Alas, Poor Scrappy: Lincoln was far and away the least popular character in the roster of the first game, mainly due to The Loud House being mostly unpopular with the game's main demographic as well as his milquetoast appearance and movesetnote which fans of The Loud House criticize, as it , aside from his Up Special, felt like a mostly phoned-in "generic little boy" moveset and doesn't really pull from a lot of the interesting things Lincoln does on the show itself. compared to the other characters (including his own sister Lucy). Nevertheless, his exclusion from the second game's roster was as widely criticized as the other characters who were cut, especially since he is the face of 2010's Nickelodeon and the main character of his own show note which is both actively ongoing and Nick's second biggest cartoon, surpassing even The Fairly OddParents! and Rugrats in episode count. He's also one of the characters that Nick promotes the most by far, treatment that none of his sisters receive. while Lucy remained in the roster, making his absence extremely noticeable and jarring. He's even cited as one of the characters who needed a 2-style moveset revamp the most.
Awesome Ego: Upon seeing his showcase from the first game, fans were amazed by the amount of sass that Lincoln displays. His winning animation, in particular, has him shamelessly pose and rub in his victory. This didn't stop him from becoming The Scrappy in the actual game, though.
Some of the characters' stage themes like Helga's, Danny's, Lucy's, Oblina's, CatDog's, and SpongeBob's are quite catchy and enjoyable and definitely help capture the feeling of their character and source material's soundtrack.
Breather Boss: Sartana de los Muertos is considered the easiest boss in All-Star Brawl 2 due to having slower attack patterns than most bosses and how spaced out the attacks are. Because of this, Sartana's attacks are very easy to read and you likely won't have too much trouble against her, even on the higher difficulties, especially when compated to other bosses, like the Flying Dutchman or Shredder.
The music. Some people find actual merit in the stage themes and enjoy how each one takes clear inspiration from its corresponding show, while another group hates that the music consists of entirely original compositions instead of being actual background music from the Nicktoons, which allegedly gives the game a Shoddy Knockoff Product feel. The fact that each stage only has one track, leaving out the potential for soundtracks that Nickelodeon or GameMill could still have the rights to from previous video games with these franchises, only further hammers in this issue.
The inclusion of Hugh Neutron over Jimmy. Some feel that a character who's demand was fueled by meme culture shouldn't have been prioritized over the actual, also in-demand main character of the show (in other words, meme power shouldn't out-prioritize importance/significance). Others enjoy the pick and feel that the game shouldn't have to follow a Super Smash Bros.-esque character inclusion hierarchy, and like the unpredictability. Then there are some who like Hugh, seeing him as a very memorable part of the show, but would've preferred that we got Jimmy first, especially since most people wanted Hugh alongside Jimmy and not instead of him. It should be noted that Jimmy consistently placed above Hugh in fan polls, and was the character with the most fan demand overall at the time. The sequel had the opposite problem; Jimmy finally joins the roster as a newcomer, but his father gets reduced to an NPC. Some are just glad to have Jimmy where he belongs, while others are angry that Hugh was cut, and question why we couldn't have both characters as playable, thus invoking a sense of Badass Family while showing their character contrasts in full display.
The second game's roster is much more divisive than the first (which most agreed had issues, but was still overall very good for a low-budget first title). Some praise it for the extensive character reworks, and the drastically improved quality of the game as a whole, citing many of the newcomers as fantastic picks, with a mix of both big fan requests (such as Squidward, Jimmy Neutron, and El Tigre) and more left-field choices (Grandma Gertie, Gerald, and Rocksteady). Others dislike the roster, as in the process of reworking everything the developers decided to cut 11 charactersnote 44.5% of the previous game's roster, which included many fan favorites and Nickelodeon icons such as Toph, CatDog, and Helga, while still excluding popular fan requests such as Otis, Snap, Tak, Mr. Blik, and especially Timmy Turner. It also retains many of the previous game's roster flaws, such as main character snubs (only made worse by the loss of characters like Lincoln and Helga) and only having two of the four Turtles once again (with Leonardo and Michelangelo being swapped out for Donatello and Raphael, which is seen by detractors as a tone-deaf decision.)
The concept of cuts in particular had absolutely dominated the game's prerelease discussion, with some seeing the roster cuts as a worthy trade-off for the improvement of everything else, while others see it as a sour spot on the most important element of a crossover, leading many to outright cancel their preorders. Supporters of the cuts also feel that detractors are "Spoiled by Smash" and that big character cuts are a frequent reality of popular fighting game franchises like Street Fighter and Tekken. Detractors argue that just because other fighting games do it doesn't make it a good thing, nor that All-Star Brawl has to follow suit, especially with the franchise being clearly inspired by Smash and marketing itself towards its fanbase, and not those who play traditional fighters. They also note that Smash is generally more consistent and rational with which characters it decides to cut between entries, as they are kept to a low number and usually consist of clonesnote Such as Dr. Mario, Pichu, Young Link, etc. minor non-essentialsnote such as Wolf and Lucas, and difficult-to-reobtain third partiesnote such as Snake, and nearly Cloud as well, while All-Star Brawl was willing to cut major Nick staples without much thought or consideration.
The representation for Hey Arnold! in particular is contentious, and is seen as the biggest example of skewed roster selection priorities. Helga, a fan favorite in the first entry, was relegated to being a stage cameo in the second, and was not replaced by the much demanded Arnold, but by Gerald and his own GRANDMOTHER. Some find Gertie to be hilarious, being a clear Captain Falcon analogue who was, ironically, chosen by the Nick higher-ups themselves. Others find the pick to be the perfect example of a bad roster choice, seeing that both Nick and Ludosity prioritized less important picks over iconic Nick staples and fan favoritesnote and unlike Hugh Neutron in the previous game, Gertie had little to no fan demand on her side. Meanwhile, some love the African-American representation Gerald brings to the table and the inspiration that went into his moveset, while others decry him for being both a boring replacement for Helga that nobody asked for and yet another Hey Arnold character who isn't Arnold himself. The fact that Arnold was previously playable in the Nickelodeon Super Brawl series of online fighting games doesn't help matters.
The DLC Pass didn't make the situation any better, and if anything only exacerbated the aforementioned issues. While Mr. Krabs and Zuko were seen as excellent choices and highly in-demand picks, reception towards Iroh and Rocksteady was much more divisive. For the former, some love Iroh's inclusion, as he is a beloved character and Sacred Cow in his home franchise. Detractors see him as likable but redundant, as his inclusion alongside his nephew now made for three firebender characters on the game's roster (which only made Toph's disclusion sting all the more for some). In turn, this also made Azula's inclusion more questionable, as she wasn't utilized as a villain for story mode, thus many feel they should've just gone for Zuko in the base game instead. Meanwhile, Rocksteady was seen by supporters as a good passion pick by the development team and another fun and unpredictable choice, and one that was originally considered for the previous game but ultimately held off until this installment. Detractors see him as a pointless pick nobody asked for, and was controversial for being both a minion character being promoted over Shredder and as another TMNT rep slot not going towards completing the four Turtles. His inclusion also negatively influenced the fanbase's reception of main character snubs even more than it already was, and is seen as another example of the game's skewed roster selection priorities. Even Krabs gets a bit of criticism, but moreso due to his inclusion making Sandy's absence all the more jarringnote as she is now the only SpongeBob main character to be missing. Outside of the characters themselves, detractors also voice criticisms of the pass for its' high price tagnote $24.99, compared to the $12 of the previous game's Universe Pass lack of contentnote the Season Pass contains just characters, while the Universe Pass brought new stages and music alongside its lineup, and lack of representation for unrepresented franchises such as Aaahh! Real Monsters and CatDog.
The announcement of Aang and Korra being in the first game's base roster was already confirmed in advance to anyone who paid attention to the leaks, their stages (Air Temple and Harmonic Convergence) appearing in the game's initial announcement trailer, and especially their presence in the game's box art on the splash icon for the Nintendo Switch version of the game, if anyone pre-ordered it digitally. The released art also matches leaks from several months prior, which also showed Toph on the roster. By the time she herself was revealed to be in the game, it was basically an open secret that she would be part of the roster.
Very few people were shocked by Jenny's announcement as a DLC fighter, as she was widely agreed to be one of the biggest snubs for the base game's roster alongside Jimmy Neutron and Timmy Turner and she had been leading in the polls asking about who people wanted to see since they were opened.
Cheese Strategy: In 2, PC players can keep their rank from going down by Save Scumming. This isn't possible on platforms that have cloud saves permanently on.
While fans are generally focused on hoping characters they consider "Nickelodeon all-stars" get into the game and think anything else is impossible, Word of God says the game's title isn't meant to be taken that seriously and they'd add whoever they feel like, even Guest Fighters with little to no Nick connections. To be fair however, NASB1's final roster doesn't suggest that is the case, since every character on the roster is either from a Nicktoon or a franchise Nick wants to associate with them, and even the characters Ludosity had to fight to include are characters Nick likes to acknowledge in other contexts.
Reptar being the only playable Rugrats character makes it seem like the show's actual main characters are banned from being playable in fighting games for being babies. Except not only were Tommy and Angelica playable in Super Brawl Universe, concept art for the first game suggests at one point they were considering Angelica.
Expect to see a lot of Reptar players online, due to his extremely high damage output and weight.
Toph is also very common online in the first game, due to her powerful, easily spammable strong attacks.
Demonic Spiders: Many of the mob enemies can be very annoying if you don't know how to deal with them. For one example, the Thug Tugs hit like a semi-truck and are very heavy, making them difficult to launch without a whole lot of boosts. They also have a grab attack that has super armor and is exceedingly difficult to escape from if they successfully grab you. If they successfully grab you with it, they'll either slam you into the ground or, if you're caught at the worst possible place, potentially dive off the stage with you and pile-drive you into the blast zone. Fortunately, since they're such huge targets, they're very easy to zone out.
Fandom-Specific Plot: There's no evidence of it in game or in trailers, but a lot of fanart tends to depict characters as getting a letter invite ala Super Smash Bros..
Fandom Rivalry: With Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With the game purposely designed to play like Super Smash Bros. Melee, pointedly having extra care put into the online netcode, and being built with competitive play in mind, gamers unhappy with Nintendo's decisions regarding the competitive Smash scene (especially die-hard fans of Melee) and/or dissatisfied with Ultimate's poor netcode latched on to this game and hyped it up as serious competition for Smash. Others vocally wanted the game to succeed purely out of spite toward the Smash fanbase's infamously toxic Vocal Minority. Not helping matters was unfortunate timing that lead some of All-Star Brawl's fanbase to believe that Nintendo was intentionally trying to sabotage the game for intruding on Ultimate's turfnote such as the presentation for Ultimate's final DLC character (Sora, a Disney character no less) coinciding with All-Star Brawl's release date of October 5th, and the game's first major patch coming considerably later for the Switch than for other versions (despite how game patches having a few more hoops to jump through with Nintendo than other companies before going live is nothing new) and later blaming Nintendo when NASB's playerbase experienced a significant drop-off after launch. On the flipside, the Ultimate fanbase quickly grew to find NASB's fanbase obnoxious due to it constantly and deliberately dunking on Smash, Smash fans, and Nintendo and continuing to hype the game up as a "Smash killer" even after the game launched with numerous technical problems that Ultimate lacked, and generally finding the hype for All-Star Brawl vastly overblown.
Wavetoasting for Powdered Toast Man's dev-admitted ability to Waveshine and Multi Shine. The latter also gets called "multigraining" for a bread-related pun.
Dog's Strong Up-Air attack, where he quintuples in size to strike his opponent with a mighty flex, is generally referred to as "updog".
"MYSTERY NICKERS" is frequently used by 4chan to refer to unannounced characters. When the games come out, the term is also used to refer to the DLC characters.
Franchise Original Sin: NASB has revealed to the wider gaming audience and Smash fans in particular things that are more typical for Nicktoons games than they they realize:
One aspect that makes Ultimate fans feel the game is an inferior knockoff to Smash is that none of the in-game music comes from the shows themselves, instead being original compositions. However, virtually every single Nicktoons-based game uses original music — with cartoons, it's very difficult to use music directly from them because they're either taken from stock libraries or composed specifically for the show's needs, and both would likely be unfitting, not to mention expensive to license. It's only considered a problem with NASB because Smash makes heavy use of songs from the original games, which are much more feasible to reuse. In fact, mods that try to make the game's music more Smash-like (both in terms of quantity, and using songs created for previous Nicktoons media instead of all-new compositions) use music sourced from Nicktoons Racing, Nicktoons Unite!, etc. alongside music made for the shows.
Those used to the way Smash tends to expand on franchise representation find it weird that Sandy would be the third SpongeBob representative, as Squidward could be seen as the franchise's tritagonist thanks to him being SpongeBob's neighbor and co-worker, with all that entails. However, in both Nicktoon crossovers and games solely about SpongeBob SquarePants, Sandy has traditionally been the third most prominent character; Squidward's playable appearances are few and far between. Even in Nicktoons Racing, the first crossover to feature SpongeBob characters, the series' third character was Plankton. Luckily for Squidward fans though, he was one of the first characters announced for the sequel.
The first game notably snubbed several main characters in favor of their supporting cast, but most were done for understandable reasons: Nigel was a dual-protagonist with Eliza, and was the sole protagonist in the original pitch, Helga was a scrappy fighter character and also a dual-protagonist with the pacifistic Arnold, Oblina got most of the focus in the final season, along with being an equal member of a trio with Ickis and Krumm, and Reptar is a mascot of Rugrats in his own right, and avoids potential controversy that having characters beat up a baby would bring. The first DLC, however, included Hugh Neutron, who was not a protagonist on Jimmy Neutron, and while he was one of the most memorable characters, his inclusion was mainly for the meme factor. While Jimmy did make it for the sequel (at the expense of his father, which alsoticked people off) main characters Lincoln Loud, Helga, Oblina, and CatDog were all unceremoniously dumped from the roster for no good reason.
A common complaint about this series, owing to presumed legal issues with Nelvana, is the lack of Fairly OddParents representation. This isn't new to Nickelodeon crossover games: barring Timmy's appearances in Nicktoons Nitro and Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis, the series hasn't appeared in one since 2007's Attack of the Toybots, meaning it missed out on Globs of Doom, Nicktoons MLB, and the Nickelodeon Kart Racers series.note This is only counting console titles, as web games featuring the series are likely not subject to the same legal issues (so the Super Brawl games could include Timmy alongside characters like the Penguins of Madagascar and the Raving Rabbids, who appeared in Nickelodeon-produced shows but are not owned by the company at all).
Despite the above mentioned Fandom Rivalry there is an overlap between Smash fans and people looking forward to this game, especially for those who want an Alternate Company Equivalent while awaiting the next Smash game. Because of that rivalry, however, it's an understatement to say that the most ardent cross-over comes from Melee fans stemming from the developer's commitment to basically making a modern version of Melee that was actually designed to be played like Melee is now.
While one would expect a rivalry with MultiVersus, another Massive Multiplayer Crossover platform fighter featuring characters from rival company Warner Bros., there's also an overlap between fans of the two games. The two games take very different approaches to their material, so those fans don't feel like it's "taking away" from NASB. It also helps that voice acting, a much-touted feature of Multiversus that there would've been a Fandom Rivalry over, was finally added to NASB on June 6, 2022.
Game-Breaker: Despite trying to have competitive features, there are things that break the first game:
Reptar's Down-Special does 30% damage without charging. For comparison, most other attacks need at least 3 seconds to do at least 20% damage when fully charged. To make matters worse, the move can be spammed, potentially putting an opponent from 0% to 120% in a couple of seconds.
Garfield's neutral special, the pie throw, can set up some deadly combos as some pies can multi-hit airborne opponents into itself, escorting foes into the blast zone if the pies are set up correctly and thrown at the right time.
One of Helga's abilities has her able to counter any hitbox... including stage hazards that use generic hitboxes, such as the vehicles in Traffic Jam. This means that it's entirely possible for Helga to counterattack the cars and bus.
At launch, the hitbox for Oblina's down-strong aerial was incredibly wonky and could hit opponents nowhere near Oblina herself under certain circumstances. This was also fixed in the game's first major balance patch.
The Hugh update broke Aang's down special, turning it into a One-Hit KO for anyone Aang hits with it. Thankfully, this was later fixed.
In the sequel, version 1.4 accidentally disabled Garfield's Sugar Rush from wearing off. Activating it with any amount of meter at any time meant that Garfield would never return to normal for the rest ot the stock. Given Sugar Rush is essentially a Super Mode, this heavily affected his competitive usage with some tournaments even banning him entirely until version 1.5 came out… over a month later.
Goddamned Bats: In the sequel's campaign mode, Mousers and SIRs are harder to hit than other enemies due to their short stature, Mousers can bite you repeatedly while pushing you back and SIRs constantly fire homing rockets. Twonkies are also very annoying enemies due to their massive size and powerful attacks.
He Really Can Act: Some fans were impressed with David Kaye's suitably heroic performance as Powdered Toast Man, given that he had never portrayed the character before this. Likewise, Alex Cazares, Abby Trott, and Jim Meskimen were praised for their spot-on performances as Oblina, April O'Neil, and Nigel Thornberry.
Prior to her official reveal at GamesCom, the leg seen around the middle left of the leaked silhouetted box art was assumed by some fans to belong to April O'Neilnote Another popular guess for the silhouette was of the movie version of Dora the Explorer.
A good deal of people also predicted that Ren and Stimpy would be a duo fighter under one slot ahead of their official reveal.
Somefans correctly assumed that CatDog would have a stance change mechanic and that it would be assigned to their Down Special.
"Stage Theory" was a popular belief that each stage representing a series would correlate to the appearance of playable fighters. This include thematic stages cluing a specific character, or having one fighter per stage in a series. This was notably used to predict all three Avatar fighters, as the initial trailer only demonstrated their stages.
Due to the large amount of initially-unused content for Garfield, many correctly predicted that he would be the game’s first DLC fighter. On a related note, some fans also correctly assumed that his portrayal would include nods to Garfield and Friends.
With datamines including Shredder but not a fourth TMNT stage, fans assumed the Double Dare stage would be bundled with Shredder instead. This was indeed the case, and Shredder shares the Rooftop Rumble stage with April as his home, as seen in his moveset showcase and Arcade Mode screenshot.
The most common assumption regarding Hugh's up-strong was that it'd be based on a scene in "Return of the Nanobots" in which he lifts stacks of pie boxes into the sky while going "I! WILL! LIVE!". Not only is this move indeed based on that scene, it's even called "I Will Live!".
Many fans correctly guessed that Lucy Loud's spotlight for 2 would premiere on October 13, 2023, or Friday the 13th.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While fans don't mind it being a Smash clone, most are questioning the presentation and aesthetics which skew a little too close to the Smash Bros. style from what was seen in previews and wish there was little bit more uniqueness to it to make it stand out more.
There are several Super Smash Bros. players who primarily checked the game out for its fast-paced gameplay and don't actually care for the Nicktoons themselves.
Patrick is generally agreed to be one of the worst characters in the first game, due to his grappling moveset and slow speed both outweighing his potential strength.
After many patches and changes, Leonardo is considered even worse than Patrick in the first game’s final state due to being an outright Master of None. The few advantages he does have, such as the disjointed hitboxes on most of his normals, mean little when other characters can make use of them better and without any of Leonardo's disadvantages (high weight, lack of kill power, etc.)
Memetic Badass: Nigel was already a Fountain of Memes in the first place, but with his reveal of having immense power and knock-back to his moves and a Rest-like move in the form of merely flicking his finger on top of that caused further memes calling the eccentric nature filmmaker the most powerful character in the roster and/or how Nigel would be able to take on super powerful beings like Thanos or Goku no problem.
Much like Mariobefore him, SpongeBob gained this reputation in the context of the game due to him (almost) always being the opponent in character showcases (and thus constantly getting creamed by the other characters as part of the demonstrations) pre-release, to the point of getting subject to similar memes. The kicker is that his in-game losing animation has him visibly cry over his loss.
The developers seemed to notice SpongeBob's status as this pre-release, as later character presentations switched SpongeBob out for Patrick, but this only led to Patrick sharing this same status with his best buddy. Things got worse for him post-release, when he turned out to be one of the least viable characters in the base roster, due to his grappling moveset and slow speed both being a big handicap.
Michelangelo, due to being officially banned from tournaments within a week of the game's release. For comparison, Smash Bros.'s first banned fighter (Meta Knight from Brawl) took years to be officially bannednote And even then it was on a tournament by tournament basis and was basically never applied at high level play..
Lincoln to an extent, due to being the game's least popular character, to the point where the few mains he does have would receive harassment early on. Being cut from the sequel's roster and demoted to a stage cameo (while his sister Lucy got to stay) certainly didn't help matters.
The second game adding Loch Loud from The Loud House Movie as a stage only adds to this as a form of cruel irony. The movie is all about Lincoln being able to step out of the shadow of his more popular sisters and shine on his own merits, along with proving how much his family loves and appreciates him. Cutting Lincoln from the playable roster in favor of his more popular sister, while also demoting him to a cameo on the stage, goes completely against the movie's message.
Timmy Turner has become one due to the fact that, in spite of coming from one of the longest running and most popular Nicktoons, he's not playable while other, much less popular characters got in before he did. This sentiment only increased after Jenny, Squidward, and Jimmy, the three other most highly requested characters that missed out on the first game's base roster, eventually got into the game, with the former being the third DLC character while the latter two were among the first characters revealed for the second game.
NASB is sometimes called a "Smash killer", which is why there's a minor Fandom Rivalry with the likes of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. However, this was mostly on the part of people who weren't very invested in the game, especially when writing it off after its modest performance. The actual developers are big fans of Smash, hence why many elements of it are incorporated into the game, and there's significant Friendly Fandoms between Smash and NASB.
While NASB1's infamous lack of budget and dev time are indeed reasons why it would have far less content than the likes of Smash Ultimate, people who prefer the latter tend to ignore an even bigger reason why SSBU is a much bigger game: It's a huge case of New Work, Recycled Graphics, thanks to Smash having fourpreviousgamesto take material from (especially Smash 4), while NASB1 is the first installment of its series and therefore its entire roster of fighters and stages had to be made from scratch. In fact, Sakurai himself has stated that "Everyone Is Here" was only possible by reusing assets, and had they not, SSBU's roster would be about a third as big, which would be only slightly bigger than launch NASB1's. Due to having to remake each character from scratch, NASB2 would also launch with a significantly smaller roster than SSBU, having only 25 characters total.
The lack of any content involving The Fairly OddParents! is assumed to be due to Nelvana, who owns international distribution rights for the show's first five seasons, being an issue. However, other Nicktoons Nelvana handled international distribution for, including Danny Phantom and My Life as a Teenage Robot, were able to get fighters in the game seemingly without Nelvana being an issue, and the sequel would go so far as to double down on Danny Phantom content to the point of making Vlad Plasmius the Big Bad.
The other oft-speculated reason for Fairly OddParents's absence is a perception that it was tainted by the controversial reputation that its creator gathered in the late 2010s and early 2020s. However, the increased presence of Danny Phantom in 2 gives this theory less teeth as well, as Butch Hartman created both shows, on top of both games also featuring content from Ren & Stimpy and The Loud House despite the controversies surrounding theircreators.
Narm Charm: It's rare to see a cartoon crossover get significant effort put into the competitive aspect by the developers. Just try to talk about Squidward's frame data with a straight face.
Nausea Fuel: Some of Oblina and CatDog's moves reference their home series' gross-out aspects, most particularly the ones that involve the former pulling out her heart and the latter spitting out hairballs.
Some who were unfamiliar with the pair's history criticized Ren and Stimpy's taunt animation for looking extremely janky and cheap, unaware that it was a reference to a dance that the pair did in an episode of the infamous Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon", with the animation of which being every bit as (intentionally) janky as it is here.
This isn't the first time Powdered Toast Man was playable in a video game; that would be Nicktoons MLB, released 10 years earlier.
As far as Nickelodeon crossover fighting games go, there's the Super Brawl series of web games, which came before this game. Even Ludosity didn't know these games existed prior to making All-Star Brawl.
This isn't the first time Garfield and the Ninja Turtles have met. This isn't the second time either. Before this game, Garfield and the Turtles crossed over in a short comic book story where he sneaks into their sewer trying to eat all their pizza by disguising himself as a turtle but it backfires on him. And a couple years before that, Garfield, Michelangelo, and several other iconic cartoon characters crossed over and teamed up together in the special anti-drug PSA Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
This isn't the first time Jim Cummings has voiced the '87 version of Shredder. James Avery wasn't always able to voice him, thus the '87 cartoon had several backup voice actors for Shredder, one of which was Cummings.
Even before Mr. Krabs was announced to be DLC for 2 despite having a cameo appearance in a stage, Thaddeus Crews never considered a background appearance to be a disconfirmation for DLC. It's just a coincidence that prior to that point, none of the DLC characters for either game were characters that were already represented.
Periphery Demographic: The game got this prior to its launch. While it was initially marketed to Nickelodeon's usual kid audiences, the concept of a Platform Fighter developed by the makers of Slap City got the attention of older gamers to the point that their vocal support for it caught the marketing department by surprise after the initial trailer dropped. As such, all promotional content from that point onwards, from character announcements at big events to moveset breakdowns on Twitter to gameplay showcase videos, was aimed towards the older fans.
Porting Disaster: The online features for the Xbox versions of the first game were noted by players to have severe issues that none of the other versions had, such as lobbies either being completely empty despite players trying to use them or flat-out non-existent, frame rate and connection issues, etc.
The Problem with Licensed Games: The first game suffers from this in some aspects. On one hand, it was developed by Ludosity, who had already proven themselves with the well-received Slap City, its roster featured several Nicktoons that hadn't been seen in years such as Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and The Wild Thornberrys, and upon release the gameplay itself was widely regarded to be decent if not outright great, with a lot of clear care put into it. However, the game launched with an astounding lack of content: voice acting, items and even alternate colors and costumes were missing from the initial release, recognizable characters such as Jimmy Neutron, Timmy Turner, and perhaps most glaringly Donatello and Raphael were excluded, and both the graphics and the sound effects gave away that it was made on a dime. Not helping matters were the reports of issues with its online multiplayer and competitive balance, which had been hyped up as the dominant features of the game. Regardless of promises to address the most glaring issues, within mere days Twitch views dwindled to single digits, and many Smash content creators dropped it as quickly as they picked it up. Granted, much of this was fixed in later patches; the Universe Pass added characters from shows widely seen as glaring omissions, and other widely-requested features like voice acting, alternate costumes, and items were also added down the road. The developers remained in open communication with fans to patch bugs and make additional balance changes. The sequel inverts this, due to it not suffering the same problems, although it did receive some flak for cutting several characters from the roster.
Jessie Flower does not reprise her role as Toph, being replaced with Vivian Vencer. While Vivian is by no means a bad replacement, some have questioned why Jessie wasn't brought back, considering various interviews show she could still replicate her original performance years after the show ended.
In the second game, Suzie Yeung replaces Grey DeLisle as Azula. While Yeung's take sounds roughly similar to that of DeLisle's, fans have questioned why Grey didn't reprise her role as Azula since she's already in the voice cast as Frida, with the most likely explanation being that Nick wanted to cast an East Asian actress due to changing sensibilities.
So Bad, It's Good: The background music for the Glove World stage is often considered to be the worst song in the game, due to its repetitive nature and irritating calliope music. And yet for every player that openly despises the song, there are at least two more who enjoy it just for how much it annoys people.
So Okay, It's Average: The general reaction to the first game is that, while it has a lot of issues that keep it from being truly fantastic (such as the very sparse single-player content, lack of items and character voice-acting at launch, balance issues, and poorly-implemented rollback netcode), the great gameplay and amount of thought and care put into the game makes it a pretty decent time. The sequel, conversely, was regarded to be a Surprisingly Improved Sequel by most critics.
The super moves have some noticeable audio and animation bugs that desync a lot of the sounds and effects of the attacks, robbing them of the huge impact they're meant to have.
The bosses in the sequel lack running animations, so when Reptar does his Super Attack on them they just float along the ground instead. While this isn't unusual for most of the bosses, who spend much of their boss fights floating in the air, it looks especially weird with Shredder, who reuses a lot of animations from the first game, and so his running animation could have been used here.
Spiritual Successor: This game could be seen as an enhanced and more competitive version of 2009's Nick.com game SmashFest and the Nickelodeon Super Brawl games. Aang, SpongeBob, Danny Phantom, and numerous characters that are playable in this game made their fighting game debut in the Super Brawl series.
After initial previews, the developers confirmed that the game wouldn't have any voice acting at launch, due to it being outside their budget. This didn't go over well with a lot of players, criticizing such a move as removing much of the characters' personalities, a complaint shared with the licensed Kart Racers series. Once the video footage of the gameplay dropped, this only made this issue more conspicuous; the lack of voice acting in the middle of the frenetic gameplay (save for an announcer who narrates some of the match) makes it come off as boring or hollow. At worst, some fans were worried that the game was an Obvious Beta, and at best, some fans were hopeful that it'd be similar to Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, which added voice acting in a patch (which is eventually what happened).
The cuts made to the rosternote 11 characters, 44.5% of the previous game's roster in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 soured many fans' excitement for the game. Of particular note, Leonardo and Michelangelo have been replaced with Donatello and Raphael, once again leaving the second game with only two of the four turtles, and fan favorites like CatDog, Toph and Hugh Neutron are widely considered to have been snubbed. Even Lincoln Loud, the previous game's least popular character, has both his fans and detractors questioning the decision to cut him, due to his significance to Nick's history.
The Flying Dutchman can be a very tricky boss to deal with, especially on higher difficulties. He plant barrels on the battlefield and summon lightning strikes that will cause them to explode, dealing 40% damage if you get hit. He can also use the Fly of Despair to spike you off the stage if you're not careful, and it's difficult to predict when he'll use it, so you'll have to make sure you keep your distance if you don't want to walk the plank.
Shredder is, by far, the most difficult boss in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2, especially on higher difficulties. His attacks come out lightning fast and he moves incredibly quickly, leaving you with very few opportunities to actually be able to hit him, especially with his ability to teleport across the stage. But what makes Shredder truly unforgiving is when he enters his powered-up state. As soon as you see Shredder covered in purple aura after he powers himself up, it is imperative that you keep your distance if you don't want him to grab you the moment he does his lunge attack on the ground or tear you to shreds with his drill attack in the air, both of which can spell disaster should you get hit. Should you decide to fight Shredder on higher difficulties, practice extreme caution.
Glove World, Sandy's level, is considered to be a very annoying stage to play on. There's very little room to safely play on and roller coasters will occasionally come through and hit like a truck, sometimes doing so rather frequently. To top it all off, the song is probably considered one of the worst in the game, coming off as extremely repetitive and monotonous.
Ren and Stimpy's stage, Space Madness, is very chaotic and requires you to almost constantly jump if you want to survive, as some of the various platforms are extremely small and all of them will slowly drop as you stand on them, with one possible exception being floating water, where characters will sink through. That's right, there's no stable ground whatsoever at all here. Even Poké Floats, a somewhat infamous similar stage from Super Smash Bros. Melee, was a lot slower moving. Good luck not encountering this one in Arcade mode.
The Background Music for the stages are all made for the game, instead of being from the original shows' soundtracks, for reasons similar to the lack of voice acting. This has led to complaints of silent, doll-like characters fighting to the beat of cheap knock-offs of familiar tunes, making the whole thing feel more like a fangame than an official work. And unlike the voice acting (which was eventually implemented), this was never fixed, due to the legal wrangling one would have to go through to get the actual music tracks. To their credit, some stage themes are considered good in their own right already.
Nigel Thornberry is voiced by Jim Meskimen rather than Tim Curry. While this is understandable because Curry's stroke caused him to largely retire from acting, many people feel like only Curry can truly bring Nigel to life, and wouldn't have minded recycled voice clips. That said, Meskimen has been praised for doing a very good impression of Curry and keeping the character's spirit intact.
The Rocko Update changed Royal Woods Cemetery so that it wouldn't have hazards. While competitive players appreciated this since they thought Harmonic Convergence is too long to be a good Final Destination equivalent, casual fans were disappointed to lose a casual-oriented stage.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some fans of the Nicktoons Unite! series were disappointed that the events of those games were not acknowledged in any way, shape or form in the second game's Campaign mode, especially since SpongeBob, Danny and Jimmy have previously worked together to fight Vlad before, as well as Plankton and Vlad having worked together as part of the Syndicate's plan to conquer the Nickelodeon multiverse. While it's likely that Nickelodeon wanted to keep the characters as close to their canon counterparts as possible by having them interact like they never met, fans couldn't helped but feel underwhelmed with how NASB2's Campaign mode acts like the events of the Nicktoons Unite! series never happened.
The developers have managed to make Ren and Stimpy just as fluidly expressive in 3D as they are in 2D.
Numerous fans have gone on to say that Harmonic Convergence(Korra's home stage) is one of the prettiest looking stages in the game, despite it being a medium sized flat space not unlike Smash's Final Destination, what with light and darkness fighting in the background for the fate of the world, something seen in both this stage and the main story of Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Garfield's stage, set within his dream, was likewise praised for being very befitting of the character. The main platform for the stage is a tray of lasagna (Garfield's Trademark Favorite Food) with pizzas above it acting as smaller platforms. In the background you can see sheep jumping, homes made of food products, candy as clouds and Garfield's stuffed teddy bear, Pookie, adorably sitting on the moon.
Jenny's character model, animations, and stage are quite visually impressive, translating her show's artstyle to 3D without compromising its distinctive minimalistic look.
Rocko's home stage, Hardcore Chores, is very popular due to its vibrant outer space environment and dramatic lighting effects, plus all of the various items floating around Rocko's house serving as nods to his series. The music also helps capture the show's mid-90s aesthetic quite well.
is very catchy and awesome and definitely captures the chaotic energy of wacky Nicktoons engaging in battle.