SSBM will always be one of the greatest games of all time, it will go down as one of those old school games that for some reason never gets old and always looks good, and that is why a lot of us are having such a difficult time letting it go, on top of the facts that Brawl is a whole new animal in terms of physics and gameplay. For a lot of us out there (people like me) who played melee to its full potential, used all of the advanced techniques, and who always wanted to do the best they could to be that guy (or girl) whose friends absolutely hated to fight because of how hard they could own them, we can tell instantly that Brawl really is different game. What I am seeing very quickly however, is people not wanting to accept that it truly is a different game, and adjustment is definitely a neccesity for anybody who has played previous Smash titles, especially if we want to play Brawl to its full potential and truly appreciate it.
The first thing I have to say is that everybody wants to make comparisons between Brawl and Melee, but considering that Brawl is not Melee, what good is it to say, "this sucks in Brawl because its not as good as it was in Melee"? Does "it" really suck? Or is "it" just different? Many of the opinions I've seen from people claim that certain things "suck" compared to Melee, though from my own experience they don't seem to "suck" in Brawl, even if "it" isn't as fast, or as strong as it once was. On the flip side, many characters had a lot of moves that "sucked" in Melee, that are now way better in Brawl.
Secondly, I have to say that I was a late bloomer in Melee. I had that game from the moment it came out, and played it daily, set it down for a few months, and always came back to it. My friends and I played for more than 3 years before learning that there was a whole new world to that game. Some of the things you could do in Melee I would have never known about if it wasn't for stumbling across it on the internet. When it came to actually learning advanced techniques, none of it was a matter of just going "okay, I'm just gonna wavedash now that I've seen someone do it", it was hard. These advanced techniques separated good players from bad players, because we all had to put effort into being able to use them, and we all had to put a lot of effort into being able to use them naturally and effectively. I'm completely with everyone out there who wanted to transfer their skills that they worked for to new Smash. But, for a lot of that stuff, we just don't have it anymore and have got to accept that. On top of that, we have to realize that we've all gotten so used to fighting the way we fought in Melee, a lot of what's going on in Brawl just seems weird to us.
Really though, I don't think Brawl is held back from being a hugely competitive game based on skill, and if we are going to be getting into what really makes Brawl tick, we're all going to have to be putting a lot of what we learned in Melee to the side. Now please bare with me, because I have only had the game for a few days, and haven't spent enough time to make any really educated opinions, but I feel that to get good at Brawl, we will all have to spend a lot of time with individual characters to really see how advanced game mechanics will work. Many of the mechanics from Melee were pretty universal: wavedashing, L-cancelling, crouch-cancelling, etc, etc. Of course they worked differently with each character, but at the core it was all the same idea. Brawl really doesn't seem to be set up like that as much, each character seems to be way more unique in how their own mechanics work, and by digging into each one I'm sure we'll find tons of really useful new things to take advantage of. The best example I can give as of now is with Toon Link. He quickly became my new favorite (for now anyway, it used to be Falco, and I will forever be sad about losing who he once was) mainly because of his really good spike (that can serve many purposes if you get into it). What I find unique about it is that it only works the second the move comes out, so if you aren't right on top of the opponent when you use it, the spike won't happen. In order to be able to use it effectively, especially out over the ledge (because if you miss you will fall like a ton of bricks to your death) you will have to put effort into getting good at it. So far that has won me just about every match with Toon Link since I figured it out. I can usually push my friends around by doing a sort of SHFFLE, than once I have them into position either knock them or throw them off and just barely hop out and blast them down off the screen. I have even seen it work several times while they were holding the ledge, though I don't know exactly why that is, but am exited to figure out exactly how it works. Point is, its these kinds of things (as I'm sure there are tons of them) that will make this game really good.
I could keep going on but unfortunately I don't have much time, so I'm going to cut it short. Ultimately what I am trying to say is that I feel this has the potential, it's just going to take a lot of effort from the community to figure out just where it is. I just hope those of you who read and choose to reply to this add to what I have tried to say with your own examples and outlooks, and don't choose to burn this post up in flames.
The first thing I have to say is that everybody wants to make comparisons between Brawl and Melee, but considering that Brawl is not Melee, what good is it to say, "this sucks in Brawl because its not as good as it was in Melee"? Does "it" really suck? Or is "it" just different? Many of the opinions I've seen from people claim that certain things "suck" compared to Melee, though from my own experience they don't seem to "suck" in Brawl, even if "it" isn't as fast, or as strong as it once was. On the flip side, many characters had a lot of moves that "sucked" in Melee, that are now way better in Brawl.
Secondly, I have to say that I was a late bloomer in Melee. I had that game from the moment it came out, and played it daily, set it down for a few months, and always came back to it. My friends and I played for more than 3 years before learning that there was a whole new world to that game. Some of the things you could do in Melee I would have never known about if it wasn't for stumbling across it on the internet. When it came to actually learning advanced techniques, none of it was a matter of just going "okay, I'm just gonna wavedash now that I've seen someone do it", it was hard. These advanced techniques separated good players from bad players, because we all had to put effort into being able to use them, and we all had to put a lot of effort into being able to use them naturally and effectively. I'm completely with everyone out there who wanted to transfer their skills that they worked for to new Smash. But, for a lot of that stuff, we just don't have it anymore and have got to accept that. On top of that, we have to realize that we've all gotten so used to fighting the way we fought in Melee, a lot of what's going on in Brawl just seems weird to us.
Really though, I don't think Brawl is held back from being a hugely competitive game based on skill, and if we are going to be getting into what really makes Brawl tick, we're all going to have to be putting a lot of what we learned in Melee to the side. Now please bare with me, because I have only had the game for a few days, and haven't spent enough time to make any really educated opinions, but I feel that to get good at Brawl, we will all have to spend a lot of time with individual characters to really see how advanced game mechanics will work. Many of the mechanics from Melee were pretty universal: wavedashing, L-cancelling, crouch-cancelling, etc, etc. Of course they worked differently with each character, but at the core it was all the same idea. Brawl really doesn't seem to be set up like that as much, each character seems to be way more unique in how their own mechanics work, and by digging into each one I'm sure we'll find tons of really useful new things to take advantage of. The best example I can give as of now is with Toon Link. He quickly became my new favorite (for now anyway, it used to be Falco, and I will forever be sad about losing who he once was) mainly because of his really good spike (that can serve many purposes if you get into it). What I find unique about it is that it only works the second the move comes out, so if you aren't right on top of the opponent when you use it, the spike won't happen. In order to be able to use it effectively, especially out over the ledge (because if you miss you will fall like a ton of bricks to your death) you will have to put effort into getting good at it. So far that has won me just about every match with Toon Link since I figured it out. I can usually push my friends around by doing a sort of SHFFLE, than once I have them into position either knock them or throw them off and just barely hop out and blast them down off the screen. I have even seen it work several times while they were holding the ledge, though I don't know exactly why that is, but am exited to figure out exactly how it works. Point is, its these kinds of things (as I'm sure there are tons of them) that will make this game really good.
I could keep going on but unfortunately I don't have much time, so I'm going to cut it short. Ultimately what I am trying to say is that I feel this has the potential, it's just going to take a lot of effort from the community to figure out just where it is. I just hope those of you who read and choose to reply to this add to what I have tried to say with your own examples and outlooks, and don't choose to burn this post up in flames.
I like how different they are from one another !! 
) so I wouldn't know. And I never played Melee seriously, so I didn't bother with any of these advanced techniques. Then again, I probably should bother for SSBB, as I'm gonna be playing online rather than against Friends or Lvl. 6-8 CPUs.
