- Hey all, Scott here. You ever love a game so
much that other people say is basically the bubonic plague? I've been there, and I'm here to combat those people by stripping that word of all negativity. I love "Super Smash Brothers Brawl" this (beep) is bubonic! All right. A "Smash Brothers" crash
course, if you will. 1999 sees the release of "Super Smash Brothers" on Nintendo 64. A fighting game like no other, which saw up to four players, trying to knock their opponents off of the stage slash screen as an array of Nintendo all-stars. The more damage you take, the higher percentage you gain and the easier it is
for you to get launched. It was a critical and commercial hit, so the next step was some
solid evidence that God exists with the two year development cycle. "Super Smash Brothers Melee"
released on the GameCube only a few weeks after
the systems launch in 2001 and upped the ante on everything
from the previous game. A crazy amount of new
single player content, more character stages, better mechanics. "Melee" had it all and
is how a sequel is done. While the GameCube was
far from Nintendo's most successful platform, "Melee" still sold incredibly well. It was the game people
bought GameCubes for. The game people knew the GameCube for. With the popularity of "Melee", people were dying for
a new game for years, then E3 2005 stumbles into the room. Satoru Iwata was discussing
details on the company's newly announced next generation
console, the Nintendo Revolution, and decided to announce
that, yup, it's a thing. - One or two Wi-Fi games
will be ready for launch and I am pushing our team to make sure "Smash Brothers" is one of them. (crowd applauds) - Yes. A new "Super Smash
Brothers" was unofficially officially announced at E3 2005. All that was said was, "Hey, 'Smash Brothers'
will be a launch title on the Revolution with
online play, right guys?" The "Smash Brothers"
director, Masahiro Sakurai was surprised at the
announcement as nobody ever told them a new Smash
game was in development. Iwata met with them the next day formally asking him to be involved with this "Smash Brothers" game, being in charge or as close
to in charge as possible. And with that meeting in the books, the third "Super Smash
Brothers" game officially entered production a day after it was announced to be
officially in production. After Sakurai finalized some plans, like the initial character roster, development commenced later that year. Following Nintendo's E3
2006 press conference, showcasing the newly
renamed Nintendo Revolution now going by (shout), Nintendo premiered the
first look at the next entry in the "Super Smash Brothers" series, "Super Smash Brothers Brawl". I always loved the intro showing
the characters transforming from "Melee" to "Brawl",
and the freeze frames with the new characters' names underneath. The trailer revealed
Meta Knight from "Kirby", Zero Suit Samus from "Metroid", Wario sporting his "WarioWare" attire, and Pit from "Kid Icarus",
everybody's favorite. Also shown off was the
inclusion of Final Smashes and Assist Trophies, a pretty
spectacular first impression. (phone rings) (upbeat intro music) They're really letting anybody be a "Smash Brother", aren't they? Now, I wasn't there for the great "Brawl" wait
sesh of 2005 to 2008. I wasn't actively following
gaming news at the time, but I've concluded it went like... (drink spilling)
(Scott yells) Nice. There's going to be (beep) stages. Every weekday, a new piece
of information was revealed about "Brawl" on the official website, the "Smash Brothers" Dojo
starting on May 22nd, 2007. These updates would range from "how to use a controller" to, "is that a (bleep) Sonic the Hedgehog?" Yeah, Sonic made it in but, because of it among numerous other issues, "Brawl" saw a few delays after initially being pegged
for a December 2007 release. - Yes, the Smash community is stoked. But when? Well, not next year, not next spring... - Releasing on January
31st, 2008 in Japan, March 9th, 2008 in North America, and June 27th, 2008 in Europe, was the wait worth it? People (bleep) hate this game. "Brawl" is generally
considered the weakest of the "Smash Brothers" games to many, not because it's a bad game
or poorly made, far from it. But so many fans say this
game was a disappointment. It was unbalanced. It wasn't competitive enough. It just didn't live up to "Melee". To be fair, it was seven
years in the making so expectations were definitely high. Considering "Melee" blew everybody away after being developed in only two, kind of meant "Brawl"
had a lot to live up to. I think a major problem
people had with "Brawl", other than the tweaks to the
"Smash Brothers" gameplay, is that it didn't introduce as many new things as "Melee" did, it more so expanded upon "Melee". But we'll get to that when we get to that. First things first, this is the only other box art I
have framed next to my bed. "Brawl's" cover is one of
the best in the series. Just look at it. All the characters are looking towards you with beams of light
shooting from the center. Just the overall composition
of this shot is mesmerizing. This is the box art that makes you proud of being a Nintendo fan. Popping the game in, (booming menu music) Jesus Christ, we're greeted to a relatively long loading screen. This always killed me back in the day. Blam, "Brawl's" intro. What can I say? This thing is great. However, a lot of people will
completely dismiss this intro due to "Melee's" being the
absolute cream of the crop, and while I'm not going
to disagree entirely, I'm going to defend "Brawl's" right quick. So "Brawl's" intro is a
compilation of CGI cutscenes from the game's adventure mode, and random shots of gameplay. People have complained that
it's not a coherent intro that was animated with the purpose of being an intro, like "Melee's". I smell a counterpoint. "Melee's" intro still had shots that very rarely connected to each other. Here's Metroid, here's
Zelda, here's Yoshi. Like, it was basically random
shots of these characters and "Brawl's" is the same thing, except these shots were also
used elsewhere in the game. "Melee's" intro had gameplay
randomly cut in too. Both of these are far more similar than people act like they are. I will say, some parts of "Brawl's" intro leave me feeling like, "Oh, man. I'm going to look like a loser for saying this intro isn't that bad." Like the final shot is
just the Halberd flying. To quote the 11th commandment, that is not how you end an
opening movie for "Brawl". People also dislike how the announcer doesn't screech "Super
Smash Brothers Brawl" on the title screen. All right, I'll give you that one, but the game already broke
every bone in my ear. (booming menu music) I'll gladly take a moment of silence. Let's talk about the roster of characters as "Brawl's" is the
first one in the series to omit characters from previous games, however, I'd argue it's a
massive improvement over "Melee", not only because of the sheer
abundance of new characters but because it feels much more refined. I think "Brawl" really
hit home how special it is for a character to be in "Smash Brothers". Like with "Melee", it felt
like they let anybody in. Young Link? (beep) sure. "Brawl" trimmed the fat of
"Melee's" character roster, with each character feeling important to the world of gaming. Dr. Mario, Roy, Young
Link, and Pichu were cut alongside Mewtwo, which was odd considering he was a
completely unique fighter, but I think the characters introduced in "Brawl" more than
made up for the losses. We got Nintendo characters who were always obvious candidates for "Smash Brothers". Wario, Diddy Kong, Olimar,
Meta Knight, and King Dedede. Old-school characters
re-introduced for a new generation with R.O.B. an accessory for
the NES turned into a fighter, and Pit who was a star of
the "Kid Icarus" series, which also goes by the name of, what!? Most people who played "Smash Brothers" had no clue who this guy was, definitely because he only
had two games at the time, the last of which was
on the Game Boy in 1991. Pit was different compared
to the revival of, say, the Ice Climbers in "Melee" because, while the ice climbers
felt like a 3D version of their eight bit selves, Pit was designed as if he
kept on getting new games and evolved over time,
much like how Link did. It's really cool what they did with him and it sparked interest in a
potential new "Kid Icarus" game which Sakurai later made. Zero Suit Samus was a new character, playable after unleashing
Samus' Final Smash, or simply by using a button combination on the character select screen. Toon Link was the
replacement for Young Link, which I think was a smart change. He represents the Wind
Waker style of Zelda games and is much, much more unique
than Young Link ever was. Lucario was basically "Brawl's"
replacement for Mewtwo. I'm more of a Mewtwo guy myself, but Lucario brought with
him some interesting ideas. Ike was Roy's replacement but, instead of being a Marth clone, he was an entirely unique character. Lucas was the second Mother
slash EarthBound representative alongside Ness, staying true to Nintendo's tradition to do
anything "Mother 3" related outside of Japan except
release the game itself. Wolf was a new Star Fox character, being similar to Fox and Falco, but pretty unique at the same time. And, of course, one of
the coolest newcomers, Pokemon Trainer, allowing
you to control either Squirtle, Ivysaur, or Charizard. "Brawl" had a ton of great
additions to the roster, but the biggest news came with the introduction of
third party characters. This was a huge deal,
like the first third party "Smash Brothers" character must be, that came out of nowhere. Snake always felt like a serial killer in a sea of cotton candy. He's a cool character and
definitely iconic enough and worthy of being called
a video game all-star. but picture a world where Snake was never in "Smash Brothers". Would he really be that heavily requested of a character for "Smash Brothers"? I think Mega Man, Pac-Man,
Bomberman, or even Simon Belmont would have fit better as one of the first third party characters in "Smash Brothers" history, but Snake definitely got people
talking and made it clear that "Smash Brothers" wasn't just a celebration of Nintendo characters, but video game characters as a whole. Since third party characters
could now be represented, I think that made new
"Smash Brothers" characters being revealed feel more impactful. Just like the inclusion of
Sonic the Hedgehog was, man, the perfect third party character
to be in "Smash Brothers". They've made it happen. Mario's rival, one of
the most iconic faces in all of gaming, his move set blows. Most of it is just a Spin Dash, man. Moving on to where these
characters actually fight. I love "Brawl's" stage selection, man. So much variety. So many series represented. There's a lot of wacky, crazy stages but there's still a fair amount of stages that are calm
and competitively viable. I adore PictoChat,
WarioWare, Luigi's mansion, Delfino Plaza, Yoshi's island,
Bridge of Eldin, Skyworld. So many great ones. You have some fun ideas for stages too, like 75 meters, Mario
brothers, and Hanenbow but those play like gingivitis. A select few "Melee"
stages are brought back but, no stages from the
first game unfortunately, that was always a bummer. The gameplay here is
still "Smash Brothers", there's no doubt about that. The biggest new addition
has to be Final Smashes. When the Smash Ball appears,
if you happen to break it open, you can unleash your Final
Smash, a character specific special move that's tailor-made to be a devastating blow to your opponent. (gameplay music) Most of them, Assist Trophies
are also here as new items which allow for other characters to appear alongside you to help you out. A solid compromise for some of these guys not being playable. Speaking of items, lots of great new ones, specifically the Dragoon where you have to collect
all three pieces to unleash one of my favorite reticles of all time. Tons of control options are available. You can play with just
the Wii remote on its side and, as a kid, I thought this was the most optimal way to play. Just disregard me already. Overall, "Brawl" is
still "Smash Brothers", just with more additions and OH (bleep), random tripping can occur which is a bit on the
heart-wrenchingly dumb side of things. On top of that, the game
is much slower than "Melee" which made the game much less
interesting competitively, and Meta Knight's a character, I just realized I'm
supposed to hate this game. I've made it clear I'm
not a competitive guy by any means, but I think
it's still important to make sure those guys
are happy with the game and in that regard yeah, "Brawl" failed. It was obviously geared more towards the Wii's target demographic, the casuals, the newcomers, "Brawl's" original name was
"Babies for Smash Brothers." It's supposed to be easier to pick up. Sadly, that turned countless
fans off from this game and I can understand why. However, that shouldn't be the reason for considering this a bad game. Many "Smash Brothers"
fans still claim that the one-step plan on how to make a "Super Smash Brothers
Brawl" is to (beep). This game still has a lot to love about it and, because of the easier mechanics, we have so many more
"Smash Brothers" fans. It has its problems, but probably shouldn't be
completely tossed to the side due to its gameplay changes. It made it more accessible for
people and created new fans. I mean, come on, that is a good thing. Random tripping is still dumb though and I will definitely
toss some other aspects of the game to the side. Yard style. It doesn't hold up all too well. You see with "Melee", it still looks good but character models look
outdated by today's standards. "Brawl" fits much more in line
with modern Nintendo designs, but I got to say the
overall direction they took with this game invokes the same feeling of choking on baked
beans whenever I play it, like it's much more
realistic this time around with much drabber colors and it just doesn't feel like Nintendo. Things are obviously this way because, Exhibit A, the Wii and GameCube
were very similar power wise so, how you make "Brawl" look better? Make it look more realistic, of course. And Exhibit B, Snake. You have this green happy dinosaur and a pink puff ball jumping around in the same game as an
advocate for nicotine, of course, you're going to have to make the colorful characters
a bit more detailed and less colorful to work
better alongside him. Don't get me wrong. The game looks fine. It's attention to detail
is very appealing, but I just don't feel like it's the greatest
representations of these characters. Like when I think Mario,
I don't think denim. It's fine, just the art style, it's a bit too realistic and gritty, I guess for a celebration of Nintendo. Even though the visuals may
not hold up all too well, this game's soundtrack is phenomenal and will be played at my
funeral in its entirety. The quality and quantity of tracks have been greatly increased and every track deserves, at the very least, a foot thumping. You can unlock more
music by finding CDs and can even customize how often
you want certain songs to play on certain stages with My Music. "Melee" brought with it a slew
of new single player modes and, when we look at what "Brawl" did, it looks like "Brawl"
remembers "Melee" too guys. I'm sad to report classic
mode was taken to the vet and either declawed or neutered, I'm really having a tough
time deciding which one. It's still the same variety of matches against random opponents but the fun little mini
game diversions are gone. All that's left are two
rounds of Break the Targets. And, get this, back in the first two games each character had their own unique Break the Target stage that took advantage of that character's abilities. Now there's just five
separate stages based on five different difficulty levels. Sure, that's easier to
develop and makes it more simple to talk about who got
the highest score and whatnot but this is way lamer now. Other than that, classic mode is pretty much the same as "Melee." The same goes for All-Star Mode, pretty much the same as "Melee". You fight all characters in the game on one life with only three
recovery hearts except, now you can play with a
friend if you want to. The mission-like event matches, they're brand new scenarios, but pretty much the same
song and dance as "Melee", except there are a handful
of co-op events now. The Stadium, again,
features home run contests, basically the same as "Melee", hit at the sandbag as far as possible. Target smash, go lay down. Multi-man Brawl, a bunch
of opponents to fight like Multi-man Melee, in "Melee". And boss battles in the game which, it's a nice feature to have this at whim. Yeah, I can see why some may
have been a bit disappointed with "Brawl" in this aspect. "Melee" simply introduced
more to the series while "Brawl" basically
took what "Melee" did, and tweaked, refined,
or just changed it up for better or for worse. However, the biggest addition
to "Brawl" single-player modes was the brand new Adventure mode. This was a complete
overhaul in the concept of the Adventure mode for "Melee", and was kind of treated
as its own separate game within the game titled
"The Subspace Emissary." Let's give it a try. (light-hearted theme music) I really (bleep) hope I never have to do a book report on that plot. How is there not
SparkNotes for that thing? Yeah, so Adventure mode has been increased from a solid 30 minutes to eight hours. The mode just becomes a bit too repetitive and goes on for far too long. I did like it, but it just
needed to be cut down a bit. It's all worth it for those
sweet, sweet CGI cutscenes that tell what I think is a story. I'm not even going to try
and make sense out of it. Characters get turned into
trophies, which is bad. Stop the butterfly man at the end, that's what I took from it. Subspace allowed you to
pick characters in the order you preferred playing them, and whenever a secret
character would join your team they'd be unlocked
outside of Adventure mode which definitely gave
Subspace more of a purpose. However, my biggest problem
with the Adventure mode is the lack of a ton of fan service. You battle a ton of
generic, original enemies, traverse worlds that, even if
they are from Nintendo games, just feel really bland
and not interesting. For example, so many of my memories from Subspace Emissary involved Skyworld, the land of "Kid Icarus", a game I primarily associate
with black backgrounds. This does nothing for the
Nintendo virgin within me. Subspace Emissary is
basically the exact opposite of Adventure mode in "Melee". In that game, Adventure
mode had you exploring a good handful of worlds
from Nintendo games, while also being incredibly short. Subspace Emissary is basically the length of a full game on its own,
but it's more original. And please take that the wrong way. It's just not interesting to
explore a lot of these worlds. If they're from an actual game, they still feel super generic. And if they're completely original worlds, they feel super generic. Subspace Emissary gave "Brawl" a lot of its charm and character
and I like that it's here, but it definitely had
some problems that could definitely be fixed in
the next "Smash Brothers", come on! But "Brawl's" main selling
point wasn't the Adventure mode. It was the inclusion of online play. Well, we aren't missing much. Laggy, soggy matches were abundant, man. Online play with "Brawl"
was simply not that great. So go back to the local multiplayer and, while you're at it, fiddle
around in Special Brawl, greatly improved from "Melee". Special Brawl basically
allows you to create a match that will make your parents ask, "What the hell are you playing?" Doubling down on "Smash Brothers"
being a museum of sorts, "Brawl" introduces some
really cool little extras in my favorite sub-menu
as a kid, The Vault. Here lies a ton of the
collectibles and extra content, including the trophies where we now have completely brand new ones, and more of them at that. They're still a blast to collect and now have even more detail, both in terms of the trophies themselves and the descriptions. Now two games are listed for character appearances when applicable, and the console the game
was on is represented too. You can never say "Brawl"
isn't worth the money. You can arrange them in any way you want, twist and turn them all
around, it's a power trip. Of course, if you won more trophies you're going to have to try your hand at the mode that separated
the men from the boys: Coin Launcher, where
you use the coins earned throughout the game as bullets
to nab trophies and stickers, while also trying to get
rid of all this trash. Nothing will ever be as
stressful as seeing a trophy you need appear at the very top, but these metallic spheres decide to be metallic spheres and, god! I'm not gonna waste of so many coins on a trophy that you
ended up already having. Kinda thing makes me want to trudge back to the Wii menu more than that? I always found it so cool that
"Brawl" had a decent amount of content that wasn't fighting based. Speaking of which, stickers! A way for Sakurai to say, "What are you all bitching about? Crystal's already in 'Smash Brothers'." Basically, stickers are
random pieces of art you could collect from
tons of different games. Back in the day, I didn't even know the stickers were here for you
to stick onto your character in The Subspace Emissary for stat boosts, I just thought they were (beep) stickers. You can make little collages and stuff. It was a lot of fun for me. Now, if you want to talk modes that'll make your local 11
year old Scott Wozniak squeal, look no further than Stage Builder. You can now build your own
"Smash Brothers" stages. That's amazing. I did this! The Stage Builder is very limited and while that can lead to some out of the box thinking
and, thus, some cool ideas, the novelty of making your
own "Smash Brothers" stages wears thin pretty quickly here. The themes, items, and
terrain you can choose from are all just super generic, which doesn't make much sense when you can
choose any background music from the game to play on your stage. Why can I play "Kirby" music on this stage that has no "Kirby" themed elements on it? It would have been cool to have
some Mario, Zelda, Metroid, or whatever franchise
type items or enemies to plop onto the stages. The Stage Builder was never
really seriously used by me, I generally only fiddled around
in here just to see how much of a jackass I could be. Challenges features a
huge wall of things to do and trinkets to unlock. Chronicle is a list of all
Nintendo published titles which I always really appreciated. And finally, Masterpieces
allows you to see where a few select fighters got their start. Yep, you can play retro games
within "Smash Brothers". This is insane. Time to twiddle in a game of Donkey Kong. (electronic music begins
and then abruptly ends) Yeah, Nintendo still had to be able to sell all these games separately
on the Wii shop channel, so we can play these games
albeit under time limits. And in most of these games
cases, strict time limits. I wouldn't mind being able to
play "Super Mario Brothers" for only a minute if it didn't take about a minute to load the demo. Also the variety is a little lacking here, not a ton of overall games, and most of them are "Mario" titles. It's whatever, though, the idea
behind Masterpieces is great and it was one of the coolest extras in "Brawl" to me as a kid. When I unlocked "Super Mario
World", I was giddy, man but I realized the only
controller I had that would work with it was a GameCube controller And you truly haven't seen hell until you've tried playing
"Super Mario World" with a GameCube controller. It just doesn't work! And that is basically
"Super Smash Brothers Brawl" and, listen, I will always
love "Melee" for what it introduced to "Smash Brothers", and for being an
excellent game all around, but "Brawl" just took it
to another level for me. I know of the problems
with the gameplay tweaks and not as many new ideas
and modes as "Melee", but to me, "Brawl" was "Melee", but with even more stuff and fan service. It's always a joy to pop
it in and to just explore. I definitely hold a lot of
sentimental value with this game as it was the first "Smash
Brothers" that really hooked me. So keep that in mind when I
say I prefer it to "Melee". It's far from perfect, but I think at the very
least we can all agree it's an extremely well-made
game that had a lot of love and attention put into it. And, hey, if you just
can't stand the gameplay, you can always turn to
fan-made mods like Project M. It may not be your "Smash
Brothers" of choice and that's okay, but it'll
always be one of my favorites. "Brawl" is a great game, and was where everybody's
mind started racing as to what could possibly be
a "Smash Brothers" character. Rayman, Gino, the General, Chibi-Robo!, Vince Young, Brett Favre, as an assist trophy. (upbeat electronic music)
Love scott
Even as a melee fan, Brawl gets a bad rap. It’s not inherently a bad game and it is less competitive, but as a party game it’s still a great and fun game
Man, it sucks that the "Brawl is the hated one" narrative is accepted as the norm.
Brawl sold almost 13 million units. No matter how much you add up every member of the competitive Smash community, you will have trouble getting near like 5% of this number, and this is including spectators. Heck, add PM downloads and you are still bellows 10% of Brawl's players.
So the game, as a spectator sport and competitive game, was inferior to Melee. But damn, Brawl was a super beloved game that really push the casual party experience, and took the single player content in a fighting game to the next level. It deserves a lot of love, and not to be remember as the black sheep of the franchise, because it's only the black sheep to us, a much smaller scene compared to the scope of the game's userbase. And it should be remembered as the great game it was, and not as the lackluster competitive game it also was.
Even as someone who isn’t ultra casual, Brawl is probably my favorite.
Brawl was the first video game I ever came into contact with, at least that I can remember. It was at someone’s wedding reception, the hotel had a Wii set up in the lobby. Can’t remember actually playing the game though, just seeing the character select screen. Guess I just have a bad memory.
Got the game a few years later and played Subspace to beat completion. One of my favourite Wii games, seconded only by Galaxy 2
I like his viewpoints, Brawl was an amazing game for a certain group people
Bring back brawl olimar
Scott looks like Spider-Man...
As much as I love melee’s gameplay to death it’s fun to try out brawl every once in a while for a more mellow experience, though some additions were kinda disappointing, like tripping or the new pork city stage (I’m alone on that last one aren’t I?)
Also am I the only one who genuinely liked the subspace emissary? Yes there was so much more to be done with the concept but as is it was fun! I also don’t get why people call the enemy designs generic, yeah, they reused the doll thing alot but I don’t get how someone can forget some of these designs
And hey, if we didn’t have brawl we would have awful machinimas and newgrounds animations to sigh at!