As both a long-time competitive Smash player and someone who found the first Nick All-Star Brawl to be pretty disappointing, I came away from my hands-off preview of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 impressed, excited, and surprised. From the new Slime mechanic to making its characters feel more alive, all the way down to the training mode, Brawl 2 feels like a huge step up in almost every possible way.
The original All-Star Brawl was fun, sure, but the lack of even basic stuff like voice acting made Nickelodeon’s iconic characters feel flat. Similarly, many of the characters felt same-y and lacked different gameplans from each other aside from basic stuff like movement speed, knockback, and damage on their moves. Combined with flat animations and dull sound effects, that gave gameplay a mirrored sense of lifelessness. Even still, it was a good time with friends, and it had some clever ideas. But most importantly, it seems like it set the framework for All-Star Brawl 2 to really knock things out of the park with a satisfying whack.
Like the first one, Nick All-Star Brawl 2 is a crossover platform fighter with iconic Nickelodeon characters throughout the years. Think Smash Bros. but instead of Mario, Samus, Link, and Pikachu, it’s Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles facing off against Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Make no mistake, though: this is no mere update to the original. Developer Ludosity Entertainment fully rebuilt and remade everything in this game from the ground up and it shows. While a lot of what worked in the first NASB is still present, almost nothing is the same. Characters like SpongeBob Squarepants or April O’Neil, who were on the last game’s roster, have new movesets, models, and animations. Even just from a visual standpoint, it’s a big step up, as animations feel much more lively and models look more cartoony. During my preview session, a developer told me that every single move and animation in the game references something found in the character’s show of origin, even for the most basic attack.
Voice actors from the original shows all reprise their roles in Brawl 2 as well. It’s fully voiced every step of the way; in-game voice clips bring a lot more liveliness to the battlefield. But even outside of a match, dialogue in its rogue-lite campaign inspired by Hades is brought to life by these iconic voices.
Brawl 2’s biggest get, however, is the Slime mechanic. Rolling inspiration from non-platform fighting games into the genre, Slime functions like a meter in a few different fighting games. You can use it to add extra oomph or special effects to any special move or to unleash a powerful super move when it’s full like in Street Fighter. It also unlocks an ability to spend a good chunk of Slime to do stuff like break out of combos or cancel your attacks or movement like in Guilty Gear.
From what I can tell so far, Slime adds a whole lot to Brawl 2’s combo system and combat loop. Even hulking, slower characters like Reptar can set up and pull off some absurd combos with just a little Slime at their disposal. Of the hour or so of gameplay that I saw, Slime was the real star of the show. This mechanic is completely unlike anything I’ve seen in most other platform fighters and has a lot of depth to it. I saw slime not only come out to suit specific combos or scenarios, but it seems like it’ll bend to your playstyle too. Defensive players might build it up before using it to boost their recovery in a tight spot, players who like to pile on the pressure might use it to cancel out of a heavy attack to deal extra damage to their opponent’s shield. The point is, it seems highly versatile.
A lot of thought went into Slime, too. Not only is it incredibly fleshed-out from a utility standpoint, but it’s also well-balanced. Ludosity didn’t break down the exact equations at play but said that there was “fancy math” that helps scale down stronger attacks after a Slime cancel. That’s critical to Slime’s success as a mechanic because, without that small tweak, you could feasibly hit a weak attack, cancel it, and follow up with a killing blow without any difficulty even on opponents who haven’t taken much damage.
If my preview session and Ludosity’s character spotlights and trailers are any indication, the jump from Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl to All-Star Brawl 2 is going to be reminiscent of the jump from Super Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64 to Super Smash Bros. Melee. I am buzzing with excitement to get my hands on the sticks and get brawling.
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