What I hate about Brawl

We all have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. So lets list the things that drive us absolutely crazy about the game that is really responsible for bringing all of us together!

I'm going to start with the Subspace Emissary:

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It seemed like a cool idea at first. All of your favorite characters in a mish-mashed story. I for one was pretty hyped about it. But then I played it.

Sure it has some cool boss fights, and some of the stuff the characters did was kind of cool. But seriously? Tabbuu?? The Ancient Minister who's really R.O.B. in disguise...it's actually pretty ridiculous when you think about it. It could have been sooo much better. Look at There Will Be Brawl...it knew how to put all the characters together in a clever way. Now of course I'm not saying there should have been a murder mystery with a cannibalistic Kirby in Brawl, but I think Sakurai could have done a bit better...but that's just me.

I think he is just trying to get some attention
But thats just me

There Will Be Brawl IS ridiculous, but at least it's well done. Subspace Emissary is ridiculous and just plain idiotic...as far as story goes. I know Nintendo's not known for stellar stories...but they can do better than that!

Just my two cents...

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Brawl was/is a mess. I can go all day with rounds of how bad it was but I'm just going to focus on what's being mostly discussed here...

As far as Space Emissary goes, the story was mediocre at best. Then again, what do you expect from a game that's focused more on it's Battle Royale aspect than anything else? Roy brings up a lot of good points in why the SSE story went the way it did. However, it only justifies the "technical" aspect of the argument at hand. Like Cory, I feel it could've been A LOT better in the narrative (if that makes sense). A certain handheld crossover game series tells a much better story than what Brawl did. I'm looking at Dissidia on this one. By all means, Dissidia's story isn't an amazing story but it did something right; it fleshed out most of the characters in it's story mode all the while maintaining the structural integrity that Roy pointed out. It gave the player enough reason to understand why all of the characters from different games came together in an epic war. It also stayed true to the Final Fantasy lore that each character represented.

Brawl's story was just flat out cheesy and most of the encounters felt forced. One second Fox and Sheik are fighting each other then the next second, all tension is gone and the two of them are having tea/coffee with Peach. Seriously . What about Link and Mario doing the two-step to avoid laser fire from the Ancient Minister? Lucario and MetaKnight making up so quickly? w.t.f. Not the best example but shit, everything in SSE was so out of place and most of it felt rushed. It doesn't help that characters with the ability to talk stayed silent in the cinematics. Some dialogue, textboxes or preferrably, voice acting in some of the cut-scenes would've been appreciated.

The redundant "Kingdom Hearts" esque enemies didn't do it for me either. While we did see Goombas and Troopas and your Troopa Paratroopas, I would've perferred to have seen even more of each of the enemies from different franchises. Where are the Re-deads? What about Ocktoroks, Metroids, Space Pirates, or even Dark Links (yes, there is more than one Dark Link)? A much better roster of enemies to fight throughout SSE would've helped the already bland story mode.

If anything is to be praised about SSE its the ability to play with another person. Co-op made sense and it also gave you the opportunity to enjoy (suffer) SSE with another person. Taboo (spelled?) wasn't that bad of a final boss either. Most of the attacks Taboo had in his arsenal were on a different level than that of other AI's in the game. He was tough but not really tough. Just a variety of sorts that was somewhat surprising to see.

Honestly, I can't find anything enjoyable about SSE. Hell I'll just be honest, Brawl was garbage to me. There's too many technical flaws with that game that just really turned me off from it completely. The gameplay was not as polished as I had hoped it would've been. The offerings may have been great but it felt rushed (quality over quantity, anyone?). The online is slow and laggish. The stages to choose from didn't appeal to me with the exception of two. Some characters were still clones of others. Slipping randomly on your ass in the heat of battle doesn't really do much for me and the controls are unresponsive at times (then again, it's Wii). In my personal opinion, Melee was the better game of the three. As much as I hate to say it, Brawl just doesn't give me the thrill of playing it like it did with Melee, despite the clones. But hey, that's just me...

The story mode of SSBB really wasn't that important. Like FrozenTreasure said, its only purpose was that it needed to bring all those characters together. I'll be honest, too: while I didn't think it was great, I think it could've been a hell of a lot worse. If they had tried some sort of Kingdom Hearts gimmick (which, really, to get the depth of that experience you'd have needed to drop the fighting aspect all together). There really wasn't much else they could've done. I'll concede that more specific enemies from each franchise might've been cool, but I understand why the Primids were in.

Not to mention: voice acting? Uh...no thanks. While text boxes might've been better, unless the character has a history of speaking (like Snake), I don't know how fond I am of Nintendo characters talking. To me, Nintendo has 'Sega Syndrome': the game might be great, but the voice acting can turn out incredibly cheesy. I can forgive, generally, older games for this (basically the '90s), but it's inexcusable a lot of the time in modern experiences.

I haven't played Dissidia, but I will point out that it probably has something that Brawl doesn't: a commonality of subject matter. No matter what characters you brought in, they at least had the benefit of being part of the same genre and are generally stylistically similar. You can't really mesh the bright, colorful non-serious world of Mario with, say, Samus' exploits. It just doesn't work.

As for Brawl itself, I guess I'm the outlier in that I enjoyed it more than I did Melee. While I agree tripping is indeed total b.s. (and that should be the first thing Sakurai should be thinking about when wondering how to improve SSB4), and online is sadly really lagging, I always preferred the slower feel of the original Smash Bros. as opposed to the faster pace of Melee. I felt like I could actually enjoy matches a lot more in the first game that I couldn't in Melee. Going back and playing Brawl, I don't have to keep fighting, either; there's a ton of stuff to unlock. The characters and stages were also a lot more fun to me as well; the stages I preferred most out of Melee were the ones from SSB64 (no Saffron City or Hyrule Castle, Sakurai? I'm still disappointed about that).

Melee's not a bad game to me, but it feels really unpolished. I do still enjoy it, but it's in dead last as far my favorites (so far) of the series go. The fact they basically had to rush it out the door for the GameCube's launch, at least to me, shows a lot.

Interesting points, Everlong. Especially your view on Melee and Brawl. I still prefer Melee over Brawl, but when you broke it down as to why you favored Brawl, it makes sense. However...

Subspace Emissary isn't important in the overall package, but that doesn't mean it's flaws should be ignored. Games cost too much for them to be half-assed, and while to some a game purchase is only justified by a single mode, others, like me, want everything to be top-notch. There isn't wrong with having a lot of thought and detail into all modes of a game. There's more appeal and enjoyment that way. Furthermore, should we as gamers, have to settle for less? There's always room for improvement and it's up to us, the consumers, to voice our opinions on their products no matter how small it is.

(Just to warn some of you, I will go off topic to address some of what Everlong has said.)

After reading your post, I can agree that voice acting within cutscenes might not have been executed too well in Brawl. Perhaps I jumped the gun on that one. Still, I do have a problem with the mentality many have when it comes to voice over work in games, particularly in Nintedo games. Honestly, people need to be a little more open-minded when considering such a topic. Many will argue that it's not important or necessary, while others just flat out will tell you that it will ruin the game and their beloved characters for life. The latter is ridiculous. Voice acting can go in one of two ways: Excellent or horrible.

If Nintendo dedicates themselves to this particular aspect of their games, I'm sure they can pull it off. There's talent out there and one shouldn't be afraid to find and use it. I think that's what's going on. Nintendo is afraid to try voice overs on their games becuase of the backlash they will recieve for even considering such an idea. It's a shell that needs to be broken on both parties. Most of their games are great without a doubt, but as I've said, there's nothing wrong with a little more and I'm not just talking about gameplay but rather their presentation. Step out of the norm of a silent game strictly focused on jumping on enemies and doing puzzles. Or keep that, and also pour your heart and soul into other less-defined aspects of the game. Besides, if you're worried about cheesy dialogue, keep in mind that Nintendo's characters are for the most part cheesy, with the exception of a certain few but I digress.

As far as Dissidia goes, it's true that most of the characters have a similar aesthetic to one another and therefore can coexist in the same universe without issue. What I was referring to was the nature of the story and how it was told. It made sense in a lot of ways which I honestly don't think would be a problem with Brawl's story despite the difference in aesthetics between Nintendo's characters. I can see what you're saying about meshing the worlds between the colorful and cheery characters to those that are slightly darker and serious in tone. Still, isn't that what Brawl has done thus far? Look at Mario's standard color scheme and the details on his clothes and compare that to what he normally looks like in his own games. They had to make him a little more realistic so that he could look almost in uniform to Link's Twilight appearence and Snake's realistic aesthetic. To put it short, that meshing has already taken place albeit, in a subtle manner.

All in all, I wanted to post here since it was a thread to discuss what you hated about the game. As it turns out, I just plain hate it as a whole. I hope I didn't offend anyone with my posts as it's merely my opinion but also note that I respect the opinions of others. If I do respond, it's only to further justify my stand as opposed to offense. At the very least, now you guys have a clear cut understanding as to why I don't participate in Brawl matches or tourneys with anyone