Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Review: Gameplay Impressions for Campaign, Multiplayer

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 from developer Fair Play Labs is a rarity in the sense it's a sequel just two years removed from the original.

And it's also a standout in just how much it upgrades upon its predecessor.

A follow-up to the 2021 game of the same name, the 2D platform fighter arrives determined not only to listen to fan requests and improve across the board, but also shrug free of the inevitable comparisons to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. that dominates the space.

Given the overhauled movesets, presentation upgrades and ways it elects to innovate, All-Star Brawl 2 certainly arrives looking like it can do just that.

Gameplay

The original All-Star Brawl was a very good platform fighter—where the goal is to damage an opponent enough to knock them off the stage, securing victory.

There was some interesting depth beyond light and heavy attacks and combos too in the form of skill-gap creating moves like wavedashing and strafing, plus extensive mid-air combos.

Even so, many of the characters wound up feeling very same-y quickly, which was something a sequel would need to address in a big way.

And thankfully, All-Star Brawl 2 takes big leaps in an overarching fighting-game sense, with overhauled move lists for characters, plus each can now do new horizontal attacks. There's a nice pace to combat that is responsive and clearly prone to big skill gaps.

There's a distinct feel to each type of fighter, too. Reptar is a big heavy-hitter and feels that way but his recovery game once sent flying is, well, not great. Perhaps even better, the game steers away from comparisons when it could have easily gotten lazy—the Angry Beavers are a fun team-character to play, but don't feel like SSB's Ice Climbers at all.

Arguably more important than the movesets, though, is the outright new mechanics that really mix things up. Now players can pull off aerial dodges and dodge rolls to diversify the already-good counter game when on the defensive.

The appropriately named Slime Meter, though, is king.

Like other fighting games, this meter can permit powered-up attacks or supers for big damage. And that might be all that casual-minded players in a pick-up-and-play session might ever use it for. But it also permits more skill-gap-level stuff like attack cancels, improving air dodge, recovering from a freefall, etc.

Even at its most basic, the meter feels great in the way it allows the player a devastating, character-specific ultimate move, complete with its own cutscene.

But there are levels to it. More competitive-minded players might balk at the idea something so useful and restricted to big-button combos in other fighters gets pulled off here with the simple press of one button. But that's part of what weaves it into general gameplay in some many scenarios so well.

So much so, there's no going back for the series. Taking what is complex in other fighters with so many use cases and putting it into a game like SSB is downright genius.

All-Star Brawl 2 on its own would feel so much better and stand strong on its lonesome in the top-heavy genre without the meter. But its presence is a boon and gives the series a distinct flair that others might want to emulate.

Graphics and Presentation

There's a similar theme of must-have upgrades here—sound design was a whiff in the first game and it wasn't a hit across the board visually, either.

Those concerns are very much gone, considering the 25 playable characters boast full voice-acting, really bringing to life the entire experience. This simple act alone raises the bar to on par with the excellent, fan-service-dripping stages.

Just as good is the fact characters are more cartoonish this time out and the animations upon receiving damage, combined with the better sound design, finally creates that impact that makes a fighting game fun.

Alternate layouts for stages add a nice mixup to the action too. It feels like the series is really getting into a comfort zone with expanding far beyond the traditional flat stage and into experimentation that mostly works.

From a presentation standpoint, the game goes off the deep end in fan service like other crossover fighters before it, like Marvel vs. Capcom, with every move and even dash a series-specific callback to something in that character's history.

Where the first game was very lacking in this area besides excellent stages, this sequel brings it up to snuff in a way that is entertaining for kids and adults all the way caught up on their SpongeBob lore or obscure Nickelodeon facts.

Campaign and More

All-Star Brawl 2 hasn't stuck its head in the proverbial sand as to what's working elsewhere in the video game industry, either, with its campaign taking some nice cues from roguelike games.

That campaign starts with a banger kid nor adult can resist—SpongeBob and Patrick are hanging out when the latter gets kidnapped. SpongeBob attempts to save the day, only to have to square off against a mind-controlled Patrick.

The ride doesn't take itself too seriously, with big bad Vlad Plasmius from Danny Phantom attempting to take over the multiverse. That's it, with the expected cartoon but wait developments advancing the story.

Players tackle nodes over the course of a run. Each node presents different challenges, be it special rules for certain fights, platforming or boss battles.

Interestingly, the game again throws a bone to the non-kid portion of the possible audience with some advanced mechanics found in other games and genres. Specifically, unlocks such as power-ups and even characters can carry over to repeated runs of the campaign. There's a very good-feeling escalation of player power throughout each "run" of the mode.

There's also an arcade mode that features new mini-games, with boss rush a highlight, though there isn't a whole lot different going on between campaign and arcade mode overall.

There is a fantastic training mode that is great for new players, sure. But it's also an impressive bit of service toward the competitive community, displaying things like hitboxes and knockback trajectories.

While solo-minded modes are fun, multiplayer is still very much where the series makes its hay, be it on the couch in a very casual setting or at the highest levels of the skill bracket.

In that vein, the game boasts cross-platform online play with rollback netcode that, as of this writing, feels really good. The playerbase will carry this game, so that lobbies have potentially expanded across multiple platforms is a good thing. And the fact the gameplay feels the same either offline or in online matchmaking is a really big deal and feat—just ask SSB players.

Trimming 10-plus characters from the original game (including weird omissions like any of the Rugrats—Reptar is solo-dolo) manages to feel more like a necessary roster-balancing decision than a misguided strategy at revenue creation.

That said, the game does promise post-launch roster additions via DLC and the deluxe edition of the game comes with a DLC season pass that includes the four extra characters. There's also a digital Ultimate edition, which loops in the lesser editions and extra costumes for each character.

That's not to bemoan the inclusion of those things, as so far, it all feels fair game. But it should be interesting to see where and how post-launch characters fit into the already-big roster with revamped movesets.

Conclusion

All-Star Brawl 2 could have easily been a lazy sequel, throwing out fan service while over-relying on the nostalgia button before doing it again in a few years.

Instead, it's one of the best sequels of a stacked 2023 lineup and the fighting game space is better for it.

Nobody, besides those at the controls of this game, probably entered the year thinking a Nickelodeon-based fighter would provide important lessons for the genre, including heavyweights like SSB. Yet the Slime Meter implementation and care taken to improve both fan requests and more is quite the achievement.

While light on "modes" in a sense, All-Star Brawl 2 gets pretty much everything else right, cementing it as one of the bigger surprises of the year.