Dan_X
Smash Lord
Warning: Wall-of-Text. Please pass on bye if you're incapable of reading more than a sentence.
Hey everyone! First of all, this is smash boards... with that said, despite our attempts in limiting spam, re-posting, and pointless Melee vs Brawl arguments it seems we're continually fighting an uphill battle. With that said, sorry if this topic has been gone over multiple times.
I've read a fair amount regarding Sakurai... the interviews between he and Iwata for example, and other such things of that nature. At first I was a bit skeptical of Sakurai making the game, but my worries were put to rest once I realized how dedicated and on-the-ball he really was with the development of this game. I loved for example how he was having all sorts of composers compose music just for the game-- epic. Eventually Brawl came out, and Sakurai didn't disappoint. However, maybe I was just so excited with the release of Brawl that I was ignorant to many of the more notable game flaws.
One of the primary flaws of the game is that the game is full of "fluff" or extra stuff. Many of these extra-features are actually somewhat pointless, bland, and otherwise unappealing to most players who will buy Brawl. Only the select die-hard fan boys will "take advantage" of all of the extra content. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a smash fan boy at heart, yet even I could care less for a majority of the features this game provided. One of my questions is... why is any of this extra stuff necessary? With all of the delays this game faced-- I'd hate to think that they delayed it in part due to the fact that they were adding this fluff as opposed to taking the time to add more characters.
The funny thing is that for a game that could have offered so MUCH it fell short in all of the obvious areas. Here are some things that catch my attention and I'd like to bring to yours.
• Sakurai actually wanted to do away with the competitive scene-- lessening the gap between skilled players and new combers by removing things such as L Canceling and Wave-dashing... etc. Also, thanks to the lack of hit stun time many characters have very few "true" combos. Some people may not care about L Canceling and Wave-dashing, but it undoubtedly placed each character on a more level playing field as they had more approaches and could cancel laggy attacks-- Link's d-air could be a "safe" effective kill move as opposed to the ultimate lag luster if only the landing lag could be canceled.
• Single player Emissary mode was an EPIC fail. The only thing I liked about it is that I got to see some of my favorite characters during the cinematic clips. Though, cinematics are hardly enough to save this single player experience. Sure this mode merits the option to play cooperatively-- but is is worth it? I found it to be an utterly mindless dreadful experience. As the entire mode really felt more as a chore than an entertaining experience-- especially the end maze. God I hated that.
• Why does Nintendo have to do things differently from everyone else? They negated the thought of online play for the longest time backing their schemes such as "connectivity." Yeah... great. We are living in a time where online gaming is more popular than ever, and it's only going to grow in popularity. Why then must we endure an online world that more or less mirrors that of the potential online scene of many many years ago? I mean... this is the year 2008, for many of us online gaming is far from new. Why then is Nintendo still so behind? There's no means of communication in Brawl--- the taunt bubbles don't even count. Online gameplay in general sucks, is sometimes laggy, and has a fairly noticeable button delay. Now I don't own the other systems (360 / PS3) as such, I assumed it was like this for all online games of the console genre. Though, I recently played the new Soul Caliber online at my friends house via his 360. I was shocked at how incredibly smooth it is-- with no button delay. Why is a game that has far more going on technologically, a game that boast a more powerful physics, graphics and whatever engine far more smooth even online than my far more simple Brawl? As an addendum, I have a Call of Duty game for the Wii, and you can log into your EA account and join servers far more seamlessly and laglessly than Brawl's online experience. Oh yeah, and it supports an online ranking system. Though again, thanks to Nintendo there's no option whatsoever for a microphone. --- Everything about their online choices blows in my opinion-- me being an avid online gamer.
What gets me is the fact that Nintendo, a company that consistently stands behind its policy of tending to people of every age (even your grandparents) systematically parental locks their games from their mature audiences-- safe guarding them from the dreadful harm of online communication, and other such obvious online necessities. Seeing as how it's marketed to all audiences, even older, shouldn't online communication, and parental controls be in the user's hand, and not the developers? What is Nintendo protecting their mature audiences from? I've been playing online games since I was 10 or so... and I've yet to see what's so harmful-- unless you consider taunting and making fun of your enemy dreadfully harmful.
•There's no point to stickers, as if even you wanted to use them as they are supposed to be; Emissary mode power ups, what's the point? The mode is far to easy through and through, and the thought of playing it through again, or spending time with stickers is just entirely necessary. I mean, you couldn't pay me enough to play though that mode again.
•OMG they added a map editor... This is actually something that I've only dreamed of.. then suddenly months later they revealed it as an update on the site and I was ecstatic. Though, for some odd reason they presented a mode that could have been amazing, and instead settled for... meh... passable. I've made dozens of maps that I consider to be quite decent, but even still they're all so limited. What are the flaws? Well, the backgrounds are fairly limited... the tools are fairly limited... everything about this mode screams limited. Most platforms, and flooring can't be grabbed onto. In fact, the only grab-able edges are that of blocks-- no matter the size. This is incredibly limiting. Not to mention this mode is full of odd glitches, if you haven't seen them look them up on youtube. Another hindering thing is the fact that the objects they've given you to use in the maps are almost unusable. Say some object takes up 4 squares, it instead has squares outside of those 4 taking up a ton of space, making it impossible to place objects close to each other as they require room around them for some unknown reason. Why is that though? It's so stupid. Wait-- did I mention you can't play your user-created map online?? Simply rediculous.
•Character differentiation: I do agree that the characters are more... well the clones are really clones now. I do appreciate that... I still think certain obvious things should have been done. For example, why isn't Gannondorf (sp?) his own character? I mean, he's definately a character deserving of his own entirely unique move-set. It's not like he's a small time character... I don't understand why they've thrown him aside like that. He flaunts a sword.. why can't he use it. Why can't he use his dark energy? Sigh... I also don't think it'd have been that difficult to pull other characters like knuckles or tails into the game seeing as how they went through the trouble of getting the licensing for Sonic. Again, this is perhaps an entirely different argument all together.
•Replays!! I was so excited about this! Now this one is completely beyond me. I simply can't fathom why they have done this. Why would they make a replay feature that can only record 3 minutes? Shouldn't it be dependent on the Wii's remaining memory, a USB stick, or the game cube memory card??? That would make sense to me. Most of the most intense matches last more than 3 minutes... heck, maybe even 3mins and 1 sec. That's still too long.
I could go on and on... the list is near never-ending. After all is said and done, all that Sakurai has instilled in Brawl, would you want him to have a major roll in making the next one? At this point, I feel that he's far too noob-friendly, far too mainstream and casual for the likes of most gamers--especially smash fans. With that said, he made many good choices, and many foolish ones with Brawl... I'd like to see another take on the series, maybe they could increase the technicality a bit, somehow deepening the competitive scene. Let's face it... Most casual gamers don't even have Brawl, they're far to busy with Wii-Sports. Oh boy right?
Anyways... what are your thoughts on the multiple matters I brought up? Do you think Sakurui should have much to do with the next game? What do you think of his Brawl efforts...? What else do you feel sucks or is awesome about Brawl?
Again, sorry for the novel.
edit*
• ! omg I forgot about tripping! Yeah, that's absolutely the worst thing ever! So pointless.
• I also hate how Emissary mode lacks a decent storyline. I hate how the characters don't talk... ok fine so if they don't talk.... at least have some on screen text. I think if Nintendo used text they'd realize how behind they are.
Hey everyone! First of all, this is smash boards... with that said, despite our attempts in limiting spam, re-posting, and pointless Melee vs Brawl arguments it seems we're continually fighting an uphill battle. With that said, sorry if this topic has been gone over multiple times.
I've read a fair amount regarding Sakurai... the interviews between he and Iwata for example, and other such things of that nature. At first I was a bit skeptical of Sakurai making the game, but my worries were put to rest once I realized how dedicated and on-the-ball he really was with the development of this game. I loved for example how he was having all sorts of composers compose music just for the game-- epic. Eventually Brawl came out, and Sakurai didn't disappoint. However, maybe I was just so excited with the release of Brawl that I was ignorant to many of the more notable game flaws.
One of the primary flaws of the game is that the game is full of "fluff" or extra stuff. Many of these extra-features are actually somewhat pointless, bland, and otherwise unappealing to most players who will buy Brawl. Only the select die-hard fan boys will "take advantage" of all of the extra content. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a smash fan boy at heart, yet even I could care less for a majority of the features this game provided. One of my questions is... why is any of this extra stuff necessary? With all of the delays this game faced-- I'd hate to think that they delayed it in part due to the fact that they were adding this fluff as opposed to taking the time to add more characters.
The funny thing is that for a game that could have offered so MUCH it fell short in all of the obvious areas. Here are some things that catch my attention and I'd like to bring to yours.
• Sakurai actually wanted to do away with the competitive scene-- lessening the gap between skilled players and new combers by removing things such as L Canceling and Wave-dashing... etc. Also, thanks to the lack of hit stun time many characters have very few "true" combos. Some people may not care about L Canceling and Wave-dashing, but it undoubtedly placed each character on a more level playing field as they had more approaches and could cancel laggy attacks-- Link's d-air could be a "safe" effective kill move as opposed to the ultimate lag luster if only the landing lag could be canceled.
• Single player Emissary mode was an EPIC fail. The only thing I liked about it is that I got to see some of my favorite characters during the cinematic clips. Though, cinematics are hardly enough to save this single player experience. Sure this mode merits the option to play cooperatively-- but is is worth it? I found it to be an utterly mindless dreadful experience. As the entire mode really felt more as a chore than an entertaining experience-- especially the end maze. God I hated that.
• Why does Nintendo have to do things differently from everyone else? They negated the thought of online play for the longest time backing their schemes such as "connectivity." Yeah... great. We are living in a time where online gaming is more popular than ever, and it's only going to grow in popularity. Why then must we endure an online world that more or less mirrors that of the potential online scene of many many years ago? I mean... this is the year 2008, for many of us online gaming is far from new. Why then is Nintendo still so behind? There's no means of communication in Brawl--- the taunt bubbles don't even count. Online gameplay in general sucks, is sometimes laggy, and has a fairly noticeable button delay. Now I don't own the other systems (360 / PS3) as such, I assumed it was like this for all online games of the console genre. Though, I recently played the new Soul Caliber online at my friends house via his 360. I was shocked at how incredibly smooth it is-- with no button delay. Why is a game that has far more going on technologically, a game that boast a more powerful physics, graphics and whatever engine far more smooth even online than my far more simple Brawl? As an addendum, I have a Call of Duty game for the Wii, and you can log into your EA account and join servers far more seamlessly and laglessly than Brawl's online experience. Oh yeah, and it supports an online ranking system. Though again, thanks to Nintendo there's no option whatsoever for a microphone. --- Everything about their online choices blows in my opinion-- me being an avid online gamer.
What gets me is the fact that Nintendo, a company that consistently stands behind its policy of tending to people of every age (even your grandparents) systematically parental locks their games from their mature audiences-- safe guarding them from the dreadful harm of online communication, and other such obvious online necessities. Seeing as how it's marketed to all audiences, even older, shouldn't online communication, and parental controls be in the user's hand, and not the developers? What is Nintendo protecting their mature audiences from? I've been playing online games since I was 10 or so... and I've yet to see what's so harmful-- unless you consider taunting and making fun of your enemy dreadfully harmful.
•There's no point to stickers, as if even you wanted to use them as they are supposed to be; Emissary mode power ups, what's the point? The mode is far to easy through and through, and the thought of playing it through again, or spending time with stickers is just entirely necessary. I mean, you couldn't pay me enough to play though that mode again.
•OMG they added a map editor... This is actually something that I've only dreamed of.. then suddenly months later they revealed it as an update on the site and I was ecstatic. Though, for some odd reason they presented a mode that could have been amazing, and instead settled for... meh... passable. I've made dozens of maps that I consider to be quite decent, but even still they're all so limited. What are the flaws? Well, the backgrounds are fairly limited... the tools are fairly limited... everything about this mode screams limited. Most platforms, and flooring can't be grabbed onto. In fact, the only grab-able edges are that of blocks-- no matter the size. This is incredibly limiting. Not to mention this mode is full of odd glitches, if you haven't seen them look them up on youtube. Another hindering thing is the fact that the objects they've given you to use in the maps are almost unusable. Say some object takes up 4 squares, it instead has squares outside of those 4 taking up a ton of space, making it impossible to place objects close to each other as they require room around them for some unknown reason. Why is that though? It's so stupid. Wait-- did I mention you can't play your user-created map online?? Simply rediculous.
•Character differentiation: I do agree that the characters are more... well the clones are really clones now. I do appreciate that... I still think certain obvious things should have been done. For example, why isn't Gannondorf (sp?) his own character? I mean, he's definately a character deserving of his own entirely unique move-set. It's not like he's a small time character... I don't understand why they've thrown him aside like that. He flaunts a sword.. why can't he use it. Why can't he use his dark energy? Sigh... I also don't think it'd have been that difficult to pull other characters like knuckles or tails into the game seeing as how they went through the trouble of getting the licensing for Sonic. Again, this is perhaps an entirely different argument all together.
•Replays!! I was so excited about this! Now this one is completely beyond me. I simply can't fathom why they have done this. Why would they make a replay feature that can only record 3 minutes? Shouldn't it be dependent on the Wii's remaining memory, a USB stick, or the game cube memory card??? That would make sense to me. Most of the most intense matches last more than 3 minutes... heck, maybe even 3mins and 1 sec. That's still too long.
I could go on and on... the list is near never-ending. After all is said and done, all that Sakurai has instilled in Brawl, would you want him to have a major roll in making the next one? At this point, I feel that he's far too noob-friendly, far too mainstream and casual for the likes of most gamers--especially smash fans. With that said, he made many good choices, and many foolish ones with Brawl... I'd like to see another take on the series, maybe they could increase the technicality a bit, somehow deepening the competitive scene. Let's face it... Most casual gamers don't even have Brawl, they're far to busy with Wii-Sports. Oh boy right?
Anyways... what are your thoughts on the multiple matters I brought up? Do you think Sakurui should have much to do with the next game? What do you think of his Brawl efforts...? What else do you feel sucks or is awesome about Brawl?
Again, sorry for the novel.
edit*
• ! omg I forgot about tripping! Yeah, that's absolutely the worst thing ever! So pointless.
• I also hate how Emissary mode lacks a decent storyline. I hate how the characters don't talk... ok fine so if they don't talk.... at least have some on screen text. I think if Nintendo used text they'd realize how behind they are.
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