With all the daily updates about Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Nintendo’s Wii coming from Masahiro Sakurai-san himself via the official Smash Bros. Dojo website, it can be hard to keep abreast of the latest developments. With the game now drawing ever closer to release, Nintendic aims to bring readers the latest overview of what happened during the week that ran from 7th-11th January.

The last week proved to be quite a dramatic one, mainly because of the revelation of new characters, more special moves, old school levels and even some blast from the past news. Let us take a look at the highlights:

Pikmin & Olimar

Starting things off, given how people have been clamouring for Pikmin 3 to be revealed for Wii, it will come as a good sign to many that Captain Olimar from the GameCube games has been announced as joining the fray, along with five different coloured Pikmin to help him out. The idea is that he plucks the various Pikmin from the ground and they fight as his allies. In fact, the strange little space traveller is somewhat lost without his tiny flowery helpers - without Pikmin by his side, Olimar cannot deliver his Smash Attack! Pikmin and Olimar’s Special Moves are as follows:

Melee Stages: Part Two

Previously there has already been an entry that detailed how the Smash team has brought back some of the stages from Super Smash Bros. Melee, but now more have been confirmed, including Yoshi’s Island, with its steep slopes on either side that are its defining characteristic, and Corneria, where you can battle atop the Great Fox, as well as watching out for Arwings that come flying in, too. Other levels include Onett, where offensive and defensive struggles on the buildings of the town are commonplace and incoming vehicles can cause mayhem, Brinstar from the Metroid world, with its dreaded, legendary ocean of acid that rises and falls, changing the field of play greatly, and Rainbow Ride, which is a tour of the course in a forced scrolling stage setting.

STADIUM: Multi-Man Brawl

Whilst many were hoping that Capcom’s Mega-Man might be announced for the game, instead this update brought us news of ‘Multi-Man’ instead, as players can now dive into a ruthless battle with an army of enemy pawns: the Multi-Man Brawl! This mode hosts a wealth of different brawls, including the widely recognised 100-man Brawl. This time round, the enemy team of fighters are the Fighting Alloy Team. As Sakurai-san states, Red Alloy is not the leader or anything, Blue Alloy is a woman that seems kind of gentle, Yellow Alloy has horns that are scintillating and Green Alloy may look like Kirby, but is actually not!

When playing the 100-Man Brawl, players continue fighting until they have beaten all one hundred of them. Destroying so many really cleanses the spirit, apparently, with gamers urged to just keep launching them. There is also the addition of a much desired mode, the Two-player Multi-Man Brawls that amazingly include co-operative play. With two gamers looking out for each other, the game is set to be much more fun than before. But that is not all, since there is a mode for playing with a friend over Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection as well, for online Team Multi-Man Brawl.

Snake: Final Smash

Next up was the Final Smash move for Konami’s Snake from the Metal Gear Solid games. His move is the Grenade Launcher, where he calls in some help, suddenly he does a great jump and opponents then hear a noise very reminiscent of a helicopter before Snake grabs the rope ladder the helicopter has dropped and whips out his grenade launcher. Once done, the shooting begins, with gamers controlling the targeting reticule and pressing the attack button to fire grenades one at a time. There are six rounds, and when they run out, Snake just loads a new clip - simple, right? Overall, the move ceases when twelve rounds are shot or the special timer runs out, at which point Snake climbs back to return to battle.

Pikmin & Olimar: Special Moves

Following Olimar and his Pikmin helpers being revealed as playable, Sakurai was quick to unleash details of their Special Moves. In order to make the best use of Olimar’s potential, it is useful to get to know his helpful cohorts, the Pikmin, a little better.

The ‘Standard Special Move’ is the Pikmin Pluck, whereby players first of all uproot a few Pikmin from the ground. There can be up to six Pikmin plucked at any one time and as long as there is ground beneath Olimar’s feet, he can reach down and pull up a Pikmin. However, it must be noted that certain Pikmin are more likely to appear in specific types of flooring.

The five types of Pikmin to use are as follows:

• Red Pikmin: These have high attack power and their attacks are imbued with incendiary properties, whilst they themselves are immune to fire;
• Yellow Pikmin: These use an attack range that is slightly larger than usual, are easy to hit enemies with, travel in slight arcs when thrown and have attacks that are imbued with electrical properties;
• Blue Pikmin: These are strong when thrown and slightly more durable than average;
• Purple Pikmin: Because of their size, they do not fly far when thrown, are slow but have high attack power and can slams into enemies instead of latching on when thrown;
• White Pikmin: Finally, the white ones are quick and light and when latched onto opponent, their poison does additional damage!

In order to work out what Pikmin to attack with next during battles, players simply have to look at the order they are lined up in on-screen. Remember that in order to perform a Smash Attack, certain mid-air attacks, and even throws, Pikmin are essential, so it is wise to do your best to not kill off the platoon, since Olimar does not stand much of a chance by himself.

Moving on, Olimar’s ‘Side Special Move’ is the Pikmin Throw, whereby once launched, the Pikmin latch on to the opponent, and will cause an enemy’s damage percentage to slowly rise. The ‘Up Special Move’ is the Pikmin Chain, which can literally be a real life-saver, as if a player is about to plunge to certain doom, the Pikmin Chain is the best chance for survival. However, the recovery distance for this technique is totally dependent upon the number of Pikmin currently in Olimar’s troop, so keeping an eye on them is important. Finally, the ‘Down Special Move’ is the Pikmin Order, where Olimar can call back Pikmin who have managed to separate from him. This can also be used to shift a new Pikmin to the front of the line if you prefer to use that coloured one instead.

As another special treat, it was announced that Pikmin’s World Map theme would be brought in on the music front, composed by Hajime Wakai-san and arranged by none other than the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda-san of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Tactics fame. As Sakurai himself states:

“Choosing Pikmin music is a rather difficult thing to do. In trying to find a song that would be remembered by those who played the game, I thought about areas that everyone would visit when starting and ending play, and thus chose this song. Its arrangement came together in a very smooth and lovely way. It conveys the remarkable Pikmin world. It’s nice.”

Stay tuned to Nintendic for even more Smash Bros. Brawl updates later on in the week…