Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Screenshots

Trailers

Confirmed returning characters so far:

Mario
Link
Samus
Kirby
Pikachu


Confirmed NEW characters so far:

Wario (WarioWare)
Zero Suit Samus (Metroid: Zero Mission)
Metaknight (Kirby)
Pit (Kid Icarus)
Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid)

From watching the trailer and reading interviews, several things are evident. One, official developer interviews have confirmed that Brawl uses traditional GCN-style controls rather than utilizing the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii-mote. Whether this means the game will use the GCN controller (which is possible because Wii has four slots for GCN pads) or the more traditional Virtual Console controller is yet to be seen.

Two, a lot of new gameplay bits have been added, the coolest of which appears to be a new drop item. It's a glowing sphere that looks like the Smash Bros. Emblem which, when acquired, sends your character into a "Hyper Mode" of sorts allowing them to perform massive, screen-wide attacks that devastate all opponents. An example, from the trailer, shows Mario collecting the item and then becoming wreathed in flame. He then charges up a monstrous fireball attack that stretches the entire length of the screen and engulfs all other opponents.

The addition of these five new characters is crtainly awesome as well. Wario is dressed in his crazy-ass biker attire from the WarioWare games, and in the trailer it shows him performing a destructive fart attack.

Zero Suit Samus is her blue-suited form from the last chapter of Metroid: Zero Mission. Only now, instead of being equipped with only a lowly stun gun, she comes with this badass lightsaber/gunblade type of weapon.

Metaknight was one of those characters that I was screaming for in the last game, and I'm excited to see he's finally appearing in this one. He's got batwings, lightning-fast sword combos and either a cloaking move or a teleport ability. It's hard to tell from the trailer.

Pit is another one of those obvious additions, but it's what they've done with him that's so badass. No longer is he a cutesy, bobble-headed cherub with a bow. He's now far more badass looking, with bigger wings, a more proportioned body and a pair of curved, glowing swords as his primary weapons. He looks similar is style to Roy and Marth from Melee, only with Greek attire rather than fantasy medieval.

And finally, Solid Snake was a major surprise, considering he's not a Nintendo character. He appears in the trailer using his cardboard box to hide from the other characters. Aside from the box being confirmed as one of his special moves, the developers also said that they wanted to stay away from him using bland weapons like machine guns and pistols. The game has a cartoony presentation, so he'll be using more over-the-top weapons such as rocket launchers and explosives. He still looks like his badass self, though. Don't worry, he's not super-deformed or anime'd up.

Along with the news of Snake's appearance in the game, Nintendo has also said that there's a possibility of talks between themselves and other third parties to add more characters to the roster. The possibility of characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog or Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 appearing in Brawl are now becoming much more feasible. (I'm frothing over this, because this could mean Smash Bros. could become the videogame equivalent of the now defunct Zelaron Melee forum from years back.)

As for the other confirmed characters, Mario is looking substantially more detailed, and Link is sporting his new Twilight Princess look. Pikachu and Kirby both look essentially the same, just more rounded, and Samus is only seen in FMV and one concept still, so it's hard to gauge exactly what she'll look like inb the final version.

And, of course, there will be far more character confirmations and pieces of information the further we get into the year. As of currently, the only piece of bad news is that the game will not be a launch title, instead being slated for a 2007 release.

Smash Bros. Melee, what I consider the best mutliplayer game of all time, is going to be one-upped in a massive way come 2007. I can see hundreds more of my precious hours being sacrificed to Brawl, and it makes me unbearably giddy. Hooray!