Review Information
Game Reviewed Super Mario All Stars: Battle Royale, by GameStar18
Review Author Cap'n Coconuts
Created Jul 23 2014, 3:48 AM

General Commentary and Game Overview
Super Mario All Stars: Battle Royale is a pseudo-3D skirmish by GameStar18. It has two modes: A Versus mode (2-4 players) where you and your friends duke it all out (winner is either the last man standing or has the most KOs), and Boss Battles mode where you and your friends team up against 5 possible boss encounters (one of your choice, all 5 in sequence, or a challenge mode where you fight alone).

This doesn't seem like bad idea at all. It's a shame it has problems holding it back.
 
Pros + It's a multiplayer game.
+ It could have been a great multiplayer game.
 
Cons - Very little content intended for one player
- Arbitrary control scheme
- Needs some more refining
- Some sprite clashing
- Poor-looking screen transitions
- Poor lighting in some maps
 
Impressions
Gameplay
6 / 10
Let's talk about the controls for a moment, shall we? In a community where just about everyone is used to using the arrow keys for movement and Shift/Ctrl or Z/X for action keys, GameStar18 decided to be different and made Player 1's controls be WASD for movement and C, V, and Space for actions. In my experience I found this to be a terrible control scheme, as I was far too prone to making mistakes and found myself spending far too much time wondering which key did what.

Compounding the problem with the control scheme is the lack of refinement this game has. Your throw range is terribly short (unless the item you throw happens to bounce--some of them, like Birdo's eggs, don't). Thrown objects might go one or two tiles of distance before touching the ground. Boss battles are more difficult than they should be because you can't hit the blasted thing unless you are right up in its face! The SMB Bowser boss fight requires you to make a perfect jump right on top of the axe, which doesn't work half the time--not to mention that you only needed to touch it in the game it was taken from.

Honestly, this game could have been really good and fun. It's still kind of fun, if you can address the arbitrary controls and avoid playing the Birdo or SMB1 Bowser boss battles.
 
Graphics
5 / 10
The game includes graphics from SMB 1, 2, and 3, all given a pseudo-3D makeover. This would be pretty alright, if it had been done right.

Alas, it hasn't been done right. many maps have at least some part of the ground level be the same shade as a nearby wall, which is not how realistic lighting works at all. Some of these levels have shades of gray used for shadows, which is also ugly and unrealistic. Shade is supposed to make things more black, not more gray.

Everyone's sprites except Daisy's are either ripped from Super Mario All Stars or at least in that style, while Daisy's is in a very different clashing style (and Daisy is wearing a sports uniform while Peach is still in a dress).

Sprites in this game can be crudely resized. The small forms of characters are like this, instead of being different sprites.

The screen transition between menus and maps has a draw speed of about 2 FPS. Good grief, the game would look better if it didn't have that crappy transition at all.
 
Sound
9 / 10
Much of the music is composed of remixed tracks, which is what makes this section the high note of this review. The remixes are all pretty good in my opinion.

Sound effects work as they are supposed to, with some unexpected voice clips by Birdo and Mouser.
 
Replay
5 / 10
If you can get some friends together, you might have some fun with this. Might. I would still rather play Super Smash Bros., though.
 
Final Words
6 / 10
Poor controls and lack of refinement make this game less appealing than it could have been. It's not without its charm, however.

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