Player Preview - Brawlhalla

Title: Brawlhalla
Developer: Blue Mammoth Games
Status: Closed Beta

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1HtNIFi
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/1EYf95S

Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the 2d fighting game, Brawlhahla, the first game developed by Blue Mammoth Games. Brawlhala is commonly compared to the Nintendo exclusive Super Smash Brothers and there are a bunch of similarities however where super smash opts for craziness with character abilities and items, Brawhala instead focuses more on balance and strategic directional move sets.

The core gameplay is simple enough to understand and get into. You have two different types of attacks, one heavy attack that takes some time to get off and one quick attack. You also have a dodge that makes you untouchable for about half a second and is extremely important to utilise during a fight to dodge heavy attacks that would otherwise deal a ton of damage to you. The depth however comes with the direction that you’re moving as it will change up how you attack with 4 different directional attacks that also take on a new form while you’re in the air. This attack scheme transitions over to the weapons you pick up too. Each character has access to 2 of the 5 total weapons in the game and this is where each characters uniqueness also comes into it. While all the weapons quick attacks remain the same for every character it’s the heavy attacks that make each character unique with different animations and positioning’s.

There are currently 14 different characters available to play all with a unique primary and secondary weapon combination. The characters range from pirates, kings, aliens, ninjas, cowboys and more all done in a great art style that is easy to distinguish one character from the other so you know what abilities to look out for during a match. When the game officially releases there will be a free weekly character rotation requiring to spend the in-game currency to unlock a character forever.

Brawlhala has a couple of items that randomly drop during a match including weapons that drop as a glowing coloured sword. There are 3 other items including a mine that explodes on contact or attaches itself to a surface until someone does come into contact with it. A bomb that explodes on contact causing a bunch of damage. A spiked ball which is used purely as something to throw at your enemies. Finally there is a horn that summons a weapon to your position, flying in from the side of the screen damaging and knocking any enemies it passes by. Again the item selection is perfect for the balance of the game rewarding skill rather than a random lucky item drop like the power hammer in Super Smash brothers. However I wouldn’t mind seeing an arcade muck around game mode where the items do get a bit crazy.

Brawlhala already has a bunch of game modes for both online and offline play including local multiplayer given that every player has a controller or keyboard ofcourse. For online play you can take to the ranked 1v1 mode were you each have 3 lives and the winner moves up the rankings. This mode offers a cool feature with match history shown before you enter the game showing your win loss record against the opponent if you have ever faced off against them before. The other official online mode is free for all mode against 4 players. More game modes and mode customizations can be found in custom matches with 4 alternatives including time and stock based matches and the more unique additions of BrawlBall, an American football style game mode were you try to get touchdowns in your enemies’ base, and Bombsketball, basically basketball only with bombs. All these game modes excluding the ranked 1v1 mode are all available in offline play as well as single player. There is one unique singleplayer mode though in Tournament Mode were you can take on the full lineup of characters from the game in an attempt to get to the finals and win. I will say that the bots are a little on the easy side at the moment especially after playing against other players in the ranked mode, they do provide a good way to learn the game but currently are pretty lousy competition. I did notice that they are only medium difficulty bots so I imagine there is still a hard difficulty AI in the works. Also in the works are 2 new game modes that will increase the maximum player count from 4 to 8 with an 8 player free for all mode and a 4v4 team based mode.

Other features of the game include some customisation options that includes full colour reworks of characters that are freely avaialalbe. On the premium currency side of things you can purchase skins for your character which on average costs around about $6. Weapon skins are also available averaging the $3 mark each. Finally you can also purchase taunts to use during matches, these also average around the $6 mark.  In single player mode you will have access to major and minor relics that can change up your stats in what seems to be a sort of handicap system to get everyone on an even playing field. A playback or replay system is also in development so if you ever want to rewatch one of your matches you can.

Altogether Brawlhala is a highly competitive and enjoyable fighting game that will finally be the PC’s answer to the incredibly popular Nintendo exclusive Super Smash Brothers. With its vast selection of characters and the weapon system it will be hard not to find a character that suits your play style from heavy hitters to quick assassins and everything in-between. If you’re at all interested in Super Smash Brothers or 2D fighters in general, definitely check out Brawlhala.

Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Brawlhala, the game is currently in Closed Beta with no known release date as of yet. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you guys next time.