This month, I decided to review one of the most highly anticipated games of this year: "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." It had a lot of hype surrounding it, but did it live up to everyone's expectations? Let's found out!
In 1999, the original "Super Smash Bros." came at us without so much as a warning. It was made by HAL Laboratory, a subsidiary of Nintendo, that's responsible for the Kirby and Mother (Earthbound) series.
It was an instant classic; everyone owned it. Two years later, "Super Smash Bros. Melee" was released to great anticipation. It lived up to its hype, selling well over one million copies, and was a household staple for all GameCube owners.
Fans have long been waiting for the third installment in the great series, and on March 9 -- seven years after the previous title was released - they got their wish.
"Brawl" added a few new things that weren't in previous installments, such as a story mode, Final Smashes, co-op event matches and the number one new thing: Metal Gear's Solid Snake. Sonic came, too, but no one cared about him.
The story mode, Subspace Emissary, is quite mediocre. There is no real story, just a bunch of random twists thrown together with Nintendo characters in the middle of them. There is also no voice acting, except for a grunt by Snake when he arrives in the story.
Nintendo needs to get with the times. All games on home systems have voice acting now! There is no reason for Link and Mario to be mute anymore. This is just laziness on Nintendo's part.
The levels in the story mode are monotonous and repetitive, and the times at which characters are introduced are never appropriate. Another thing that bothers me is that when characters are turned into trophies, they die. They can be brought back to life by being -- get this -- touched on the base of the trophy. Gives you a reason to fear death, huh?
The new array of characters is completely unbalanced. Characters like Ike, Sonic, Meta-Knight, Toon Link, Lucas and Pit are both overly powerful and ridiculously fast.
Captain Falcon, Jigglypuff, Pit, Snake, Olimar, Ness, Lucas, Ice Climbers and Marth have incredibly powerful Final Smashes that almost guarantee doom, while Mario, Ganondorf, Peach, Luigi, Meta-Knight, Link and Toon Link have Final Smashes that are incredibly hard to hit with or are completely useless.
While it is still fun, I can't help but feel that the SSB series is on a serious downhill slide. The next title, if there is one, will be hyped more than "Halo 3" and will surly be more of a letdown.
"Super Smash Bros. Brawl" gets a 4 because it's as fun as it's always been, but not a 5 because the story is twisted and the characters are unbalanced.