The Ghost of RubangB on 09 March 2008
Greetings esteemed users of VGChartz. Rubang here to lay down the sauce on how and why Brawl is the greatest game ever made. But first, a quick trip down memory lane, to understand how the Smash Bros. series appeared out of thin air to become the fighting behemoth it is today.
Once upon a time, it was 1999. Super Smash Bros. came out on the Nintendo 64. Life was beautiful. 4 player 2-D platform-fighting had been invented. It was a surprise hit from left-field that changed the course of fighting games forever. Captain Falcon, Donkey Kong (gaming's first kidnapper with a heart of gold), Fox McCloud, Jigglypuff, Kirby, Link (the Hero of Time himself), Luigi Mario, Ness, Pikachu, Samus Aran, and Yoshi, duked it out for 2 years straight.
They only had 2 years to fight, because in 2001, Super Smash Bros. Melee came out for the GameCube, with better graphics, more characters, hot babes Peach and Zelda, Japanese-only characters (Roy and Marth helped popularize the Fire Emblem series in the U.S.), and Mr. Game & Watch, the greatest character of all gaming history, the king himself, the master of the first D-Pad. This game was so perfect that 7 years went by with no new entries in the series. For the last 7 years, Melee has had no competition. Countless fighters have come and gone, but they weren't 4 players, and they weren't this addictive, and they haven't spawned 7 years of insane tournaments (for assholes and dooshbags alike). Hopefully all the Melee tourney-assholes with wave-dashing fetishes will stick to Melee and stay out of the taste of heaven that is Brawl. Their time has come and gone. It is now the Era of Brawl.
It took 5 years for somebody to even think of a way to improve Melee, and of course, it was none other than Melee's creator, freelance programmer Masahiro Sakurai. He was chillaxxing at E3, looking for work, because he just doesn't give a shit, and any game he touches turns into solid gold. Before he knew it, Nintendo announced Brawl without him, and then begged him to make it for them, because nobody else had his magic touch. Sakurai kicked back in his hot tub, martini in hand, and told Iwata, "Ok, I'll give you the greatest game the world will ever know, but only if you give me my own headquarters and let me create my own superteam from scratch." Nintendo gave him whatever he wanted, including a rocket car and a mansion made of gold. They built him a new headquarters in Tokyo out of the bones of his enemies, and in only 2 years he crafted a super-team of programmers, designers, and composers, all hired outside of his own 2 person company, for this game alone. And tonight at midnight, it just changed the world.
Now as many of you may know, I've been playing the Japanese game since last Sunday, and just this Friday I unlocked every stage and every character, and I've finally started fiddling with the magical level editor and rocking asses online. So as a fellow VGChartz-er, I'm giving you an exclusive review, during the launch mayhem weekend, and mere hours before it rocks the rest of your lives to dust. (Sorry European suckers.)
Gameplay:
The gameplay is flawless. The character balance is ridiculous. I've been playing random characters against random characters on random stages (or ones I've created) all day long. Every character has a chance against every other character. The new characters change the game entirely, but without ruining the magic balance. Sonic is even faster than Captain Falcon, and all his moves are variations on his spin-dash-attack, so he can just fly all over the screen rocking combos on everybody. Olimar only has 2 special attacks, but they are 2 of the buffest in the game. He's a surprise heavy hitter up there with Donkey Kong, Bowser, Captain Falcon, and Ganondorf now, but what did you expect? The guy wants to go home to see his wife, and he's fighting with the power of love (and of evil plant monsters). Pit has replaced Kirby as the ultimate flying machine, making him this game's ultimate comeback kid in 2 ways at once. And best of all, Luigi is finally a billion times cooler than Mario, instead of just a million times cooler than Mario. He has a way better final smash, and isn't gimped down with a lame firehose backpack like Mario is. But who plays with Mario anyway? Luckily he's the only character I don't love.
The new stages are amazing. You've got your boring stages like Final Destination, Battlefield, Yoshi's Island, and Smashville, in case you're a boring tournament asshole, or teaching a n00b how to play on a safe flat area. And you've got your insane levels like PictoChat, WarioWare, the Halberd, and just about everything else. They are complete chaos. And as if that wasn't enough, the level editor lets you make anything your wildest dreams can imagine, with spikes, ice, ladders, carousels, springs, you name it. You can make them tiny or ridiculously gigantic.
When you're not busy brawling forever, the amount of options in this game will keep you busy for years, editing and sharing stages, editing and sharing pictures, collecting and organizing stickers, trophies, and songs, rocking online, subspace, breaking targets, rockin event matches, and even playing All-Star Mode on co-op (after you unlock all the stars of course)!!! You can do everything co-op now. The co-op events are different from the single player events, and just as hilarious and awesome. Good luck trying to kill 50 Yoshis in only one lap on Rainbow Cruise as Metaknight and Pit. The clones are now few and far between, and even then, play differently enough to justify their existence. Also, it's the funnest game ever.
Graphics:
The intro video is so epic and beautiful it can bring even Ganondorf to tears. These characters have never looked better. Every single character is as sexxee as they should be, with amazing detail no matter how close you zoom in, which is especially important, since you'll be taking and sharing LOTS of pictures with this game. The backgrounds on each stage are amazing, and most of them are animated. Even Final Destination, as boring as it is, is now one of the most beautiful stages in any fighter ever. You warp through time and space all over Final Destination, watch time change from day to night on Battlefield, watch the seasons change on Yoshi's Island, and can catch a live K.K. Slider performance in Smashville. For the first time, you might want to stop the chaotic brawls and just enjoy the show for a minute and really let a stage sink in before you kill each other for the rest of your lives in this sweet sweet Valhalla of a game.
Sound:
Perfection. The soundtrack is the greatest soundtrack of any game I've ever heard in my entire fucking life. There's almost 300 songs in the game, by Sakurai's squadron of 36 game composers. Each level has a whole slew of songs to choose from, and you can set the chances of which ones are more likely to play. You can even turn them all up or all but one down. There are some amazing classics like Tetris, Balloon Fight, and Dr. Mario, and ridiculous hidden gems, like a remix from Cooking Navi, the Japan-only DS cookbook. There are so many insane songs hidden throughout the game, it just might make your brain explode.
The sound effects are also perfectly suited to each character, attack, final smash, assist trophy, and stage effect. Never will a sound seem out of place and draw you out of the game. And the classic "SUCCESS" and "FAILURE" voices are still there to fulfill and crush your target-breaking dreams. Also, "FALCON PAUNCH" is as beautiful-sounding as ever.
Rubang's Final Thoughts:
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the finest game yet to come out for the Wii or any console for that matter. Sakurai and company deserve all the praise that are being heaped on them now and that will come for the rest of the holy G-d damned FOREVER! After this masterpiece the Wii doesn't even need another game to keep people playing and loving the system. I might not even buy Wii Fit now. I might even skip Spore and StarCraft 2.
I'm changing my calendar. From now on, today is the first day of gaming history. This is year 0, and on March 9th, 2009, we will celebrate Year 1 After Brawl.
Game of the forever confirmed. Rubang B, signing off.
