Saturday 26 January, 2008

GAMEPLAY

This time I played single player, and I had a lot of fun playing with familiar characters from other Nintendo games. Although perhaps not a proper narrative, I still felt more connected to the characters in this game than other fighting games, because I have fond childhood memories of most of them (I admit, some of the characters are too obscure even for me to recognize).

One nice thing about the game is how trivial death seems. There is no way to die on screen (most fighting games have extreamly gruesome on-screen deaths where one character pulls out another character's spleen and feeds it to him or something), you only die by being thrown off the platform. When you die, all that happens is that your character losses 1 "life" and then reappears with full health at the top of the screen. I feel that in this way the game sends the message that mistakes are ok, everyone losses sometime, and that you can still continue playing and having fun after loosing a battle. I can't really stress enough how comfortable and friendly this game is compared to every other fighting game ever.

DESIGN

I think the friendly mood this game sets is a really cool innovation in fighting games. One of the ways that mood is set is by having cartooney, fun characters that video gamers associate with their childhoods. The items are also generally funny and friendly (poke-balls, flowers, paper fans) instead of traditional "weapons".

The reward structure also contributes to the friendly mood. When a player wins a match they are treated to a nice victory screen where the other characters applaud them, but that's about the limit of their reward. When you lose a match it doesn't seem very bad becasue you basically forget all about it as soon as the next match starts.

you really focus on how player-friendly and how social Smash Bros. can be. But you needed to write more, especially in design. The core game mechanic differs from other fighting games. You could have said what these difference were, and how they affect the gaming experience.


- David Seagal (Grader)