A new mascot brawler? Smashing!
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a contender
We all love a crossover fighter, but it’s rare for a single company to have access to a varied enough pool of characters to make it work. Most run into some problems assembling their roster (we’re thinking of you, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale). For Nickelodeon, though, this almost shameless riff on Nintendo’s Smash Bros series just makes sense.
This is a brawler in which the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Leonardo can dodge Invader Zim’s fire, whack Hey Arnold’s Helga off the stage, and then be ambushed by The Wild Thornberrys’ own Nigel Thornberry (as popularised by Tim Curry). You’ve also got the Rugrats, Danny Phantom, SpongeBob, Ren & Stimpy, The Loud House, and Real Monsters represented. Kids will love it, but this nostalgia net is cast wide, ensnaring those with a love of kids’ shows from the ’90s and beyond.
TOON TOURNEY
But big deal, right? Yet another licensed game that’ll be destined for the bargain bin. You certainly didn’t see people jumping for joy at the Nickelodeon kart racers. But with developer Ludosity at the wheel (or fight stick, rather), things are different. The firm’s already proved itself on PC with its indie, Slap City, itself a beloved platform fighter that guns for the oft-imitated, seldom-understood Smash Bros genre. Ludosity actually understands the appeal of colourful mascots jumping around, whacking each other with increasingly hard special moves until they rocket off the stage like a meteor.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl shows the dev’s experience. It even boasts a version of ‘wave dashing’ (a specialist move – if you know what it is, you’re too far down the fighting game community rabbit hole to get out now), and boasts rollback netcode, the current fighting game gold standard. It all results in a game that, surprisingly, is already interesting organisers of competitive play.
Join the tussle when the All-Star Brawl comes to PS5 and PS4 in autumn.