chaddd
Smash Lord
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2006
- Messages
- 1,485
Super Smash Brothers Brawl was released after years of delays and rearrangements. The creators of the game seemed to have one thing and one thing only in mind when creating, however. They claimed to be making the game for the fans; but it gets clearer and clearer that the simple reason behind all the hype was the same motivation behind everything in the world: money. Those of us who are members of this community have spent more than enough money on this game and other Smash Brothers games.(I myself own 2 copies of 64, 3 copies of Melee, and picked up not only the Japanese copy of Brawl, but 2 English copies as well. I've also driven thousands of miles just to play this game.) But for some reason, those of us who have spent the time to learn advanced techniques and substance to Melee were completely ignored when Brawl was in production. Tech like L-cancelling and wavedashing were removed purposely, and the creators claim that they do not wish Brawl to be a competitive game. Seeing as THIS is the competitive community for Smash Brothers, it doesn't seem to make much sense in terms of our existence. Stating quite clearly that the creators had no desire to fulfill our desires to continue to run tournaments for this game, which they obviously see as exploiting their product.
So I have composed here a list of reasons that I wish Brawl to end competitively, and for Melee to remain as the tournament smash game. Many of you will hate me for a lot of this, but I ask you to hear me out.
The reasons Brawl cannot operate as a tournament game can be divided into several different categories. They are as follows:
-Progression-
As Gimpyfish stated, this game seems to be progressing backwards. I've been playing in the tournament scene for almost all fighting games in existence for about 10 years now, and I've never seen a game that only progresses in the defensive aspect, all while subtly destroying the offensive aspect. The new discoveries in this game, even up to the point that we have taken them, have all done nothing to increase the ability to combo efficiently. The offensive strategies in this game are quickly being reduced to games of patience and waiting, much more than Melee ever had. Chain combos, juggles, linking, and even SPACING have been given the simplest of counters in Brawl: fast fall an air-dodge. The dodging system has ended juggles such as 'The Ken Combo' or even a simple 'up air to knee'. There is almost no way to juggle an opponent who has a good grasp of DI and dodging. You also maintain almost no ability to follow up on grabs. No moves have the ability to continue a combo before an airdodge can be utilized by an opponent at as low as 30 damage. The combo system is quickly become non-existent, and that seems to leave poking and running as the most efficient strategy.
All this in a game where King Dedede can down throw to down throw half the people in the game, Falco can down throw to down throw the other half. The Ice Climbers also STILL have several infinites, including one that is quite simply forward throw to forward throw, although down throw to down throw works just fine, too. Completely inescapable, by the way. There's no way to say it other than Nintendo simply dropped the ball with this one.
I'm no expert on predicting the progression of games but it seems to me that with the addition of this randomness, as well as the new system of airdodging, Brawl is constantly becoming more defensive. Almost every scenario involving an offensive attack from either player results in the other player attempting a well timed airdodge through it. The only counter for this response to your attack is attacking to attempt to mind game your opponent into dodging, and grabbing them afterwards. But not only does this reduce the strength of your attacks, but you can't even follow up on the grab, unless you happen to be Dedede, Snake, or Falco. It just seems that the game is spiraling into a 'who can poke better' type strategy game. The type of game that's too strategic to be compared to any other fighting game, despite it's attempt to be part of the genre. With the games taking longer and longer with a better ability to utilize all the free invincibility that is given to you in Brawl compared to in Melee. I'm not saying Brawl is a bad game, I'm simply saying it doesn't work well at all as a tournament game, in my experience. It CAN be run under a tournament setting, obviously, but I know for a fact that Melee tournaments took much longer to run than most people thought, and Brawl is without question much much worse about being time consuming. Which brings me to my next point.
Speed Aspects
Speaking not only in terms of the game speed itself, but the general lengths of games themselves. Now, we all know that the fast a game is, the faster the reaction times need to be, and the more overall skill it takes. I was once under the impression that Brawl was going to be as fast as Melee, and that the players simply hadn't learned to control their characters as well, yet. But I found out quickly that Brawl will in no way, shape, or form ever be as fast as Melee. The speed of the game regressed. Turning the speed DOWN? If it had been turned up, the the challenge for the game would have been increased, but Nintendo wanted a larger demographic to make more money. They geared to game to be easier to learn, and more forgiving to those unable to compete with the speed of Melee. Once again, as competitive smashers, we have been completely ignored for money.
This also leads to my next point about the speed.
In Melee, it is common practice to run a teams tournament and then a singles tournament.
In Brawl, it is common practice to try and run a singles tournament and then get kicked out by your venue before being unable to complete it.
Since the game is becoming more and more defensive, games in Brawl are lasting easily longer than 5 minutes, compared to Melee's 2 minute games. When those that are just absolutely terrible are playing(I mean, even so terrible that you can notice this early in the game), games can be drawn out to over 8 minutes.
It simply takes way to long to run a tournament for Brawl. Can you imagine a tournament like Pound being for Brawl? Teams and Singles with 3 sets of pools for each before brackets?
-Change in Target Demographic-
Nintendo has been under the impression for quite some time that the children it raised back in the 80's with it's games are still, somehow, little kids. Sonic the Hedgehog auto-runs forward on his Wii game and all guns were to be removed from Snake's characters design in Brawl for being too violent. Every game not only comes with an instruction booklet, but on screen instructions on how to play the game just in case you are, in fact, mentally ********. Simply put, the desire to reach a wider, and seemingly younger, audience has affected the Brawl's gameplay severely.
Tripping, Sweeping, Diminished Attacks.
These are just three features in the game that almost ruin it entirely. The first two are completely random, but let me talk about diminished attacks for a second.
In Brawl, like in Melee, your attacks become weaker for having used them too much. However, in Melee, the attacks only decreased in power based on percentage. In Brawl, they decrease in stun as well. The stun is only recovered by some rediculous system devised for such a purpose. This unfortunately neglects the fact that move spam is, JUST LIKE IN ALL FIGHTING GAMES EVER, a mind game in itself. This renders spamming the up air with the intent to perform a ground move useless, because after the FIRST use, your up air is now weaker, and you are at a disadvantage.
Plus I always liked the idea of losing a finals match because I tripped.
Melee is Better Than Brawl
No, trust me, it's a reason. I made a list inside of a list to attempt to prove it:
-It's faster.
-It's older and still yet to be mastered by anyone. Even though Justin Wong dominates Marvel vs Capcom 2, they've been playing that since before it's release in this country. It will also forever continue to be a part of the Street Fighter communities tournaments. It remains as the fastest fighting game ever, and arguably the most skilled player at it also manages to dominate multiple other games for a reason as simple as he is the best at the fastest fighting game in the world, so picking up others is like cake. That should kinda say something about gaining ability in games, I hope.
-Tripping is garbage.
-Ice Climbers can forward throw to forward throw. They delayed the game THAT long and left THAT in there?
-You will never, at least for a long looong long time, ever see a combo video for Brawl. And it will probably suck anyway.
-Remember all those people saying l-cancelling and wavedashing were glitches, and not meant by the creators to be used at all? The people that maintained no ability to learn it themselves and found much more desire in themselves to just non-stop john about it instead? Those people designed Brawl.
-Unless a new aspect is discovered soon to make momentum dodging more difficult, or something make the characters move faster, then tournaments will be over run by camping Snakes and even Marios. Ever tried fireball camping with Mario? It's pretty easy to be THAT effective.
-Tournaments will, for the most part, run too long to include teams.
-The new aspects to the ledge. A delay was put on being able to release from the ledge, and at the same time an auto sweetspot from under the ledge was added. Both giving both players a much better chance to get back to the stage with less precision, and ending those terrible ledge stalls once and for all. But wait, all this means is that almost everyone now has a ledge stall. For instance, with Marth, simply grab the ledge, wait a second, and then drop into the auto sweetspot back on the ledge. Hurray, the attempt to end edge infinites was futile, and now everyone can camp! Yay!
Continuing melee gives people the chance to achieve things like infinite jump cancel shines and endless tech chasing. The game will become more and more broken, giving it a competitive edge like Marvel vs Capcom 2, arguably the most broken yet inventive fighting game ever made. Brawl seems to be a terrible mess of random glitches and poking, with the occasional ability of a character to just spam moves and somehow get away with it, despite the diminishing attacks. Try spamming MetaKnight's up-b over and over again into a glide cancel. Stupid but effective.
Brawl games will seemingly take longer and longer, and the way it looks, Melee games are taking less and less time each game. One game seems efficient and skill-worthy, and the other is geared towards those who were unable to achieve the necessary skill level or discipline it takes to learn something new or inventive. Until someone makes a discovery to increase the pace of the game, or even the combo system, I'm going back to Melee and staying there. I'd rather be able to use the skills I've been working on these past two years, rather than play a game that gets more and more random the more I play it.
My last point is simply that some games of Melee can end in less than 30 seconds. There are no scenarios in Brawl in which the game will end in less than 30 seconds unless both players are actively attempting to lose by self destructs. And when it gets right down to it, playing video games are fun, but in almost no way contribute positively to someone's life. They are meant to be entertainment and entertainment only. At the very least I can say by playing Melee, and I will be spending less time, game for game, than I ever could with Brawl.
Please try not to take anything I say here too seriously, this is just what I think about it right now and I'm not trying to disagree with or argue with anyone. Thanks.
So I have composed here a list of reasons that I wish Brawl to end competitively, and for Melee to remain as the tournament smash game. Many of you will hate me for a lot of this, but I ask you to hear me out.
The reasons Brawl cannot operate as a tournament game can be divided into several different categories. They are as follows:
-Progression-
As Gimpyfish stated, this game seems to be progressing backwards. I've been playing in the tournament scene for almost all fighting games in existence for about 10 years now, and I've never seen a game that only progresses in the defensive aspect, all while subtly destroying the offensive aspect. The new discoveries in this game, even up to the point that we have taken them, have all done nothing to increase the ability to combo efficiently. The offensive strategies in this game are quickly being reduced to games of patience and waiting, much more than Melee ever had. Chain combos, juggles, linking, and even SPACING have been given the simplest of counters in Brawl: fast fall an air-dodge. The dodging system has ended juggles such as 'The Ken Combo' or even a simple 'up air to knee'. There is almost no way to juggle an opponent who has a good grasp of DI and dodging. You also maintain almost no ability to follow up on grabs. No moves have the ability to continue a combo before an airdodge can be utilized by an opponent at as low as 30 damage. The combo system is quickly become non-existent, and that seems to leave poking and running as the most efficient strategy.
All this in a game where King Dedede can down throw to down throw half the people in the game, Falco can down throw to down throw the other half. The Ice Climbers also STILL have several infinites, including one that is quite simply forward throw to forward throw, although down throw to down throw works just fine, too. Completely inescapable, by the way. There's no way to say it other than Nintendo simply dropped the ball with this one.
I'm no expert on predicting the progression of games but it seems to me that with the addition of this randomness, as well as the new system of airdodging, Brawl is constantly becoming more defensive. Almost every scenario involving an offensive attack from either player results in the other player attempting a well timed airdodge through it. The only counter for this response to your attack is attacking to attempt to mind game your opponent into dodging, and grabbing them afterwards. But not only does this reduce the strength of your attacks, but you can't even follow up on the grab, unless you happen to be Dedede, Snake, or Falco. It just seems that the game is spiraling into a 'who can poke better' type strategy game. The type of game that's too strategic to be compared to any other fighting game, despite it's attempt to be part of the genre. With the games taking longer and longer with a better ability to utilize all the free invincibility that is given to you in Brawl compared to in Melee. I'm not saying Brawl is a bad game, I'm simply saying it doesn't work well at all as a tournament game, in my experience. It CAN be run under a tournament setting, obviously, but I know for a fact that Melee tournaments took much longer to run than most people thought, and Brawl is without question much much worse about being time consuming. Which brings me to my next point.
Speed Aspects
Speaking not only in terms of the game speed itself, but the general lengths of games themselves. Now, we all know that the fast a game is, the faster the reaction times need to be, and the more overall skill it takes. I was once under the impression that Brawl was going to be as fast as Melee, and that the players simply hadn't learned to control their characters as well, yet. But I found out quickly that Brawl will in no way, shape, or form ever be as fast as Melee. The speed of the game regressed. Turning the speed DOWN? If it had been turned up, the the challenge for the game would have been increased, but Nintendo wanted a larger demographic to make more money. They geared to game to be easier to learn, and more forgiving to those unable to compete with the speed of Melee. Once again, as competitive smashers, we have been completely ignored for money.
This also leads to my next point about the speed.
In Melee, it is common practice to run a teams tournament and then a singles tournament.
In Brawl, it is common practice to try and run a singles tournament and then get kicked out by your venue before being unable to complete it.
Since the game is becoming more and more defensive, games in Brawl are lasting easily longer than 5 minutes, compared to Melee's 2 minute games. When those that are just absolutely terrible are playing(I mean, even so terrible that you can notice this early in the game), games can be drawn out to over 8 minutes.
It simply takes way to long to run a tournament for Brawl. Can you imagine a tournament like Pound being for Brawl? Teams and Singles with 3 sets of pools for each before brackets?
-Change in Target Demographic-
Nintendo has been under the impression for quite some time that the children it raised back in the 80's with it's games are still, somehow, little kids. Sonic the Hedgehog auto-runs forward on his Wii game and all guns were to be removed from Snake's characters design in Brawl for being too violent. Every game not only comes with an instruction booklet, but on screen instructions on how to play the game just in case you are, in fact, mentally ********. Simply put, the desire to reach a wider, and seemingly younger, audience has affected the Brawl's gameplay severely.
Tripping, Sweeping, Diminished Attacks.
These are just three features in the game that almost ruin it entirely. The first two are completely random, but let me talk about diminished attacks for a second.
In Brawl, like in Melee, your attacks become weaker for having used them too much. However, in Melee, the attacks only decreased in power based on percentage. In Brawl, they decrease in stun as well. The stun is only recovered by some rediculous system devised for such a purpose. This unfortunately neglects the fact that move spam is, JUST LIKE IN ALL FIGHTING GAMES EVER, a mind game in itself. This renders spamming the up air with the intent to perform a ground move useless, because after the FIRST use, your up air is now weaker, and you are at a disadvantage.
Plus I always liked the idea of losing a finals match because I tripped.
Melee is Better Than Brawl
No, trust me, it's a reason. I made a list inside of a list to attempt to prove it:
-It's faster.
-It's older and still yet to be mastered by anyone. Even though Justin Wong dominates Marvel vs Capcom 2, they've been playing that since before it's release in this country. It will also forever continue to be a part of the Street Fighter communities tournaments. It remains as the fastest fighting game ever, and arguably the most skilled player at it also manages to dominate multiple other games for a reason as simple as he is the best at the fastest fighting game in the world, so picking up others is like cake. That should kinda say something about gaining ability in games, I hope.
-Tripping is garbage.
-Ice Climbers can forward throw to forward throw. They delayed the game THAT long and left THAT in there?
-You will never, at least for a long looong long time, ever see a combo video for Brawl. And it will probably suck anyway.
-Remember all those people saying l-cancelling and wavedashing were glitches, and not meant by the creators to be used at all? The people that maintained no ability to learn it themselves and found much more desire in themselves to just non-stop john about it instead? Those people designed Brawl.
-Unless a new aspect is discovered soon to make momentum dodging more difficult, or something make the characters move faster, then tournaments will be over run by camping Snakes and even Marios. Ever tried fireball camping with Mario? It's pretty easy to be THAT effective.
-Tournaments will, for the most part, run too long to include teams.
-The new aspects to the ledge. A delay was put on being able to release from the ledge, and at the same time an auto sweetspot from under the ledge was added. Both giving both players a much better chance to get back to the stage with less precision, and ending those terrible ledge stalls once and for all. But wait, all this means is that almost everyone now has a ledge stall. For instance, with Marth, simply grab the ledge, wait a second, and then drop into the auto sweetspot back on the ledge. Hurray, the attempt to end edge infinites was futile, and now everyone can camp! Yay!
Continuing melee gives people the chance to achieve things like infinite jump cancel shines and endless tech chasing. The game will become more and more broken, giving it a competitive edge like Marvel vs Capcom 2, arguably the most broken yet inventive fighting game ever made. Brawl seems to be a terrible mess of random glitches and poking, with the occasional ability of a character to just spam moves and somehow get away with it, despite the diminishing attacks. Try spamming MetaKnight's up-b over and over again into a glide cancel. Stupid but effective.
Brawl games will seemingly take longer and longer, and the way it looks, Melee games are taking less and less time each game. One game seems efficient and skill-worthy, and the other is geared towards those who were unable to achieve the necessary skill level or discipline it takes to learn something new or inventive. Until someone makes a discovery to increase the pace of the game, or even the combo system, I'm going back to Melee and staying there. I'd rather be able to use the skills I've been working on these past two years, rather than play a game that gets more and more random the more I play it.
My last point is simply that some games of Melee can end in less than 30 seconds. There are no scenarios in Brawl in which the game will end in less than 30 seconds unless both players are actively attempting to lose by self destructs. And when it gets right down to it, playing video games are fun, but in almost no way contribute positively to someone's life. They are meant to be entertainment and entertainment only. At the very least I can say by playing Melee, and I will be spending less time, game for game, than I ever could with Brawl.
Please try not to take anything I say here too seriously, this is just what I think about it right now and I'm not trying to disagree with or argue with anyone. Thanks.
