Official Review

Subspace Emissary: Ah, so where do I start with this mode? We've heard about this new form of Adventure Mode since it was first brought up on Dojo back in July. First of all, the cut scenes are absolutely stunning. They were the best that I have ever seen in any Nintendo game. However, the cut scenes may be the biggest aspect of this mode, because a few other elements in the Subspace are lackluster. It seems to lose its steam halfway through, because much of it seems repetitive in terms of the side scrolling. There are many flaws in the Subspace Emissary, probably the biggest one being the Great Maze at the end. Pretty much when you go through the Great Maze, you are battling every boss for a second time. Seems like a sorry attempt to make the mode longer, doesn't it? Anyways, I have to say that the bosses in the Subspace Emissary were pretty awesome. There were tons of original bosses and enemies that Nintendo did a fairly good job on. Overall, the Subspace Emissary was good. It wasn't epic, and it wasn't terrible, it was just good. It was fairly short, because I beat it in a day and a half, but was a rewarding experience.

I'm going to give the Subspace Emissary a 9.0/10.

Classic Mode: Good ol' Classic Mode. It was the first thing that I tried out when I first popped the game in. The overall feel is different, and you can definitely tell that the game play in Brawl has changed a great deal since Melee. This time around, Classic Mode takes a longer time to beat with a character than it has in the past installments, and now comes with new difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, and Intense. For me, Hard is Intense. I'm not the best Smash Bros. player out there, but I know that they have made things much more challenging because you can customize what difficulty you want on almost anything. I am basing my review of Classic Mode simply on the game play and the feel of Brawl.

I'm going to give Classic Mode a 9.5/10.

The Vault: My review on The Vault in Brawl includes the collection of trophies, the collection of stickers, Masterpieces, replays, pictures, and everything else. I must say, that they did a fantastic job with Brawl's replay value. There are so many things you can do and customize that, at times, you are lost with what to do. Masterpieces was a great idea, because I've always wanted to try out the origins of where the smashers came from, and the new Coin Launcher mode is much more interactive than the last time there was a mode for collecting trophies. The ability to record up to 3 minutes of replays is amazing! And taking pictures at any time in a game is loads of fun.

I am going to give The Vault a 10/10.

Wi-Fi: I have such mixed opinions on Wi-Fi that its going to be hard to review. I'll start off that I am extremely happy to be able to battle distant friends in a Super Smash Bros. game. However, there is always going to be an issue with lag. The lag problem seems to have gotten better over time, as I've noticed less and less lag over the past few days. I will note that lag is usually terrible at the very beginning of a match and works itself out to become much better throughout the rest. I think that customizing your taunts can be very fun, and I'm glad they put that in there. Of course, the absence of voice or text chat really hurts the in-depth Brawling experience, but shouldn't have been a surprise coming from Nintendo. "With Anyone" Brawl isn't going so hot at the moment. It seems to be a growing issue with people that they can't find anyone to play with, and an error code shows up, redirecting them to Brawl's menu. For me, it all comes down to me rather wanting unreliable Wi-Fi then no Wi-Fi at all. I must say, however, that "With Anyone" Brawls are hardly ever laggy for me. Below is a video I took of me playing a With Anyone Brawl, and I am Kirby (of course).

I'm going to give Wi-Fi a 9.0/10

Events/Stadium/Challenges: Event Mode is just like last time, except that we get to choose what difficulty we want for every event. Overall, they are much less time to beat than they did in Melee, especially if you beat them all on Easy. They are still fun and enjoyable as they have always been. Stadium Mode has gotten much better. In Multi-Man Brawl, the Wire Men have been taken out, and now replaced with the Alloys. The Alloys are very cool looking, and in my opinion are an upgrade from the Wire Men. Home Run contest has also gotten much better since Melee. Now there is an inclusion of co-op play, and that can be loads of fun. Hit the targets has also changed. I'm not really sure if I like hit the targets anymore, because now the stages aren't personalized to the character. Although, now you can also select the difficulty of the hit the target stages, so that's pretty cool. Something new to the Smash series are Challenges. I personally LOVE the challenges, because there's over 100 of little missions to do to unlock things such as trophies, stages, CD's, ect.

I'm going to give Events, Stadium, and Challenges a 10/10

Other: Gah, well there has to be an "other" category! There is just way to much to write about! This is where I will wrap up Brawl as a whole, covering anything I missed. So where sound I start out? How about the music? All I can say is wow. Just wow. The music in Brawl is absolutely phenomenal. Everything about it is amazing. The graphics in Brawl are also amazingly stunning. Those are two things they did a great job on: graphics and music. The only thing that annoys the heck out of me in Brawl are the menus. I mean, come on? They look way too cartoony for my liking. It just feels...cheap. I don't know why I dislike them so much, because it doesn't seem like many other people mind. Its just always something I haven't liked. Another aspect of Brawl that has been big is Stage builder. I can't get enough of this mode, it is so much fun. I pretty much put "-Land" in front of the name of all my stages: I have EpicLand, DoomLand, AwesomeLand. They are all amazing.

All in all, Brawl is everything I could have hoped for. But what major game doesn't come with some flaws? I've been playing it non-stop for a week straight. My friends and I play it all the time and it has been so much fun. I'm also Wi-Fi'ing with friends all the time, which works out great most of the time. There is no doubt in my mind that, if you have a Wii, you should definitely get Brawl! Its just one of those games that will last years upon years.

My overall grade from Super Smash Bros. Brawl is...

47.5/50

95% !!