Michael Hartog

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

It came out a little less than a week ago. We waited 7 years. SEVEN YEARS! Delayed several times, even more so in North America, and then we finally get it. The sequel to my favourite console game. Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Not that I have a Wii, or even had a Gamecube or N64. It was just the most fun game you could play at someone’s house. Quick, easy, fast to learn and faster to learn new characters. Easy to learn, hard to master, just like many great games.

But in those seven years, how much was really changed? A couple of new things were added. Final smashes are probably the most significant of them all. They have various strengths but it’s almost an instant kill against all of your enemies. A few other items have been added (dragoon parts) and brought back from the N64 version (bumper) which is also a nice touch. Another huge change would be all the new characters and maps. Gone are the days of 17 different maps with 3 floating platforms and one big one on the bottom. The new characters also bring in much more depth and variation. Less copies with the stronger/slower or weaker/faster changes and more unique move sets. Every character also has much more horizontal movement in the air which means it’s much easier to recover. The game plays a tiny bit slower than melee as well.

But that is exactly what I expect and wanted to change. More characters, more maps, some slight tweaks elsewhere. I just didn’t want it to take 7 years to do

The game also looks prettier but at the cost of load times. I’d prefer faster loads to prettiness on a game of this style. It’s all about gameplay here which is why people can still play the older games and have fun. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it’s how much fun I have when playing with you.

The rebalancing meant I lost my old main character, Falco. He was changed way too much too much for me to play him the same as I did before. So I went through a few characters that I found intriguing at first and found my new main, Zero Suit Samus.

Why Zero Suit Samus? She has the one thing every other character is lacking, medium range. Most characters have short range or really short range. Second best is Marth/Ike’s swords which take a while to attack with anyway. ZSS has stunning (literally) medium range attacks. Protection against people attacking you from the air, protection against people running at you. And it hits behind you. She has 3 jumps if you include the down+B which also acts as a decent meteor smash. The up+B is a little lacking and prone to edgehogging but the distance is more than you think it would be. The suit parts off the start are awesome for racking up a quick 30 damage against whoever you’re facing with decent knockback as well. Her final smash is also causing me to learn Samus who I wasn’t too familiar with in any of the other games. Samus is a bit slow for me in general. But again, I believe her unique range sets her apart from everyone else.

Til the next sequel!