Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl was announced some time ago to very positive reception. It is a Super Smash Bros. style fighting game that features Nickelodeon characters for its roster. IGN has recently released a video detailing the gameplay mechanics of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and while it is close to Smash Bros., it is unique enough to differentiate itself from the popular Nintendo fighter.
Basics
The general style of the game is similar to Smash Bros.: damaging your opponents increases their damage percentage and the higher it is, the farther away they get knocked back. If a fighter reaches the stage’s boundaries, they are knocked out.
Each fighter has 3 types of attacks: light, strong, and special attacks. Each type has 3 directions: up, down, and mid. While light and strong attacks are “fairly” similar across the cast, the specials will be significantly different from each other.
Furthermore, the attacks have slightly different attributes when used on the ground and in the air. While running, a fighter also has a light dash attack and a strong dash attack, which can be cancelled into any attack.
As for grabs, every fighter can move while holding an enemy and they can also grab while in the air.
Interactions
An interesting feature of the game is that the directions of the strong attacks work in a “Rock-Paper-Scissors” like mechanics. In general, down beats mid, mid beats up, and up beasts down. When a strong beats another strong, a different effect will occur on the losing attack.
- Down beats mid and causes a stagger.
- Mid beats up and causes a turnaround.
- Up beats down and causes a spin-out.
Guarding can be held indefinitely with no penalty. However, getting attacked by guarding will push the fighter back. Being pushed to a ledge will cause a teeter effect, leaving the fighter vulnerable to punish.
A guard can be strengthened by timing the guard to the attack or by holding towards the direction of the attack. This reduces the knockback effect.
Timing the guard properly and holding towards the direction of the attack will result in a perfect guard. This negates all pushback and allows the defender to react immediately.
In Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, all projectiles can be reflected by attacks. Each time a projectile is reflected, it increases in becomes more powerful.
Additionally, projectiles can be grabbed by any fighter and tossed back.
Also, taunts are present in this game. One of Spongebob’a taunts is a reference to a scene in the animated series which has turned into an internet meme.
Movement
Characters have freedom to turn at any time, whether they are on the ground or in the air. However, pressing the strafe button (left trigger on most controllers), a fighter’s direction can be locked.
This can be helpful when retreating as it allows the fighter to attack in the direction opposite of the direction they are retreating to.
Finally, the game features air dashing. A fighter can only air dash once per air time. Air dash down not grant any invincibility frames, but they can be acted out of.
Downwards air dashes are much faster and can be “wavelanded,” when air dashing to the ground. This allows fighters to wavedash.
That’s all the new information released regarding the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl gameplay, which is releasing on October 5th, 2021 on all platforms.
