Brawl character selection screen revealed

by David Hinkle { Oct 10th 2007 at 8:00PM }

As you may have gathered from this post's very title, what you're looking at is none other than the character selection screen for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. While normally we wouldn't create a post on a single image such as this (we crave substance in our news items), we felt you readers wanted to discuss it, regardless. So, do us proud and engage in the internet talkings.

[Thanks, Ryan!]

Tags: characters, smash-bros-brawl, smashbrosbrawl

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sabi @ Oct 10th 2007 8:14PM

Hope there is another menu with more characters...cause i cant see a shit load of them there....

Sabi @ Oct 10th 2007 8:18PM

oh yea im guessing there are more chars than that...cause i dont see kirby on there and a bunch of other confirmed characters..
we need more pics!

Anthology @ Oct 10th 2007 8:19PM

How many characters are supposed to be in this game?

Sabi @ Oct 10th 2007 8:27PM

well there are like 12 veteran fighters and 10 newcomers as of now according to the smashbros official website:http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/index.html

CackNBallz @ Oct 10th 2007 8:30PM

Wait a minute. Is that Sonic being selected there? Man, I haven't been paying attention to this game very much; so please excuse my ignorance if this has already been announced long ago.

Exo @ Oct 10th 2007 8:34PM

Well seeing as how thers 23 cahracters anounced, and theres only 12 or so on that screen, id say its a safe bet to assume thats not the final selection screen.

though it may be what it looks like when you first get the game

CackNBallz @ Oct 10th 2007 8:35PM

Ah. Not too late, I see. As there is an article earlier today about Sonic making his debut.

Anon @ Oct 10th 2007 8:37PM

^Don't feel too bad. It was just this morning.

It's not the final screen, to be sure...Kirby and the Ice Climbers are missing. And don't the portraits seem a little...big? There's not a whole lot of room for more spaces.

Shadow31 @ Oct 10th 2007 8:38PM

First of all, I would like to complain that it looks like a touched up version of Melee's menu. I was expecting a little... I dunno, more. Especially with how epic I was assuming the character list will be.

Okay, I've compared it with the confirmed character list, it's lacking: Kirby, Zelda, Ice Climbers, Wario, Pokemon Trainer, Snake, and Lucas. 7 confirmed characters not on this list. 14 confirmed characters on it, which was the default number of characters in Melee.

So it is possible these are unlockables. Kirby an unlockable though? The rest I could at least understand, but... anyways, if so, that really sucks in my opinion, I don't want that much spoilers, unlockables should be left secret until after launch. There's no surprises then.

Also, looking over the character selection screen, it has about as much space as Melee, meaning it can fit 27 character boxes. Melee chose to only have 25, but at this rate... whoo, two more. :/ I expected a couple characters to get booted for new ones (I'm looking at you, Pichu), but... we're already at 21 announced characters, if that assumption is correct (which I don't want it to be), we can only fit 6 more characters.

I really hope this isn't the final character selection screen. I have my doubts that it is, but... wouldn't it suck if the game just didn't live up to the hype they're creating?

Possibly the most disappoint screenshot released, I'm going to risk it all and throw my money in the pot that either the menu layout will change, we'll see a second menu, or something. This cannot be final or I am officially outraged.

FishOutOfTheBlue @ Oct 10th 2007 9:00PM

I highly, HIGHLY doubt it's the final selection screen. I'd say it's a safe bet that they purposely left out some older characters who had relatively unchanged move-sets from Melee, in order to show off the new moves and characters.

Also, I'd say that there are a LOT more characters to come. 22 have been revealed so far. I'm sure more will be revealed on the website. In addition, logic tells us that most, if not ALL of the secret unlockable characters will remain unannounced on the site. Otherwise it just... wouldn't make sense... lol. So I wouldn't worry too much about not having a lot of options.

gamer @ Oct 10th 2007 9:02PM

this cant be the real menu screen because think about the game is still in productin nintedo probly just put that to gether so people could play it only put those characters becouse they thought they would be the most recousted of all the othere ones and there going to add mor characters then they did in melee about 30 to 35

Dalrint @ Oct 10th 2007 9:14PM

You know, I have to say, I'm beginning to worry for Luigi. I can't imagine a Smash Brother's game without the greenest of plumbers, but there's been no word I can find about him!

worm @ Oct 10th 2007 9:20PM

I bet that's the character selection screen for the preview build Nintendo is planning to have at the upcoming E for All Expo. You guys are right, the size of the character pictures are way too big to even fit the number of characters that are officially announced. Unless the screen sort of "zooms out" as you unlock characters...hmmm.

Gabe @ Oct 10th 2007 9:26PM

This probably for the demo. How can Kirby not be one of the starting characters?

Blue_Falcon @ Oct 10th 2007 9:31PM

Of course this isn't the final select screen.

Remember how small SSBM's screen started out, but it then eventually grew out?

Dopple Boppler @ Oct 10th 2007 10:16PM

That's pretty obviously not the final menu screen. Sonic but no Snake? Not to mention the lack of both Kirby and the Poke`mon Trainer, who are both on the actual cover of the game. I mean I know you guys like to worry about games not living up to the hype, but seriously, getting freaked out over this is taking it a bit too far.

Croove55 @ Oct 10th 2007 10:56PM

theory: Kirby isn't on there b/c they haven't designed all of his copy abilities for other characters yet. He'll be unlocked from the start in the final version.

Perhaps?

Justin @ Oct 10th 2007 10:56PM

Wait a sec...who's that in spot 1? It's not Peach or Zelda...Could it be somebody from Fire Emblem?

Justin @ Oct 10th 2007 10:57PM

It seems that everybody already forgot about Melee's screen. It started out tiny, then gradually got bigger as more characters got unlocked. Anyways, this must mean that Sonic is available right from the getgo. I still want Dark Samus, Ridley, Ganondorf, Lucario, and maybe ROB or an NES Final Fantasy character. Maybe Cloud, back when he was set to appear on N64. Hehe...

Patrick @ Oct 10th 2007 11:00PM

Ya Kirby (my personal favorite in Melee) isn't on there so that is pissing me off. For the demo I wouldn't care much because I would just want to try new characters. But if I have to unlock him in the final version I will be pissed.

Orange Soda @ Oct 10th 2007 11:06PM

"Wait a sec...who's that in spot 1? It's not Peach or Zelda...Could it be somebody from Fire Emblem?"

That'd be Pit.

Sabi @ Oct 10th 2007 11:12PM

i just thought of something
maybe that is the final selection screen with some missing boxes but some chars you can press + or something to make it switch to alternate version, like Samus to Samus w/o suit. Or Mario to Luigi. etc...?

I really dunno, its just a thought
they do it on naruto games like naruto and kyuubi naruto, lee and Drunken Lee etc...

but it would be neat to have that and save space to add more characters...

Joop @ Oct 10th 2007 11:18PM

Looks like most of you folks have been playing a fully unlocked Melee so long you forgot what the character select screen looks like on a fresh file.

It'll flesh out, and I'd bet anything it will be significantly more characters than Melee.

Joshua @ Oct 11th 2007 12:22AM

The icons probably just get smaller as you add more characters, but at least we know now which ones you start with.

So excited for this game.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 11th 2007 12:27AM

They probably just limited it for the demo version, is all.

What I find most interesting is that in that bottom row with Snake and Sonic there's a blank white box. Given who else is in that row, I wonder if it's Nintendo's way of saying, "There's one more 3rd party character coming"?

Ramirez @ Oct 11th 2007 12:51AM

#22

I doubt they'd do that, especially since Zero Suit Samus isn't a full fledged character to herself, from what I understand after Samus uses her final smash, her armor falls off.

The screen will probably just 'grow' or the portraits will shrink. Either way it reminds me of the original SSB the way it looks in that picture.

Tom @ Oct 11th 2007 1:03AM

Okay, some people aren't thinking this through very logically. This is obviously a selection screen created solely for the demo.

First of all, we know that there are a few characters that will DEFINITELY be playable from the very beginning that aren't on that selection screen. Second, every menu we've been shown so far in Brawl has been white (even the blurred out selection screen in one dojo update was white); this menu isn't.

As for Sonic's inclusion in this selection screen, Sonic was just announced TODAY, so Nintendo knew that people would want to play as him. So they included him in the demo. He may or may not be unlockable in the final version.

I'm thinking the white box is something like a "random character" selection. It's definitely not there for hidden characters. Anyone remember Melee? It started with 4 question mark boxes at the very beginning.

SmashRyan @ Oct 11th 2007 7:48AM

Look I'm famous I sent a picture with 27 comments I'm famous BTW
This is only the demo screen and means nothing to what it will really look like.
For Kirby It's Probably the Copy Abilities that cause hm to dissapeer BTW
Whos n the Fifth slot on the Top?

Shadow31 @ Oct 11th 2007 8:53AM

@ 25: Um, that isn't Snake on the bottom row with Pit. That is Bowser. As in, the white box would have nothing to do with a third party character. I can't make out the text, but I was under the assumption it randomly picks a character for you. You may be surprised, but I know people who just pick their characters randomly for each battle. They aren't that good, but then again, they don't have the game so they can't practice with one character often.

@ 28: It's Fox.

Oh, and yes, I realized that the Melee menu got bigger. But the icons never shrunk. You guys are failing to realize this menu can, in fact, fit 24 characters, and 22 have been announced. It is possible, though I hate the thought of it, that Nintendo is announcing the secret characters and not telling us which they are, because we could very well have 24 characters announced by the game's release. Of course, I will go ahead and doubt this because Melee had 25, so they'd be going down.

All in all, I am going to agree with Tom. The preview blurred out shots were white. This could be just for the demo since it does look like a touched up Melee menu. Maybe they just don't want to reveal the new menu yet?

Crazy-8 @ Oct 11th 2007 9:24AM

Are you guys all morons? Did you all fall off the stu-stu-stupid truck last night! It's a freaking DEMO. The menu screen is purely for the DEMO. It is not the final version. Polishing the game up comes AFTER you finish getting move-sets and copy abilities and the overall mechanics for everyone. Rather than have a screen with a bunch of blank spaces for people faces, they prolly made a TEMP screen for the DEMO and put that up there for people to play. And of course there will be secret characters that havent been announced, and they wont be announced. What do you think? that if the level screen only had 3 levels to choose from, then this would be all you would start off with? These guys are not idiots....LOOK at the normal progression of the game in the past... how many characters did SSB have? how many did melee have(more than ssb)??? Now how many do you think Brawl will have(more than ssbm). IT WILL BE MORE. JEEZ.. It's just a freakin DEMO....@sses.

John H. @ Oct 11th 2007 10:55AM

1. I reckon there's about space for 27 or 30 faces on there. Melee had 24. We've had announcements for 22 characters. So far unaccounted for are Captain Falcon, Luigi and Jigglypuff (very likely returning, since they were in the original game), Ness (may not be returning since Lucas likely plays similar), Marth or Roy (Ike seems to be an update of their character type), Sheik (may still be part of Zelda and hence nor selectable), Dr. Mario, Falco, Pichu, Ganondorf or Young Link (mirrors), Mewtwo (unique but largely forgettable) or Game & Watch (a personal favorite, but may not be returning).
2. Sakurai has been heard (where? I don't remember) saying that they were putting much less of an emphasis on "mirrors" this time around, and more on completely new characters. Thus, 27 or 30 Brawl characters would be better than 27 or 30 Melee characters because we wouldn't be getting so many Dr. Marios, Pichus or Ganondorfs.
3. In the past, the Smash Bros. games have been known to provide alternate character "colors" as a way of sorta, kinda having more characters. Melee had coloring of Peach that made her look like Daisy, Mario had a Wario color set, Captain Falcon had a Blood Falcon set, and so on. Enough effort is being poured into this game that it isn't difficult to imagine there being entirely alternate character models this time around, so it very well could be that Dr. Mario is in the game as an alternate for Mario, Ness could be there as an alternate for Lucas, and so on. (Note that it's unlikely that Luigi is an alternate, since in Melee he had different moves than Mario.)
4. Finally, remember, Smash Melee played games with its character select screen. It would increase the number of boxes in ADDITION to having some marked with question marks, move other characters around as new ones were unlocked, and so on. Brawl will probably play similar games, and may even make boxes smaller later, or make the player select window smaller, or do other tricks to increase selection.

The result of all this: it is dangerous to make assumptions of how many "characters" are in Brawl based solely off this screenshot.

James @ Oct 11th 2007 11:41AM

I just wanted to test my skills at picking out characters from a really, really low-res photo. Here's what I've got:

Mario - DK - Link - Samus - Fox - Pikachu
Diddy - Pit - Metaknight - Snake - Peach - Yoshi
Sonic - Bowser - Random

Agree? Also, it looks like you could fit 3 more on the bottom, then one more on each side for each row = 14 + 3 + 6 = 23? That assumes a) no change in icon size as you get more unlocks, and b) no concessions to 4:3 TV owners. I think both are unlikely, especially since we're likely to wind up with more than 23 fighters total.

I'm actually a bit disappointed -- I liked it back in the day when there were small enough numbers of fighters that you could attain reasonable skill levels with all of them and not have to spend hundreds of hours to do it. Now, most fighters ship with two dozen to start, and by the time you've unlocked everybody, the character selection screen looks like a thumbnail gallery with everybody's portrait the size of a postage stamp. At least Challenge Mode (they're keeping that, *right*?) should give us a whole lot of gameplay...

crazypenguin @ Oct 11th 2007 1:47PM

1. ITS A DEMO DUMBOS (i don't want to be offensive, but really!)
2. kirby can not be an unlockable character for two reasons
a. some one posted that the unlockables won't be anounced and
b. kirby is in the freaking first fight in the subspace emisarry, why would he be unlocked in story mode and not in multiplayer?
2. i don't think thats the menu screen, they probobly don't want to give the menu screen away, it might be completely and toatlaly awsome and blow us away, maybe not, and if all of the other screen (like the one for the multiplayer online, tourney mode, and other stuff) are all white, why would this one happen to be black? its not final thats why
3. where was this picture taken and how come none of the videogaming review sites have not been there play it and say how its comming along?
4. the smash website does say TBD on it, so i really hope we get the game in january also, but if we don't, nintendo won't make as many sales as they would for christmas time.

James @ Oct 11th 2007 1:53PM

Zan @ Oct 11th 2007 3:19PM

That's obviously not the final one.

Crazy-8 @ Oct 11th 2007 4:47PM

CLEARLY it is not the final one... please people... stop being soooo unreasonable....

Fireavenger @ Oct 12th 2007 10:17PM

POST 34 YOU ARE A RETARD
LOOK AT "SNAKE"
ITS IKE YOU RETARD!!!!

badboy007ing @ Oct 13th 2007 1:20PM

i no this is off the subject but i hope they add tails for this reason:
team red(mario and luigi) vs. team blue(sonic and tails)
and i no they will add luigi they have to but anyway then the two icons and their companions could battle it out to see whos relly number 1

apjgraphix @ Oct 13th 2007 10:49PM

ok if we follow the transition from SSB to SSBM you'll notice that no characters from the previous game on n64 was left behind. and i seriusly doubt this long running characters will be left out. if you aren't familiar with the first smash here they are they haven't been confirmed "YET" : Captain Falcon, Luigi, Nes and Giggly puff. Do you really think that the creative team behind Smash is going to just scrap this (lets call them) "Smash founders"?. I don't think so. Then add that to the already confirmed characters and what do we get 26. and on that screen you can only fit 27. also lets not forget about of the sure things. What are the sure things? They are representatives from different franchises that I know for sure will be added. One or two characters from Starfox (not including Fox) is a sure thing. more characters from fire emblem, my personal prediction Sothe.

apjgraphix @ Oct 13th 2007 10:50PM

PART 2
some other character from metroid. And dont forget the likelihood of waluigi, Mewtwo, another form of link, another third-party character. and in case you didn't know, the model for Ganondorf and and Sheik were confirmed by the smash art director. that takes the number to about 34.
is that the definitive select screen you ask? ... I think not.

Free Thinker @ Oct 14th 2007 10:08AM

It's clearly a DEMO!!! (you damn aghs!) I bet that the final selection screen will be completly different, i bet that the situation was something as this:

They were probably drinking some beer at sakurai office during monday's night and the door slammed as someone shouted
-Hey, we have a conference past tomorrow and we need to make a playable demo!
-WHAT!?!?!?
-the big cheese is demanding that we show to the press what we have done all this months!
-Sakurai: FUCK! let's modificate the melee selecting screen and add the character that we have aleady done....

In fact if you see, the missing character are probably still under development (zelda, probably still working on shiek, Zero suit samus, working in the final smash, Ice climbers, working in a better A.I. for the seccond Ice Climber, Kirby, they still don't have all the hats for him.. etc...)

Also, there WILL be a Cap falcon, a jigglypuff and a Luigi (jigglypuff will be a secret character unlocked the first time you beat the game, as tradition dictates)

about Ness, with the inclusion of Lucas i'm not very sure if he will make an appareance (Lucas seems like the succesor of ness :S) but maybe it's an unlockable character from lucas history mode...

Subrosian @ Oct 26th 2007 10:42PM

Lol! You people really aren't paying attention to anything have you? This is the character selection screen from the DEMO at the E for All event, if you didn't know what a DEMO is, it's an unfinished version of a final game and very limited(2 minute matches with 12 characters only).

Also Sakurai already stated that ALL characters confirmed through the site are available to use at the start of teh game, with the exception of third party characters than MAY be unlocked through an event in-game.

Mark my words, As of the last newcomer update( king dedede) there are 9-10 more newcomers confirmed through the site until the game is released plus ones that won't be put on the site that will be unlockables. I would explain how i know this but I'm too lazy, if you REALLY want to know then just reply *sigh*