Sorry these aren't exactly in order of your post. I kinda responded to each in whatever order I thought of a response in.
I also want to say that although many people are tooting the technical superiority of Melee, Keep in mind that the majority of AT in Melee were movement oriented, and most of the time, the time to master these techniques were basically used just so you can juke someone into a grab attempt. Marth, Fox, Shiek, Captain Falco, and IC's in Melee relied on the same thing as a major part of thier game. Grabbing. Especially the Captain, who if he doesn't grab for an entire match, his chances of winning decrese drastically. How is that cool with you? He's even worse now. Why? because the movement AT are gone. Also , due to those same movements, a good Melee user at the highest level need only to land a few knowdowns, and no matter who fast or effective are you at moving, at that point, you are at the complete mercy of the guy who threw or knocked you down. Oh, yeah, you can DI. and? you get no realistic opportunity to save yourself out side of DI. and that's it. and don't say that it's the same in all fighting games because they all at least have some form of counter move or at least a reversal like the Shouryuken or a wakeup move/super.
The technical superiority of melee isn't what we miss. I don't care if someone can just pick up the game and know how to use the techs in days. What I do care about is the ability to have options, and actually have ways to outsmart the opponent besides "walking forward menacingly." Movement options are what allowed varied mind games. It doesn't matter if you know how to dashdance or wavedash if you can't use them to trick your opponent. It's the application of these techs that matters. The problem is there is no way to apply techs like these in brawl, because they
don't exist. By restricting our movement options, we've lost a high degree of control over our characters, not just for getting a grab, but for getting anything.
Especially the Captain, who if he doesn't grab for an entire match, his chances of winning decrese drastically. How is that cool with you? He's even worse now. Why? because the movement AT are gone.
I'd like to emphasize this point, which ironically supports my argument more than your own. Those movement techs are what allowed any character to be played well, provided you could out think your opponent. And why does the fact that he really wanted a grab offend you so much, anyway? Every character in both games need something in order to win. Even if a pit gets you up to 200% with arrows, if he can't land a melee move on you, he won't be able kill you. Every character needs to land a certain move in order to perform well, and if falcon needed to grab to combo, what makes it so different than any other character... from either game?
The fact that you can't 0-death people isn't the problem, either. The fact that you can't get
any consecutive hits against a good player
is. You can literally air dodge at any time in this game. Even right after being launched by an attack, before their lag even finishes. You can get out of almost any follow up between not only smart airdodging, but also
hitting them out of their attack. This is the fundamental problem, and the argument has been made time after time again. Brawl favors the defensive player, and discourages follow ups.
Another thing... with good DI you can get out of pretty much
any "big" combo. If you don't, you messed up, and deserved to be 0-death'd. A 0-death
never results from "one mistake." It's quite often a series of mistakes that allows the 0-death to happen.
Lemme say a few things that I've felt about Brawl for a while and this is mostly opinion:
I know that Brawls Mechanincs were altered in a manner that in the short time we had it, caters to the camping game. But In the short time I had it, I feel that the game has become more poke-oriented and Projectile oriented as well. 2 of the three best characters (Snake, D3) have high priority pokes and strong projectiles. Toon Link, another strong character, and even Link can rely on thier signature specials more than they could in Melee, cause you could never get away with it for more than two seconds. I feel that the game was made to force players to use all the moves a char has. If you think about it, from a moveset perspective, the character selection overall has improved from what I feel was a much more narrow selection of characters in Melee.
So spamming the same couple moves to rack up damage while keeping the foe away with a couple other moves and eventually killing with one of a couple moves is considered using a wide variety of moves? That's news to me. Although it is clear that they WANTED you to use a variety of moves by the stale moves system, in actuality, it hasn't done anything but
restrict our move usage. In melee, if you had an opening to use fox's usmash, you could use it, even if there was no way it would kill them, and it would bring your foe that much closer to getting killed. In brawl, if you use fox's usmash slightly early, it actually takes
longer for you to kill them, as now you have to use other moves to refresh your usmash, which of course is your main killing move. Usmash is hardly a spammable move, but you're forced to use it even less often than you normally would be able to, narrowing your option set. The stale moves system in brawl reduces your options at any given time, at least in a practical sense.
When I say "narrow selection of characters in Melee" I am saying that even though it is true that it may take less technical skill to reach a level of competent Smash, because the characters overall (with a few exceptions, OMG Ganon you suck) have improved, you have Marth, Snake, D3, MK, Diddy, Sonic, Bowser (you could almost never choose a Bowser and seriously expect to go far as your main in Melee btw) and few others that will do very well, where as in Melee, if you were not a Marth, Fox, Falco, or Shiek, you were so at a disadvantage you had to be crazy better just to compensate and give you a semi-decent chance.
The fact that bowser was bad in melee and is good in brawl is irrelevant. If pichu was in brawl and was somehow god tier, while everyone else sucked, would that make the game more balanced? No, it wouldn't. Just because a character gets buffed from one game to the next doesn't mean a thing as far as balance is concerned.
Also, in brawl, if you're not a metaknight or snake, you're probably not going to win tournies. How is this so much more balanced than melee, where you had to play fox, falco, marth, or sheik to have a good chance at winning tournies? If you take out all the unbalancing characters, of course you can make a game look balanced. But that just isn't how it works. People are going to play the best, and if the best are way better than everyone else, then no matter how balanced the rest of the game is, the game is not truly balanced.
