Dojo Day: Music To My Ears

You hear that? That little jingle, just barely audible over your obnoxious neighbor's lawnmower? That, my friend, is the sound of change! The sound of a new age on the horizon! Wait, no, I'm wrong. It turns out that its just some songs from a game on that Gamestation 360 thingy. Mega Bash Brothers I think it's called... I'm not sure, but all I know is that the kids next door can't stop talking about it. Welcome to Dojo Day, and I hope you like Grandma's cookies.

Pit’s Descent: Incoherent rants and talk of music aside, here's another video for you. This one shows Pit witnessing the detonation of a Subspace Bomb, receiving orders from Palutena to save the world or something, and flying down with all haste to do so.

Diddy Kong-Special Moves: His standard move is Peanut Pop Gun, which, as expected, shoots out peanuts. Speed increases as you hold down, but it explodes if held too long. Sometimes peanut shells break open, exposing edible, health-restoring nuts. Up-Special is Rocketbarrel Boost, which straps two barrels to Diddy's back, and launches him upward. (or at slight angles, depending on where you tilt) If he is hit, the barrels can detach and fly into other players.

Meta Knight: Surprise! Sakurai adds another character from his own franchise!

Mario-Special Moves: Mario's Down-Special is now the F.L.U.D.D., the water-shooting machine from Super Mario Sunshine. By charging it, you can shoot non-damaging, yet powerfully pushing water streams while fully controlling the direction. And all this for only 2 easy payments of $19.95! Mario's previous Down move, the Mario Tornado, is mysteriously still present, but Sakurai doesn't mention how it will be used...

Pokémon Stadium 2: Very much like the original Pokemon Stadium, this new stage has Ice, Ground, Flying, and Electric transformations (of which we have seen all but the latter). Guest Pokemon will also appear behind the fighting area.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl-Main Theme / Pokémon-Pokémon Stadium/Evolution: New remixes. The Main Theme is some very nice, orchestrated stuff. Definitely a step up from Melee when it comes to musical quality and attention to detail.

My Music: For each stage, there will be a list of around 5 different musical tracks that could be played. (new tracks can be obtained by collecting "CDs" while playing the game) These will range from, say, the original Mario song to the New Super Mario Bros. Theme. Players can change the likelihood that each song will be played using small customizable bars. Praise HAL's creativity all you want, but this feature has been used in some form in fighting and other action-party games for a long time, so it's about time Smash Bros. used it.

This week had an interesting number of music-related posts, a refreshing change from the onslaught of new characters, stages, and the like. Finally getting some customizable tracks is a great and long-overdue feature that I think a lot of hardcore and older players will use extensively. The new music gets better and better as we hear newly remixed (and fully orchestrated) music from our favorite games. Mario's mysterious Tornado attack is confusing, and this must mean that there is some new type of attack other than the Standard/Up/Down/Side Specials we have seen previously. In all honesty I have no idea what it could be, since it would have to be compatible with all four of the vastly different control schemes.

Pit's Descent continues to reinforce my general opinion of "meh" for the story mode. In all honesty, with an overly serious tone and characters that need to somehow have their different worlds (and visual styles for that matter) join together, a coherent plot for this game will be difficult to achieve. And let's not even talk about making it an actually enjoyable plot. Pit's Descent is another example of a cartoony-looking character being shoved into a plot whose tone does not fit him. To add to the problems, this is the first time Pit is being rendered in 3D, and it is not in his own game, causing the transition to be a bit awkward.

Well, see you next week, when we'll discuss the possible inclusion of the Master Chief, and bring in Matt Casamassina to back up the claim by insisting that he played Halo DS.

[via Smash Bros. Dojo]