Last Week I got to play a game I’ve been waiting for about three months: Nickelodeon All Star Brawl. Now, before anyone asks why I would buy a Nick game at my age, well, there were two reasons. 1. the roster which had characters like Invader Zim, Danny Phantom, and Spongebob Squarepants from shows I like, and 2. it is designed for competitive play. You see, I play a another platform fighter game, Super Smash Bros, that has a huge competitive scene; they play by a ruleset of 1V1 on a stage with no hazards or items, and it can get very intense given how serious certain games can be. This is why many players, including me, wanted to try out Nick All Stars since it would be similar to Smash, while doing some things better.

In the game your main goal is to knock your opponent off the screen, and there’s also a percentage meter that the higher it goes up the easier it will be to knock them off the screen. There’s a lot more I can say but the game is very complex. You fight on stages from each respective show from Jellyfish fields to the tmnt sewers and a lot more. It can be played up to four players with different rule sets, such as stock battles, time battles, to even sports where you have to kick a ball into the opponents hoop.

The roster has, at the moment, 20 characters from shows represented like Spongebob Squarepants, Invader Zim, Danny Phantom, Rugrats, Ahh Real Monsters, The Wild Thornberrys,  The Ren & Stimpy Show, Avatar the last Airbender, Legend of Korra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,  Hey Arnold, CatDog, and The Loud House, with more to come later on. the characters are Spongebob, Patrick, Sandy, Aang, Korra, Toph, Lincoln Loud, Lucy Loud, Leonardo, Michelangelo, April O’Neil, Ren & Stimpy, Powered Toast Man, Helga, Zim, CatDog, Danny Phantom, Nigel Thornberry, Reptar, and Oblina.

There are, sadly, no voice lines given the game’s small budget; however, they could be added in if it sells well. The sound effects are good but can get repetitive, but not a huge deal and is something, I believe, will be fixed eventually.

When it comes to the game play, it’s very fun, super fast, and it’s great to play with friends. I’ve played matches online with some and it was a blast to play. At first, it wasn’t easy to fully understand the controls since I was very used to Smash Bros controls, but within a few days I got it down.

There are also some problems with the game; there are some slight bugs. I’ve seen frames drop on some stages online; there also isn’t many single-player modes aside from arcade mode, which is nice, however, the dialogue boxes characters will say sorta make zero sense most of the time. Those are the main problems so far. The online version isn’t that bad with competitive play, Quickplay and Online lobbies being the options. And I forgot to mention the music is awesome probably my favorite part of the whole game!

Overall I really did enjoy the game.  It’s a fun game and if you like fighting games then I highly recommended it. The game still has a lot to come with updates, so maybe wait a few months to buy it.