Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

Genre: Fighting Game / Platformer / Party Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local / Online)

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

.

Review:

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, released in 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is a game that combines Fighting Game, Platformer, and Party Game elements to create an experience much like… okay, look. There’s no getting around it, you can’t talk about a game like this and not make comparisons to the Super Smash Bros. franchise here, because this game is more or less copying the same formula as that franchise, but slotting in characters and locales from franchises like SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other franchises Nickelodeon either owns or has the rights to use.

And here’s where I have to admit I may have a bias, or something like that. Because as much as I don’t have a problem picturing Pikachu, Solid Snake, Cloud Strife, and the Duck Hunt dog all throwing down in a match together in the Wii Fit studio, for some reason my suspension of disbelief has a more difficult time picturing Korra and Invader Zim in a 2v2 match against Shredder and Nigel Thornberry on a platform somewhere in Bikini Bottom. But I’m gonna’ have to put that aside, since I think we can all agree they’re both equally silly, right?

As a similar type of crossover game, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl pulls 22 characters from various franchises (plus three paid DLC characters), and there’s a pretty good selection here. I’ve never been a major Nickelodeon afficionado, and I still at least recognize 21 of this game’s characters, and there are about a dozen here from media I’ve enjoyed in the past. I suppose it’s a testament to the wide range of properties Nickelodeon has accumulated over the years that there’s a pretty wide age range of appeal here, going all the way back to late 80s and early 90s TV shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ren and Stimpy, and Rugrats, to more recent stuff like 2016’s The Loud House. However, some of the selections within their respective franchises are just odd. Why April O’Neil instead of Raphael and Donatello? Why Hugh Neutron instead of Jimmy Neutron?

Upon launch, a common complaint was that these characters’ personalities were literally muted due to the lack of any voices, but a subsequent update addressed this issue. Still, I can’t help but feel like a lot of the references here just don’t make much sense in this game’s context. Toph starting a match by shouting “I am the melon lord!” might be amusing for Avatar fans who remember the one specific episode of the show where she says that, but for players who missed or forgot that episode, even those who know the character, this will seem like a bizarre non sequitir, and one that gets repeated so frequently it threatens to Flanderize the character. And a lot of characters have some odd quote like this. Even having been a fan of the Ninja Turtles as a kid, I couldn’t tell you where Michelangelo’s “everything here responds to sound” quote comes from.

And in this game’s arcade mode, the game oddly tries to have little exchanges between the characters facing off between matches, but none of them make any sense as they don’t account for who they’re facing off against, and characters generally don’t appear in their own stages in this mode anyway. It definitely seems like just a little more attention to detail here could have gone a long way to making these characters come alive. Or, if they weren’t going to bother, they should have just skipped the dialogue entirely. But keeping it like this just slows the pacing and adds nothing except more out-of-context character references.

Another thing detracting from the presentation is the music. While generally energetic in a way that works for the game, all of the music here is pretty generic. Yes, Bikini Bottom has a twangy ukelele, but it’s not playing any recognizable themes from the show, Southern Air Temple sounds vaguely Asian-inspired but doesn’t have seem to reprise any actual themes from the Avatar series, and none of the Ninja Turtle levels reprise that show’s memorable main theme.

At the very least, the visuals look quite nice here, with 3D characters and backgrounds with some very nice, fluid animation that really shows off the personality of these characters, and with stages that have some fun little extras in the background, like Krang flying in the back of the Technodrome stage. It’s odd seeing some of these characters in 3D, but overall I think they all make the transition fairly well, and visually look like they belong together, or at least as much as these characters can.

These visuals have a decent framerate and resolution, and while there is some aliasing, it’s not too bad. However, this all comes at a price, and that is loading times, which are significant and really slow down the game’s pacing.

In terms of game modes, I already discussed the arcade mode. In addition to this, there’s a battle mode with a standard stock match, a timed match, and a “sports” mode where players try to hit a ball into an opponent’s goal. The former game modes should be familiar to anyone who’s played a Smash Bros. game, and the latter is a fun distraction but somewhat shallow and unbalanced. Honestly, the game modes on offer here seem pretty slim, even if we look back to the first Smash game, which offered varied game modes like Home Run Contest and Break the Targets.

I also need to mention that while this game has online play, by this point, the online lobbies have long been abandoned, so don’t expect to make use of multiplayer unless you bring your own friend(s) to play with.

Okay, so now that we’ve come down to it, how is the core gameplay? Well… pretty good, actually… and also kinda’ disappointing. Much of the core gameplay works much the same as Super Smash Bros. here – players move freely on multi-platform stages and can jump and double-jump, and use combinations of buttons and a directional input to use various attacks, with some of those attacks doubling as ways to assist character mobility, with damage dealt in percentages that make damaged characters more susceptible to attacks that will eventually send them flying off the edges of the screen.

That said, where Super Smash Bros. games use two attack buttons (standard and special attack), Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl has three (weak, strong, and special), but in exchange for this added variety, directional input is largely limited to up, down, and neutral – this game has nothing akin to Super Smash Bros.’ smash attacks, nor left-right directional inputs. For Super Smash Bros. players, this will take some getting used to, but it’s not necessarily bad, and in fact the game adds a new layer of strategy with a sorta’ paper-rock-scissors system, where upward attacks beat neutral attacks, neutral attacks beat downward attacks, and downward attacks beat upward attacks.

However, there are definitely some things that are lacking here too, and it comes in the form of a lot of the nuances we’ve come to expect from decades on Super Smash Bros. games. This game has block and grab moves as well as an air dodge, but no grounded dodge move or way to reorient your character once they’re blocking. Trying to do a move facing the right direction by pressing that direction’s input seems like a crapshoot and only sometimes works. Hit detection can seem off at times. Also, with some stages it’s not quite clear where the foreground ends and the background begins. And just overall, combat here seems a tad slower and clunkier than we’ve come to expect from Super Smash Bros.

Basically, while the graphics in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl are pretty polished, I can’t help but feel like other areas of the game needed more work. The gameplay lacks some important nuances, and some of the artistic choices here are just plain odd in ways that make this game less satisfying than it should be for fans of these franchises. Having said that, I still think this is a solid Platformer Fighting Game, and while I think the standard price of $50 is a bit high for what’s on offer here, this game regularly goes on sale for $5 and at that price it’s an absolute steal. If you’re a fan of this sort of game, definitely pick it up when it goes on one of those sales.

tl;dr – Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a game that combines Fighting Game, Platformer, and Party Game elements much like the Super Smash Bros. series, but featuring Nickelodeon characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the Ninja Turtles. The gameplay and presentation is overall decent, but also feels lacking in some areas, has nasty loading times, and some odd choices have been made with the art direction. Overall this is still a solid entry in the genre, and well worth picking up when the game goes on sale for $5.

Grade: B

.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl

Genre: Fighting Game / Platformer / Party Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local / Online)

.

Review:

On Nintendo Switch 2, there’s only one real change I’ve noticed, but it is a massive one – playing this game on Nintendo Switch 2 drastically reduces loading times. loading up the game to the opening logos was cut down from 14 seconds to six, but the far more impactful change is cutting down the time to start a match from 22 seconds to 11 seconds. And if you’re going to be playing this game any significant amount of time, cutting those long wait times in half is a massive improvement.

In fact, this is such a big improvement I’m willing to bump up the grade a little as a result. While this game still has plenty of other problems, just improving the pacing by reducing the wait times helps tremendously, and while I still don’t think this game is quite on par with the Super Smash Bros. games, it definitely feels a bit closer with this flaw less prominent.

tl;dr – Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a game that combines game that combines Fighting Game, Platformer, and Party Game elements much like the Super Smash Bros. series, but featuring Nickelodeon characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the Ninja Turtles. The gameplay and presentation is overall decent, but also feels lacking in some areas, and some odd choices have been made with the art direction. Overall this is still a solid entry in the genre, and well worth picking up when the game goes on sale for $5.

Grade: B+

.

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}