You hear that? Why, it's the wonderful sound of button mashing and squeals of joy. Huzzah!
The single player of "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" can be reduced to simple elements thus, single player quickly becomes a simple three step process to conquer: First, one must implement a button mash tactic that is familial. Second, one must explore the item and environment given to him or her. Lastly, one must acquire the proper timing to get the most kills against a CPU foe. Lather, rinse, repeat.
However, taking in what others do in multiplayer and on tournament matches is where "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" stops being as sterile as it was in the single player mode. The dynamic fun of multiplayer (be it online or couch co-op) is where "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" sets itself away from the fighting and brawling brethren/competition (depending on how you see things).
When you first get "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale", you are acquainted with boring looking GUI menus. Nothing is wrong with the GUI on the menu system when it comes to guiding you from point "a" to point "b" (on the contrary, it is simpler than most fighting games!) but it is understandable that more people would want flare out of it. Just be careful what you wish for! A fighting game like All-Stars is not a game fitted to losing attention to the main attraction; fighting.
The basic rule set of "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" fighting engine is built on the concept of mapping three different movesets onto three buttons, with the "X" button used for jumping, and the two triggers used for dodging and and executing "Supers" (respectively).
There is a meter near the icon of your player that builds up "AP", which is short for All-Stars Points. The AP will allow you to build a meter up to a level one, two or three "Super". The Super is NOT retro active, which actually causes more good than harm and makes for a fun learning curve. You can easily set off a super when a player is down, probably even getting a kill while still having one or two of the old super you wanted. The supers themselves are all varied and are some of the best and most over the top presentation in fighting game history. One example of the deliciously twisted presentations for supers would have to be third party character Heihachi (from the "Tekken" series) and his level three super which has all other players launched out of earths atmosphere from a space ship.
Harvesting AP from combos is a matter of preference. Would you rather learn all the combos? Would you rather use items which would allow you to fight for or gain free AP? Would you rather time it so map hazards slap the AP out of your opponents? The answer varies in single player, and can be serialized into departments completely separate from one another, where as . . .
Multiplayer. Oh, multiplayer. This is where the game has its ups and downs. Trust me, the highs are much higher than the lows (as evidence of my addiction to tournament mode).
Various of my sessions in the online tournament mode can start off hectic, but than become a mind reading game. Remember those CPU opponents you face in single player and/or practice mode? You might want to keep their supers in mind, because players here will have a quick trigger when you least expect it. Also, the combo "tech" players use in online tournaments is much more dynamic, and if you get a good "one-two punch" going on team battle it could lead to some serious AP farming.
When online combos can come fast, intermittently, counters you would not think happen, happen; and environmental hazards can be thrown against you (in a way you would just not imagine the CPU doing). "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" does its best to simplify the three button layout and triple kill supers, but little would an unsuspecting gamer (that has only played offline) know that their strategy could be the best or the worst when the proverbial "rubber meets the road" in the online superhighway.
So, what does this all mean? Is "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" built on an engine hardcore Street Fighter fans can dig on? Can you be competitive as you where on "Super Smash Bros" when you only pressed one button to win matches? The answer is simultaneously: "Yes and No" to both questions.
The complexity which Bluepoint and SuperBot built into "Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale" is second to none. The balance of the game can at times be questioned by self proclaimed outspoken fighting officienados, but another character and player can come along and show yet another string in the beautiful web the games creators have woven. Simple as mashing circle button and tapping a trigger. Yet, addicting as crack!
Finally, the single player arcade mode. Plain and simple, nothing gets in the way of the action. The single player gives players a back story to explain the premise of the mash-up. Anymore than that and a long winded and (potentially) huge slew of pretentious, grandiose, butt-kissing to characters could ensue. When criticizing this game based on single player it is wise to keep in mind that SuperBot is abrand new team, built up by fighting game veterans and they where brought in to build an experience on the core of the games fighting, balancing and player progression in order to support that ecosystem on launch and onward (through dlc, patching, etc).
Having more emotional depth and resonance on single player story would seemingly be a nice prospect, but we all know the mixed results we see in fighting games when that tactile feel and learning curve is cut-off. Correlation does not equal causality, but considering the end result, SuperBot was better off being conservative rather than dishing out some revolutionary single player mode in their cinematics and engine.
Hmmm. Okay, how can sum things up by the "tl;dr" audience? . . . If you have an open mind, like video games and are distracted easily, this is the game for you. It has platforming. It has fighting. PLATFIGHTING!!!
10/10