What Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is a 2D platform fighter built around a large roster of Nickelodeon characters. SpongeBob SquarePants, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Squidward Tentacles, Jimmy Neutron and others each come with their own move set, so picking a brawler means learning how that character actually plays rather than just swapping skins. Alongside the standard moves, every fighter has a Super: a powered-up animated attack you build toward and use to land a finishing blow. The game also has a single-player campaign where you fight to stop Danny Phantom's archvillain Vlad Plasmius from taking over the Nickelodeon universe, and that campaign is built as a roguelike run rather than a straight sequence of matches.
Playing it with your group
Online PvP is the main way a group plays together: pick your brawlers, pick a stage, and fight it out. Because each character has a distinct move set and the roster is large, a group can spread across different fighters and still get varied matchups every round. Remote Play Together is also supported, so one person can host and others join in from there. The Supers add a shared rhythm to matches — everyone is watching the power meter and waiting for the moment someone can cash in a cinematic finisher, which changes how aggressively you push in the closing stretch of a fight.
Before you start
Expect a fighting game with a real skill curve: mastering a move set takes matches, and the roster's variety means you will be relearning matchups whenever someone in the group switches characters. The tag list covers both PvP and PvE, so there is content to run alone as well as against each other, including the Vlad Plasmius campaign. The game also carries overhauled visuals, audio, animations, modes, stages, mechanics, taunts and move sets compared to the previous entry, so returning players will find familiar characters playing differently. Set aside time to learn a couple of characters properly before judging the game — the depth sits in the individual move sets and the Supers, not in button-mashing.