Recent reviews by INeedAnOriginalName

Cool.
Karate.
Nerf Boxer.

Fun
Needs modernizing and server fixes, but still a fun game
For the purposes of what this this (A side project from a small studio to re-release a game for faithful fans), I think its great
Not gonna compete with new AAA games with several million dollars pumped into it, but still good
Getting a good game for $20 thats lacking in polish is better than paying $140 for the trash that companies are trying to release now.
And no microtransactions. Neat.
Devs try to make a bit of money without ripping off the players. Respectable.

Bad controls for keyboard and mouse. Couldn't bother playing more than I already have(Tried on 2 separate saves. Both saves were made >1 year apart)
Its a switch game. Not meant for pc. Can't recommend it for this platform.

Good :)

Good game. Bring it back. I play on a private server. Never played live. Love it to bits. Its all I want right now.

NOTE: If you're just looking to pick up the game, I recommend to scroll down to the Cons and Pros. I won't be very detailed just because I don't post reviews very often, and this is one of, if not my very first REAL review of a game. I will have an overall summary at the bottom of the review.
Ok so, I already had a review back when I was a gold with 350-ish hours, but I just deleted that to put in another review, this time actually thinking about something decent to say.
To start it off, I think Brawlhalla is an amazing game, hence my 1600+ hours. I am currently a diamond LANCE MAIN, and I just hit diamond on December 27th, 2019. As someone who has played the game since December 24th, 2015, I've watched it, as well as the competitive scene grow. I've come to enjoy this game a ton, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes platform fighters. Also, I think its better than Smash Ultimate in almost all ways, but I'm biased towards Brawl. Even trying to not be biased, I'd still say Brawlhalla is much more competitively viable due to its balancing, and competitive dev support. To anyone that says Brawlhalla isn't balanced, and spamming sigs/playing passive is broken, I'll tell you right now that you are completely wrong. A low rank player (gold 5 and below) would say these things just because they don't entirely know how to play Brawlhalla, which is completely understandable. However, if you write a review saying these things, and you didn't do research/don't understand the mechanics of the game, you are wrong imo. Also, I don't think putting a bad review onto a game because of its community is reasonable. Now, onto the actual review.

Cons: Let's start with some of the cons, just for anyone who is reading the reviews looking to pick up the game. Despite what I said above about sig spamming and playing passive, I will agree that they are very VERY annoying things to deal with. This is because of the game's base mechanics. Brawlhalla is a very different platform fighter, due to its increased movement, its simplicity, the similarity between characters, and the lack of a counter to dodge. With 1 ground jump, 2 air jumps, a recovery, a dodge that comes back periodically, and the ability to sit and wait on the wall, playing Brawlhalla without lots of knowledge and experience on how to counter these things can be extremely annoying. Sig spamming is also a fairly large problem to an inexperienced player. This increased movement and simplicity just makes punishing extremely hard to a new player.
CONS SUMMARY: If you are new and don't have a lot of patience/tolerance, Brawlhalla will be very annoying to start out with.

Pros: Ok, now onto the pros. Brawlhalla is very fun CASUALLY for NEW players. If you are looking to pick up this game with friends, you will enjoy it much much more. All of the passive play and spamming will still be there, but it'll be more enjoyable and fun with friends, just as everything is. Brawlhalla allows for 8 players, many many gamemodes, and you can set up teams however you want. If you play Brawlhalla casually as a new player, you will love this game. This, however, does not mean that the game is competitively viable. The game is extremely balanced, and there are many ways to trip up your opponents to get the edge. For one, the game is very fast, which means that it rewards people with extremely fast reaction speeds. This does not mean that reaction speed is everything. The dodge does not come back nearly as quickly as it does in Rivals, or as fast as a shield in Smash. This means that burning your dodge can let your opponent completely destroy you, and, in reverse, it means that if you can bait your opponent into wasting a dodge, you can completely destroy them. This back and forth mechanic of burning dodges into destroying people is what I think makes Brawlhalla both fun and hard. The lack of dodge countering means you have to take advantage of every second your opponent doesn't have a dodge, which leads to you having to think quickly about what to do next. The increased movement means that even if you burn said dodge, if your opponent fails to punish you, you can then bait them into burning their own dodge while yours is on cooldown.
PROS SUMMARY: Brawlhalla is very fun for new players casually, and for more experienced players, it can be very fun competitively.

OVERALL SUMMARY: Brawlhalla is, in my opinion, and amazing game. I love it very much, and have been playing for almost 5 years currently. If you are a new player looking to pick up a free game, I would definitely recommend Brawlhalla, even if you are playing competitively by yourself. Sure, there may be many bumps, and you may get extremely pissed off at everything, but learning is key.
Tip to not get as tilted: A tip I have to not get to mad is to not think about "Wow, this guy sucks, I'm way better. He's just passive and spamming attacks." I say this because it just doesn't matter. If you lost to passive play and sig spamming, you simply have more to learn. Its never EVER about better or worse in competitive video games. Its always about win or lose. If you lose, don't think about who is better. Think that you just need to learn how to beat that strategy. With that, you can beat opponents, and they'll have to think about how to beat your strategy. Its a constant, never ending staircase of people rising above other people, just for the satisfaction of victory. I overall think Brawlhalla is a fantastic game, you just have to give it some time.