If you don’t have fun playing this game, check for a pulse…

Easily the most highly anticipated Nintendo Wii game of E for All, even more popular than Super Mario Galaxy, was Super Smash Brothers Brawl. As an ode to Nintendo fans of the last two decades, Smash Brothers Brawl packed in even more obscure references along with the familiar characters and locations.

We had a chance to play a couple of quick rounds (made even quicker by my inability to stay on the platform), first as Samus from the Metroid series fighting Diddy Kong, and then later as Yoshi fighting against Ike from Fire Emblem. Our first encounter was on the bridge from Zelda: Twilight Princess, which was a little more stable to do battle on. There were no extra platforms to distract from the pure combat, which is just as simple as it’s always been for this series.

There is one attack button, one special button, and then a couple different jump and block buttons. You can modify your attacks by pressing in a direction, and using the Classic Controller made moving around in any direction much easier due to the analog stick.

Andrew remains focused while getting his smash on

Samus had a few slow-moving missiles, and Yoshi’s ability was to turn into an egg (he is a biological anomaly, after all). But the experienced Nintendo rep I played against wasn’t having any of this. With a few deft moves he knocked me out, to the excitement of the people waiting behind me in line.

Another round was played against a Yoshi’s Island backdrop, with colorful balloons and shyguys in the scene. The platform was much smaller than Zelda’s level, so without much experience I ended up rolling right off the ledge.

There were the usual impressive powerups—Pokeballs, Star Fox bosses, and a Samurai from the F-Zero series all showed up to influence the fight. Mushrooms and crates, typical Nintendo props, were also scattered around the fight. Sonic the Hedgehog and Dark Link are among the highly anticipated additions to the roster, which has yet to be fully announced.

Bowser smash!!!

The key thing about Smash Brothers is that it inspires lifelong loyalty by being extremely simple to pick up and play, while containing a surprisingly deep combat system. The Nintendo hardcore will definitely make Smash Brothers Brawl one of the system’s top sellers, and even if there’s no room for motion control at all, there’s still the incredible prospect of online Brawl. We may have to wait until next year, but based on our hands-on and the mood of the crowd, Brawl can’t come out soon enough.

On Screen Video: The clip below is about 30 seconds of on screen E for All gameplay footage courtesy of Joe Haygood over at Aeropause.com.

Tags: Super-Smash-Brothers-Brawl

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