We all need to look again.
Guys, I'm gonna be honest. This game is not as bad as people are making it out to be. I just got this game about 3 weeks ago, and I've been having a absolute blast with it. I think the main problem with some of the reviews on this site is this. If you go into PlayStation All Stars judging it against Super Smash Bros. Brawl, you will not be happy, and will always find faults with it. Now let me explain myself before you all jump at my throat. This game did have some faults, be it in the Characters, Levels, Supers, Arcade Mode, and other faults, but we all need to look again. This brings out another point of mine. We need to stop looking entirely at what PlayStation All Stars did wrong, and look a little more at what they did right. I will admit, I have played Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and I know first-hand just how fun and immensely great of a game it is. After all, it did come first, and it came from a series, unlike Playstation All Stars. Having said that, I do have respect for SSBB, as while I do not have it, I have played it multiple times, either by borrowing or at a friends' house. Now, I'm gonna try to be as honest as I can, comparing the two. Comparing their "Campaign modes", I would have to say that overall, SSBB wins. I loved Subspace Emissary. All Stars' Arcade Mode was alright, but not the greatest(cough cough, stills with voice-overs) I did like the end battle against Polygon Man though. Now, for those who don't know, Polygon Man's roots trace back to the Playstation 1, when he was planned to be the mascot for the first PlayStation in North America, appearing in ads and such. However, before the console was released, Ken Kutaragi, global head of Playstation, also known as "The Father of The PlayStation", expressed anger towards the Mascot of Polygon Man, therefore, he was "taken out into the car park and quietly shot." (Polygon Man that is) So, there are some back-stories behind this game. When it comes to the Multiplayer, that is where most of the hate comes from. I will say, that personally, in my opinion, the Super System was not as bad as people are making it out to be. It even added a strategic sense to the game in a way, which was the skill of knowing your character's supers, knowing where the enemies were, and knowing when to use them the right way. True, it IS incredibly annoying when you miss with your well earned level 2 or just don't get any kills with your level 3(but if you fail the latter, you're just plain bad, no offense.) It did add a strategic sense to the kill system. I do remember SSBB had a health system, in which the higher your percentage was, and the more you took damage, the farther you would fly back from subsequent attacks, and increasing your chances of being ko'd, or flying off the stage. I did like this method to kill system, but I will say that I also enjoyed All Star's different take on it, with the Supers. Because, I remember the intense times, as soon as that Smash Ball came on stage, shimmering and glowing, it was a all-out blood battle to get it, and release your ability. I loved that. All Stars took this "character ability", but made something cool out of it, by making 3 levels of the ability. True, some were DEFINITELY not as good as others. The Items in each game were also good in my opinion, although I think the really noticeable difference in items was that SSBB had "food" you could eat to regain some health I believe. However, there were some good items for each game, I especially love the Hammer in SSBB, and the abusive fan comes to mind too. I liked some items in All Stars, such as the Axe, and the Spear of Destiny. There were also complaints regarding the characters of All Stars. I agree, there were some disappointing characters, and some characters were not even PS exclusives. However, SSBB had one that rings clear in my mind, Snake. There may have been others. However, even some of the 3rd Party characters weren't that bad in All Stars, specifically Raiden, Big Daddy, and Dante. Upon looking it up, I found that All Stars has a total of 24 playable characters, counting the 4 DLC, while SSBB has 37. However, some of these characters were quite similar, such as Wolf and Fox, Kind Dedede and Kirby, and then Zero Suit Samus and Samus were the same character. And of course, All Stars had two Coles. However, I feel like all in all, All Stars did a better job than Brawl about making sure that the characters didn't fight too similar. And the attacks, wow, the attacks were really good for both games I must say, All Stars did a great job of making sure that no two characters fought exactly the same. With, of course, the exception of Evil Cole/Cole. And although the character roster for Brawl was great, I also liked some of the characters for All Stars, namely the classic characters like Dan and Spike, Sweet Tooth, and even PaRappa, going against some of the newer, more iconic characters, such as Nathan Drake, Kratos(who is incredibly OP) and even Sackboy(who I will admit is my personal favorite, I've mastered his moves). And as for the attacks, I felt that even though Brawl had more characters, thus more potential attacks, they also had one directional pad and one attack button(b). Meanwhile, All Stars had one left stick and 3 buttons for attacks, which I personally felt was very ingenious, just adding attack after attack after attack. True, some attacks kind of sucked, but the same could be said about Brawl. And the stages in All Stars really weren't that bad. True, I don't think there were as many in Brawl, BUT the stages in All Stars were mash-ups and dynamic stages, meaning that they would change into another game's stage, or elements from a game, while SSBB's stages did NOT I believe. I especially loved maps that blended together well, such as LittleBigPlanet/Buzz, I was personally glad to see Buzz in this game, Hades/Patapon, Fearless/Wipeout, Stowaways/Bioshock, and San Francisco/Ratchet and Clank. However, there were some maps that were just not as good as others, namely Dojo and perhaps Paris comes to mind, simply because it looked like they just slapped a few platforms on the screen and the Negativatron in the back of Paris, and Dojo was just a small room, which is good for just about only short range characters. I also heard complaints about the music being horrible. That's Bull people. The music, while not as great on a few maps, was awesome. A few maps come to mind. Black Rock Stadium, which included a Mashup of Twisted Metal/Jak and Daxter, Columbia, which was Bioshock/Twisted Metal, Dreamscape, which included LittleBigPlanet/Buzz, Fearless, another mashup of Heavenly Sword(Ah, Nariko)/Wipeout, Franzea, which was a mashup of LocoRoco/Metal Gear, the music sounded a bit childish, but that added to it, and the last two are Stowaways, which was Uncharted/Bioshock, and Rival Arena, which depended on which character you were playing as. And let me take a moment to talk about what All Stars did that Brawl didn't. One, Online play, which yes, is hard to find a match nowadays. Two, character costumes. There were some freaking AWESOME costumes for characters. Three, Character Customization, you could customize, on top of your costume/costume color, your intro, taunt, outro, and victory music. That was cool. Four, Player Customization. You could customize your Minion, Background, and Icon, which added a sense to distinguish yourself from the others. And 5, which was huge for me. Graphics. There is no doubt that PS All Stars had the greater graphics. This came in handy a lot, I liked looking close up at taunts, intros, and throwing opponents. And the gameplay was NOT CLUNKY. It was very smooth and linear. I also liked the Goals that you could do to level up your character. Now, some things that I hated about All Stars. It seemed like, when looking at the map selection, it just seems like so few maps. Makes it feel boring in a way. Arcade Mode, which sucked compared to Brawl's, but was interesting none the less. Overpowered, unpatched characters, namely Dante, Raiden, Kratos, Kat, and maybe Spike. I also hated how Santa Monica Studios were planning on releasing more dlc, but due to financial restrictions and being left by Sony were not able to continue. Blame Sony, not Santa Monica. So, with all that I said, above, I believe that they should make a sequel. Maybe not now, but later. And for goodness sake's Sony, actually put some great Characters in it! Crash Bandicoot, Joel, Ellie, Lara Croft, Snake, Ghost, come on, tons of others! If they could just try again and listen to the community, it would be a great game. That's all I'm saying guys. Look guys, I do respect Super Smash Bros Brawl. It did come first, and was, and still is one of the most iconic brawlers of all time. However, we need to go into this game not pitting it against Brawl. True, there were some things that Brawl did better/first, but this game was great. Definitely a massively under-rated game of the entire Sony franchise. Think about that for awhile.
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