Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

[Tony_]

The only reason why Brawl is imbalanced is because of MK. MK has an aggressive game that cannot be punished unlike many others. MK's ledge game is nearly ungimpable with the exception of DK. DK is probably the only character that can punish it.

tl;dr banning MK actually makes Brawl worth something competitively.

 

[PassWurD]

The only reason why Brawl is imbalanced is because of MK. MK has an aggressive game that cannot be punished unlike many others. MK's ledge game is nearly ungimpable with the exception of DK. DK is probably the only character that can punish it.

tl;dr banning MK actually makes Brawl worth something competitively.

Give me wavedashing and might consider it worth something competitively...

 

[Zankoku]

What the hell kind of good is wavedashing going to do? Give me SHIELDSTUN and maybe the game won't revolve around who has the best responses out of shield.

 

[PassWurD]

What the hell kind of good is wavedashing going to do? Give me SHIELDSTUN and maybe the game won't revolve around who has the best responses out of shield.

But, but, it makes things look more like flashy o.O.o.O

;D

Also I agree ;D

 

[The Halloween Captain]

ignoring Azen and Yuna. Lucario is good and can place high, probably even win. we just haven't heard of a bunch of other Lucarios winning other than Azens.

Ankoku mentioned somewhere that both him and Gimpy lack somewhat in technical skill.

if other players can replicate similar results then its and example, if only one or two well known for doing so players, A-al-Azen, then its an exception. what more do you need?

What this says to me is the top 4-5 chars are more balanced then the tier list would suggest and by moving everyone up and increasing the size of the Top, High, and Mid tiers that everyone is more viable against the tops. This would suggest that Melee is more balanced since we're talking about boosting everyone up since the tier doesn't do them justice.

Melee is more balanced than Brawl; you may now close this thread now.

jk But seriously thats the logical reasoning that would explain your sentiments.

Azen winning and placing well with low tier Melee chars (Link or Luigi) isn't some unheard of phenomenon since they're not nearly as low as the ranking Low Tier would suggest. PC had an amazing G&W and Chu Dat had an awesome Pikachu aswell. Azen doing well with Lucario is niether an unprecedented or un-duplicable feat since Lucario isn't low tier and the matches that have been used as evidence feature Azen's Lucario vs. MKs. I beleive, as I've stated before that Lucario can have a decent matchup against MK due to how MK's metagame works. The same is not true against Snake.

Also, being very technical definetly doesn't make you victorious in smash. Ken is not known for his tech. Ken is known for winning.

O.K., so are the low tier characters with amazing people behind them, namely PC's GW and Chu Dat's Pikachu (the latter not quite so impressive as the former, but still decent) doing well because of balance, or because of personal ability? The implication in naming specific persons is that it is a matter of exceptionalism.

 

[Pikaville]

I also lke to use a good few characters.

Pikachu is my MAIN main.

But I still use Olimar,Marth and G&W,even though they are higher on the tier list,pika still brings in alot more victories just because I am better at WINNING with him.I probably have far more tech skill with at least 2 of the others.It's just me+pika= easier wins.

It just works like that sometimes!

Sometimes some characters can perfecty compliment how a player like to play(eg.Ken and Marth)and thats why they do so well.

Im sure a good few players mains are their main for this reason alone.(Even though it may hinder their OVERALL placings in the long run,against certain problem charcters etc)which is why they will always have at least second player that can cover this problem.

I think im starting to lose track of what I was getting at here........

 

[Falconv1.0]

What the hell kind of good is wavedashing going to do? Give me SHIELDSTUN and maybe the game won't revolve around who has the best responses out of shield.

lol give me any kind of punishment game, that would be ****ing amazing.


Seriously, recent **** coming up is reeally making me question why the hell Brawl tourneys even exist, because the people doing epic in them are the same who hate it, and play it solely for cash.

 

[Gindler]

Brawl is far more balanced as far as players goes. Maybe not characters, but now average people have a small chance against pros instead of no chance.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Brawl is far more balanced as far as players goes. Maybe not characters, but now average people have a small chance against pros instead of no chance.

Play M2K's Dedede or MK and we'll talk, Gindler.



Smooth Criminal

 

[Tyser]

Lie .

 

[Gindler]

Play M2K's Dedede or MK and we'll talk, Gindler.



Smooth Criminal

Well let's just say I might get 1 stock off him in brawl. But if I played him in melee I'd get so embarassed. So yeah I'd rather play a slight chance in brawl than the no chance in melee.

 

[Pikaville]

Melee just wins fact.

I only play brawl so I can be good at it too(and all my friends play that and not melee anymore)I guess they just got sick of losing to Sheik,Marth and Falco all the time.

Now its Pika,Marth,G&W and Olimar instead(The matches are a lot closer now too)

Brawl is a lot easier to be good at.(I mean GOOD)

In melee you got punished for every mistake.

In brawl you can **** up plenty and still win a match.

Hell it even makes mistakes for you when you clearly were just executing a simple move.

Tripping is what makes brawl so good!

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Well let's just say I might get 1 stock off him in brawl. But if I played him in melee I'd get so embarassed. So yeah I'd rather play a slight chance in brawl than the no chance in melee.

Awww...so you opt for the JV 2 stock instead of the JV 4?

Still the same concept, only with Brawl being much more character-centric.

Smooth Criminal

 

[IrArby]

O.K., so are the low tier characters with amazing people behind them, namely PC's GW and Chu Dat's Pikachu (the latter not quite so impressive as the former, but still decent) doing well because of balance, or because of personal ability? The implication in naming specific persons is that it is a matter of exceptionalism.

Both. That kind of personal ability is replicable to an extent. Granted Melee pros each have different styles but balance plays in equal role. I stand a pretty good chance against PC's Falcon vs my MK. I stand no chance with my Marth, Falco, or Fox (in that order) against pretty much any Melee char he chooses.
The implication in naming specific people is to illustrate that more people have done well with low tier but I can't just go naming people I know (not exceptional famous pros) or my information wouldn't count for crap.

But yes balance and skill and theres room for plenty of both to be had there.

 

[Gindler]

JV? all these fancy terms I don't understand.

But yeah, Brawl is way easier to be good at. So in that way I find it to be more balanced. Plus I feel sorry for the controllers getting murdered by all the wavedashing we have to do in melee.

 

[ArcNatural]

JV? all these fancy terms I don't understand.

But yeah, Brawl is way easier to be good at. So in that way I find it to be more balanced. Plus I feel sorry for the controllers getting murdered by all the wavedashing we have to do in melee.

... You post count is higher than mine and your a 2008... so sad, and your WRONG.

O.K., so are the low tier characters with amazing people behind them, namely PC's GW and Chu Dat's Pikachu (the latter not quite so impressive as the former, but still decent) doing well because of balance, or because of personal ability? The implication in naming specific persons is that it is a matter of exceptionalism.

It's all personal skill. How many times does it have to be said that tiers are based of PLAYERS OF EQUAL SKILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's fairly simple to tell. PC has an amazing G&W, which is all swell and well. However, if you pitted his G&W against his Falco or Fox, his Falco and Fox would still hold the advantage.

I think an interesting question in the debate is: Does personal skill matter more in Melee than in Brawl? I'm talking in terms of competitive play here. I know Melee had more technical skill involved but that's not what I'm talking about.

I think in Melee personal skill was much more important than it is in Brawl. The real Pros in Melee could beat a fair amount of really competitive players with a large amount of the cast. I don't really follow Brawl anymore, however, so if anyone has any evidence to back up that the same thing holds in Brawl I would be interested to know.

 

[Falconv1.0]

It's all personal skill. How many times does it have to be said that tiers are based of PLAYERS OF EQUAL SKILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's fairly simple to tell. PC has an amazing G&W, which is all swell and well. However, if you pitted his G&W against his Falco or Fox, his Falco and Fox would still hold the advantage.

I think an interesting question in the debate is: Does personal skill matter more in Melee than in Brawl? I'm talking in terms of competitive play here. I know Melee had more technical skill involved but that's not what I'm talking about.

I think in Melee personal skill was much more important than it is in Brawl. The real Pros in Melee could beat a fair amount of really competitive players with a large amount of the cast. I don't really follow Brawl anymore, however, so if anyone has any evidence to back up that the same thing holds in Brawl I would be interested to know.

Honestly, I've seen some weird **** in Melee vids, stuff like Magus vs. Lord Knight in close matches when LK was using Roy and Magus wasn't, while in another instance, LK picked a better char and the matches were skill about as close, etc. Maybe it's just my memory ****ing with me, but that's how I remembered it, lol.

 

[ArcNatural]

Honestly, I've seen some weird **** in Melee vids, stuff like Magus vs. Lord Knight in close matches when LK was using Roy and Magus wasn't, while in another instance, LK picked a better char and the matches were skill about as close, etc. Maybe it's just my memory ****ing with me, but that's how I remembered it, lol.

I am going to try to peice this together. I'm going to guess for one thing these were friendlies, the place where players tend to be a little extra flashy. I'm also going to guess that Magus probably played Ganon and LK picked Roy then Marth? For one thing, I think Magus and LK play each other a lot. I'm also not sure of what LK's skill level is compared to Magus' but I'm going to guess it's not that far behind. Plus, in my example, I never said PC's Fox or Falco would destroy his G&W, but they would hold the ADVANTAGE. Also note that we know that PC's Fox/Falco/G&W are all GOOD.

 

[Yuna]

Then again, I'm one to think any character in the right hands could be viable to some degree.

To some degree =/= Enough

Nobody cares if a character is viable enough to place Top10. That's not balance.

I agree with this, but weren't people saying you can't use a good player as an example of viability before when comparing Azen and Lucario?

We said you cannot use single cases as examples. If so, Mewtwo is obviously pretty viable in Melee what with Taj and others around.

Lucario (16 top8, 9 top4, 5 top2, 5 wins)
Donkey Kong (10 top8, 7 top4, 3 top2, 11 wins)
Olimar (19 top8, 12 top4, 3 top2, 4 wins)
Diddy Kong (22 top8, 5 top4, 6 top2, 3 wins)
Kirby (13 top8, 10 top4, 5 top2, 1 win)
Ice Climbers (5 top8, 8 top4, 5 top2, 5 wins)
Fox (8 top8, 2 top4, 1 top2, 4 wins)
Wolf (22 top8, 3 top4, 3 top2, 3 wins)
Pit (7 top8, 2 top4, 2 top2, 3 wins)
Zero Suit Samus (4 top8, 5 top4, 2 wins)
Peach (10 top8, 4 top4, 3 top2, 2 wins)
Pikachu (7 top8, 8 top4, 1 top2, 3 wins)

Now compare that to how well the Tops and Highs have placed. We must also consider that a lot of these results come from smaller tournaments with a small concentration of skill. People are too lax about what tournaments qualify for these rankings.

Ranking battles and weeklies are allowed in! Of course bad players can win then. If, say, there's a weekly in New York City and that city's best player (present) happens to play Peach that day and manage a close win... that's skews the results.

Also, notice that while those mids mostly enjoy 3-5 wins each, the Tops and Highs are all in their 20+s by now. Good chances my tuchas.

This is assuming everyone sucks who is playing or playing against, which I've seen you claim they suck without any proof other than the character used.

Umm... no? I claimed people suck if they're getting owned by bad to useless characters. Because, really, if they're getting owned by them, then they just suck (or they're mediocore and the player they're facing is amazing).

Way to be a ****.

Enjoy your infraction. Not only did you flame and use personal insults, you purposely circumvented the filters to do so.

I was a **** for saying "Obviously, your opinion should be law" when you claimed most of Melee's Bottoms should be Mid without providing any arguments for why?

How about looking at the melee tier list and seeing how the high is way too small for what it should be.

How about you provide valid arguments for once instead of just saying "Things should be like this and this and this".

I am aware of that, but Yuna doesn't see much Lucario potential, and keeps going on about how it's all Azen. Due to this mindset, it makes it difficult to argue with him that there are a large number of very viable Brawl characters, as he often dismisses a lot of the high tiers. A better example may have been Tudor's Samus (although I don't know how he places in tournaments).

Lucario has potential to place high. He dodesn't really have much potential to win entire tournaments. At least not when compared to some other characters. If 5 characters are at least 5 times more likely to win than Lucario, then Lucario doesn't really stand much of a chance of winning entire tournaments.

It's like how a college athlete can be really good and beat any amateur. But if he goes up against a Pro, then he'll most probably lose. Lucario can be Good, Game & Watch can be Amazing. Both tournament results and theory fighter state this.

Well, we either need to examin the likes of Azen, Gimpyfish, and other players from both games and use them as examples of how even a less than great character is relatively balanced and can compete against the highest tiers, or we need to discredit evidence of all great low tier character users as being "exceptional," and thus do not apply to the debate.

No, we can't.

Because in every fighting game, there are people who are able to do very well with bad characters. Is Akuma not ban-worthy just because a lot of Pros can easily beat Akuma in SSF2T?

In Melee, did Pichu and Mewtwo, the two worst characters in the game, stand a chance of winning tournaments since certain players could place Top10 or even Top5 as them? No.

THC, this is where more experience would've helped you not make the same mistakes as 29 other people in this thread already. "Azen can do well with Lucario, hence Lucario stands a good chance!". O RLY? Then why aren't tons of other Lucarios doing well? After all, they could just emulate what Azen's doing.

I'll tell you why Azen can do well as Lucario:
That tournament was a relatively long time ago. The metagame was still fresh. Mew2king played pretty badly, what with leaving himself open time and again and missing several airdodges... and Azen happens to be one of the best players in the world.

His mindgames are superior to 99% of the world's players. He's just that good. But in the end, despite leaving much less openings and Mew2King leaving much more openings, who won? That's right, M2K. Potential my tuchas.

It can be one, or it can be the other, but you can't side with both based on convenience. So we should probably settle this part of the discussion now, so as to end the double standard that many of us (myself most likely included) use in these debates.

One of the world's best players can take Lucario far. 1,000 Snakes can win tournaments even if they're mediocre. Yes, that's balanced all right. Lucario stands a good chance alright.

So is Azen's use of Lucario an exaple of balance or exceptionalism? Is Gimpyfish's use of melee Bowser an example of balance or exceptionalism? The answer to one is the answer to both.

"Exceptionalism"? Also, they're exceptions, obviously. THC, try applying logic once in a while.

i hear other Bowsers were able to replicate Gimpy's Bowser.

I heard Gimpy was never even close to winning a major tournament as Bowser nor was any other Bowser. I heard other than Azen, no one else has been able to place high against players on Mew2King's level as Lucario. I heard Pichu and Mewtwo placed Top8 in plenty of tournaments if wielded by the right people. I heard all of this means Hello Kitty.

Gimpy's Bowser, M2K's Mewtwo, who cares? Pick whichever low-tier users you want from the two games.

M2K doesn't even play Mewtwo. THC, please stop spouting off ignorant opinion and assumptions. Your lack of knowledge is glaring.

although since Yuna is headstrong in believing that low tiers placing well are usually something like and exception or, like with Tudor, fault with the opponents not being good against Samus you could alwyas go prove their viability, and Yuna wrong yourself. by being the first example and then having followers. that could help your PT argument better.

Someone: "One player can do well as Samus"
Me: "Then more players should be able to replicate that or it's just an exception."

How very headstrong of me.

Lucario doesn't lack potential. He has some. It's just that there are several characters with much more potential.

And you know what, you guys kept throwing Azen's Lucario at us. And?! Lucario's not even that bad. He's in the upper crust of Mid. I never called him bad. Guess what, Azen was able to place Top5 and Top3 as actual Low Tiers in Melee! If we're gonna use Azen as proof, then Azen's proved Melee is more balanced as he was able to do just as well as much worse characters in Melee.

Logic dictates that since Lucario's potential is relatively OK in Brawl, Azen should be winning many tournaments as him. But he isn't. He's only doing as well as with actual Low Tiers in Melee, which means Brawl is less balanced.

Way to defeat yourselves.

The only reason why Brawl is imbalanced is because of MK. MK has an aggressive game that cannot be punished unlike many others. MK's ledge game is nearly ungimpable with the exception of DK. DK is probably the only character that can punish it.

tl;dr banning MK actually makes Brawl worth something competitively.

Yes, let's ban anything that's "too good". Next, let's ban combos.

If Brawl is so imbalanced we have to actually consider character bans, then it's obviously less balanced than Melee.

O.K., so are the low tier characters with amazing people behind them, namely PC's GW and Chu Dat's Pikachu (the latter not quite so impressive as the former, but still decent) doing well because of balance, or because of personal ability? The implication in naming specific persons is that it is a matter of exceptionalism.

... ... ...

Brawl is far more balanced as far as players goes. Maybe not characters, but now average people have a small chance against pros instead of no chance.

200 dollar moneymatch.

Also, what kind of BS is this?! A game is balanced if the potential for improvement is low?! Stop being a scrub and learn how to play games properly if you want to win instead of looking fo a game where you don't have to be good to do well (even if that's a lie).

And, no, that's not balance.

 

[C@sH Mooney]

Yuna why are all of your posts amazing and not ******** at all?

On topic. Brawl is not balanced at all. Its slightly better than MvC2 which is sad. In melee, Pichu vs Sheik was winnable if you were skillful enough. In brawl I can be the best falcon and still never beat a MK who is nowhere close to me in skill.

Why the hell am I posting in the brawl section? God am I bored.

 

[Yuna]

Yuna why are all of your posts amazing and not ******** at all?

On topic. Brawl is not balanced at all. Its slightly better than MvC2 which is sad. In melee, Pichu vs Sheik was winnable if you were skillful enough. In brawl I can be the best falcon and still never beat a MK who is nowhere close to me in skill.

Lots of Buffy, Xena, Will & Grace, Sabrina, Charmed and Stargate. Snark, sarcasm, irony, biting wit and dark humour.

 

[C@sH Mooney]

Lots of Buffy, Xena, Will & Grace, Sabrina, Charmed and Stargate. Snark, sarcasm, irony, biting wit and dark humour.

I mean, how can you come to the brawl boards and actually attempt to prove something to the brawl players? Seems like an impossible task to me, but good job if your actually getting somewhere.

 

[Grunt]

Why the hell am I posting in the brawl section? God am I bored.

It's almost 3AM, same here.

 

[Gygados]

Brawl is far more balanced than Melee. I mean in SSBM, I could go against a Fox or Falco and have immense trouble. Also, Pichu and Mewtwo were just... pathetic.

However, in Brawl, everything is a lot more balanced, although no game is ever PERFECTLY balanced.

 

[C@sH Mooney]

Its 5:40 in the morning right now, and I forbid myself to ever post in the brawl boards, but I am for some reason.

Brawl is far more balanced than Melee. I mean in SSBM, I could go against a Fox or Falco and have immense trouble. Also, Pichu and Mewtwo were just... pathetic.

However, in Brawl, everything is a lot more balanced, although no game is ever PERFECTLY balanced.

This is exactly why I don't visit the brawl boards. Although if I were like Yuna I would probably come here a lot more. I have no patience D:

Please give some more examples as to how brawl is more balanced than melee. Were you ever good at melee? I doubt it. You can say the exact same thing about MK and snake, you know.

 

[Grunt]

However, in Brawl, everything is a lot more balanced, although no game is ever PERFECTLY balanced.

MVC2 is also pretty balanced, I mean Zangeif, T-Bonne, and Roll have a really really really situational infinite.

 

[Vyse]

Brawl is far more balanced than Melee. I mean in SSBM, I could go against a Fox or Falco and have immense trouble. Also, Pichu and Mewtwo were just... pathetic.

However, in Brawl, everything is a lot more balanced, although no game is ever PERFECTLY balanced.

It must be disheartening, that after 263 pages of resounding evidence otherwise, a post like this is made

Gyagados. At least Mewtwo had alot of options against Fox/Falco.

In fact, Mewtwo and Pichu's chances against Fox/Falco was much better than say Captain Falcon's chances against Metaknight or Snake. Have you seen some of the stuff Mewtwo is capable of against the spacies? It's amazing, and a testament to the inherent balance within Melee when compared to Brawl.

 

[Magus420]

Honestly, I've seen some weird **** in Melee vids, stuff like Magus vs. Lord Knight in close matches when LK was using Roy and Magus wasn't, while in another instance, LK picked a better char and the matches were skill about as close, etc. Maybe it's just my memory ****ing with me, but that's how I remembered it, lol.

He hasn't used Roy for like 2 years or so. Also, my Fox doesn't exist now and it was even worse back then, and those are probably the vids you're thinking of where he wanted to get some Fox/Falco combos recorded with Roy so I tried to use Fox in them and failed, lol. I think you're comparing some very different matches, and we both tend to screw around a lot in our matches anyway.

 

[MarKO X]

MVC2 is also pretty balanced, I mean Zangeif, T-Bonne, and Roll have a really really really situational infinite.

Magneto, Cable, Sentinel. Each of those characters have what? At least two infinites a piece? I know Magneto and Cable got at least 3, and I've seen one with Sentinel and heard about another one, but I've never seen it in competitive play.

Here's what I want to see, have asked for on a number of occassions, and have not gotten it. You see how Brawl has the character ranks list that have MK and Snake ruling the wins and everyone else stuck in single digits? I wanna see the character rankings for Melee... not the tier list, I know the important parts (top, high, and middle) by heart, but what characters won how many tournaments. I'm sure that Fox, Falco, and Marth dominated that as well, but I'd love to see it if someone can provide it.

 

[Dark Sonic]

I don't think anyone actually organized a list of Melee tournament results.

 

[MarKO X]

I see. So, from your experience, do you think that Fox, Falco, and Marth were dominating the tournament scene like MK and Snake are doing now?

 

[C@sH Mooney]

I don't think anyone actually organized a list of Melee tournament results.

The dominating characters were Fox, Falco, marth, and Sheik.

I'm sure nobody has seen Ganondorf or jiggilypuff win important tournaments consistently.

If anybody mentions Mango after this post your a ****tard.

Bottom line is that brawl is a horrible competitive game and easily one of the most unbalanced there has ever been.

Close this thread, now.

 

[Dark Sonic]

I see. So, from your experience, do you think that Fox, Falco, and Marth were dominating the tournament scene like MK and Snake are doing now?

Falco? Not so much.

It was Marth, Fox, and Shiek mostly, with Falco a little bit behind IMO.
But pretty much everyone down to Ganondorf placed "high." They just didn't win.

And hey, random low tiers placing top 8 was more common in melee too.

 

[Julz]

You see how Brawl has the character ranks list that have MK and Snake ruling the wins and everyone else stuck in single digits?

If metaknight and snake are so overpowered then shouldn't they get banned? We should be fixing the problem not complaining about it. Those who think brawl is unfair should be pinpointing the problem and compiling the evidence for banning/fixing.

 

[Fletch]

He hasn't used Roy for like 2 years or so. Also, my Fox doesn't exist now and it was even worse back then, and those are probably the vids you're thinking of where he wanted to get some Fox/Falco combos recorded with Roy so I tried to use Fox in them and failed, lol. I think you're comparing some very different matches, and we both tend to screw around a lot in our matches anyway.

This is way off topic right now, but holy sh** that combo in your signature is amazing.

As for being on-topic, how can anyone honestly believe Brawl is more balanced now? Provide one good argument for it, please.

 

[Julz]

I'm neutral on this issue:
-On the one hand, you have metaknight and snake owning the tournament scene with little room for other characters.
-whilst on the other hand, the tier lists being created as of now tend to have really fat middle and high tier list placings. Which you could say is the result of having less broken characters or having more balanced characters in the game than melee.

Regarding my last post, I'm curious as to what people think of creating two individual tournaments at each event with one being "non-snake/metaknight" and the other having all characters. Which one would have the most entrants? Which would have the most varied character wins?

Another thought that comes to mind is if metaknight and snake are deemed broken in the future but can still be chosen as counterpick characters.

 

[Gygados]

The dominating characters were Fox, Falco, marth, and Sheik.

Exactly, showing that Melee was seriously unbalanced. Brawl isn't balanced, but is more so than Melee.

Please give some more examples as to how brawl is more balanced than melee. Were you ever good at melee? I doubt it.

Yes, I was plenty good at Melee, dankeshön. Please don't jump to conclusions without proof like that to prove a point. It shows you're desperate to insult someone, and that you can't think of a good insult.

I was only giving a brief overview, not a 1000-page, 12 book epic entitled The Overviewing. However, Meta Knight is pretty easy to beat, Snake is, admittedly, a bit harder. However, previously rubbish characters like Zelda and Peach are stronger. Not all new characters are completely overpowerful or underpowerful. While it was pretty obvious that, in Melee, characters like Mewtwo and Pichu were rubbish for a large number of reasons, (Mediocre power, slow, light, rubbish specials / very weak, very light, attacks damage itself) and that characters like Fox, Falco and Marth are totally over powered, (Speedy and with crazy Bowser-crushing power.) with Brawl, it is very hard to discrern a small selction of "the best" characters.

 

[MarKO X]

Depends on your definition of balance.

If balance is the percentage of characters that are widely accepted as having the best chances for winning tournaments... we'll do the most exact possible math if it hasn't been done alreay:

Melee: 3 or 4 characters out of 26 characters - 12 to 15%
Brawl: 2 characters out of 39 characters - 5%

That means that Melee had 12 to 15% of consistent tourney winning characters while Brawl only has 5%. However, many times I've heard that in Melee, the other characters had plenty of chances and ways of beating a top tier character, while the "top tier" characters in Brawl completely own the rest of the cast, giving nobody any chance to win. Under what scale can that be proven? Or is it all just relative, and the characters in Melee just so happen to put up good fights and never really had a chance in the first place?

Measuring balance must be measured in the percentage of characters that can win tourneys I'm guessing, because if you really think about it, the middle tiers can scrap with the low tiers in each game. If you're measuring balance based solely on who can win a tourney, then yes, Melee is the more balanced game. If you're basing it off all of the characters in general, then that's a different argument becauuse both characters have their share of garbage characters.

 

[metaXzero]

Gygados. The fact that you called Peach a rubbish character who got better in Brawl alone cripples your statement that you were good at Melee and you can accurately compare the games balance -_-

 

[Grunt]

Magneto, Cable, Sentinel. Each of those characters have what? At least two infinites a piece? I know Magneto and Cable got at least 3, and I've seen one with Sentinel and heard about another one, but I've never seen it in competitive play.

It was a joke.
but i have seen some weird and difficult Zangeif + Assist Infinites.

previously rubbish characters like Zelda and Peach are stronger.

This pretty much screams "I sucked at Melee". Don't deny it, if you think peach was rubbish, and that she got buffed, think again.