Besides that, there’s the regular gamut of single-player options from Melee, including Classic, All-Star, Target Smash, Home-Run Contest, and Multi-Man Brawl. These are more or less unchanged, with the exception of co-op play being added to several of the Stadium elements. The major factor in single-player replayability is the Challenges wall, which is full of various things for you to do, mostly with the numerous single-player modes. Trying to get all of the bonus music, trophies, etc. will have you playing through these modes often, and definitely helps as a guiding force once you lose interest in playing these modes just for their sake. Brawl set the bar quite high for single-player modes in fighter games.

The meat of the game, of course, is the multiplayer. Most of what makes multiplayer what it is was already covered in this review, under the core gameplay section, so you already know that multiplayer is barrels of fun in itself. There’s still nothing like Smash Bros. to guarantee a fun time when four gamers get together, or even when non-gamers feel like having some fun. The retention of modes such as Tournament and Rotation (yes, it was in Melee, albeit under a different name) help keep the fun organized, while all the random things that make Smash Bros. what it is will keep the laughs and the fun coming.

The other major addition to the game is online play; here, unfortunately, we run into some problems. Other, larger review sites have often reported that they saw no lag problems while playing in their own offices a week or so before the game was released, when there was no real test of Nintendo’s system. Do not be fooled: Brawl online has lag, and it becomes a serious problem. Lag comes in two forms, both of which you will see. The first is plain old game lag, which unfortunately is present, especially in With Anyone battles. The slowest connection wins here, and if someone you’re playing with has a really bad connection, the whole thing will be unbearably slow. The other kind of lag is button lag, where there’s a quarter-second delay between you pressing a button and something actually happening. This is present in all forms of online, and in a game where split-second reflexes are needed constantly, this becomes rather problematic.