Game Review: Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale

Hi guys! Welcome to another game review! Do you love Super Smash Bros? Everyone seems to. I have played Brawl over at my friend's house a few times, and it's pretty fun. I've also played the original N64 version at a hotel! But I do not own a Nintendo console, so I cannot play it at home. HOWEVER, I DO own a PS3! You know what that means! If I can't play Smash Bros, I'll have to play Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale!

Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale was a game released in 2012 for the PS3 and PSVita so SONY could compete with Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series. The game is pretty much identical to Smash Bros, but there are still many differences. The game is a fighting game with famous Playstation characters instead of Nintendo characters. There are 20 characters to choose from. The game pretty much plays exactly like Smash Bros, except your special attacks are the only attacks that do any real damage. There is also no real story mode, only an Arcade mode where every character has a mini story. There really isn't much else to say! This game is Smash Bros, but with SONY characters. That's pretty much it.

This game is not perfect. It's pretty fun, but not perfect. The roster is a little bit too small. There are lots of missed opportunities for good characters. (Pyramid Head? Crash Bandicoot? Spyro? Rayman? Cloud? Wander? Lara Croft? The Prince? Sora? Abe? SOLID SNAKE???????? Etc.) Actually, Solid Snake probably wasn't in the game because he was over in Super Smash Bros. Brawl at the time. They replaced him with Raiden, which sucks because, as cool as he is, he isn't very iconic, not on the level of Solid Snake! They could've replaced Solid Snake with Big Boss instead. There IS DLC for this game that includes more characters, (Isaac Clarke, Zeus, Kat, and Emmet), but that just isn't enough. Abe from Oddworld and Dart from The Legend of Dragoon were planned to be released as DLC, but they were cancelled due to poor sales of the existing DLC and the game itself. Bummer. The special attacks only doing the real damage is not a very good idea. You have to hit your opponent to get your special bar filled so you can perform it, and then do it over again. It makes the game feel a little slow paced, which is not very good for a fighting game. The opening and closing cutscenes of Arcade mode are not FMV, they are just still images, which seems really cheap and lazy on SONY's part. And finally, this game is one big commercial. For example, DMC: Devil May Cry wasn't out yet when this game was released, but the new Dante is a fighter in the game! Bioshock Infinite wasn't out yet, but Columbia appeared as an arena in the game! Etc. I have to hand it to SONY, this was a clever way to advertise their new games coming out! It seems like I'm only talking about the bad things, but there are a lot of good things about this game too! The graphics are pretty nice, and the voice acting is pretty good. The soundtrack is very cool as well! I also like that Playstation's original mascot, Polygon Man, was the final boss! I think it is always so cool when companies remember their forgotten characters. Overall, I can't say that this is a bad game. I had a lot of fun with it, despite it's flaws. No, it isn't perfect, and it certainly isn't better than Super Smash Bros, but if you don't own a Nintendo console, like me, this isn't a bad alternative! Just lower your expectations a little bit. If you do, I'm sure you'll enjoy this game! I would recommend it for ages 10 and up because there is one female character that is scantily clad and there is a little bit of swearing in the game. I'd give it 3.6 stars out of 5! A good little game!

Have you played Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale? What did you think of it? Tell me in the comments!