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Saturday 9 February, 2008
Gameplay 2:
The next round I played in Brawl, I chose Metaknight. After playing him, I discovered that Brawl has many quick characters to choose from, and that it has much more variation than Melee in that sense. Furthermore, there are many extremely slow characters such as Ganondorf and Ike to complete the spectrum.
Playing as a quick character, I was able to outmaneuver the slower characters and defeat them. This raised the question of balance, which seemed tilted in the agile characters favor. Ultimately, I won the match because I didn't lose as many lives as the more sluggish characters, and against the last remaining player I could almost dance around him, all the while dealing damage, until I could clear them off the stage at a high damage percentage.
Afterwards, I decided to play Ike to see if I could overcome the speed of other characters with brute force. I found this play style to be very exciting, as one powerful swing could clear a slightly damaged opponent off of the stage. I found that timing my attacks on a slow character was effective enough to beat the lighter, yet faster, characters. However, in competitive play, I would still prefer to use a quicker character.
Design:
Overall I believe that Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a very well designed game, and will be enjoyed by many. In multiplayer, the game is constantly challenging because the other players are constantly improving with different and new characters. Furthermore, as I learned the different characters, some moves can work in combination with others, making mastery of the game potentially very complex.
Keeping in character of the Super Smash Brothers series, the majority of the levels in Brawl present hazards. Such levels can add flavor, but ultimately detract from the gameplay in a more competitive setting, in which getting eaten by a fish on the Ice Climbers level would be very frustrating. For recreational play, I believe that dangerous levels added to the interaction among players, because my fellow players and I could laugh at the surprises.
Concerning tone in Brawl, the levels and tones of the gameworlds from which the all-stars came are represented well. I had fun playing on the stages from the characters' worlds, or at least containing the elements and art style of their corresponding gameworlds. I felt in Brawl, they were particularly well represented, and it allowed me to kind of relive Nintendo's other games
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