Super Smash Bros. Brawl

[The Wobbler]

Facts about the game:

Brawl is the third game in the Smash Bros. series and will launch in Japan in January and North America on March 9th. The game's website, smashbros.com, is updated every weekday with new information.

Controls:
You can play using either the Gamecube controller, Wii Remote by itself, Wii Remote with Nunchuck, or the Classic Controller. Controls are customizable. Everyone should be satisfied here.

Third party characters:
Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake are confirmed to be in the game. As of November 7th's smashbros.com update, third party assist trophies have been confirmed, starting with Metal Gear's Gray Fox.


Subspace Emissary:
Brawl's version of Adventure Mode. You will battle across various Nintendo worlds on a mission to stop invading monsters/rescue princesses/retrieve Donkey Kong's bananas. This mode can be played cooperatively, but as far as we've seen you can only select certain characters for each mission as the story dictates. ROB, the old NES helper robot, is confirmed to be an enemy.

Online play:

Yes, there is online play in this game. Up to four people can fight it out online, and you can send each other four pre-written messages. Since this is Nintendo we're talking about, they'll find some way to hurt the experience. We already know that there's no way to view other players names online unless they're on your friends list, which is ridiculous since you could in every single other online Nintendo game. There is also no record keeping, which strikes me as incredibly bad, as keeping an online win/loss record is great for matchmaking people of equivalent skill. (Source: Smashbros.com: "Your opponent will not know your name or any information about you, and neither of you can send short messages. There will also be no battle records kept for this mode, so whether you win or lose, it doesn’t matter. Just sit back and play.")

Assist Trophies:
These work the same as Pokeballs, but instead of Pokemon, characters from a huge variety of Nintendo games appear. There is not a full list yet, but we know that there are assists from popular games such as Advance Wars and Fire Emblem, nostalgic classics such as Excitebike, Punch-Out and the SNES Sim City, and obscure titles such as Devil World.


Final Smash:
A significant new addition to Smash Bros. is the Final Smash attack. During battles, a Smash Orb will occasionally float by. Break it open to gain access to your character's Final Smash, which is performed by using your Special Attack button after getting the orb. This attack varies by character but for the most part is either massively damaging or has significant status effects. Bowser's, for instance, results in this:

You can only use one Final Smash per orb, and if you take too long to use it it can be stolen from you by other players.

Stages:
There are a variety of stages in this game, but what's most notable is that there is now a stage maker mode! You can design your own maps, save them, send them to friends, or submit the to Nintendo. Periodically, Nintendo will post the best stages for everyone to download, but they won't be hosted forever.

Characters:
A huge number of new characters have been confirmed already, and there are more to come. Not all of Melee's characters have been confirmed, but given their popularity, it's safe to assume that most of them will return.

New Characters:

Pit - Kid Icarus

Wario - Super Mario Land 2, Wario Land, Wario Ware

Zero Suit Samus - Metroid: Zero Mission

Ike - Fire Emblem

Pokemon Trainer - Pokemon series. Note, the trainer does not actually fight. You play as Charizard, Squirtle, or Ivysaur and can switch between the three at any time.

Diddy Kong - Donkey Kong Country

Metaknight - Kirby series

Solid Snake - Metal Gear

Lucas - Mother 3

Sonic the Hedgehog - Sonic the Hedgehog series, nightmarish fanfiction

King Dedede - Kirby series

Captain Olimar - Pikmin series

Returning Characters:

Mario - Super Mario Bros.

Link - Legend of Zelda

Kirby - Kirby series

Pikachu - Pokemon

Fox - Star Fox, even more nightmarish fanfiction than Sonic

Samus - Metroid

Zelda/Shiek - Legend of Zelda

Bowser - Super Mario Bros.

Donkey Kong - Donkey Kong series

Yoshi - Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island

Princess Peach - Super Mario Bros.

Ice Climbers - Ice Climber

Note: This topic was split from the Golden Sun thread, hence the first few responses. The first response was in reference to me saying that I can't believe people are angry about the lack of playable GS characters in Smash.

[JSH357]

I wouldn't say I'm ANGRY about it, but I am confused about why there doesn't seem to be any representation of Golden Sun in SSBB. It seems to be a rather popular series, and the characters could translate into a fighting game pretty easily.

[Newbie Newtype]

Hmm... I'm not really sure, nor do I enjoy talking about the chances of <x> character getting into Brawl.

[Aeth]

Despite that I like Golden Sun, I am not surprised at all it isn't being represented in Smash Bros. Maybe if a third game was in the works, but that doesn't seem to be the case either.

[Only One In All]

Ha ha, that makes me think what if Phoenix Wright was a SSB character? Objection would reflect an opponent's attack, Hold it would freeze an opponent, and Take that would do a special offensive move. :P

But other than the idea of how interesting it might be, I don't think he'd fit into the game.

[The Wobbler]

I wouldn't say I'm ANGRY about it, but I am confused about why there doesn't seem to be any representation of Golden Sun in SSBB. It seems to be a rather popular series, and the characters could translate into a fighting game pretty easily.

It's neither an active franchise nor a piece of nostalgia. I'm sure there will be GS assist trophies or something, but a playable character wouldn't make the most sense.

[Newbie Newtype]

Yeah... I can easily imagine Djinn Assist Trophies.

That's what Assist Trophies are for. More minor characters and entities to represent more obscure series. People haven't really figured that out yet.

[Aeth]

Yeah... I can easily imagine Djinn Assist Trophies.

That's what Assist Trophies are for. More minor characters and entities to represent more obscure series. People haven't really figured that out yet.

Mostly, yeah, but I would hardly consider Lyn obscure or minor. I was *pissed* when I found out she's an assist trophy instead of a playable character.

[The Wobbler]

Mostly, yeah, but I would hardly consider Lyn obscure or minor. I was *pissed* when I found out she's an assist trophy instead of a playable character.

If Marth and Roy come back, that will already be three sword fighters from Fire Emblem which already seems a bit much.

I was heartbroken when I found out Little Mac would only be an assist trophy.

[Newbie Newtype]

The way I see it, Metaknight follows Marth's play style to a new extreme while Ike follows Roy's play style to a new extreme, while being completely different characters. This eliminates the clone problem while having completely new characters.

As for Marth... I love Marth as my favorite FE main character (I actually own a real copy of Fire Emblem 3), but I know he'll carry on and eventually become an American FE character if Fire Emblem DS comes out in America.

[Fortis]

If anyone from Fire Emblem deserved to be put into Brawl as a playable character, it was Hector.

[JSH357]

FE7(That's the first one we got) is apparently an unpopular game in Japan. It was the first FE game that was ridiculously easy (at least compared with the previous ones), and a lot of long-time fans saw it as a watered-down version of FE. That's why we won't be seeing any playable characters from the game in Brawl. Ike is only in the game to advertise FE10, IMO (Just like Roy was tacked on to Melee to promote FE6).

That's why I think Roy is going to be cut. Marth is still likely to return. From what I've read, Ike plays totally differently from Marth (Ike is even slower than Bowser, but has the strongest attacks in the game), so even though they look similar, Marth has a good shot at returning.

[Newbie Newtype]

JSH pretty much has the best grasp on Fire Emblem background info.

Hint of trivia: One of Ike's alternative costume colors resembles Sigurd's uniform in Fire Emblem 4. Casual FE players wouldn't know who Sigurd is, but those who delve deeper into some of the unreleased games would find that to be pretty cool.

I somehow doubt that Ike is to advertise FE10, since they're using his un-promoted FE9 version. They're probably using him because he's not another Marth-like Lord (like Celice, Leaf, Roy, and Eliwood etc were). Ironically enough, Ike's fighting style in Brawl would actually do Hector justice. >.>

FE7(That's the first one we got) is apparently an unpopular game in Japan. It was the first FE game that was ridiculously easy (at least compared with the previous ones), and a lot of long-time fans saw it as a watered-down version of FE.

Yeah... I do admit, FE7 HHM has some excellent level design, next to FE5. It's just that some of FE7's ridiculously overpowered characters (*cough*Hector*cough*) made some things a little too tank oriented instead of team oriented. FE4 has the worst level design because it actually detracts from fun factor.

Also, I'm guessing some of these "long time Fire Emblem fans" didn't figure out how the Star/Light Orbs in Fire Emblem 3 worked. If you use those to your advantage, then Fire Emblem 3 becomes incredibly easy due to stat maxing. It was basically the same effect as promoting Ike, heh.

[Fortis]

Metroid isn't very popular in Japan either but Nintendo gives it love.

[JSH357]

Metroid also only has one protagonist (unless there were others in Hunters), so it's easy to throw in. FE has tons of characters, so they're more likely to pick the popular ones.