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What went wrong with Playstation All Stars?

AdaWong

AdaWong

Junior Member
Amazing concept on paper, not THAT bad on the execution part.. So why did it end up doing rather poorly, both in sales and in critical reception? Was it not promoted enough? Was the title bad (yes)? Was it the roster? Was it the "unoriginal" idea?

I saw the game's bubble on my Vita and decided to play it (after not touching it for years) and... it's actually not that bad. Sure, could have been better, but I remember when it was released the immediate reception was pretty poor. What are your thoughts?
 
Needing to use supers to get points was a bad idea, and Kratos had absolutely broken supers. Combine this with a lack of good advertising, and you get a bad game.
 
My problem was that it had some silly system where you were required to have a special to get a KO. It didn't really make sense to me.

Should have just been a good, solid fighting engine with good controls. Either give each fighter HP, or completely rip Smash Bros' 'knock out of the ring' approach.

Not sure what they were thinking.
 
It wasn't that fun, they weren't r
Able to get the really popular 3rd party characters, and the art style is really unattractive.
 
The roster was not very good. The inconsistent art style was a mess. The gameplay was lacking. The soundtrack was mediocre.

I didn't hate the game. I played it for a few days. But it was just kind of "there".
 
Buggy as fuck, presentation lacking and terrible in execution. Also, missing several "key" PS characters. Raiden, New Dante and Fat Princess are hardly icons.

Also, wtf at the balance. There are still zero to death moves in the game. Just unacceptable really. Still, mastering Dante and wrecking my mates was so much fun
 
Ignoring marketing
  • UI was atrocious
  • Bad roster, so bad they filled it out with 2 Coles to make it look bigger
  • Game relied on Supers to win
  • Multiplayer is still broken to this day with various error codes
  • Terrible stage design
  • Barebones content and whats there is not good
 
PlayStation has strong IPs but people don't care about their main characters as mascots, not like Mario, Pikachu etc., so it was just a Smash Bros. clone that wasn't particularly fun.
 
1. Roster should have been all Sony IPs exclusively -- weak 3rd party reps brought nothing but ill will
2. Patch out any hit confirms immediately -- utterly invalidates the risk-reward Super system
3. Better stages -- very boring stuff and the fusions made them more boring somehow

edit:
4. Yes, the UI was horrible like they did it a week before release. No theme or cohesiveness.
5. Better marketing of the legacy of the Sony characters and the appeal of the game's systems -- as evident by this thread.
 
The biggest problem was that it wasn't enough of a Smash clone.

If the way to secure kills/points wasn't by JUST hitting super moves on your opponents, the game would have been more well received, I think.
 
They needed to straight up rip off the Smash formula identically. These games just don't work any other way.

It needs blast zones, stocks, stages that aren't all walk-off, simplified directional inputs, a more unified art style, etc. Anyone who makes a big deal out of no Crash and Spyro, or the roster it had in general, just don't get it. If the gameplay was there, the community would have been there for the long haul. There are still people playing/competing around the world in Smash 64 because of how great the gameplay is, a game that released about 20 years ago.
 
Character roster sucked, online sucked, fixed knockback sucked and that score/super system sucked. Menus looked bland and the game just didn't have enough meat on its ribs. It's like the poster child for a game that's barely mediocre in all aspects.
 
Everything. Nobody asked for that shit. I remember getting dogpiled on GAF when I predicted it would flop.

The only thing going for it was the stage design.
 
The Supers mechanic worked well despite what the common perception is. It made for a very unique and original experience. Not everything needs to be a Smash Bros clone. Although I'll admit that there were way too many hit confirm combo moves.

I think the overarching problem was that the game needed a bigger budget - more polish, better UI, more characters, better realized online, etc.
 
The content is just meager in comparison to smash. You have like a third of the roster and there are no collectables or any modes outside of versus. Smash offers a lot of stuff you can get into like collecting trophies, home run contest, multiman smash etc.
 
FUNKNOWN iXi said:
They needed to straight up rip off the Smash formula identically. These games just don't work any other way.

It needs blast zones, stocks, stages that aren't all walk-off, simplified directional inputs, a more unified art style, etc.
Click to expand...
Yep. The other problem was that confirmed super kills made the game straight up unbalanced, as some characters could rack up meter and combo into supers while others couldn't.
 
What went right with PS All-Stars is the other thread we sometimes see from ardent defenders. I think it's just poor all along with the main complaint being the super to score system just plain isn't fun.
 
Tagg9 said:
The Supers mechanic worked well despite what the common perception is. It made for a very unique and original experience. Not everything needs to be a Smash Bros clone.

I think the overarching problem was that the game needed a bigger budget - more polish, better UI, more characters, better realized online, etc.
Click to expand...

The supers mechanic did not work well and was one of the worst things about it. Come on.
 
I think presentation was a large part of it. Just look at the character select screen:

Rage%2BQuitter%2B-%2BPSASBR%2B-%2BCharacter%2Bselect.png


It looks like a system's home menu, totally devoid of any character (pun intended).
 
It just wasn't really all that fun to play.
Plus the roster was a big head scratcher with some of their picks.
The whole game just didn't sit right with me too. Like very bland with everything thrown together with no thought.
 
- Not enough interesting characters (where is crash? spyro?)
- Some gameplay flaws
- Not enough marketing

I actually enjoyed it, and I'm not a fan of SB, that is definetly better anyway.

I would like a sequel, I played the VITA version anyway.

Oh the stages were AWESOME with the live background... the Patapon one... :Q....
 
Tagg9 said:
The Supers mechanic worked well despite what the common perception is. It made for a very unique and original experience. Not everything needs to be a Smash Bros clone.
Click to expand...
Thing is, we haven't really seen a high budget Smash clone yet. All these games that try are going for their own thing, and those that are very close to Smash (Rivals of Aether) are small indie titles without the budget to bolster the feature set.
 
should have embraced being a "smash clone" and gone all the way with it.

as it stands it seems like they feared backlash and decided to add their own spin and it just didn't turn out very well. roster was underwhelming as well.
 
Oh yeah, the UI was so fucking bad lol.

Also, a lot of you mention art style inconsistency. Only one that comes to mind is Fat Princess, otherwise I thought every character stayed true to their original model from their origin game? Someone care to refresh me on this?
 
Cheap presentation, weird super move rules, roster was odd to some I guess.

Sad, because it plays better than Smash.
 
I had a fun time with it, my biggest complaint was probably the roster though. Whatever third party characters were in there were obviously included because of new games coming out (New Dante/DmC: Devil May Cry, Raiden/Revengeance, Big Daddy/BioShock: Infinite), they included two versions of Cole, etc. It wasn't awful, but there are a lot more third party characters that have PlayStation history that should have been included instead of characters that were obviously included because of marketing deals.

I didn't mind the super system, and some of the stages were really fun. I think PSABR just had a weaker roster than most hoped and would unfortunately be compared to Smash Bros.
 
Oh hey check this fucking guy out it's... uh, Big Daddy I guess? And a myriad of other terrible roster picks. That's on top of the game just being meh.
 
What did he mean by this? said:
1. Roster should have been all Sony IPs exclusively -- weak 3rd party reps brought nothing but ill will
2. Patch out any hit confirms immediately -- utterly invalidates the risk-reward Super system
3. Better stages -- very boring stuff and the fusions made them more boring somehow

edit:
4. Yes, the UI was horrible like they did it a week before release. No theme or cohesiveness.
5. Better marketing of the legacy of the Sony characters and the appeal of the game's systems -- as evident by this thread.
Click to expand...

This and the fact that it's a SSB clone instead of a Power Stone clone. Hell, they should've come up with their own style of arena battle, like God of War Ascension.
 
It was kind of a garbage game. It tried to ape Smash while being nowhere near as fun and that super system was poison. If they took another whack at it and got rid of that super mechanic I'd be kind of interested I guess, but then the question remains why would I play that when Smash is a thing? It'd have to be exceptionally excellent to go against Smash.
 
Crimsonclaw111 said:
Oh hey check this fucking guy out it's... uh, Big Daddy I guess? And a myriad of other terrible roster picks. That's on top of the game just being meh.
Click to expand...
The DLC Characters were an even bigger missed opportunity. Kat was a good pick but Starhawk guy, Issac Clark and freaking Zeus were absolutely horrendous choices.
 
Smash started our as a gameplay concept, as most Nintendo games do, and then adopted mascot characters. It then had 3 more iterations with thousands of hours, tournaments both official and unofficial, and fan mods to really polish the formula, and a creator with a borderline unhealthy desire to make sure it was good. PSAS had none of that
 
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