People who think that characters in Brawl are equal are so funny. I don't know whether it's more or less balanced than Melee, mind you. I only know that it boggles my mind how they seemed to not have actually
cared about balancing the game except maybe for the whole mid-tier section. It's like they found some sort of reliable formula to make characters about as balanced as it goes, then just went "screw it, these characters are cool and these deserve to die".
H'okay, so. In Melee, we had Fox, right? Overpowered, broken, and whatnot, we can agree on something along those lines. Let's have a look at Fox.
Fox's concept was that of a fragile speedster with weak attack who can just run around and deal damage but has trouble KOing. But they were apparently afraid that he might be too weak, so they gave him some of the most powerful and one of the easiest KO moves. Huh.
His B move is the blaster, which is extremely fast and basically deals free damage with little risk of retaliation, unlike Bowser's Firebreath, Zelda's Din's Inferno...
Link's Bow...
His down-B is the reflector, the best move in the game. It was supposed to reflect, but that apparently wasn't cool enough. So they made it a murderous semi-spike with set knockback. But it was still hard to use and could be punished, so they allowed him to jump out of it. Oh, and it's instant. So, right, you have the fastest move in the game which can KO some characters with no chance for recovery, save you from combos, save you from damage of projectiles and in some cases even get the attacker KOd with their own attack.
Ness has a similar move which absorbs projectiles. It only works for some of them, it's extremely slow, and it sure as hell doesn't KO opponents. It's not even good at doing
what it's supposed to do.
Now, Fox is light and easily KOd, eh. To compensate, they gave him a recovery move that covers a huge frikkin distance. But, it takes a while to charge up and is predictable, so that's a weakness right there. Okay, they added some fire to the charge-up to protect him, but still, the predictability is there.
So they gave him an extremely quick side-b recovery to make up for it.
Now let's compare with Pit.
His recovery lets him fly around freely and after using it, he still gets to act instead of going into his helpless state. Which is okay, because he's a featherweight. He also gets several jumps in addition to that, which is okay, because he's a featherweight. And he can glide, which is okay, because... he's a
middle-weight?
His down-b is a reflector. It reflects projectiles. And
people.
His side-b is a whirling attack. It's pretty much instant. It barely has any recovery afterwards. It deals continues damage. And can be held infinitely, so even when a character manages to shield they'll still get hit.
And because it didn't have enough features yet, it
also reflects projectiles.
Pit has a bow. So does Link. Pit's bow has infinite range, is not affected by gravity, and can be directed. Link's needs to be charged up in order to gain any decent distance and not land in the ground. Pit's comes out pretty much instantly. Again, Link's needs to be charged. And did I mention that Pit's arrows are incredibly fast, too? Oh, any they
can be charged, but it doesn't actually change anything. Just in case you want to trick your opponent because they were trying to dodge the arrow. Oh, foolish them!
Pit's arrow's might as well be a move called "damage". Use freely at any time to stack up some percent on your opponent.
Mario and Squirtle have moves that might as well be called "edgeguard". Using them produces a buzzing sound and makes Sakurai's face appear above them saying "no dice biotch".
To sum up the point of this comparison: They did everything they could possibly conceive to make Fox and Pit as good as they can possibly be.
But I'm ranting. Let's make it simpler.
Ganondorf is extremely slow, very strong, with good range. He's also pretty heavy.
Snake is pretty fast, very strong, with good range and
an arsenal of projectiles all over the place. And he's the
second-heaviest and has an
amazing recovery.
There is nothing Ganondorf can do that Snake can't do at least as good, with added features to boot.
But that comparison is a little out there, so let's get even simpler.
Link and Toon Link. Tell me one thing Link can do that Toon Link can do better.
Don't try weight, because weight only helps survivability, and Toon Link beats Link there because he has a great recovery while Link's is so bad that he is one of the few characters who's painfully easy to edgeguard. The advantage in weight amounts to this: It takes 8% more to KO Link vertically. Awesome.
Don't start about range, either. Range is a helpful attribute that can increase a character's capabilities in offense and defense.
Link can hardly use his range for offense because he dashes into combat at about the speed of a mildly agitated tortoise. And he can't use it defensively because his
attacks are too slow.
And don't even try saying that Link is stronger. You'd just be sorely mistaken.
Toon Link is a flawless hit-and-run character. Link is a hit-and-run character who
can't run.
But in the end it still seems balanced to an innocent bystander because every match that doesn't take place between some of the overpowered characters pretty much boils down to some sort of glorified ping-pong.
Sorry for ranting, I just wanted to get this off my chest as some early writing exercise.
