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Kadano
What's your view on Melee's intended design? I don't see how people can say it was designed to be -solely- a party game, when people like us can research just how well designed all their formulas and options/restrictions on the mechanics were so well thought out. I'm also confused as to seriously why there's an illuminati looking triangle inside Dreamland and Shield stun.
THANK YOU. I get so upset when people call Melee an "accident" or similar stuff. Like yeah, I understand the game was not designed to be a global eSport, but even saying it wasn't designed for competition is false as clearly demonstrated by the Tournament mode... I have a few goto arguments I use when people disagree with me.
1. PAL
The PAL version of the game wasn't released very long after the NTSC, yet almost all of the changes we see (outside of glitch removal) are in line with the goal of a more balanced cast. Marth's and Falco's spikes, arguably the best two in the game, were nerfed. Fox's recovery and KO power were nerfed. Sheik's dthrow was nerfed. etc. The changes made in the transition to PAL show very clearly that Sakurai understand the balance of the cast and also understood how to change as a little as possible and still influence the core of the character.
2. Tech timings
One thing I think gets overlooked a lot is how well designed the teching system is. On average, a character's techrolls or TIP are just out of range of human reaction time. I don't think it's a coincidence that teching in place is just barely within the range of the average human reaction time. I have no trouble believing that a lesser developer would have chosen much more arbitrary timings for techs and would have ultimately led to either super hard reads because you can't cover multiple options with a combination of reaction and prediction, or players would always be able to react to all of their opponent's options easily.
3. Everything barely combos
Even when you have DI thrown into the equation, the majority of combos (excluding ones with grounded spikes which were clearly designed to combo better) are reliable, but really hard to link. I think this is why even so many years after the game has evolved, there is still a high prevalence of juggles and pseudo-combos (instances where you aren't being true comboed but can't do much, if anything anyway). I have to imagine the KB and hitstun calculations were designed meticulously, and if you need an example of how important it is, just look at the combos in 64 or lack thereof in barlw.
4. Grabs are really good
I think people sometimes get a little annoyed grabs are as good as they are. DA Dave's infamous "it's all about the grab game" commentary over Ken vs. Mew2King kind of hints towards this, but I would hope most people realize the significance of having good grabs. When grabs lead to good damage/setups, it tilts the game in favor of aggression. Especially with some of the shields in Melee which seem really safe and abusable (Sheik, Peach), you need to prevent people from spamming shield all game. Melee has the traditional fighting game RPS of shield > attacks > grabs > shield, and buffing the grab game downplays shielding, which keeps things more active and interesting than passive and predictable.
5. "But what about the bad characters?"
Like I said above, just because Melee was well-designed does not mean it was designed for super serious competition. While I think most of the actual fighting elements are designed for competitive environments, certain characters, stages, and of course items were designed with a more party mentality. I have a hard time believing the same guy that made all the NTSC to PAL adjustments somehow didn't realize Pichu, Kirby, and Bowser were weaker than normal. It seems much more likely that Pichu was just a character added for extra challenge in single player. He is fast and agile and actually has decent KO moves, so to me he is the perfect handicap character that requires the tightest gameplay to get the full potential vs. someone like Ganon who is much easier for a newbie to pick up and smash attack his way through classic mode. Kirby has the copy the ability, so the novelty factor is pretty clear there as well. As far as Bowser and other low tiers, it seems like Sakurai just preferred to include characters with actual personality and unique traits at the expense of balance. He'd rather have Bowser be pretty awful but feel like Bowser should feel than water him down by an overall speeding up and weakening of his attacks.
Well, that's my uncalled-for rant for today. Hopefully it didn't come off too much like I'm ****-riding Sakurai, but he did make Melee after all. Even barlw can't make me lose respect for the guy, and that's saying something.
), but that seems to be a somewhat relevant reason.
