Oh, and now that I've brought that up: Whoever voted, let me know (just comment here, even if you're Seth [ XD ]), and if you haven't voted yet, please do, even if you hardly come here. You can still have an opinion, right?
Anyhow, SSBB is still awesome.
For starters, you know how I said there were something like a hundred songs in the game? Well, I said that because at the time it seemed like a really big number (it is a really big number). In reality, though, there are over three hundred songs. Some of them are originals ripped right from the games they came from (particularly the ones from more recent games), but a huge amount is either rearranged or totally new and exclusive to Brawl.
We just got a message saying we got two hundred songs, I believe. Of course, you start with a lot of those, so it's not that we unlocked that many.
We've now officially unlocked all of the characters now. Oddly, Jigglypuff used to be the easiest character to unlock, but she was the last one we got this time. She seems just as cool, but her special moves seem to be a bit underpowered, or "nerfed" (I have no idea where the expression came from, perhaps Nerf darts and footballs and whatnot, which are soft and foamy?), now. Still, she's a really fun character. You have to focus on stealth, and it's best if you're playing with people who don't realize her power. They don't pay attention, then you come right next to them and... fall asleep? Seriously, though, those of you familiar with the series will know that this brings an almost-certain KO to anybody with a decent amount of damage (on average around 60%, but it varies by character weight).
Well, you may be wondering what my favorite characters are. Well, I've played a bit with Ganondorf, Luigi, and Mr. Game and Watch, which were some of my favorites from Melee, and they play pretty much the same, but seem to be adjusted to be even nicer -- particularly Mr. Game and Watch, who now has a working parachute (triggered by his up-special) and a new standard-air attack ( a fish bowl that splashes stuff out). Anyway, once I found out they were still cool, I went on to playing with new characters, and I have four that I really like to play as. I'll give a brief description of them and why I like them, and put them in order of preference.
After the novelty wears off, I may go back to using my old standbys more often, but I don't know. It's hard to choose, because all thirty-five characters are really, really fun and cool. There are no bad, dumb, or "cheap" characters. I figure I'll eventually get to the point where I find myself sticking my token on the "random" space more than anything else.
Well, on to the list:
Lucario
I would have liked Lucario, even if he was... a Jigglypuff clone. Not that I don't like Jigglypuff. It's just that it wouldn't make any sense, is all. Of course, Lucario is not a Jigglypuff clone. In fact, no matter what you hear about him being a Mewtwo clone, he is absolutely not a clone of any other character in this game or any previous ones; he's unique.
Lucario is a medium-speed character with fairly powerful attacks. His physical attacks are powered by his Aura (for the purposes of simplification, it's "blue and purple glowing stuff"), which lets the range of the attack extend beyond the reach of his limbs. He's pretty strong, and here's the best part: the damage and knockback of his attacks increases depending on how much damage you've taken. The most noticeable result of this is that his standard special move, Aura sphere (a ball of energy that charges up and damages people even when you're still holding it; pretty much just like Mewtwo's in Melee) increases in size considerably when you've taken a lot of damage. It's also more powerful, just like everything else.
As for his other special moves: His up-special is Extremespeed, which causes Lucario to pause for a short amount of time -- allowing you to direct it with the joystick -- and then fire off very quickly. It's a useful recovery move, as you can also direct it mid-flight (though that takes some amount of reflex, as he moves very quickly) and move in nice arcs. His side-special is Force Palm, which basically just stops you and fires a little burst of blue energy in the direction you're facing. If you're right up close to the foe, it focuses the attack near you and can be pretty powerful. His down-special is Double Team. It's a lot like the Counter move Marth and Ike have; if someone attacks you right after you execute the attack, Lucario will dash towards them and smash right trough them. It can be lethal if they're at high enough damage levels, but if nobody attacks, you're left wide open to be hit, because the move takes a bit of time to finish.
Lucario's Final Smash is Aura Blast (or something along those lines), in which Lucario flies into the background, screams something about the power of Aura, and proceeds to pretty much annihilate anyone and everyone you want to. He fires a beam straight downward, but you can move it left and right quite a bit. Still, on larger stages, it's possible to hide in corners and avoid the beam entirely. If it hits, it sucks them in and damages them a lot, and when the beam finishes, it blasts everyone inside it away.
So anyhow, Lucario is a really interesting character, and I've been doing really well with him.
Toon Link
There's not as much to say about this one. Toon Link is a lot like plain-ol' Link, but weaker, faster, and with more jumping power. He also looks really spiffy and his bombs have cool 2D-effect explosions like in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. I'm just going to assume you're familiar with Link's moveset, so I can just use this section to compare the two characters. You're probably not, but if you don't have much interest in Smash Bros., you're probably not very interested in this post, either, so... yeah. : ) (Don't worry, I jump around with different topics a lot, so there will be more interesting posts for you in the future.)
Most of Toon Link's sword attacks are essentially the same as Link's, but some things are a bit different, like his up-smash and his air attacks. His down-air is pretty lethal; if the target is in the air, they go straight down, and if they're on the ground, they fly away pretty far. It's a lot like Link's down-air in the first game, which if I recall correctly was a very deadly move (it's been a while). I haven't played all that much as Link in Brawl, but I think I can safely say that Toon Link's aerial attacks are better than Link's. It may be just a proportionate difference in that his other attacks are not as strong. His special attacks are more or less the same but slightly weaker; his arrow, I think, flies straighter but does less damage, his bombs seem to be the same, but cooler-looking and weaker, and his boomerang is a lot larger, but it doesn't have the new tornado effect that was added to Link's in Brawl. Toon Link's spin attack does that nice little sucking thing Young Link's did in Melee, wherein when it hits someone, they're sort of trapped and get tossed around in the sword's spin.
Toon Link's Final Smash is the Triforce Slash, and, as far as I can tell, is exactly like Link's. It may have a subtle difference, though, a bit like the differences between the Landmasters (I always laugh at Landmasters, but it's a long story, and I think I may have covered it earlier; regardless, you'll hear about it pretty soon here, though not today.) of Falco, Fox, and Wolf (By the way, Wolf is actually one of the most different of all "clones"), or the difference between the Light Arrows of Sheik and Zelda forms.
In general, Toon Link is a lighter, faster, and weaker version of Link. It makes them sound similar, but they really are considerably different, and I much prefer Toon Link, as Link is just too slow for me now (I think he's been slowed down for this game).
Sonic
Sonic is really, really, really fast. You'd think he'd get a lot of SDs (Self-destructs), but if you have good reflexes, you can stay alive with him for a very long time. As Sakurai hinted in an interview, the third-party characters (Sonic and Snake) play differently than the Nintendo ones. They still fit in really well, but they just seem... different. It's a bit hard to explain until you've played. Basically, Snake is a non-direct character that uses weapons for a great majority of his attacks -- not just his special moves. Sonic, on the other hand, is just... really, really fast. And he moves really fluidly; he's a great combo-using character.
Sonic's standard special move is a homing attack, like he uses in Sonic Adventure and its sequel. You press the button and he floats up in the air, spins around, then zeroes in on nearby characters. He flies into them and bounces back a little; it can be chained pretty well (with itself I mean; you can do it several times in a row quite effectively). His side-special is a charged attack; you hold it down and you spin around, and when you release the button, he hops in the air a bit and dashes to the side. The longer you charge it for, the longer it lasts, and you can change directions as much as you want. It's a lot like Yoshi's Egg Roll attack. Sonic's down-special is similar to his side-special, but you have to tap the special move button rapidly to charge it. You also fall to the ground before using it, so it's useless for recovery, unlike the side-special. I believe when using the down-special, characters are knocked away more than they are from the side-special, but I'm not entirely sure; it's been a bit since I've played as Sonic (I've been playing a lot as Toon Link, since we unlocked him quite recently).
His up-special is a spring, which launches you into the air. It's a great recovery move, and the spring damages people slightly as it spins around in the air. If you use it on the ground instead, the spring stays on the ground and other people can use it, too.
For his Final Smash, Sonic becomes Super Sonic, flying around the screen and harming anyone he touches. You are no longer affected by gravity and are completely invincible for the duration of the attack.
The thing I like most about Sonic is how surprisingly nostalgic it is to play as him. You'd think he'd be based more off his more recent (and not as good) 3D games, but it's a lot like playing an old Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog game. I really love his sounds (particularly the one for the spring), and his down-special reminds me a lot of Sonic 2.
Wario
Wario is a really quirky character, but I find it pretty fun to play as him, though I haven't been using him as much as the other three I've already listed.
His standard special move is a bite. He can eat almost any item, including his own motorcycle, and if he eats a character, he'll chew them up for a while (which damages them) and spit them out. His side-special is his motorcycle. You take it out and can drive around; it turns slowly but can otherwise move very quickly and damage anything it runs into. Eventually you'll fall off, and the motorcycle can be picked up and thrown around like any other heavy item (like a barrel, for example). This applies to anyone, not just Wario, so other people can use his motorcycle as a weapon against him. Eventually it will break into pieces, which can also be thrown around. You can use your motorcycle again once it's gone, but you can't have more than one out at a time.
Wario just jumps and spins around for his up-special. It's a decent recovery move and does some damage, but there's nothing particularly different about it. The down-special doesn't really do much unless you haven't used it for quite a while (Wario will start to flash), in which case it will make a large explosion, which is quite dangerous and makes Wario fly upwards.
I was pretty surprised with how much I liked using Wario. I really like the way he moves, which is reminiscent of the Gameboy Wario Land games. It's particularly funny when he gets hit, and flies back shaking with a goofy expression. He's undoubtedly a weird character, but for the most part, that just makes him more interesting to play as.
Still, I played him less and less as we got more characters. Now I pretty much just use Lucario or Toon Link, occasionally switching to Sonic, and sometimes using Wario. Again, though, I'll probably use a larger variety of characters as time goes on.
Now that we've unlocked all the characters, I'll try to post how we got them, while it's still fresh in my mind (though I don't know if I'll remember everything). This isn't really so you can know how to unlock them, since there's several ways to get each one, and you could find out all the methods on the Internet pretty easily.
This is mainly just in case you were curious as to how we got them.
(This isn't really the order we got them in, because I don't quite remember, but I figure it's fairly close)
-To get Ness we played five matches (which, obviously, was very easy to do).
-For Marth we played ten matches (also very simple).
-Seth got Captain Falcon by beating Classic Mode in under twelve minutes (it was actually the first time anyone played that mode).
-I unlocked Ganondorf by beating Classic Mode on Hard with Link.
-I think we got Luigi by playing 22 matches, but it may have been by someone beating Classic Mode without using continue, which is another method of unlocking him.
-For Falco, I believe, we did fifty matches.
-Seth and I got Lucario by beating all five levels of Target Test (which you can do with two people now). This is actually slightly harder than you'd think, as you have to beat Classic Mode on higher difficultly settings to get more levels of Target Test.
-I still don't know what we did to get Sonic. It was after a versus match, but you're supposed to need 300 matches to get him that way, and we were only at around seventy. It may have been from total KOs or combined play time.
-We (mostly this was Andy and Seth) played fifteen matches on Shadow Moses Island to get Snake (so, obviously, we could have gotten him pretty quickly, but didn't).
-We played 160 matches to unlock R.O.B.
-I had Mr. Game and Watch join my team in the Subspace Emissary (adventure mode), which consequently unlocked him for regular play.
-For Toon Link, I beat the Subspace Emissary, then John completed Classic Mode with Link.
-Seth got Wolf by beating the Boss Battle mode (which is unlocked after you beat the Subspace Emissary) with Fox. This wasn't too hard, though, as he just set it to Easy.
-I unlocked Jigglypuff by beating the Subspace Emissary, then playing Event Match #20.
...So as you can see, we unlocked them in many different ways. I don't think there are all that many people who will unlock (or have unlocked already) all of the characters using the same methods, unless they just do the same thing a lot, like playing a ton of Brawls in a row (if you play 450 you can unlock everyone) or exploring every inch of the Subspace Emissary to get every character. I guess this wouldn't be as uncommon if it was just one person playing the game, though.
Yes, it only took about a week to get every character, but realize that there are a lot of people playing the game, so it's a lot easier for us.
This post ended up getting rather long (or at least of a decent length), so I'm just going to stop here.
Hopefully I'll get a post in tomorrow.
And hopefully Wednesday too.
And Thursday.
...We'll see....
"You must recover!"
--Oft-repeated Masahiro Sakurai quote, from the Smash Bros. Dojo
::Source= Paul M-unit 19.91 MKII
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