Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (REVIEW) - Happy, Happy, Brawl, Brawl!

ARE YOU READY?

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Well, before we jump in, let's take a quick look at how this game came in and how the internet reacted to it:
The game was first leaked on a listing for GameFly back on July 10th until it got officially announced three days later by IGN with a roster of a whopping 14 fighters; later on, it was also hinted eight more fighters would be revealed with CatDog and April O'Neil being revealed at GamesCom on August 27th, Ren & Stimpy on September 14th, Aang and Korra on October 1st, and finally Toph on October 3rd as the last base fighter.

This game initially sparked the internet worldwide, with many reacting to it compared to Super Smash Bros. With much effort put into this game by adding WaveDashing and RollBack Netcode, many were excited. 
It was developed by Ludosity, who before made the praised Slap City with many people turning heads into the game, hoping it'd be a hit. 

But does this game perform well at all distances?
​Let's see.

THE BATTLE IS ON!
(Gameplay, Controls, and Online Mode, etc)

Right off the bat, there are 20 Characters from 12 Nicktoons being represented with the inclusion of Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick Star, Sandy Cheeks, Aang, Korra, Toph, Lincoln Loud, Lucy Loud, Leonardo, Michelangelo, April O'Neil, Ren & Stimpy, Powdered Toast Man, Zim, CatDog, Reptar, Nigel Thornberry, Helga Pataki, Danny Phantom, and Oblina. Now compare this to GameMill's previous Nickelodeon game, Nickelodeon Kart Racers, it does have a way more extensive roster than that game with a good selection of characters and Nicktoons, although the sequel Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix still had an improved roster with some characters later on being cut in All-Star Brawl even with characters from the already represented Nicktoons in the game (Example: Arnold and Tommy Pickles) now despite that it isn't much of a problem since we got to see some characters surprisingly adding to the game's roster like Ren & Stimpy, Oblina, and Nigel Thornberry to name a few. The characters have their stages being represented with a total of 20 stages.
The controls and psychics themselves are confusing at first since it isn't the usual Smash Bros. controls nor the SlapCity controls.
Just after time, you do slowly get used to the controls, and they are pretty good with some characters being responsive or slow at times, but playing as them is fun and can be very enjoyable; there are three moves to pull off with standard move, heavy move, and special move with standard and special showing your move being blue and the heavy being red. You can also make some good competitive moves like the famous Wave-Dashing from Super Smash Bros Melee that the Developers added. Each of the moves from the characters most notable the Spongebob characters have their moves being references from the shows that show a lot of great effort and love letters to the ones we all grew up with and remembers the moves from which scenes and episodes from the show referenced. There are three main modes in this game, Battle, Arcade, and Online; Battle also has three modes to play, which are stock, timed, and sports; you can also change the rules if you like too, Examples: changing it to teams or changing your opponents level from 0 - 9 or changing your stock from either number you want from 1 - 99. Sports is a fun alternative mode if you and a friend want to have more fun than fighting by grabbing or punching a ball to get in hoops; it does play like Basketball or Soccer. Timed is the same as stock but without stock, and you can fight as much time as you want; each of your opponents has died several times you get more points the more points you have, the less the time runs out and either a win or a loss if your opponents have beat you up more. The other primary mode, Arcade, is where you fight a bunch of characters until you reach the last level and fight the last character. There are five difficulties to select: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Very Hard. 
There are nine stages to progress, but there are also three stages that you can choose either two different levels and characters, you get rewarded at the end with Music that you can listen to in the Jukebox, and some pictures of renders of your character and of their stage with renders of the background characters that appear in the backgrounds of several stages in the gallery which you can find all in the Extra with the option to view the Characters move sets and replays of matches that you can save after finishing a match and view them in the Extra, also something to mention after beating the arcade mode is that you can unlock character profiles for the online mode. You get to choose your favorite character to display on your profile, I also want to mention that we wished there was better explanation of why these characters are fighting in the first place, and a better dialogue to set up more of the nicktoon's talking to each other in each fight.

 Speaking of the Online mode, let's talk about how it is being executed. There are three modes to choose from in the Online mode: Competitive Play, Quick Play, and Online Lobbies; as I said, you can set your player profile and your changing type of regions to play in the Online Lobbies. Now in the Online, the Developers have stated on their Discord server that the Online will be using Rollback Netcode, meaning for better and good Online and well in my experience, it can be good. Still, there were problems where I couldn't join a match, or it would be laggy, or even the controls had input lag. Still, so far, I ended up loving the Online as my favourite mode for being enjoyable mode and battling against people from the outside world even if it sucked that I don't have good internet. Yet, Tim did but noticed the game could be very problematic with the rollback net code, so hopefully, it gets fixed over time as I also started noticing the connections being harsh or low on some fights I faced too, so he wasn’t wrong..

The Soundtrack in this game is alright, and some were good enough to be stuck in my head, like Danny Phantom's stage and the Jellyfish Field stage. A real bummer, I believe many people were hoping, was the addition of Voice Acting in this game which made the characters muted and quiet. At the same time, there is Voice Acting with only the Announcer is a bummer. I just wished that we could hear the characters talking besides seeing the characters again. Their models and renders look very much accurate to the show they were represented. They did an excellent job making them look good, and it won't be an issue by now since voices may come with how sales progress is going along. Hopefully, there will be more characters as DLC (maybe Garfield?).
 I believe the voice acting situation is similar to Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, which is fantastic to hear it likely at some point have them, and I will be looking forward to it. 
This game has been recently in the competitive scene, and while I won't talk about that much, there are a couple of tweaks that should be fixed later on. Thankfully, the developers are listening for patches, and we did get one recently, which had some issues with Sandy and Mikey had. Mostly Sandy doing the biggest combo problem for some time and hoping it's fixed from not being banned in the tournaments so many can main her too.

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VERDICT

Overall, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a great fighting game and a great alternative and inspiration to Super Smash Bros and a great love letter to the Nickelodeon cartoons being well represented a decent soundtrack, alright controls, unique move sets, including the WaveDash. I had a lot of fun replaying this game, even online or locally, with friends. It's retailed at $49.99, and while it isn't for everyone.
 Hopefully, the inclusion of Voice Acting and DLC will make the game more worthwhile, but I'd say wait for a sale but recommend the game. If you're a Nickelodeon fan or a fan of any of the shows, then this may be for you.

Nicely done to Ludosity and Fair Play Labs for trying the best to bring out a different fighter from other titles we have seen before, like CN: Battle Crashers, Looney Tunes: Fight For Fame, etc.

Quote: "Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a game for all Nickelodeon fans to enjoy."

Pros: 
High Replayability
Great Representations
Fun with Friends Online or Locally
Less Complex to Control and Play
Characters have their models and move accurate to the shows and look very lovely, even placing out a unique move set from each show and references.

Cons:
Some Characters missing like Arnold or Tommy/Chuckie, Timmy Turner or Jimmy  Neutron and Hugh Neutron, and more.
Soundtrack Music needs more variety of content like theme songs from the shows, etc.
Online and Rollback is a bit of a problem.

 Rating: 8/10
Until then.. GAME ON!

-Alexandre Elkhoury (Alex) and Timothy Stambaugh (Tim/TimTheGamer12)