Super Smash Bros continues to be a dominant multiplayer experience, but accomplishes little else
Super Smash Bros. Brawl still retains it's unique fighting system that has you increasing an opponents hit percentage and then striking them so they fly off the screen, instead of the very typical heath bar found in just about every fighting game. As well as it's the simple controls so that even new players to the series can quickly get accustomed to the game. You can change the rules of the fights in numerous ways such as most KO's in a time limit, enemies losing their stocked lives,or collecting the most coins. You can also change the items that you see and how frequent they occur. When you have the rules and everything set to your liking you then select a character to play as, along with the stage to fight at. Like with all Super Smash Bros. you are given a good amount of default characters and stages, the more you play the game you have opportunities to unlock more. Each match you start off at 0%, and the more damage you take the more easier it is to fly off the screen.
Most of the characters that were in melee are still in brawl, but there were some characters that were taken out of melee and were replace by new ones. I was sad to see Mewtwo taken out but Lucario's fighting style very similar to that of Mewtwo's. Roy was replaced by Ike, a mighty powerhouse also from fire emblem. Some newcomers made the game much more exciting like Wolf o' Donnell and Pit join the Brawl. Wario, Meta Knight, R.O.B, Diddy, Olimar, Lucas, Toon Link, Sonic, and Snake are the others to join the fight. While Pichu, Dr. Mario, Mewtwo, and Roy will not be joining the brawl. Some old characters even get some changes added to them, such as Samus without her robot suit can be playable, even more costumes are available like the Dark Link costume, and some old characters get a different fighting style. Overall there is plenty of likeable characters for you to choose even if there are many unlikable ones.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl includes a new single player story called "The Subspace Emissary", which was a good choice considering that the single player for the series has been weak. However, I am disappointed by the Subspace Emissary mode. It had a good idea behind it, combining all the characters from the different series and having them work together to take down the forces of evil. Of course it has improvements, like an actual plot with cut-scenes included, and the option to choose who you want to use in each battle. It is a side-scrolling adventure that has you defeating enemies while trying to reach a goal, so as you can see it is very similar to the adventure mode in melee. The gameplay can get very repetitive, especially when you get to the great maze level. Which is absolutely ridiculous, it makes you play the entire game all over again, a very cheap way to extend the game. They story involves the same gameplay, with some occasional puzzles and boss battles, neither being impressive. The only good thing I have to say about the Subspace Emissary is the plot, I mean who else got up off their seat for the Fox and Rayquaza fight?
There are still many different game modes in the game, you have training, tournaments, the still ever so fun home-run contest, and the event battles, which have you using a certain character to complete a certain objective during a fight. These many different game modes add variety to the usual fighting and once again separate it from different fighting titles. A new addition the game was the confusing character customization system. It involved collecting stickers which looks like a piece of paper that can be found during fights and the Subspace Emissary. The stickers are a character or object from some game no matter how insignificant, they also varied in size and use. For example you have a Landmaster (Starfox) sticker and it is big in size and takes up most of the customization space, and it gives that character an increased attack of +15 (this was just made up it wasn't the real Landmaster sticker) What really makes it confusing is the effect it gives the character, such as +kicking, +energy, +special, +boost, just really confusing effects. You have think about the moves of the character and try to think of how it works. Like I guess you would give kicking to Fox.
Several interesting new battle stages have been added, and some old melee stages have been brought over. Another new feature is the option to create your own stage, some will make the best use out of this, as for me it didn't work out too well. The most noticeable addition is the Final Smash moves, each character has their own unique and deadly attack activated by breaking a Smash Ball. With this players can really turn the game around by using these Final Smash moves. The only problem is they occur way too often even on the lowest setting, so basically every match everyone is chasing down the Smash Ball completely stopping whatever they were doing to go after it. I think it's a great idea, but one Smash Ball should appear about every other fight, so it's truly a game changing rare gift to that lucky player. Instead of always constantly chasing those darn Smash Balls.
The vault is a really cool collection of various trophies, information, and even demos of old games that you unlocked. So if you want to learn more information about your favorite character and the past games they were in, than the vault is that place. Super Smash Bros. continues to grow and improve on its games, too bad it still is only at it's best with multiplayer. Playing by yourself isn't nowhere near as fun as playing with your friends, and the Subspace Emissary will only disappoint. If they had a truly strong Single Player mode then this game would have been a lot better to play by yourself, instead of only pulling this game out when your friends come over.
Final Notes
> Single Player modes are still weak
> A blast to play with your friends
> Great character selection and battles stages, though some are redundant
> Final Smash moves takes over the game too much
> The vault has great information and is place to try out game demos
> Plenty of unlockable content
> Players can finally experience online battling with Wi-Fi