Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Japanese: 大乱闘 スマッシュ ブラザーズ X, Dairantō Sumasshu Burazāzu Ekkusu, Great Fray Smash Brothers X) is the third and latest installment of the Super Smash Bros. series.

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Intro
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Release dates
The game was due for release on December 3, 2007 for the Nintendo Wii in North America, a date announced at Nintendo's E3 2007 conference. However, it was announced on October 12, 2007 that the game had been delayed and set for release on January 24th for Japan and on February 10th, 2008 for US. Another delay came on January 15, 2008. The game was pushed back a week in Japan (to January 31st) and a month in America (to March 9th). A release date for Australia hasn't been confirmed yet. A release date for Europe had been hinted at in a 1UP podcast. It had been said that the release date will be in the fall because Europe would get Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit before America does, but this information was later denied by Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, who referred to the claim as an incorrect interpretation of his statements.

Information prior to release
Virtually all information known about this game has come from the game's official website, Smash Bros. DOJO!!(スマブラ 拳!!,sumabula ken !! in the Japanese version). The first playable demo for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and a tournament were available at the E for All Event at Los Angeles. Following that, there were two more demos at JumpFesta, and at Whobby 2008.

Control schemes
Significant changes to the control scheme system have been made in Brawl. The game can be played with one of four different controller setups: the Wii Remote (with or without the nunchuk attachment), the GameCube controller, and the Classic controller. Controls can also be customized, allowing setup of a control scheme to each registered player's own liking.

Game modes
Main article: List of modes in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Characters
Thirty-nine characters in 35 character slots are selectable in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, 18 of them being newcomers. Meta Knight (from the Kirby series), Pit (of Kid Icarus fame), Wario (from the WarioWare franchise), and Zero Suit Samus (Metroid: Zero Mission) were first revealed in the E3 2006 trailer. In an unprecedented move, Konami's Metal Gear Solid franchise also was revealed as having a playable representative: Solid Snake was confirmed as being the first third-party character to be included in the Super Smash Bros. series. Since then, Ike, Pokémon Trainer, Diddy Kong, Lucas, King Dedede and Pikmin & Olimar have also been confirmed as playable newcomers. Additionally, a second third-party character has been announced: Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog.

Unlike Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Melee before it, Brawl has no ? spaces for hidden characters. Rather, new characters are simply added, and the overall character select screen layout adjusts, adding new rows and columns as needed. Once all characters have been unlocked, characters in related series are grouped vertically, rather than horizontally as in the previous games.

Default Characters
These Characters have been confirmed via the DOJO!! Their apperance as default characters have been confirmed by comparing the DOJO!! page to a screenshot.
 * Bowser
 * Diddy Kong
 * Donkey Kong
 * Fox
 * Ice Climbers
 * Ike
 * King Dedede
 * Kirby
 * Link
 * Lucas
 * Mario
 * Meta Knight
 * Peach
 * Pikachu
 * Pikmin & Olimar
 * Pit
 * Pokémon Trainer
 * Squirtle
 * Ivysaur
 * Charizard


 * Samus
 * Zero Suit Samus


 * Wario
 * Yoshi
 * Zelda
 * Sheik

Secret Characters



 * Captain Falcon
 * Falco
 * Ganondorf
 * Jigglypuff
 * Lucario
 * Luigi
 * Marth
 * Mr. Game and Watch
 * Ness
 * R.O.B.
 * Snake
 * Sonic
 * Toon Link
 * Wolf

Stages
So far, a total of 28 stages have been officially confirmed on the Dojo, with a few others (as well as several side-scrolling stages possibly used for Subspace Emissary) shown but not confirmed.

Default Stages

 * Battlefield
 * Battleship Halberd
 * Bridge of Eldin
 * Castle Siege
 * Distant Planet
 * Delfino Plaza
 * Final Destination
 * Frigate Orpheon
 * Lylat Cruise
 * Mario Circuit
 * Mushroomy Kingdom
 * New Pork City
 * Norfair
 * PictoChat
 * Pokémon Stadium 2
 * Port Town Aero Dive
 * Rumble Falls
 * Shadow Moses Island
 * Skyworld
 * Smashville
 * The Summit
 * WarioWare
 * Yoshi's Island
 * Brinstar (Melee)
 * Corneria (Melee)
 * Onett (Melee)
 * Rainbow Ride (Melee)
 * Temple (Melee)
 * Yoshi's Island (Melee)

Secret Stages
Bolded names are tentative.
 * 75m
 * Electroplankton
 * Flat Zone 2
 * Great Sea
 * Spear Pillar
 * Green Hill Zone
 * Luigi's Mansion
 * Mario Bros.
 * Big Blue (Melee)
 * Green Greens (Melee)
 * Jungle Japes (Melee)
 * Pokémon Stadium (Melee)

Names
As in Super Smash Bros. Melee, players can enter a name to be displayed during gameplay. In Brawl, personalized control schemes can be tied to individual names. Names may now be up to five characters long, as opposed to Melee's four. The Wii remote has the ability to save names (and their control schemes) to its internal memory.

Stickers
Stickers are a new addition to Brawl. According to Smash Bros. DOJO!!, they are awarded to players simply for playing the game, and can be collected in an album. Players can then create scenes or pictures by arranging collected stickers. On January 18th, it has been revealed that stickers grant special bonuses in The Subspace Emissary such as resistance to standard and special attacks and resistance to launch, which decreases the chance of being knocked out of an area. The player can place stickers underneath the character's trophy stand. (Characters in Adventure Mode are depicted as animated trophies.) However, they disappear if peeled off. It is possible to pick up many stickers throughout the story, and the harder the difficulty level, the rarer and more powerful the stickers the player will pick up. If the player dies, the characters will lose half the stickers they collected throughout the stage.

Trophies
Trophies have retained all the features of Melee's trophy viewing mode, and players now have the ability to place individual trophies next to each other, most likely for the sake of taking a screenshot. According to Sakurai's update, it is now easier to identify and organize the trophies you've collected.

Items

 * Main article: List of items in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Pokémon

 * Main article: Poké Ball Pokémon in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Several Pokémon have been confirmed for the game as Poké Ball Pokémon. Many series staples such as Goldeen and Snorlax return, with newer Pokémon of the third and fourth generations also appearing, such as Groudon and Gardevoir. Also worth noting is that Meowth, who appeared in Super Smash Bros. but was missing from Super Smash Bros. Melee, is making his return to the Super Smash Bros. series in Brawl. Meanwhile, Mew and Celebi can now drop valuable items (such as CDs) when released.

Assist Trophies

 * Main article: Assist Trophy

An new addition to Brawl, the Assist Trophy can be thought of as being a variation of the Poké Ball item releasing minor characters from other various Nintendo franchises and video games rather than Pokémon. Masahiro Sakurai has stated that assist trophies allowed him to include characters that did not make it into the game as playable fighters, a compromise that should give some form of satisfaction to fans of these characters.

Masterpieces

 * Main article: Masterpieces

Brawl contains trials of classic games. The player is given a limited period of gameplay and, when time runs out, is urged to buy the full version of the game. Ice Climber, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Kid Icarus, Kirby's Adventure, Super Metroid, Star Fox 64, Mother 2 and Fire Emblem are among the playable demos.

Removed Features
Some materials from Melee were dropped from the final product.

Characters
The following characters from Melee do not return in Brawl. Additionally, when the disc was hacked, the following characters were found partially programmed.
 * Pichu
 * Mewtwo
 * Dr. Mario
 * Roy
 * Young Link
 * Dixie Kong
 * Toon Zelda/Sheik
 * Plusle & Minun
 * Mewtwo
 * Roy
 * Dr. Mario

Stage Builder
This new feature lets players build their own stage. Players can also edit the music, background, and size of their created stage. These stages can be saved on an SD Card, as well as sent to a friend via the player's Wii friend roster. Stages can also be submitted to Nintendo, and one player-created stage will be automatically made available to the player every day, for one day each.

Music

 * Main article: Music (SSBB)

There appears to be a much larger focus on the musical aspect of Super Smash Bros. Brawl than with the previous game. Several esteemed musicians have been credited for their work on the game. Several arrangements have already been revealed and can be heard on the official Smash Bros. DOJO!! website. Masahiro Sakurai has mentioned that each stage will have more than one or two songs to accompany it, and the inclusion of the CD item (which unlocks a new song when collected) indicates that the music library of this game will be vastly larger than Melee's was.

Additionally, a new feature called My Music allows players to create a music playlist of sorts; you can adjust the likelihood that one of the songs delegated to a certain stage will be randomly selected to play.

Trailer #1
The first trailer was shown at E3 on May 11, 2006. This surprise showing came at an after-hours conference on the first day of E3 (and not during Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference, which is typically the time any major projects are unveiled for E3).

The trailer shows a very dramatic fighting montage showing some classic Super Smash Bros. characters and then, one by one, revealing new characters: Meta Knight, Pit, Wario, Zero Suit Samus, and third-party character Solid Snake. It also revealed the new Final Smash technique by showing Mario, Link, Kirby and Samus using their Final Smashes.

Trailer #2
This trailer came out in late 2006, and featured small bits of characters trying out new moves including the new ability to crawl. All of the new characters were given a once-over, and many new things were revealed.

One stage was seen that had destructible platforms, and another was seen with Meta Knight's ship flying by in the background. Another stage had a Mario Kart theme, and many Shy Guys raced on in the background (similar to Mute City). The Helipad area from the beginning of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was also shown. At the end of the trailer, Fox made his return on a floating platform in space. Zero Suit Samus and Fox are shown holding their weapons at all times, though this was changed in the final product.

Trailer #3
This trailer was released during a Nintendo Press Conference on October 10th, 2007.

Like Trailer #2, this trailer starts off with various characters fighting each other, this time with the damage meters present. Andross is shown attacking the fighters, and the scene changes to Fox grabbing a Smash Ball and using his Final Smash. Zero Suit Samus is also shown with a smash ball while Fox is grabbing the Smash Ball. Yoshi is seen using his Final Smash, and then a montage of Pokémon (some new) and Assist Trophies is shown. The Trailer then shifts to the Stickers and Trophies. Gameplay footage of Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary is also shown. Finally, all the currently revealed characters each strike a pose. The movie ends with "Coming Soon", indicating a delay from the original December 3 release date.

Several other minor trailers, featuring footage of brawl battles and the Subspace Emissary, have been released on the Internet, and can be found on major gaming sites (ex: GameSpot, IGN).

Reception
Brawl received a perfect score from the Japanese magazine Famitsu, a feat obtained only by a handful of other titles. The reviewers praised the variety and depth of the single-player content, the unpredictability of Final Smashes, and the dynamic fighting styles of the characters. Thunderbolt Games gave the game 10 out of 10, calling it "a vastly improved entry into the venerable series". Chris Slate of Nintendo Power also awarded Brawl a perfect score in its March 2008 issue, calling it "one of the very best games that Nintendo has ever produced".

IGN critic Matt Casamassina, in his February 11 Wii-k in Review podcast, noted that although Brawl is a "solid fighter," it does have "some issues that need to be acknowledged," including "long loading times" and repetition in Subspace Emissary. The full review will not be published until after the American release.

In Japan, Brawl sold over 500,000 units on launch day, 820,000 units in its first week, and about 1.2 million units total as of February 18, 2008.