Super Smash Bros Brawl

[Talon87]

The Pokémon trainer's three Pokemon look incredible, not only from the aesthetic point of view (which we already knew) but from the fighter utility point of view as well. Check out IGN's video review of how to use him in fights. Incredible! Usually when you choose a fighter, you're stuck, i.e. if you choose Bowser, then you're a big slow fighter for the rest of the fight; if you choose Ice Climbers, then you don't ever get to hit too hard outside of your final smash; etc. But with the Pokemon trainer, you have speedy Squirtle, anti-aerial Ivysaur, and heavy-hitting Charizard all from whom to choose. And what makes him really broken (and probably is going to get him banned from many online tournaments :x ) is the fact that you can avoid Final Smashes done by your enemies 9 times out of 10 if you know how to time it, just by calling your Pokemon back into its Pokeball to send out the next guy.

[Muyotwo]

More importantly, he has a Squirtle. What more do you need?

[Talon87]

Honestly, between Pikachu, Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard, I would choose Pikachu 10 times out of 10. Yeah, a lot of people hate hearing him say "CHUUUUUUUUUU!" as I let loose the vertical Thunder attack every 5 seconds. Yeah, his attack pool is limited compared with Samus or Link. But I like him best.

However, there can be no comparison with the Pokemon trainer simply because:
1) Squirtle looks like a Pikachu clone with a horizontal Thunder (Water Gun) in place of Pikachu's vertical one
2) Ivysaur has so many awesome "interrupt" attacks, from his long-range Razor Leaf and Vine Whip to his aerial Bullet Seed -- attacks that would prove to be really very useful in a 2v2 battle
3) Charizard is basically "a speedier Bowser" with the same firebreath, the same slash, etc.

So when you choose Pokemon Trainer as your fighter, you're getting Pikachu (Squirtle) and Bowser (Charizard) and something I'm not familiar with in SSB (Ivysaur, a good "interrupter", very defensive fighter).

[Muyotwo]

Most importantly Squirtle.

[Talon87]

lol, whatever. (Bulbasaur lineage is my favorite RBY starter and either Ivysaur or Charizard is the one I think looks coolest of the three. In other words, Squirtle appeals to me aesthetically and nostalgically the least of the three, not the most.)

I will agree with this, though: of the three, I think Squirtle will prove to be the most useful. As stated, he's Pikachu (who I think is more useful than Bowser and certainly is more useful than somebody whose job is keeping foes at bay without really getting involved in heavy hitting) but with horizontal Thunder instead of vertical Thunder. And horizontal thunder is infinitely better (a) because it can be used as an interrupt when people off the edge are trying to get back on; vertical Thunder can't do that. It either knocks them into space by its own merit or it doesn't, having no "interrupt" potential of its own; and (b) because not everybody is a jumper or an aerial fighter (e.g. Link), whereas almost everyone is on the ground at one point or another. Even the aerial fighters like Kirby have to come down to the ground at some point if that's where there opponent is.

[Muyotwo]

Played brawl today, was good.

[thed3]

English voices OMG!

Fox, MetaKnight, Pit, Ike, and Falco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPuesnIp0VY

Fox - Sounds ok
Metaknight - It's Darth Vader mixed with Antonio Banderas!
Pit - GAY!
Ike - Sounds like a nerd when he says, "I fight for my friends..."
Falco - Whatever...

Pokemon Trainer, Marth, Jigglypuff, Sonic, Snake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQOEHk9mhbI

Pokemon Trainer - OMG NOOOOO!!!! Sounds like the new VA for Ash... FTLOSE
Squirtle - Sounds close enough to the anime which solidifies Squirtle FTW!!!!
Ivysaur - Sounds like Venusaur, but I guess thats better than it sounding like Bulbasaur
Charizard - Not present LOL
Marth - Ok... he speaks Japanese which isn't too bad, but I thought he and Ike were from the same game... Weird.
Jigglypuff - Sounds exactly the same from SSB so thumbs up
Sonic - Reminds me of anime Gary from Pokemon, but it does sound like Sonic from commercials I've seen here and there
Snake - Never played any of the games, but I'm assuming thats the VA for him since that sounds like it's pretty perfect for the character

I still look forward to playing as Pokemon Trainer/Squirtle, I'll just have to remember to mute it before my ears bleed...

[quilava plush]

Lucario and Wolf voices

I'm not too thrilled with the newer Star Fox voices (SF64 voices >>>>>> recent ones), but for this game I guess I'd rather have them over Melee's Engrish. Wolf's voice is AWFUL, but then again he's been my all-time favorite Nintendo character so I'm ridiculously picky about it. >:| And WHY DOES FALCO HAVE A BROOKLYN ACCENT? .____. [/obligatory bitter Star Fox fan ranting]

I don't mind PT's voice, though I'd rather he get a different VA altogether since Trainer Red =/= anime Ash (especially if the Pokemon Special manga is any indication). I don't know whether or not I like Lucario.

Odd how they didn't bother to dub Marth when they did the others. (FYI, Marth and Ike are in the Fire Emblem series, but completely different games.)

I don't care about anyone else (okay, so I'm happy about Snake).

I'm planning to regularly play as Marth, Lightblue!Yoshi, Red, Lucario, and (of course) Wolf; the first two were my mains in Melee, though I haven't played Melee in forever and have NEVER played Melee in multiplayer mode (shock, gasp), so I'm guess I'll have to start practicing with them again if I want to stand a chance in online brawls. >_< Though I have to say that Luigi's Za Warudo and taunts make me laugh every time.

Also, who else has downloaded the soundtrack? :D I plan to buy an official release if there ever is one, but the music in the game is to die for. <3

[Loki]

Originally Posted by thed3

Marth - Ok... he speaks Japanese which isn't too bad, but I thought he and Ike were from the same game... Weird.

They are from the same series of Fire Emblem games, but not from the same 'universe.' Marth, Roy, and Ike are each from different renditions of the same series. Just like how ZOIDS and ZOIDS Genesis aren't in the same universe (supposedly).

[Lee-san]

I'm so pissed that Europe still has no release date for Brawl..we're always getting screwed over by Nintendo -.-
I'm seriously considering buying that Freeloader thing, given that it doesn't cause any complications and that it works with Brawl.

[Talon87]

I love how we (Americans) always say we feel bad for you (Europeans) yet the moment you guys get a game first (Mario Kart Wii) we freak out about it and demand that we get it either on the same day as you or before you.

Still, I'm not complaining -- I'd happily take SSBB over Mario Kart Wii any day of the week. Thankfully Nintendo is granting my desires at the expense of yours and every other European who agrees with me that Mario Kart Wii brings nothing new to the table (graphically -and- competitively it's identical to Mario Kart DS) whereas SSBB brings everything new to the table (first Smash Bros. online, first Smash Bros. where we can design our own stages, tons of new characters including the amazing-looking Sonic and Ike and [strike:60cwvbiu]Ash Ketchum[/strike:60cwvbiu] Pokemon Trainer, tons of old characters with insane power-ups like Mario and Pikachu).

[Talon87]

Pretty anxious about being able to find this tomorrow morning at 8am. It will either be very, very easy to find or sold out everywhere -- I see no room for a situation in between.

[quilava plush]

I haven't gotten my copy yet (I have a GameStop reservation, though) but I just now found out the wonders of moveset hacking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZDgjjDnWLM

[Talon87]

Went to Target this morning at 8am (when the doors opened) and got the first of 8 shelved retail copies. I'm assuming they had plenty in the back and on reserve as well. In the end, it looks as though I was right -- despite all of the fanboy frothing at the mouth over this title, there was no need to place a preorder (or even to rush to the store at opening hours!) because all the stores have a surplus of SSBB relative to interested customers.

Played from about 8:30am until 9:00am, and then 9:30am until just now (12:10pm). First half was spent in the adventure mode, which has a mildly interesting but pretty bizarre story and has pretty, pretty dull gameplay but is great for teaching gamers what they're capable of doing in arcade mode. (Especially gamers like me who keep suiciding Pikachu off of ledges -- see below -- and have yet to master running and jumping.)

The second half I spent in Arcade mode was really fucking frustrating.
1- I kept telling Pikachu to just run to the side, and instead he would Volt Tackle off the fucking ledge.
2- Ivysaur and Charizard don't even come close to Squirtle. Ivysaur's pretty effing useless. -_-;
3- I made it all the way to the unlocking of Marth (Pokemon Trainer's bonus stage) and Captain Falco (Pikachu's bonus stage), and I got both of them to over 100% (Captain Falco was at 170%!) when I then died in retarded ways. (Marth got a warp star; Captain Falco survived three attempts to Ring Out him, and then I yet again fucking Volt Tackle'd unintentionally off of a ledge and down to my doom.)

So my complaint is:
1- Pikachu is RUINED unless there's a way to cancel attacks or customize button mappings (which I'm sure there is, but still!) because he fucking Volt Tackles waaaaaay too easily, and needs to be told to never Volt Tackle unless I am CERTAINLY hitting the buttons necessary to pull it off
2- It's ridiculous that you can't go back to Character Unlock stages without having to replay through the entire fucking Arcade mode. I wasted 60 minutes on trying to unlock Captain Falco, and I still haven't got him unlocked.

Edit: When I said "Volt Tackle," I meant Quick Attack (or whatever they're calling his sideways attack). Volt Tackle is his Smash, of course, and that's not what I meant. It's just that it's a sidewise tackle that looks electric, so that was my first thought.

[quilava plush]

Picked up my game, went home and immediately stuck my game into the console.... disk read error.

[Wayne]

Meh I got a disc read error when I tried playing RE4 yesterday but this game works fine. BTW qp, that sucks, its probably this disc error. http://gonintendo.com/?p=37360 :/

[Muyotwo]

I read on ebaums that brawl doesn't work on launch Wiis. I have no way of knowing if this is true.

[Lady Kuno]

I love Pokemon Trainer so far. Charizard is a bit lacking but Ivysaur is pretty sweet. I like him more then Squirtle but they're both good.

[quilava plush]

I eventually got it working, thankfully; I actually had trouble getting Super Mario Galaxy and Super Paper Mario to run last month (and at that moment I hadn't even had my Wii set up to play since November, and I got the console around August last year) but got them back on track by setting my Wii on its side. Did the same thing today, and after a few tries it got going.

I've been playing SSE for the past few hours. *_* I already did a test run with the Wiimote and nunchuck and decided that I didn't like it, so the GC controller's staying. And I have to agree with Kuno- I'm really liking Ivysaur.

[Betagold]

Originally Posted by Muyotwo

I read on ebaums that brawl doesn't work on launch Wiis. I have no way of knowing if this is true.

I have a launch Wii, and mine works fine. I got to Toys R' Us at about 10 AM(had some gift cards) and found out that they were getting a shipment of Wii's that morning, which meant that accessories, Wii Play, and Brawl were getting hocked along the hour and a half line. I picked up Brawl, a new pair of headphones (stupid dog ate mine), and because they had a buy brawl, get 50% off select games, Zach and Wiki, which the sales clerk highly recommened. Got home, did some stuff, and started playing bout 11:30 AM. Left at 1:30, and now it's 7:46 PM. I just got to the point where you unlock R.O.B. in the story mode, and so far, I have almost no complaints, except for the fact that I find Squirtle a better character than either Charizard or Ivysaur, but that's just play style issues. I'll work it out eventually.

[Talon87]

I played for a good additional 3 hours (after my post above and before this one, duh-hur :P). My opinion has definitely lightened up a lot. Here's the rundown:

Mechanics: it's classic SSB Melee. Which I dislike, but which most of you love. And I will leave it at that. No point in bitching that the game is "busted" when so many love its style and Nintendo is intentionally targeting that audience.

Controls: USE THE GAMECUBE CONTROLLER! Oh my God, I still suicide on accident every now and then but it's nowhere near as bad as it was when I was using the Wiimote and nunchuk. It feels SO MUCH MORE NATURAL to use the Y button on a GameCube controller to jump instead of tapping the analog stick upwards or hitting the C key on the Nunchuk. Also, I can't quite explain it but it feels a lot easier to alternate between A and B on the GameCube controller than it does on the Wiimote. I'm not one to buy into a claim like "It's because they're spread apart and on opposite sides of the controller, doofus!", but what I do appreciate is the significant superiority of the GameCube controller. If you own one already, USE IT. If you don't own one? Depending on how seriously you take this game and how often you find yourself executing moves you didn't mean to, you might want to look into the $20 investment.

Plot: Samus + Pikachu storyline is the sweetest (as in "adorable") thing I think I've ever seen in a fighter. Totally tugged at my heartstrings when Samus rescued Pikachu from the R.O.B. research capsule. Totally got my adrenaline pumping when Pikachu electrocuted Ridley in order to protect Samus. It's as though Samus has got herself a new pet Pikachu! As if the little tyke was telling Ridley, "Get away from my trainer! You want to mess with her, you gotta get past me, pal!" Fucking adorable 'n' awesome.

I am liking the game more, but ... it's still no replacement for DOA:U on my (broken) XBox or Street Fighter 4 and DOA4 that I am looking forward to playing, someday, on a next-gen console that currently has a failure rate of 1-in-6.

Which Pokemon Is Best?
I'd currently rank them from best to worst as:
1- Squirtle
2- Pikachu
3- Charizard
4- Ivysaur

Ivysaur and Charizard are both too slow, but Charizard makes up for it with his powerful Flamethrower attack. Ivysaur's Razor Leaf barely even moves a non-fighting-back CPU and his Bullet Seed does jackshit nothing to Master Hand (the one adversary in the entire game you can count on if you're looking for somebody to just hover overhead ~100% of the time). His Vine Whip is far weaker than Squirtle's Water Gun and Charizard's Flamethrower, making it the weakest of the three PT Pokemon smash moves.

Squirtle, on the other hand, is amazing. His Surf attack (Up + B iirc) is amazing. It's speedy, and it's this huge wall of water, and it does like 20-30% damage to non-blocking foes. Really nice. His Water Gun is lame because it has to be charged up (which you're never going to have time to do; even in-game I rarely have time to use it), and if you don't charge it up then what you get is a Bubble attack in its place. His Withdraw or Rapid Spin attack (or whatever it's supposed to be when he enters his shell and slides at foes) is both weak and dangerous, so I dislike it. But on the whole, he's amazing. Definitely my favorite of the four Pokemon.

[Lady Kuno]

Um.. what? I abused the living crap out of Bullet Seet on Master Hand and it was pretty good. Do damage till he goes to attack then run. It's amazing. I think you need more Ivysaur practice because some of his moves are really good. Read this for some more information:

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=142987


Also I dont like some of the lag on online play. People say its better with a USB adapter though. :/

[ZoraJolteon]

Bah. Reading how Ivysaur pwns is making me RAAAAAAGE! about the delays again. So I found a long rant about how SSE sucks and read that to make myself feel better.

[quilava plush]

I recall seeing at least two competitive youtube videos where Ivysaur owned the shit out of the opponent; I wish I could find them, but I didn't add them to my favorites for some reason. -_- Part of the reason why I like Ivysaur so much, though.

To make up, have a vid of Ice Climbers(!) owning Lucas.

[Lady Kuno]

I wish I could upload matches onto like YouTube and stuff. Had a few EPIC WINS tonight on wifi.

Let's just say, switching pokes is a great way to ruin a few char's Final Smash. I also got alot better at Charizard. I just havn't been abusing Rock Smash + Flamethrower as much as I should have.