Games for Lunch: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

In a nutshell: Fan-service fighting fun!
3/11/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

0:00 Given the amount of time I've spent playing the first two Smash Bros. games and covering news about this version, I'm scared that this is going to be anticlimactic. We shall see.

0:01 A required system update, creating a save file and a longish initial load takes up most of the first minute. The game tells me I can't save replay data over three minutes in length. Um, rats?

0:02 Slow pans across the characters and they look over an ocean. Jump cuts to close ups of Mario, Link, Pit, Meta Knight, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, King Dedede, Sheik, Roy, Samus, Wario, Yoshi ... I'm sure I'm missing some. Just watch this.

0:04 And the title screen. There's no one else around at the moment (and I'm not about to wait for someone to try out the game) so I try out the online mode first. My friend code is 4296-2599-7618, if you care.

0:06 The game lets you choose a character as you wait for others to connect. That's nice. Unfortunately, the game can't seem to find any opponents in the 40-second time limit. Trying again...

0:07 No connection again. I find it hard to believe no one in Japan is playing. Maybe it's too far away?

0:08 I guess this is gonna be a solo affair. I choose the Subspace Emissary story mode, because it's meant for one player. I choose Hard difficulty because I'd like to think I'm decent at Smash Bros. games...

0:10 Zelda and Peach look out over a stadium of cheering fans. Life-size Mario and Kirby statues gets thrown in and are brought to life to battle. Looooooading ... five or 10 seconds' worth ... more than I've seen in other Wii games.

0:11 And it's over... Kirby barely touched me. First impression: The game is a little more slowly paced than Melee. It's easier to tell what's going on and much better animated. The Nunchuk and Wii remote controls feel familiar, but I have to get used to using my right index finger (B button) for an attack.

0:12 Pit watches the Mario/Kirby match from his shadowy lair. Dark clouds appear, and a huge ship drops black snow that turns into some extremely generic-looking monsters. Zelda and Peach come to help, and I get to choose the order of my lineup from among the four of them.

0:14 So I get to fight a seemingly endless repetitive procession of these scrubs, along with some floating, spark-shooting clouds (reminiscent of Kracko from the Kirby games, actually).

0:16 Thirty or so enemies later, Mario is at 208%, but he's still alive. Cut scene: An Ancient Minister floats in. Two R.O.B. robots appear and open up a bomb with a three-minute timer. Mario runs to defuse it, but is knocked into the stratosphere by ... something. Petey Piranha abducts the princesses and it's up to Kirby to beat him, I guess...

0:19 I lose one life in the battle before I realize I'm actually supposed to be attacking the cages, not Petey himself. At that point I hang back and attack gingerly from the outside and rescue Peach easily.

0:20 Wario appears and uses a big add gun to shoot a dark arrow at Zelda, who becomes a statue. Meanwhile, the bomb goes off just in time for Kirby to fly away on a star. This story is entirely too random ... like bad fan fiction. Anyway, the first "stage" is clear. I get 24 coins and my first sticker: Telly from Chibi-Robo! Where my Nintendo nerds at? I'm at 2% completion.