When screenshots for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale were first leaked, I thought they were fake. They looked very much like a Super Smash Bros. hack to me. Then, when the officially announcement came and there was actual footage of the game in action, it almost looked even more fake to me. Having come away from E3 actually having tried the game, I can say that it’s very real. I can also say that it is very much Super Smash Bros.
Now, I don’t mean that in a bad way by any means. I enjoy the SSB games quite a bit and if another company wants to come along and make a game like that using their own characters, I say be my guest. Hell, if Microsoft wanted to make a similar game with their franchises, I’d buy that up too. As long as the game is either just as good or better than the one it’s copying, I have no problem with it. But I digress.
The demo version that I played only have four characters to choose from: Kratos, Sweet Tooth, Sly Cooper, and Fat Princess. I chose Kratos for my match and once a random stage was chosen, it was time for the battle to begin. Unlike the SSB games, you’re not inflicting damage so much as you are building up your own special meter. Your meter has three levels and for every level that you charge it, the special move that you have at your disposal increases in strength. The objective is to use your special moves to inflict kills upon the other players and try to rack up as many as you can within the time limit. So in all reality, your opponents don’t really harm you until their special moves come into play, or so I gathered from the experience. I also noticed that charging your special to level 3 had the added benefit of pretty much guaranteeing kills due to the ridiculousness of it. My Kratos turned into his giant god form at level 3 and I was able to decimate the other players multiple times before it ran out.
One observation I made was that one of the four people I was playing with happened to be using a PS Vita to connect with those of us who were on a PS3. This tells me two things: First, that the Vita version of PS All-Stars is going to be identical to that of the PS3 version. Secondly, Vita players are able to drop seamlessly into games being hosted by a PS3 machine, which was rather fascinating. At any rate, it looks like a fun time for some four player mayhem and I’m looking forward to the full game.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale will release sometime later this year for PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.
Leave a Reply