There was so much potential with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Take a bunch of classic and modern Nicktoons and characters and stick them into a Smash Bros. clone. It’s not a heavy undertaking and with such a large cast of characters to choose from, how could you go wrong? Well, you do all of that but you do it very cheaply and with the most basic of effort, ignoring the kids in the process. What’s worse is that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl just feels lifeless and without a soul. That, and the game is extremely quiet as none of these legendary characters are voice-acted in any way, which is crazy considering it couldn’t have been all that hard to pull a few catchphrases right from the cartoons themselves.
We’ve seen Smash Bros. clones before. In fact, there have been so many that the mechanics have been copied almost perfectly at times that it seems everyone does a game of this type now. Heck, some of the characters in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl have had their own in-universe Smash clones in the past. The problem here is that they sort of miss the underlying nature of the Nickelodeon experience: that it’s for kids. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a Smash clone that caters to the hardcore competitive Smash player and forgoes the charm of a kids property.
This is well and good, but the audience for these characters are children and they will be left quickly bored from the basic experience as the focus is on competitive multiplayer. Even as an adult who grew up in the heyday of the Nicktoon boom, I find the roster lacking with so many characters from select series. How did they not include Doug or anyone from Rocko’s Modern Life? And just where are my Angry Beavers? The game has 20 roster spots but SpongeBob, Avatar, and TMNT all get three each. How are the turtles not one slot palette swapped?
The story mode is nothing more than random battles with characters simply spouting their catchphrases. Well, their catchphrases are just text in a box before a match as there is no voice work anywhere in the game. This is strange as most, if not all, of these characters are defined by their voices. When see a character you immediately hear their voice in your head and when it doesn’t come out there is a big disconnect. It’s these little details that would have elevated the game from feeling budget, especially when its not at a budget price.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl plays so heavily on multiplayer that it hurts the experience. There is a ‘Sports’ mode that lets up play some games but you need multiple players to even start it. Same goes for the online lobbies, of which there were only two or three public ones at any given time, which lets you play with a friend online. This would be fantastic but the friend I played with ad I quickly found out that it’s a 1v1 affair as you can’t add bots to make the action more fun. The fun of these types of games is the madness that happens when lots of characters are flying around a given stage.
Then there are the stages themselves, most of which feel pretty weak. There aren’t that many that allow you to play a more standard game as most have bottomless pits and pretty easy kill spots that you can cheese. In single player this is problematic as the AI is garbage. I often simply stay in a single spot and hit my strong attack to win rounds. Other times the opponent AI would kill themselves by falling or jumping into a pit. In my few hours playing solo I think I only died once, even on harder difficulties after finding out Cat-Dog was OP with standard smash attack. I’m not kidding when I say I just hit the B button to win the game.
Thankfully, the gameplay mechanics are pretty solid, even if there are some serious balance issues. That is something to be expected with a Smash clone, especially with a large cast. Still, though, some characters are nearly unplayable against others while some are pretty OP, especially in terms of janky hitboxes. But at the very least the game itself is fun, if sparse as their are no powerups or ultimates to grab/earn. The game actually plays more like a traditional fighter in many respects.
Attacks are spaced across three face buttons with a standard attack, a heavy attack, and a button for special attacks. Each of these can then be modified depending on whether you press forward, down, or up before said attack. One button is dedicated to the jump command which can also be linked into attacks for additional moves. You also have access to light and heavy dashes (even air dashes are here to help zone) which can be canceled into other attacks to keep opponents on their toes. And finally, there are the grabs that work both on the ground and in the air (and . Not bad for a Smash clone when you look at it. This means that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a game that rewards movement.
If you are coming into Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl for the combat then you are going to be pleasantly surprised. The game gives players a lot of options in terms of combat tactics, something that I was not expecting from a title like this. That said, for $50 the game just feel really barebones with a distinct lack of content for the audience it seems catered for. This is one of those weird titles that is playing more off of nostalgia than anything else. I mean, I say that, but there are modern characters on here I’ve never heard of. I simply don’t know who this one is for.
Hardcore Smash players will have some fun but quickly see the glaring balancing issues that will no-doubt see broken characters take precedent online, while young kids will get bored as there is very little to do or see outside the competitive aspect of it. And then there’s me, someone who wished their was a more varied cast of charcaters as Nickelodeon has such a deep library by this point. There was so much potential in having a fully-voiced single player campaign that explained why everyone if fighting and their reasons for it.
What I can appreciate is that the developers seem focused on expanding the game and cleaning up some of the technical issues in future patches and content drops. That’s all well and good, but I can only judge the game as it stands, especially considering that if sales aren’t great, that added content and future patches won’t ever see the light of day. In the end Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a decent Smash clone that is lacking is lacking in the content that would justify a $50 price tag. I suggest waiting for this one to go on sale before checking it out.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a strange mix of a children’s property catering to hardcore players
Final Score:
*A review key was provided by the publisher*
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