tl;drmFirstly, congrats Munkus.
Secondly, I'm not really sure what's going on tomorrow. It seems like you guys all want to, but I'm not sure that I'm going to be free when everyone would be available nor has my friend even given the yes or no. As of this writing, 3.30, he's still up....he might not feel like it. And, as ****ty as it is, I think we have to accept it. I'm trying my best guys, I promise. If any of you guys could PM me a place where we could possibly do it, that'd be great.
On to the partial review...or rather, my first impressions of the game.
In a word: disorienting. Very very much so. Guys, listen when I say this: it is a COMPLETELY different game then Melee. There is VERY little that transfers in terms of technical skill. Mind games and stuff is sorta different in that it's still viable in some way or another even if dash dancing and WD are out. All that technical stuff...gone (sorry Joot).
Like I said, it's a completely different game then Melee. Hell, it's drastically different then Melee and the 64 one. But, and here's why it's weird, it won't stop you from playing like Melee or 64. Your fingers automatically hit down L. You still try to dash dance (it was the first thing I tried to do). You'll find that you every once in a while try to wavedash. It doesn't work. Any of it.
Given, this is all old news. I figure most of everything I talk about will be old news told from a different viewpoint. One thing that I haven't seen anywhere is that airdodging is weird. It's not how you've come to know it...in Melee you can airdodge in a direction whereas in Brawl...you just can't. Well, sorta. If you've already jumped twice you can't. You can waste a jump on it, but if you've already used both you just kinda....I dunno. Dodge, for lack of better word. It looks almost the exact same as regular falling except you don't get hit. I did it a LOT by sheer accident.
All the characters are super floaty and jump crazy high. It's evident in videos...but it's much weirder when you play. They all recover MUCH quiker then they did in Melee...not quite like Luigi but getting there. They all seem to do a lot less damage and be much heavier (meaning they need a higher percentage to die), probably due to the fact that DI in this game is INSANE. Seriously...if you can't DI well or often get caught DIing poorly, goodluck. On the same note, everytime a big move hits (see: the Knee, Zelda's fair/bair) it stops for quite a bit...you would have to be slightly insane to not be able to DI correctly in the given time.
Rolling off the ledge to extend the amount of time that the game registers you on it no longer works, nor does it really have to. The game is made so that it encourages players to get back to the stage. UpB's auto catch the ledge, rolling animation or whatever is short and, mostly, the characters have amazing recoveries. The exception is those who rely solely on tethers to get back (Olimar and to a lesser extent ZSS)....these guys get hurt. It's just not a very well thought out mechanic.
I think, as most people will when they play the game, that Final Smashes are absurd beyond belief, whether they be too good (Marth, Pit) or just plain stupid (DK, Kirby). I see items once again being banned along with the majority of the stages. Most of the new ones focus more on moving then most people like. Not quite like Icicle Mountain...more like Mute City.
Speaking of characters:
Yoshi: is weird. I played him once and couldn't even pretend I enjoyed it. With DJC gone, he's so foreign and so....I dunno. Crippled. He still can't jump out of his shield and with analog shielding gone (meaning, no light shielding) you can't slide across the levels.
Falco: is also weird. (I think you're going to see that word come up quite a bit.) He's closer to his Melee form then Yoshi is in terms of style of play, but there are moveset changes. The biggest one is his shine, which no longer hits up. In fact, it like, shoots out in front of Falco when he uses it. You've all seen it. It could maybe be used for shinespiking, but it'd have to be pretty gutsy. Think the equivalent of a Ganon uptilt in Melee. Definitely something to say 'I'm owning you.' He can DSHL, sorta, in the sense he can get two shots off per short hop, but they are both level and slightly above a player.
Metaknight is probably one of my favorite characters, the problem being that he doesn't have many kill moves. The move I found myself killing most often with was (get this) his Up B move...jeah. I think that if someone could really get a hold of him he'd be amazing at juggling, but with only a few hours logged into the game, much less him, it's out of my league.
Ike is likely my new main. He's the closest thing to Ganon as the game gets (so far, mind you). It doesn't seem like any of the characters do enough damage, though, with Ike only getting 15% or so per hit (and considering you can survive to like 150% or so...). He's definitely one of the better characters, IMO.
Marth is the exact same sans the stupid grab range and the amazingly long Fsmash. Really. In fact, it might even be easier to juggle people with fairs now.
Sheik is pretty much the same without chainthrows from what I saw....honestly, I didn't play much of her. Eh, call it an old grudge.
Zelda is much more useful this time around, although her Up B seems shorter (aw). Her grab is fixed, thank God, and utilizing those two moves makes her not all that bad.
Falcon is the same as before, except the Knee's a little worse. Um...Nair still does the same thing....really, it's the same character. Fast as hell and still strong. The omission of dashdancing really REALLY hurts him, IMO.
DeDeDe is going to be a force to be reckoned with and will single handedly cause quite a few stages to be banned. This guy was the second guy I played and the FIRST thing that happened was I zero to deathed someone with a chaingrab. It's really, honestly, pretty silly. Expect any level with a vertical wall to be banned because of this guy.
Pit's an interesting guy who has the most bat**** insane recovery I've ever seen. Combine this with the amazing increase in DIability for moves (y'know what I mean) and you have a character who's worse then Samus in Melee; if you don't kill Pit via an explosion, he's not going to be dead.
Pokemon Trainer seems to be good...didn't get much time with him. Squirtle seems really good...like, really really good. Fast as hell. The other two, especially Charizard, fall behind Squirtle in terms of usefulness....but they're still playable.
I didn't play Pikachu. Sorry. :-/
Luigi has my vote for most improved character so far. In fact, out of the returning characters, he seems to be one of the few who got an upgrade. Go read IHSB's impressions up above.
I don't have much to say about Link. He's almost the same, except that with all the added floaty and jumping ability..he actually ends up not too bad. Probably going to be about the same place on the tier list as he was in Melee.
Olimar is a weird guy. I went in tonight thinking that I'd play him no matter what and came out, again, disoriented. It's just weird. The need for Pikmin is understandable in his situation, but ALL of his moves are based on them and based on what color they are. So, some attacks can be amazing and ****ty depending on the color of the Pikmin you happened to have come next.
Fox is going to be good again. The UpSmash has probably been nerfed but I didn't notice it. I don't recall the UpAir. The shine is still pretty good...comes out quick and goes away quick. It's definitely not going to be busted as hell like the Melee counterpart, but it's still viable. I expect him up there again.
Bowser is either going to be great or absolute rubbish depending on how the metagame develops. He's been sped up just a smidge (specifically his Fsmash) and left as was. His UpB is still one of the better moves in the game. The problem is that, without the L-Cancelling, every move he misses is a HUGE miss usually resulting in a ton of damage.
Samus is very much the same but crippled due to the exclusion of the wavedash. Really...load up Melee and try to play Samus without WDing (shut up, I know Aniki does it). It's just weird.
ZSS is pretty good. She's not a new Shiek as many, myself included, feared she would be. She is definitely on the more 'I can combo' side of things.
DK was not played by anyone, actually. I have no idea what he's up to.
Diddy, though, is fast. I never got much experience with him, but I can see the potential to be good in him. I figure he'll be amongst the upper half of the characters.
Sadly, I couldn't play Ganon, Jiggs, Lucario, Snake, Sonic, etc....he JUST got the game working like a day ago and hasn't been playing much with college. That's all the characters I can remember...I probably missed one. Like Ice Climbers (I didn't get to play them much; I don't know if they can desync). Or....Ness, or Lucas. Etc. You get it. Just ask if you wanna know, but don't expect too much. If I didn't mention 'em, it's probably 'cause I don't know much about it (you can tell: as the list gets towards the end, things get shorter. I ran outta memory, so to speak).
I know this has been a very scatter-shot first impressions, but it's pretty late and I'm falling asleep at my keyboard. I may edit it and clean it a little tomorrow, but ask questions and I'll do my best to answer.
But know this: this is not Melee 2.0, regardless of how we feel inclined to play. It's not fast. It's floaty and everyone jumps seven stories. Comboing isn't gone as some extremists would have you believe, but it's definitely not nearly as big a factor.
I hope that we discover a lot more depth in the game. If we don't, I fear it might be that people just stick with Melee as the definitive competitive Smash game.
We've already played Brawl, Sensai. It ain't like you're the first one out of the group to play it.
Dang... i'm sorry. Didn't mean to sound so rude. >.>;
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