I got up bright and early today to go to the store and pick up a copy of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl. Frankly, my Wii is more of a glorified SNES/Gamecube than anything else. It’s rather rare that I actually play a Wii game. Anyway, I thought I’d give my own little synopsis of my opinions of a day with SSB:B. First things first, you must have patience with load times when using SSB:B. It starts out by requiring a system update. The Subspace Emissary mode (the new Adventure mode) is fraught with long load times. You just have to get used to waiting to play. Given that most Wii games are really snappy, it’s a bit out of place. It reminds me of the first time I played the PS2 at a friend’s house.

Second, SSB:B is just like SSB:M. There are a few new gameplay elements. The Smash Ball additions is kind of nice. Basically, the Smash Ball allows players to unleash a massive special move. It’s kind of like the Summon/Call magic in the Final Fantasy games. They are very stylish. Some are very useful. Some aren’t very useful at all. It’s kind of a balance thing in which the lesser-powered players tend to have really powerful Smash Ball specials. However, characters like Peach are especially useless given that their Smash Ball special is really, really boring and underpowered. Other than the Smash Balls, Brawl is pretty much the same as Melee.

The character balance, on the whole, is a bit more evened than in Melee. Most of the characters feel useful. Some of the special moves have changed so there are some surprises to Melee players who may pick out their favorite characters. There are still some massively overpowered characters and a handful ridiculously underpowered characters. It’s not quite like Mario Kart in the evenness factor.

The keyword for Brawl must have been “more.” There are more characters, more stages, more trophies, more modes, more options, etc. There’s just more of everything. Unfortunately, this isn’t always a good thing. The Subspace Emissary mode is a new version of the Adventure mode. In addition to standard fights, there are side-scrolling levels. Most of these levels look amazing. Some are rather boring. The problem is that the SE mode just keeps going. It’s one side-scrolling level after another. The enemies are mindlessly repetitive. Even the boss fights are variations on a single theme. You unlock a bunch of characters by playing SE but I found myself tired and bored with it less than halfway through.

I must say, though, that I really enjoyed the cutscenes between levels in SE. There’s no dialogue but the story is accessible and interesting. I kept playing SE for the story (and the unlockables) long past I’d lost interest in the gameplay.

In the end, I bought SSB:B for the multiplayer. If you liked Melee, you won’t be disappointed. I think that the franchise loses a bit of first-time-friendliness with each iteration so it’s not as pick-up-and-play for first timers. I put that to the test tonight and we ended up quitting to play Mario Kart: Double Dash. There was less frustration there (except for the guys consistently in the lead, blue shells were all over the place).

I’d be remiss to not mention the online play. I was really surprised at how easy it was to get into a game. I only played a couple of rounds but everything worked out quite well. You can also observe matches, which is a bit of a hoot. There’s a betting game involved in which you can double up on coins earned from the solo mode. I expect this to be a drinking game before too long.

In the end, I enjoy Brawl but not like I did the original or even Melee. SSB was so original and mindblowing that the experience of a first-time play can’t really be repeated. It was like playing the first Mario Kart. Melee was a great update and really polished the franchise. Brawl doesn’t seem to be as big of a jump. It kind of feels like the developers knew that there wasn’t anything to fix (balance issues aside) so they just added everything they can think of. And there’s a lot of stuff there for Nintendo nerds. I’ve been a Nintendo fan since I was a kid and there was a decent amount of stuff that I didn’t recognize. Of course, there was a lot of stuff that made me giddy with nostalgia.

That’s pretty much all I can say to recommend it. If you’re a Nintendo geek, get this game. If you loved Melee and want more of the same, just more of it, get this game. If you’ve never played Super Smash Bros, it’s definitely worth a look. If you won Melee on the Gamecube and you (and your friends) aren’t really anxious to upgrade, there’s not really a compelling reason to. If you’ve never played Smash Bros, I recommend this game if you just somewhat enjoy fighting games (Smash Bros is a franchise that makes fighting games much more palatable and enjoyable for a wide variety of people who otherwise wouldn’t play a fighting game) or have a bunch of friends, take a look. It’s not the best game I’ve played this year (and neither is Halo 3, for that matter), but it’s fun.