Melee changed my life.

[TheManaLord]

it was like 2006 and i started getting back into melee again for some random reason. i started playing casually again that schoolyear with friends and stuff and quickly showed my dominance... then on some forum i frequented there was a discussion on competitive play about ssbm. they were talking about tiers. i said they didn't exist. i said that wavedashing was a glitch. i said all this **** about it, and how i was the best there was.

then i saw the original matches featured in this compilation. and i have to say, those videos changed my life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOd6vD-JNXU

the day after i saw that i became immediatly launched into the tournament scene. i lost weight i hit puberty and got taller i got a girlfriend i got a job i got a car all because of smash brothers melee and isai's captain falcon and ken's marth. my life was changed for the better. i started training, hard. i got so good i was starting to peak skill wise bcause of my limited local competition and bad geographical location and crappy age. so i stagnated.

i came to college this year and played against competitive players for the first time. i still won. basically all the time. this is when i knew i was good. i attended my first tournament and placed 5th in teams losing to pc chris and plank and got 17th in singles losing to good local players in matchups i had no experience against. but the tournament was big, 60 or so people or more. soi i am very proud of that.

now that brawl came out i am disheartened about what may potentially happen to melee, it might die. which kills me inside. i'm selling my wii and buying a gamecube because nintendo abandoned everything they used to stand for, the gamecube can play melee so thats what i care about. but all thats besides the point.

what i really want to say is that melee has been a really huge part of my life these past few years and ilove the community and i am so grateful for all of you guys. all i have left to do is thank god. thank god that i can finally sleep at night thanks to sleepcountry mattresses, why buy your mattress anywhere else?

 

[JFox]

I want this thread to be epic. Solute Melee as it dies with your story.

I have played melee since the game came out. My friends Jordan, Adam and I were very competitive over the game. I was always the best, until 2005... One day Adam (who was worst cuz he couldnt find a main) picked up Sheik. He soon was beating Jordan no problem and started giving me a hard time. He was doing all kinds of cool things like edgeguarding with needles, ledgehops, and he was very good with tilts. I couldn't believe how quickly he improved...

I asked him how he did it, and he told me he learned a few tricks from a website called smashboards.com. Jordan and I ragged on him like crazy for being such a nerd and looking up stuff about a video game on the internet. Than he showed me a video on google video of Ken vs Isai finals matches. I was amazed, and naively thought that they must be playing on lightning melee because no one can move that fast. I arrogantly said "that looks cool, but I bet I could beat those guys". Than Adam showed me shined blind and I went NUTS. It was starring my main, Fox, and I couldn't believe my eyes.

Without telling Jordan, I decided I would check out some of the techniques on this website and see what I could learn. Pretty soon Adam and I were learning to L cancel and Wavedash. Jordan still said it was stupid, and pointed out that he can still beat us without all that stuff. Adam and I continued to train. One day Adam found a King of the Couch tournament about an hour north of us.

Adam couldn't come, but Jordan and I went. I won first place (the only tournament I've ever won), and Jordan won second, and no one there knew how to wavedash. Well, almost no one. The tournament director, the suicide fox, could do everything on shined blind. He ripped into me after the tourney was over, and I couldnt believe how much better someone was than me.

The next KOTC was huge, and players like Chillin, Husband, and Wes came. I got dead last. Chillin 4 stocked me with Falcon during pools, and Husband 3 stocked me with his Marth. SamusExplorer, a DA player, really inspired me to get better. He said "I remember when I was at your level. Just keep workin on it, and pretty soon you'll be beating most of these guys.

I graduated high school and all my friends left, leaving me behind. They all went away to school, and I had to commute cuz my parents didn't have the money to let me dorm. It sucked, I had no friends at home, and not many at school. I got mega serious about smash, and mastered the waveshine technique and could pwn noobs like crazy. But I was still getting desimated by good players.

I met Bass. Him and his brother treble lived about a half hour south of me in Neptune. He had a "crew" which was a couple of his friends, and the crew was called "The Tunes" (named after the town). One friend, Eggm, played an extremely fast Falco. He could double shine and combo me really heavy. Bass and Treble was REALLY smart, and I would always get close, but they beat me in the end.

That summer I played so much with my new crew. We got so good! Well...they got so good, I just got goodish. Eggm got so good he beat Bum in a tournament. Treble and Bass have beaten players like Kirbstir, Plank, Tink, etc. Reik (a later edition) and Eggm even beat Chillin in tournaments. I on the other hand was getting left behind.

When Brawl came I was so excited. I couldn't wait to start all over, and get ridiculously good at a fresh game. First day I played I was SOO exicited. It was sooo much fun! But the next day, it wasn't fun anymore. And pretty soon I was bored. Now I'm back into melee and I'm playing Peach cuz I'm bored of Fox. I feel like I hit a ceiling on my tech skill, and thats what was holding me back.

Melee has given me new friends when all my other friends left for college. It gave me a hobby, kept me off drugs, great memories, and it kept me from hating my college years.

I love this game, and I'm sad to see it ending. Its been a great run, and I think that the most appropriate way to finish is to play it til the end. I'll sink with the ship, thats much I love this game.

Thanks for reading...

 

[ThreeX]

<3









[1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10]

 

[Inui]

I'm not gonna lie. I miss Melee. It was an awesome game. It changed my life by giving me a reason to get out of my house at least once a week. I was pretty good at Melee, I guess. Used to be ranked pretty high around these parts and I've beaten a few top players. Got trained by Mew2King.

I don't hate Brawl at all, so I'm fine with putting Melee behind me. I know Brawl will be the main game now because that's how it goes. I plan on being absolute top in Brawl, so I'm going to devote a lot to it. I've been winning a lot, so I'm on the right path.

 

[orintemple]

Hell yea. This thread is great and heartwarming. For me Melee has been a symbols of meeting tons of new friends in college and playing with them on a daily basis. Everyday my college friends and I would hang out and play Smash. I gained more skill in a year there playing with them then I ever gained in the 5 years Melee was out before that. This game has given me a great hobby and led me to many friends, both in real life and online.

Good stuff ManaLord. Although I must ask, how did Melee get you a job, car and girlfriend? Was it just that it motivated you to do something with your life? In that case I can understand completely. Even something as seemingly minute an silly as a video game can motivate a person to change their life, can give one a goal and a reason to want to succeed.

 

[Eazy23]

Wow no lie, this thread is like REAL lol.

I first got into melee a year ago, during my freshman term at Rutgers. I would go out into the local loounge and see kids playing, and just walk bye the game like mehh whatever, Im gunna go play madden. One day however, I sat and played with them, got *****, and hated it. I loved the game from the door tho. I mean even from the beginning I saw that there were SO MANY options. I could always do something different. Meeting players like yehs! Mog doyoung got me alot better. Mog told me about smashboards, and showed me vids that seriously changed me life. Seeing bombsoldier vs ken at the jack Garden tourny was simply amazing, and then watching pc vs ken in the mlg's I was hooked on falco. Over the summer i trained with my little brother SOOO MUCH, always learning new things. Meeting Teh spammerer this year brought my game to new levels. I never knew someone personally that was so good at the game, and unlike some people I dont shy away from the competitiion. It inspires me, and ultimately Ibecame a much better smarter player.

Those outside of this commuity will never understand what this game means. Its so deep, and it takes a strong charactered person to stick with it, even after taking asswhoopens, and seeing no improvement. I've seen people bs, john, say they were sandbagging, just because it hurt so much to know they simply werent getting good. I've also seen people so impressed with themselves and others improvements, its as if they just graduated college. This is all because we realize how much work it takes to be a GOOD smasher.Somethin brawl does not offer. No 1 cares about someone else being good in brawl. You never get that positive reinforcement like you did in melee.

Melee was seriously more than a video game. When I was playing it wasnt, playing video games with friends. It was MELEE TIME PERIOD. Melee has probably ruined more grades, friendships,wallets,cars,controllers than anything, but for those who REALLY stuck with it, and got better, you all know it was worth it.
Thanks for the good times lil ol red n black disc

 

[Eggm]

From the very start me and my friends played smash competitivley going all the way back to smash 1. My friend Chris had a small tourney for the kids in our high school just among us friends who played together "competitively". I ended up winning that with yoshi. And I got a cup of soup LOL. Anyways my friend corey who got 2nd place had told me about his brother and how he was on a whole different level and that me and him on a team couldn't even beat his brother. Of course I was skeptical and was like nah I just won this tourney theres no way anyone can be that much better than me. So he comes over ROCKS ME. Like ****. And was rocking me and corey on a team against him. Utter destruction. After that I was reallllll into it. I was like wowowowoow I can get this good at this game? I had no idea lol. This was all around the time melee was coming out tho. Oh man when that game hit wow me and my friends played for like 72 hours straight at kevin's house learning new stuff. It was so fun. Eventually after month and months and months we got bored (since we didnt know about smashboards or AT's or anything) and never picked it up again until....

Otakon, I went to checkout the anime convention with some friends. And stumble upon the game room and people playing smash. I'm watching it and I'm scouting around, watch these people play FFA's. Then all of a sudden I see this link player (SS4r) doing SOME CRAZY STUFF. I"m like WTFFF WHAT is he doing? Then I see a few other players doing advanced stuff inui/yuna. I"m like omg...what.. is going on. So I"m like ok I'm better than everyone here besides basically these 3 guys. Let me enter the tournament the next day. So the next day comes around I get up early and go there early just to get a ticket for the tournament. It was a free tournament and only 64 players were allowed in. So I stand in line for about an hour or so and I get the 64th ticket lol, imagine if i was 65th in line I would never have played melee. Anyways, the tournament starts and i'm slaying scrubs (even tho i was one too) with yoshi and I pretty much expected this from my scouting the day before. I actually even went up to the 3 people I thought were really good (yuna / inui / ss4r) and I was like I bet one of us 4 wins the tournament. Inui looked at me like I was crazy and told me to go away. So I finally get up to face ss4r for 3rd place. And i'm like super nervous cause i'm finally getting to play one of these awesome players. I beat him since it was best of 1 and I got lucky. At this point i'm like "oh I got this." So next I play inui, he did all this crazy WDing and stuff and I didn't know anything at all. Got rocked, I think i choose falco for him. So after getting rocked I got to see a pretty exciting yuna vs inui finals and it was craaaazy. I had never seen peach played like that or anything. So then after the tournament I think it was... inui or ss4r sitting down and having scrubs line up to get ***** by him. So I got in line, lost a bunch of times waited in the long line a bunch of times just to play these good guys again. I eventually beat one and they just sent in another smashboards guy instead of waiting in the line like everyone else which pissed me off so I left. I get home, and start searching youtube like crazy and google for pro smash tips and stuff. I eventually find shined blind and smashboards and omg... I GOT SO INTO IT LOL. I immediately showed the vids to my friends that I played smash competitively with a lot. They also went CRAZY. Unfortunately I couldn't play with them with our new found techniques and stuff cause I was moving to AZ for college. But they were playing like crazy with each other and telling me about it. So I get to AZ in my new apartment, NOTHING THERE. No furniture nothing. I walk cause I didn't have a car yet or anything to walmart, BUY a tv. Bring it back to my apartment put it on the floor bust out the gc from my suitcase and play smash on the floor for like 2 days straight just l-canceling and wavedashing over and over and over. Few days later go to my first real tournament. It was Choas theory's apartment brawl. I enter low tier (luckily I played yoshi cause i had no idea what tiers were) And I got 2nd place losing to wobbles game and watch in the finals winning like 50$. At this point i was HOOKED. I just made 50$ playing smash the game i've always loved.

At this point My life was changed. The only thing I did saturdays like since then was go to smash tournaments. I got to travel to all kinds of places I never would have otherwise just to play this game with other smashers and have a great time. I went to california(twice), CT, Md, VA, Pittsbrugh (never again), all kinds of places. Planning on going to georgia, and FL for their big tourneys planned. I have met sooo many people in both AZ/NJ areas who play smash and made a ton of friends, traveled, tons of good memory's, everything. I got to feel the joy of working hard and getting back from that hard work, becoming "pro". Winning lots of money and being recognized as one of the best (even if it was at the "end"). It was a great feeling. Best feeling ever was training real hard for pound 3 and doing unexpectedly well and getting props from very big names telling me I did well and winning money in a pro tournament. Clawing my way up and practicing soooooo much just to add to the big names I've beat list was sooo much fun and rewarding.

Working hard and getting back from it is something I can't find in brawl unfortunately. I'm a little bit disappointed in the game. I was sooooooooooo excited for it. I spent two whole days soldering on wiikey on my wii, just to play this game before it came out. Got my friends all excited told them i'll have it soon and we can play! We were watching vids getting pumped up. Gonna pull the 72 hours straight hardcorness we did when melee came out. To our terrible dismay we were bored like 2-3 hours in. Even with all the hype. We still played, just cause we had hope. Were like alright we got this we just gotta put more time in. So I went over more and more times for like a week. Then I just stopped, it was boring lol. I tried out a tournament, in md/va. Chu's biweekly. I ended up getting like 7th without caring or practicing beforehand cause I was bored of the game. I also had their # 1 player tell me on aim after it that I was his hardest match in the tournament (azen). This is something I'd normally be stoked over, but I felt so empty and like I didn't earn it. The entire tournament I was bored as hell, and there was a side melee tournament going on which i had way more fun in and played friendlies in that between my brawl matches. So I put brawl on the side completely for like over a month. Surely the level of play had to rise and many interesting things been found. Nope. Watched vids it got GAYER. People had the gayest styles ever and it looked even MORE boring. So I got to rutgers cause theres a really cheap brawl tournament with a prize I wanted. And I would get to play melee with some of the guys there. So I went and i'm like alright well surely h'm going to get ***** cause its been out and i'm not playing it. But alas, my skill level from the very first day I've played the game which hasn't changed, gets me 5th and I go even with a top placer in my region. Wow, what a deep game. -_- So i hated it even more after that then my disc broke and i'm not even bothering to burn a new one.

In conclusion brawl does not have the magic for me and my crewmates to continue playing it and loving it like with the other 2 games so we play melee still. Melee is amazing, did change my life and is so awesome. I love jfox's metaphor so much of sinking with the ship, that I'm doing that too. I"m now aboard the SS melee and will also go down with it. Although i'm hoping it takes about 2 years more to take on enough water to sink. xD I'm this hopeful because even people like m2k who blow my mind with perfection, still says hes at about 50% of his total skill level and thinks the game has so much room to evolve. If even he at that level can say that I have total hope for this game, and think it will last much much longer. I will continue to pull more people into the community and teach them stuff like I did with eazy23 Saturday night. Keep the interested and play with people who truly like putting in the hard work improving and all that goodness. May melee live forever.

 

[SLAYERCoLdKiLr]

My Name is Chris.

I was addicted to Crack Cocaine.

Melee helped me get off that smack and get a new job.

I'm seeing a nice woman now and getting into Jesus.

Thanks Melee.

 

[Dylan_Tnga]

Brawl killed my father, and ***** my mother

 

[Pakman]

I remember seeing the commercial for SSB64 with that song "Me and you and you and me. No matter how we toss the dice we'll always be.... So happy together...." and people in big Nintendo Character Mascot suits were beating the crap out of each other. I was beyond stoked for this game. It comes out its amazing and basically all of my gamer friends feel the same way. A least like 3 or 4 times a week about 7 of us got together to play SSB64. I played yoshi and we all thought we were the best.

We all grew a little older and most of my group of friends moved from SSB64 to Tekken Tag. So when melee was released we were into the tekken scene and played melee on a casual basis. I remember we had a fued with this tekken crew from delaware. Part of this fued was who was better in melee. So finally there was a tournament in our local mall and team delaware came down and we lost to them in tekken (although I beat the guy who mained the same character as me in their crew :-) ). However, they got decimated in our melee tournament.

It was then some of us began to take Melee as competitve. Tekken 4 was released and it dissappointed like.. everyone. So We started playing smash with all the locals again. We got pretty good without the AT stuff. I remember our friend DK (yeah his nick name was DK) moved to delaware and everytime we went to visit all we did was play melee for like 10 hours.

The local group kind of dismantled when we started going to college. I played melee a bunch at school but only a few hours a week. My first major tournament was at this mall like an hour and half from my house. I lost to Ryoko at the VGames and saw DA dave(I think) do SHL with falco and was just blown away. I ended up with 12th place without AT's. I went back to school and tried to explain SHL, but they didn't realize the amazingness of lasers. This drove me to look at the boards and I kept playing getting better and better.

Sophmopre year of college 2004 I met Akinolla (aka Ultimo Dragon) who had these advanced techniques down pretty well. Now I had a smasher friend who knew what he was doing and I was ready to learn something. I quickly began decimating my other school smashers as well as the people from my hometown. I remember my friend dave saying, "Thats some of that gay online ****" when i started Wave dashing.

Ak and I went to a couple of tournaments but we sort of stop playing that spring because I had a CO-OP job.

Enter the Cactus. This pretty boy from the Calhoundorm started playing smash in our school game lounge. He got my number and started calling me, Ak and this guy from Philly who we knew as velocity all the time to smash with him and his dorm friends. I remember Cactus's scrub days where I 4 stocked him with Luigi, my secondary at the time. Cactus basically put Philly on the map as a smash hot spot. He traveled to FC that summer and came back a smash god.

So we played together for like 3 years. We basically created the current smash scene in philly. Cactuar is responsible for bringing the following smashers into the smash scene Scar, Chocobo, GOTM, Chibo, yayo, Roy Kid, Will, Velocity to some extent, Dot Eater and probably many more.

When Brawl came out. Many of us philly natives were all disappointed. We couldn't sit and play it for more than a few hours without getting frustrated. Our usual smash environment, the game room, started only having brawl. Now we have to go off campus usually to get a good game of melee.

 

[JesiahTEG]

Manalord, heh, didn't know it was really that big to you. I'm up to play whenever you are man, feel free to come over to my house on weekends, or just whenever to play. I feel the same way as you do, and I'd be happy to play with you whenever. That goes for anyone else in this thread too...Obviously I live far away, but the offer is still there.

 

[Kewkky]

Omg, flashbacks...

LOL I also used to be the best I've seen in Melee where I live, even wavedashing Marths couldn't put an end to my winning streak... Started playing Brawl and got into it ever since it came out in USA, and I'm good at it right now... yesterday i tried my hand in melee, just to see where the ground beneath my feet really was... And I got OWNED BY ONE LV9 CPU! :O :O :O :O :O I couldn't even smash right, and i forgot how to wavedash... Plus, I got used to Samus's grapple in brawl, and I couldn't do the awesome Samus air-dodge grapple recoveries... And thats when i noticed how F****** FAST Melee was.

I felt like quitting.

 

[Eggz]

I met all of my best friends through melee.
cept ka, we was nigguhz since the tree climbin days.

Brawl hasn't done **** for me.

 

[Smash G 0 D]

I grew up as a little kid watching my older cousins and sister play SBB64 lol. I still remember when my sister threw a pokeball and got Charizard, then convinced me that she unlocked it from the tower from the Hyrule castle at the top of the stage.

I got into Melee once it came out because some of my friends were into it. My best friend and I played all the time. I used Luigi in Melee and the original game because my sister used him in the original (she was like, my idol). Then I remember one day my best friend used Marth and I couldn't beat him >.> Then I tried Marth and eventually starting maining him. I became the best out of all my friends.

In the beginning of 6th grade I went to my first tourney, BOMB4. I didn't get to stay very long because my dad didn't really trust the area lol.. But it's gotten better. I'm still the best of my friends. Anyways, Melee rules :D

 

[NoVaLombardia]

man... being born late sucks....

 

[Teczer0]

Eggm - You almost typed as much as Dark pch. ......... thats not good >_<.

About melee.... well I wished I entered the scene earlier. I was always thinking I wasn't good enough to even compete in a tourney not even thinking about winning top 5 or something.

Of course I was told by some of friends that I should enter at least one tourney near me and see what happens. They had enough faith in me to even pay for my entrance fee.

I got 5th in my very first tournament I was so hyped and the experience was really amazing. I made a lot of new friends that I love to hang out with now. And eventually the eggmaster made his appearance into NYC and pretty much persuaded me to take the game a bit more serious and travel because he thought I could be a top player in NJ fairly easily.

And then I now practically know all of NJ smashers and made really good friends from wayyyy out of state. Such as Plank,QDVS,Kirbstir,Xif to name just a few.

<3 Melee

<3 My crew The Tunes even more for continuing to play melee.

 

[Totodileex]

Melee changed my life too, getting me obsessed with everything that has to do with Smash.

 

[MattDotZeb]

My first "tournament" was really a free-play sort of thing at a store which, at the time, hosted Melee tournaments and had free-play every Tuesday night. This was September 2005, literally a week after I learned about Advanced Techniques.


I had played Melee since it came out, never owned the game though. Always borrowed it. I remembered one time I had the game so long and played it so long that I ended up with callouses on my fingers. I became the best of my friends at it. Me and my friend Andrew thought we were really good. We, one day decided "hey lets look up Melee tournaments. We could win easily" We really believed we were among the best in the world. We found about about that store, Play 'N Trade, and went to the free play.

We went there expecting to ****. I played Samus and Andrew played Fox.
First person I played was UltimateRoy. His marth on final destination. Items were off but I wasn't surprised or anything. I figured "sure why not." He 3 stocked me. I blamed it on "not firing my charge shot." I remember part of that match, too. Heh. We both ran in and I grabbed him behind the GO!, we were both surprised. People started saying "wow he's lasting more than 2 minutes..." Haha, man if someone said that to me now I'd stand up and tool on them in Melee. I took it as a compliment though.
Andrew ended up playing **** Tom, and he kept saying it was close but I didn't see.

We talked and came across gamefaqs. We read the sticky *lol* and began our practice. Boy, we were slow learners. I discovered a fun fact though, I'd been wavelanding during Adventure Mode: Race to The Finish at one of the slanted areas consistently. Didn't know what it was until I read that.
It took us a few months of inconsistent playing to finally get our advanced techniques down. I finally bought Melee in November that year, Andrew still didn't own a gamecube so he fell behind. He played whenever he could, though.

Roymaster and Ultimateroy showed me videos and such. My first combo video was Pure Nastyness, I must have watched it 20 times because I played "just like him and he uses the charge shot at random times like me." They showed me videos of Ken, Bombsoldier, etc. I wasn't impressed.
At my first official tournament I was wrecked. It was very lucky that I was able to go though! Andrew and I went together. He was 14 and I was 13. Our parents, after some begging, called the Police Station in Newton to see if it was close. It was right next door.
I managed to actually beat a few people. I picked Link in one of my tournament matches, since I practiced L-cancelling with him, and learned that for some reason jumping away and spamming bombs worked. I still lost the match though. I did win a set though. I remember I somehow picked up on his movements and eventually began predicting how he'd recover from the ledge. That was my first real experience with mindgames.
Dear lord was I nervous though! I don't think my fingers moved half as fast as I normally could move them!

Second tournament rolled around and Andrew was not there. Was just me. This was 2 months after my first. Again, my nervousness kicked in. I, in all honesty, almost cried when I lost matches in tournament. **** Tom played me with his Ganon and 3 stocked me... He spammed Dair's (though now I 4 stock him when he would do that. And now is the official way to initiate new players to the MA smash community via my suggestion), it was very discouraging. I recall my last match against Ultimateroy and UnknownForce. It was a 3-for-all. I was so proud of myself when I did a semi-perfect backwards wavedash -> fully charged shot. Too bad he shielded it... Heh.

Fast forward to January, Andrew really only plays when he's with me now. I'd been to UltimateRoys house a few times and still could not shake my nervousness. I could beat his Marth with Jigglypuff though. Occasionally RoyMaster and some other members of AZNI would show up and play with us.
We recorded some matches but UltimateRoy is a lazy SOB. Never got uploaded.
Finally went to a "real" smashfest at DaveG's house toward the end of the month. Doubt anyone really recalls him, even MA players. It was fun, really fun. I had been doing better, and won matches every now and then. I had heard of this player called KoreanDJ but never met him. Apparently he was "pretty good."

Blah, I left my memory card at DaveG's. I didn't get it back until a year later!
I didn't do much smashing until the summer. My nervousness was all but gone, finally. I picked up Falco because Samus became boring. Plus, beating Andrew's Fox was realllly fun with Falco. Bombsoldier really inspired me. I was told I play like him a lot. It was nice.
Met KoreanDJ that summer at a Play N' Trade tournament after asking him for a ride to my first OOS tournament. MST4, I think it was.
I've been to about 70 tournaments since then. I've made my way up to being one of the top Falco players in New England, and one of the best players in Massachusetts. ^^

I've met a lot of people, and made friends with just as many. A couple smashers give great advice on girls as well, which is not what I expected but it was helpful at least.
I'm a lot more confident because of those two things, too.


I really appreciate all the smash community has to offer. I'm going to try and help as much as I can with something which is under-wraps as of now. =)



By the way, guess how many tournaments I've won out of that 70?
1...
Freaking New Englanders....

 

[Rigor Mortis]

Man this goes back 2 years... I was one of the lucky ones being able to be old enough to play the 64 version..I was 7 and it was the greatest game right next to pokemon.
My aunt bought me melee. I had fun. But dropped it for maybe 4 years. In the 6th grade we were able to bring smash melee to school because summer was near. I ownd with falco WITHOUT KNOWING PEOPLE PLAYED MELEE COMPETITIVLY AT ALL! My friend in school talked about melee every day. and i was like "wait why are you talking about melee? That game is old as balls, its all about halo 2" He showed me pc chris skills....wow i was flat out dumbstruck.

I practiced my falco since then because he felt fight for me. *didnt know about tiers*
I accepted wavedash, i didnt call it a glitch or anything because melee was my first competitive experience. I was never good until about half my training. I was a mega lurker around here.

But woh. I literally made new friends off of melee. *and i own them* melee is a crave.

I come to these forums and stay on it like for beastly amount of times

I feel like sakurai is taking all this away from me with brawl
Brawl is awesome though

 

[ThreeX]

wow =x this thread is really becoming something, which is good of course ^^; but, it actually depresses me...

reading through everyone's posts/stories.. makes me think about how I started playing melee, I was at my friend's house, I really don't rememeber what we used to do to pass time.. but this one time i had brought my gamecube, and melee, of course... it was his first time playing, and I was just saying how this is one of the best nintendo games ever etc. Obviously I thought i was good and all that bull ****, playing as Link (wow, i used to play low tier? O.o') Then the next day.. another friend comes over, playing as luigi, and he was all tellin us about smashboards, about wavedashing, **** like that... It was cool cause i was just then actually getting into smash, and all of my other friend's had drifted to Halo, which is stupid.. but i had my game :]

After talking to my friend that told me about smashboards, I remember going there, and watching my first combo vid, triforce of power ( rep'n g-man... all day) where I was just amazed at TT's ganon.. so fresh, he's basically the reason I still some-what play as ganon. After switching characters alot, from sheik, to marth.. back to ganon.. i watched acouple of PC vids, then i watched You got shiz'd on, where I was just...astonished by the beauty of the blue bird.. (still rockin falco<3 my babyyy)

I'm actually mad at myself, at how late i started getting competitive, like.. going to tournaments etc. All these people, all going to tourneys, while i was just playing friendlies. Yeah, melee has been out awhile, alot of people are probably tired of it, but there's no reason to put down THIS game... but anyways, back on topic. First tournament i ever went to, was one that my friend hosted at a nearby mall, it was nubby... but fun I guess, that's where i met Pat/pro, and hayato's cousin, roga. Only played roga acouple matches, and I never got to play Pat, but... he did invite me over his house acouple times, once for another tournament, where i also met some other people... (his brother jholla, emmy, adat, hayato, marcus, and more) After that, I don't know why, but once again... stopped going to tournaments. Then randomly i met a friend on here named roman, and he was telling me about a tournament that was coming up ( mass maddness 6, w00t w00t) went there, and it was ownage, of course... i met that kid roman, mattdotzeb<3, elen, and some others.. it was cool starting to get to know people.

I've only been to about.. I wanna say 10+ tournies? i'm not sure... I never place too good, but yea, I obviously don't go intending to win. The people i play usually say I'm pretty good, and that they're impressed wit me, but idk, I still think i'm bad, rofl..

Like Jfox said, when brawl came out, I was so hyped, the first night, my friend had slept over, and we just played it so much. The next morning I basically just wanted to return it. For the next week, I was playing both, switching em pretty often whenever I had people to play, but this one time I popped in melee right after playing brawl, and everything was gone... I SD'd acouple times from being adapted to the auto-sweet spot, my tech skill was gone, it was so annoying... and right after that, I said i was done with brawl, never gonna play it again. I play it every once in awhile, but nothing serious, I HATE the game, I actually don't like using that word, but i do... it might end melee, everyone is already saying it's going to die, which I'm trying not to believe. While reading eggm's post, it made me read Jfox' post... and it's so true, I'll also be on that ship.

idk, that's about all.. but as i re-read this, I jus really wanted to thank pat/jholla, roman, and mattdotzeb aka penelope, you guys are the ****

oh and manalord for making this thread<3

 

[BEHR]

God...

I first started playing competitively like 2 or 3 years ago.We use to play with just items and what not.Then my friend found out wavedashing he saw online and heard of competive smash so we tried it and liked it so we kept getting better.It really did help me out in life I guess I made awesome friends in the NC Smash community. It was a great experience I think I was 12 at my first tourney and I started evolving I got a lot better started playing more and what not.Im 14 now and I still play Melee I hate Brawl and people keep forgetting its past its like with out Melee their will be no Brawl.Whatev...but Melee made me tons of new friends and I believe it brought me closer to how the world im still young and I still will probably still play Melee into college. Im 14 so I have lots of time to improve.Im holdin my own Melee tournament next week cause I missed Melee so much. Gosh I really do love this game so much it kind made me open socially when im in school im quit but at tourneys im all loud and can be myself now at school I talk to everybody.


Thats how Melee changed me.


Megh this makes no sense. lol


Oh they way they can make Melee 2.0 is if M2K has babies with the Melee case.


Edit: This thread need to be sticky.

 

[Deathknight]

post deleted

 

[Cyrain]

Back in 05, before I ever even knew what melee really was, I played Halo very competitively at tournaments around the U.S.
When I started attending MLG events for Halo, I got the chance to watch some of the top melee players in the country tearing **** up, but at the time I wasn't really into fighters of any kind and didn't think much of it.
A few months later, I randomly ended up playing Melee with my friend Sam and realized just how much fun it was. I looked into the competitive scene a bit and started to learn about all the advanced techs...L-cancelling, Wavedashing, etc.
As soon as i started discussing it amongst friends, I found out that a few of them, namely Carrington (Geos) and Jared(Khoo...Though he no longer plays and I rarely get to see him) already played. During our Junior and Senior years of highschool we set up a T.V. in ourfavorite English teacher's room and played every morning for 30 or so minutes, practicing all the ATs and working to get good enough to try our hand at a tournament. One morning, two random kids....Wes(Nelo) and Wil(Israphel)...(Who are now two of the greatest friends I could ask for) came into the room and asked to play. They were pretty **** good, despite not knowing quite as much as we did about the ATs. From there, we started having Melee fests at my house on a fairly regular basis, getting better and better as the days went by.
One day, by random chance, I heard about SWF. I got on, made an account and posted a thread in the North Atlantic Region asking if anyone in Richmond or nearby was good at melee and/or could help get us into the tournament scene. Matt(Tope) responded to the thread and said yea, if we wanted to come up to Richmond and crash there one night, he'd teach us and take us to a Chudat bi-weekly.
When Geos and I went to Richmond to meet him, he also introduced us to Dave(Meep), with whom we played all night. From then on, we went to tournaments on a regular basis and got better and better. Much more recently, I've had the pleasure of befriending David(Savedge), Roy(Doll) and Janet(Kiwi) at C3, all of which now live reasonably nearby.
Though they don't live nearby and I rarely get to see them,, melee also gave me the opportunity to meet some amazing people in VA/MD, including my SoVa friends Ether(Great guy, great teammate), O-NO(Funny as hell, has hosted TR many times. I miss SoVa fests!), Toasty(Enver, you're one of the nicest guys I have ever met and I miss getting to chill with you. And your nachos are delicious =3) , NDN, Kitsune and many more, with whom I've spent some very memorable nights...As well as KM-013(One of the wisest and most genuine people I've ever had the honor of meeting), G-regulate, ChillinDude829, Chinesahh(My fox idol), Neo,(Tool is the best! =D)TDFX, Aho, Fonz(Spent a few awesome nights smashing it up in his basement before C3s) and the rest of Team Arlington.

Geos, Nelo, Isra, Tope and Savedge in particular now make up the majority of my close friends. Had I never started to play Melee, there is a good chance I wouldn't know a single one of them right now(Except Geos, already knew him from Halo =D). I have no idea where I'd be or what I'd be up to right now if it weren't for all of them. A lot of people view video games as a "waste of time" or a "silly hobby for kids", but it helped introduce me to tons of amazing new people and brought together some amazing friendships which are sure to last for a long time to come.
Team Richmond is amazing and I love all of them, even you Doll, though you may be a bit grumpy to me sometimes. =)

Keep Melee alive, **** it.
Brawl has nothing on that game.
<333333

 

[Tyr_03]

I remember playing Melee before I knew anything about advanced techniques. I could always beat anyone I played against. For years I went practically undefeated with Samus. Then one day I got beaten. I met my friend playing Melee with some other people I already knew in free for alls. I dominated about like I usually did. A few weeks later he invited me to his house to game with a few other people. We did almost nothing but 1 v 1s and he destroyed me. With Luigi no less. He had just learned how to wavedash with Luigi and was shooting past me back and forth. Being the noob that I was I tried rolling to get away and missile spam only to take a forward smash in the face over and over.

From that point on I started to work on my metagame. We got a few other friends to start doing all night Melee sessions. Slowly we introduced techniques in an effort to beat eachother. Eventually it became near an obsession to be able to beat the others until the point where we've learned to use a surprsing number of techniques with a lot of characters.

My friends are now off in college while I'm stuck here in high school. It's very depressing as no one else at my high school is really into competitive smash despite my efforts (I bring my gamecube and play Melee with a group of about 10 two days a week during lunch.) I played Brawl for a while in an effort to help make it more competitive but it's failing me in about every way right now so I've pretty much stopped playing it. Hopefully my friends and I will hit a few Melee tournaments in the area this summer (if we can find any.) Playing Melee is probably the most fun social activity I've ever been a part of. I couldn't tell you how many fights I've gotten into with my girlfriend for staying out late gaming rather than talking to her. It's something I really love and I will never give it up.

 

[ThreeX]

Hey, how come this isn't stickied yet? >.>'

 

[TheManaLord]

I don't know but I didn't think this topic would take off in the direction it did. My story is mostly true but it was made solely for the purpose of the last line (a joke) on Gfaqs. But again, the story is true and I'm glad it inspired everyone else to post their stuff, it's truly inspiring. Reading these stories really help me sleep at night thanks to sleepcountry mattresses, why buy your mattress anywhere else?

LOL but seriously good stuff everyone, keep posting your stories people!

 

[Fiend's_Knee]

I remember when Melee was just coming out I couldn't wait, having played SSB64 for so long and loved it having many a brilliant four player with my brother and our two mates with me being the best at the game with my Link. When it was released over here my mate brought it to my house and it has never left since (funny that I don't actually own the game). It was such a step up from SSB64, everything about was brilliant and we basically played non-stop. Not to long later I broke my foot and had to stay off school for a while which allowed me to play Melee a whole week.

As a result I became much better at the game than my brother and my mates and as I continued to get better they became annoyed playing me because I was too good and would always own them with the occasional defeat now and then so unfortunately the four player melees became less frequent. I still played however playing the game to death against CPUs and the 1-player, it got to the piont where I used to train against three Lvl-9s on handicap for a challenge but I eventually got bored and stopped playing as much.

Jump to early 07 and with only the occasional return to melee, be it for multi-player or be myself in the past few years, I am told by a few of my friends this guy called Eubie they know is desperate to face me because he heard I was brilliant at Smash. So I eventually we meet up to get a game of smash and at that time I had selection system, I would first go Yoshi, then Mario, Luigi, Ganon, Falco and finally my best Link, he saved his best till last which happened to be Ganon.

So I faced him with five of my characters and owned him, but this was the main event his best against mine. To be honest I underestimated him due to his previous performances but as soon as the game started he came flying out the traps, moving with Ganon at such I speed it was unbelievable, no doubt the one the hardest fights I have had still beat him though. We had another game where he seemed to upped his game a little and would have bet me if didn't kill himself at the end trying to meteor smash me.

However it wasn't the games I had with him that I learned a lot from, it was all the techniques he was telling me about after when we were mucking about with the game such as wavedashing etc. I didn't even know you could catch items thrown at you for crying out loud. It just showed how little I actually knew about the game. So I went on the Internet in my Gran's house where I was staying at the time having no access to it in my own house I read up a little on smash and learned of tournaments of melee being held with a guy called Isai supposedly being the best smasher at the time. This was all new to me as I didn't think they would hold tournaments of any game, I also watched video or two on youtube of matches but seeing nothing paricularly special and I tried a few of these techniques but I couldn't really do them and I had no clue how to enter a melee tournament so I guess I left it for a while.

Again jump forward a year and after reading so much about Brawl it got me in the mood to play Melee properly again. I started getting good again because before when I played my brother and my two mates i would lose quite a lot of games despite being technically better and playing better than them. So finally returned near my old skill level and I met Eubie at college one day and we were talking about smash so I went to his to get a game. First game I went Falco and he went Falcon and he actually beat me, it was he the first time he beat me but i put down to a bad game as I beat him every other game we had that day. Same week on Friday he invites me for up to his for another game and to my surprise he vastly improved in the space of a few days, he even started beating my Link which he was ecastic about. The games were so intense, a massive step up from anything I was used to but I enjoyed, I loved the competiveness of it.

Later on that weekend he showed a combo video, the triforce of power and the guy was unreal it amazed me, it was then that I really started getting into Melee, playing constantly, improving myself to point were I can wavedash, l-cancel, shield-grab and chain-grab constitently. I started watching more videos on youtube and I chanced upon this forum and although I thought it was brilliant it sadden me a little as well to know what I have missed out on. Be it through lack of internet access, geographical positionong or not enough mates who love melee as much as me I feel I missed out on so much, now i don't really want Brawl to replace Melee as I have gotten into competitive play.

Basically I feel I represent the smasher who's just getting on the scene, wanting to test himself against good smashers and to constantly try and improve themselves and I don't want that to be taken away from me by a game that is inferior in every way. I am just boarding SS Melee and I don't want it to sink before I even set sail.

 

[St. Viers]

Heh, I wish that my smash story was epic. Pretty much, I began playing thanks to a friend (Dark Cloud) in 2001. We sucked, played with items, but it was fun. Then, we stopped hanging out so much, but still played occasionally. he began beating us, and got bored, until he then heard about tournaments. During this time I used kirby, and then picked doc because of his cape.

Thanks to him, I learned about smashboards in late 04ish, and lurked around reading stuff until I joined. I learned the basic ATs rather quickly, though I still kept losing. I stuck with doc, and kept getting better. Then in late 05/06 I went to some small tournie in some obscure college (again thanks to Dark Cloud) I beat one person, and suprised that person by busting out a WD after killing him (my first showing off, which turned into hilarious little DD/WD dances as I got better and better). There I got to see KDJ play unknownforce, which really inspired me. After singles people were doing a joke team tournie, in which I was randomly paired with KDJ (though he prolly doesn't remember).

Then I continued prcticing when I could, and my next tournie was a Cataclysm. Needless to say, I was completely overwhelmed. I can safely say that that was one of the most exciting experiences. I met a ton of people I had heard about on SWF, and saw several players that inspired me to start playing chars besides doc. I got eliminated immediately, but was ridiculusly fun. I met .Zeb the day before, as well as **** Tom, harvey, and others.

After that, I didn't do much until RedSoxfan began organizing MassMadness, later to be taken over by Elen, .Zeb, and all. I still got last everytime, but I was learning, and having the time of my life. I've been to a few tournies since, but thanks to outside life, I haven't got to spend as much time as I've wanted to with fellow smash players.

However, if it weren't for smash, I'd never have met most of the people I know in college, because it gave me something that could make me forget my shyness. It was also something I could help people get better at, even if I couldn't really improve myself. I began to learn as much as I could about the game, and began learning to play. I picked up fox for his tech skills, and got to the modest success of being able to JC shines somewhat consistantly. I picked up G&W (thanks to dire back at Cata), and bowser, due to kevinM and gimpyfish (though I never met the latter).

Now that brawls coming out, I'm hoping that melee sticks around, and the players I've met and the ones I've grown to respect on SWF stick around. Maybe I'll get out to tournies, if fate shines on me, but even if I don't, I can say that melee drastically changed my life.

SO yeah, thanks to melee, but also, just like to say thanks to the people I've met who've been supportive and helpful !

 

[Fly_Amanita]

I still vaguely remember the first time I played Melee; I recall being disappointed at first, but after playing for a while, I came to enjoy it more than SSB64. Shortly thereafter, I started playing it really often and eventually evolved into the stereotypical n00b who thinks he's the among the best in the world because he can beat his friends in high school. Being a nerd who enjoys experimenting around, I discovered wavedashing and a few other ATs on my own, although I was pretty crappy when it came to actually making effective use of them.

During the summer of 2006, right before my first year of college, I decided out of whim to watch videos of competitive Melee players; my mind was blown and I realized that I wasn't nearly as good as I thought I was. I felt that I had a reputation for being good that I had to preserve, so I frantically learned and became proficient at all of the basic ATs a month before college started. The college I went to at the time (Harvey Mudd) had a few respectably good smashers, although nobody there was incredible, and I established myself as one of the best there fairly quickly through local tournaments. I also went to a couple of real tournaments in early 2007, both of which I was up against DSF first or second round; after losing pretty badly to DSF in winners and then Fabian in losers at the second one, I became disheartened and stopped going to tournaments.

I became a mildy competitive stadium player during the summer of 07, mainly thanks to encouragement from HRCO, teh mudkipz, and mapler. I grew tired of it, though, as I found the endless repetition tiring, and I almost completely stopped playing Melee for about a month. In late 2007, however, some of my friends (Yomi, Thor, w0p, and Squee451) from some nearby colleges contacted me and encouraged me to come to one of their small tournaments; around this time, my favorite controller broke and I couldn't use my old main Fox very well anymore, so I picked up Marth and Sheik. I got 3rd, losing to a couple of my friends whom I was able to pretty consistently beat a few months ago. This renewed my interest in competition, and I started playing with them more often and in November, I started regularly going to larger tournaments that well-known SoCal smashers attended pretty often. By this time, I had switched my mains several times and ultimately ended up as an ICs/Sheik main, although I initially only picked up the ICs so I could beat Falcos on FD.

Since then, I have improved a lot and I can now hold my own against most SoCal smashers. I don't enjoy Brawl very much and I regret not becoming a part of the competitive SSBM community sooner, but fortunately for me, there is a dedicated group of about 30 smashers who still play Melee around here. If Melee does eventually die, I'm not sure if I'll switch to Brawl or vanish alongside Melee, but I'm currently leaning towards the latter.

 

[JFox]

BUMP cuz I love this thread!

A good way to keep melee alive would be to attend this tourney

Melee Tourney: 5/24-Howell, NJ

 

[eebrozgi]

man... being born late sucks....

It sure does.

My Melee career is just starting. I learned about ATs last summer and teached one of my friends to play Melee with me. My first tournament will be in 23rd day of this month.

Thank you all for those stories. They really motivated me.

 

[Ojanya]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOd6vD-JNXU

iPod'd.



AAAANYWAAAAY,

I started playing Melee competitively only about half a year ago, which makes it suck for me.


LET THIS GAME LIVE!! START HOSTING TOURNAMENTS!

 

[~rh]

Melee has a special place in all of our hearts. Great stories, guys.

BTW, Epic first post, OP.

Sticky, please!

 

[supermario27mx]

oooooh man not just melee but smash bros in general
Chapter 1
Mario and smash 64
i remember i was like 9 when smash 64 came out i saw the commercial and i had to get this game, pikachu mario DK and yoshi fighting? im there!!! so i got it and everyone nearby wanted to play and eventually they got the game so i found myself playing against all sorts of people. in 64 things got pretty competitive in my block i remember some alex guy who used DK was the guy to beat and in a little tournament i took him out in the semis everyone took a dump on themselves when i took him out. it was a pretty cool group of people that hung out and played smash thre was me my brother alfredo alfonso rosa and erika (alfonso's hot sisters who also played smash) some of my cousins and a bunch of people great times. we pulled a lot of all nighters alex's 64 blew up at one point and i cant rememver a time my neighbor took me and my bro out in doubles and they were pretty good they actualy won a san diego tournament, the san diego scene in those days was small but it was bigger and better than the tijuana scene which was non existent and arguably our little smash group which ranged from 15 to 20 people was the tijuana smash scene (or at least a big smash crew)

my mains in 64 fox/pikachu
moments of glory: elimination of alex's DK, a 39 game winning streak and the moment my eyes laid sight on the smash 64 advertisement

 

[supermario27mx]

melee kicked up a storm and stepped up the competitive level
Chapter two: mario melee and the san diego invasion part 1
in the 7th grade i went to san diego to check out computers with my parents at a best buy and at the time 64 was still strong on the block but i saw melee and my jaw dropped bowser and yoshi in mute city it was beautiful i had to play it. my first time i played some black kid who used zelda i used fox and we played in mute city i won by luck since a car hit him but i was amazed the graphics the levels the characters how did i live without knowing this game existed (i had a cube w/ luigi's mansion) so eventually when i crosseds the border back to tijuana mexico's city of tequila sexo y marihuana (manu chao rocks!!!) i was ignorant that the gang was slowly dying. alex left to college to UC berkeley
erika and rosa's interest in smash died as well as a lto of people's and to finish it all off i was moving to san diego. in the final time i played alex i cried because i lost a mentor and i guess i was depressed for like a mont after i moved but i heard something coming from the apartment next door once i moved to san diego it was pikachu, what pikachu?? and ness PK fire !!!!!
holy crap someone is playing smash
ill continue it tomorrow since i have a final paper for both english and italian due tomorrow
awesome stories guys im not messing with u guys im actually tearing up right now writing this

 

[Aggression]

it was like 2006 and i started getting back into melee again for some random reason. i started playing casually again that schoolyear with friends and stuff and quickly showed my dominance... then on some forum i frequented there was a discussion on competitive play about ssbm. they were talking about tiers. i said they didn't exist. i said that wavedashing was a glitch. i said all this **** about it, and how i was the best there was.

then i saw the original matches featured in this compilation. and i have to say, those videos changed my life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOd6vD-JNXU

the day after i saw that i became immediatly launched into the tournament scene. i lost weight i hit puberty and got taller i got a girlfriend i got a job i got a car all because of smash brothers melee and isai's captain falcon and ken's marth. my life was changed for the better. i started training, hard. i got so good i was starting to peak skill wise bcause of my limited local competition and bad geographical location and crappy age. so i stagnated.

i came to college this year and played against competitive players for the first time. i still won. basically all the time. this is when i knew i was good. i attended my first tournament and placed 5th in teams losing to pc chris and plank and got 17th in singles losing to good local players in matchups i had no experience against. but the tournament was big, 60 or so people or more. soi i am very proud of that.

now that brawl came out i am disheartened about what may potentially happen to melee, it might die. which kills me inside. i'm selling my wii and buying a gamecube because nintendo abandoned everything they used to stand for, the gamecube can play melee so thats what i care about. but all thats besides the point.

what i really want to say is that melee has been a really huge part of my life these past few years and ilove the community and i am so grateful for all of you guys. all i have left to do is thank god. thank god that i can finally sleep at night thanks to sleepcountry mattresses, why buy your mattress anywhere else?

how did nintendo abandon anything? they just used the 1st year to make new people like the system by putting out gimmicky things, now its... relatively all good

 

[Miharu]

how did nintendo abandon anything? they just used the 1st year to make new people like the system by putting out gimmicky things, now its... relatively all good

I think he means that Nintendo games are now ridiculously easy compared to say, games 10 years ago.

There's also the thing with depth, Brawl, Sakurai being a ***got, etc.

 

[NeighborhoodP]

the wind waker was one of the easiest games ever created

 

[Plairnkk]

"Here's to the nights that turned into mornings with the friends that turned into family."

That's about all I have to say about this thread.

<3 u guys

-plank

 

[Junpappy]

I'm probably one of the only people who got into competitive melee through wanting to become better at the hrc lol