Upon the initial announcement of Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (Jesus, that name is still silly), the idea of a Super Smash Brothers clone starring the characters of Sony's history came off as a little . . . meh. It's not that I didn't have fun with the Super Smash Brothers series, and it most certainly wasn't because I didn't like the characters Sony had to offer. Instead, I felt that the title was a little too late to have any significant impact on my gaming schedule.
I honestly felt that Brawl was the last entry that would hold my interest when it came party-fighters, but SuperBot Entertainment has proven me wrong and I couldn't be happier.
PlayStation All-Stars felt incredibly fresh, while still maintaining the familiar style one would find in Super Smash Brothers. The combat felt incredibly fluid, and while one might describe Super Smash Brothers as being "floaty" All-Stars felt much more grounded, allowing for combos to be linked together in quick succession, to a level I never expected from a party-fighter. The amount of thought put into each character's move-set was incredible, and I can see this game quickly garnering a heavy fan base in the tournament world.
In Super Smash Brothers, players who ran away during 4-player battles often found themselves victorious, but SuperBot Entertainment has managed to thwart this in All-Stars, by directly rewarding players who remain in battle. Rather than relying on health as a meter to display how close one is to death, characters instead pull off successful attacks in order to fill their super meter, which essentially works as an instant kill. With three different levels, the super becomes progressively stronger, allowing for players to kill each person individually, all the way up to destroying everyone on the map. With constant focus on filling your meter, the action of PlayStation All-Stars never slows down.
While combat is a heavy focus, it quickly becomes apparent how much time has been spent on level design. In one instance of the game, players take the stage in Sony's quiz game, Buzz! As the fight unfolds, questions begin to appear relating to different Sony games while scattering the answers all around the level. Players must then hurry to the correct answer before the time runs out where they are rewarded for their gaming smarts. Almost every time this happened, a battle unfolded like nothing I had ever experienced. In a frenzy, players would kick the sh*t out of each other in an attempt to keep the correct answer to themselves. It was moments like this that got me incredibly excited for the final package, I can hardly imagine what other awesome levels are waiting for us.
Going into E3, I wasn't expecting to leave Sony's booth with so much love for a "Super Smash Brothers rip-off", but Sony managed to capture my heart while reigniting a genre that was starting to feel rather stale. Congratulations PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, you when our Best Surprise of E3 award. This game couldn't come sooner, but before you release it, make sure to bring in Tony Hawk.
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