Super Smash Bros. Brawl (大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズＸ Dairantō Sumasshu Burazāzu Ekkusu, lit. “Great Melee Smash Brothers X”), often abbreviated SSBB or Brawl, is the third installment in th
e Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games, developed by Sora and published by Nintendo for the Wii console.Brawl was announced at a pre-E3 2005 press conference by Nintendo president and Chief Executive Officer Satoru Iwata.Masahiro Sakurai, director of the previous two games in the series, assumed the role of director for the third installment at the request of Iwata.When development of the game began in October 2005, various second and third party Nintendo developers collaborated on Brawl. The game was released on January 31, 2008 in Japan, March 9, 2008 in the United States, June 26, 2008 in Australia, and June 27, 2008 in Europe.
Brawl’s roster of Nintendo characters has grown in number from that of Super Smash Bros. Melee, and is the first in the series to feature third-party characters.Like its predecessors, Brawl is a departure from traditional fighting games, notably in its simplified move commands and emphasis on ring outs over knockouts. It includes a more extensive single-player mode than its predecessors, known as The Subspace Emissary (SSE). This mode is a plot-driven, side-scrolling beat ‘em up featuring computer-generated cut scenes and playable characters from the game. The game also supports multiplayer battles with up to four combatants, and is the first game of its franchise to feature online battles via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
The game was met with generally positive reviews,with critics praising the game’s entertainment value, despite issues relating to Brawl’s loading times and graphics.The game’s musical score was composed through a collaboration between 38 renowned video game composers,and was lauded for its representation of different generations in gaming history.It received an aggregate review score of 94% on Metacritic and 93.3% on Game Rankings.Brawl has sold a total of 4.85 million units as of March 31, 2008.
