Super Smash Bros Brawl: Subspace Emissary

I've been playing "Super Smash Bros Brawl" for over a year now.  Yet, I never did find the time to actually play through its story mode.  Also I always played "Brawl" in my friend's Wii, but thanks to some very crafty handiwork, the "Smash Bros" disc is now sitting in my own personal white phallic-titled game system.  And thanks to that, I finally got to play, and beat, Subspace Emissary.  Yeah, I know this review is really late, but what do you expect?  When "Brawl" first came out, I didn't even have a blog then!

With harsh memories of "Dissidia" behind me, I was really hoping that Nintendo could succeed where Square Enix had failed so miserably:  have a massive crossover plotline without accidentally creating one of the worst storylines in the history of all mankind.  With a name like "Subspace Emissary", a bizarre coupling of two words whose exact meaning I still am nowhere near understand, I was already getting some bad "Final Fantasy" vibes.  "Subspace Emissary" could easily be the next subtitle to the newest "Kingdom Hearts" game.  However, "Brawl"'s story mode immediately shows itself to be something very different than "Dissidia" by taking an interesting approach:  no dialog.  Of course, many of Nintendo's franchises are either dialog-less or have very sparse storylines, so this is an appropriate way of going about telling the story.  It would be a bit odd for Link to suddenly start talking out of nowhere with Fox.  And after "Dissidia"'s unbelievably awful script, and "Other M"'s raping of Samus in an sad attempt to add a plot, I can't say I have any problems here.  The last thing anybody wanted was Link to start talking about his dreams of filling the world with flowers.

"Subspace Emissary" above all else is a simple sidescrolling game.  As with Nintendo's overall gaming strategy, gameplay is placed well above story issues.  They wanted to make a fun adventure before writing an epic poem, basically the opposite of "Dissidia"'s strategy.  And which would I rather play?  Which would anybody rather play?  "Subspace Emissary", that's what.

I'm not saying that "Brawl" is a better game than "Dissidia".... oh wait, yeah I am.  A million times superior in every measurable way.  But my point mainly here is that "Brawl" has a far better Story Mode than "Dissidia".  Better gameplay and surprisingly a far more exciting storyline, despite the huge limitation of no dialog and a simplistic story.  Honestly I don't really feel like reviewing the multiplayer aspects of either game because I really couldn't do them justice.  I have friends who play "Brawl", the only people I've met who ever also played "Dissidia" are faceless and live on the Internet.

Every single hero and villain in "Brawl" (minus Star Wolf, Jigglypuff, and Toon Link for some reason) have a role to play in a grand epic struggle to save the Smash Bros universe.  An evil minister with an army of R.O.Bs and Heartless has come to send the us all into the VOID!!  So slowly every Nintendo hero answers the call to action, traveling together in an epic struggle for the universe.  Link follows his Fairy Friend, Mario travels to rescue Peach (who naturally gets kidnapped), Pit is summoned by the Goddess Athena, and Lucas is here to save Ness, who gets beaten early on in the game.  Behind the evil minister is Ganondorf, Bowser, and Wario, working together for evil.  They employ magic guns that turn you into a Trophy.  Behind those three is Master Hand.  And behind all of them is a psychedelic glowing naked bald man with wings that will instantly kill you.  So the plot is a bit... convoluted.  Along the way there's giant sky battles, airship wars, and at least one giant laser canon that gets blown up in a second.

Much to my surprise, the storyline actually has some very good moments.  Lucas in particular has a very well-fleshed out character arc, going from frightened victim to hero along the way.  He has a great motivator in seeing Ness fall to Bowser.  Then even amongst the bad guys there are some touching moments.  The R.O.Bs who have to sacrifice themselves to set off the bombs tearfully wave goodbye to their master just before being blasted into the VOID.  Also in an early scene you see Pikachu being tortured to be used as a battery to fly the enemy battleship.  Almost immediately I had to scream out loud "NO PIKACHU!!!!!!"  How could they do that??  Luckily sexy Zero Suit Samus saves the day.  Peach is always there with endless positive friendliness, making friends with everybody including Mr. Game and Watch despite his bizarreness.  At one point Peach even elbows Zelda so that they both can admire Snake's shapely backside.  And there are even moments of pure awesome like when Sheik takes down Fox's Arwing with her fists.  Or the great sky battle against a giant death canon that might as well have been the ending to "Final Fantasy XII"*.

Still I'll admit that I would have liked to have seen more plotlines for each of the characters.  Most really have nothing to do but pop up, kick some ass, and follow the rest of the heroes.  Everybody does get their singular moment of badass, so its not like they've been forgotten.

Gameplay-wise, I will admit, "Subspace Emissary" has a few issues.  Most of the time you're fighting various Heartless enemies, so its not like you have to fight the same twenty pallet swaps of the character roster all the time, meaning that gameplay is not nearly as repetitive.  The levels include plenty of platforming, obstacles, and even a puzzle or two to shake things up.  And at only six hours, "Subspace Emissary" never really gets repetitive.  Unfortunately, "Brawl"'s fighting game engine obviously was not designed with a side-scrolling game in mind.  Everything from jumping to fighting regular enemies feels loose and floaty, like you're never entirely clear why you're having trouble with one enemy and not others.  Plus you can rank up huge percentages of damage in seconds, but never really be in mortal peril until the enemy gets in a lucky hit.  Most attacks will leave you perfectly fine.  Basically every character is limited to a single strategy - physical attacks, and hopefully smashes.  Ranged moves are weakened, you can't seem to reflect attacks all that well, and the faster and lighter the attack, the more weak and worthless it becomes.  I think the game is better played with more than one player, so its fortunate Nintendo gave us a co-op option.  Then its hard to go through doors since the same button to go through them is jump, meaning you have to be dead-on center or else you'll jump instead.

Plus there are so many massively frustrating moments where the game basically screws you over without warning.  Often enough there are pits, but don't know if you need to jump down it or if they'll be a ledge on the otherside.  One leap of faith later, and suddenly you're down a life.  Or you might step on a "fuck-you" trap and you're launched off the screen and die horribly.  At one point, and I'm not making this up, the screen just stopped, even though there was an open hallway to the right.  So I walked right, and then suddenly SPLASH, Captain Falcon just killed himself.  How the Hell was I supposed to know that way was death??  I swear to Christ half my deaths were unfair beginner's traps.  I can't say that "Subspace Emissary" is all that good of a platformer, but its serviceable for a fighting game's Story Mode.  Its not totally broken, and it isn't very long either, so I can forgive its flaws.

One thing I enjoyed about the game is its careful choice in bosses.  You fight Ridley, Porky, and in an especially cool battle, Rayquaza (see picture).  I would have liked to have seen more assorted monsters from Nintendo franchises:  the giant bird from "Wind Waker" comes to mind.  But sadly the other bosses are just random robot Heartless.  And instead of thinking of new bosses, every boss battle is repeated twice, just as the entire last third of the game is a massive "Castlevania"-style superdungeon that cuts and pastes every level in the game into a large maze.  Why not throw in the Dark Dragon Medeus from "Fire Emblem"?  Or Metal Gear?  Or Bowser's Clown Car?

I got to say, "Subspace Emissary" isn't perfect, but it does have potential to be greatly expended and improved in "Super Smash Bros Brouhaha"**.  Its not perfect, but its good enough.  And it unlocked most of the cast for my "Brawl" save file in just a few days, so it can't be completely worthless.  If only I could find Toon Link...

--------------------------------------------------
* There's quite a lot of action that takes place in the sky, which makes me wonder why they didn't include a "Star Fox"-style rail shooter minigame for this.  Its really unfortunate that the most awesome moment in this storyline is totally unplayable, which sadly was the same problem "Final Fantasy XII"'s climax had.

** I'm just guessing the title here.  It could also just as easily be "Super Smash Bros Scuffle", "Super Smash Bros Ruckus", or "Super Smash Bros Reasonable Adult Discussion".