I used to play the original Smash on N64. So obviously when Melee came out as a launch title.... I didn't get it lol. I got Star Wars: Rogue Leader instead, as a Christmas present with my Jet Black Gamecube. I rented it the next day with my Blockbuster giftcard, and I thought the coolest part was the new throws (up and down).
Then as soon as school started back up, a new kid moved to Seymour and was in two of my classes. He had Melee, and I got to play it with him during the weekends. He mained Marth and so I decided to main Roy. I thought Roy was better cause he had fire.... and his attacks were stronger. Eventually my friend dropped Melee and played new games as they came out. He introduced me to Resident Evil, with the gamecube remake. I introduced him to the sonic advanced games. Around the time Metroid Prime came out, I let him borrow it a few days after I bought it. I thought the graphics were awesome at the time, but I didn't care for it that much. I'm a strong believer that a real metroid game is 2D, but that's a whole different story. Anyways, he borrowed Metroid and my black 251 memory card. In exchange, I got to borrow Melee.
Well, he lost my 251 memory card, and so I kept his copy of Melee. (Fun Fact: I've never actually bought Melee in the three copies I've gone through, my friend's, my nephew's, and a burned copy) At that point, I became "that guy". You know, the one who plays a lot on his own, and the difference in skill makes other friends not want to play anymore. I dropped Roy and picked up Mewtwo. I thought his fair was ******. A few months later, I dropped Mewtwo and picked up Sheik instead. I stuck with her for the next five years. I also picked up Jigglypuff around the same time, but she was only a secondary character to play with friends. I also believed for the longest time, her down b was a completely useless move. Eventually, my friend didn't want to play anymore, and I quit sometime in the summer of 2004.
About three years ago, there were about 11 of us in Seymour that played at a friend's house a lot. Myself, Br4n, and the rest never visited the boards. Me and this kid Ryan (Pope/Pop3), were the best out of everyone. Pop3 used Falco and I used Sheik. We didn't use any advanced techniques in this crew, and we didn't even know about smashboards or tournaments. I'd adopted playing with no items with my original friend from '02, because we hated the luck factor. Pop3 liked that idea, and everyone else just sorta followed suit. We'd also play with 10 stocks, and only on final destination for 1v1's, and Temple for FFA/2v2. I could never beat Pop3. Part of it was he was naturally good at predicting, and the other part was that he'd been playing since launch. But eventually I just started getting faster and faster with Sheik. I learned throwing aerial needles had no landing lag, and it got to the point where the matches would come down to the wire. At that point, Ryan retired and didn't play the game anymore. He didn't want anyone to take his title as "the best".
With his retiring, the whole Seymour crew sort of broke up. Prior to that point, the crew played together for a good six months, every day. None of us had school, do to being drop-outs or graduates with no ambition for higher learning. Out of 11 of us, there ended up being three left. Me, Br4n and milkbird. Neither of those two were close to as good as Pop3 (who still beats them in friendlies to this day, being as out of practice as he is). At that point, I'd felt I'd "mastered" Sheik, and decided to main Jiggs exclusively. I also learned about SmashBoards due to gamefaqs' brawl board. I watched some videos and couldn't believe how fast "pro's" played. I figured that there was no point in learning these advanced techniques in Melee, Brawl was just around the corner. I'll just wait and start with a new game, new ATs, clean slate.
Looking back, I didn't realize how bad of a game brawl really was for a long time. I mained Jigglypuff and secondary was MK. I was pretty good, but who wasn't at Brawl? I could beat a lot of people on GFaqs on Wi-Fi, and I decided I should go to a tournament. How much harder could the competition get? Well, it got a lot harder. People who spend money to go to a tournament are actually good. They DI'd, which I thought was a lost concept to everyone but myself, due to Wi-Fi and the '07 Seymour Melee Crew. Her "combos" didn't work, and Snake and MK were super gay. In order to stand a chance in tourney, I switched MK and Jiggs around, and MK was my new main. I did alright with him, I'd win two or three sets before getting knocked out. This lasted up until about November of '09. I played Melee for the first time since Brawl had come out. It felt completely different from Brawl, and how I remembered it even. I sucked, and the two friends leftover from the Crew beat me so bad. I had completely lost all the skill I had in Melee, due to Brawl.
Eventually I was able to put into words, how trashy my favorite character, :jigglypuf, was in Brawl. I made a thread about it (if you dig really deep, you can probably find it lol), and I realized how much I hated (hate is a strong word, but it's how I felt) the Brawl jiggs board (cept Glick and Thinkaman. Random shout-out to Ryko, awesome guy), especially illinalex24. Everyone there "knew" better than one another, and there was no organization. A terrible character, a terrible community for that character, a terrible game. Then something amazing happened..
The Wombo Combo :suess:
I probably watched that clip 200 times in a row (and that's being conservative). My interest in Melee was completely revived. I'd subscribed to TheWaffle77, and watched all his videos the next few days. Then I saw the whole FAST1 set with M2K vs Shiz, and that cemented it. I was back, and I wanted to be better than ever before. Since I was already ****ty due to months of only Brawl, I decided to implement ATs while going through the proccess of adjusting back to Melee. I mainly used Jiggs, and WoP was amazing. Uthrow -> Rest was amazing. It was nice to play Jiggs and have real combos, and a decent character. Then I picked up Falco, and SHL and Dair and Shine and Nair were all amazing.
- Entered Rom 2 almost a year after coming back to Melee, got ***** in Pools. I beat two kids and lost to three (Four stocked by Gordon/G-Money). It was really awesome though.
- Went to Pound 4, and I made it to second round of pools. I was happy that I improved
- Recently made it to doubles GFs in a local tournament, and took home money :D. Got a taste, and I want more XD.
And that, is my Melee story. I'm not friends with the original kid that I got Melee from. He caught me smoking outside of school junior year, and wasn't friends with me any more. Which is funny, cause now he's an alcoholic and rolls every weekend. And all I do, is smoke cigs
. The Seymour Crew is more or less dead. Br4n moved to Florida, and now it's only me and milkbird. He has a flatscreen lcd that lags, so I refuse to play with him.
I've met some really awesome people here in CT that play Melee recently, and are way better than any of my old friends/crewmates. SloX, strawhats, zebra, Kupo15. You guys ****.
