preview
What is it like to play second fiddle?
As you may have read, our fearless site director has imported Brawl. Since I live a mere hour or so away, I was more than happy to visit with him at his abode for some quality football, pizza, and—most importantly—Smash Bros.
Steven already touched the basics in his initial impressions, so I thought I would dive into the game's adventure mode, the Subspace Emissary. The Subspace Emissary is a surprisingly lengthy adventure that weaves (almost) all of the game's characters into an inexplicable but utterly awesome series of platfomer-esque stages and battles. The story is told from a variety of perspectives as the game juggles disjoint character teams that slowly merge together. Since stages are tied to specific characters, the adventure mode also forces you to learn to use many of the characters at least well enough to complete a few stages. Many of the teams could have been lifted from horrible fan fiction, but Brawl's trophy-based universe presents the adventure gracefully enough to suspend infeasability and allow you to accept the absurdity of a Pikachu-and-Samus duo. To frame the various scenarios, most stages begin and end with fantastic cut-scenes that will have you both laughing and cheering.
Level design is straightforward but interesting, with mazes, switch puzzles, and mini-bosses to conquer. As you might expect from a Sakurai-directed title, the adventure mode's doors, ladders, and bonus rooms give off a distinctly Kirby vibe. By no means is that a bad thing. Especially of note are the bosses, which range from giant war machines of the emissary to old Nintendo favorites.
Perhaps the biggest addition for the adventure mode is co-operative play (which arguably is also a Kirby-ism). Smash Bros. is a very social game, and adding two-player co-op for the ten-hour adventure is much applauded. I played the Luigi to Steven's Mario for the lion's share of the Subspace Emissary, and overall I enjoyed spelunking through as sidekick.
However, the adventure mode isn't perfect. Firstly, it succumbs to one of Melee's pitfalls: adventure stages that uncomfortably clash with characters' shortcomings—on purpose. For example, in a (good) modern platformer a character wouldn't intentionally have a weak jump, but that is simply part of the Smash experience. I'm willing to accept that. However, the implementation of co-op is simply annoying at times. Sometimes the action moves too fast, leaving player two continually warping back on screen instead of playing. (Think Tails in Sonic 2.) Also, after Player 1 dies, the camera abruptly centers on where Player 1 respawns, which can be disorienting for the second player. More importantly, as far as I can tell, player two cannot opt out of playing after dying. This is a problem, since both players consume the same bin of lives/characters. If Player 1 dies and there are no more lives, it's Game Over, even if Player 2 is in perfect health. This was especially aggravating when both Steven and I died at aaaalmost the same time…but not quite, so we lost. Also, don’t expect having two players to make life easier, since you can easily lose lives twice as fast.
All in all, though, I can't complain too much about The Subspace Emissary. If the adventure mode were all there was to Brawl I would be very critical of its blemishes, but as a secondary mode it is very good. The premise is awesome, the stages are interesting, and the presentation is top-notch. Sharing the adventure with a friend is a great experience, even if the co-op fumbles at times.
I hope we get to hear more impressions from you and/or Windy in one of the podcasts. 
Dairantou Smash Brothers X
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
