Image from IGN.com

Heh, sorry for the provacitive title, but, in a word, YES. It is good.

That doesn't surprise anyone I'm sure, but before you label me "some guy who writes for a Nintendo themed blog, of COURSE he likes their games," I thought Super Paper Mario fell a bit short. I'm not afraid to call em' like a see em' when it comes to Nintendo games.

I'm not going to write some poetic soliloquy like I did with Super Mario Galaxy, if that is what you think is coming. Smash Brothers Brawl is different than Galaxy and should be reviewed differently.

A game like that, or even Twilight Princess, is about delivering a single, unified experience. Smash Brothers Brawl is not that. It isn't a game that one "beats" in the sense of beating Ganondorf or getting 120 stars.

Smash Brothers is instead a sandbox, but not the "fake" sandbox so many developers try to sell us under the guise of "emergent gameplay." Smash Brothers Brawl is a sandbox game because it gives us so many things to do! You can play this game in so many different ways that you never get bored. I've played this almost non-stop since picking it up at midnight over the weekend, and I can't possibly see this leaving my personal gaming rotation for a very long while.

Yet having a lot to do isn't enough. Madden 08 gives you a lot to do, yet I have no trouble filing that puppy away until next football season. Why? It is because while giving you a lot to do, some of that stuff that you can do just isn't that much fun.

Everything in Smash Brothers, however, is given thoughtful, thorough design. That's not to say everything in the game is epic- but the one thing you can tell is that every single square inch of the game was dissected to see if it was fun, right down to the sentence structure in the menus!

If anything, Smash Brothers Brawl is a tribute to what happens when a great designer (Masahiro Sakurai) is given an unlimited budget, a proven concept that will sell, and instructions to "make us up a hit game." From the astonishing array of music to the high quality cinematics, Brawl is filled with so many little touches of polish that it gleams like the diamond. And unlike certain games that grace other consoles, this attention to detail isn't just focused on the aforementioned visual and audio treats. Brawl plays like butter, with a balanced gameplay that is immediately enjoyed by the unskilled yet embraced by the hard core competitive gamer.

From here on out, before this gets too long, let me hit some big points here:

1. The Subspace Emmissary. This is Brawl's vaunted single player mode. Some reviews are suggesting that this falls short and is disappointing. Those reviews are crap. Subspace Emmissary is a fun, well designed sidescrolling brawling game that makes great use of the Smash Brothers fighting engine. Methinks the reviewers are tepid with it because it uses an oldschool, 2D brawler style that is confusing to modern day game critics. While it is true, however, that it might not be as fun if you aren't hip to at least some Nintendo culture.... who isn't at least hip to at least some Nintendo culture by this point?

2. Smash wouldn't be the same without Nintendo characters, so it really isn't that good.

This is an annoying comment because it is true... to a degree. Of course the game is fun because of the characters. Yet so is ANY good fighting game. Name me a successful fighter, be it Street Fighter or mortal kombat, and you have memorable characters that people like. Sure, there is Virtua Fighter and its sophisticated fighting engine (and forgettable characters)... but its sales speaks for itself.

3. Online Stuff:

I think people aren't even bothering to use the anonymous online system yet, and are instead hitting the internet in droves to exchange friend codes. I wasn't able to get ANY anonymous matches (which could still be Nintendo's servers getting crushed I suppose), but I had a great time playing online with some folks I met online and a good friend from Ohio. Those matches were lag free and good fun.

4. Quick notes:

Sonic and Snake take awhile to unlock. I still haven't unlocked them yet.
Zero Suit Samus is not only good looking (embarassingly so for this married blogger), but she has stunning animation. Watching her fight is like watching choreographed dance. Truly amazing animation by Sakurai's team.
The screen shot tool has already led to a million shots being posted on the internet... many of them are, shall we say, NSFW. Internet people are so predictable!