Moving from Melee to Brawl Differences/Tips

[esymptote]

I'm going to being playing brawl soon, because most of my friends have brawl.
I'm OK in melee, but i just started playing seriously these last two weeks.

What are the main differences?
I know that you can't wave dash, but I don't really care about that, because I was never really good at it anyways.

My main characters are Falco, Samus, and Roy.
How do these characters change in Brawl (Roy compared to Ike)?
I heard that Falco's down smash is alot weaker and that it's harder to land a hit with.
I also hear that Falco's move set is different, so would it be better for me to use Fox?
Same with Roy to Marth?

Also, which characters have the best down smashes? Which are like Falco's and Captain Falcon's in Melee?

All tips or comments are appreciated.

 

[Deleted member]

Removed by Moderator

 

[tekkie]

I'm going to being playing brawl soon, because most of my friends have brawl.
I'm OK in melee, but i just started playing seriously these last two weeks.

What are the main differences?
I know that you can't wave dash, but I don't really care about that, because I was never really good at it anyways.

My main characters are Falco, Samus, and Roy.
How do these characters change in Brawl (Roy compared to Ike)?
I heard that Falco's down smash is alot weaker and that it's harder to land a hit with.
I also hear that Falco's move set is different, so would it be better for me to use Fox?
Same with Roy to Marth?

Also, which characters have the best down smashes? Which are like Falco's and Captain Falcon's in Melee?

All tips or comments are appreciated.

Roy is nothing like Ike. Try Marth. Falco is a little different but that's just the difference between the games. Samus is bad.

Uh, every dsmash is kinda different. I think there are other things to worry about. (But seriously, MK.)

 

[esymptote]

Everyone always complains about MK, and I don't wanna be that guy who abuses the "OP character".

 

[-Ran]

I'm going to being playing brawl soon, because most of my friends have brawl.
I'm OK in melee, but i just started playing seriously these last two weeks.

What are the main differences?
I know that you can't wave dash, but I don't really care about that, because I was never really good at it anyways.

My main characters are Falco, Samus, and Roy.
How do these characters change in Brawl (Roy compared to Ike)?
I heard that Falco's down smash is alot weaker and that it's harder to land a hit with.
I also hear that Falco's move set is different, so would it be better for me to use Fox?
Same with Roy to Marth?

Also, which characters have the best down smashes? Which are like Falco's and Captain Falcon's in Melee?

All tips or comments are appreciated.

The main difference is that by and large in Brawl the combos are actually strings, which are ultimately decided upon your ability to condition your opponent, or recognize the conditioning that they have burned into their muscle memory. Strings aren't combos, but rather putting yourself in a position where you can deal safe damage assuming your opponent makes the wrong move.

At early percents, there are true combos in Brawl, but the major thing that is lacking is combos to kill moves. There's nothing like down throw to knee, or anything even remotely possible. Every kill is a response to your opponent making a poor spacing choice, or move utilization.

Falco is still a great character, it's just that he plays tremendously differently without the use of his Shine. He has an amazing spot dodge, jab, down throw chain grab, and has great aerials. Beyond that his lasers are crazy good, and he can do all kinds of zany buffering tricks.

Speaking of which, instead of focusing on l-canceling like you would in Melee, in Brawl the main thing that you have to worry about is the proper utilization of the buffering system. One common thing that you can do is air dodge prior to landing on the ground. This provides you a lagless landing, since air dodges cancel straight into the standing animation of your character, instead of being the landing lag frames that you would usually have. Factor in buffering your next move, you're able to move faster and more precisely. There are numerous little tricks like this that all add up to the smooth, efficient movements that are used by the best players. Brawl is a game of little things that must all be utilized at the same time to truly become great.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Another difference is the loss of L-Canceling, which is pretty much the nail in the coffin of many characters who can use it... especially Ganondorf.

One technique gained is Glide Tossing; throwing an item in the middle of a roll to gain distance. Though limited in use for most characters, it's good to practice with your main for when you fight item summoners, like Peach or R.O.B..

I'd say more, but I'm using my character-limiting PSP at the moment and not my Wii... I so need a computer. >__>

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Remember that Ganondorf is not a character to be laughed at unless you main Ice Climbers. If you sandbag he can and will utterly destroy you.

 

[Vurky]

Melee characters fall alot faster compared to brawl and brawl is slower game.
Falco can shoot 2 lasers in one short hop (SHDL) and in melee only 1.
Samus is alot better in melee than in brawl >__>

 

[Claire Diviner]

Remember that Ganondorf is not a character to be laughed at unless you main Ice Climbers. If you sandbag he can and will utterly destroy you.

I could've said that; I sub-main the guy. Anyway, this is getting off topic. We ought to talk about how beard he is in the Ganon Boards. XD

To end this post on topic, another thing Brawl introduced for reasons that's just petty are random prat falls. Whenever you dash or go to perform a Smash Attack, there's a chance (though small) your character will trip and fall. As you can imagine, it's very annoying, and when it happens during the most inconvenient of times (getting ready to run off stage for an edge guard), it may very well turn the tide of a match. Sometimes it's negligible... but then there are times where random tripping can screw someone over. In the case of the latter, I call such a moment "having been Sakurai'd", named after Masahiro Sakurai himself, who apparently added prat falls to discourage excessive dash dancing. So yeah, be wary of that. Again, not too common, but enough to really be annoying. Don't let it discourage you from Brawl though. ^ω^

P.S. The game records even keeps track of the number of prat falls a character/player has had, as if to taunt us and say, "yeah, this is how many times the hand of Sakurai potentially screwed you over". XD

 

[Supreme Dirt]

You don't trip from smash attacks. There is a 1% chance that upon initiating a dash you will trip.

The reason you may think smash attacks trip is because you are likely not C-Sticking your smashes, thus you are inputting a dash first, then it immediately cancels into a FSmash.

 

[Claire Diviner]

You don't trip from smash attacks. There is a 1% chance that upon initiating a dash you will trip.

The reason you may think smash attacks trip is because you are likely not C-Sticking your smashes, thus you are inputting a dash first, then it immediately cancels into a FSmash.

Wow, that makes so much more sense. Still, I imagine people tripping when wanting to charge a Fsmash. I don't think many people charge C-Sticked smashes regularly. Also, I'm surprised with the 1%. I could swear it's no less than 5% with the way I trip. I guess I'm just unlucky. X__x

My views of Prat Falls still stands though, and I'll argue its uselessness as a feature to the death if need be. XD

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Wow, that makes so much more sense. Still, I imagine people tripping when wanting to charge a Fsmash. I don't think many people charge C-Sticked smashes regularly. Also, I'm surprised with the 1%. I could swear it's no less than 5% with the way I trip. I guess I'm just unlucky. X__x

My views of Prat Falls still stands though, and I'll argue its uselessness as a feature to the death if need be. XD

I personally always c-stick my smashes, using ZR to charge them.

And iirc it's exactly 1%. And Prat Falls are pretty useless. The amount of times I've tripped going for an iDA out of Gerudo for the kill is retardedly high.

 

[link2702]

stick with melee, you'll be alot happier with it trust me.

if you are wanting to get serious with competitive smash, stick with melee, brawl is a party game, not a fighter like melee


trust me, you'll thank me for it later

 

[Claire Diviner]

stick with melee, you'll be alot happier with it trust me.

if you are wanting to get serious with competitive smash, stick with melee, brawl is a party game, not a fighter like melee


trust me, you'll thank me for it later

MLG says "hi". XD

The way I see it, Brawl is just as much a fighter as Melee. It's just Brawl's more user-friendly and doesn't have techniques that will eat through your joystick. All in all, they're both fun, have different gameplay feels, and just trying to compare them for the purpose of superiority of one game over another on a competitive standpoint is rather unwise, as everyone will have varied opinions. XD

 

[0Room]

I could've said that; I sub-main the guy. Anyway, this is getting off topic. We ought to talk about how beard he is in the Ganon Boards. XD

To end this post on topic, another thing Brawl introduced for reasons that's just petty are random prat falls. Whenever you dash or go to perform a Smash Attack, there's a chance (though small) your character will trip and fall. As you can imagine, it's very annoying, and when it happens during the most inconvenient of times (getting ready to run off stage for an edge guard), it may very well turn the tide of a match. Sometimes it's negligible... but then there are times where random tripping can screw someone over. In the case of the latter, I call such a moment "having been Sakurai'd", named after Masahiro Sakurai himself, who apparently added prat falls to discourage excessive dash dancing. So yeah, be wary of that. Again, not too common, but enough to really be annoying. Don't let it discourage you from Brawl though. ^ω^

P.S. The game records even keeps track of the number of prat falls a character/player has had, as if to taunt us and say, "yeah, this is how many times the hand of Sakurai potentially screwed you over". XD

This is actually the reason I don't play regular Brawl. Ever.
I play Brawl - though.

Curse you Sakurai, for viewing skill as a good thing.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Curse you Sakurai, for viewing skill as a good thing.

Don't you mean "bad thing"? XD

But yeah, my impression of Masahiro is that he doesn't seem to like the idea of his games being competitive. He was quoted in saying something along the lines of Brawl being a game to play for fun. Little did he know that he could never succeed. Games, no matter what, will always have some competitive aspect to them. Brawl is no different: it has and will always be competitive... except for wi-fi mode, where lag marres the competitive feel, but yeah.

Oh, another difference (to stay on topic) between the two games are characters auto-sweetspotting the ledge. Characters can also sweetspot it whilst facing away from it (except Peach during her Up B). This effectively hampers the use of Mario's Cape... though not completely.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Don't you mean "bad thing"? XD

But yeah, my impression of Masahiro is that he doesn't seem to like the idea of his games being competitive. He was quoted in saying something along the lines of Brawl being a game to play for fun. Little did he know that he could never succeed. Games, no matter what, will always have some competitive aspect to them. Brawl is no different: it has and will always be competitive... except for wi-fi mode, where lag marres the competitive feel, but yeah.

Oh, another difference (to stay on topic) between the two games are characters auto-sweetspotting the ledge. Characters can also sweetspot it whilst facing away from it (except Peach during her Up B). This effectively hampers the use of Mario's Cape... though not completely.

Hampers Mario's cape? Not quite. It's still one of the best edgeguarding tools in the game against characters with poor recoveries. I almost picked up Mario after Douhneill kept ****** me with the cape.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Hampers Mario's cape? Not quite. It's still one of the best edgeguarding tools in the game against characters with poor recoveries. I almost picked up Mario after Douhneill kept ****** me with the cape.

Well, to be fair, the auto-sweetspotting mechanic has somewhat nerfed it from Melee, as his cape meant a nigh always instant death to Ganondorf and Captain Falcon (among others). In Brawl, though it is still one of Mario's best edge guarding tools (especially with cape gliding), victims of the cape still have a window of opportunity to survive, where that chance in Melee (as said before) was near nil. Still, you do have a point, as I've seen a sick combo video where a Mario main edge guarded a Pit with the Cape... like, how does one manage to do that?! XD

 

[Supreme Dirt]

It's pretty easy actually. You just have to remember it doubles vertical momentum and inverts horizontal. The cape is even better as powershielding no longer reflects projectiles. Bolded because that's a change between the two.

 

[Claire Diviner]

It's pretty easy actually. You just have to remember it doubles vertical momentum and inverts horizontal. The cape is even better as powershielding no longer reflects projectiles. Bolded because that's a change between the two.

Touché. I have seen some amazing stuff involving the Cape, though I haven't been a victim of it myself... yet.

Another difference to note includes air dodging mechanics: you still plummet straight down, falling as normal during an air dodge (it's why Wavedashing is absent). The trade off is that it no longer puts you into a Helpless State... at least if my memory serves me right, air dodging in Melee puts you in helpless, right? Forgive me, but it's been years since I've touched Melee.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Touché. I have seen some amazing stuff involving the Cape, though I haven't been a victim of it myself... yet.

Another difference to note includes air dodging mechanics: you still plummet straight down, falling as normal during an air dodge (it's why Wavedashing is absent). The trade off is that it no longer puts you into a Helpless State... at least if my memory serves me right, air dodging in Melee puts you in helpless, right? Forgive me, but it's been years since I've touched Melee.

Yup, it put you into special fall. No more directional airdodge in Brawl.

Also, L-Canceling was replaced with autocanceling. Most aerials have frames during them which if you land, you have no landing lag at all - you can do anything immediately after. Fox for example has autocanceling frames on most of his aerials, and due to his speed is one of the few characters in the game with true combos, such as DAir -> USmash.

Ganondorf is the king of autocanceling though.

There is also a bug know as RCO lag, or phantom lag, or any other number of ways of saying the same thing. Essentially, when some characters auto-snap the ledge with a special, such as Marth's Dolphin Slash, the game stores the landing lag from that special. Next time the character lands, regardless of when, they will suffer the full landing lag of the special. Luckily however, this can be canceled with an aerial's landing lag, and as Marth's FAir auto-cancels this can be dealt with easier.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Yup, it put you into special fall. No more directional airdodge in Brawl.

Also, L-Canceling was replaced with autocanceling. Most aerials have frames during them which if you land, you have no landing lag at all - you can do anything immediately after. Fox for example has autocanceling frames on most of his aerials, and due to his speed is one of the few characters in the game with true combos, such as DAir -> USmash.

Ganondorf is the king of autocanceling though.

There is also a bug know as RCO lag, or phantom lag, or any other number of ways of saying the same thing. Essentially, when some characters auto-snap the ledge with a special, such as Marth's Dolphin Slash, the game stores the landing lag from that special. Next time the character lands, regardless of when, they will suffer the full landing lag of the special. Luckily however, this can be canceled with an aerial's landing lag, and as Marth's FAir auto-cancels this can be dealt with easier.

Oh, I definitely know about the RCO. Such a terrible oversight, in my opinion. I also know about auto-canceling too.

As for Ganondorf, I know about his short-hopped Dair, Uair and Bair, the Dair of which feels so good when you string thunderstorms. What about his Fair? I don't believe that can be short-hopped without landing lag. If it can, I so need to know.

Another difference is trying to momentum cancel purely with a B move, as doing so causes the character to fly up more. Apparently, Sakurai didn't like the idea of people canceling Fox's verticle momentum with the Reflector in Melee. >__>

 

[Supreme Dirt]

Oh, I definitely know about the RCO. Such a terrible oversight, in my opinion. I also know about auto-canceling too.

As for Ganondorf, I know about his short-hopped Dair, Uair and Bair, the Dair of which feels so good when you string thunderstorms. What about his Fair? I don't believe that can be short-hopped without landing lag. If it can, I so need to know.

Another difference is trying to momentum cancel purely with a B move, as doing so causes the character to fly up more. Apparently, Sakurai didn't like the idea of people canceling Fox's verticle momentum with the Reflector in Melee. >__>

FAir is supposed to full-hop auto-cancel, but because of a programming error of a single bit, it doesn't. You can however "platform cancel" it, by landing on the edge of a platform and sliding off of it to cancel the lag. If you want to pick up Ganondorf, practice that on the Smashville platform first, it's really hard to do on non-moving platforms.

Oh, just though of something, Brawl DI allows you to live so much longer than Melee. There's about 45 degrees or so of leeway to DI in.

 

[Claire Diviner]

You know what? I've been wanting to mention this, but kept forgetting:

Footstool jumps: When you're above your opponent (literally on their head), you can bounce up from their head. It's a great way to disrupt recoveries and is quite devastating to some characters, like Yoshi and Donkey Kong.

That being said, I noticed that it's possible to get that extra jump by being above your opponent without actually Footstooling them. The CPUs are notorious for abusing this. Is there an actual term for such an extra jump (a jump other than the second jump and UpB)? Was it intentionally programmed, or perhaps it may have been a somewhat failed Footstool (a "Fakestool" perhaps)? I don't know if it has been discussed before or not, but some clarity in this would be appreciated nonetheless.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

It's footstooling while the opponent is either on the ledge or using certain attacks/beginning or ending of airdodge. They have priority over the "getting footstooled" animation. Footstooling someone on the edge is actually a part of Sonic's recovery.

 

[Claire Diviner]

It's footstooling while the opponent is either on the ledge or using certain attacks/beginning or ending of airdodge. They have priority over the "getting footstooled" animation. Footstooling someone on the edge is actually a part of Sonic's recovery.

Ahh, so that's what that is. Thanks for the clarification. :D

Gee, I don't know of any other differences. I'm sure we haven't covered them all, but still, I think you and I got the vast majority of 'em. XD

Did we get glide tossing? Also, I hear Meteor Canceling is harder to do, or somewhere along those lines.