Well it was a weird road leading up to this one wasn't it? This game had so much oddness following it right from the very start.When we all saw this we all thought the same thing I guarentee you.
"So It's smash bros with sony characters....huh"
No one was really certain what to think of this game other then it was a massive clone of the super smash brothers series from nintendo.For those who don't know what the smash bros series is.....what the hell are you doing on a gaming blog site? But for the record it's a massive series of fighting games with the characters being from a multitude of nintendo franchises such as Mario from super mario,Link from legend of zelda,Ness from earthbound Etc. and these games are big.By large one of the biggest franchises in the history of fighting games.One of the reasons it's as big as it is now is due to the size of franchises is takes from as well as the gameplay that fans have stuck to very closely and agressivly and really there are only two other companies which even have characters rosters that could make a decent sized roster; Sega who have made use of it with the sonic and all stars racing games and Sony.
But oddly enough it's the roster that gains the most controversy.While most of the roster is Sony exclusives it includes The Big Daddy from the Bioshock franchise which started on the Xbox 360 and moved to sony as a multiplatformer.The Opposite of which is true for Heihachi from Tekken and Dante From DMC (A version of the character that is fan hated generally and I'm not opening that can of worms one way or another until I do a review on that myself.) Both games that started on Sony and moved to multiplatform.Not to mention for some reason they put in both a good and evil version of cole from Infamous for some reason.That combined with the lack of massive sony characters from the PS1 era and you have alot of people very confused and angry.But when it comes down to it does the game suffer because of it?
Let's start off with the most obvious,Gameplay.Unlike the smash series from which it's concept comes Battle Royale does not use the percent system (Attacking increases a a damage percent and with higher percent you fly farther resulting in a ring out) It does however use a special system which baffled me at first.You attack filling up a bar and once it's full you can use a special attack that differs from character to character.You can fill this bar up to three times giving you three different specials each being (supposedly) stronger depending on the higher the level.The ONLY way to kill someone (sans the medusa head weapon) Is with a special.I was very unsure of that decision at first.It siunded very gimmicky and just off but after playing the game it honestly works rather well sans some balancing issues (Example.Sweet tooth's level 1 special is a massive kick that travels a very small distance but is generally reliable to hit.Meanwhile his level 2 is a remote control missle that moves insanely slowly,turns like a drunken elephant,and leaves you completly open to be attacked while you're doing it.
In terms of just how combat feels it's alot more arcadey then smash if that makes sense.More about combos and feels a bit less weighted in attack.It's honestly a matter of opinion with which is better and I'm not going to say where Battle Royale fits in because I'm not opening that can of worms either.It's fine gameplay one way or another.
Though to be fair alot of concepts like Colonel Radec of Killzone's Level 3 is very close to Snakes Special from Smash bros. Brawl.There are a fair amount of these but there is only some much you can do I guess.
So the gameplay is good and often satisfying if a bit unbalanced in the special system at times.How is the graphics then? I hesitate to say great but certainly good to look at.In both gameplay and In game cinematics the game looks quite good for what it needs to be but I have one major gripe with the opening and ending cinematics.They look very wrong in some cases.I mean not only is the look off but my god in some cases it just looks terrible.Sweet tooth is not meant to be seen in Non live action sequences.I'd put a pic here from one but just look it up on youtube if you're curious.I do wish they had actual game style cinematics for each game but that may have been a bit more work considering game engines and whatnot but nonetheless they're okay and have some good moments to be fair.Colonel Radec's ending looks pretty cool I think with how they use lighting for the final scene.
So gameplay,graphics,What about the sound quality? Well The quality is great and the tracks from the original games were nice choices but it really depends on what you thought of their soundtracks to start with.I really enjoy ratchet and clanks metropolis track but the hades track from God of war is kinda bland I think.Like I said it all depends on how you find the original tracks and whatnot but in and of itself it's fine.
There is one more thing I wanna mention which is the use of the franchises.Every stage starts off as a stage from a game.Let's use the Metropolis stage from ratchet and clank as an example.After a while Captain quark shows up and so does the hydra from god of war and it turns into a double themed stage.Every stage does this and it's just fun to see what kind of things will pop up in a killzone or twisted metal themed stage.But that's not all they do.The rivalry system which has two characters at random.Some make sense like ratchet and jak or Sweet Tooth and Kratos.And then there is Evil cole and fat princess or Colonel Radec and Sir Daniel.It's entertaining if a touch random.The attention to detail is fantastic.Alot of the smaller things you see can be just cool.Like the use of the jump panels in metropolis.
Because of this,the good enough graphics,the pretty damn good gameplay, The Opinion based soundtrack and the sheer amount of customizables(Things like victory music,Taunts,Openings and ending can be customized) and the fact that for the first two weeks the dlc that was announced will be free this game is a very good buy.It's your opinion whether to wait or not for a price drop but I paid full and I'm very content with what I got.
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