REVIEW : Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (PS5)
I’m not a fan of the Super Smash Bros. series. I know, it’s heresy for a video game journalist (and lover) to ignore one of the most popular and enduring titles out there. But, since I’m making confessions, I’ll go even further and declare that I’m not a fan of Nintendo’s first-party games in general (except Zelda). I don’t have anything against them; I never manage to get around to playing games with Mario and his pals.
As a non-Nintendo fan, I’m unfamiliar with many of the characters in Smash, and I’m not particularly interested in learning how to play all 90 or whatever of them. I’ve watched my kids play Smash for hours on end, and it appears to be a hectic and stressful experience. On the rare instances when I’ve been persuaded to pick up a controller, I’ve shrugged off the few games I’ve played, and I guess it’s just not my thing.
So, why did I choose to write a review about Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl? It’s mainly because Smash feels a little too scary to enter with its long history, various revisions, and extensive roster.
However, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a relatively young series with a large cast of characters. I figured that everyone would start on equal footing and that I’d have a few days to learn the game before things got too heated. This turned out to be a misconception.
My eight-year-old strolled into the room the first day I played, simply poking around and trying out different characters. I was continually going through the arcade mode, one character after another, trying to feel how they all handled.
“What is this?” she inquired, her face flushed with suspicion. “You’re not a Smash player.”
“This is a brand-new game.” It’s similar to Smash, but with Nickelodeon characters.” (In our house, “dudes” and “man” are both non-gender specific terms.) Approaching a grandmother with the greeting “What’s up, man?” is entirely satisfactory.)
She inquired, “What is Nickelodeon?” She has never lived in a world where the cable is available.
“Like Spongebob and all those guys,” says the narrator. Sandy is one of the “guys.”
For another 30 seconds or so, she stared at the game. “It’s Smash,” she stated categorically. “Can I join in?” I shook my head and tossed a controller to her.
My daughter chose Patrick Star for our first battle, and CatDog was allocated to me via the random character selection.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s not beat each other for a minute so we can feel around and figure out how they control,” says the group.
“Of course,” I replied. I slapped Patrick across the level with CatDog’s super-cool “huge muscle dude” assault, which threw me across the screen at her.
She said, “Stop, DAD!” “Let’s feel around for the controls!” I suggested.
I laughed hysterically to myself and launched a relentless assault on Patrick Star, sending him soaring from the platform over and over again. Soon after, the announcer announced that the match was ended and that CatDog had won. My daughter was red-faced and crying a little when I looked over.
“You didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt!” I have no idea how to play! It wasn’t even close to being equitable!”
I apologized, promising to give her a chance to play with the controls in the next round before starting a new thrashing. This, my friends, was a colossal blunder, and I had been duped.
In retrospect, despite her crocodile tears, I should have kept pressing my advantage for as long as I could because my daughter is a Nickelodeon All-Stars shark in real life. She’s an insensitive overpowering force of nature, a vicious aggressor, a nightmare strategist.
Since that tragic match, she has symbolically stomped on the back of my neck more times than I care to mention, thanks to numerous hours of Smash Bros. played with her older siblings and horrifying stores of finely-tuned eight-year-old muscle memory at her disposal. I don’t think I’ll be able to compete.
My daughter has mastered some of Toph’s Earthbending abilities, which she unleashes on me in an endless onslaught of pain, despite her refusal to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender with me, even though we both love The Dragon Prince. I’m lucky if I get a hit now and then, and I can sometimes hold my own for a few minutes before she puts me down.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, known for its Smash-style gameplay, is held together by a straw framework. It’s not that the interface and functionality are awful; it’s simply that there isn’t much to do once you’ve gotten past the (very excellent) brawling gameplay. The menus appear pretty basic, and sound effects and music are so rudimentary that they almost feel like filler. While the Arcade mode is adequate, the AI is so simple that learning to play the game is not a struggle.
Arcade mode is nothing more than a series of battles. Choose a character and engage in eight battles with opponents chosen at random. In general, I found that I could beat arcade mode with a character from start to finish in around nine minutes. After you’ve completed it all, you’ll be rewarded with a piece of artwork for your gallery. There are no more characters, skins, or incentives other than a few still photos and the occasional jukebox song, none of which feature any licensed music from the television shows these characters are based on. The option to practice movements against the game’s AI, which is decidedly less aggressive than my daughter, is the main benefit of Arcade mode.
What happened when I went online for some matches is best left unsaid, save to say that the online elements in All-Star Brawl are excellent. All that said, if you have a child who adores Smash Bros and is interested in the characters in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, you could do a lot worse than picking up this game for them. My kid has been cheerfully cleaning the floor with randos online while I have all but abandoned my aspirations to become competitive. But then, she’s a pro, whereas I’m a complete novice.
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