Video Game / Brawl Stars

Cacti, crows and bats... What a fight! ^note  (From left to right: Colt, Shelly, Poco, Spike, Crow and Mortis)

"You got a vest wearing cactus, grave digging bats, and a killer biker crow. Oh, and if you stop to explain-(gets stabbed by Spike's cacti)...you're a goner."

— Poco in the "No Time To Explain" trailer

Brawl Stars is a casual MOBA game soft-released by Supercell in late 2017 and was globally launched in December of 2018. It's available on the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store. The gameplay is very similar to twin-stick arcade games, such as Smash TV or Robotron: 2084, where you have one button to move, and another to shoot. However, this game is catered for online play, bullets come out much slower or have limited range and you have a limited number of shots to fire before automatically reloading.

As of the global launch, you have 4 buttons to move, shoot, use your super, and use a gadget. For the latter 3 offensive options, you can drag to aim or tap to auto-aim for a sudden encounter and less accuracy. Each brawler has unique attacks, as well as a few unlockables unique to each brawler once they reach certain levels. These unlockables that are obtainable from Brawl Boxes or bought from the shop are Gadgets (Unlocked at level 7), Star Powers (Unlocked at level 9), and Gears (Unlocked at level 10 and 11).

Throughout the game's run (starting from May 2020), there have been various seasons, all with different themes. These seasons (in order) are:

Seasons 1 - 21

1. Tara's Bazaar
   • Chromatic: Gale
2. Summer of Monsters
   • Chromatic: Surge
3. Welcome to Starr Park
   • Chromatic: Colette
4. Holiday Getaway
   • Chromatic: Lou
5. The Starr Force
   • Chromatic: Colonel Ruffs
6. The Goldarm Gang
   • Chromatic: Belle
7. Jurassic Splash
   • Chromatic: Buzz
8. Once Upon a Brawl
   • Chromatic: Ash
9. Brawlywood
   • Chromatic: Lola
10. Year Of the Tiger
    • Chromatic: Fang
11. The Biodome
    • Chromatic: Eve
12. The Stunt Show
    • Chromatic: Janet
13. The Deep Sea Brawl
    • Chromatic: Otis
14. Robot Factory
    • Chromatic: Sam
15. Ghost Station
    • Chromatic: Buster
16. Candyland
    • Chromatic: Mandy
17. Mystery At the Hub
    • Chromatic: R-T
18. Rumble Jungle
    • Chromatic: Maisie
19. Enchanted Woods
    • Chromatic: Cordelius
20. Back to Ranger Ranch
    • Chromatic: Pearl
21. Bizarre Circus
    • Chromatic: Charlie

Seasons 22+

Starting with Season 22, seasons shifted to a monthly format rather than the previous bimonthly format. Seasons no longer have a Chromatic in the Brawl Pass - instead, a Brawler associated with the season is released on the Starr Road.

1. Starr Toon
   • Featured Brawler: Kit
2. Dragon Pit
   • Featured Brawler: Larry & Lawrie
3. Sands of Time
   • Featured Brawler: Angelo
4. Ragnarök
   • Featured Brawler: Melodie
5. Godzilla
   • Featured Brawler: Lily
6. Cyberbrawl
   • Featured Brawler: Draco

There are a total of 10 game modes (called Events) in rotation with 6 on display at a time, with different map layouts every day. Most of these modes are played with two teams of 3 players, with certain exceptions. On weekends, a Special Event appears that isn't worth trophies but has a mission associated with it. These Events are:

Events

• Normal Events: These events are part of everyday rotation. Gem Grab, Showdown, and Brawl Ball are all permanent while Bounty, Heist, Hot Zone, and Knockout rotate between each other.
  • Gem Grab: Two teams compete to control a gem spawner. The first team to keep 10 or more than the other team for 15 seconds wins. A secondary timer also exists for 3.5 minutes, where by the end of that timer, the team with the most gems wins.
  • Showdown (Solo and Duo): A standard free-for-all where 10 players or 5 teams of 2 go all out against each other. The last player or team standing wins. Gas will force players closer together as the match goes on, and they can increase their power by breaking boxes.
  • Brawl Ball: Two teams attempt to kick a soccer ball into the other team's goal. First team to 2 points wins.
  • Bounty: Players get points for killing a brawler, but increase their own bounty and will reward the enemy more for killing them. The team with the most points wins. Ties are broken by a blue star that rewards the team with it a win.
  • Heist: Teams must destroy the other team's safe to win, or have a higher safe HP by the end of the timer.
  • Hot Zone: There are 1-3 zones in the middle to take over. For every half a second, a zone is filled up by 1%. The first team to capture all zones, or have the highest zone percentage by the end of the timer, wins.
  • Knockout: The objective here is simple. You need to take out the entire enemy team two times, and you only respawn after a round ends. Ties are broken by having gas close in on players until one team is eventually taken out.
• Community Events: Events that are voted in by the community, two are in rotation at any given time. As of the most recent patch, those are the Takedown and Wipeout modes.
  • Duels: The only two player mode in the game. You pick a team of three brawlers, and have to defeat your enemy's team. Once a brawler is defeated, players go back to their spawn points, but the loser moves on to their next brawler. Like in Knockout, ties are broken by having gas close in on players.
  • Volley Brawl: Players throw a giant volleyball back and forth between teams by standing in a designated area. The position of this area is determined by the position of the teams.
  • Basket Brawl: Players have to score points by throwing a basketball inside of the enemy team's moving basket. Landing a throw from inside the semicircle awards 2 points, landing one from outside of it (only possible with a Super Attack) awards 3. The team who reaches 5 points first wins.
  • Hunters: A solo only variant of Showdown with a major twist. There are no boxes containing Power Cubes, and everyone can respawn. The first player to get 6 eliminations wins.
  • Wipeout: Good old fashioned 3v3 Team Deathmatch. First team to get 10 kills wins. Uses "Takedown" to denote kills, but shouldn't be confused with the Takedown Event.
  • Takedown: 10 Players, 1 boss robot. The winner is whoever dealt the most damage to the boss.
• Special Events: Weekend events that don't yield trophies but still contribute to missions.
  • Big Game: 5 players go up against a powered up player, known as the Big Brawler. The Big Brawler is appropriately massive, and is given buffs to their health, damage, and reload speed. If the Big Brawler is defeated within 2 minutes, the other 5 Brawlers win. Otherwise, the Big Brawler wins.
  • Robo Rumble: 3 players defend a safe from waves of robots. If the safe is not destroyed by the end of two minutes, the players win. Beating each level allows you to progress to the next level, which feature faster and stronger robots.
  • Boss Fight: 3 players team up against a boss robot with an absurd amount of HP. Beating it grants access to progressively harder difficulty levels that carry more rewards.
• Limited Time Events: Events that are only available as part of a seasonal event, like the Christmas Brawlidays event.
  • Hold the Trophy: The objective here is simple. There's a trophy at the center of the map. Make sure your team holds it long enough. The player holding the trophy is slowed down.
  • Present Plunder/Trophy Thief: A Capture the Flag style game mode. Near both team spawn points is a trophy. Take the enemy trophy to your base two times to win.
• Retired Events: Events that have, for one reason or another, been removed from the game and haven't been heard since.
  • Siege: Two teams collect Bolts scattered about the map, which are then fed to their IKE turret to build an assault robot meant to destroy the enemy turret. The robot's HP is Always the same, but it becomes stronger and faster depending on how many bolts are collected.
  • Bot Drop: Teams must collect 8 Bolts to win the match, which can only be dropped by robots that start spawning throughout the match that are hostile to both teams.
  • Lone Star: An Event that plays as a mix between Bounty and Showdown, just like Bounty there are respawns and the bounty star system/win condition and like Showdown it's a 10 player free-for-all.
  • Payload: Each team has a cart that must be pushed to the other team's side to win. The carts act like walls, blocking shots, and will destroy anything in its path that isn't a Brawler.
  • Super City Rampage: 3 players team up against a huge Godzilla-like monster who’s attacking the city. It must be beaten before it destroys all buildings.
  • Last Stand: 3 players team up with an AI-controlled 8-Bit, and must protect him from incoming robots. Over time, 8-Bit shuts down and needs to be reset with one of the limited coins that have spawned around the map. Collecting one boots him back up, has him place his damage booster, and fully heals him. Players win by surviving 2 minutes.

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Every Troper for Themselves!

• Abnormal Ammo: There's the typical shotgun pellets, Colt's bullets. Then you have stuff like Spike's cactus bombs, playing cards, Spread Shot coins, music, booze, sand, energy drinks, etc. It even becomes funnier when you actually calculate the damage of these individual projectiles, like how can an energy drink blob [784 damage - Surge], deal more damage than a bullet?? [504 damage - Colt]
• Accidental Murder: Poor Shelly accidentally activates one of Dynamike's explosives when her powers are activated by a gem, apparently killing him in the process. You can see the despair on her face when she realizes what she has done.
• Action Girl: All of the female Brawlers are this.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: We have the Bad Randoms, a Punk Rock band.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Generally averted unless you're playing Robo Rumble or Boss Fight, where the 3 robot enemy types frequently appear (they are the Mouse Bot, the Sniper Bot and the Boxer Bot). In the former gamemode, you have to defend the middle safe against waves of these Robo Bandits with a Giant Robot appearing in the middle of the round. In the latter gamemode, said Robo Bandits still appear... as support enemies. Your main objective is to destroy the Boss Robot without getting team-wiped.
• Anachronism Stew: Averted at first, as the main theme was supposed to be a "Wild West" theme, like sheriffs, bartenders, and Native Americans with bits of Steampunk sprinkled in to the mix. As of now, there are pirates, genies, robots shooting bouncy gumballs, kids in chameleon jackets throwing out ninja stars, etc.
  • Subverted as of the September 2020 Brawl Talk, which revealed the game took place in a theme park and not the Wild West. Still, the environments of the game vary alot, from junkyards to jungles, a shop and space!
  • And even still, the Wild West style was eventually brought back into the game with the Season 6 update, The Goldarm Gang.
• All Bikers are Hells Angels: The Retropolis Trio are a gang of outlaw bikers who wear leather jackets and are rough and tough.
• Art Evolution: A LOT of character models have vastly improved. For example, Shelly used to look a lot worse◊ before her current design was decided on. Others, like Dynamike, look nothing like their past designs. In fact, tons of Brawlers have been revamped, either getting new designs or icons. In fact, Brawl Stars started animating faces on brawlers, skins and pins in 2020, with every Brawler eventually being updated to the quality standards of the newer ones.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Subverted in Season 13, The Deep Sea Brawl, where Fang and Colt were shown on the loading screen posing like rappers on a stereotypical 90s album cover along with a with 90's fashioned Hip-Hop song as the lobby theme with record scratches to boot. However, sadly, they were never shown actually spitting rhymes in any promotional material.
• Badass Native: Bo is this, through and through. Sadly, the same can't be said for Nita and Leon.
• Barrier Warrior: Buster and Gus, though in very different ways.
  • Buster's Super deploys a reflecting screen from his projector that blocks enemy shots or otherwise acts as a wall to projectiles.
  • Gus' Super can either be quickfired to give it to himself or aimed to give to a teammate, giving them a personal shield that has more health the higher power Gus is and decays over time. The shield effectively acts as overheal, as getting hit will still activate any relevant effects such as Super generation or Jacky's Counter Crush.
• Bottomless Magazines: Although you do need to reload.
• Christmas Episode: Brawlidays, the Christmas event, occurs each December, giving festive skins to the game. To boot, they have made not one, two, not even three, but FOUR entire Christmas short animations. However, you'd be forgiven for thinking that fourth one takes place in a snowy winter wonderland while it actually takes place in Candyland, which doesn't feel festive at all.
• Close-Range Combatant: Close-range brawlers like Rosa, El Primo, Bull and Edgar.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: You're always colored green. Allies, their attacks, and your attacks are always colored blue, and enemies and their attacks are always colored red. For Duo Showdown, teams are labelled with different colours even when they die, showing up in the kill indicator. As of now, the colours are red, yellow, pink and blue for the other teams.
• Colony Drop: One event in Showdown involves meteors hitting the map. You'll have to run like crazy to get out of their range before they hit.
• Combat Medic: Several of the Support class brawlers classify, albeit in different ways.
  • Poco deals low damage and has a mid-ranged spread attack that can pierce, but his Super exclusively heals allies. His gadget either heals you over time, or removes all ailments like slowing, stuns, damage over time, and gives you immunity for a while. When he gets access to his Star Powers, he can either heal with his basic attack or damage with his Super.
  • Gus's method of healing is a lot more niche, but makes him great at synergizing with Assassin and Tank characters who fight enemies up close. As Gus attacks, he fills a Spirit Meter that takes three hits to fill and activates on the fourth. When he hits someone a fourth time it spends the Spirit Meter and drops a ghost where they got hit, which ally brawlers can pick up for healing. One of his Star Powers outright doubles the healing of the ghosts, which at the power levels you would get it at means increasing the healing per ghost to between 2200-2400 health.
  • Pam's Super places down a turret with a constant healing AoE, healing allies inside it until it's either taken out or another one is placed. One of her Gadgets allows her to burst heal, and one of her Star Powers heals her and nearby allies when she hits an enemy.
  • Byron is notable among the Support brawlers for being the only character able to hit his own teammates to heal them, Poco and Lola's Star Powers notwithstanding. Byron's shots inflict either regeneration or poison depending on who they hit, and since the damage/healing uses the same number, increases Byron's healing when his damage is buffed.
• Critical Status Buff: With the Damage Gear equipped, a Brawler will deal 15% more damage when below 50% health.
• Cyclops: Stu, Barley, Rico, Darryl, Nani and Otis.
• Dastardly Whiplash: Mortis has shades of this.
• Dem Bones: Poco is a yellow skeleton mariachi.
• Developer's Foresight: Some environment will have their appearance altered depends on what brawler you're playing. For sample: Mandy and Chester won't appear at the top of the Candyland environment if either of them is the brawler you're playing as.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Piper's low health, incredibly slow reload, and damage mechanic spells doom if an enemy gets close, and her escape-hatch like Super can lead to other marksmen mowing her down once she lands. Piper needs constant protection from her teammates to succeed, and if they do, it will be worth it. Piper deals significantly more damage than most other Brawlers with her normal attack, and with damage boosts, can outright one-shot the lower health Brawlers that can match her insane range. With her first Star Power, she can attack from a bush, unseen, with even higher power. Meanwhile, her Second Star Power rewards good Pipers by giving them a slight ammo bump, allowing them to chain shots! A good Piper can remain annoyingly out of reach while she snipes all the backline fighters with ease. Even the developers lampshade how aggravating an experienced Piper can be.
  • In fact, most Sharpshooters are shades of this. Though it takes a while to get used to their aim, it eventually pays off when you're able to strafe and take out most brawlers.
  • Mortis is questionably this. With his star power and a good player, you can super chain through opponents clearing them. However, mess up once and you melt instantly. It doesn't help that he's still somewhat hated by the community.
• Dub Name Change: Occasionally happens with the Brawlers' names:
  • The French translation is the most noteworthy: El Primo is referred as El Costo, Sprout becomes Wally, Amber becomes Ambre, Barley becomes Bartaba, 8-BIT becomes A.R.K.A.D, Bibi becomes Billie, Crow becomes Corbac, Gene becomes D'Jinn, Emz becomes Eliz@, Mr. P becomes Monsieur P, Sandy becomes Émeri, Gale becomes Gaël, Piper becomes Polly and Rico is called Ricochet, just like he used to in the earlier versions of the game.
  • In the Italian localization Nani is Iris, Amber is Ambra, Poco is Pocho, Darryl is Barryl, Sprout is Semino, Barley is Bombardino, Rico is Stecca, Max is Maxine, Gale is Gelindo and Surge is Energetik.
  • Japanese: Piper is referred as エリザベス (Elizabeth, which is also her voice actress' first name).
  • Portuguese: Crow becomes Corvo, Gene becomes Eugênio and Surge becomes Wattson. ^note About the specific case of Surge/Wattson, Dani, the Community Manager, said in an interview that he's not sure if this is going to change, because enough time has passed and some players already got used to the name Wattson. He also said that the priorities need to be considered and wondered if it was such a big deal that it would make someone stop playing.[1]
• Excuse Plot: The Brawlers are too preoccupied with beating each other up to care about why. Downplayed as of the September 2020 Brawl Talk, which implies that something shady's going on in the underbelly of the game. Something VERY big and VERY shady.
• Eyes Always Shut: Surge's eyes are always closed, no matter what.
• The Fighting Narcissist: Colt has shades of this, since he's "Too pretty for pain!".
• Flunky Boss: Brawlers that can summon minions, such as Penny's Old Lobber, Jessie's Scrappy, or Nita's Big Baby Bear can become this in Big Game, as the minions gain the same power boost as the Big Brawler that summoned them, though not to the same extent.
• Generic Graffiti:
  • The castle from Season 8: Once Upon a Brawl has a lot. Yes, graffiti tags on a fairytale castle .
  • Otis leaves these around, being a graffiti artist. See for yourself.
  • In the loading screen for the Brawl Academy skin set, some tags are visible on the lockers, likely written by Stu, EMZ and Chester ^note Appears to be shortened to "Ches" respectively.
• Geo Effects: The Speed Gear gives Brawlers a 15% speed boost while inside bushes, and Angelo's Flow Star Power gives him a 25% speed boost while flying over water.
• Glass Cannon: Most sharpshooters and throwers qualify. You can deal tons of damage with them if you're left alone, but get too close to someone and you'll be shattered in just about 2-3 hits.
  • Tick is an extreme example of this. For a brawler that can simply deny area with a few shots and some mines that take fairly long time to disappear, he will melt if someone attacks him. He barely goes over 3000 health at power 9!
• Head Pet: It's easy to miss, but Dynamike is hiding a canary under his mining helmet.
• Improvised Weapon: Frank attacks his opponents with a hammer that consists of a tombstone attached to a steel pipe.
• Japanese Delinquent: Bibi's design has elements that can be seen in a typical japanese delinquent character, like the jacket and the baseball bat.
• Lightning Bruiser: Despite their short range, heavyweights have higher health than other classes as well as above-average damage and speed, the latter of which can be boosted further by most of them through a Super, Gadget, or Star Power.
• Meaningful Name: Cute and simple puns for most characters. Watchthis video for the origin of all the names!
  • Shelly fires a Spread Shot of shotgun shells.
  • Nita's name means bear in most Native American languages.
  • Colt is armed with Colt Pythons.
  • Bull's special involves him attacking like one. He wears a nose ring like a bull.
  • Jessie's full name is Jessie Junker, not only an alliteration, but Jessie even rhymes with "messy", which describes the Junker family in a nutshell. One can tell by looking at their scrapyard.
  • Brock is armed with a rocket launcher.
  • Dynamike throws dynamite.
  • Bo wields a bow and arrows.
  • 8-BIT is a sentient arcade machine.
  • Tick makes some 'tick' noises and his mines are "tick"ing time bombs.
  • Emz as in "Emo Mummy Zombie", which is Emz's description.
  • STU as in stuntman, since he's a stunt robot. However, it could also refer to "Starr Park Testing Unit" since he was a crash test robot beforehand.
  • Barley is a type of malt liquor. Barley is also a "Bar"-tender robot.
  • Rosa totes around a rose-like plant that shrouds her and protects her from most damage.
  • Rico's shots ricochet and he was named Ricochet back in Beta.
  • Darryl's in a barrel and his Super has him doing a barrel roll.
  • Penny shoots coins, aka pennies.
  • Carl's in a cart.
  • Jacky wields a jackhammer.
  • Piper is a sniper.
  • Frank is a Frankenstein-esque monster.
  • Bibi could be written as "B.B", as in baseball, and she uses Batter Up! tactics. It can also be derived from mean "B"u"b"ble gum, as seen from her super.
  • Bea uses bee-shaped drones to attack.
  • Nani is Jessie's robotic nanny.
  • Edgar could be described as an edgy teen who's going through a phase, something which was mentioned by the developers. KairosTimeYT mentioned that Edgar is actually a very popular emo boy name, which happens to fit his character. It also works as a possible nod to Edgar Allan Poe, famous for his dark literary aesthetic and life of suffering.
  • Hank drives a tank.
  • Mortis is close to the Latin word "Mort" meaning death, and Mortis digs graves for dead people.
  • Tara is a Death Dealer, and her name is a pun on tarot cards.
  • Gene is a genie.
  • Max's name is short for "Maximum", her play style revolves around moving at maximum speed.
  • Mr. Penguin.
  • Sprout is a less-developed plant (a sprout) piloting a robot.
  • Byron has many snake motifs in his design and voicelines, specifically the Myron snake. Combine that with "Buy" for him being a salesman? Byron.
  • Squeak is a mutated blob of dog drool from Colonel Ruff's squeaky toys. He himself also squeaks in his voicelines.
  • Willow gets her name from the black willows found in swamps, being a swamp monster herself.
  • Gray is black and white in color. When black and white are mixed, you get Gray.
  • Doug serves hot dogs.
  • Chuck's name comes from the chu chu noise a train makes.
  • Spike is a spiked cactus.
  • Crow is, well, a crow.
  • Leon's Super involves him turning invisible, like a chameleon.
  • Sandy has Sand Blaster powers, being able to manipulate sharp rocks and whip up sandstorms.
  • Amber's name is one letter away from ember, and she fights with fire.Moreover, Amber refers to an orange colour, which is reflected in her colour scheme.
  • Meg's super gives her a "Meg"cha [Mecha] suit.
  • Chester is a jester.
  • Gale means an extremely strong wind, which is reflected in his Super.
  • Surge increases his power every time he uses his Super. In other words, a power surge.
  • Colette is a Loony Fan With A Crush of the Brawlers, and she collects trinkets and scraps from them in her scrapbook.
  • Lou is an ice cream machine and he is as cold as an ig"lou''.
  • Ruffs is a dog.
  • Belle is inspired from an actual bandit, Belle Starr, whose last name just so happens to be Starr like in "Starr Park". Likewise, Sam's name comes from Belle Starr's husband Sam Starr, and Pearl's name comes from Belle Starr's daughter Pearl Starr.
  • Griff might be a grifter or a person who engages in petty swindling, given by his oddly cheap discounts and greed for money.
  • Buzz is, well, buzzing his whistle all the time as a lifeguard.
  • Ash is a trash knight.
  • Lola is spelled with the letters L and A. Los Angeles (L.A.) is a place where Hollywood, a reference of Brawlywood, is located.
  • Janet wears a jet pack.
  • Eve is a mother. In Hebrew, "Eve" means "source of life," which is where the Eve from The Bible was also named after.
  • Buster works at a cinema and his name comes from blockbuster.
  • Mandy rhymes with Candy.
  • Fang is a martial artist and aspiring actor, and his name is a generic name for Asian actors staring in martial arts movies. Fang is also the English translation of the surname of Jackie Chan.
  • R-T is made up of both a radio and a television.
  • Maisie's name could come from maize, which is used to make popcorn, and Maisie works at the cinema with both Buster and Fang.
  • Cordelius' name comes from the Cordyceps fungi.
  • Charlie's name is possibly a Shout-Out to Charlotte's Web as she is a fan of spiders.
  • Mico attacks with a boom mic.
  • Kit is a kitten.
  • Larry and Lawrie are the law enforcers of Starr Park.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: El Primo's second Gadget summons a meteor that can deal a lot of damage if it hits.
• Mighty Glacier: 8-BIT is this, boasting some of the highest DPS in the game (and with a damage increasing booster AND a damage increasing gadget) and the highest health out of all sharpshooters, in exchange for being the Brawler with the slowest moving speed. He is the only brawler with "Very Slow" speed.
• Mook Maker: Mr. P's Super, a Porter base that constantly spawns small Porter allies to attack enemies.
• Overheating: Most brawlers have a limited ammo pool that recharges, so you have a limited number of shots to fire before automatically reloading. This is especially prominent with Amber who has a single ammo bar that continually goes down when holding down fire and recharges shortly after she stops attacking, contrary to the 3 ammo bars most others have. Averted with Carl and Charlie, who "recharge" their attacks by having them return to them like a boomerang, allowing them to throw it near a wall and constantly regenerate it.
• The Paralyzer:
  • Shelly's Super, with her Star Power, slows enemies for a few seconds.
  • Nita's first Gadget stuns enemies that are close to her bear.
  • Dynamike's second Gadget stuns the enemies for 1.5 seconds.
  • With his second Star Power, Bo's mines stun enemies for 2 seconds upon exploding.
  • Jacky's Super immobilizes anyone caught in it's range.
  • Frank can outright stun enemies with his normal Super.
  • Crow's second Gadget allows him to slow down poisoned enemies.
  • Gale's Super can stun enemy brawlers that are blown into walls for a short moment with his first Star Power.
  • Lou's unique Frost Meter mechanic. Opponents with a full Frost Meter will freeze in place for 1.5 seconds.
  • Buzz can stun enemies with his Super. The stun duration is affected by how far he was from the target when he used his Super.
  • Fang's second Gadget can stun enemies for 0.5 second.
  • One of Chester's possible Supers, Jawbreaker, stuns enemies for a second.
• Pinball Projectile: Jessie, Ruffs, Belle and Rico have weapons or Gadgets that do this, and Bibi's Super is a massive version. Rico and Ruffs' attack, Bibi's Super, and Belle's Gadget bounces off walls, whereas Jessie and Belle's attack bounces off enemies and home onto the nearest target.
• Pirate Girl: Penny. She even speaks like she's drunk!
• Premium Currency: Gems are occasionally given in fixed amounts for free (Brawl Pass, gifts) and can be directly bought for real money and can be used to complete transactions where there other types of currency are lacking. They are the exclusive means for buying Legendary skins and formerly the premium Brawl Pass (which now needs to be directly bought with money).
• Punk Rock: The genre of the fictional band, Bad Randoms.
• Rewards Pass: The Brawl Pass, natch. Unlike most other examples, only the free version provides the game's premium currency, plus the free version also has rewards on every stage. In fact, the free Brawl Pass has much more practical rewards in the form of Credits, Power Points, and Gold over the paid version's primarily cosmetic offerings outside of that season's Brawler.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Barley, Rico, Darryl, Carl, Nani, Surge, Lou and Stu. Even the Boxer Bot and Sniper Bot are humanoid shaped.
• Riding the Bomb: Dynamike's first Star Power lets him launch himself with his weapon's explosions.
  • Brock can also do this with his first Gadget.
• Robot Buddy:
  • Sprout is this to Bea and Rosa.
  • Jessie's turret, Scrappy.
  • Nani is this to Jessie and Pam.
  • Stu is this to Janet and Bonnie.
• Rolling Attack: Darryl's Super has him roll forward in his barrel, bouncing off walls in the process.
• RPG Elements: Brawlers can level up using coins and energy, boosting their stats. Higher levels unlock Gadgets, which gives you two options for a new Brawler-specific active ability with 3 charges, two Gear slots (one at level 7, and the second at level 10) that allow you to choose from several generic passive bonuses, and Star Powers, which give you the choice of one of two Brawler-specific passive bonuses.
• Support Party Member: An entire subset of brawlers, appropriately dubbed Support. Don't let the role get your guard down though, as all of them can still fight to a good capacity and can still reliably take out other brawlers.
  • Max is an offensive buffer that uses her Super to buff her allies' speed. An 8-BIT isn't so scary from far away, right? Consider him charging you at Mach 2.
  • Ruffs (formerly Colonel Ruffs) can call down care packages to permanently buff his teammates until their next respawn. These care packages are called in the form of an airdrop, and can be used to hit enemies too.
  • Gene's method of support is pulling enemies closer with his Super. Seems okay at best, but the real benefit of it is that the hand that's fired to grab somebody can go through walls, breaking said walls as the hapless brawler gets pulled toward him and likely the rest of his team. Just make sure you don't grab someone who actually wants to be that close, though.
• Shout-Out:
  • Handsome Colt skin is reminiscent of the robbers from Money Heist.
  • When using her Super, Jessie may say "Say hello to my little friend!" The exact same thing happens when Lola uses her Super.
  • After defeating a Brawler, Dynamike will sometimes say "Dyn-o-mite!"
  • Piper's Super is reminiscent of Mary Poppins, besides the bombs...
    • She also has a pink skin that makes her look strikingly similar to another blonde, pink-dressed lady...
  • One of Frank's skins looks similar to that of a certain caveman...
  • Bonnie has a cannon named Clyde.
  • Following the Brawlywood update, multiple skins that were released are references to films and television series:
    • Bull's skin from the Brawl Pass, B-800, is based on T-800.
    • Take a guess for what is based on Squeakbuster Gale.
    • Surge Kong references King Kong.
  • Grom attacks by throwing his walkie-talkie over obstacles that explodes in a cross pattern upon contact. Sound familiar?
• Southern Belle: Piper.
• Smug Snake: Carl and Byron. The latter of the two being quite fitting considering he's themed around snakes.
• The Speechless: Most new Brawlers go for a bit without voice acting, but Spike never got any throughout the duration of the game and never will.
• Summon Bigger Fish: How Nita's Super operates.
• Squishy Wizard: Nani's standard attack can obliterate anything short of a heavyweight if all three energy bolts connect, and Barley can rain down lingering damage from afar. Bea has a respectable range, and when she hits an opponent, her next hit is amplified by a scary 175%. And how could we forgot Tick, who has mines that can last for 2 seconds before disappearing, essentially being able to shut off certain lanes to enemies. They all have low health, and if any of them caught at close range, they're toast. Especially Tick, who can practically die with a single shot from any brawler.
• Stone Wall: Averted with most Tanks, due to their attacks having range issues more than damage issues, and very easily demolishing anything that gets within range. However, this is actually Played Straight with a non-Tank character:
  • Nita has above average health and does decent damage, but is easily outclassed in that regard, especially in the Damage Dealer class. What she has instead is her deployable Super, Big Baby Bear. The bear has the same max health as the Nita that summoned it, but always knows where the enemy is and slowly walks towards them, swiping at them when it gets within melee range. Nita can also use a Gadget and Star Power to specifically play into this trope, using the Faux Fur Gadget for temporary damage reduction for the bear, and the Bear With Me Star Power that lets Nita and Big Baby Bear heal each other when they attack.
• Suddenly Voiced: Some earlier Brawlers would be added the game with no voice lines only to have them implemented later on. Spike is the only exception, being canonically The Speechless.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Rico, Barley, 8-Bit, Lou, Nani, R-T, and Pearl were designed to be a gumball machine, bartender, arcade cabinet, snow cone machine, nanny, information kiosk, and oven respectively, but can all go toe-to-toe with other Brawlers.
• Symbolic Blood: All Brawlers leave a patch of goop on the ground when KO'd.
• Team Mom: Pam is a Combat Medic, and her skill names and skill lines revolve around motherly things. She's also focused more on healing teammates rather than herself AND teammates.
• The Unintelligible: Tick, Frank, Tara, Gene, Mr. P, Squeak and Otis.
• Use Your Head: Bull's Super involves him ramming full force in a straight line. Not recommended in Showdown, as a player can crash into the poison gas, spelling doom if they used the Super in desperation unless he has his second Gadget.
  • Tick literally uses his head for his Super; he deploys it to the ground to create a speedy suicide unit.
• Wrench Wench: Jessie and Pam, who, in the case of the former, overlaps with Gadgeteer Genius.
• You Will Not Evade Me: Gene's Super yanks fleeing opponents back to him.

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