Related Articles

Intro and Controls

The Super Smash Bros. franchise is one of the most popular series out there, right at the top with Mario, Metroid, Zelda, and even series from other platforms such as Halo! Starting from the original Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64, the developers have aimed to please and have always hit their mark. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was just as a delight to play as the others, but with more modes, characters, levels, and more to make you excited and stimulated just by reading about it! Being one of the most highly anticipated games for over a year now, Brawl does not disappoint.

With Super Smash Bros. Brawl being a game for the Wii, it has to have some sort of awesome controls. Unfortunately, the game doesn't make use of the potential innovative controls it could possess, but comes back with something just as awesome: four different control schemes! The Classic Controller that is used to play Virtual Console games is one of them. Another would be the Gamecube controller, since the developers were aware that everyone loved Melee so much that they were most likely still playing it up to the release of Brawl, and didn't want for it to be too big of a conversion. Using only the Wiimote, without the nunchuck, turned on its side is another way to play. The last is having both the Wiimote and Nunchuk together.

All four control types are compatible with Brawl! Credit goes to Smash Dojo for the image.

Some of the controls might not be how you would like them, but don't fret, you can customize the controls no matter what control scheme you are using. Also, for players that used X and Y in Melee, instead of pressing Up to jump and want to leave it that way, you can toggle the "Tap Up to Jump" to your liking. How in Melee you could use the Gamecube controller's C Stick to do smash attacks, with the Wiimote and Nunchuck setup you can toggle whether to shake the Wiimote for smash attacks or not. It seems cool to actually use the Wiimote's motion sensitivity and shake it in the direction to do the attack at first, but I'd recommend leaving it off though, since it can be tiresome in longer matches when you want to perform a smash attack and have to quickly shake the Wiimote to do so, it is just quicker to use the buttons. In my opinion, the best thing about having four different control schemes, is if you only have two Wiimotes, but have a few Gamecube controllers left over from you Gamecube days, you can still play in four player matches!

Items have always been a big part of Super Smash Bros. games, with new ones added and others taken out for every new installment. Brawl brings back plenty of old items and weapons, some even remodeled, as well as a plethora of new ones. The Hammer, Fire Flower, Super Mushroom, Poison Mushroom, Star Rod, Freezie, and Home-Run Bat are just a few of the returning ones. The Bumper, that was in Super Smash Bros., but not in Super Smash Bros. Melee was resurrected and redesigned. Others that look completely different include the Beam Sword and the Heart Container. Attacking with some of the items has changed too. When using the Home-Run Bat, everyone has a different looking swing. The Beam Sword when used as a smash attack will stretch too. The biggest improvement is that now while using weapons where you would have to stand still in SSB and SSBM, such as the Fire Flower and Super Scope, you can now walk around while the items are in use!