Super Smash Brothers Brawl was the long awaited and anticipated successor to Super Smash Brothers Melee. However, it was met with a fairly lukewarm reception once the initial hype died down. This is because, despite its many improvements over Melee, Brawl makes some very egregious mistakes. Brawl is the actualization of the phrase “Two steps forward, one step back”.I am going to just glaze over the single player additions to Brawl because I play only for the multiplayer, and most of it is extraneous fluff to a player like me. Also, the online play is a joke. Epic fail there.
The best thing Brawl did (for me) was fixing wavedashing and other similar exploits that existed in melee. Wavedashing created an artificial, steep learning curve and the top tier of play was defined by it. A few other similar exploits have been toned down, however as a result the game is defined now by the ability to throw ranged attacks ad nauseam. I would have really liked to see more characters have cooldowns on their projectiles. Otherwise the gameplay is still the same thing I’ve loved since the N64 version.
New life was breathed into the game with many additions to the cast. And, along with those, many of the weaker characters in Brawl were given buffs or new abilities. But only a few scant months, and some characters are borderline broken and others relatively weak in comparison. However, the weakest characters stand on their own much better in casual play than in Melee, so props there.
Brawl really feels to me that it could have used more play testing. I understand that balancing some 35 characters is a nightmare, but there are just combos that shouldn’t exist. For example, King Dedede has a chain grab, which can easily infinite bigger characters, and is generally just a cheap, lame technique. Also, Sheik can forward-tilt juggle to 50-60%. A lot of characters will glitch out when holding ‘A’, repeating an infinite weak attack.
Another thing I didn’t enjoy in the transition was the trivialization of recovery and nullifying of edge guarding. Several things have been changed to ruin this: Many of the new characters have crazy recoveries, as well as older characters getting stronger recoveries, the wonky physics engine almost always sends people up and away, making it almost possible to just float back on to the stage, and finally, most characters will ‘snap’ on to a ledge the second they’re in range, instead of being vulnerable.
Brawl’s worst addition is the prevalence of randomness. I am talking about tripping in particular. What a stupid, terrible idea to have a chance to just trip on your ass while fighting. Also, jumping off people’s heads ends up screwing people over on recovery by accident and luck, not skill. And then there are all the new stages, full of random damage. Not only that but the damage is ramped up and has serious knockback and killing potential on some stages. My group of smashers plays with about 6 or 7 stages on and that’s it.
All in all, I still and will always love the Smash Bros series, and none of these flaws are glaring enough to ruin it for me. Eagerly awaiting Super Smash Brothers Brouhaha in 2012!
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