Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2 [Review]

Nickelodeon All-Stars 2 is the newest installment in the series. Other than the character roster, this game makes the first one essentially obsolete, although it’s missing some titular previous characters such as Catdog and Oblina. The removal of some of the past characters is definitely a bummer in my opinion. I would have loved to have all 4 turtles and Shredder in the game together. Even some representation of older franchises such as Ahh! Real Monsters are no longer represented.

NIckelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2 is better than the first in pretty much every way. With the addition of new gameplay modes such as a story mode and mini games along with a smooth 4k 60fps on Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S/X. The characters have their voice actors from launch of the game rather than a late update (something important for a game based around such famous cartoon characters), and it even has its own unique story mode that is completely voice acted. The characters hold up to their personalities very well, keeping their unique cartoony aspects and references to their shows and comics. They use silly faces and poses as seen within their respective shows as creative and effective attacks.

The game, a clone to Super Smash Brothers, like the spirits in Ultimate, this game has power-ups that give you abilities to help you through your journey. It's also worth noting that some characters like Reptar are about 40% ripped from Super Smash Brothers, just with a Nickelodeon skin. This doesn't take away from the game at all, but anyone looking for a purely unique move set with this colorful roster of characters won't fully have that experience. Luckily, only a few characters completely rip off the Smash Brothers move sets.

All the characters seem to have different attacks based on whether you’re on the ground or in the air. For example, SpongeBob’s attacks vary from blowing bubbles to using the reef blower, depending on if you’re jumping. Character attacks also seem to be pretty unique to their show, using references from individual episodes. Only some characters and attacks seem to be slightly unoriginal, similar to other games' fighting styles. 

Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2 is honestly a fantastic game, and my friends and I had a blast playing it. Strangely enough, we turned this game on instead of playing Smash and had a lot more fun with it. This game felt like a breath of fresh air, and I think Smash fans shouldn’t sleep on this title. I also don’t want to forget to mention this game has full crosss-platform play! so brawl it out across all platforms! Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2 definitely deserves a look. Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl 2 is available for all current home consoles. 9/10