Super Smash Bros on Wii U is pretty great. That's about as much of a review as you're going to get here, Smash Bros in general seems to be one of those series that will forever be immune from criticism. At the end of the day; either you love yourself some Smash or you don't, I mean even Brawl wasn't bad enough to chase people away, this is just the way the world is.
I will say the thing that really stands out about the new Smash is the attention to detail on...well basically everything, but especially the roster. Every character feels thought out, and it's the kind of game where you can play each character once and instantly know whether they're your kind of thing or not. Whereas in Brawl it felt like stuff was just being shoved in for the sake of having stuff, everything in the Wii U version feels like it's there for a reason.
However, as great as the majority of the roster is, the undisputed crown of "Best Character" HAS to go to Sonic The Hedgehog. Not necessarily because he's a top tier character (I don't know or care if he is or not) or that he's objectively the most fun or anything, but that no matter how good any of the other characters may be they aren't overcoming 20 years of poor design.
Seriously, Sonic The Hedgehog has never been better than he is in the new Smash Bros.
I am kind of a jerk when it comes to Sonic, I've written rambly 7,000 word pieces questioning whether even the classic games were ever any good, and I roll my eyes every time a new Sonic game comes out and we all have to play the "oh my god this one sucks TOO" game. Let the record also show that I also don't really like Sonic 4 or Sonic Generations either, and now that I've played the new Smash Bros I feel perfectly comfortable with throwing them on the "suck" pile as well.
I don't even want to talk about Sonic Generations. But I will say the fact people say the 2D parts of that are just as good as the original games makes me wonder how long its been since Sonic fans actually last played the "classics". Some of the 3D parts were okay, not enough to save the game though.
Sonic 4 was in all honesty a genuine effort from Sonic Team. It looked alright, the music did have an aura of 16-bit nostalgia (although they did forget that a big part of why people love the old Sonic music is that it wasn't terrible) and they did try and tweak some frustrations the old games had. For example, wasn't it annoying when you would lose all your momentum in Sonic 3 and would have to stop and rev up a spindash to get out of pit or something? Well in Sonic 4 don't worry about that, because now you can just walk up the side of a hill from a standstill and everything will be fine!
Wait what.
Granted this does *kind of* solve the problem, but wasn't it kind of fun to rev up a spindash? Everyone who played Sonic 2 or 3 has sat there for a minute pointlessly mashing the button to charge up a spindash before letting it go. Why? Because it feels good man, Sonic feels like god-damned lightning in a bottle and you're sitting there mashing that button waiting for the stormclouds to gather before you let him go. I know you can still do that in Sonic 4 but it's not the same when you make momentum less important, Sonic is no longer this supercharged woodland animal that you want to make bounce across to the end of a racetrack, he's a stupid blue sloth you're just dragging to the end of mediocre platforming levels.
The point is, Sonic The Hedgehog *is* his movement, compromising that for the sake of the level design is freaking stupid and Sonic 4 blows because of it.
This is the fundamental thing Smash Bros gets so right. The character on the roster is undoubtedly and instantly recognisable as Sonic The Hedgehog, he's fast, he's got the classic sound effects, he freaks out if you stand too close to a ledge and of course you can rev up a spindash like normal! Once again he feels like lightning in a bottle, but yet always controlled. You control Sonic's speed by either moving the stick to walk or double tapping it to run. You can jump and even change direction multiple times while rolling around after a spindash. You can rev up a spindash, shoot yourself to the other side of the stage, use a special move to launch Sonic into the air and perform a divekick to fire yourself back onto the ground with ease in a matter of seconds.
In short, Sonic The Hedgehog RULES in this game. He has the speed, he has the momentum, he's got that all important tiny bit of slide to him, and he never ever feels out of control despite how genuinely fast he is. He's not just a racetrack character any more, he's got some proper action chops to him now without requiring some weird airdash lock on move to bounce across rows of enemies. And the genius of all of this is it's done without any of the BS compromise of Sonic 4 or any other recent entry, this is the Sonic we all remember just a heck of a lot better. Sonic can be fun and fast and smart and maybe even not irritating! Honestly, this is all a little humbling, I've been saying for years that there's probably not going to be another great Sonic game. Now I basically have to accept there almost certainly will be.
It's just the catch is Sega and Sonic Team will have nothing to do with it.
It's time for Nintendo and/or Sega (probably Sega) to get on the phone and get that dream Mario/Sonic crossover platformer cooking. Imagine the level design and polish of Super Mario 3D Land but basically a lot faster and maybe with some chilli dogs as powerups in it. It'd be BEAUTIFUL.
So yea, maybe buy the new Smash over Sonic Boom okay?
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