Good addition to the Smash Bros franchise, but easily the most overrated out of the 3.
The second one which I never got a chance to play at all, took all of the aspects of the first one and made it into a classic for the defunct GameCube.
Now with the Wii comes the third game of the series: Brawl.
One of the things I love about Brawl is the amount of freedom it gives the user when it comes to making the matches and what not. So many stages from classic Nintendo franchises to brawl forever. The music is TOP NOTCH, I love the music in this game and I love that they brought back some Melee tracks as well. Character wise, it is easily the most stuffed roster out of all 3 (though some might be disappointed in some downgrades to certain favorites of yours, mine being Mario). Multi-control choices from the Wiimote alone, Wiimote/Nunchuck combination, Classic or GameCube controller (highly recommend the GameCube controller). Online brawling, the ability to build stages, play an old-fashioned shoot-em-up with coins to obtain new coins and stickers, lengthy storymode, etc...........
While those are my favorite things about Brawl, I still say GameSpot and the rest of users here are going a bit overboard with their grades for this game.
For starters, too many clone characters. Fox, Falco and Wolf each share the same special 'B' attacks yet Wolf's 'A' attack are WAY different. Honestly, if Nintendo wanted to bring Wolf into the game then Falco should have immediately been cut, but I guess fanboys would've complained if that happened, so oh well. They're not the only ones either:
- Ness and Lucas
- Captain Falcon and Ganondorf
- Link and Toon Link
Secondly, besides clone characters, the introduction of Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid franchise and Sonic The Hedgehog. I may never understand why they added them to Brawl in the first place. It should always be exclusive to Nintendo characters. This move might open the door for more "outsiders" getting in, ruining that aspect of the Smash Brothers series for me. Gotta please the fanboys again I guess.
My other complaint is how unbalanced and cheap the game feels at times. A lot of the characters only require that you rapidly tap a button to inflict damage to an opponent, then finish off with a more powerful blow. Not much skill required there. And it also doesn't help when almost everything in this game can make your damage meter go up in a hurry (especially the main story mode).
A new addition to the Smash Brothers series is the "Smash Ball." Grab it and you can perform a devastating attack clearing the stage of anyone who gets in your way called the "Final Smash." As cool as they look, you can't help but notice how overpowered the gameplay is once you grab one and most importantly, the utter laziness of the game programmers for not giving characters SEPARATE Final Smashes to differentiate them from the others (I.E: The Starfox characters each have the same Final Smash with minor differences in lengths of time they last, along with Ness and Lucas, Link and Toon Link, Zelda and Sheik).
Story Mode is well done, but the enemies in this game are VERY overpowered, as well as the final boss of the game who is the epitome of overpowered and extreme cheapness. Master Hand wasn't that cheap. Also, you'll need to go through this in order to obtain all of the characters (which can be accomplished within a week or several days if played non-stop). Three characters sadly, were never added to the main story, especially Wolf. Who wouldn't love to see Wolf and Fox interact as allies again?
Never played Brawl online but from what I've heard, it lags like hell and the online connection is terrible. No thanks.
Now don't get me wrong, Brawl is still a good game. Just that fans rate it a bit too high and it's not as superb as many make it out to be. By the end of the day, Super Smash Bros Melee would be remembered more than Super Smash Bros Brawl (and considered to be more fun as well) while the original Super Smash Bros will forever be my favorite and an instant classic. It's just Nintendo didn't do enough to warrant this game as a 9.5. 8.0 at best.