Before we start, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (I’m just going to call it Battle Royale) is indeed a shameless copycat of Nintendo’s beloved Super Smash Bros. (SSB) series.  That being said, at least it seems to be a well made-copycat.

The beta for Battle Royale is limited to the tutorial and some basic matchmaking.  Up to four players can play locally or you can play 2 v 2 online (I played the 2 v 2 with a friend of mine).  The roster is limited to Sweet Tooth, Colonel Radec, Kratos, Sly Cooper, PaRappa the Rapper, and Fat Princess.  Each character feels fairly well rounded, with a good variety of ranged and close-range moves.  Attacks are easy to perform, requiring only a single button press be combined with a direction on the analog stick or d-pad.  Grabs, blocking, dodging, and super attacks are mapped to the shoulder buttons.  Unlike SSB, opponents are killed not by knocking them off the edge off the level, but by building up your super meter using regular attacks then using the super attacks to “kill” them, after which they respawn.

The beta is limited to a small handful of stages that are randomly selected, but the available one’s combined elements and backgrounds from multiple games (the Killzone inspired stage had Patapons chanting in the background at one point).  The stages were all fairly small and closed off (no edges to fall off of).  Every level available had multiple levels and was fairly dynamic, with some sort of trap, moving platforms, or other obstacle present to make up for the limited space.

Overall, Battle Royale feels more tactical than SSB, but lacks the charm, color, and nostalgia that help make SSB so enjoyable.   Taken on its own, it still looks like it will be an enjoyable game in its own right.