Please explain why Melee is so awesome

[lismore]

Skill DOES matter.

I don't think anyone is denying this. In all 3 smash games skill matters. That skill may, indeed, translate into different things for the different games. In 64, one only needs to look at the Isai combo vid appropriately titled 'Don't get hit!' to see 0-to-death (or at least devastating) combos are the crux of 'skill'. Getting that first hit, and the mindgames involved, is of course still very important, but the punishment is more so because of the long hitstun, etc, etc. In Melee, most people would agree that Sakurai (unwittingly perhaps) created the near perfect balance between approach and punishment. It's certainly the main reason why I love the game so much. The 'skill' required is evenly balanced between the two, so that tech skill, combos, etc are still massively important, but the approach and mindgames required to get that first decisive hit are too because good DI, teching, etc will allow skilled players to break many combos which were simply unescapeable in 64. In Brawl, lack of hitstun, floatier physics, etc have removed a lot of the 'punishment' factor, meaning 'skill' has evolved from mostly comboing ability in 64 to spacing and approach in Brawl.

What I'm saying has been said by Scar and many others countless times before but essentially this evolution of what 'skill' actually translates into for the different games affects the probability of good players beating bad players. No-one is denying that Azen, Chillin, Mew2king et al will beat your average smash player in Melee AND Brawl most if not all of the time. However, the probability of the more skilled player defeating the less skilled is lower in Brawl than it is in Melee for the reasons I've mentioned and others besides.

This is the fundamental reason why pro-Melee smashers are quick to say things like 'Melee is so much more competitive than Brawl'. You can disagree, just as you can prefer Brawl to Melee. No-one is right or wrong as such in preferring one game over the other. Personally, I prefer Melee and would play it over Brawl any day. I still like Brawl, but for me Melee has an intangible competitive brilliance that I don't yet see in Brawl. I hope (but sadly don't expect) this changes, but for now what I really want is for both games to continue to live and exist competitively side-by-side and in harmony. Let there be Brawl tournaments. Let there be Melee tournaments. Let there be tournaments with both. Some say Melee is dying, some say Brawl is dying (slowly). We can prevent both from happening, but only if the community unites. Brawl will inevitably overshadow its predecessor (initially at least), but that shouldn't stop us from keeping Melee going as a competitive entity. I believe there is enough support out there for us to succeed in doing this, but if Melee does 'die' it will be a sad, sad day in smash history.

 

[Amide]

I have more to look forward to in melee, more ways to improve.

This is what I have to look forward to in Brawl

see? If I want to improve in Brawl, I just have to be more campy and pick snake. To get better in melee, I have to improve my tactics.

Melee is a lot more tactical than Brawl. In Melee, you can actually get into better positions than your opponent. Approaching in certain ways against opponents with certain physics and damages would allow you to get larger combos. You have a significant advantage over someone who is off the edge, in the air above you, or landing while stunned near you. You can use these situations to keep hitting your opponent if you combine proper spacing and tactics with good technical skill.

In Brawl, there is almost no edgeguarding tactics whatsoever, since anyone can easily sweet-spot the ledge right away. All you can really do is edgehog tether recoveries, which is really cheap and takes almost no skill. Look at Mew2King. He is amazing at edgeguarding in Melee, I can't remember seeing a single person making it back on the stage when they were knocked off with him on the stage near the edge. Was he able to do this through technical skill alone? While his precise control over his character certainly certainty was needed to make it possible, it was his tactics that allowed him to dominate his opponent; there are other people with similar technical skill that can't edgeguard nearly as well.

In Brawl, I feel like the extent of tactics is knowing what moves not to use because using them will mean you getting hit back immediately upon using them. I was able to go to a local Brawl tournament and come in 4th out of about 20 people using a new character even though I hadn't touched the game in a month, just by using campy strategies that take very little skill or thinking. One of the main reasons I lost was because I was using moves that I didn't realize would allow my opponent to retaliate immediately, dealing more damage than I had dealt to them.

In Brawl, if you're in the air and your opponent is on the ground, you can airdodge to sheild with no consequences. If you're off the edge you can just auto sweet-spot. Tech chasing often isn't possible, and a lot of times you will be perfectly fine if you don't tech at all. Attacking while thinking about which move will be best to allow you to keep the combo going as long as possible, thinking 3-4 or more moves ahead and predicting your opponent's DI isn't in Brawl either, since there are no combos.

That link exhibits what I don't like about brawl, but Snake isn't the only character used at tourneys. Those characters are: Snake, MK, Wolf, DDD, TL, Marth, G&W, ZSS.

That's less than 1 fourth. But in reality, in Melee, only Fox, Falco, Marth, and Shiek won tourneys. And in Brawl it's few too.

 

[The Alpha Gundam]

wrong thread

 

[ihavespaceblondes]

That's less than 1 fourth. But in reality, in Melee, only Fox, Falco, Marth, and Shiek won tourneys. And in Brawl it's few too.

The last two major Melee tournaments:
Pound 3:
1st: Jigglypuff

UCLA Monthly V:
1st: Samus
2nd: Luigi

 

[Sliq]

The last two major Melee tournaments:
Pound 3:
1st: Jigglypuff

UCLA Monthly V:
1st: Samus
2nd: Luigi

Not to mention Skler placed top 32 at Pound 3 with Link, and would have placedh igher if he didn't have to leave early and forfeit his 32nd placing to Hax so he could advance to brackets.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Sliq, didn't you place like, top 20 with Jiggs at pound 3 as well? So its not like there's only one Jigglypuff going out there and winning, its not JUST Mango, there are others as well ya?

 

[Sliq]

Sliq, didn't you place like, top 20 with Jiggs at pound 3 as well? So its not like there's only one Jigglypuff going out there and winning, its not JUST Mango, there are others as well ya?

I placed 17th, losing in brackets to Mew2King and Mango, the 2 people that placed 1st and 2nd. T_T

 

[Pink Reaper]

Aw, come on, you could have taken Mew2King, you know how much trouble he has with Jigglypuff

 

[KevinM]

Can't forget the DARCNESS

 

[Pink Reaper]

I hear that KevinM's Bowser is pretty good too.

 

[Zodiac]

Look, I understand your points, but saying that you can't really be better than someone in brawl and that it can't be competitive is not true. I can five stock my friend (he's actually not awful), yet I can get three stocked by a competitive player. Skill DOES matter.

Brawl can only be forced into being competitive, its unfortunate that you still don't understand that brawl is not a game that is fit for competitive play. Yea skill matters but the gap is to close, in retrospect, it DOESN'T MATTER. In a few days maybe weeks of playing with a pro you will be as good as them, because that is the kind of game brawl is.

the point everyone is trying to make is better said bluntly.

Brawl Cant be competitive, brawl isn't a good fighting game. Melee is competitive, melee is a good fighting game.

Brawl is broken to all hell, Melee is not broken to all hell

Brawl's game play stops at strategy, Melee's game play goes way the hell farther than strategy.

Theres so many ways that it can be said, but the final point is, whether the world likes it or not.

Melee is better than Brawl, end of story.

And no you cant say "The two games are different so you cant compare them" Because you cant compare brawl or melee to any other fighting game, they HAVE to be compared to each other.

You cant say "Brawl's Meta game hasn't developed" Because Brawl's base mechanics wont allow a meta game to develop.

You can say "I like brawl better"

But for every time someone says that it wont matter because in the end, melee's the bigger faster and stronger game, and it wins.

that was so very very very blunt, and its these kinds of post's that usually get flamed by brawlers, I hope that after reading all the logical and thought out responses in this thread you'll uderstand.

 

[jugfingers]

Chu Dats Solid Water Clim?bners

 

[furyberserk]

Play them both.

Now play like a pro and get good at melee.

Now play like a pro and get good in Brawl.

Now ask yourself, "Why is melee better than Brawl?"

 

[slartibartfast42]

That link exhibits what I don't like about brawl, but Snake isn't the only character used at tourneys. Those characters are: Snake, MK, Wolf, DDD, TL, Marth, G&W, ZSS.

That's less than 1 fourth. But in reality, in Melee, only Fox, Falco, Marth, and Shiek won tourneys. And in Brawl it's few too.

The video again for reference

My main point in posting that video isn't that they picked snake, it's that all they did was shield camp, releasing their shields to spam ftilt, utilt, grab, upsmash, or nair. This pretty much turns things into blind predictions, a bit like rock paper scissors. ftilt/utilt/nair/upsmash beats grab, shield beats ftilt/utilt/nair/upsmash, grab beats shield. Most of the time they could have dodged the upsmash or nair thrown at them in the air. They had the choice to dodge now or later, and their opponent had the choice to use his double jump/releash their smash to get hit them now or later. The choice on when to airdodge or attack decided whether or not someone got hit, but was a blind prediction. The quality of their spacing didn't really affect who won the approach nearly as much as it would in melee, it was more about which move they picked arbitrarily.

 

[Amide]

Play them both.

Now play like a pro and get good at melee.

Now play like a pro and get good in Brawl.

Now ask yourself, "Why is melee better than Brawl?"

Actually, I was better in Melee. I mained Falcon (They nerfed him SO much to brawl) Don't assume that I like Brawl more because of how good I am, I like it because of variety. (Now the worst characters in the game are actually playable)

 

[KevinM]

Dead wrong, the balance is just as notably bad in brawl. MK and Snake rule the scene. Bottom tier characters stand NO SHOT IN HELL to win against competent high tier players.

 

[Amide]

Dead wrong, the balance is just as notably bad in brawl. MK and Snake rule the scene. Bottom tier characters stand NO SHOT IN HELL to win against competent high tier players.

Well, kinda... You're right on one point. CF, Samus, Link, Shiek, and other character below mid will never win. However...

(Info from Character ranking list based on tourneys: http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=165954)

Wins:

MK: 12
DDD: 13 (MK still does better, D3 just has more wins)
Wario: 11
G&W: 8
DK: 6


Oh yeah, Snake with much more wins than MK, but overall, just a little ahead. It's not balanced, but Melee wasn't either.

 

[slartibartfast42]

Even if all the characters were usable (which isn't true), the only difference between characters is what you do out of shield. Rob = downsmash out of shield, DeDeDe = chaingrab out of shield, snake = ftilt out of shield, etc... There is almost no variety in playstyles. In melee going from playing as or against any character to another requires major changes in tactics, and is a lot more variety than you'll get in brawl, even between clone characters.

 

[Tr0n]

Melee whilst being fairly easy to play for the beginner also gives those advanced techniques for the more competitive or just generally people who play it loads, which is great.

If you like sex, Melee is better than Brawl.

Hahaha nice one! Don't mind if i sig this do you?

 

[Neverender]

That link exhibits what I don't like about brawl, but Snake isn't the only character used at tourneys. Those characters are: Snake, MK, Wolf, DDD, TL, Marth, G&W, ZSS.

That's less than 1 fourth. But in reality, in Melee, only Fox, Falco, Marth, and Shiek won tourneys. And in Brawl it's few too.

Only Fox, Falco, Marth, and Shiek? Lolwut... Wow man do even think before you talk?

 

[Zodiac]

Only Fox, Falco, Marth, and Shiek? Lolwut... Wow man do even think before you talk?

I refer to them as the Elite four since their so popular but, you know other characters are getting their potential drawn out since people have maxed out the high tier characters.

 

[Skler]

Characters that do well against, have even matchups with or counter one of the top 5 (not including the top 5 themselves, obviously):

Falcon (even with Marth, does well vs Peach), ICs (**** sheik hard), Samus (fine vs space animals), Puff (obviously does fine, mango won Pound 3 and the best puffs always place pretty high).

Ok, melee has 9 characters that MAKE SENSE in tournaments. That isn't just usable, they make sense in a tournament due to matchups against the best. Other characters can be used, they just have slight disadvantages. Some characters are trash and can't be used at all due to being ***** by the top 5, but it's still more of a selection then Brawl gives you. Even if you only count matchups against the top 4 (since Peach might not belong in the best), there are 9 characters you can use in Melee seriously.

In Brawl all that really matters are matchups against Snake and MK (because they are pretty obviously the best), and very few characters have a close to even matchup against either of them. Melee is more balanced than Brawl.

 

[Tai my shoe]

I miss the speed of melee too, but it doesn't make up for the fact that all my friends used the same character.

Yes, it does.

 

[Amide]

Yes, it does.

No, it doesn't. In Melee, all my friends used the same top tier characters, in Brawl, the characters used: Lucas, TL, Mario, Ike, Pit, Wolf.

 

[Witchking_of_Angmar]

Tough luck if your friends just used the same characters. What does that have to do with how good a game is?

 

[ihavespaceblondes]

No, it doesn't. In Melee, all my friends used the same top tier characters, in Brawl, the characters used: Lucas, TL, Mario, Ike, Pit, Wolf.

Get better friends. Between just two of my crewmates, I can get practice against any character in the game played at a decently high level.

 

[Zodiac]

Get better friends. Between just two of my crewmates, I can get practice against any character in the game played at a decently high level.

Me too, I can honestly say one of the reasons for my advancement is that me and Yatta can play a variety of characters proficiently, Any character either of us use we picked up for fun though. I mean, he could easily go into a melee tournament with DK/Bowser and do pretty well, I could go into one using Dr.Mario or Roy and do pretty good. But our mains are Zodiac=Link/Sheik Yatta Dante=Fox/Falcon.

In reference to Sklers post though, We have low tier tournaments for just that purpous, But Personally I think Young Link Makes sense in tournaments to.

 

[debaser]

No, it doesn't. In Melee, all my friends used the same top tier characters, in Brawl, the characters used: Lucas, TL, Mario, Ike, Pit, Wolf.

You are basing your opinion of the game on how you play with your friends. There's one of the main reasons why you're missing the point.

Your group of friends isn't a microcosm of the smash community

 

[dudutsai]

Why are there threads like this to explain everything to individuals who should just read the dozens of other threads about the same topics?
In the short time I was here before Brawl came out, whenever somone asked about a Melee AT they would just get redirected to the sticky about it in a few posts.

Do we have to go through the same thing everytime a new person comes in and has questions that have already been answered?


Also, he seems set on his opinion. I doubt anything anyone says will change his mind until he either does his own research or actually plays both games seriously.

 

[Grunt]

Between just two of my crewmates, I can get practice against any character in the game played at a decently high level.

Same here.
I recently started picking up DK, and MAN is he a beast!

 

[Amide]

All I was saying was that I think that the characters are a little more balanced, besides the fact that (SSBB)Snake>(SSBM)Fox

I might not visit this thread anymore though, it's sort of tiring. And I don't hate melee. It's the best game on GCN. It's just that I like Brawl a tiny bit better. It isn't a crime!

 

[BlackPanther]

Of course you're gonna leave seein as how you've been told off by everyone. You saw that you were wrong in every way so you're gonna be a child and give up on the argument by sayin you're gonna not visit it, how pathetic. So many reasons why Melee is so awesome and everyone pretty much explained it for me.

 

[Amide]

Of course you're gonna leave seein as how you've been told off by everyone. You saw that you were wrong in every way so you're gonna be a child and give up on the argument by sayin you're gonna not visit it, how pathetic. So many reasons why Melee is so awesome and everyone pretty much explained it for me.

Ok, I'm sorry, but I simply have to respond to that. And to respond to what people explained for you, Brawl isn't more competitive, (*gasp* the brawl nut said something pro Melee!) but competitive gamers need to realize that Brawl is where the competition is.

 

[Sliq]

Brawl is where the competition is.

For now. Once the noobs grow bored or move on to the next new thing, you're going to lose a significant amount of people.

Also, explaining why competitive Melee is awesome is like explaining how sex is awesome. If you haven't done it, you won't get the big picture.

 

[Geist]

There's seriously nothing wrong with brawl until it's being compared to its prequels. A good amount of resources and professional critics have gone to the limits of calling it one of the best games ever created.
This is just an assumption, but I think alot of the times (not 100%), the reason melee players don't enjoy brawl is because they don't let themselves enjoy it. Of course, forcing it on yourself to play it can be just as bad.

Melee players generally enjoy melee more than brawl because of its deep and emersive gameplay. Even with the game's release at more than 6 years ago, melee players are still improving and getting better. There is no limit to how good you can play in melee. It isn't as much as just technique, but applying the technique. You could spen hours and hours alone at end just practicing only one of the numerous aspects of melee, and still have so much to learn. This is why alot of people dislike brawl's gameplay. There is no technique to master like in melee, and in turn, the strategy is cut back to simply approaching and spacing.

Brawl seems to force you to think more than melee. That's what alot of my friends thought at first. They had never faced me in melee before, and had never played at the pro/am level. Frankly, they were wrecked, and couldn't even handle a 3v1 with me.
They realised that it wasn't brawl that made them think more, it was that the speed and complexity of melee distracted them from using tactics that allowed you to completely take advantage of someone. In retrospect, alot of pro melee players will admit that brawl takes less thinking than melee, because they were already thinking at a superior level to begin with.

A good friend of mine described why he liked brawl to me in a debate, he plays brawl because the skill bar has essentially reset, and he simply want's to take part in building up brawl's metagame. I prefer melee because the metagame is already set, and its ceiling is astronomical compared to brawl's. That's really all there is to it alot of the times. It's useless going in a vicious circle of "no u"s about who's gameplay is more balanced and what-not, because that isn't even a tenth about what either game is about.

Just for a closure, this was posted at the beginning at this thread, and I think it should be posted near the ending too, assuming this is going to die off soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6viaa76cAo
Just knowing that it's possible to be that good is enough for me to prefer it over brawl, with all due respect to brawl players.

 

[Amide]

I don't agree with the fact that Brawl will improve with time, but if you search hard, you can find a really exciting match. On your end note, blowtoes, it IS possible to be really good at brawl. The ceiling is higher in Melee, but I still think that in brawl, the good player will always win. (OK, almost always)

 

[Radical Dreamer]

No, it doesn't. In Melee, all my friends used the same top tier characters, in Brawl, the characters used: Lucas, TL, Mario, Ike, Pit, Wolf.

That's just a problem with your group of friends. Here's me and my group of friends for comparison:

Me: Marth, Fox
Friend 1: Game and Watch, Falco
Friend 2: Samus, Donkey Kong
Friend 3: Ganondorf, space animals, Captain Falcon
Friend 4: Jigglypuff
Friend 5: Jigglypuff, Marth, Fox
Friend 6: Peach
Friend 7: Peach, Dr. Mario
Friend 8: Dr. Mario
Friend 9: Ice Climbers, Sheik
Friend 10: Samus, Pikachu, Young Link
Friend 11: Link
Friend 12: Marth
Friend 13: Captain Falcon, Marth
Friend 14: Captain Falcon, Bowser

Honestly I'm surprised I have this many friends. Also, of these friends, friends 1, 2, and 3 have had the most competitive success.

 

[everlasting yayuhzz]

Melee is an all around better game than Brawl, it's not that hard to grasp.

 

[KosukeKGA]

Brawl is for sissies, anyway.

It's only good for winning tournament money off of the new noobs (If any of you are doing this, I commend you for actually playing the game.)

 

[Best101]

At the beginning I was planning on dropping Melee and going to Brawl. But came to realize quickly that there were no combos, no lag-cancelling (which made laggy characters good in Melee), and the speed was severely dropped (to a point where it's slower than Smash64.) The only reason I even got Melee was because of it's speed increase.

Back when I used to play Smash64, I always complained at how slow the game was, and how I would wish they would make the game faster. I found Melee on the the Nintendo website and one of the things that Nintendo said about the game that made me get Melee was that the game would have nearly no slow ups in between moves.

I played Melee for 2 and a 1/2 years after got bored because once again the game was getting too slow. Then I found Smashboards and found all kinds of ways to reduce lag and to make the game faster, and not only that I've also found out about Z-cancelling in Smash64 that day. Z-canceling made Smash64 more fun for me.

These advance techniques opened up many new combos that I couldn't perform without these ATs, and many different strategies (defensive and offensive) have been opened to my disposal. When I was able to perform the Wavedash consistently at first I didn't know what good it could do for me beside Falco's Pillar combos. And it wasn't as broken as most people said it was, so I caring for it (when I first heard about wavedashing, I thought it made your character move faster while giving him invincibility frames lol). But as time passes and I got better with it, the uses for the wavedash became more obvious and more useful.

Brawl fails for me mainly because of the lack of speed, options, and strategies. No lag-canceling and a slower game engine only puts me in a worse position than I was when I had got tired of Smash64. And to make things worse, because of the broken defensive aspect of this game, and lack of offensive options, matches tend to drag on forever.

When me and my friend play 1 vs 1 matches (something we've been doing since the release of Smash64) 3 stock matches lasts as long as 8 minutes sometimes, and as short as 5 minutes. Not only is Brawl slower than Melee, it's even 2 times slower than the first game in the series. That was a big let-down for me.

The lack of hitstun, no shield-stun, slow gameplay, floaty physics, multiple air-dodges, broken recoveries, etc. pretty much kills all the offensive options in the game. What's left is a super slow unexciting game, where 1 vs 1 matches lasts 6 minutes too long. I came up with my username, Best101, because I love 1 vs 1 matches more than anything in Smash Bros. It's like Brawl destroyed everything I liked about Smash Bros in the first place, and gave me new things to like about it.

I enjoy Brawl because FFA matches are like the only thing that was improved as far as gameplay goes if you ask me. I like SSB64 because it's funny (taunt canceling in the middle of fights is just too funny), fun, and semi-fast with Z-canceling. I like Melee because it's speed, and massive amounts of options in both defensive and offensive strategies. I like Brawl because of it's graphics, music, and FFA matches (I play timed FFA matches, because I can't stand the 1 vs 1 play in this game)


Ok my wall of text is done. That's only a few of the many reasons why I think that both Melee and Smah64 are better than Brawl.

Btw I didn't proofread this wall of text, so please excuse any grammatical errors. My reason? tl;dr