When I had to write my Brawlhalla review it was difficult not to compare it to another platforming fighter; Super Smash Brothers.
So I didn’t bother trying not to.
As with SSB, the main objective is to win by being the last person standing.
Dealing damage to enemy players increases the amount of knockback they receive. Each hit will throw them further and further away from the arena.
Thankfully there isn’t any Kirby or Metaknight or other ball-shaped floating sins who can flay back easily.
Characters do stand a good chance to make it back onto the platforms in most situations. The tools at your disposal, double and jumping, triple jumping, see you make it back more often than not.
Axe, Sword, Bow, Guns or Bombs
Brawlhalla has a large roster of characters to choose from. Most seem very easy to use, on the surface and very similar to one another. However, there is a level of depth to the attacks and combos that you can use that a fan of any fighting game will pick up rather quickly.
Each character enters the battlefield without any weapons, Weapons are randomly dropped on the map during the match, causing a rush of energy and focus on being the one to snag up that weapon.
Weapon drops are random, but the weapons you receive are not. Each character has a primary and secondary weapon that will spawn from the drop. You can only carry one of these weapons at a time and a little bit of strategy arises early on. Do you throw your weapon and grab the weapon drop just to block the enemy from gaining a weapon? Changing your equipment and attack moves accordingly. Or perhaps you’ll let them have it because your great hammer game is too strong.
With a large roster of characters, boasting over 30 at the moment, there’s so much choice when it comes to picking a hero to fight with. Each character has different traits, stats and weapons. Fully customisable skins and cosmetics and a nice little snippet about them to read.
Fighting for glory in the halls of Valhalla!
Offline, online and, the biggest draw, local multiplayer all work fantastically. Large-scale battles online, with up to 8 players battling it out in the one arena are great fun. When connected to the correct region, ping and lag issues didn’t really plague me. I did not play any ranked mode and probably won’t play any either. I get my ass kicked by my friends enough in custom matches and couch co-op as is.
Couch co-op is great fun. My PC didn’t really like it, it had problems with the DualShock4 and keyboard running at the same time, but I honestly think that is just a problem at my end and not with the game. I quick search through the forums I couldn’t find anyone else with similar problems.
On the PS4 though, the couch co-op was awesome. We had 4 players all running around, screaming and laughing at one another as we won, died, trolled and had a really honest fun time with the game.
A trip through space, time and Valhalla
The level designs are all really interesting. Big, Aztec inspired pyramid-like structures, large space-like colosseums, floating sky high islands are just some of the levels on hand. All of the levels are different in layout, spawn and weapon location and in their various moving platforms and elements.
Brawlhalla is F2P and is available now on Steam, PS4 and Xbox One. It follows a very similar F2P model that most hero or arena based games take on. A handful of heroes are free to use, rotating in and out on a weekly roster. You can try different heroes and get a feel for who you like to use before committing to purchasing any of them with either in-game currency or with real-world money.
And the same goes for the cosmetic choices and options, save that in-game gold up from daily logins and wins to purchase what you like. Or take the easy road, the modern day cheat code if you will and pay with real money.
If you have a group of friends over for a night, this is a great game to add to the nights’ entertainment or a fantastic babysitter on a Saturday morning.
Brawlhalla was reviewed on PC using a digital code provided to PowerUp! by the publisher.
PowerUp! Reviews
Game Title: Brawlhalla
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Clean and Responsive Controls - 8/108/10
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Taunt your enemy face-to-face - 7.5/107.5/10
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Super not-Smash Brawl - 10/1010/10
