The Official Super Smash Bros. Brawl Thread - See you in March!!

[Great Rumbler]

Come on!!

[Dark Jaguar]

I don't mind the delay if it means more stuff in the game, but in Japan it was delayed only one week. Not sure why it got delayed by a whole month in the US. What that tells me though is it isn't so they can add Sora.

[DMiller]

Come on!!

I think Nintendo is trying to pull a trick on us.

Shigeru: It's not a trick...it's an ILLUSION!

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.brawlcentral.com/famitsu_scans.php

[EdenMaster]

This should even bring a smile to the face of Ebenezer ABF:

[Sacred Jellybean]

Eh, one month's not so bad.

[lazyfatbum]

Okay maybe i'm weird but... they made her look more womanish. She's supposed to look manish in that getup, not yummy.

[Dark Jaguar]

S/he always looked effeminate in the Sheik outfit, even if she was trying to dress up as a man. Think Mulan and you are very close to the thing.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, Sheik IS Zelda (OoT Zelda, that is) after all, just disguised. Maybe Sheik looks a bit more female now, but really I'd say that Sheik always looked somewhat gender-indeterminate, and still largely does... if you don't know that Sheik was a woman, could you tell by that picture, really? Perhaps, but not definitely, I'd think.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Guys, she doesn't cross-dress, she uses MAGIC. Come on now. Hasn't lazy staring at the crotch of the trophy and noticing a bulge in the pants taught us anything? Did he do that for nothing??

I'll give Captain Olimar's addition one thing: it allowed for (or at least, made appropriate) a Pikmin stage that looks awesome.

[A Black Falcon]

Sorry, Shiek is called "she", not "he", in the official description. Zelda isn't magically transforming into a man. I mean, I'm sure it'd be possible to have magic that would do that in a world with magic like Zelda's, but that's not what's going on.

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/sheik.html

[Sacred Jellybean]

She doesn't flash-transform in a puff of clouds in this version? If she flash-transforms in a puff of clouds, it's magic. I'm pretty sure that's a rule somewhere.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah it's magic, but all she does is give herself a new outfit, alter her eyes and hair. In other words, a magic makeover. Yeah, even the spell is girly. I mean what did you think she did? Why would she need to alter anything no one sees?

[lazyfatbum]

Yes it's magic and yes he has a bulge. A fat manly bulge in HIS pants. He even SOUNDS like a man (a small one, but still). And now they made HIM <---- look like a woman. Now it's just creepy!

[Dark Jaguar]

Rain? In Oktember? I guess... That ninja IS Zelda, how the heck can you think "male"? At best she sounds like a girl trying to sound like a guy, especially when she gets knocked out.

[Sacred Jellybean]

They only give her a girly voice to remind you that she's a woman inside a man's body. And the purpose of changing her whole body, including a pants-bulge, rather than just covering herself up, is to throw off any suspicion.

I know, I'm reaching...

[lazyfatbum]

[A Black Falcon]

Zelda looks like TP Zelda, but she can transform into Sheik. Yes, it doesn't make sense. They wanted to only have one Zelda though obviously (it'd have been cooler to have one Zelda of OoT style who can transform into Sheik and uses magic and another TP style who has a sword and bow... but no.), so they had to do it that way.

[Great Rumbler]

[A Black Falcon]

I think you're looking at this from entirely the wrong angle, Lazy. This is a Japanese game after all. So, for example, if Vaan [FFXII] are Raiden [MGS2] or considered "average" then Brawl Sheik is more like Grizzly Adams.

No, they like to fake you out sometimes by once in a while actually making the character female... not too often though, you're right about that. :D (but here it is.)

[Laser Link]

I think Nintendo is trying to pull a trick on us.

Shigeru: It's not a trick...it's an ILLUSION!

I think you guys need to move on from this. The mere fact that you think Sheik is a man tells me that you're not ready.

It would be far more interesting to discuss if Link and Zelda are cousins.
Narrator: They aren't.

[DMiller]

Haha, didn't know you were an Arrested Development fan LL. It died a premature death, but luckily it propelled Michael Cera and Will Arnett so they have been in some pretty good movies.

[Laser Link]

Arrested Development has been the best thing about the past few months. One of my friends has the entire series on DVD and we'll get together and watch 2 or 3 episodes at a time. It's brilliant! I may be new (and sadly, too late) to the scene, but I love it.

And AD is the only reason I found out about Juno, which is pretty great too.

[Great Rumbler]

You guys need to watch The Office!

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.thetanooki.com/2008/01/21/thr...-revealed/

Nintendo appears to have slipped up. These characters can at least be said to be coded into the game, though whether they are complete at all beyond that is unknown. What's good is that with the presense of Jigglypuff and Ness it seems to me that they do at least WANT to have all the previous contenders in there (meaning that Captain Falcon and perhaps Ganondorf might also return). This however is reaching. Again, the most I can say is they at least have the code for those characters (at least in portrait form) in the game.

[A Black Falcon]

http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/ssbb/vol1_page1.jsp

Such a strange way to make a game...

(The secret development team behind the game revealed!)

[DMiller]

Arrested Development has been the best thing about the past few months. One of my friends has the entire series on DVD and we'll get together and watch 2 or 3 episodes at a time. It's brilliant! I may be new (and sadly, too late) to the scene, but I love it.

And AD is the only reason I found out about Juno, which is pretty great too.

I got into AD near the end of the series. Luckily I was able to watch the final 4 episodes with my friends who I had hooked on AD. We made frozen bananas...with nuts!

You guys need to watch The Office!

I watch The Office a lot, although I have only caught a few episodes this season. Have you seen the British version, or have you only watched the US version? As good as Steve Carrell is, Rickey Gervais was incredible in the same role in the British version.

[DMiller]

http://www.thetanooki.com/2008/01/21/thr...-revealed/

Nintendo appears to have slipped up. These characters can at least be said to be coded into the game, though whether they are complete at all beyond that is unknown. What's good is that with the presense of Jigglypuff and Ness it seems to me that they do at least WANT to have all the previous contenders in there (meaning that Captain Falcon and perhaps Ganondorf might also return). This however is reaching. Again, the most I can say is they at least have the code for those characters (at least in portrait form) in the game.

Glad to see there is finally some confirmation about Ness, although I'm sure I could have gotten along with Lucas. I can't believe how many playable characters there are going to be in this game.

http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/ssbb/vol1_page1.jsp

Such a strange way to make a game...

(The secret development team behind the game revealed!)

I have never heard of a game being developed like that before. I think Sakurai mentions it in the interview, but there is no way a new game could be developed with piecemeal staff like that if it wasn't already a well-established series. It's even more of a testament to the team if the game turns out great since it can be tough to bring a new group of people together successfully on their first project.

[Dark Jaguar]

<img src="http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/080122.jpg">

Well that one thing indicates that SOME of those guys out there may actually be getting put in anyway. There's also Mr. Game and Watch. He was pretty unique, and there's his stage and all...

One thing's for sure, Luigi is going to be in there.

Proof: Super Smash Brother<b>S</b>. QED

[Dark Jaguar]

!!!!

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What did I just see? Did I just see a pulsar style burst of light the size of several STAR SYSTEMS from that punch? Did anyone even survive that? Well, I mean aside from Captain Falcon? I mean the SPEED of that energy alone broke several laws of physics.

That's super heroes for you. That's pretty much Japan and American super heroes all rolled up into one ridiculous thing. It was also amazing.

[A Black Falcon]

http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/ssbb/vol2_page1.jsp

The other two parts of this great interview are up.

The lesson: Sakurai's ideas of how to do online gaming are Nintendo-standard stupidity. They talk about how Sakurai's original plan for SSBB online was pretty much exactly the same one that they made in the end, and fit in perfectly with the Wii's online "gaming" system... which is so, so awful... :bummed:

Iwata
Therefore, we tried to think of ways to avoid this form of online gaming and ways to fashion an environment in which parents would feel safe letting their children play games online, debating at length on topics like how to create an online environment free of harassment. As a result, our concept of the WFC slowly began to take shape with two separate modes of play; players could play with friends or play with people they don’t know. It would be more about the fun of sharing rather than simply competing. Amazingly, these were the proposals I found in the first document you gave me.

Sakurai
That’s right. When people think of playing Smash Bros. online, they think about battling opponents to see what happens based on their record of wins or losses, or about holding tournaments online. But I felt that this would make it a service from which only a select group of players could derive enjoyment. For Smash Bros., there are small communities here and there where there’s fun in winning and losing, even when there are more skilled players than others. But if you make an environment where everyone is trying to climb their way to the top of a single tall mountain, it’s clear that the people having fun would be limited to a small number of individuals.
Iwata
Those in the top five might feel pretty good about themselves, but what happens if you’re number 15,398 in the rankings? People considered formidable in their own particular community wouldn’t be the least bit pleased.

Sakurai
Furthermore, since Smash Bros. is likely to have a broad gaming base, those that enjoy playing it within their own community might still end up number 100,000 in the rankings.

Iwata
We were in nearly complete agreement on these things without ever having talked about it. Maybe it was because of our long experience of working together...or possibly our shared roots. (laughs)

This is exactly how NOT to make an online gaming network.

No, that's not enough... this is exactly how to make an irrelevant "online" gaming network. "People will be unhappy about being ranked low and won't like getting put down by people online so we'll BAN ALL THOSE FEATURES"??? I still have no idea how anyone in Nintendo actually thinks that these are good features to mandatorially impose on everyone. Make them OPTIONS! Options!

Sakurai
Simply stated, the Stage Builder enables players to build their own stages. Just like the name says, right? (laughs) (See document) By combining several different components, like platforms, the width of the stage, and traps, players are free, to a certain extent, to create their own stages. They can upload these stages to Nintendo’s server, where it is then sent to other players. In other words, once everyday, a new stage made by someone, somewhere can be sent to your Wii.

Iwata
And the stages sent in this way then disappear.

Sakurai
Right. We figured making these stages available for just one day would make it more interesting.

Iwata
Treasuring every encounter, right?

Sakurai
Right. We wanted players to look forward to these encounters.

Iwata
And, if the stages piled up, it would be difficult to choose from such an endless supply. I think it’s the right decision considering that players have a limited amount of time to play games.

Or more like "The Wii's memory is way too small to save many and we don't want to bother with a listing system that will let you sort them by type, or quality, or anything else like that, so we're going to take the really, really lazy (and cruel and annoying) method and not let you save downloaded maps! Bwahaha!"

[Dark Jaguar]

Wait, you can't save those maps? That sucks...

Yeah I don't get it either. If they are so concerned about safety and harrassment, there ARE options that can be implemented directly into firmware that games can tie into. I don't like being punished because some parents are too stupid to keep track of their blasted urchins.

They could change things in the future though. Not too long ago, they had no intentions of providing any online play at all. They didn't think of it as "important".

The thing is, one need not compete in a ladder system. There's free-form match making. Heck, ladder systems and being matched against people of your skill level actually more or less ensure that you WILL have a fun time, as you're generally matched against those of similar play level.

I don't have to compete in "ranked" matches in Warcraft 3. I can do custom or free form match making. If I do use the ranked system though, I gave up playing to climb the ladders a long time ago. I do it just to find a match, and it works just fine.

If parents don't want their kids talking to people online, they can easily just include parental controls that turn off voice chat across all games. Bam, problem solved. If the parents don't know the feature is there, then they just aren't good parents. But really, why is Nintendo even scared of this? Has anyone ever successfully sued a company because their kid got harrassed online? Sure some have tried, but I've yet to hear of a single victory. I fear that the whole epilepsy case just has Nintendo running scared now, and we have to pay for it. I'm sick of having to look at that dumb warning every time I turn on my Wii, or my DS, or the later Gamecube and GBA games. MS and Sony don't have to bother with it. Why does Nintendo?

I almost want to goad a third party moron into suing both MS and Sony to get those same warnings, having that case fail, and culminate in the old court case being overturned. Yeah... I could mastermind such a manipulation on a grand scale... Who's with me?

[Great Rumbler]

Battling against three other people in the same room is the superior form of multiplayer anyway.

[Laser Link]

Yeah, I watch (and love) the Office too. I haven't seen the BBC version, but I really would like to. AD has been taking up all the time though. And I know the rumors of an AD movie have been going for a while, but still, this is awesome!

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[DMiller]

I thought those rumors were dead, but it certainly sounds like Bateman brought them back. It would be awesome to see a movie because as much as I like Scrubs and the Office they still don't come close to touching AD. Olberman mentions this in the video but it seems like I catch some some new callback, inside joke, or subtle joke every time I rewatch an episode.

[Dark Jaguar]

Battling against three other people in the same room is the superior form of multiplayer anyway.

Which is not an option with YOU PEOPLE, so why should the online option suffer? That's hardly a good argument GR and you knows it.

Anyone care to comment on Falcon PUNCH?

[Laser Link]

I still have a soft spot in my heart for Olberman from the Sports Center days, so hearing him yell "Come on!" at the end was amazing!

[Dark Jaguar]

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Marth!

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.wii.tv/2008/01/29/shazbot-sma...-with-bug/

So it's out in Japan, Falcon is now confirmed (yay!) and now this. This isn't so much a bug as a problem if you haven't updated the Wii's firmware in a while. The game requires newer firmware to run. That's actually normal on the PSP. The main difference is all PSP games that need higher firmware come with a firmware update right on the disk. Why doesn't Brawl do that? They can't expect people who lack an internet connection to scour the land for one just to update their firmware. Really they should have had this sort of thing handled from the start.

[Dark Jaguar]

So it's not officially supposed to be out yet, but some people in Japan snagged some early copies before street date (ya know, it happens here too).

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/29/super-...-videos-a/

Ganondorf, "Toon Link", Falco, Game and Watch, and ROBOT! So that basically means they went back on their previous statement of "we're cutting some out". Oh wait, Pichu and Mewtwo are missing. I'll take "Toon Link" as Young Link myself. I think we all knew Luigi was going to be in the game. I mean you can't call it brothers without having the brothers. Hmm, okay Dr. Mario is also missing but that can still be an alternate costume for Mario.

The funny thing is that list is still not completely filled in. Still, I think at this point I can totally rule out Megaman as Capcom is not listed in the credits. That goes for Square-Enix too (no Sora, though he'd fit just so very perfectly). Simon Belmont could still be in there though.

[Dark Jaguar]

Okay the idea of ROB as a playable character is really starting to dig it's way into my head like impossible geometry into the borg collective... HOW?! I MUST KNOW! He's got no legs!

[EdenMaster]

The funny thing is that list is still not completely filled in. Still, I think at this point I can totally rule out Megaman as Capcom is not listed in the credits. That goes for Square-Enix too (no Sora, though he'd fit just so very perfectly). Simon Belmont could still be in there though.

Give it up, DJ :D

The final character list has been leaked, Mega Man, Sora, and Simon are not in ip :P

[A Black Falcon]

The final list could have been a lot better.

[A Black Falcon]

I still have a soft spot in my heart for Olberman from the Sports Center days, so hearing him yell "Come on!" at the end was amazing!

Huh... I wouldn't have thought that, given how liberal his show is...

[Dark Jaguar]

Give it up, DJ :D

The final character list has been leaked, Mega Man, Sora, and Simon are not in ip :P

That's the closest to the "final list" that I've seen as of yet. That fake image on some news sites is just that, FAKE. There's no K.Rool to be found.

[Dark Jaguar]

You know if Mewtwo is pretty much the only one left out, you realize what's going to happen right? That crazy psychic monster doesn't take too kindly to being shunned... Huh... looks like rain.

[A Black Falcon]

The lineup looks final, sadly...

(Mewtwo and Roy seem to be the ones left off from SSBM)

[EdenMaster]

And Pichu. Will anybody *really* miss Pichu?

[A Black Falcon]

I doubt it.

[Dark Jaguar]

It's not final yet!

Wolf (as in Star Wolf) is in the game. http://kotaku.com/350347/super-smash-bro...-to-flood-[updated]

NOW it's final. That was the last missing slot.

I actually will miss Pichu a bit, in the same way someone here would have missed Ganondorf (might still, if Ganondorf is a unique character this time). Pichu was stronger than Pikachu and also harder to hit. The downside was, obviously, that it took damage with every electric attack he used. However, when I adapted to that and used my moves sparingly, I ended up liking it more than Pikachu. Also, some of its lightning attacks worked a little differently to maximize damage. Its forward smash captured the person being hit for a moment before launching them, making it better than Pikachu's smash, for example.

That said, oh well. I'll adapt. I gotta wonder why Wolf though. I mean is this a 3rd modified Fox or does he actually operate differently than Fox and Falco?

Oh, I guess this means Geno is also missing from the game.

One thing's for sure, as much as I think K.Rool or Krystal or whatever else was in that fake image from a few days ago, I knew that one was silly.

So anyway, I still can't wait to get it, even if there are just a few missing characters I would have liked and the online is pretty much what it is on the DS. Of course, it makes me wonder what they'll do for the 4th version, on the Wii 2. Well, aside from needing a different director, basically I'd just make it Brawl with better online and some extra characters. (Yeah, at this point the list is so close to perfect that the only ones I'd add would be 3rd party. And here's that list.)

Megaman
Simon Belmont
Sora
King Graham (Of Daventry, they did port KQ5 to the NES years ago so that's the hook)
Commander Keen

I guess they could also add Captain N.

If they were going to add more Nintendo characters, it'd basically be:

Little Mac
Geno
Mewtwo (again)