Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (Vita) Review

Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (henceforth referred to as "Battle Royale" for obvious reasons), a game made by SuperBot Entertainment in conjunction with SCE Santa Monica Studio, is constantly being compared to Nintendo's hit franchise Super Smash Bros, and for good reason -- it's inspired by it.

Most of the reviews out there that I've read for this game either compare it to Smash or complain that it should be judged on its own merits. Well, the result is the same either way in my eyes, so let's take a look at it, shall we?

Characters

Battle Royale starts you out with twenty characters, with an additional four available via DLC. Some people who own a PS3 might recognize more of these characters than I did, but most of them were rather obscure to me, and even after looking them all up, I still saw a few from series I'd never even heard of.

The first one that jumped out at me personally was Raiden, followed by reboot Dante and Kratos. The rest were just kinda meh to me, but that's a rather minor nail in the coffin of this game, so let's move on.

Items

On its own or in the realm of relativity, this game doesn't really deliver in this department. There are twenty-one items in the game, more than enough to give it some flavor and depth, but it doesn't really do anything with them. The items are more of an afterthought than anything, and don't really add any depth to the game itself, which is due in part to the gameplay mechanics, which I'll cover later.

Stages

The stages really aren't that bad. honestly. One thing I find really interesting is that after a certain amount of time, a stage from one franchise will be invaded by elements of another franchise, changing the level up a bit.

Let's take the stage Metropolis, for instance. Metropolis is based on Ratchet and Clank, with a conveyor belt, moving platforms, and some spikey deathtraps, but after a certain amount of time, the Hydra from God of War makes an appearance, adding a new environmental hazard as it can attack characters by smashing the stage with its heads and jaws.

Unlockables

Battle Royale has some pretty cool aesthetic unlockables, however they are sadly limited to alternate costumes. Most of these are unlocked upon reaching a certain rank (you rank up as you play games; it's not just an online thing), while some others are DLC. It was pleasing to me to play as Raiden from the first level of Metal Gear Rising before losing his right eye and one of his arms.

Gameplay

And now we come down to the biggest disappointment of this game, the final nail in the coffin, the gameplay. The gameplay of this game on its own is mediocre, but compared to a Smash title it's abysmal.

The first thing that jumped out at me was that the game itself feels stiff. When you're doing air combos, you don't get the feeling that you're really suspended in the air. The only thing that really feels as it should are ground combos. Dodging isn't really all that bad, nor is blocking, but the former could use a bit of work.

But there are two real reasons why I just can't play this game in addition to the stiff movement. One of them is the fact that you cannot kill someone without doing a super attack. This, in and of itself, makes this game unplayable for me. I'm told that something similar is done in [i]Dissidia[i], but I've never played it so I can't really make a valid comparison in that regard.

What this single factor amounts to is me flailing around the screen, all of my attacks doing absolutely nothing except for building my super gauge, and then killing them off with my super attack. If my super attack misses or is interrupted, this process repeats itself. There is literally nothing that attacking your opponent does besides make them stagger or rag doll (obviously) and build your super gauge. It wouldn't be as bad (though nowhere near optimal) if your gauge filled more quickly the more damage they've taken.

The second factor I don't think would be anywhere near as bad on the PS3, and that's camera control. When you're on one side of the level, and someone else is on the other, the camera zooms out so far that I lose track of my character. This often culminates with seeing my marker fly across the screen because I can't see what I'm doing, and is incredibly frustrating.

Difficulty

This game's difficulty -- assuming you're talking about the actual difficulty setting and not the flaws in the gameplay -- isn't all that bad. I wouldn't compare it to Smash simply because in Smash it's the gameplay and the way the AI utilizes it that makes it fun, while in Battle Royale that's not really the case, but to be honest this is the least of my complaints, as you can see.

Metacritic Rating: 7.7/10
ID Rating: 4.5/10

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Lockirby2, on 26 July 2014 - 04:51 AM, said:

Wow, it's rare that I see a review that so totally agrees with what I feel about the game myself. The only difference I suppose was that I ignored Raiden/Dante/Kratos and gravitated towards Ratchet/Sly. Having to use the Super Moves for KO's always annoyed me, and it felt like Brawl would if Final Smashes (though a good mechanic overall, one of my least favorite to actually use) were the only way to get KO's.

I had to reread that about five different times because I read "agrees" as "disagrees."

Yeah, Smash as a whole would be significantly weakened if that were the case. The funny thing is, I wrote this review while having played mostly as Raiden, an S-tier (second highest) character. After realizing that, I don't even want to try playing as one of the lower-tiers. :poker:

Insane Difficulty: Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (Vita) Review - Insane Difficulty