The Wiire - The Full Brawl

Section 4: Characters

The new colors for each character are quite wonderful for some and disappointing for others. For players wanting Link versus Shadow Link battles, prepare for one awesome match. In Melee, the only colors that changed were some clothing articles and slight variations of tone. Rest assured, Dark Link has crimson eyes, gray hair, darkened skin, and black clothing. Dark Link is not a new character, but a change of costume. Another Link change grants him gold armor, which provides some really nice shiny effects that are subtle enough not to distract.

Other characters received the shaft. If Shadow the hedgehog doesn't make the roster, there's no way of making Sonic look like him. In fact, the only outstanding change from one outfit to another is Sonic's wristband. Sonic's blue skin stays relatively the same, leaving little to the imagination of Sonic vs. Shadow battles.

Meta Knight appeared to be the other darkly-suited character with a costume featuring crimson eyes. The effect is really fun for an evil Meta Knight, but the character appears to be evil regardless of what a player puts on the masked, winged marshmallow. More characters will hopefully have this luxury.

This brings us to the analysis of each of the new characters and how they battle:

Meta Knight. Meta Knight will seem cheap at first, but four days of game time proved that players went from defeat to creative jumps and avoiding the barrage of slices. While Meta Knight won a great number of battles on the first day, the character typically fell into third or fourth place in the days that followed.

Meta Knight should not be encountered from the front or diagonally alongside the front. Attacking the character when vulnerable from behind or ending an attack is the key to knocking this combo-crazed lunatic. Also, it's good to trick the player by jumping at the right moment, leaving Meta Knight to finish a barrage while you slip past him. It might take a few tries, but it's possible to knock that Friday-the-13th, Jason-Vorhees wannabe out of the ring. Meta Knight appeared to take slightly more damage than most characters, so the combos are balanced by his weaknesses.

Pit. Pit is your standard warrior character - a combination of Link and Sheik, allowing some decent combo time while being held back by the same rough slashes. Any experienced Link character knows that if a combo doesn't land the correct way, there may be punishment afterwards. Like Link, Pit also has an arrow attack that can be useful at a distance. There really isn't much more to it than that; if you can picture the angelic child of Link and Sheik, you have Pit.

Diddy Kong. Diddy Kong is a bizarre character. His actions are faster than Donkey Kong, but he's still a rather slow character. The motions between the two are quite similar, but Diddy Kong's banana throw and peanut shooter make him a nice obstacle course creator. His jetpack ability is not as easy to control as it looks, and this is especially true during his Final Smash. Diddy Kong is enough of a variation of Donkey Kong to not seem like a cheap rip-off, but close enough to resemble the motions of the other.

Zero Suit Samus. While Zero Suit Samus appears to only be available after normal Samus performs a Final Smash, there was a need to find out what she was like without the Chozo armor. While appearing to be a lot like Sheik, this character's special abilities are rather annoying and not very useful for an independent fighter. In fact, Zero Suit Samus almost felt like punishment for performing the Final Smash.

Pressing left/right or up with the smash button initiates a sort of laser whip, but it's not flexible nor is it very handy, except for maybe grabbing onto ledges. Shooting her gun is adequate, but it doesn't have the same power as the suit. Perhaps some players can master Zero Suit Samus, but even Fox/Falco/Sheik players from Melee might not want to stray too far.

Finish it off! Section 5: The Final Smash Attack!

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The Full Brawl

by Rob Galbreath (2007-10-24)addthis_url = location.href; addthis_title = document.title; addthis_pub = 'thewiire';

by Rob Galbreath (2007-10-24)