As tomorrow approached, many decided to call it a night. At the stroke of midnight, we lost our second Wii, relegating the remaining half-dozen back to the living room for a final run. The people who stuck around knew that they probably wouldn't see the game again until March 9, so they didn't mess around with stuff like the Special Brawl rules or bother with time-consuming stock matches. They just fought it out in little three-minute intervals. There was still some hootin' and hollerin' going on when big things happened, but in general, everyone zoned in and just played the game.
Everyone was tired. Aside from the pizza break and the occasional handful of pretzels, not much food and drink was consumed, either. After all, why eat when you can play Super Smash Bros. Brawl? I was tired too, but I knew there was still two hours to go. I figured, I've done 24-hour shifts testing video games that were nowhere near as fun as Brawl. Two more hours of the game wasn't going to kill me. Still, I'd been at it for ten hours, and there were a few other things I was starting to want to do.
The crowd dwindles, but the smashing spirit continues on.
But then I realized the first two guys in the door were also a couple of the six or so that were remaining. They came to play, apparently, so I didn't want to disappoint them by cutting things short. I snapped myself out of it, picked up a controller, and got back to playing the game with everyone. I felt a lot less tired once I started putting a string of KOs together.
During these final hours of the evening, I started to think about everything I had seen while playing the game. As the thoughts collected in my mind, it was becoming more and more clear to me that the game was not perfect. Far from it, in fact. The big sticking point for everyone in attendance was how the character roster, despite it being 35 strong, didn't feel as large as advertised. In addition to the callbacks from Melee, there were "palette swaps" from Melee (Lucario is Mewtwo; Toon Link is Young Link), clones of existing characters (Wolf, Lucas), and the generic feel of new characters (R.O.B., Diddy Kong). Though the stage variety is great, seeing what felt like the same characters over and over again took away from the experience a tiny bit.
Snake defends his turf at Shadow Moses Island, and see how better the Ice Climbers' stage is from the last game.
We noticed some issues during gameplay, too. The top issue on my list was the double-edged sword of the better graphics and visually impactful stages. While it's really cool to see things going on in the background (particularly Lylat Cruise), a lot of times it interferes with the action. Many people noted how easily it was to lose track of themselves on stages, even with giant nameplate indicators over each character. There were also times where characters would seemingly trip or stumble for no apparent reason. Another annoyance is that if a character dies from an apparent item-induced suicide, the last person to touch them, regardless of when it was, will get credit for the KO. Why does that make sense? And how come music CD pickups start to disappear the moment they spawn?
As I started formulating this list in my mind, with the minutes were ticking away toward the end of the party, people were still enjoying themselves with the game. Apparently, they didn't care about little nit-picks like that. It wasn't like Melee had its own set of problems. (Wavedashing was a deal-breaker for many people.) Also, I doubt they'll only give Brawl a rental because of the character roster. I'm reminded of the 40+ character section screens in the Capcom Vs. Series games, where not even a dozen of them turn out to be fun or competitive. And they all have unique moves lists to learn!
Almost twelve hours later, and the games are still going on.
In playing the game for twelve hours, I came to realize that the point of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and indeed, the entire series, is to be a fighting game where anyone can pick it up and instantly know how to use everyone in the game. There is literally no learning curve, either. In traditional fighting games you need to take time to learn a character's move list and combo strings. But if you learn one character in Brawl, you've learned them all. The satisfaction you get from pulling off a landing a final smash or winning a tough battle is just as satisfying as doing it in one of those arcade fighters. It's just that more people are capable of competing with you. What's so bad about that?
Another light bulb went off. We had just spent twelve hours (more than that if you add in the second Wii) playing nothing but Brawl multiplayer. Most games can be done and dusted in that period of time. We hadn't even scratched the surface of what there is to do in Brawl. There are still the single player games (not just Subspace Emissary) that can be played in co-op mode, like Break the Targets and Multi-Man Brawl. And don't get me started on the collectibles. Who knows how much stuff there is to see in the game? How could anyone complain about the game when viewed as a whole? For me, at that moment, it was hard to do so.
