Playstation Allstars: Battle Royale

I know what you're probably thinking. Oh, I'm not going to play that, it's just a Sony rip off of Smash Bros, I'm not supporting plagiarism. Well I have some news for you. PS All Stars sets itself apart from its obvious inspiration. But, I'm getting ahead of yourself. Allow me to do my thing, and I'll let you know what I think of it.

STORY
Playstation All Stars doesn't seem to have an overall canonical story to call it's own. However, across the wide array of franchises and characters, each have their own reasons for competing in the battle royale. For instance, Dante goes in search of demons to hunt, whereas Jak and Daxter follow the trail of a new source of eco. As well as this, all the characters are paired with another in a sort of rivalry. It's adds an interesting spin to each Arcade mode playthrough.

Aside from that though, there's really no explanation of why the battle royale exists or why exactly the main nemesis has brought the combatants here. What is here are interesting spins on the cast's individual stories, and not much else.

PRESENTATION
To sum up PS All stars in a few words, I'd call it a Love letter to Playstation. The character roster is vast, and each character remains true to his or her own franchise, even with their various outfits. Drake has ouutfits from all three main series games, and all his moves pull straight from them too. For instance, most of his moves involve guns; one even brings up a piece of cover, adding a little bit of Uncharted's signature play style.

The music also draws from all this amazing source material, from the orchestral scores of God of War, to the heavy metal of Twisted Metal. It really does well in utilizing the great properties that have come together for this project. In fact, each characters voice is spot on, from Cole McGraths gravely voice, to Kratos' godly roar.

Last but not least, the environments have a cool feature where they take two properties and mash them together. You get sweet mash ups of things like Uncharted and Bioshock, God of War and Patapon, and Resistance and Ratchet and Clank.

The biggest downfall of its presentation is in the Arcade story mode. Each character begins and ends with a bunch of stills with a voiceover, while midway through they have an in engine cutscene with their specific rivalry. I feel like more could have been done with this, if only to flesh out a proper storyline here.

GAMEPLAY
Now we get down to the meat of it. Is Playstation Allstars Battle Royale fun? Hell yeah it is! Is it a shameless rip off of Smash Bros.? Well, it's obvious that Nintendo's mascot brawler was inspiration for it, but PS Allstars differentiates itself enough to carve out a name for it in the fighting game scene.

In Battle Royale, your main goal is to build up your AP meter so you can perform supermoves to score KO's. Performing moves successfully builds AP, pulling of bigger combos builds higher levels of AP, and falling off the stage or getting hit by stage hazards can cause you to lose AP..

Each character is a joy to play, with their own pros and cons. Characters like Kratos, Raiden and Nariko are heavily melee focused, while Drake and Radec play it better from afar. The roster is nicely varied and their moves are all nicely pulled from their respective franchises.

Probably the best feature of the gameplay is the risk/reward aspect of the Super meter. Do you use your level one and aim it to score the maximum amount of KO's? Or do you build up the level 3 super and activate it for a guaranteed multi-KO move? It all depends on how well you know the character's super moves, and just how quickly you can build up the Super Meter. It's a fantastic dynamic that keeps fights tense and interesting.

Now I would have preferred a larger roster, but as DLC characters have been announced (and will be free for the first week or so) it's not such a deal breaker. Otherwise, I find the gameplay to be immensely enjoyable, and a whole different beast to Smash Bros.

REPLAYABILITY
PS Allstars may not be as similar as one may think to Smash Bros, but it certainly has the fantastic party mentality that Smash has. Even without that, it's a fun game to practice and becoming amazing at character after character is truly rewarding.

OVERVIEW
Playstation Allstars is a brilliant game. I've been wondering for years why Sony didn't bring out a Smash Bros clone, and then when they finally do, it's actually quite different to the mascot brawler we all love. That said, it's simple to learn, difficult to master combat system, tense risk/reward Super Meter feature and it's amazing cast of characters and list of levels make it a joy to play. Playstation veterans should get in on this, as should fighting game fans. Smash Bros fans may find something they aren't expecting, and they may just like it.

Next week, it's looking like Hitman Absolution. Or maybe Far Cry 3. Or New Super Mario Bros. U. My Wii U is my new best friend. It hands down has the best Youtube capability out of any item in my home. And I'm not talking about it's Youtube app. I mean the browser version.
Anywho, see you next time!