Nickelodeon's New Brawler Might Get Character Voiceovers In The Future

This game is gonna be schlappin'

I can't wait for this game to release and then everyone will be like "Wow this game is terrible!" and I'm like "...you guys seriously surprised?" lol

@Xiovanni
Are they really that sweaty?

@NintenGuy it's a stereotype that Melee players don't take showers or care about their personal hygiene. I wouldn't look too deeply into it

Why not release the game after VOs are good and ready?

Publishers nowadays are all too content in releasing unfinished garbage to shelves. The fact that the likes of Nickelodeon are behind this makes it even more pathetic.

Aiming for esports right out of the gate seems like a bad move to me... that's a very niche audience. You need a wide general audience to create interest first, then esports scene can grow from that.

@Silly_G It's a lower budget licensed game with brand recognition but no proven mass audience (at least at the time of conception). Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid had to start with no voices and get voices later for the same reason.

@Branovices In order for a scene to grow, you need mechanics that keep people interested and netcode that doesn't suck. SFV had the problem of pushing for esports without catering to general audiences, but that one didn't even have enough content at launch. Nick ASB has a fair character roster.

dora the explorer squad where you at?

Spongebob isn't Spongebob without the voice, it's a yellow assortment of pixels. When they finish the work I'll consider playing.

@Xiovanni What makes you think the mechanics are applicable to competitive play only? I like to think that good mechanics benefit all players.

@Joeynator3000 Mechanics seem very promising between stuff in the videos and explanations from discord.

@Xiovanni you seem too hung up on the extreme side of competitive games. people can still enjoy casual melee the same way casual NASB can be enjoyed too

Can't wait for this game, I think the only reason they wont push it back for voice acting is bc they don't have the funding to do so, So if this game sells well, we will get voice acting.

I get the feeling that this game's detractors aren't familiar with Slap City at all. Slap is a platform fighter that very much carries "This is a budget game, but the mechanics are super good and not too much of a mixed bag like post-Melee Smash mechanics." Nick is by the Slap team.

@Xiovanni The music and sound effects are bland, but it's evident that the devs care a lot about making the characters play in cool ways.

Soooo wait for the ultimate edition?

@Xiovanni i still find most platform fighters easy enough to get into, i dont see why NASB would be any different. you seem to enjoy melee fine enough despite it having mechanics useful in competitive play

Jimmy and Timmy being DLC characters would be like Link and Samus being DLC characters.

@Xiovanni Actually, they made alot of the moves around the point that newcomers could pick them up with ease.

The missing voice acting is so far my biggest criticism of the game. You can not have iconic characters such as SpongeBob, Ren, Stimpy, and Zim without their voices.

@Xiovanni being built for competitive is a good thing, it means the game is actually in a playable state and will have a solid gameplay. Or do you want another Sonic The Fighters.

And this is 2021, what fighting game isn’t built competitively unless you’re an indie studio. Even Pokémon fighting game (Pokken) is made to be competitive.

@Joeynator3000 Honestly don't get the hype behind this. I watched a few gameplay showcases, and it just looks like a worse version of smash, but with Nick characters as the fighters. I don't really see how people think this is the "Smash Ultimate Killer" that they're boasting it as, when the game doesn't even have voiced lines, and the stages all have generic music on constant loop. The graphics also look akin to a bargain bin smash. It just seems like an overhyped game all because it's a meme of sorts.

Best guess is that most the budget went to extensive work on making the game as polished combat-wise as possible (I know people may not care for the idea of a game balanced for competitive play, but ideally that should help anyone playing it if done right) and setting up features like rollback netcode for good online. It's a much smaller developer, so it's not like they have Nintendo's access to Bandai Namco's experience with making/balancing fighting games (regardless of the argument of party game vs fighting game, their experience still helps make Smash polished). It's a weird tactic to be sure, but they gambit is probably to use the money from its (hopeful) success to fill in some of the stuff afterwards and make up for their lack of AAA money. Kinda like a Kickstarter-esque strategy but you get the meat of the game regardless of whether it's a success and then they fill in the rest later.

Assuming that's what's happening, I kinda understand, but I do wish they had been more transparent about that from the start. I think this game will be a decent success for the Nickelodeon brand alone, but time will tell. Right now my biggest concern is that we don't know if this game has any extra content modes at all to give people something to do when they tire of the main mode.

@VoidofLight Now I think smash killer is a Big fat stretch, I do how ever, think this game is pretty different from smash in terms of game play.

@Snatcher I saw a lot of people in IGN’s comments saying stuff like it’s going to kill smash.

@VoidofLight LOL, like thats ever going to happen, There isn't even voice acting.

Sweaty melee audience, as in knowledgeable fighting game fans. Who likely also play myriad other games and franchises... seems a stretch but you're entitled to the opinion.

@Snatcher Exactly, but when people tell those guys that, they usually bark back that smash needs competition, and how bad it is.

@VoidofLight Smash is just fine but people need to remember it was made with party game in mind, Wile still catering to the fans.

@Snatcher Agreed. Most of those people seemed to be console war advocates too, given how there were tons of comments about despising Nintendo itself.

@VoidofLight Haters gonna Hate LOL.

I’m so tired of the “if it sells well we get - a finished game or a sequel or what we actual want in the first place”….. stop trying to emotionally blackmail people with carrots. Make something worthwhile and then come back to us. This is a hard pass from me. The Nickelodeon games should be character heavy and content heavy. Their last two efforts were awful and the second one only seemed better because the first was so bad. This will be the same. No excuse from them they have the ability to fund this proper and ironically it would sell boat loads if they did

Yeah...I didn't even bother looking at gameplay, I just don't care...

Does it even have items?...Final Smash type stuff? (because ever since that became a thing in Brawl, I always loved those types of moves, lol) Assist Trophies? Are all the stages static platform with a few smaller platforms here and there? It all just looks...boring.

@VoidofLight People always call games replicating an existing well-known series a "killer" yet the games never do.

While it's very likely that this game will be bad, they made a good skeleton for a good game, it can be improved with updates, DLC and a sequel.

However, if they want to grab a post-launch audience, it needs to have free DLC.

@Silly_G because the hope of it happening will help sell the game. I don't think there is anyway they well actually pay up for voice acting as it will cost a fortune.

@Wavey84 I agree, especially if it's generic cartoon sound effects, and not anything from the shows. Nostalgia would push it further of it had both visual and audio queues

I would pay $5 for a VO pak. Should have been in the original release but I understand , small budget

Jesus, some of the comments here really make it seem like some of you guys are entitled to a 5-star licensed product off the bat from an indie studio. Like, these are the same people who made Slap city and it was casual fun but had a lot of the same mechanics that made Melee fun and easily accessible. The gameplay should matter first and foremost or else you'd end up with one of the other sh***y SSB clones only with Nick characters instead. Also, be honest, you weren't going to buy this game anyway, right? They don't owe you anything, but the effort being put into it is admirable, next to BfBB rehydrated.

Oh no, I hope so! That's the main reason I haven't given the kart racing Nick games a try

but I ALSO understand that adding Voice Acting isn't as simple as taking voice clips from the shows. You've got to consider other language support, licensing rights, and of course agreements with the voice actors/actresses

apparently
1 of the developers on Discord, talked about the voice lines
if they did it in the base game, the cost would have been around half of there budget

@DragotheKomodo So what I'm hearing, is if this game sells well maybe they can allocate some funding.
Hopefully they have an internal spreadsheet of relative costs for each character. Powdered toast man is probably low, and I'd imagine spongebob is sitting on the top

@Dakotastomp Ah yes, we’re entitled for wanting a complete product on launch, and not a game that’s like “we’ll add in more stuff only if it sells well!”.

@VoidofLight Like Drago said, had they added vo it would have been half their budget, like know what they're working with and how much they have in the budget to spend on. Not everything will be included on release, but at least it's more likely that we will be getting it in the future. Be happy it will come at all.

@Dakotastomp I hate this mentality in gaming. People make excuses for half baked games, saying that it's a "Budget problem" or to "Be grateful", when they don't even understand the point of games. Games aren't a gift, and the companies who make them aren't giving them out for free. They're there to make money first and foremost.

Nick has the money to give the devs a bigger budget for the game, yet they haven't. Due to this, the game is now releasing half-baked, and they're dangling a carrot over people's heads to buy said game, or they won't get the completed product. A game like that isn't worth the money they're asking for, if they can't even finish it properly before release.

So no, I won't be happy or grateful it exists, since people should be expecting a lot more from games than the bare minimum, which this game seems to take pride in.

@VoidofLight Then don't be happy about it. Don't buy it. I'm still certain the company makes its money either way, and before you assume I'm just licking the boot for this, I also did mention before they should have VAs in the game during production, like they use to put a little more effort with the production with THQ so it shouldn't be so different here, but with the team even making efforts to listen to fans who want more from this game is more than what we got out of those Kart racers, so you're not wrong that they shouldn't put out a half complete product, but at least they're planning to add more at all.

@Xiovanni Well, one thing that's great about the "Super Smash Bros." franchise, even "Melee," is that it can be as competitive as you want and still be fun to play in any of those ways. Likewise, here you can just ignore the more advanced mechanics like wavedashing and non-turning retreats, and the game should still be really good just as long as you aren't consistently playing against high level players who can easily kick your butt using those advanced mechanics.

Personally, I'm just disappointed that they didn't include side specials or a roll dodge move.

@VoidofLight Whoever said it's meant to be a "Smash Ultimate killer"?! Obviously, an indie game like this could never live up to the latest Smash Bros. game, but there is a large audience for getting an additional really good platform fighter with a different set of popular licenses. Aside from monetary reasons, why would anyone need to restrict themselves to merely enjoying only the absolute best example of any given sub-genre if there are also other good ones out there? Even "TMNT Smash-Up" sold decently, and it had rather mediocre gameplay.

Strange that voice acting would be THAT expensive. From a twitch stream it seemed like Jhonen (creator of Zim) and Rikki (voice of Zim) weren't even contacted at all about the game. Still looks like a 20 dollar game, not 50 I think the price was.

@Dakotastomp It still makes no sense why Nick doesn't just give them a bigger budget.

Really hope this game is friendly to casuals in terms of gameplay and content available

@Entrr_username that i agree with, hell with the new SB Cosmic Shake game being announced, it seems like more money is thrown at a thqnordic/Purple lamp project than these guys at Ludosity, but Gamemill is also well known for being synonymous with cheap games(CN battle crashers) but I guess Nick really didn't put much faith in it at first and spent more time focussing on that new game in development for Spongebob. Things may change over time and interest may make them put more into NASB future developments.

I'm put off with no voice acting what's point adding characters like spongebob, Patrick, ren and stimpy and have no voices its biggest turn off for me I was hyped for game but no I give this a pass. Makes the game incomplete like that.

Imagine super smash bros with no character voices thats would suck.

@PtM LOL the T pose XD XD