LogFAQs > #896710236

29. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Anagram)


It's hard to believe Super Smash Bros. Brawl is ten years old now. The hype campaign for this game was unparalleled, starting with the initial trailer that broke the internet when Snake showed up at the end as pictued above (and that was twelve years ago now). Then there was the Smash Dojo, with near daily updates about additions and changes to the game. Sometimes it was ridiculous stuff like, "YOU MUST RECOVER," but they also slowly unveiled the roster with it, including another third-party reveal in Sonic the Hedgehog. They also introduced one of the bigger new mechanics: The Final Smash, which was touted as something that can completely turn a match around. Then there was its new story mode, the Subspace Emissary, which attempted to tell a full story using all the characters in the game instead of just being a new Adventure Mode. In some ways, the intense hype behind Brawl also contributed to much of the backlash against it when people realized it wasn't merely a Melee clone with more characters. Many people went back to Melee and never looked back, and when Smash 4 came out, many more went to that and never looked back. Brawl is largely a forgotten game these days except by people like me who loved it then but haven't gotten into Smash 4 for one reason or another.

Of course, with a game like this, one of the biggest things is the roster, and naturally, Brawl is bigger than ever. It's also quality and not just quantity, so while I played a lot with my usual mains Kirby and Luigi, I spent a ton of time with Snake and Sonic. They were both really fun. I liked all of Snake's projectiles, and Sonic's speed allowed me to play aggressively and chase people down. I liked Diddy and Ike, too. I enjoyed the new Final Smashes, even if some of them were pretty lame and many of them were exactly the same (LANDMASTER). There were a bunch of new stages, although there were a lot of gimmicky ones that rotate through everything every couple of minutes. For some reason, Brawl thought that everyone played two minute matches, so they made that the default for everything, including online play. I didn't do a lot of online since the Wii wasn't exactly the best for that. Perhaps the best quality of life change Brawl made was the soundtrack, which had a lot of remixed classic themes and a bunch of new music for each stage. You could set the frequency of each song as well, so if you didn't like a song, you never had to hear it, and if you really liked one, you could hear it as much as you want.

I suppose I should say a little bit about Subspace Emissary since they made such a big deal out of it. I only played through it one time, but I enjoyed it for what it was. They had some cool cutscenes and setpieces, and some of the character interactions were pretty neat. Somehow King Dedede ended up being the low-key star of the whole thing. To be honest, they did more with it than I expected them to do. I thought it'd be short and simple, but it had a lot of levels and several bosses (even though the boss fights generally weren't great). I'd like to play it again one of these days just to see what I think of it now, but it was pretty decent overall.

Bonus Question: Who is your Smash Bros. main?
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