From what has been coming in from reviews and posts, the game is a legit physical combat game with, despite some little flaws, also has some big improvements from what other similar titles have tried to accomplish before. Playstation fans have been begged by those who have the game to go get it and at least try it once. However the main concern is those skeptics, preferably the Xbox and Nintendo dudes, that still believe this game to be nothing more than a knock off of smash bros, however since the game is finally out and key differences can be official we can finally have the answers we need.
Here is the biggest shocker coming in from IGN and commentors from other sites like Game Informer and Gamespot, this will be extremely difficult for skeptics to believe. This game is actually very different from smash bros in a lot of ways! The best way this was described was from a comment that said "Battle Royale is different from Smash Bros as much as Mortal Kombat is different from Street Fighter." Not only that, but all the 20 playable characters are absolutely not knock off characters of the smash bro gangs, so you don't have to worry about Sackboy having similar combat as Mario. The only real similarity between the roster is the choice between good or bad Cole Mcgrath, which is reminiscent to the Link and dark Link choice, or even the Link and toon Link. However, given that this is Playstation, the characters may seem newer and not as prodigy driven as Mario and Link is for Nintendo. At the same time, this is a new start for the series that will easily gain popularity over the course of future sequels, or even years of popularity to catch up with such game. In the end PS fans are sure to enjoy seeing a fight between Drake and Ratchet.
The game does something that it successfully does, the game makes the levels in the game more interactive than ever. The halfway mark of worlds colliding is both an interesting and strange surprise, why is Hades attacking the Patapons now? There is also multiple item pick ups that, by what has been said, never gets boring.
Some complaints were coming in about inbalance of the game from Demos and the Beta, now that the game's been out we can put that issue aside. Sure there is some differences between the different powers and abilities amongst the characters, bu there not really an inbalance between all of them. Keep in mind the Demos and Beta only consisted of 4-7 characters out of 20, and that they were only meant to be extreme enough to get you interested as a whole. It is good to also note that the super moves can be quite more difficult than you'd expect. Having to save up super moves and use them only to miss can be a pain, but at the same time it's nice to see something different and also incredibly challenging.
Despite all the cool new features that make the game awesome, there are flaws or differences that will make Skeptics use them to attack the game head on. For one, Playstation took the daring move of using lesser known and stranger characters like Fat Princess in their roster, instead of more classic characters like Crash or Spyro (however they may very much be DLC characters). The real big problem is that the game is so fun and chaotic playing with friends and family on multiplayer, the solo round is a different matter. While multiplayer is a blast, playing solo is said to get pretty boring for most and might even seem repetitive at times. However games like this are never really as fun to play alone anyways, if Smash Bros and Tekken were only solo campaign it would not be as compelling either.
In the end, Playstation fanatics are assured to have the time of their lives with this new beginning of Sony's version of an annual smash bros. It is also a nice way to celebrate Playstation as a whole. Skeptics can either continue being skeptic or they can at least spend valuable time with the actual game, they'll either end up enjoying it or be uneasy to accept it, we can't make up peoples minds for them. I see a great future for this new idea of a, finally good enough, Playstation brawler and expect good things to come from it.
Now if we can just get Microsoft to make an Xbox brawler...
[NOTE: This is in no way a review, but I was able to have a two hour go at it with some friends who bought the game and hooked it up to a television in our College library, I also played the beta a month ago. But I want to actually own the game and put more hours into it before I write a full fledged review]
