So you may or may not already know but the whole concept for EGP spawned from a Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament amongst friends. I’m very partial to this game and it’s one of my all time favorites. That being said I was very excited for the release of Brawl on the Wii. So excited in fact that I made my wife endure the awkward stares from fellow gamers and wait in line outside a Game Stop for the midnight release while I was at work. First impressions were very positive but to me it just wasn’t Melee. I don’t want to say I was disappointed because it’s a great game and a worthy successor but I knew it was missing something. Enter Brawl Plus. What is Brawl+? BP is a project spearheaded by the hardcore Super Smash Bros. community with the intent to make Brawl a deeper, more balanced competitive fighter. BP is essentially a "patch" developed within this community to offer enhanced gameplay with features ranging from the removal of random tripping to the addition of more hitstun and new character balance. BP is literally made by fanatical SSB fans for fanatical SSB fans. Speaking as a person who puts Melee in his top 5, I love BP.
So why play Brawl+ in a tournament instead of Melee or original Brawl? BP is the newest most balanced version in the Super Smash Bros. series making it perfect for tournament play. It allows players of any game in the SSB trilogy to both enjoy and be viable with any character. Whether you played the original on N64, got in during Melee or haven’t even heard of either one of those BP makes for very fair and competitive matches.
Is using Brawl+ safe? Brawl+ codes are run through modifications of data in Brawl’s RAM in combination with files from the game it self. Through this method it is IMPOSSIBLE to damage your Wii playing/booting BP.
So hopefully at this point you’re asking yourself what you need to get starting on BP. In my experience the simplest, safest and legal way to run BP is from an SD card. This means you DO NOT have to hack your Wii and there is NO possibility of breaking anything. This also implies that you have purchased/rented an actual copy of Brawl. Here’s what you need to get started:
Requirements and Installation:
1. A Wii (obviously).
2. A physical copy of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl game disc.
3. An SD, Mini-SD or Micro-SD card with respectable adapters (the Wii takes a standard SD). The current file set for BP is about 750MB so that would be your minimum capacity. The maximum size SD card that BP can load from is 2 GB so I finally had a good reason to pull one of those 1GB Micro-SD cards out of that pile of old cell phones in my closet.
4. An SD card reader for your computer.
5. Downloaded Brawl+ source codes. Click here to download the file.
5. Downloaded Brawl+ source codes. Click here to download the file.
Run the installation file that you just downloaded and install them on your SD card. While the files are installing go to your Wii and fire up your copy of Brawl. Go to the “Vault” then “Stage Builder” and delete ALL the custom stages there or BP will not load. If you made some stages that you really want to keep I suggest copying them to another SD card. After you have deleted all those stages go back to the main menu. Now the installation of the BP source files on your SD card should be complete. Remove your SD card from your computer and insert it into your Wii. Go back to the “Vault” and “Stage Builder”. If you have done everything right this should take you to the “Gecko OS” screen. Click “load game”. BP should now load and shenanigans ensue.
I obviously have an affinity to the SSB series, Melee in particular, and these are the tournaments I probably get the most excited about. Now that we’re at the Frank & Son Collectible Show every Wednesday night it’s given me lots of opportunities to play and converse with many other SSB fans. It was these conversations and Smash sessions that motivated me to write this article and both explain and promote Super Smash Bros. Brawl+. If you're still not sure about BP we'll be playing casual matches every Wednesday at F&S so stop by the EGP setup, jump in a match and check it out for yourself.
Visit http://smashmods.com for in depth details on Brawl+ and a complete list of specific adjustments to characters and gameplay.
