Lets get the obvious out of the way: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is Sony’s take on the Smash Bros. franchise. While conceptually bankrupt, not all games have to reinvent the wheel.
Having played this a few months ago at Fan Expo, I came out of it with a fairly positive impression. Now that I’ve gotten to play a bit more of it through the public beta, my feelings towards the whole thing have cooled off some.
The public beta is actually more limited than the version I played at Fan Expo. This version does not have local multiplayer, only contains 6 characters, and three stages. With that said, you’ll quickly get the gist of the experience with what is included in the package.
One of the biggest selling points about the title is the fan service. Though I am a fan of God of War, Pa Rappa the Rapper, and even Fat Princess, I personally don’t have the nostalgia or affinity for Sony like I do for Nintendo. The character choices and stage treatments alone don’t carry the experience for me.
This wouldn’t be an issue if it was a blast to play. My initial impressions of it gave me confidence that it replicates the Smash Bros. experience. However, as I’ve played more of it, it’s nuances are starting to irritate me. The fundamental difference is the fact that points are not scored by knocking your opponents out of the ring. Instead, you score points by landing super moves. In order to gain access to a super move, you have to hit opponents, which builds up meter.
While every attack still matters, the importance on regular moves over super moves feels heavily lopsided. Normal moves almost feel meaningless, as you can’t score off of them, and super moves come off feeling like win buttons, even if their success is not guaranteed. For me, the balance between normals and supers feels off, which really hampers the moment-to-moment enjoyment.
Right now in the beta, you can only play 4-player free-for-all. While Smash Bros. can get really crazy, I always felt like there was still some semblance of skill and control. Partially due to the emphasis on super moves, and the lack of ring outs, I feel like the fights are way more random than I’d like. While I’m sure that once people have had more time to grasp its mechanics, but right now, it feels too aimless for my tastes.
I had plans to pick this up on day one, but after playing the beta, I don’t know if I’m going to pick this up at all. Not to be too much of a Nintendo fanboy, but I’d go as far as saying that this would have been better off if they had just ripped off everything they did, rather than making the changes that they did to the action. Instead, I feel like the emphasis on meter is a solution looking for a problem.
In Third Person 
It sounds as though they’ve removed the parts of Smash that make it Smash. A large portion of the game is surviving with high percentages. Am I correct in thinking that this game will be much more like a traditional fighter with a Smash-ish presentation?
Thanks for the comment Grimstad!
It’s still very much cut from the Smash Bros. cloth. However, the parts they ripped out and revised I think hurt the overall package. Oddly, I think they would have been better served ripping off Smash Bros. more.
Yah, that was my initial hope. The roster looks pretty weak, so I was hoping that I could conceptualize the purchase of this game as Smash DLC, basically. A sort of, ‘I need my smash fix’ substitute. It doesn’t sound like that will be the case.