Alright. I definitely will try my best to not sound biased as hell, but let me give you the pros and cons of each game.
When Melee came out, people figured out exploits in the physics engine and developed unintentional combos. Hit-stun made real combos possible, and allowed the community to be extremely fluid with their moveset. The game was popular among many people due to its freshness, as no other game had proposed such a prospect of smash percentages and blast lines. And when you compare it with other competitive fighters (SSF, Tekken, etc.), the game seemed more creative with the different styles. It was sort of a sandbox fighter, and not just rigid punches, kicks, and special effects. You made up your own style, your moveset, and your own combos, whereas in, say Tekken, you literally had to memorize different inputs and just spam them into your controller. (Not hating on other games) What's even better about the game, is that it had the duality of being both an extremely fast paced competitive fighter, as well as a more casual party game with an element of randomness (items).
Brawl, on the other hand, was pretty much completely the opposite of Melee. Sakurai intentionally removed air-dodging to take out wavedashing, he took out L-canceling, and created new characters basically. Yes, the new characters were hype-inducing at first. Yes, people swore that they would play Brawl forever, but when it came out, it was a shock to the community. The characters were kind of unbalanced, (MK being extremely better than everyone else) the gameplay was so much slower (due to wave-dashes, L-canceling, pretty much everything that made Melee fast was taken out) and it was obvious that it was intentional. Most other companies had embraced the fact that their games had started to become extremely competitive and started to stray away from casual games. Big giants in the gaming industry like Microsoft and EA obliged when MLG wanted to put Halo's and other games on the professional MLG circuit, but Nintendo was an extremely reluctant company. It was pretty hard to even pick up streaming rights, and they became so intransigent that MLG had to take Melee off of the professional circuit. Nintendo had tried to make Smash Brothers a party game, and when that didn't quite happen in Melee, they basically trashed the entire engine and built a slower one, more geared towards family fun and children, in Brawl. They made the game specifically to reward new players, and make new players feel like they were kings. Say I was new to the game, and I picked Ike. All I would have to do is press A three times and they'd basically go flying. Oh look! A shiny orb in the sky. I get the Smash Ball and I press B. Yay! Giant flashy fire effects and SFX blow out from everywhere, I'm so good at this game! And while that sounds like a good idea, considering most of Nintendo IS geared towards little children (Mario, DK, etc.) it also completely cleaved the community into two pieces. And it cut off its competitive scene almost completely.
And all this is fine and dandy because now we have another Smash Brothers on the horizon line waiting! Though, no other Smash Brothers will ever beat out old-school Melee. Unless Sakurai actually TRIES to make a competitive game, then we will really receive a treat!
So yeah! Sorry for the long post, and remember: this is MY opinion. Ring in with your arguments, and let's see if we can settle all the:
BRAWL SUCKS!!!!!! OMG YOU PLEAY BRAUL n00000000()()()()()()()()B
or
Melee IS STUPID. LIKE THERES NO CHARCTER S LOL NO(OBS ISOOH B OBAD}
When Melee came out, people figured out exploits in the physics engine and developed unintentional combos. Hit-stun made real combos possible, and allowed the community to be extremely fluid with their moveset. The game was popular among many people due to its freshness, as no other game had proposed such a prospect of smash percentages and blast lines. And when you compare it with other competitive fighters (SSF, Tekken, etc.), the game seemed more creative with the different styles. It was sort of a sandbox fighter, and not just rigid punches, kicks, and special effects. You made up your own style, your moveset, and your own combos, whereas in, say Tekken, you literally had to memorize different inputs and just spam them into your controller. (Not hating on other games) What's even better about the game, is that it had the duality of being both an extremely fast paced competitive fighter, as well as a more casual party game with an element of randomness (items).
Brawl, on the other hand, was pretty much completely the opposite of Melee. Sakurai intentionally removed air-dodging to take out wavedashing, he took out L-canceling, and created new characters basically. Yes, the new characters were hype-inducing at first. Yes, people swore that they would play Brawl forever, but when it came out, it was a shock to the community. The characters were kind of unbalanced, (MK being extremely better than everyone else) the gameplay was so much slower (due to wave-dashes, L-canceling, pretty much everything that made Melee fast was taken out) and it was obvious that it was intentional. Most other companies had embraced the fact that their games had started to become extremely competitive and started to stray away from casual games. Big giants in the gaming industry like Microsoft and EA obliged when MLG wanted to put Halo's and other games on the professional MLG circuit, but Nintendo was an extremely reluctant company. It was pretty hard to even pick up streaming rights, and they became so intransigent that MLG had to take Melee off of the professional circuit. Nintendo had tried to make Smash Brothers a party game, and when that didn't quite happen in Melee, they basically trashed the entire engine and built a slower one, more geared towards family fun and children, in Brawl. They made the game specifically to reward new players, and make new players feel like they were kings. Say I was new to the game, and I picked Ike. All I would have to do is press A three times and they'd basically go flying. Oh look! A shiny orb in the sky. I get the Smash Ball and I press B. Yay! Giant flashy fire effects and SFX blow out from everywhere, I'm so good at this game! And while that sounds like a good idea, considering most of Nintendo IS geared towards little children (Mario, DK, etc.) it also completely cleaved the community into two pieces. And it cut off its competitive scene almost completely.
And all this is fine and dandy because now we have another Smash Brothers on the horizon line waiting! Though, no other Smash Brothers will ever beat out old-school Melee. Unless Sakurai actually TRIES to make a competitive game, then we will really receive a treat!
So yeah! Sorry for the long post, and remember: this is MY opinion. Ring in with your arguments, and let's see if we can settle all the:
BRAWL SUCKS!!!!!! OMG YOU PLEAY BRAUL n00000000()()()()()()()()B
or
Melee IS STUPID. LIKE THERES NO CHARCTER S LOL NO(OBS ISOOH B OBAD}
