Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

[Dark Sonic]

I'm confused as to why we are discussing final smashes at all.

And on that side note, Mario's FS is a terrific edgeguarding tool, and is generally easy to target against slow fallers like Jiggs and Samus. Marth's is terrific, but it is hard to knock other victims into it, and it is probably the worst FS to edgeguard with.

Umm...what part of one hit KO that you can combo into from fair and down tilt do people not seem to get? With decent DI Mario's f-smash will not kill you, but Marth's always kills when hit.

Am I missing something? What's so special in the PAL version of Melee?

Tweaked character balance and stuff. Shiek's d-throw is no longer useful for chaingrabbing (it sends them farther foward), Marth's dair is a meteor smash and he's lighter, Falco's dair only spikes at the begining while the rest of the move sends you up, and a few other things. Nothing major though.


EDIT:

Uh, if Marth uses his FS, you can just dodge it. If he's not like touching you it's easily done by spamming the dodge button.

And if the Marth player is not an idiot he will hold onto it until you do an attack, then take advantage of the frame 1 invincibility to tear through said attack for a free KO at any percent. You don't attack with FSes, you camp with them until you are guranteed a hit. Marth can also combo into his F-smash with fair, nair (first hit only), and d-tilt pretty easily.


But yeah, we really shouldn't be talking about FSes or items in general. But they are worse than they were in melee (minus the exploding capsules no longer dropping if you have capsules off).

 

[TKD+ITA+Mar=]

Marth Final Smash is most powerful when you don't use it right away. When I do get a final smash ball, I beat the opponent with normal attacks and kill them, when they respawn I go for it when they are least expecting it; sometimes you can even try to kill them again.

But I don't really understand how Final Smashes contribute to balance.

Unless you count EVO rules, but they are WTF rules. (And I don't mean World Tae Kwon Do Federation.)

 

[volbound1700]

More balanced... melee was so bad you couldn't win a real match unless you were Marth, Fox, or Falco.

 

[Zankoku]

More balanced... melee was so bad you couldn't win a real match unless you were Marth, Fox, or Falco.

ATTN new Melee players/not-good Melee players: Stop being wrong and thinking it's right when it comes to facts.

 

[Corigames]

ATTN new Melee players/not-good Melee players: Stop being wrong and thinking it's right when it comes to facts.

And all the people said, "Amen."

 

[thumbswayup]

...Sheik, Peach, Captain Falcon, Ice Climbers, Mario, Doc Mario

 

[Yuna]

Ok Yuna you lost me .

1. when you say " overall game balance " do you mean EVERYTHING (all stages, items, etc)?

2. or only competitive play and its standards?

cause if you meant number two then I have no effing clue why youd just bring up final smashes when they arent even a part of competitive play in any way.

We were talking about Sakurai and his Merry Band of Beta Testers' inability to balance games. Of course everything in the game matters then.

To avoid Marth' FS you have to be using a move with super armor or be in the middle of a dodge to avoid it.
Why? Cause it freezes time.
Has the 1.5x the range of Ike's sword when it hits.

Marios?

Yeah just jump over it or get behind Mario.

Super Armor moves don't even avoid it. They just Super Armor it, you still take 70% of damage. Fair?

To be fair, in a 4-player game that's easier said than done (which is probably the only time final smashes will be used since pretty much all of us turn off items during 1-on-1 fights).

Not if all 4 players are any good.

I'm confused as to why we are discussing final smashes at all.

And on that side note, Mario's FS is a terrific edgeguarding tool, and is generally easy to target against slow fallers like Jiggs and Samus. Marth's is terrific, but it is hard to knock other victims into it, and it is probably the worst FS to edgeguard with.

How is Marth's a horrible FS edgeguard? Heck, he can just edgeguard Ken-combo into it, no he doesn't automatically die if it whiffs since he can actually cancel it with another B.

For another thing, Marth can combo into his FS from a variety of ground- and aerial moves!

Mario's FS sucks dragonballs! Even on hit, it's barely god any knockback at all, even when the opponent is at, like, 100% on Battlefield! Heck, even if you bounce on it one bazillion times, you still take very little damage comparatively. And again, almost no knockback! It just makes you ride on it until it stops unless you, you know, DI or 2nd jump or Up B out of it! The only way for it to be a "terrific" edgeguarding tool is if the opponent has used up their 2nd jump and have sucky recoveries... and don't DI...

Am I missing something? What's so special in the PAL version of Melee?

Sheik's Dthrow (no chaingrabs... ever), Fox's Upair (less knockback), Falco's Dair (doesn't semi-spike but knocks you up slightly with very little knockback in the 2nd part of the animation), Marth's Dair (Meteor Smash), Marth's weigh (-1 lighter, cannot be shinecomboed by Fox), Ganondorf's Dair (weaker), Ganondorf's Bair (I think), among other things.

Uh, if Marth uses his FS, you can just dodge it. If he's not like touching you it's easily done by spamming the dodge button.

Again, we're not talking about an idiot using it randomly, we're talking about someone who knows how it works, how it can be comboed into, how to time it to punish dodges.

 

[DiasFlac]

I see don't see much point in arguing Final Smashes. Their mostly used for "lolz" then competitive matches/play.

Whether one is fair or not shouldn't matter much (imo) since they won't be used in most tourney's.

but I guess you guys are bored arguing the whole balance thing between Melee and Brawl. (what is this melee vs brawl topic #137?)

 

[Yuna]

I see don't see much point in arguing Final Smashes. Their mostly used for "lolz" then competitive matches/play.

Whether one is fair or not shouldn't matter much (imo) since they won't be used in most tourney's.

but I guess you guys are bored arguing the whole balance thing between Melee and Brawl. (what is this melee vs brawl topic #137?)

Again, the topic of the stages, items and Final Smashes was brought up because we mentioned Sakurai's and his team of beta testers' inability to grasp the concept of basic balance.

 

[Samochan]

W
Sheik's Dthrow (no chaingrabs... ever), Fox's Upair (less knockback), Falco's Dair (doesn't semi-spike but knocks you up slightly with very little knockback in the 2nd part of the animation), Marth's Dair (Meteor Smash), Marth's weigh (-1 lighter, cannot be shinecomboed by Fox), Ganondorf's Dair (weaker), Ganondorf's Bair (I think), among other things.

Though it's fox's upsmash and not uair that has less knockback. But I'm not sure anymore if it was both. Ganondorf's fair was also the one weakened, bair is the same. Yoshi's dair also got weakened by a lot in damage, and I think peach parasol and zelda's smashes now have freeze frames. Peach hits with all the hits way faster on ntsc than on pal version, also they bounce off from the parasol very easily on pal while on ntsc all hits seem to connect 90% of the time. Fox is also lighter on pal version and his firefox lenght was of course shortened. Marth fsmash has more afterlag, sheiks uair has way less knockback and poor samus cannot do extendor and bowser cannot flame cancel and link cannot spin spike.

*sneaks away*

 

[ShadowLink84]

Super Armor moves don't even avoid it. They just Super Armor it, you still take 70% of damage. Fair

No. ITS NOT FAIR YOU PERSON YOU!


XD.
In my usage of avoiding I mean it holistically. Using also super armor as amethod of avoiding getting killed by it.
Meh semantics its the same thing *shot*

 

[Radical Dreamer]

More balanced... melee was so bad you couldn't win a real match unless you were Marth, Fox, or Falco.

So ********.

 

[ice_cream_man]

nevermind. lol

 

[goodkid]

Not sure if its more balanced, but I'd say the characters are more unique in Brawl. I think there are more above-average characters in this game than Melee.

 

[Bud]

10 is better than 4, also some are better than most think. You may not believe me but through the countless hours me and my friends have played, we feel that there is a larger god teir (G&W, Snake, Pikachu, yes pikachu is super gay, Ike, and MK recieved our god tier. However I feel that almost the whole cast has a chance too win the tournys, as apposed if you were to pick pichu against marth in melee. I feel that the under rated characters have a huge chance and I think their much better than perceived. FACT: time will tell, and the things we reply in this thread have little bearing compared actual tourny results. Fiction: "I know who the best in the game are"

 

[Fawriel]

However I feel that almost the whole cast has a chance too win the tournys, as apposed if you were to pick pichu against marth in melee.

I'll try to come up with a metaphorical depiction of the balance here as far as I understand it. Because I feel like it.


In Melee, Pichu going up against Marth is like a deathmatch between a little kid from the street and an amazing swordsman with a weapon twice as large as the kid itself. While the kid is armed with a bunch of rocks that he picks up from the ground.
Both fighters are also drugged to allow for superhuman reaction ( referring to ATs ) and have self-destruct buttons on their backs that the other can try to activate, the kid's being smaller ( referring to edgeguarding ).

In Brawl, Ganondorf going up against Metaknight is like a deathmatch between a tree and a sub-automatic machine gun. The tree has one attack where it tries to fall on its enemy, while the machine gun basically just stands there and fills the area with death.
There are also self-destruct buttons. By which I mean one. And it's attached right to the front of the tree and has a bullseye painted on it.
The machine gun also has a self-destruct button, but pushing it really causes the pusher to die.

 

[MajinSweet]

10 is better than 4, also some are better than most think. You may not believe me but through the countless hours me and my friends have played, we feel that there is a larger god teir (G&W, Snake, Pikachu, yes pikachu is super gay, Ike, and MK recieved our god tier. However I feel that almost the whole cast has a chance too win the tournys, as apposed if you were to pick pichu against marth in melee. I feel that the under rated characters have a huge chance and I think their much better than perceived. FACT: time will tell, and the things we reply in this thread have little bearing compared actual tourny results. Fiction: "I know who the best in the game are"

Ike in god tier huh...wow. I'm an Ike main and I would probably put him in low.

 

[Valdens]

I'll try to come up with a metaphorical depiction of the balance here as far as I understand it. Because I feel like it.


In Melee, Pichu going up against Marth is like a deathmatch between a little kid from the street and an amazing swordsman with a weapon twice as large as the kid itself. While the kid is armed with a bunch of rocks that he picks up from the ground.
Both fighters are also drugged to allow for superhuman reaction ( referring to ATs ) and have self-destruct buttons on their backs that the other can try to activate, the kid's being smaller ( referring to edgeguarding ).

In Brawl, Ganondorf going up against Metaknight is like a deathmatch between a tree and a sub-automatic machine gun. The tree has one attack where it tries to fall on its enemy, while the machine gun basically just stands there and fills the area with death.
There are also self-destruct buttons. By which I mean one. And it's attached right to the front of the tree and has a bullseye painted on it.
The machine gun also has a self-destruct button, but pushing it really causes the pusher to die.

Any Smash 64, in turn, would be like a realistic gun fight. First hit wins. ^_^

 

[hippochinfat!!]

Marth's Final Smash is easy to avoid. You can jump over it, Roll, Sidestep dodge or sometimes even shield it.

 

[Anytime_Minutes]

It makes me sad how bad Ganon is. I enjoyed playing him in Melee because even though he was bad, he could be good. And they took all that good out. I tried to pick him up again, but its just too weird.

 

[-SQ3R-]

I think we can all agree that melee definitely had much more tournament appeal due to the fact that it was a faster paced game (there was actual WEIGHT to the characters...) and that there were AT's that were incredibly dramatic in terms of game play when used. I'm not talking about the "HEY MAN YOU CAN USMASH OUT OF A DASH" kind of AT. Those are basic physics, not AT's. Real AT's are techniques that have an abundance of potential because of the fact that they open up a window of possibilities for ALL KINDS OF MOVES. The only kind of AT I've encountered is the Dash pivot cancelling, and it's slow and nearly useless because anyone with half a brain can know to hit a quick button to stop them from smashing forward (Squirtle doesn't count, people).

My BS AT ranting aside, Melee was much more balanced in the sense that not only could it easily be played at a recreational level, but the speedy physics and precise timing of the game allowed it to be mastered by true gamers. Brawl is basically a watered down Melee in order to reach the wider variety of gamers, and I have nothing against that, but it means that the better players are crippled while lesser players are empowered. The overall physics of the game not only eliminated almost all previous AT's, but also instituted tripping as a direct handicap to all those who are quick with their fingers. Overall, this means that there is a cap on skill level when it comes to Brawl, and beyond that we must blindly sit at the "wait and see" campfire, hoping(most likely in vain) for an AT that will make Brawl a truly competitive tournament game once again.

Feel free to flame me, I don't care.

 

[Mista Sinista]

IMO so far Brawl is much more balanced than Melee. The lack of AT's alone helps a ridiculous amount but so far no one's found anything ground-breaking enough to make certain characters leap over others.

Of course I still think Meta Knight should die but life is life.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

Hello? Ice Climber chaingrabs? Snake's everything? Compare this to CF's and Ganon's options. Much bigger disparity than between Fox and Mewtwo.

Nobody here knows a thing about Melee.

 

[Fletch]

IMO so far Brawl is much more balanced than Melee. The lack of AT's alone helps a ridiculous amount but so far no one's found anything ground-breaking enough to make certain characters leap over others.

Of course I still think Meta Knight should die but life is life.

It's generally considered that ATs actually made Melee a more balanced game (e.g. most top characters such as Fox, Falco, Marth, and Sheik would be nearly just as good without wavedashing while this technique made characters such as Mewtwo, ICs, Luigi, etc. generally playable in comparison).

 

[Yuna]

Though it's fox's upsmash and not uair that has less knockback. But I'm not sure anymore if it was both. Ganondorf's fair was also the one weakened, bair is the same. Yoshi's dair also got weakened by a lot in damage, and I think peach parasol and zelda's smashes now have freeze frames. Peach hits with all the hits way faster on ntsc than on pal version, also they bounce off from the parasol very easily on pal while on ntsc all hits seem to connect 90% of the time. Fox is also lighter on pal version and his firefox lenght was of course shortened. Marth fsmash has more afterlag, sheiks uair has way less knockback and poor samus cannot do extendor and bowser cannot flame cancel and link cannot spin spike.

I meant Upsmash with Fox.

Bowser hasn't been able to Flame Cancel since NTSC 1.1. The same goes for Peach's Parasol and Zelda's smashes. Changes that were made already in 1.1 and 1.2 do not count as changes "For PAL".

 

[Binx]

The thing that good melee players came to realize is that if you are a good player you could win with anyone, my obvious example is gonna go ahead and be Chu Dat he singlehandedly raised ICs tier to 7th from being near bottom. Also though people like Hugs and Silent Spectre did great with Samus and Falcon respectively, and those aren't considered top tier characters either.

Advanced tactics in Melee made EVERY character more powerful and opened new and varied patterns of approach and attack, brawl has limited choices of skilled movement, its physics replaced the ability to move short distances quickly and remain skillfully mobile, if basically turned a game from exciting "mobile camping" to boring stationary camping.

What I mean by the above is that in Melee if you are relatively skilled you appear aggressive to force action on your opponent but at the same time you stay safe, you stay mobile so as to be flexible to what your opponent might do because if you stood entirely still they would have many options to try and poke through your defense, so people maintained acts of non aggression but hid it as aggression looking for a good hole to attack through, this created huge amounts of exciting options for players.

In Brawl the lowered game play speed the weight physics the ease of recovery and the lack of available movement options (dash dancing, dashing into shields without entering running animations, wavedashing) create a different kind of camping where movements from certain distances are VERY punishable and movements from further distances are not just obvious but slow removing a huge part of the mental game of melee.

All that said my biggest complaint about Brawl is not the lack of options its just simply the entertainment value when watching a match has gone so far down hill, Melee was fun to watch and learn from, even the best Brawl matches I've seen are fairly boring and campy.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Snake makes brawl unbalanced as all hell.

He is ********.

Not to mention **** near everyone has a wall infinite.

IC's are dumb too.

 

[Yuna]

Marth's Final Smash is easy to avoid.

So are most FS:es that have a hit box that's not eternal. That's why you combo into them or wait for a slip up.

You can jump over it

Not on reaction, it's too fast and your jump is too slow (even most characters' short hops).

Roll, Sidestep dodge

Yes, if he just spams it randomly without even timing or trying to combo it.

or sometimes even shield it.

Not, you know, ever. It's unblockable.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Hello? Ice Climber chaingrabs? Snake's everything?

I can't say I'm surprised that people are moaning about Snake being broken still. Its going to take a while for normal players to realize Snake's weaknesses. He's really not that broken once you realize what he can do. Given, he's probably going to be among the top 10, maybe top 5 in the game for most its lifespan, but he's not unbeatable like people keep making him out to be.

 

[Emblem Lord]

There is no reason at all for his hitboxes to be that way.

None.

Also, his grenade stuff is dumb. He is Neo. He can stop you from throwing his own grenades at him or make you throw them when you are holding onto them.

No joke. It's useless in a match, but still very silly.

Brawl's beta testers must have been asleep on the job.

Also, who said he is unbeatable?

He is beatable, just broken and silly.

 

[Zankoku]

The only reason Snake isn't broken is because he doesn't allow you to draw three cards for U.

He's still quite clearly one of the most solid characters in Brawl, though.

 

[Emblem Lord]

He is clearly number 1 in Brawl.

Also Snake's weaknesses do not mitigate his overpowering strengths IMO.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

There is no reason at all for his hitboxes to be that way.

None.

Shield them. Then grab him. Or hit him. Its not like some sort of invisible sword he's swinging at you, it extends HIS hitbox too, so out space him.

Also, his grenade stuff is dumb. He is Neo. He can stop you from throwing his own grenades at him or make you throw them when you are holding onto them.

You can either watch for when he pulls a new nade (you have to shield drop the second nade in order to strip the first one) or you can just not throw it back.

Ima go to bed. Its pretty late.

 

[Emblem Lord]

If you try to hit him when he attacks you either clank or you get hit, unless you are a sword user.

But yes his tilts are unsafe on block. They are still good though.

Also I said the nade stuff was useless before.

Snake is still silly.

 

[Radical Dreamer]

There's no question that Snake will be top five if not top two for Brawl's lifespan, unless long chaingrabs are discovered for another character.

Snake is silly. He has Ike's ridiculous range and power with hardly any of Ike's shortcomings.

 

[DiasFlac]

Brawl is just as balanced if not more then melee. In tournaments where money is being held as a prize most if not everyone wants the best possible chance of winning and seeing that you get this from playing the "best character" Snake vs Snake brawls makes the game balance.

You both have the same flaws (Snake has flaws?) the same pluses and so on this makes the game balanced.

In melee the "best character" was Fox and most if not everyone used Fox so that they would have the best possible chance of winning.

Brawl = Snake vs Snake, no items, FD

Melee= Fox vs Fox, no items, FD

If Melee was online I'd be playing 8 different Fox players every day.

I play about 8 different Snake players every day (I didn't know so many ppl mained Snake)

Yes the other characters can win against the better ones but the bottom line is your going to see the best character more so then any other character because ppl just don't like to lose.

I'm seeing so many Snakes its silly xD. I can image what it'll be like a few more months from now but it'll just be the same if this was melee online so meh.

imo doesn't matter both games had glitches that made it so you can KO someone in like 7sec without them hitting you, both games had chain grabs and idk why ppl say their harder to hit in melee because I see pros hitting pros with them all the time.

One of the things thats better with Brawl is that its ONLINE!! YAY!!

 

[Amide]

The two worst characters in Melee are slightly worse than Brawl's. That being said, Brawl's best character is much better than Melee's best. Still, there's a much more balanced middle.

 

[MajinSweet]

The two worst characters in Melee are slightly worse than Brawl's. That being said, Brawl's best character is much better than Melee's best. Still, there's a much more balanced middle.

Those balanced middle tiers won't mean much if they can't compete with the tops. Its a slippery slope. 34 well balanced characters, 1 broken and the whole game balance can collapse.

 

[Empy]

I really feel like it's hard to tell. I've tried looking into tournament results as much as possible, however, I do feel like the results are still a bit random at this point. Granted, most characters have developed reasonably far and I don't expect any major turnovers in the metagame of most of the cast.

However, I do think that it's just a matter of how you look at it. Surely, one could say that Snake is way overpowered, but you could say the same about Fox and Falco. It's probably just a matter of time before you learn how to counter a good Snake and what stages wreck him etc... Also, stage legality and banned techniques etc.. might add into it. If we all allowed good old Temple and Yoshi's Island in Melee, Fox would be overpowered more.

That being said, people should be careful stating how overpowered Fox was. Just look at the PAL tier list for example. Sheik is on top and this is without chainthrowing. So yeah at this point in time Brawl does look a bit less balanced, but I do think it's too early to pass judgement.

 

[Yuna]

Brawl is just as balanced if not more then melee. In tournaments where money is being held as a prize most if not everyone wants the best possible chance of winning and seeing that you get this from playing the "best character" Snake vs Snake brawls makes the game balance.

You both have the same flaws (Snake has flaws?) the same pluses and so on this makes the game balanced.

What... the... hell is this?! How is this balanced?! "If you play the same character as the other person, you have the same flaws and strengths, hence the game itself is balanced!". And while we're at it, how the hell do you justify the rest of your post when you claim balance works this way, like right below:

In melee the "best character" was Fox and most if not everyone used Fox so that they would have the best possible chance of winning.

Brawl = Snake vs Snake, no items, FD
Melee= Fox vs Fox, no items, FD

Yeah... how does this make Brawl as balanced if not moreso than Melee?

Also, not everyone used Fox. And the fact that many people gravitated towards the Tops and Highs does not make the game imbalanced, people just choose to play as the highest ranked characters. What you're incapable of grasping, despite me and others having said so a jillion times already, is that pretty much everyone down to Link had an equal chance of winning save for some bad matchups. Everyone down to Link could actually win tournaments, especially when lower tiered characters like Link himself, Mario, Doctor Mario and Luigi actually had good matchups against the Tops and the Highs.

Stuff.

Stuff.

That being said, people should be careful stating how overpowered Fox was. Just look at the PAL tier list for example. Sheik is on top and this is without chainthrowing. So yeah at this point in time Brawl does look a bit less balanced, but I do think it's too early to pass judgement.

No she's not. You must be referring to some reaaaaally outdated tierlist. I also don't remember there even being an official PAL tierlist.