Zero Punctuation: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

[Dectilon]

Although you can perfect your skills in any fighter to the point where you will always win against button-mashers the point is valid. Not that I'm awesome at it or anything, but in both Tekken and Soul Calibur I'll lose to button mashers sometimes simply because there are attacks that can take you out in 2-3 hits, and as your enemy won't be playing in an intelligent, but predictable, way you'll get swated once or twice out of like 20-30 matches.

Take a game like Guilty Gear on the other hand. No button-masher will beat me in that game. Not even once. I don't really like Smash Bros. as a fighter, but once you know what all the buttons do it's not a bad party game : )

 

[galaxion]

excellent review, had me in stitches.
although, when you said 'extrrrrravaganza' you gave me a flash-back to that old tv show johnny briggs. the annoying brother character.

 

[Kinokiro]

I think Yahtzee's beef is more a fact of Nintendo resting on it's laurels about games. It has brilliant series such as Mother, and Fire Emblem that it keeps exclusive to Japan, buried under hundreds of Mario titles, until it's too late. They bring over a half effort, and when the series does poorly, they don't bother bringing it out again.

I agree that they're beating a dead horse, and now they're using nostalgia factor to sell more games... but that's business and people still eat it up.

I just wish Nintendo actually had released those Japan exclusives over here

 

[Suiseiseki]

I have no idea if anyones pointed this out but since when do you do SSE twice? Personally, I enjoyed the SSE it was like kirby had some kind of twisted mutant baby with streets of rage. I loved the game but have basically stopped playing it now except with the odd mate occasionally and find if you play something other than a 4 player free for all you get less of a cluster fuck, it's definitely a game for people who aren't social pariahs... Or social pariahs who put a facade of likableness online and play wifi.

Also 'Wii' is a ridiculous name and they should have stuck with dolphin. As gay as that title sounds it still wouldn't have resulted in a plethora of 'hilarious' jokes about penises and pissing.

 

[Turbowombat]

Note the mention of wavedashing at the end. I was long out of Melee before I even heard of it though. I don't like making 'tier' or 'play level' comparisons, but I'd be 'high casual/low tourney'. That said, I have no idea what you mean about DI or higher priority as terms, but I'd probably know what it meant in practice accidentally. I also know how to escape it as well, having needed to a few times. I play/main Marth and Ike, with the Star Fox characters tying after that due to my style preference hinging on counters, so a lot of time when I play, I'm the one forcing people to mix up their attacks, because if someone uses a strict pattern of attacks, they'll end up not being able to land a hit on me. It was the same way in Melee, and soon after the launch of Brawl, and my counter-tactics actually forced my brother to stop being a button masher. Now he can match me blow for blow with my own characters. :|

DI = directional influence: the ability to change the angle at which a character reacts to a hit by nudging a direction corresponding to the hit. Also the ability to float in different directions while falling.

Priority = if two moves hit each other at the apex of their respective hitboxes which one wins? Answer: Lucas. Break mortar with counter for marth/ike, reflector with space animals, down A or a bomb with Link (my main) etc etc.

That all said I am going to put on my Nintendo T-shirt and cat ears and stop posting here because now that I've educated you all a little more I'm going to plug www.smashboards.com and go there since this is a discussion about ZP and I've digressed into SSB advanced techniques. I'm sorry Yahtzee, please forgive me.

 

[MaDsPLoiTz]

VERY good review, brilliantly funny and spot on on every point.

 

[Kinokiro]

I find him more like a Ganondorf. He has the potential to be powerful and challenging but you really need to be precise and calculated. The one up he has on Ganon, is that he has projectiles.

 

[randomjoe333333]

100% true i swear nintendo just revamp there old games how many mario karts, mario,zelda games are there?

Only thing i didnt like was that game shop you kept mentioning anyways why do you even bother replying to review fan boy requests

 

[the_importer]

Although you can perfect your skills in any fighter to the point where you will always win against button-mashers the point is valid. Not that I'm awesome at it or anything, but in both Tekken and Soul Calibur I'll lose to button mashers sometimes simply because there are attacks that can take you out in 2-3 hits, and as your enemy won't be playing in an intelligent, but predictable, way you'll get swated once or twice out of like 20-30 matches.

Take a game like Guilty Gear on the other hand. No button-masher will beat me in that game. Not even once. I don't really like Smash Bros. as a fighter, but once you know what all the buttons do it's not a bad party game : )

Indeed. With the exception of the Dead or Alive games (because of the counters), it seems that button mashing is more easily accomplish in 3D fighting games for some reason (never could figure out why).

 

[Saskwach]

Whooo yeah! Gametraders! To all of those wondering YES he was being entirely objective with his praise for that beloved chain.

 

[Dectilon]

Btw, I wonder how long it will take before Uwe Boll tries to buy the filming rights to 'Brawl : D

 

[shenlongxz]

Good review as always. As a long time Smash Bros player I can say that I was psyched for this game, and when it came out me and my friends played it solidly for two days (longest streak was 20 hours, 4 hours of sleep then back on it), and we unlocked the last few characters that way. There are around 5 of us who really enjoy the series and can play it ad infinitum, but we've other mates who just don't like it at all, so I can see where you're coming from.

Dear god is it hard to get good at, even now I sometimes have trouble keeping focus of my character, and the gameplay is slowed down a fair bit from Melee! But really, there's no way mashing buttons is going to get you anywhere in Brawl, unless you're all doing it. There's the C-stick if you use the Gamecube controller though

 

[Kinokiro]

I unlocked all the players in about 7 1/2 hours of gameplay,

 

[Human Bomb]

Out of curiosity, how many of you are new members of this forum all because someone linked you to this review and you're here in a futile attempt to tell us all how "wrong" Yahtzee is?

I read the Escapist and lurked a while before this. I think most people aren't pointing fingers here, but man there are a lot of post january low posters here.

 

[entropy3ko]

Btw, I wonder how long it will take before Uwe Boll tries to buy the filming rights to 'Brawl : D

I nearly died laughing when I heard he was shot down by Blizzard after wanting to make a WoW movie.

Thank God for that!

 

[Jasper Kazai]

I love SSBB, but this review was still awesome.

 

[Human Bomb]

Btw, I wonder how long it will take before Uwe Boll tries to buy the filming rights to 'Brawl : D

I nearly died laughing when I heard he was shot down by Blizzard after wanting to make a WoW movie.

Thank God for that!

Unless I misunderstood the article I read on it, they literally told him that 'No, we don't want a movie made, especially not by you.'

I may not really like Blizzard, or play WoW, but that's awesome. and now I can't help but respect them.

Isn't that what Hideo Kojima said about Boll making a MGS movie ?

 

[Kinokiro]

Spencer: Seriously... This game has a lot of depth. Just like if someone were to walk-on to a Street Fighter tourney, they'd be massacred before the lights were turned on.

If anything, SSB has more depth than most 2D fighters, mainly due to the changing environment.

 

[nekrosangelo]

Gotta say I can't stand SSSB either but then again the majority of fighting games don't appeal to me so maybe the game was lost on me before it started.

 

[Mstrswrd]

Well, that was a bit more... scathing then expected, but really freaking funny, so who cares! I think a VG Cats comic puts his ideas perfectly into perspective, though (It's the one where Snake slits Mario's throat, and I don't feel like finding it right now).

I also like the part where he rants about the button mashing, though, if youve seen the people at tournaments (the people who win, not the bottom rung), you'd see that button mashing only goes so far (not that what I do is much better then that, but still).

Anyway, I think you have to have a form of ADD/ADHD to enjoy this game in the higher levels/muliplayer, because it gets so hectic. I have ADHD, and I had fun... of course, "had" is past tense. Now it's only good if I can bully my friends into playing, so I can beat them into the ground (I'm "that guy," but I don't search for people who are beter. I instead play training games with my friends to make them better).