Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
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| Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl | ||||||||||||||||||
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 "Brawl it out as your favorite Nickelodeon characters in bombastic platform battles!"
— The game's description
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Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a crossover fighting game developed by Ludosity and Fair Play Labs and published by GameMill Entertainment. It was released on October 5, 2021 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, making it the first console game in the long-running Nickelodeon Super Brawl series of browser games and mobile games.
Why It’s An All-Star Brawl
- The concept of characters from different Nicktoons and related franchises fighting each other in a platform fighter a la Super Smash Bros. is a pretty interesting one, much like Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion, but unlike that game where it just shoehorns Cartoon Network characters and doesn't really change the gameplay much to the point where it feels like a Super Smash Bros. ripoff, All-Star Brawl changes up the gameplay just enough so that it's able to stand on its own two feet. This is because it was developed by Ludosity, the studio behind the popular indie platform fighter Slap City, which had a similar gameplay.
- The graphics look pretty good and are much better-looking than previous Nickelodeon games from GameMill.
- The characters here are presented very well and are true to their original incarnations.
- 20 playable characters to chose from. You get to play as some of Nickelodeon's most iconic and beloved characters, including SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star, CatDog, Leonardo, Lincoln and Lucy Loud, Aang, Zim, Oblina, Danny Phantom, Jenny Wakeman, Garfield, Shredder, and others.
- Some of the choices for playable characters make so much sense like Helga from Hey Arnold! who was playable compared to Arnold himself. This is most likely due to the personality of Helga being local arch-rival compared to Arnold who is more of the typical friendly guy. However, Arnold did appear in Super Brawl Universe.
- The same could be said about Nigel Thornberry from The Wild Thornberrys mainly due to his meme status compared to Eliza. Also, he is a Thornberry after all since they are still prominent characters.
- The inclusion of Reptar from Rugrats may serve as a nod to how he has massive marketing present in the world of Rugrats including films, food packaging, TV shows, action figures, and amusement parks.
- Keep in mind that we got two additional characters (Hugh Neutron and Rocko) after Jenny's release back in May 13, 2022. Any additional characters that could appear in the future will be added as DLC or through software upgrades.
- The gameplay is similar to that of Super Smash Bros. only with different controls. You have light attacks, heavy attacks, and special attacks. This goes to show you that even this game does have some fun elements to the mix.
- Compared to Smash, grabbing is different where you can actually grab foes in the air. You can also grab projectiles!
- Guarding works differently here. You can just guard without penalty but the cost of it will allow you to be pushed back in doing so.
- Has a unique mechanic introduced in the game called "strafe". Players can hold a button to prevent their character from turning around while moving in different directions.
- Each of the characters has its own stage based on its series of origin. Some of them do look cool or fun such as Glove World, Western Air Temple, Omashu, Harmonic Convergence, Powdered Toast Trouble, Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch, Wild Waterfall, Traffic Jam, and The Dump. Each stage has a different layout while some do have hazards.
- The single-player mode arcade mode is similar to what you would expect in a fighting game. Each character before the battle has an interaction with the character that they are fighting against via text dialogue.
- During arcade mode, there are some stages where you get to choose your opponent. For instance, let's say that in stage 2 you get to play as SpongeBob and the next stage involves you picking between Sandy or Lincoln. You decide who to fight against.
- Sports mode is present in this game. It's based on the Slap Ball game from Slap City. There, players would have to knock a ball into an opponent's goal. This mode is chaotic since it combines the main game's fighting mechanics with some soccer used on the twist. Each ball has different properties including soccer balls that can't be grabbed.
- You can unlock images for the in-game gallery, music for the sound test, and online profile icons in this game.
- Supports online play mode. The online mode has a rollback netcode. There are some modes exclusive to the online mode which are just quick play and competitive play
- Clever use of references related to each of the characters. Here are some examples:
- SpongeBob's Imagination Clap is obviously a reference to the rainbow SpongeBob meme that originates from the episode "Idiot Box" His heavy dash attack takes inspiration from the slipping SpongeBob meme "Krabs à la Mode".
- Patrick's down light is laser pants that were used in the SpongeBob episode "Spy Buddies". His down strong attack is "NO, THIS IS PATRICK!" which originated from a meme that originally appeared in the episode "Big Pink Loser".
- The fact that Helga's heavy forward air has a picture of Arnold in her locket which reflects her role in Hey Arnold".
- Lincoln Loud's VR Slash allows him to use the Game Goggles that he owns since the episode Get the Message. His strong-up air haves him use a stinky diaper as a nod to Lily Loud. Lincoln's strong slide attack has him uses the bike from "Hand-Me-Downer"
- Lucy Loud's down special is Jump Scare. This reflects her running joke in The Loud House where she randomly appears near characters just for a jumpscare. Also, Lucy uses Fangs (her pet bat) as her up special.
- Some of Oblina's moves revolve around her favorite methods of scaring people in Aaahh!!! Real Monsters where she pulls out her internal organs and her talent of shapeshifting.
- Most of Aang's moves revolve around air mainly because he was able to bend it with ease since childhood. Not to mention that Airbending is what Aang primarily uses.
- Korra's moves revolve around her ability to bend all for elements of air, water, earth, and fire. Keep in mind that she uses all elements equally yet can favor one for different strategies.
- Ren and Stimpy's up special is History Eraser which originated from the episode Space Madness. Also, they use a Log that is an in-universe toy created by Blammo!. A lot of their moves pay homage to the tone of The Ren & Stimpy Show
- The taunts of certain characters like the Mocking Sponge meme that originated from the SpongeBob Episode "Little Yellow Book" or Reptar holding a bowl of cereal as a nod to Reptar Cereal. And don't forget Aang's taunt being the marble trick from the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The Warriors of Kyoshi" as well Michelangelo eating pizza as a nod to the turtles' favorite food.
- Wavedashing is present in the game. If you like to wavedash in Super Smash Bros. Melee, you will like it here.
- The soundtrack does surprisingly have some jams like the main theme, Lose V1, Space Madness, Powdered Toast Trouble, Western Air Temple, Omashu, The Loud House, Royal Woods Cemetery, Rooftop Rumble, Showdown at Teeter-Totter Gulch, Ghost Zone, and Traffic Jam.
- The game does have patches for updates like there is a patch update that prevents certain characters like Michelangelo and Sandy during things that broken the rules including Sandy's infinite combo and Michelangelo's infinite jump.
- It was interesting to see Leonardo, Michelangelo, Shredder, and April use their original designs that were used in the 1987 series.
- After launch, the game received free DLC which includes alternate skins and two new playable characters, Garfield and Shredder.
- On June 6, 2022, voice acting had officially been implemented into the game, with most of the characters' original voice actors returning to reprise their roles, and they do a good job. The only characters not voiced by their original actors are Aang (voiced by Dustin Sardella), Toph (voiced by Vivian Vencer), April O'Neil (voiced by Abby Trott), Powdered Toast Man (voiced by David Kaye), Nigel Thornberry (voiced by Jim Meskimen), and Oblina (voiced by Alex Cazares), but the new voice actors all still give decent impressions of the originals.
Not-So All Star Qualities
- A lack of modes is present in the game.
- The framerate can suffer at times.
- Character animation can sometimes look choppy like when you control your character, and the fighting looks unnatural.
- There will be times where you will be hit by attacks that should not be expected to be used as a method of attacking thus causing the combat to be inconsistent. It will get worst when playing with more than two players.
- The in-game character models and graphics are a bit of a mixed bag due to the art style of certain characters causing the game to feel too awkward with the art style like the Klasky Csupo characters (Oblina, Nigel, and Reptar) having to fight against more anime-like characters (Aang, Toph, and Korra). It's like they were thrown together.
- Not only that, but the graphics also look more like a Mobile game rather than a console game.
- The stage layouts for Irken Armada Invasion and Harmonic Convergence feel like they were copied off from those for the Super Smash Bros. series' Battlefield and Final Destination stages respectively.
- Many characters from certain other franchises such as El Tigre, The Fairy OddParents, Fanboy & Chum Chum, Sanjay and Craig, Breadwinners, Pig Goat Banana Cricket, etc. aren't in the game, though it's likely they'll be available as DLC (Fortunately for the first title, it made it to the 2nd game, and although for the second title is very unlikely due to Nelvana Limited holding consumer product rights to the franchise outside the United States, and also unlikely for the latter four due to terrible reception from critics and audiences).
- Harvey Beaks, It's Pony, and Middlemost Post, all while still good, don't even have their characters either. It's possible that the characters from those programs will be downloadable content someday.
- The characters only do one punch or hit when attacking.
Reception
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl has gotten mixed to positive reception. Nintendo Life gave the game a 7/10. PCMag gave the game a 4/5.
Trivia
- The roster was decided between GameMill and Ludosity. Only a few of their character choices were rejected by Nick due to global licensing issues. Still unclear who could've join if it weren't for the global issues.
- GameFly leaked the game on July 10, 2021.
- After the announcement of the game, it spawned some memes due to the similarities of Super Smash Bros. and certain characters including Nigel. The same can be said about wanting certain characters to join the game including Otis and/or Snotty Boy from Barnyard, Jimmy Neutron and/or Cindy from Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Squidward and/or Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants, Nacho from Nacho Libre just to name a few.
- Speaking of Jimmy Neutron characters, it's worth noting that a fellow YouTuber, Uncle Al, made a video of him calmly and politely asking the makers for this game to add Hugh Neutron as a playable character on July 15th, 2021. Upon this video existing and Mark DeCarlo himself encouraging this idea on his own Twitter feed because of Uncle Al's Twitter post, Hugh Neutron was eventually revealed with riding a cool-looking motorcycle.
- Any character from a live action Nick series are currently not in the game due to how the developers want to focus in cartoon characters mainly for moveset potential.
- Ren and Stimpy are a duo character because of the fun interaction between them.
- Due to popular demand, Microsoft gave away several one-of-a-kind Xbox Series S systems themed around the different characters found in the game on Twitter.
- There were some reports about unused files of certain characters that are not in the roster or didn't exist at the time, who will likely be added in the future. Here are the following characters that might be included for downloadable content:
- Azula, Iroh, Jet, Katara, King Bumi, Roku, Sokka, and Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Angelica, Chuckie, Susie, and Tommy from Rugrats
- Parker J. Cloud from Middlemost Post
- Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, Mr. Krabs, Plankton, and Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants
- Bebop, Casey, Donatello, Krang, Raphael, Rock Steady, Metalhead, and Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Annie and Pony from It's Pony
- Donnie and Eliza from The Wild Thornberrys
- Jimmy and Cindy from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
- Heffer, and Filbert from Rocko's Modern Life
- Gir from Invader Zim
- Arnold and Gerald from Hey Arnold
- Dark Danny, Skulker, and Vlad from Danny Phantom
- Felicity and Miguel from Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty
- Clyde McBribe and Luan Loud from The Loud House
- The eponymous characters from Pig Goat Banana Cricket
- The eponymous character of Harvey Beaks
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