A fairer review of All-Stars; so much fun, but falls just a bit short in a few categories to keep it from that 8.0.
I do agree with Walton about the story mode and aesthetic "look" of All-Stars. It reeks of cheapness. For a 2012 PS3 game, they could have added so much more content to the single player story AND bumped up the graphics on the menus; the game only takes up about 3 MB on your hard drive, so you know it wasn't for lack of space on the disc. The story mode and final boss slump under the shadow of Brawl's Subspace Emissary. They didn't have to use the cheap character stills, and they should have set the Rival cutscenes in actual locations rather than the generic arena place. There should have been more content to these meetings too. It's silly that Sweet Tooth would fight Kratos completely out of the blue for no other reason than him spilling his ice cream cone. Fitting for his character, but it lacks intrigue. And the Final boss, Polygon Man, is the worst aspect, overall, of the entire game; he's no Taboo, or even Master Hand. You basically fight 3 random characters while PM transforms into the obstacles you find from the stages throughout the game. Very stale. And, again, there no story behind it. He just attacks you for seemingly no reason. Sorry to have to draw the comparison, but the game would have benefited greatly from a Subspace type story-line; for me personally, since I'm 16 years old and have been playing Playstation since I was 2 (Pretty much my whole life), I would have gotten an absolute kick out of watching the types of alliances that could have formed between ALL the characters. After all, we all know we wanted to see how Kratos would have reacted towards Nariko, his female counterpart.
And now, the characters. They are a wonderful collection, and any Playstation fan should recognize most of them. The game does a pretty good job of balancing the matches. Every character is fairly strong when used correctly, but none ever reach that level of unstoppable rampage. Super-fast Raiden can decimate in close quarters, but has no range outside his sword swings. Radec is weak when you come too close, but an expert from distance. Sir Daniel is very slow, but has great strength and swing range. Sly Cooper is weak, but quick and tricky to hit. You may find some characters hard to beat at first when you go multiplayer with a skilled friend or stranger, but all the characters- even our favorite god-man Kratos- have their faults that you can exploit once you yourself get a hang of the game.
And the multiplayer, on or offline, is where this game is at its best. The nail was hit on the head people. Superbot got it just right. When you've reaped all enjoyment out of beating the AI to a pulp, It's great fun to challenge yourself against a worthy human foe. The air of predictability leaves the arena when you go up against another thinking, calculating human. You never know just how much practice they have at juggling you in the air as Dante, or how dangerous they may be catching you with Spike's level one just when you THINK you've got their number. It's a great thrill.
Sadly though, online is also one of the places All-Stars falters. There are connectivity issues. It may take several attempts before the game connects to a match, and when it does, chances are it will drop before the match starts or in the middle of it. And sometimes, when the host quits, the game will fail to properly migrate hosts and the match will end. It's an unfortunate aspect to the game. But, remember, when the online does work, it's great fun.
All-Stars has other shortcomings too. Let's face it; as much as we love all the characters on the current roster, there are a few disappointing absences that were outside of Superbot's control (*cough cough CrashBandicoot cough cough*). And, again, the game's extra content has that air of cheapness to it. The game only takes up 3 MB of space. There could have been more game modes, some sorts of mini-games, more rewards to get out of completing the story mode. And it's odd that there's only one character from each franchise, save for the two Coles and the (as of this writing) upcoming Zeus-from-God-of-War DLC. They could have pushed back the release date to make room for more characters from the same franchises. Why NOT Virgil from DmC? Jimmy or Kei from Ape Escape 2/3? Quark from Ratchet and Clank? And so forth and so forth. So, the Verdict?
- The games Strong Points are the good value (you can find it typically from $29-$39), enticing characters to master, replay value, and the gameplay itself is the star here; there's this sense of satisfaction you get from killing your opponent with a super before they can get you. The Supers system really offers it's best at the end of matches; there's this tense, exciting feeling that you get at the end when you don't know when your opponent is going to try for your life, and you've got to make your own move at just the right time. - In the Middle Path, we have the game's graphics, sounds, environments, and extra content. None are awful, but they all could be better. There could be better textures, better stage music, better stage layout, more game modes, more characters. Why not 4 costumes in the base game instead of 2 with 2 downloadable? Why not multiple characters from the same franchises already in the game? Why not more unique stages to fight on, beyond the "enclosed fighting area with stuff going on in the backround"? There could have been more scrolling stages, stages where you fight on floating platforms, etc... These middle-of-the-path aspects don't detract from the game, they simply could have improved it; it's THESE things more than the negatives that could have given the game that 8.0 instead of the 7.5 if they were better, for me at least.
- The Weak points. The game's story mode is terrible. You won't get much out of it other than a quick giggle at your favorite characters' reactions towards one another. The final boss is just plain bad, with no unique moves of his own, he basically just sends out more guys for you to fight. The game has this air of cheapness to it due to the unimpressive Menu panels with the boring font for every piece of text; it really looks bad when you put the game next to it's elegant cousin, Brawl. Sorry to say, but it's true. And the online connectivity issues are unacceptable, and need to be fixed eventually.
So, let me answer the question you've all been asking; No, the game is not as good as Brawl, nor is it as complete as Brawl. In terms of whose bigger and better, it's like if Brawl were Kratos and All-Stars were Nathan Drake; completely human and it can hold its own for a little while through luck and perseverance, but at the end of the day, if you put Kratos up against Drake, Kratos would rip through him like a piece of toilet paper; there's only so much a mere mortal can do with bullets and grenades against a demi-god with flaming chains and super-strength. So, let's not look at All-Stars, or Mr.Drake, for what they aren't. All-Stars is a good game in its own right with its own sense of charm and is definitively worth the buy- it will keep you entertained for hours at a time, as it has done for me. It comes up short in certain ways, but I can guarantee you that if you buy this game without a Nintendo-Super-Smash-Bros bias towards it, you will enjoy it; Drake's not as impressive as Kratos, but, he's a pretty awesome guy in his own right.