PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is a crossover fighting game published by Sony Computer Entertainment and developed by SuperBot Entertainment and was released for the PlayStation 3 on November 20, 2012. The game was supposed to be Sony's answer to mh:awesomegames:Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. game series.

Development
PlayStation All-Stars was originally going to be developed by Naughty Dog, who where busy with The Last of Us around this time, before Sony formed a new studio named SuperBot Entertainment, comprised of former employees from several first and third party teams, including Omar Kendall, who becomes the director to work solely on this game. In 2011, several images popped up online, as it was originally a different version name Title Fight, with a capture the flag-style platform gameplay at one point before morphing into a Smash clone later on. PlayStation All-Stars was revealed in a 2012 episode of GTTV, and it had multiple betas throughout July and October, but on that July, the leaks started on Reddit, which revealed the entire roster, with NeoGAF and GameFAQs revealing information about it. These were confirmed by SuperBot's own Chan Park, stating that they are indeed legit, but said that it made a ton of changes since the beta build and it did not reflect the content seen in the final release.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The most disappointing factor in the game is the lackluster roster. Some of the most iconic and beloved PlayStation characters are surprisingly absent completely from the game, such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII), Solid Snake (Metal Gear), The GTA Protagonist (Carl Johnson, Tommy Vercetti and Claude), Abe (Oddworld) and most insultingly, Dart from Legend of Dragoon.
 * 2) * In fact, most of these characters were planned to appear at one point, either at launch or DLC, but they didn't because of negotiations with other companies felling apart.
 * 3) ** In Crash and Spyro's cases, Activision demanded the former a huge sum of money to make him appear, while the latter was pushed out of the focus during the Skylanders era.
 * 4) *Abe from Oddworld and Dart from Legend of Dragoon were planned to be added as DLC but plans for DLC was cancelled due to the game's low sales.
 * 5) What makes the character exclusions worse is that there are several questionable inclusions, like:
 * 6) * Princess Plump from Fat Princess.
 * 7) * Big Daddy from BioShock.
 * 8) * Reboot version of Dante from Devil May Cry instead of the classic Dante.
 * 9) * Isaac Clarke from the Dead Space series.
 * 10) *Raiden from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
 * 11) The aforementioned inclusion of the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance version of Raiden, Dante's reboot design from DmC: Devil May Cry, and the Big Daddy are strange additions until you realize they were meant to be used as promotional material for games in their franchises that had yet to be released. Big Daddy and the Columbia stage are promoting Bioshock Infinite, the Reboot Dante is promoting DmC: Devil May Cry, young Heihachi is promoting Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and Raiden is promoting Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. This was extended to even the DLC characters, as Isaac Clarke was added shortly after Dead Space 3 came out, and Zeus was added shortly before the release of God of War: Ascension, and you'll get him and Isaac for free if you get that game.
 * 12) *It's especially confusing when you consider that DMC fans never liked the design of reboot Dante ever since the infamous reveal trailer back in 2010.
 * 13) *Emmett Graves from Starhawk and Kat from Gravity Rush were added through DLC, the problem is that these 2 characters came from games that were released in the same year as Playstation All Stars Battle Royale, so it's obvious that they were added as a promotional material for the games.
 * 14) **The addition of said characters at the time is weird since even though their games were before this game's release, it's not that far which means not everyone knows them at the time.
 * 15) **While Kat was well received and became more popular over time, Emmet Graves was seen in his game as a boring character, making his addition even more pointless.
 * 16) The single-player mode isn't very interesting. The story modes simply consist of cutscenes with still images, and the player character interacting with their rival in a very bland way.
 * 17) The Rival characters are only ever shown interacting with each other, like Sir Daniel Fortesque and Colonel Radec, and Parappa and Spike. You never get Sly Cooper interacting with Sackboy, or Kratos interacting with Toro. This idea could have worked, if Super Smash Bros. implemented themselves and done it much better. heck, even chincherrinas's Smash Bros. Lawl (and it's certain spinoffs) has done way better than All-Stars, and they're just a series of YouTube videos for crying out loud.
 * 18) The tutorial prompts are set up in a terrible way which makes it seem like it is forced even though it isn't.
 * 19) Sir Daniel, despite having his welcome return by fans, is a very sluggish fighter, taking him a while to fill up his health meter.
 * 20) Regardless of the character you start Single Player with, all of them start with the same stages, mainly the PaRappa the Rapper ones.
 * 21) Difficulty Spike: The Combat Trials are innocent enough and most of them are reasonably doable with proper focus and application. Unfortunately, most of them are cut-and-pasted for the entire roster. This can be an issue depending on the character, since trials that are a breeze for one character can be horrific for another. The later trials can become surprisingly nightmarish on the easiest difficulty.
 * 22) Some characters are unbalanced, with Kratos being overpowered while Sir Daniel is underpowered.
 * 23) Franzea, the stage mash-up of LocoRoco and Metal Gear, is seen by many to be a massive eyesore, as it's a very bright and colorful stage but with Metal Gear RAY attacking a city replacing the sky background of the stage. The contrast between the two games leads to this stage getting more than a little bit of hate. It doesn't fare much better in gameplay either. Many players are annoyed at constant gravity shifts and awkward terrain, which, while accurate to LocoRoco, aren't exactly ideal conditions for a fighting arena. The RAY that appears later on will also saturate the ground-level with randomized heavy artillery fire, making it one of the odd hazards to potentially cover an entire stage.
 * 24) The entire cast has a series of variable values which designate how much AP is required for them to pull off any given Super, most of them balanced by ease of use and effectiveness. This is mentioned nowhere in the game, but is brought up in great detail in the official guide.
 * 25) Unlike the Super Smash Bros. series, PlayStation All-Stars doesn't have any original characters created specifically for the game. Even Polygon Man isn't original.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Despite being a Super Smash Bros. clone, it has lots of features that make it unique, like getting wins using Super Moves and stages with interactivity.
 * 2) The idea of having a fighting game of characters from PlayStation platform is very neat and interesting. Too bad it was done poorly.
 * 3) The soundtrack is cool as it has remixing, classic songs in the stages from their respective franchises, and even the main menu's themes are nice.
 * 4) The idea of making Polygon Man (the original PlayStation mascot) as the final boss is very creative, too bad the final result is lackluster.
 * 5) At least some iconic PlayStation characters are included in the game, like Nathan Drake, Kratos (who is pretty much Mr. PlayStation for Sony), PaRappa, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, and Sly Cooper.
 * 6) With the exception of Cole and Evil Cole from inFAMOUS, every character comes from one franchise, giving room for a big crossover.
 * 7) The game has characters that are from franchises that haven't succeeded, such as Nariko from Heavenly Sword.
 * 8) The graphics in this game are pleasant and fantastic, especially by PlayStation 3 standards, as there are many scenarios that have surprisingly good textures, decent lighting, and clean colors.
 * 9) The costumes in this game at least have different outfits instead of merely being a palette swap like in Smash Bros.
 * 10) The stages have a unique gimmick where there is a background element, like the Ape Escape Time Station stage using an element from Resistance. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would later implemented a similar idea called Stage Morph.
 * 11) Unlike the Smash series at the time, at least there are lots of single player content, even if the single player campaign is lackluster.
 * 12) Couch Multiplayer can be really fun, the best reason you'd play this game.

Reception and Legacy
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale received generally average reviews. Critics praised the game's multiplayer and fighting mechanics, but criticized its lack of content, still images in campaign mode and few cut scenes. The use of super moves as the only way to defeat a player had mixed reception. While some critics thought it lacked depth, others believed that filling up the meter to land a knock-out added strategy to an otherwise only decent fighting experience. The game currently holds a 74 score for the PlayStation 3 version and a 75 score for the PlayStation Vita version on Metacritic.

Video game talk show Good Game 's two presenters both gave the game a 6 out of 10. While the game's combat mechanics were praised, criticism was drawn towards the "flawed" Super Moves mechanic, saying, "In most fighting games each attack you do is chipping away your opponent's health bar. Or in Smash Bros. it's adding to their damage counter, and the higher their damage the further your attacks knocked them, but in this game all you have is the super meter! Each attack adds fuel to it. But if you miss with your super, all the attacking you did for the last few minutes amounts to nothing. Essentially all your progress is erased". The selection of playable characters also drew criticism, as the hosts felt many of the characters were added due to their marketing appeal rather than appropriateness for a fighting game.

IGN gave the game an 8/10, declaring "It combines characters, environments and ideas into a tight package that’s worthy of consideration for anyone who owns a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita and considers themselves a brand loyalist or simply a longtime fan...I know it’ll be hard for some skeptics to believe, but PlayStation All-Stars is its own game, and it even happens to do some things better than what inspired it." GameSpot gave the game a 6.5/10, commenting "There are better, more fluid games out there for the serious fighter, and there are more accessible ones for those interested in a bit of silliness. In attempting to mix the two, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale merely ends up being competent at both and the master of neither."

On December 21, 2012, the game was nominated for IGN's Best Overall Fighting Game and won the IGN People's Choice Award.

The game also received Fighting Game of the Year, at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit's Interactive Achievement Awards.

Sales and future
Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that over a million copies of the game had been sold by June 12, 2013, though he conceded that, at the time, this was not enough to justify a sequel or developing further DLC for the game. He stated that while he was personally happy with the cross-over implementation of the characters and worlds, he saw more potential for it to come together using different gameplay mechanics. In August 2013, a free-to-play minigame collection, PlayStation All-Stars Island, was released for iOS devices as a cross-promotion with Coke Zero. The game was later made available for Android platforms as well, but both platforms only saw a limited release in specific European territories.

Despite the promising future, Sony cut ties with Superbot Entertainment before the DLC was even finished, allowing them to become independent. One anonymous former employee speculated that it was due to the launch of Sony's next console, the PlayStation 4, as they want to focus more on that than the game itself. Unlike any other studios that went indie like Inti Creates, Superbot wasn't so lucky, as multiple projects they pitched to other studios were rejected outright (including a sequel to Capcom's long abandoned Rival Schools series), with the exception of Cuddlefish Friends for mobile phones, as they developed and publish themselves in 2013, before closing down a year later.

Trivia

 * 1) While Sony is known for copying lots of features from Nintendo at the time, they actually admitted that this game is actually a Smash clone.
 * 2) Before the game's development, Sony asked Naughty Dog to make the game for them but Naughty Dog was busy at the time with developing The Last Of Us, so the development went to Superbot.

Videos
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