Super Smash Bros. Brawl Mod Project M Releases 2nd Demo April 15

Fast-paced fighting, advanced combinations, and re-balanced gameplay are coming to Super Smash Bros. Brawl with the release of the second demo of fan-made mod, Project M, on April 15. The mod aims to enhance the speed of Brawl to bring it closer to and potentially exceed the speed of its predecessor, Super Smash Bros. Melee, which was generally considered a more competitive title.

Project M does not require hardware modification to apply it. The mod can be applied simply by downloading the file onto an SD card and inserting it into a Wii with a copy of Brawl.

Project M is still under development, but already released a demo version during an earlier stage. As announced in the trailer, the new demo version will add characters who were still being tweaked in the first release, in addition to more tweaks and revisions.

The general goal of the project is outlined on the Project M website. The Project M team plans on turning Brawl into a more quickly paced game with more controlled, organic movement. The mod will change edgeguarding, the battle between players falling out-of-bounds and players trying to keep them from getting back onto the stage, to make it riskier but more rewarding for the offensive player.

Project M will also change Brawl to mirror other competitive titles by making combos more challenging and strategic. Players will be rewarded for skillful use of combos, and punished for being predictable as in most other competitive titles. Project M also makes sweeping technical changes, which can be viewed here.

As mentioned before, the mod does not include all characters playable in the original Brawl. Each character undergoes treatment and tweaking, so the team has to add each character individually. The latest version of the mod includes 29 playable characters – down six from Brawl’s original 35.

Thus far the mod looks like a very complete overhaul of Brawl which should appeal to those disappointed by the changes made to the series after Melee. It should be exciting to see what the team manages to do in the future and if Project M can gain ground as a tool to make Brawl a more competitive option for Super Smash Bros. fans.