Gamers can see who would win in a fight between Mario and Sonic
One of the most anticipated games for the Wii, Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a major hit with casual and hardcore gamers alike, but the game does have some mess ups.
The story is more fleshed-out than the previous installments due to the Subspace Emissary. The writer of the story for Brawl, Kazushige Nojima, who is the scenario writer for the Final Fantasy series, does a good job for the storyline, but it is a little cliched at times. You start out seeing Mario battling Kirby. The game then lets you choose who you want to play as for this battle(Mario or Kirby). After the match, the villains for the story strike the arena releasing a Subspace bomb, which sends the arena to an alternate plane called Subspace. The Nintendo heroes then must unite and repel the enemy forces, which consist of the villains of Nintendo games such as Ganondorf, Bowser, and Wario, just to name a few.
The gameplay works the same as the previous installments with the only difference being the Smash Attack that Brawl has(and a few items). The thing that separates the game from the previous ones is the ability to use 4 different styles for controls. A player can use the Wiimote alone, the Wiimote and the nunchuck, the Gamecube controller, or the Classic controller. While I use the Wiimote and nunchuck, I would(and so would many reviewers) recommend that a player use the Gamecube controller.
Now for the combat. The characters each have their own style of fighting, even though the controls for doing their attacks are the same. The tiers are back, however, Bowser and Ganon are still in the lower tiers, while Sonic and Wolf are some of the characters from the higher tiers. There are two new things in Brawl, the Smash ball and the assist trophy. Let's start with the latter first. The assist trophy calls guest characters from some of Nintendo's other titles to aid the summoner in battle. The assist trophy is a good advantage to have in battle, just try and not let the opponent get it.
The Smash attack can be a make or break in battle. The player must hit it 3-4 times(depending on the strength of the attack) to break it. Once broken, whoever hit it last to break it, has the ability to unleash their Smash Attack, which is Brawl's version of finishers. Some are avoidable though(like Mario's and Samus'), but others aren't(like Pit's or Luigi's).
The musical score is great. One of the cool things is the game's music player, which plays the stage music you have collected so far. You can control how many times a song is played on a stage. If you don't like listening to the theme song for Brawl, turn the appearance rate down to zero, if you love it, crank it up! It's all up to you. You find more songs by fighting in any brawl(including online and in Solo mode). It takes a long time to get all the songs, but there are a few shortcuts that you can find on youtube or wikicheats.
The introduction to Wi-Fi for Brawl was a great idea, but badly executed. The Wi-Fi is a good thing, you can play online with your friends. The bad thing isn't inputting the 12 digit friend code(that's a downside, but not the worse thing), but the connection in battle that's the problem. Several times I have been playing online and I would be disconnected from a match. I tried all the tips Nintendo Wii support has said to do. I changed my channel, which was the best tip, but matches still lag sometimes. Even if it's not you, you can see others who are lagging. I know Nintendo did a good job cutting down the lagging from the beta testing to launch, but I wouldn't mind if they took a little more time to reduce the lagging even more.
Another technical glitch is the tripping that the characters do. The Havok engine is one of the most powerful physics engines in the gaming industry. While Nintendo might of had fun using this engine, they must of forgot to take out characters tripping on nothing. You might think I'm crazy for saying that, but if you play a match for 5 minutes, without any items, you will see a character trip on nothing. My character even tripped when I slightly tilted the nunchuck.
With all of this being said, the game is a great title for Wii owners. It has been a very long time since the last Super Smash game, and Smash fans deserve a game as good as Brawl. Brawl has many things that will keep the player coming back for a few months to the least.
