Super Smash Bros: Brawl, What the Heck?

I recently got the offer to buy a Wii for £100 from a friend facing redundancy, with the low price and opportunity to help out a mate seemed like a good idea.

So far I've not regretted it; I put in some rental requests to my Tesco service and much to my surprise got all 3 more or less the next day. So far I've enjoyed:

Super Mario Galaxy, as expected a great game and one I will probably buy as my daughter likes it too but is getting through it much slower than me. IMHO this is the best Mario game since SMW.

Super Mario Kart, better than the Gamecube version but still a very "computer controlled" game in solo, fun nonethless and decent enough party game.

It's not often I'm completely stumped by a game but Super Mario Smash Bros just doesn't make any sense to me.

What are you supposed to be doing? What are the game mechanics? Why is it supposed to be fun? So far it doesn't make any sense to any of us. What's more confusing is this is supposed to be one of the best games for the Wii, better than the previous two, which have obvious appeal and are very playable.

Obviously not having the manual (rental) doesn't help, but even after reading up at Gamefaqs I'm still not realy clear what the heck this game is all about.

Can anyone explain to me:

How is the combat supposed to work?
What do all the controls actually do?
Is there any skill involved in this game at all or is it just very basic button mashing?
Is there a survival guide somewhere?
Why is this game supposed to be any good? It seems incredibly simplistic and dull to me.

Darkheart

I can't get into any of the Smash Bros games - they are tedious button mashers to me, but my son loves them.

I've beaten the (first) game with multiple characters - unlocking all of the secrets, but at no time did I ever believe it was down to my skill. It was just how fast I can bash a button and be in the right place at the right time.

I've owned a Wii since launch in the UK and of all the Wii and GC games I posess (over 60), I just don't get it/them. I can't play the N64 version (again, which I own) as it's just too slow and jerky, but again my son loves it. Perhaps you have to be younger than a teen to "get it"?

Dunno.

"How is the combat supposed to work?"
You can set the rules, but by default its a 2 minute K.O. fest... which means get the most kills with the least deaths to win

"What do all the controls actually do?"
There's 3 ways to play: 1. with a gamecube controller 2. Wii stick with nun-chuck and 3. with just a wii stick control thingy. The manual should specify what controler its refering to while giving you instructions.

"Is there any skill involved in this game at all or is it just very basic button mashing?"
A little bit of both; you have to be quick, but at the same time you need to know what to do... when to block... etc...

"Is there a survival guide somewhere?"
Sure, look under vault and videos... I think theres some video about training in there... but mostly you just get back on the ring... if they hit you hard enough and your damage is high then they will launch you off screen - nothing you can do about it

"Why is this game supposed to be any good? It seems incredibly simplistic and dull to me."
I don't know. It makes a great multiplayer game, and the appeal of beating the crap out of other nintendo characters has a place in the market.

I can't say I was a fan of the Wii Smash Bros when I played it. In fact, here is my thought on the matter!

I was completely looking forward to that game because I always hated its control scheme. To me it felt unresponsive, indirect, sluggish, heavy... I found myself mashing buttons to little effect and by the end my fingers would ache because the game unnecessarily requires it.

So when the Wii was going to have Smash Bros, I didn't just think "I hope this uses the real controller;" I assumed it would! I assumed "this game would be superb," because with the Wii they could have it completely intuitive for once, and introduce some very neat, very tactile things. It's not like they need to keep rehashing the same game; the Wii is about being new. And why the Hell would /Nintendo themselves/ go against their own stuff? The Wii is its controller.

Somehow they already forgot that. Smash Bros Brawl is only really playable with the GameCube controller, which means new peripherals for a lot of people. Oh, and it means a wired controller for a lot of people. It also means that the potential is completely lost. Smash Bros. Wii feels no different from Smash Bros on the GameCube to me, because it is played on the same weirdly shaped, heavy buttoned mass of purple plastic. There are no tilt controls except in the menu; just GameCube-esque controls, so it is just as difficult as ever to comprehend. However much the fans insist, Smash Bros Brawl is not a game to be played with groups -- at least not for the groups the Wii is meant to cater towards.

I have all three games I and love them. They are a lot of fun, and I'm not certain why some think it involves no skill.

Firstly, get a gamecube controller or two. It's the only way to play.

Second, don't start mashing buttons as that's the surest way to die. There is a lot of skill involved here, and part of it depends on how you want to play. Try some of the different charactors, and you'll see that they all play differently (well, except for 'doubles' like Mario+Luigi, DK+Diddy, etc.)

I personally don't like the timed matches. It's more fun in Stock mode, where you each have a certain number of lives, and the last person standing wins. Also, turning off some of the more ridiculous powerups keeps things fair.

To 'kill' another charactor, you have to raise their Damage. This is shown as a percent on the bottom of the screen. The higher your damage, the farther you fly when hit. The idea is to completely launch the other person off the screen. Otherwise, Damage has no effect on them.

I like to play as Fox because he's extremely fast. The idea is to get in there and hit him with fast, light combos to raise their Damage as quickly as possible, and then finish them with an item or a Smash attack.

If you don't already know, there are three different levels of attack: light (fast), medium (slower) and heavy (smash, very slow). There are basic melee attacks on the A button and charactor-specific Specials on B. I'm sure there are videos that explain all this better in the Vault, but this should get you started.

Online mode is pretty useless, since you can't even talk to the other players. If you're playing with a friend and you both have 360s you can chat with the headsets, but that's kind of ridiculous.

Hope that helped get you started. Have fun!

I agree with you Darkheart. I remember Jeremy being a big fan of the game so when I tried the N64 emulator I thought it would be a good game to try. I just didn't get it at all. Seemed kind of like a weird casual game where you just mash buttons. Didn't find it in the least bit fun.

I've never been a nintendo fan but can see the attraction for some and the controller initialy made me consider a wii just for the novelty value. Never did get one in the end, just didn't have the games that interested me.

Smash Bros. Is a big game of king of the hill. You want to increase the damage percentage of your opponent which makes them lighter and more likely to fly off the stage. I was confused by the original N64 version the first time I played it too. Once you get it the game is great fun and requires a lot of strategy. Button mashing will get you no where.

Yeah you try to knock the guys off the screen by increasing their damage by 'normal' attacks which to little damage, then finishing them off with what are known as 'smash' attacks, which are generally slower or harder to accurately hit, but do a lot of damage which will send an already damaged opponent through the air.

The key to the game is using the proper move for the proper situation. You'll notice that each character has an over A, up A, down A, and each a degree of how hard you are directing the analog stick. Certain moves have area affect capabilities, stun, or hit the opponent a certain direction. This varies character to character and finding combinations of moves that work well together is the key to success.

That said, Smash Brawl in my opinion was far inferior to the previous games. I find the levels extremely distracting, the physics extremely flawed, and a bunch of new gimmick features that are not very fun, but just new and shiny and shallow. The new items make the game incredibly easy, as they are overpowered, and Nintendo never fixed the problem of 'character cloning' that they claimed they would, and actually made it worse. Do we really need ANOTHER Fox character in Wolf? Falco was dumb enough as it was!

So Brawl; not the best game in the series. A good game, but for the hype it was given and all it had to live up to, its nothing short of the Wii tradition of gimmicky novelties.

I feel much better reading this thread :) I thought I was the lone person who didn't like smash bros. My nephews, and everyone else seems to love it.

I haven't played it too much, but at least on the gamecube it DID feel like I was just mashing buttons randomly, and hoping for the best.