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Subspace Emissary, which takes around 10 hours to complete and features some gorgeous cut scenes. But ultimately they have no meaning (the CG scenes) and TSE descends into a bit of a repetitive platforming chore. But for a game so focused on multiplayer, you’d think that it would actually be, like, fun to play online. As it stands, online battles are laggy as hell and just no fun at all.
JO: The Subspace Whatever certainly is a crushing disappointment. While Melee’s Adventure Mode posed a decent distraction, this mode feels like the result of giving a bad fan fiction writer the story reins and scraping the content out from underneath the gameplay engine. Classic Mode remains absolutely unchanged too, right down to Master Hand’s predictable attack pattern, which is a real shame. Of course, you’re going to spend all your time in Brawl mode anyway (where thankfully every character can be unlocked), which is still, you know, Smash Bros. as it has always been. But there’s just so much going on! Collecting trophies, stickers, CDs and even characters doesn’t feel like as big a deal because there’s just so damn much of it.
VERDICT: We’ve berated this game a lot over the course of this review. It’s not because Brawl isn’t fantastic. It is, after all, Smash Bros. It’s just not as pure in its intent (to deliver a great gaming experience) as Melee was. Amid all the Nintendo references a little bit of the coherency is lost, and the game turns into a mish mash of assist trophies, final smashes and unashamed fan service. We’re also disappointed that the game needs you to have actual real life friends because of the completely woeful online component.
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If you’ve never played Melee then this is a must-buy, and if you’ve played Melee as extensively as James has then you’re going to buy it anyway. You won’t regret the purchase, but you might find yourself oddly disappointed when you realise that Smash Bros. Brawl is just more of the same, for better and for worse.
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