New Meaning to "Gettin Smashed All Weekend"

February 13, 2008 4:22 PM

Easily the most hotly-anticipated game for the Wii (if not ever), Super Smash Bros. Brawl has topped 1 million sales in its first two weeks in Japan (U.S. release date is next month [3/9]). Featuring the addition of celebrated video game characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake to its bloated cast, as well as the ability to record fights, design levels, single-player storylines penned by Kazushige Nojima (Final Fantasy VII), and the first SSB game to feature online play, it's no wonder the game has delivered on the hype and become only the 7th game in acclaimed magazine Famitsu's storied history to receive a perfect 40/40 score. Watch the Japanese intro, spoil the game for yourself by checking out all leaked in-game secrets, or simply learn more about all the details that went into the game with this chat with the head game developer. Finally, if you're hardcore enough to hang with the big boys, head on over to the Smash Boards and find yourself a tournament to participate in.
posted by Christ, what an asshole (39 comments total)

Looks ok, but I'm still holding out for the Wii version of Bagman.
posted by Flashman at 4:32 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This game and Mario Kart Wiiare going to be mind-boggling. Super Mario Galaxy made the Wii even more difficult to obtain than usual - this will just heighten the rarity.
posted by porn in the woods at 4:35 PM on February 13, 2008

This wil be great -- WHEN I CAN FIND A GODDAMN WII.

Seriously. I've been trying to grab one for months. Too many people in LA with lots of time and cash on hand get to 'em before I do.

Now I have a server hitting web sites and flagging me when one is available, in the hope that I can beat everyone who is using wiialerts to the punch.

/rant
posted by davejay at 4:42 PM on February 13, 2008

i'll echo the sentiments of davejay.

it's freakin' ridiculous, and i hate all the people who buy 5 wiis at a time and hoard them to just to turn a profit on ebay. there is a special section of hell reserved for those people, and it's right next to the people who buy up all the concert tickets in advance.
posted by gnutron at 4:52 PM on February 13, 2008

PC Chris is amazing. He also won the last Smash tournament over at mlg (disclaimer, I work for them.)

just to let everyone know, though, those Fox moves you see everyone always using in Melee aren't in Brawl. You'll have to find another character to play your cheap moves with.
posted by shmegegge at 4:53 PM on February 13, 2008

Seriously. I've been trying to grab one for months. Too many people in LA with lots of time and cash on hand get to 'em before I do.

If you'd backordered one online when you first started looking you'd have had one by now. Might not be a bad idea to do that now, since it looks like they're not going to be any easier to find for the next year or so.
posted by shmegegge at 4:55 PM on February 13, 2008

I never got into Melee, wasn't much of a GC fan, but I played way too much of this on 64. I'm going to have to pick up a Wii when Mario Kart comes out, because Smash + SMG + Kart = win.

just to let everyone know, though, those Fox moves you see everyone always using in Melee aren't in Brawl. You'll have to find another character to play your cheap moves with.

Thank god they took out wavedashing though, for a laymen like me it would be impossible to compete without having mastered the exploit in Melee. I actually see an exact parallel here with bunny hopping in Quake engine games, if you never mastered the engine exploit you would always lose to those who did, which is why developers like Valve who still utilize that branch of tech have gone to great lengths to neutralize it. No better way to piss off the hardcore though.
posted by prostyle at 4:58 PM on February 13, 2008

And for those of us with a Wii (god bless a fan of mine who sent me one with 10 games), I've heard the number of Brawl games available will be limited when it comes out.

My friends and I coasted through early college playing SSB, then late college and post-college playing SSBM. We've now all acquired Wiis and will continue to accomplish nothing with our lives.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 5:04 PM on February 13, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Smash Bros Melee was one of the single biggest surprises of my gaming career. From the outside it looks like it's going to be a classic lazy licence-dump - shedloads of wildly different, frankly incompatible, characters shoehorned into an absolutely bum title, which is still guaranteed to shift tons of units because it has Mario and Pikachu in it. But it was awesome. They didn't need to make it good (it would have sold anyway) but they actually made it superb. Fighting with a Ganon-Jigglypuff tag team was such a joyous, visceral experience - the real meatiness of connecting with a charged hit, the satisfaction of launching someone into the stratosphere. I've been holding out on the Wii, sticking to my DS. When this is launched worldwide I'm jumping on the bandwagon - screw it, I'll slip a yoke over my shoulders and pull the goddamn bandwagon.
posted by RokkitNite at 5:06 PM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

For anyone looking for a Wii, I got one a year ago with iTrackr (I had to bust out of work pretty quickly to get my hands on it).

/ Nintendo nerd
posted by Taargus Taargus at 5:08 PM on February 13, 2008

All of this makes me feel very, very old.

It's time to admit to myself that video games left me behind from the Sega Genesis on .
posted by ColdChef at 5:14 PM on February 13, 2008

Easily the most hotly-anticipated game for the Wii (if not ever)

Hyperbole is the absolute worst bullshit in the entire history of the universe, period.
posted by Mikey-San at 5:23 PM on February 13, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

The lack of Brawl has been the single thing keeping me from acquiring a Wii. This, obviously, will be remedied shortly.

I won't torture those without with the story of how my sister, walking through a Target on an unrelated errand, saw a white box, thought "isn't that that new Nintendo thing?" and bought it.

Oops.
posted by Skorgu at 5:40 PM on February 13, 2008

And for those of us with a Wii (god bless a fan of mine who sent me one with 10 games)

Christ, what an.....


Oh.
posted by maryh at 6:22 PM on February 13, 2008

Japanese Smash Bros Promo Video
(full-disclosure: my youtube upload, but, blantently stolen from the japanese wii site.)
posted by yeoz at 6:43 PM on February 13, 2008

None of the links above explain why this game is supposed to be so awesome. It's like if you're not already part of the fan club, why would you even bother paying attention? At least with Super Mario Galaxy you could kind of see why everyone was so excited. Is this the video-game equivalent of Dancing With the Stars or something?
posted by chrominance at 7:11 PM on February 13, 2008

For anyone looking for a Wii, I got one a year ago

Meh. I got mine a week before launch...at discount...because I WORK AT NINTENDO SUCKERS!!!

We have a company store that has healthy supply of systems, and I seem to have a healthy supply of friends who have friends of co-workers step-brothers that need a Wii.

And yes I do think I have a bit of job stability thankyouverymuch!
posted by P.o.B. at 7:20 PM on February 13, 2008

My little brother is absolutely obsessed with SSB. He has convinced his roommates to retool an entire room of their house in anticipation of the new one's release. Their goal is to construct a giant ball pit in which to play (although so far all they've accomplished is moving one dude's stuff into the laundry room. You know, just in case all those balls materialize).
posted by solipsophistocracy at 7:21 PM on February 13, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Wow, P.o.B., your sweet job coupled with the opportunity to help out friends of friends has clearly taught you a lot about not being a dick.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 7:23 PM on February 13, 2008

I pre-ordered this like 6 months ago...seemed like it was never going to come out. Glad to hear it's great and is on it's way.
posted by chococat at 7:32 PM on February 13, 2008

Does it come in Blue?
posted by humannaire at 7:39 PM on February 13, 2008

It's amazing when something highly anticipated and overhyped not only delivers on its promises but somehow exceeds its unrealistic expectations and garners near-universal appeal. Ocarina of Time is the best occurrence of this phenomenon in video games, I think. It looks like Brawl might be headed for it as well.
posted by danb at 8:40 PM on February 13, 2008

I've been playing Brawl since February 2nd, when it was first successfully pirated and distributed — it's the first Wii game to use a dual-layer DVD, so it took a few days for tool support to materialize. Just the process of copying the data off of the DVD using one of the LG DVD drives took 24 hours, and it wasn't till the 4th that there was a working dual-layer rip of the game.

IT IS AWESOME.

I have my modded Wii sitting on my desk at work, plugged into an LCD monitor using a VGA adapter. Productivity has plummeted. The only real work I've done in the last few weeks was to write an application to take the audio from the Wii via the line-in on my Mac Pro and provide a volume control before putting it out through my speakers. Our boss has not seemed to really notice either it or the dual X-arcade joysticks 'hidden' under the couch.

It has 4 different customizable control schemes: Wiimote, Wiimote & Nunchuck, Gamecube controller, and classic controller (don't have one). I find that I prefer the simple Wiimote-held-sideways setup — I like using the D-pad, though the lack of a discrete jump button is a tad annoying. Using it vertically with the nunchuck has it's advantages — you can play in total sloth mode, with your arms at your sides, perhaps with your hands in the pockets of a bathrobe.

We've unlocked all the characters and stages, and most of the assist trophies (they're like pokeballs, but with characters from all sorts of games). Even my dual-layer rips crash after the first level of Subspace Emissary (the epic single player mode), but I was planning on waiting for the US release to play through that anyway (it's supposed to be a good 60 hours).

It's definitely worth paying the $400 for a Wii + 4 remotes, especially when you consider Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Strikers Charged (extreme soccer), No More Heroes (a best-in-genre meta-action game), Zack and Wiki (a childlike culmination of Mario, Zelda, & SCUMM) and the eventual Wii Mario Kart. And that doesn't even include the 'casual' games!
posted by blasdelf at 9:41 PM on February 13, 2008

I hope they eliminated the whole wave dash/ L cancel thing. That was one exploit I hated in SSB, took all the fun out of it for me.
posted by JimmyJames at 10:34 PM on February 13, 2008

I'm pretty sure wavedashing is gone — I don't think you can reverse direction or hover forever the way you used to in Melee. A far less exploitative imitation of the tactic is probably possible with Fox/Falco/Wolf.

L-canceling appears to be gone as an exploit, but if you hold down to fall faster a more balanced version of the same thing happens. I haven't looked into it that deeply yet or compared against Melee.
posted by blasdelf at 11:36 PM on February 13, 2008

While I'm looking forward to Brawl as much as anyone, there does seem to be an aspect of Pepsi Blue to this post....

I actually see an exact parallel here with bunny hopping in Quake engine games, if you never mastered the engine exploit you would always lose to those who did, which is why developers like Valve who still utilize that branch of tech have gone to great lengths to neutralize it.

Ah yes, like snaking in every Mario Kart since the 64 version, and is particularly bad in the DS version. When a given tactic makes the game unwinnable by everyone else who doesn't use that tactic, that's what we like to call bad design.
posted by JHarris at 12:30 AM on February 14, 2008

Bah. 77 days to go until the PAL/EU release.

On the plus side, I did get a wii pre-ordered for launch day from amazon, by waiting for it to go live, and mad-clicking refresh with one-click order at the ready. They supposedly sold out of their entire pre-order stock in under 2 minutes, so I was happy chappy!

And just to piss off the americans, PAL wii's are in stock in 3 of the 4 big online retailers I just tried, without bundles. I'd offer to be postie but then you'd need to import all your games too. (Or get it chipped)

And thanks for the tip about the vga cable blasdef, I didn't realise they'd done one yet. Mmmmmm, wiii in the office for the half-term holiday.
posted by ArkhanJG at 12:33 AM on February 14, 2008

Does this have a lightsaber? Well, then how can it be the most highly anticipated Wii game ever?
posted by caddis at 1:23 AM on February 14, 2008

This is probably one of the most redundant posts EVAH! (if not EVAH!), but I every time I see what a video game looks like nowadays, I'm floored. If somebody had shown me that intro back in the early eighties (when I was into gaming), I probably would've fainted. Hell, if somebody had shown me a damn favicon, I probably would've fainted.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 4:28 AM on February 14, 2008

I quit buying video games after the Dreamcast died. However, if I can finally kick some mario backside with the blue blur, I may have to finally buy a new console.

(Man it'd suck if they work together in story mode or what-have-you.)
posted by Cyclopsis Raptor at 5:06 AM on February 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If this is the best the Wii has to anticipate then that pretty much confirms I'll be choosing between the 360 and the PS2 come April 29th.
posted by biffa at 5:41 AM on February 14, 2008

GRRRRRRRRRR I had a SSBB post all ready to go on launch day! /bitter You got most of it, but it's unfortunate we haven't really touched on the hardcore side of the SSB scene, though I heard whispers of wavedashing above. The truly remarkable thing about Melee (which continues in Brawl) is the intuitive yet extremely malleable physics system, which allows for veteran players to pull off all sorts of bizarre rule-bending feats which brings gameplay to an entirely new level. Advanced Techniques (ATs for short, but not to be confused with Assist Trophies) in Melee included wavedashing, dashdancing, L-cancelling, float cancelling, short hopping, teching, and more, and there's a number of youtube videos out there serving as tutorials.

Brawl is similar but very different; the physics engine has changed significantly, and a lot of the old tricks are out. A lot of new are in, though it takes time to discover these sort of nuances; it's a testament to the game's depth and sophistication that it's impossible to know at this point just what characters will be featured at the highest levels of competitive play, because the real potential of each character (each varies wildly in moves, jumps, special attacks, weight, size, etc) ends up being extremely dependent on these advanced techniques that true smashers devote days of playtime practicing. Stuff like wavedashing is out, but new stuff like dash shield grabbing is in.

Smashboards.com is the real heart of the scene, but youtube has exploded the possibilities for technique sharing, and the new wireless connectivity will really make Brawl a phenomenon which will utterly dwarf Melee, which was heavily restricted by being trapped offline and on GameCube.

The game looks so damn cutesy, that all my "adult" gamer friends turn off after seeing 5 seconds of it, but it's really as sophisticated a fighting game as you'll ever see.
posted by mek at 5:43 AM on February 14, 2008

I watch my 13 year old play SSBM on his Wii all the time. It looks like a ton of fun, and I really like the music. I'm anticipating Brawl almost as much as he is. Got it reserved at EB... he's saving his pennies...
posted by lhauser at 6:28 AM on February 14, 2008

Mario and Sonic in the same game makes me feel dirty. It's like if Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff were on the same show. Oh wait.
posted by de novo dahl at 7:44 AM on February 14, 2008

I want this game very much. It is like video game fan fiction made real. Sonic and Mario need to kiss and hold each other and make love. Snake needs to come in and say "Did anyone order a pizza." McNulty from the wire needs to be up to all his old tricks!
posted by I Foody at 8:36 AM on February 14, 2008

Christ, what an asshole:

A fan of yours sent you a Wii with 10 games?

What business are you in, and how do I get in too?
posted by mariokrat at 10:25 AM on February 14, 2008

Music.
posted by Christ, what an asshole at 11:44 AM on February 14, 2008

When I first saw the user assignation on mariokrat's comment, I thought it was a statement. Then when I saw his response, I thought he created an account specifically with that name as a joke.

I Foody: Yes, I imagine Smash Bros Fan Fiction (which I think does exist) is a special kind of pain. But then, think about it... the game itself is essentially fan fiction. The definition of fan fiction, dfistinguishing it from such things as novelizations, I always considered to be related to length and whether you get paid for it. That they got a Final Fantasy scribe to pen the storyline for Subspace Emissary strikes me as fitting and/or wildly hilarious.

mek: There are enough "realistic" characters in Smash Bros Melee that they could simply not play anyone that trips their Sanrio detector. I think your friends have been subtly lying to you: they are not so much opposed to Smash Bros. because it has cutesy cartoon characters in it, but instead because if they played they'd certainly get their asses handed to them by those characters.

In particular, I've found that in the original game Kirby absolutely rocks (pun not intended) with his Stone "death from on high" move. In Melee, Ice Climbers and Peach are quite strong. Peach's mandated weakness actually works in her favor: she has lots of weak "slap" attacks, but she can rush through and hit with them and has a quick recovery, and the enemy isn't knocked away far, so she can rush back through immediately with another. When they're finally hurt enough to get knocked skyward, her up+A fits right in. I've made people throw down their controllers with that tactic.

In both games, Jigglypuff can be murderous when played correctly.
posted by JHarris at 1:14 PM on February 14, 2008

I guess I find the fact that so many people still can't get Wii's to be odd. I ordered mine online shortly before it came out. It was easy to get, although I *did* have to buy a less-than-ideal game package with it.

Still, Super Smash Brothers doesn't really excite me, any more than Tekken 28 1/2 really would.

Now, Spore for the Wii, Wii Fit, and the upcoming Katamari game for the Wii... those excite me.
posted by markkraft at 3:19 PM on February 15, 2008