When people hear the words free to play, they think microtransactions galore, and they’re kind of right because this game is free. I’m not one to ever download free to play games, I don’t always get to play what I want seeing I’m always reviewing something, but lucky for me this free to play game was up for review.

While this title is free to play, you can purchase the game and gain some extra rewards. I was given the founder’s pack which comes with 540 mammoth coins. The founders pack gives access to all current and future legend characters, as well as a founders avatar and nameplate. The last goody is a special personal sentry IV sidekick. Now, if you want to spend a bit more cash, $150 will get you the collector’s edition which comes with everything the founders pack does along with 3500 mammoth coins, skin packs and more. The Playstation store also allows you to purchase mammoth coins whenever you want, which starting price of $8.95 all the way up to $76 with coins ranging from 140, 340, 540, 1000 and 1600.

So what’s Brawlhalla all about? It’s a side to side fighting platformer that can be played online or offline. Between both online and offline you can do ranked matches online, playing 4 and 8 players matches, play as teams or free for all if you don’t like being apart of a team. 1v1 and 2v2 are also other types of modes to play too. I had access to a total of 35 characters all with their own look and style. There are animals, cowboys and even pirates as well as many other types of characters to play as. Each character has their own stats such as speed, dexterity, defense and strength. You can even read up some lore about all of them. While in a match you’ll see weapons fall into the game and pressing square will pick them up with each character hving the ability to use two weapons, but only one at a time. Now, you’ll have an overall level for your gamertag but each character also has it’s very own level up system. The more you use them, the more XP earnt and the higher the level they’ll become.

Customizing is is big part with certain games, and Brawlhalla is one of them. You can change skins for characters as long as you own them. Buying skins among other things in the games store is easy, but you’ll need one of the following, Mammoth coins, glory coins or gold. Mammoth coins are purchased with real money on the PS4 store, gold is earned by playing matches and glory coins are earned as well, and can be converted into gold. What can you buy besides skins? Well, there is a fair chunk of items from taunts, colours, sidekicks, chests and much much more. Both glory and mammoth coins are shown at the top of the in-game store and gold is shown top right where you overall level is.

Fighting games always have the few buttons, mostly light and heavy attacks and Brawlhalla is much that way. Triangle and circle perform heavy attacks, X is jump, square will do a quick attack, and L1,R1 will do a throw and L2,R2 allows you to dash/dodge others.

The game is eye catching, colours standout, with nothing but bright colours from the menus and in the matches themselves. It looks like your typical platformer. While playing, characters seemed to have more clarity than any of the 11 maps you’ll play on. As for sounds, it’s catchy music all the way, along with fighters making attacking sounds.

The great thing about being free to play is for the fact it’s free. Lots of people play these sort of games meaning finding a lobby is always fast, and the same can be said for gameplay, it’s fast paced you’ll be jumping around like your pants are on fire attacking high and low. The point of playing isn’t just to fight you want to knock out other players, but winning isn’t everything as you’ll still earn XP and gold win or lose.

Brawlhalla even has an upcoming championship where the winner will net a nice $100,000 in prize money. The details are in the game’s main menu, so go check that out ASAP!! There is a mode that’s a weekly turnover called Brawl of the week and it’s a randomly selected mode that will stay active for a week. There are options you can do as an offline part that is a how to play tutorial as well as training that teaches you more on how to play the game as best you can. I certainly think all players should check these out at some point.

I want to end my review with the knowledge that yes this is free to play and microtransactions are a huge part, but it’s not a pay to win sort of game. You don’t need to fork out the cash on the collector’s edition nor on the founder’s pack, you can play for 100% free of cost if you want. Maybe once you download this title for free it’ll have you hooked and then you can at anytime use the microtransaction side of things but it’s not a must. It might be a fighting game but it’s not violent. Kids can happily play and you won’t have them seeing blood or anything over the top, it’s at the guidance of the parent if you want them playing it or not.

Written by: MKAU Gaming