Some other things were announced over the last two weeks besides Sonic. We've got the summary!
It has been a crazy couple of weeks. We already know about Sonic. They used him to cushion the blow of the delay. I don't know about you, but I don't think it really helped. Hopefully more daily updates will do the trick.
New Character: Lucas
As reported earlier, Lucas from Mother 3 will be playable in Brawl. Will we still see Ness? It's hard to say. From the limited screenshots of Lucas that have been revealed thus far, it appears that he will play in a very similar way to Ness in Melee. That doesn't necessarily bode well for the return of the guy in red.
New Stage: Shadow Moses Island
Snake's level was shown off along with some videos to further hype up his presence in the game. The level takes place in front of the helipad on Shadow Moses Island. In an interesting twist, the stage begins with two large walls on either side. That means that characters can only be knocked off by hitting them up in the air. This situation can change because those walls can be destroyed. That means characters can go out of their way to break them, or they will just break by collateral damage as the fighting goes on around them. On top of all of that, a Metal Gear may appear in the background. It's currently unclear if they will affect the battle, or just be eye candy like Kraid in Melee. To further pound the Metal Gear theme into the level, Snake will receive reconnaissance from his team about the characteristics of his fellow combatants. These will apparently be quite comical, as made evident in the examples provided. You can view them at the bottom of the post at the Dojo.
New Assist Trophy: Excitebike
It's always fun to see new assist trophies and this announcement revealed that not all of them will receive fancy 3D models. Excitebike sticks to its roots and comes out in low-res, 2D sprites, identical to those found in the original game. The riders rush across the screen, hitting anything in their path. At the end of the blog post, it was revealed that Excitebike won't be the only assist trophy to use this art style, as Lakitu was also shown in a screenshot. He'll toss out Spinies that will walk along the ground and damage people.
New Final Smash: Fox's Landmaster
Fox's final smash has to involve an Arwing, doesn't it? Not quite. When Fox grabs a Smash Ball, a Landmaster Tank appears on the screen and Fox jumps inside. The tank will be able to hover, roll, and fire, all of which could potentially damage the other combatants. Obviously, the cannon will do the most damage, so maneuvering the tank into perfect firing position will most likely be the best strategy.
New Game Mechanic: Shielding & Dodging
The two primary defensive maneuvers from Melee appear to be getting the copy and paste treatment in Brawl. Shields are still glowing balls that appear around a character. As they take hits, they get smaller. While it was not specifically noted in the blog update, the shield will most likely eventually shatter, leaving the shielder vulnerable to attacks. Dodging is the better, though more complicated, alternative. While holding the shield button down, if a direction is pressed, the character will perform a dodge. These dodges cleanly avoid attacks and leave the player ready to counter.
New Adventure Mode Details: Team
The much hyped single player game apparently doesn't have to be single player. Two people can team up and play through the levels cooperatively. Throughout the story mode, different characters will join forces to help fight the bad guys. In single player mode, these characters will be rotated. If the player dies as one, they will come back as the other. In two player mode, each player can control one of the characters, but the mode still revolves around the first player. They will control the screen scrolling. If the second player has the screen scroll away from them, they will be teleported up to the first player. The first player will also decide when the game is over. If the first player dies and there are no stock left, regardless of what the second player is doing, the game will end. A couple other bits of information were also revealed in this update. The mode will take place on stages that are tied together using an overworld map and there will be six difficulty levels, ranging from Easy to Intense.
New Special Moves: Zero Suit Samus
Zero Suit Samus will have different special moves than normal Samus. Three of them were revealed last week and a smash attack was thrown in for good measure. The standard special move will simply fire her paralyzer gun. It stuns opponents for a varying amount of time depending on how long it was charged for. Her down smash attack also uses this weapon, firing it at her opponent's feet. As has been seen in several of the trailers and screens, the gun can also transform into a plasma whip. Both the side and up special moves make use of this. Side will shoot the whip out to the side, damaging opponents. A spark goes off at the tip of the whip that does the most damage. The up special move fires the whip into the air. If it hit's an opponent, it will drag them down to Samus so she can attack. Both plasma whip moves can be used to grab an edge and grapple to safety as well.
New Music: Ashley's Theme
The fan favorite from the WarioWare games will be making an appearance. Ashley's Theme may play on the WarioWare themed level. One of the more interesting aspects of this announcement is that the lyrics will be different depending on the region. Below are links to both the U.S. and Japanese versions of the song.
New Final Smash: Kirby's Cook Kirby
Kirby's final smash appears to be of the autopilot variety. If he grabs a Smash Ball, a big cooking pot will show up on the screen. He then puts on a chef's hat and the other combatants go into the pot for cooking. After a short amount of time some items pop out. The screens showed that Superspicy Curry, a Maxim Tomato, and a Warp Star all come out. It's currently unknown if these are the only possibilities. After that, the enemies get blasted out, potentially to their death.
New Special Moves: Sonic
Hot on the heels of his announced inclusion, some of Sonic's special moves were shown off. It looks as if his side and down moves will be related. The side will send him right into a spin dash. While it is a direct copy of one of his most famous moves, it looks like the end result will be similar to Jigglypuff's roll and Yoshi's egg from Melee. Different from those two moves though, Sonic can jump in the air during the spin dash, allowing for even more creative attacks. The down special move will simply charge Sonic up before unleashing the spin dash. The last special move revealed so far was his up recovery move. A classic Sonic springboard will appear out of nowhere and Sonic will bounce off of it. This springboard may stay on the screen long enough for other characters to make use of it.
New Game Feature: Taking Snapshots
One of the lesser used features of Melee is making a return in Brawl and it brings a new level of convenience and features that may make it extremely popular. In Melee, there was a special mode that allowed one player to take pictures of things other players were doing. These pictures could then be saved to a memory card and looked at again later. In Brawl, shots can be taken from the pause screen any time. On top of that, these screens can be saved to an SD card and sent to other players online. There is even another feature currently being worked on that hasn't been revealed yet.
That's it for the last batch of updates. This week is going to be a big week for Smash Bros. fans on NWR, as we are going to get some hands on time with the game at the E for All Expo starting on Thursday. Don't miss our coverage!
