PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is SONY's answer to Super Smash Bros.I found it enjoyable but it's lacking that little bit of extra polish that made Super Smash Bros Brawl so memorable.
On a good note,despite the fact there is numerous Super Smash Bros clones such as Battle Stadium D.O.N and Jump Superstars and Ultimate Stars,I can safely say I think PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is better than those clones because it has something that makes it's gameplay not only unique but satisfying which is the only way you can defeat an opponent in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is by using super moves which can be performed after the character's super move meter becomes full and they fill it up by successfully landing attacks on opponents and if they get hit by opponent attacks it can drain some of their super move meter.Even if you dominate the fight,if you cannot hit an opponent with a super move you cannot win and I have a love/hate relationship with this idea because it makes battles unpredictable but it's frustrating if you spend time building up your character's super move meter but then miss with your attempt at landing a super move and you have to spend time building up the super move meter again.There's also 3 levels to the super move meter and if you reach level 3 you can perform multiple instant kill attacks but it takes a long time to reach level 3 and it's risky to aim for that level.
As you'd expect,the winner of the battles is the character who performs the most kills within a time limit or the character who is first to reach a certain number of kills.For tie break situations,the number of times a character died will go against the character so there's incentive to stay alive as well as trying to get lots of kills.Matches can have up to 4 characters in a battle.You can also die from falling to your death from platforms that are high in the air .
When characters are trailing in the kills count when the match time is nearly finished the battles can get quite exciting because characters who need more kills in order to win will start becoming very aggresive but the character who is winning can set up traps for them which can involve things such as mines or moves that are good for countering or setting up those opponents to walk/jump right into a super move.To give an idea as to which characters are available in the roster,there's Raiden(Metal Gear Solid),Dante(DMC),Heihaichi(Tekken),Nate(Uncharted),Cole(inFAMOUS),Fat
Princess,Kratos(God of War),Radec(Killzone),Big Daddy(Bioshock),Parappa(Parappa the Rapper),Ratchet(Ratchet and Clank),Jak(Jak series)and there's some which can be
downloaded via PSN store such as Kat from Gravity Rush.
This means there is big diversity to fighting styles however the game does have balancing issues.Some super moves can connect with opponents easily but some super moves are a pain to hit opponents with.For example,it's easy to hit multiple enemies at once with Raiden's super move but Drake's super move is difficult to hit opponents with.Some characters are complex to use such as Fat Princess,Sir Fortesque and Cole while others are easy to pick up and play with.Another issue I had with the game is Radec felt awkward to use because he is purposely made so he isn't effective up close but has powerful ranged attacks and in reality the mechanics don't work that well.Some characters felt fluid and fun to use such as Raiden,Heihaichi,Parappa.The A.I difficulty options suited me well because the easiest difficulty level(I forgot what it's called)helped me learn the mechanics and legend level difficulty(the middle range of difficulty)means A.I opponents are opportunistic and more aggresive but not too hard so I can have a mildy challenging experience.I haven't tried the
hardest difficulty option yet.
As for the game's presentation,the environments represent the themes of various games that have appeared on Sony titles nicely and sometimes mixs the various themes into a single environmenT.For example,one environment mixes Metal Gear Solid and I think it's Parappa's environments together.Another environment mixes Gundam and other themes together.There's environments that represent God of War,Killzone(which has a nice atmospheric Sci Fi warzone),Bioshock,Uncharted etc.When you reach level 3 you will see spectacular scenes that relate to that character theme.
The voice acting is bad though and makes Kratos sound weak and Raiden and Cole sound weaker than they do in their normal games.
The music for the environments is fairly nice as it suits the themes for the characters.I like how you hear Uncharted's theme music for the Uncharted stage.
Overall,the game is fun but it's not a gem but I got it for free on PSN and has provided me some hours of fun.
I give this game a score of 7.5 out of 10.