Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 has just been announced, and like any good fighting game franchise, half the fun of a new game announcement is guessing who’s going to be on the roster.
Two new characters have been announced so far, Squidward and Jimmy Neutron, and while the first game’s roster might not be fully returning, there are just some characters you can’t imagine this game franchise without. Just like you can’t have Super Smash Bros. without Mario, you can’t have Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl without SpongeBob.
As Nickelodeon’s a studio with so many beloved animated shows under its name, the game developers seem almost spoiled for choice when choosing fighters for this game sequel. Here are some particular characters that would make for terrific additions to Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.
5. Swiper from Dora the Explorer
If Nickelodeon can gleefully poke fun at Dora the Explorer in their film Dora and the Lost City of Gold, they can certainly do so again in this game. Still, while Dora the Explorer is Nick Jr.’s most iconic franchise, Dora herself might not be the most appropriate character to have in a brawl game — at least, if Nickelodeon wants to maintain her sweet role-model image, that is.
So why not have the villain be the playable character instead? Swiper being a fox can lead to some pretty stealthy moves, like leaping long distances or ducking on all fours to avoid an attack. Given Swiper’s fondness for swiping, the character can also have the ability to swipe items or even powers from opponents.
It’s an ambitious idea, sure, but if they can achieve it while avoiding him being overpowered, Swiper could easily be a favorite for many players. Including a Dora character could also mean having a Dora stage, and with the show taking place in a computer game, this stage could prove to be a really creative one — like, say, the cursor constantly clicking away and changing on-screen items and platforms.
4. Ember McLain from Danny Phantom
Imagining fighters for a brawler based on cartoon characters is admittedly a lot harder than doing so with video game characters. By nature, video game characters jump, fight, perform special moves, and carry magical items. A lot of cartoon characters, like Eliza from The Wild Thornberries and Tommy from Rugrats, are just ordinary human beings with no superpowers whatsoever.
So while she’s less iconic than Eliza or Tommy, Ember McLain just makes too much sense as a Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 character. She’s a ghostly villainess guitar player who can fly, blast flames from her hair, teleport in a purple smoke cloud, and fire multiple types of attacks by strumming her guitar. Ember McLain and a fighting game just seem like a match made in heaven.
Plus, now that Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 includes voice acting, something the original didn’t have until much later, her placement on the roster is even more necessary. Ember was a cool, snarky rock star who said things like, “Are you ready for a youth revolution?!” and “Tell me who you love!” When it comes to her character, the one-liners pretty much write themselves.
3. Rudy from ChalkZone
Depending on how old you are, ChalkZone was actually the coolest cartoon show on air. Every kid in the 2000s pretended the chalk in their classroom was actually Rudy’s magic chalk, which can draw portals into ChalkZone and draw things out of thin air. With an item like that, is there any doubt Rudy would be a perfect fighter for Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2?
Rudy’s chalk could be incredibly fun to have in a fighting game, as the character could draw connecting portals in different areas on the stage, much like the gun from the game Portal. Not to mention, with the chalk’s ability to materialize items out of nothing, Rudy can draw rockets, cannons, and even something as simple as a banana peel to make his opponent slip and fall.
Don’t get me started with how far out a Chalkzone stage would be. A stage entirely made out of chalk? Drawings could appear out of nowhere, random items could be interacted with by every player: playing this stage would feel like playing a Scribblenauts game. The sky’s the limit with Rudy, for both his abilities and the stage based on his show.
2. Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender
When it comes to the Avatar universe (no, not that Avatar), the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl franchise currently has Aang, an airbender, Toph, an earthbender, and Korra, a waterbender. So where’s our firebender character? It’s a position that urgently needs to be filled, and with Zuko being Avatar’s most popular firebender character, he just seems like a no-brainer to appear in All-Star Brawl 2.
This is a game meant for Nickelodeon All-Stars, after all, and Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of Nickelodeon’s most popular and celebrated shows. You could even argue that it’s the Nickelodeon show with the strongest fandom, as even geeks who don’t usually watch cartoons adore its universe and characters.
It’s also way too easy to imagine moves for a character who can conjure fire with a simple punch or kick. Even Mario can do something like that in the Smash games, and he’s supposed to be the nicest guy there is. If the SpongeBob franchise can have up to four characters in All-Star Brawl, so should the Avatar franchise, and Zuko is an obvious choice for the fourth position.
1. Cosmo from The Fairly OddParents
Timmy Turner’s the obvious pick for a playable character from the show The Fairly OddParents, but really, what could Timmy do that Lincoln Loud already can’t do? Both of them are average kids with nothing supernatural about them, and Timmy’s unique abilities would have to come from him having fairy godparents. Why not have the playable character be one of the fairy godparents themselves?
We all know which godparent is the fan favorite: green-haired and lovably dumb Cosmo Cosma, who has a wand that allows him to transform into any creature or object and materialize anything at a moment’s notice. This character’s abilities could be an absolute riot to experiment with, and with the show even having an Anti-Cosmo, Cosmo’s evil genius counterpart, that easily lends itself to an obvious and fun alternate costume.
Really, though, any Fairly OddParents character will do. As Nickelodeon’s second longest-running animated show behind SpongeBob SquarePants, it was incredibly odd that not a single character from it was in the first game. That might’ve been because of certain rights issues, but given how important Fairly OddParents is to Nickelodeon’s history, it’ll be even odder if the show just never makes it to the fighting game franchise at all.
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