I even convinced myself that L-Cancel wouldn't be necessary, because I felt the game play changes would expand Brawl to new horizons that made it unnecessary. In my 6 hours of playing (and everyone elses 2-3 days of playing), the game makes it clear there are new horizons -- just that every one of them seems to be a 5 minute stroll from the epicenter.
Brawls design philosophy is the culprit. As stated, Brawl's game play mechanics are clearly and INTENTIONALLY limiting.
L-cancelling was unintentional and was likely intentionally removed. No sane game developer would implement such a convoluted mechanic to the game.
-You've heard this already, but there are very few real follow ups, setups or combos. No one has figured out a consistent 2 piece outside canned strings.
Falcon's Forward B is a good example: WHY does this move exist if following up with ANYTHING is impossible? You maybe get an Up Air at 0-10%. After that, your opponent is knocked so far that you can't even consider yourself on the offensive anymore, you're practically neutral with your opponent. It's a lunging launcher with no real purpose at this point. Same deal with ALL his throws.
I've yet to see a 'Combo' counter pop up during a game of Brawl. I know there is one in the background, but definitely not in the way it would be implemented for a normal 2D fighting game.
-Very BASIC game play mechanics are either nerfed or GONE:
Light Shield/Analog Shield Physics: GONE
This makes sense. Analog shielding would put wii remote users at a disadvantage.
Power Shield: Seemingly GONE. If you timed your Shield presses correctly, you would get a new sound effect but no Parry or Projectile reflections (no game play effect). Maybe it changed somehow, but in the 2-3 days of my friends playing, no one has witnessed PS in effect. If an overpowered projectile develops you're ****ed.
In my experience, when you get that new sound effect, depending on your placement relative to your opponent, you can either grab them or roll out.
Ledge Cancel: Obviously still in, but very limiting. You only can cancel with back/down on the Control Stick (so far), so doing attacks from the ledge is very hard. Furthermore, you have to wait 1/2 a second before letting go of the ledge meaning: no invincibility off the ledge or very few frames, if any.
I have never ledge cancelled, so I can't really say how much this change matters.
Crouch Cancel: GONE.
DashDance: No mindgame potential, so it's useless as you either have to do it REALLY fast (tiny direction changes) or VERY slowly over longer distances. The only consistent spacing tool right now is walking. Ground game felt hopeless in Brawl, but not just because of this. More on that later.
Applying Fox Trotting to other forms of movement seems less viable than I thought, but it just might require a **** ton of practice.
I never used either of these techniques in Melee.
Different Falling Speeds: GONE. Everyone has a homogenized falling speed, meaning that the meta game inherently suffers.
I would say this is less of a nerfed/removed gameplay mechanic and more of a change implemented for Brawl.
-The alleged aerial game expansion remarks made by Sakurai at this point seem silly. There is little to nothing at this point that shows the general game play has gone more aerial (outside the characters that can fly/glide or jump multiple times). If anything, it's the opposite. I don't need to mention the obvious extraction of L-Cancel. The new Air Dodge does little to expand things at this point. It's a very long animation and after the second AD without touching the ground, you plummet downwards. You still suffer considerable lag after air dodging, so the only reason I can see Sak allowing multiple ADs at this point, is to allow one to come back to the stage after ADing off accidentally.
Sakurai was likely talking about the gliding/number of jumps/flying. Other than that, the aerial game seems the same to me.
-This game was made to be played with items. I believe this whole heartedly. The only character that could kill before 100% consistently was Ike, so he won most of the matches. Killing off the sides for most characters doesn't happen until closer to 200%. Characters are so floaty, they often make it back to the stage without using their second or third jumps, they simply Air Control towards the stage -- often even after being intercepted by an offstage attack. Brawl tournaments will never finish within a reasonable time frame at this pace. This game was not meant to be competitive.
That statement is almost completely wrong. I'll agree that the characters seem "floaty," but there's nothing wrong with that. I'll also agree that 4-stock matches take significantly longer now than they would in Melee. My friends and I noticed that within a half-hour of first playing the game, and have since changed the default amount of stock to 3, which is just right.
The game was meant to be played one way, and one way only:
Our way. This is why we are able to customize Brawl matches so much. All characters can be unlocked without touching SSE or Classic mode once. They can also be unlocked without playing a single Brawl (Vs.) match. Some can be unlocked without participating in Brawl, Classic, OR SSE (10 item deflections or whatever for Ness can be done in Multi-Man Melee).
We have a Stage Builder now. A friend and I just ended a day of Brawl by creating a custom stage. We cooperatively built the stage from nothing, tested it within the editor as well as in actual Brawls, revised it, then tested it some more, then added/removed objects as we deemed necessary, until we were satisfied with how the stage played out. The Stage Builder alone is robust enough to keep people entertained for hours, just building levels.
I must also disagree with your comment about the game not being made to be competitive. It is far too balanced as it is for such a judgement to be reached. I'll admit that certain aspects (which can be disabled/avoided) are not suitable for competitive play, but the game as a whole was meant to be enjoyed by everyone. It was made not just for competitive players, not just for casual players, not for people who just want a new game that brings back fond memories of the past, but for everyone.
-Attempting Edge Guards at this point feels pointless with the auto sweetspot feature. This is why in vids, players seem so illogical when trying to edgeguard. A character can sweetspot FROM ALMOST 2 CHARACTER LENGTHS AWAY.
In one situation, I was playing a timed Stock match, Ike vs. Fox. After going up one stock, I started ******* around and started dropping beneath the stage and regrabbing the ledge with his Up B. Fox could do nothing. Not only was it hard to attack me because of the Auto Sweetspot, he couldn't Shine because of the Super Armor present all throughout Ike's Up B. I got the time down to 20 seconds before I accidentally killed myself.
Didn't you say yourself earlier that there was a half-second wait after dropping from a ledge to attack? Isn't that plenty of time for Fox to grab the ledge?
-This was my the strangest problem with this game. The game, amazingly, seems to have control issues. I don't know if it's just the nature of the new system and there's a mechanic we're not aware of, flirting with us, so I can't say for sure -- but everyone found themselves turning the opposite direction or jumping randomly when generally playing. It was quite annoying, the controls just don't feel very tight. This may be us just not being very good yet, but it's something that I don't remember experiencing in the previous games. It happened most after landing an aerial or trying to DashDance and was completely ****ing over the ground game.
That happened to me quite a bit before I turned off the Tap Jump feature (keeps the control stick from causing jumps). Now, that never happens (as long as I remember to select my name when I select a character)
If you pay attention to the vids, you can actually see other players having the same problem. Like I said, it's probably some mechanic no one's pegged yet, but it really got in the way of things. The seemingly random Tripping mechanic really didn't help things either.
I couldn't get to the bottom of the tripping, and neither could my friends. Sometimes, a slip and fall means the loss of a match, so we assumed it is what Sakurai was talking about when he said a new player could beat a pro player every once in a while.
The philosophy governing the development of this game is clear to me: this is a party game with fighting game aesthetics. Glitches and techniques will likely develop (like any other type of game) but they'll all exist within a paradigm of severe restrictions.
This game is whatever we want it to be. The amount of configuration and personalization allowed in this game makes it hard to categorize. Glitches and advanced techniques developing is inevitable, but there are no "severe restrictions." Brawl is a new game with new rules. I know it's been said before, but I'll say it again: if you want a game with Melee's rules, Melee's techniques, and Melee's feel, play Melee. Do not get upset when you find that Brawl is different.
This game reminds me so much of the transition from Halo1 to Halo 2, but just way more drastic. I predict high level play in the future will consist mostly of glitches that don't completely break the general game play (just like Halo 2). New school players will stick with it, old school players will likely opt out (such as myself).
I would say it feels like the difference between Halo 1 and Halo 3 (except for the graphics).
I'll gladly eat these words with a healthy seasoning of dead particles from the hairy ****** of an AIDS infested concubine if I turn out to be totally wrong in the future.
Bull****!
Nice to see the sensible players here don't respond with n00b or scrub but actually try to explain why. I don't know how many players I've replied too on the boards telling them there points for advanced techs being lame is absolutely dumb but atleast they stop after that.
