The date: November 8, 2007.
That is the day my thirteen year old son reserved his copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
He saved for months to get this fifty dollar game and had the money in hand. He was ready, having honed his skills in the Game Cube predecessor. First, it was to come before Christmas, then well before Eastern Lent, and now it has finally arrived . . . the very week our family goes media free in the fast before Orthodox Easter.
My son has learned about the inscrutable providence of God.
But the key question is this: was the game worth the wait and all the yard work?
Oh yes.
To paraphrase the Obama, “This game is the Wii game we have been waiting for.”
Right now, while I write, it is entertaining a room of college students, junior high students, and high school students. All of them are brawling and happy . . . the Wii be praised. This game system had my father in law bowling with my ten year old daughter last Christmas and now it has gone even one remarkable step further.
Brawl has the entire family engaged in a colorful virtual world. The cartoon fighting is no more violent than old style World Wrestling (before it was “cool”) or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. There is no blood and your “mans” (to use my son’s parlance) die by falling off the stage. Game play is much improved from earlier versions. The screen shots flow seamlessly and the animation is much smoother. You will see worse visuals in the theater . . . in movies you enjoy!
The game is full of humor and combines all the Nintendo heroes from the past. In a bonus, Sonic, who has suffered through some genuinely terrible Sega games, gets to appear in this first class next generation game. Having actually won a round as my favorite (Captain Falcon) I can report that the days of mashing buttons are over. If you want to “kick it old school” (my son again), then you can, but the Wiimote controls are more intuitive for those of us who are just old.
The additions are all good . . . the final smash feature cost many many lives as I tried to gain the awesome “smash ball.” The game is easy to learn, but has a huge amount of replay value. Essentially this is a three dimensional animated board game . . . or Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots the way you imagined it was if you grew up in the Brady Bunch era as I did.
The controls are open ended and intuitive. The animation and audio is first rate and remind a player how overrated “graphics” was in the battle with Playstation. Brawl is gorgeous and the design pulls everything out of the solid little Wii. It would not have played better if Nintendo had ripped us off with an overstuffed machine that would have required twice as much lawn work to buy.
Sadly, and here is the one warning, the game has introduced a few characters that make the fun Nintendo world a bit more adult. Don’t do a Google search for Bio-Zero Suit Samus without care. In a gaming world that already has too few girl characters for my daughters to play, Bio-Suit Samus goes straight for junior high male immaturities. This is sad and jarring in a game that is delightfully sincere and very G-rated.
Of course, in the world of comics and video games there is nothing abnormal about unreal and exploitative female models, but Nintendo has generally resisted this. Zelda is one kind of character, especially in her Sheik guise, and Princess Peach another, but neither are “adult.” Just like Captain Falcon, they are powerful without falling into overt sexuality. Nintendo was one world that had resisted this sort of image (Barbie with plastic surgery), but now has given into the demographic demands of their main consumers.
It is a bit sad.
But don’t make too much of the warning either! Brawl is fun, family friendly (in general), and well worth the price of admission. It is cheaper than taking my family to a movie with much greater replay value. It is a game to be played with people . . . and that is the best thing that can be said about it. We have already (day one!) had a brawl party with guests.
Thanks Nintendo, but do remember that we can get our cool-grown up comix characters elsewhere. You have gotten rich selling something else!
