PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale asks a simple question: what if Sony had its own Super Smash Bros.? SuperBot Entertainment built the answer, Sony Computer Entertainment published it in 2012 for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, and the result is a fighting game that understands the assignment without ever quite owning it.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
Kratos, PaRappa and a Big Daddy Walk Into a Stage
The roster is the pitch. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale pulls Kratos and Zeus from God of War, Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet, Nariko from Heavenly Sword, Cole MacGrath and Evil Cole from Infamous, Spike from Ape Escape, Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal, Sir Daniel Fortesque from MediEvil, Toro Inoue, Heihachi Mishima from Tekken, Dante from Devil May Cry, Raiden from Metal Gear Revengeance, Big Daddy from BioShock, Isaac Clarke from Dead Space, Emmett Graves from Starhawk, Kat from Gravity Rush, Colonel Radec from Killzone, Fat Princess, and PaRappa.
That list is the whole point, and it is a good one.
Fifteen Arenas, Two Games Apiece
Every stage mashes two franchises together, and the second one takes over as the match runs, usually by adding a hazard. The source names four:
- Sandover Village (Jak and Daxter plus Hot Shots Golf)
- Dreamscape (LittleBigPlanet plus Buzz!)
- Stowaways (Uncharted plus BioShock Infinite)
- Hades (God of War plus Patapon)
Fifteen arenas in all. Up to four players fight on a 2D plane, moving freely to close in or run. Three attack buttons plus a direction cover the moveset. Damage feeds AP orbs into a power meter, and orbs also sit scattered around the stage or get knocked loose from opponents with throws.
Super Moves Are the Whole Fight
The meter pays for Super Moves, and the three levels are not a ladder — they are a wager. Level 1 is cheap, short range, one target. Level 3 costs a great deal of AP but lasts longer and can wipe out several opponents before it runs out. That is where PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale lives or dies, because a fighter where the kill comes from a meter rather than a health bar is asking players to trust it.
Polygon Man Is Waiting at the End
The plot is thin scaffolding. A mysterious entity opens “time holes” and scatters the cast across PlayStation history. Heroes and villains cross worlds, beat whoever stands in the way, and find Polygon Man, who gathered them to fight each other and turn them into his minions. Beat him, absorb his power, get an ending showing what you do with it — good or evil.
Here is how the road to that fight runs, from the 2009 start to the 2012 release:
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2009 | Development begins under the working title Title Fight |
| Before April 2012 | The game leaks, along with a significant number of playable characters |
| April 2012 | Official announcement |
| 2012 | Release on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita |
The game was also one of the first titles in Sony’s cross-buy program, so a PlayStation 3 purchase came with the Vita version free.
The Content Runs Out Before the Roster Does
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is faithful to the franchises it borrows, and the multiplayer holds up. The criticism lands anyway: there is not enough here, and it does not look like much. A crossover fighter lives on modes, unlocks and reasons to keep playing after the novelty fades, and this one thins out fast.
The roster was never the problem. The follow-through was.
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