Brawlhalla Review

Welcome to Brawlhalla!

Brawlhalla is a Free-to-Play 2D fighting game available on Steam (It also just got recently released for consoles about a month before this post). Think of it like Super Smash Bros but for low-end gamers. I'm not saying the game has bad graphics but it runs well on low-end computers. The combos and fighting style varies slightly from Super Smash Bros but trust me, it's not that worrying. The mechanics allow for very awesome and badass ways to knock your opponent off the map. 

There can be up to 8 people in one match! It can be pretty chaotic at times. So read this article and see for yourself if it's a good game to play with your friends or family members. 

Art style

Brawlhalla has a very cartoonish art style that makes every motion look very fluent and smooth. I think this is very important as it applies to the gameplay greatly. With more updates and champions coming, more skins arrive! The details, clothing, and colors of each legend (the characters) really makes their personalities stand out. This fits in with each of their play styles. Bulky and muscular legends are the ones that do tons of damage but are fairly slow in their attacks, making them vulnerable. Sleek and quick legends are fast on their feet and are great at doing combos but sacrifice defense and damage. 



Legends

There are currently 43 legends available in the game. Each legend comes with 2 weapons that fit their stats. No, you cannot give other weapons to legends, they just come with them. The only exception to this is in the Brawl of the Week. The Brawl of the Week are fun gamemodes released weekly that come with custom settings and such. There are around 6 different BotW events and they are selected sort of randomly.  Going back to legends, each legend has certain signature moves (heavy attacks) with each weapon they have. There are around 11 weapons in the game.  Legends also unlock stances when you level them up. Stances increase a certain stance while decreasing another. For example, speed stances often decrease your legends defense or dexterity while increasing their speed. 



Combos

Combos are performed when you chain together your signature moves and light attacks. They don't always have to comprise of both but your signature is often used as your heavy hitting or finishing move, often used at the end of combos. Every champion has five signatures. Up sigs, down sigs, side sigs, neutral sigs, and down sigs again.

Why are there 2 down sigs?

One is for when you're in the air and the other is when you're on the ground. You see, you cant do neutral, side, or "down" sigs when you're in the air. But, you can get around this by using a spot dodge.

Dodging makes you invulnerable for a second and dashes you in your direction of movement. If you let go of your movement keys while dodging, you'll perform a spot dodge. Spot dodging allows you to perform moves that would normally be done when you're touching the ground.  This is how people do their prime signatures while in the air, the downside being you're very vulnerable to be knocked out of the map.

The problem with making yourself vulnerable in the air is, you can get knocked out of the center of the map, forcing you to try to recover and get back. In this game, you can hug walls. It'll slowly slide you down the wall but it will recent your jump and up sig counter. The best way to recover in this game is use your jumps, up sigs, and dodge to get you back to the playing field. Enemies can easily abuse this and wait for you to attempt to recover knock you back down. A key mechanic in this game is the jump counter. You get 3 jumps in this game. You dont get your jumps back until you touch a surface. This is usually how people die to combos that knock them far off the map.



A word of advice for new people going into the game. Prepare yourself for people who spam. It isn't unusual for people to be spamming their signature moves when they're starting off. The problem is, you will never get to high ranks or have as much fun if you're only spamming. I will admit that I started off Brawlhalla by spamming some signatures, but don't be deterred when your opponent starts spamming. Just make sure you wait patiently and punish them when they miss. Also if someone starts calling you out for sig spamming after the match is over, just ignore them and avoid the tilt.



Just so you can understand the skill required to play at high levels of Brawlhalla, here is a video of Boomie, the #1 Brawlhalla player in the world versus Shwerpy, the maker of the video titled Spamming in Brawlhalla, and Th3M4dG0d. Note that these are two high ranking Brawlhalla players versus the best of the best.  I know that it'll be controversial for people who have played the game for a while about who is the best in Brawlhalla. LDZ and Boomie are in a stalemate for me. Just my opinion :3



So that's the end of the article and I hope you found it helpful.
It's a very fun experience to have with those who are close to you.
Trust me. 

- Diana Main