Is it too late to start this game?

[M.C.Jeducation]

Hey guys, I just want to preface this by saying that I have been playing Melee since it came out, and it remained my favourite, and most played smash game even after Brawl was released.

Despite this however, I never really got into learning any of the advanced techniques, even though I was aware of their existence. I recently watched the smash documentary, and it has inspired me to try and learn more and get better at Melee. Im just wondering if its too late to only just be starting to learn the advanced techniques? Also, I was just curious as to who are the most 'inexperienced' (As in the amount of years they've been playing) of the professional melee players, and how long have they been playing the game for?

Im going to continue playing Melee and improving my skills regardless, but I just want to know if the tournament scene will be at all penetrable for someone like me.

 

[TimpZ]

Melee is growing currently, also better start now than regret you didn't 5 years from now .

EDIT: Btw while most of the top 10 in the world have played competitively in one form or another basically since it came out, you can still catch up with a lot of high-skilled players in a few years if you dedicate a lot of practise to it. The closer you get to your skill cap the slower you approach it.

 

[AirFair]

Right now, it's not too late.

 

[EPsilon933]

There's plenty of new players joining and have recently joined. you won't be too far behind anyone in skill

 

[The Soap]

I only started in April and I took a stock off M2K in a friendly at KTAR

Granted, he was most likely sandbagging, but still

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

 

[erasmorpheous]

I didn't go to tournaments for like 8 years (still played a lot with same friends throughout the years) and only when I started to go to tournaments did I start using advanced techniques. I started pretty much back in March, but
due to my long play time, I feel like started out fairly well because of the other "mind game" aspect of the game. I feel like the longer time you play the game the more it helps out the non advanced technique part of the game, i.e. reading your opponent, not being predictable, mixing up recoveries, stylin' super hard.

I'll add that I didn't start out in a strong scene region wise and currently am there still, but I was fortunate to spend my past summer in the Dallas/Fort Worth region of Texas and attended many many tournaments during my time there and held my own fairly well. After playing with much better players than me and utilizing more and more advanced techniques I saw a large improvement.

TL;DR Not it's not too late

 

[victra♥]

Melee isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Melee's popularity didn't even take a dent since the release of Smash4....honestly it probably grew haha

 

[Barndo]

This is super relieving to see this. I was wondering the same exact thing. I want to get into competitive Melee so bad, but I was afraid it'd be too late. I'm glad to hear it is not.

 

[M.C.Jeducation]

Thanks for all the responses guys! If I wasn't convinced to pursue this already I definitely am now xD Annoyingly i'm moving houses soon and my consoles are packed up but as soon as I've moved i'm definitely going to try and get a grasp of some of the more advanced parts of this game.

I don't really have many friends who want to play Melee, we all play Smash 4 together. So that means I'm going to definitely have to check out the tournament scene in my area and see what's around

 

[vynleren]

There are probably more people in your area who play melee/host tournaments for it than you think - you just have to look around. At least, that's what happened to me.

 

[Juggleguy]

It's absolutely not too late.

Check out this article:
https://medium.com/@kt_seagull/catching-up-is-irrelevant-dd015da8e79c

I think it's very analogous to Smash and you'll enjoy the read.

 

[gmBottles]

I don't think it will ever be too late to start playing the most competitively played Smash game. If anything, now is a great time to get into it now that Melee is getting bigger.

 

[Marth Regalia]

I got into the scene about 6 months ago, and it's completely ridiculous how much better I've gotten. It's never too late to start, and the Melee community is amazing.