it is and it isn't.
superbot did a fantastic job with the fighting mechanics of the game. each character's move set feels very unique (save evil/good cole) with a lot of variety and an easy, pick-up-and-play mentality. smash always felt a tad simplistic to me, tekken was waay to complex. PSAS found a really good balance and this is the best fighter i've ever played.
..but it is lacking a lot in a lot of other ways. music/sound effects in particular feel too generic to me. the visuals are a bit disjointed too. personally, i think superbot focused too much on faithfully recreating the source material and forgot to give their game a life of its own. sound effects and characters models are direct ports and that does this game a disservice.
items are too few (only 19) for which i prefer smash. also, too many of the items feel like downgrades from my characters natural abilities. smash did a much better job at enticing me to pick up and item and having it really impact the chaoticness of the gameplay.
level design could be improved. smash had better variety in level design. other than cole's level everything is a basic design of here are some platforms. superbot added some level damage elements but as there is no ring out death i don't really feel the need to care too much about them.
and unlockables. no unlockable characters. no unlockable levels. only 1 unlockable costume per character and you get that really early and there is very little fanfare around the event. smash did a better job here. much like trophies, i love the pomp and circumstance around earning more things in a game like this. the whole "a new challenger" event is soo satisfying.
lastly, the single player mode is a bit lazy. playing the campain for each character is quite repetitive and lacks variety. it's just 20x of the same player vs. bot matches. ..and polygon man is a huge cop-out of a final boss. it only feeds the smash-clone garbage.
so the bottom line for me: the core gameplay of PSAS is better than smash which is huge to me. this game is soo much fun to play. but it as a lot of other elements that are just not up to standards and while individually they critiques are small the cumulative effect is large. overall i'll give the nod to SSB as the better game but if superbot can get their act together on some of the finer details for a sequel i think PSAS could outshine SSB.
edit: another poster reminded me. the online is flawless. for me this instantly makes PSAS a better game than SSBB because the friends that i play this kind of game with all live in adjecent states. as good as brawl is in a lot of ways, playing it single player still sucks.
