SynikaL's Brawl Impressions: "When Hearts Cry" Edition

[Rang Flash]

The whole "combos are hard to or almost impossible to do" thing is very disappointing. The only one I've seen is Kirby's Dthrow to up tilt.

Check out this nair combo with Falcon, 2:46.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shfk871riNM

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Certain characters have no problems comboing aerially. Look at Toon Link and Captain Falcon (as shown above) Even Mr. Game and Watch has some amazing new combo ability thanks to his new Nair and the fact that he can use attacks after hitting with his Up B.

 

[Yuna]

Check out this nair combo with Falcon, 2:46.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shfk871riNM

Starts at 0%. A lot of combos work at 0%... but not once they've got any kind of damage. Also, possibly bad DI/no airdodge.

 

[Ryuker]

Veil: wavedashing improved every chars game. After a while every char had zillions of strats with it which benifitted them.
As for L-cancelling the same applies. Do you think ganon was usable without it? How would have no way to attack since his ground were absolute crap. A huge amount of n00bs therefor jumped twice and did down b to hit someone :S. L-cancelling actually improved the slow chars chances. Eventhough i still saw plenty of sheildgrabs going on when fast chars attack slow chars with arials.

Thats about all the points your post adresses. I agre balance is hard and simply saying speedy chars should have low knockback and slow should have high doesn't cut it but it still didn't break the balance for melee. I don't know if you even bothered to look but there was a lot of development going on with char variaty last year. I see linguini do absolutely awesome vs fast chars like falco and sheik. I agree the balance wasn't perfect but it never got in a broken affair. Now look at shiek that had some troubles but this was not the way to adress them ...

 

[Maben]

The only thing I can really agree with the OP on is ledge stalling. This is a very scary thought to me, as it looks very hard to interrupt. Simply falling off the ledge and then snapping back on could be hard to stop, but characters like Ike and Fox have Up+Bs that are nearly untouchable in Brawl it seems. This could go to the point where ledge stalling becomes a bannable tactic...which leads to extreme gray areas on when and how you enforce a penalty. Hopefully something arises that can stop this.

 

[veil222]

I still say wavedashing favors fast characters due to oppertunity. The L-cancelling gripe was that fast characters could get a few moves to 0 lag time, making punishment for those moves impossible if pulled off correctly. Brawl fixes these gripes to me, no wavedashing, and new sheild physics. L-cancelling is irrelevant if landing lag for moves is actually balanced.

 

[Ryuker]

But it seems like it isn't and they take a big risc deciding which is best too use. They should let the players do that for them selves. Wavedashing only sped up the game overall. Look for any ganon pro vid and he look much MUCH faster then he would originally. And characters like ganon had their uses with wavedashing with the ledge abilities which increased a lot.

melee played like brawl > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izT2C_hpjxo

 

[Yuna]

I still say wavedashing favors fast characters due to oppertunity. The L-cancelling gripe was that fast characters could get a few moves to 0 lag time, making punishment for those moves impossible if pulled off correctly. Brawl fixes these gripes to me, no wavedashing, and new sheild physics. L-cancelling is irrelevant if landing lag for moves is actually balanced.

L-Cancelling made slow characters playable. Without L-cancelling, you've got a guaranteed shieldgrab off of pretty much any aerial unless their range is godly and your opponent isn't Marth. With L-Cancel, you can jab, spotdodge, roll or just jump backwards.

Wavedashing was more than just moving around. What are you going to do now when Marth forwardsmashes you too far away for a shieldgrab? Or when Sheik's just standing there tilting your shield? Any given downsmash on your shield? In Melee, a lot of **** was punishable with a wavesmash/wavegrab. Without wavedashing, a lot of new broken shield pressure will be born and the only way to get out of it is rolling or jumping backwards, which is very risky if the opponent predicts it.

And when the opponent does one of those high knockback moves that are really dangerous on hit? You won't be able to do squat. Just shield and hope you don't get hit by the KO-move... and then shield some more or simply let go of the shield and run for your life. We know you won't be able to wavegrab the Marth.

 

[twdfx]

I pretty much agree with your post.

After spending a few hours with brawl, I certainly had fun, but I'm quite sure that it will have a short run, then it will be back to melee for my buddies and I. The huge reduction in viable combos is one thing. An even bigger deal for me is L canceling. L canceling made characters like gannondorf usable in melee. In brawl he is next to useless because of the horrid lag on all his aerials. It's extremely frustrating that sakurai would do this. I find myself hoping that somehow he realizes what travesty he has committed and puts L canceling back into brawl for a north american release, but naturally this would never happen under any circumstances, which makes me a saaaaaaad panda.

L canceling could have made slow characters worth playing. Sigh. I'm so deflated right now.

 

[TropicalTaco]

After reading this thread in its entirety, I now believe that Brawl will not only confirm some of the worst fears that I've had for it, but that it will confirm ALL of the fears that I have had for it.

I dearly hope that I am wrong... but I simply cannot ignore the feeling that Sakurai has failed us. The feeling that all of his talents have gone to waste. The feeling that this game will be the equivalent of another Mario Party game; shallow, repetitive, and devoid of skill.

It's a fear which only a game of truly nightmarish origins could create. A game that crawls from the darkest depths of Hell, right out of Satan's flaming *******...

 

[PwnyRide]

Go Yuna tell him.
Offtopic: Noob #29001 sounds like awesome nickname XD

Stop trying to suck up to people like Yuna. Seriously. You arent cool.

 

[TheCatPhysician]

L-cancelling was unintentional and was likely intentionally removed. No sane game developer would implement such a convoluted mechanic to the game.

http://web.archive.org/web/19991117180837/http://smashbros.com/moves_advattacklanding.html

you're forgetting that this "sane developer" is none other than....

 

[FalseFalco]

LOL

Synikal - That sucks to hear. Hopefully you can munch that v@gina!

Demon Kirby - Don't post.

Vigilant Gambit - You got nothing.

 

[Yuna]

Yes, I can say that a Bowser would have a much easier time killing a shiek without at's. You did a good job of picking sheik and bowser for your exaple, as sheik is probably one of the best characters sheerly based on stats, and bowser one of the worst. There would still be a gap between the characters, but it would be a lot less daunting to cross without at's.

It's a new game, Bowser's been buffed and Sheik's been nerfed. It's easier because it's Brawl-Bowser vs. Brawl-Sheik.

 

[MikeMan445]

Has anyone ever had convincing proof that l-cancelling wasn't just some sort of artifact of the way they programmed trigger input in the air? Everyone assumes it was intentional, but I really think that with the way Brawl turned out, and when you read interviews with Sakurai, he never intended for Smash brothers to have a competitive aspect, like we have created for it.

I know everyone always uses the "it was in 64 and then modified slightly to only reduce half lag in Melee so it must be intentional" argument. but I'm not convinced that argument holds water, especially considering what we know about Sakurai. It is highly unlikely that Sakurai:

A. Knew how L-cancelling would be used eventually

and

B. Had a completely different philosophy on what smash "should" be for Melee, as opposed to 64 and Brawl.

I think it's more likely that l-cancelling was some sort of arbitrary result of hitting l, r, or z as you landed. So many factors go into programming a game that I do not think we can, with confidence, state that he intended it, and intended it for the reasons we assume (e.g. to allow competitive players to further their metagame). That's ridiculous. Nobody had any clue, least of all the developers, that Melee would have any metagame or competitive aspect at all.

But it ended up with a rich, vibrant community, and that is probably the reason we got burned. Because had no one known about competitive Melee, Sakurai wouldn't have known what l-canceling resulted in, and he might not have specifically gone out of his way to take it out, as he seems to have.

Or maybe he didn't give it much thought, and Havok resulted in its being gone. We don't know.

I'm just sort of laying down my thoughts here.

I will say this. I called this years ago, as soon as Sakurai said he thought Melee was "too fast." That should have sent off warning bells that Melee's competitive, beautiful depth was an accident, a diamond in the rough.

 

[SynikaL]

Synikal, what do you think of the tourney vids from Gimpy's thread? You make good points in your original post but I'm wondering if you were taken back at all after seeing those videos.

I watched a few of them and I have to admit the game is very hard for me to watch at this point, since everyone is clearly so bad at it, lol. I'll I have to watch them later, but I don't expect to see anything outside what my friends and I have experienced, for a little while.

I knew someone would bring up the Falcon Nair chain, however, and the only response I have to that is I've never lacked any kind of optimism for this game, despite the pessimistic nature of my posts (I'm simply a very critical creature by nature).

The focal point of the issue is the restrictive philosophy behind this game's sub-systems which I truly believe will hinder its competitive growth in relation to Melee's <----- Yes, in relation to Melee. In an attempt to remain objective, I've poked a hole in my own premise. So maybe there is something to saying I want the game to play like Melee, though I certainly did not sense that bias going in (my excitement was invested in the exact opposite).

The previously mentioned focal point is also juxtaposed by the idea that so far, very little to nothing seems to be added to the game's mechanics to expand the game in other avenues -- and the few additions added also feel afflicted by restriction. All the concepts and mechanics I've mentioned from the previous game have been watered down with few viable substitutes (at this point) to take the game in new areas competitively. Yes, people have been finding all sorts of negligible mechanics changes, but that's to be expected.

BTW, people need to stop calling this a review. They are nothing but initial impressions.

-SynikaL

 

[Crushed]

Aren't you still taking this a bit too... seriously? The game can still be just as fun and competitive as Melee.

Heck, just about any game can be competitive. As long as it's not super convoluted to the point of alienation, or so simplistic that it's two identical gray blobs, there's potential for high amounts of competition.

 

[F@lc0-san]

lol OP is being ridiculed on NeoGAF.

 

[Crossjeremiah]

Wow... i'm sorry i have to disagree with you on some parts. because i can still use DashDance effectively. its harder but i can still. this game can be still be played more competitively than melee. And you can judge this game within 6 hrs. probably months. but not 6hrs. Even though this game is slow, its a hell lot more technical than melee was. and with the added exploits people find it will even be more better for competitive play. Plus the addition with online play was just pure genius. but people playing with hg . just ruins the game play... and for the 9999th time this is not melee. its a new game.... and melee was also party game with fighting aspects. ...For the melee players who were hooked on the competitive scene and the exploits. give this game at least a month or two.. it might be an acquired taste for you guys...

 

[WastingPenguins]

I honestly don't have the experience to say who would win. The most I could do is have two lv.9 CPUs duke it out

I don't usually do this but... *facepalm*

 

[Crossjeremiah]

Aren't you still taking this a bit too... seriously? The game can still be just as fun and competitive as Melee.

Heck, just about any game can be competitive. As long as it's not super convoluted to the point of alienation, or so simplistic that it's two identical gray blobs, there's potential for high amounts of competition.

Dora Explorer for WCG.

 

[bornfidelity.com]

Ryuker here: I'm playing brawl right now. I played some teams and did really well with pit. His recovery is absolutely insane. Besides that I feel we are spamming a lot of attacks to hit each other. It's hoping the opponent jumps in it. My inintial expectations for the depth still stand and are very low as it is but I do admit it is a lot of fun. I got my first immortal today with Pit and I know that guys falco would **** me if this was melee as I was playing Pit. I found a forward B move with pit that you can keep spamming for ever. It's not broken though just something new to get used to.

I'll tell more when I'm back home. Right now I still agree with you syn. Movement on the ground is absolutely horrid :S

 

[MajinSweet]

About the edge guarding thing, most people haven't realized it yet but, Brawl's edge guarding game is just different and people haven't adapted. You can't stand at the ledge and wait for people anymore. You need to go off the stage and intercept them then edge hog. Characters with multiple jumps like Pit, Meta Knight, and Kirby will excel at this and this is where being able to air dodge off the stage will be crucial as well.

And I really suggest you play the game more, Ike is far from the only character that can kill at low percents. Zelda's fair/bair can take people out at as low as 50% and Fox can still shine spike certain characters well. About your Up B ledge stall with Ike, a human player would just hug the ledge and edge hog you, you still get invincability frames when you grab the edge. Randomly jumping sounds like accidentally using the control stick, I'm pretty sure you can customize the controls so you can't jump like that. Play the game more, many of these things are just misconceptions.

 

[FlyinG ShoosteR]

does every "pro" need to make a thread to ***** and complain about how Brawl is different from Melee?

 

[slikvik]

I played brawl several times at pound. I also watched quite a few people play it. It looks to be an extremely fun party game. However, as a competitive game, it is lacking. I talked to Hugs, one of the first people to play the game. He says its sucks. I talked to chillin too. The main reason he feels it won't be competitive is because of the changed combo system and no l-cancelling. since brawl has more floaty physics, characters fly way too far after being hit by most moves. Not being able to dash dance sucks too. for those of you who want a party game, have fun

 

[Crushed]

I played brawl several times at pound. I also watched quite a few people play it. It looks to be an extremely fun party game. However, as a competitive game, it is lacking. I talked to Hugs, one of the first people to play the game. He says its sucks. I talked to chillin too. The main reason he feels it won't be competitive is because of the changed combo system and no l-cancelling. since brawl has more floaty physics, characters fly way too far after being hit by most moves. Not being able to dash dance sucks too. for those of you who want a party game, have fun

It's like I taste the saltiness of tears as they roll down your stoic grimacing face.

 

[Yuna]

does every "pro" need to make a thread to ***** and complain about how Brawl is different from Melee?

Must every "non-pro" complain in every single thread a competitive smasher makes where they speak of Brawl in a negative way? I mean, I don't walk into pro-threads and simply say "This game sucks! Stop making threads about how good it is!". At least I present opinions and evidence to support my claims of suckitude.

 

[bjdavis420]

Is it true that all characters fall at same rate? I saw some vids, definitely looked that way. THAT is very dissapointing to me personally, but oh well. I have not played the game yet, just seen videos, but from what i have SEEN, I think that the speed of brawl is going to be much closer to original smash (in terms of fall speed and aerial attacks, NOT in terms of 0-death combos).

I think that people will fight off of the edge much more because you fall slower, and you have the ability to come back from nearly any attack, if left alone. No CC or WD, that kinda sucks too.

I think that we were all hoping that they would make similar changes like from ssb to ssbm, instead of just making a completely new game (which it seems they did). This is disappointing, but im still excited to play the game. You have to give it a legitimate shot, and maybe even wait until some new techniques are discovered.

As much as I wish they would just come up with a way to play melee online, I am still excited about brawl, even if I am also semi-worried about it as well.

 

[WastingPenguins]

I played brawl several times at pound. I also watched quite a few people play it. It looks to be an extremely fun party game. However, as a competitive game, it is lacking. I talked to Hugs, one of the first people to play the game. He says its sucks. I talked to chillin too. The main reason he feels it won't be competitive is because of the changed combo system and no l-cancelling. since brawl has more floaty physics, characters fly way too far after being hit by most moves. Not being able to dash dance sucks too. for those of you who want a party game, have fun

This is what I'm talking about. People can talk all they want about nebulous, non-existent techniques that will make up for the apparent lack of depth, but what can make up for the total lack of combos? Characters either fly too far away to combo with a lot of moves, or the moves that COULD start combos have so much lag that you really can't do much out of them. Options are limited on both offense and defense, and when options are limited then mindgames become simpler, and the whole game suffers. Take grabs-- in Melee, you had tons of options out of a grab. Many throws could be combo'd out of in a number of ways, which led to interesting mindgames and tactics. In Brawl... most throws just bump you far and away out of the range of any followup attacks. Problems like this are pretty much a done-deal that no new technique could help

At least I now have some new insight on why casuals hate competitive Melee-- because they never tried to learn any deeper tactics, their version of the tourney-style Melee was a lot like how Brawl play no matter what.

 

[MajinSweet]

I've seem some pretty nasty combo's like Captain Falcon nair 3 times across the stage into a knee. The combos need to be discovered guys, your comparing a week of Brawl to 6 years of Melee metagame.

 

[Crushed]

You guys remind me of the Team Fortress players that were upset that grenades (and hence, grenade jumping and other "advanced techniques"), a fourth weapon slot, and other nuanced features, were taken out of TF2. And I remember seeing them playing the TF2 beta and complaining that the characters were cartoony and didn't run at 30 miles per hour; meanwhile, the rest of the world was stunned by how polished it was.

In fact, I remember that some of them (making a realistic "TFC 2.0" mod designed around super-speed and grenades), were all brushing TF2 off "a 'fun' game for running around and shooting, but not deep or strategic like TFC, Valve is making a totally different game and calling it TF."



Now TF2 is considered one of the best, most strategic, easy-to-access (yet filled with deep nuances), FPS games released in the last half-decade or so, winning countless awards, becoming an instant classic among gamers, and constantly having an incredible amount of server traffic.


I think you guys see my point with this.

 

[flyinfilipino]

You guys remind me of the Team Fortress players that were upset that grenades (and hence, grenade jumping and other "advanced techniques"), a fourth weapon slot, and other nuanced features, were taken out of TF2. And I remember seeing them playing the TF2 beta and complaining that the characters were cartoony and didn't run at 30 miles per hour; meanwhile, the rest of the world was stunned by how polished it was.

In fact, I remember that some of them (making a realistic "TFC 2.0" mod designed around super-speed and grenades), were all brushing TF2 off "a 'fun' game for running around and shooting, but not deep or strategic like TFC, Valve is making a totally different game and calling it TF."



Now TF2 is considered one of the best, most strategic, easy-to-access (yet filled with deep nuances), FPS games released in the last half-decade or so, winning countless awards, becoming an instant classic among gamers, and constantly having an incredible amount of server traffic.


I think you guys see my point with this.

But it doesn't mean you're right. What we have now are initial impressions, we have to give it time to see what really comes out of it.

 

[[Deuce]]

Brawl IS a pretty much a party game now. You can kind of foretell by the previews..

auto-sweetspot is for those who b****ed at the game when they sucked at recovering and got hit

the reduced knockback and 150+%'s hamper a lot of edgeguarding potential-- kind of like that falco v snake example, they'll just keep coming back with ease.

its not the fact that its not melee 2.0, but it looks like brawl has a lot of little "helpers" so to speak. kind of like newer cars with electronic equipment to help the driver such as ABS

my real question is, where's the raw quality that 64 and melee had? since numerous impressions allude to the fact that the ground/aerial/whatever game is horrible and thus it is easier for some random dude to pick up the game and still have a chance at whooping some pro ***

 

[Yuna]

Now TF2 is considered one of the best, most strategic, easy-to-access (yet filled with deep nuances), FPS games released in the last half-decade or so, winning countless awards, becoming an instant classic among gamers, and constantly having an incredible amount of server traffic.


I think you guys see my point with this.

Funny I've never heard of it before so it's not like it's really famous outside of the FPS scene (as opposed to a lot of fighting games which pretty much everyone knows about... or Halo).

Let's not forget that the game was in development for a good 8 years. This beta version, how far from the final release was it? And how different was it? Brawl is the finalized version, it's not some beta (we did have a beta however... and it actually had more advanced techniques).

 

[MajinSweet]

auto-sweetspot is for those who b****ed at the game when they sucked at recovering and got hit

While this would be a problem if the game worked liked Melee, but sweet spotting the edge, and forward smashing people as they try to get the ledge isn't how Brawl's edge guarding games work.

the reduced knockback and 150+%'s hamper a lot of edgeguarding potential-- kind of like that falco v snake example, they'll just keep coming back with ease.

People don't live that long in Brawl, we just don't know the best kill moves yet. Example being Zelda's fair/bair killing under 100% easily.

 

[Crushed]

Let's not forget that the game was in development for a good 8 years. This beta version, how far from the final release was it? And how different was it?

Actually, it restarted development several times. The final version started development about three years before release.

The beta (which I was a part of) was released on Sept. 17th, less than a month before it was released on Oct. 10th. The changes between the beta and final game were only a few minor tweaks concerning maps, and a weapon or two was changed up (the Demoman's grenade launcher no longer exploded on contact after the first bounce, Pyro's Flamethrower was slightly buffed). Other than that, it was identical.

 

[Yuna]

People don't live that long in Brawl, we just don't know the best kill moves yet. Example being Zelda's fair/bair killing under 100% easily.

Movesets are not hidden. Either they're good KO:ing tools or they aren't.

Zelda's got the added problem that the fair/bair gets tons of reduced knockback if it connects a lot. It won't even kill pi tat 129% (with DI). Meanwhile, other characters at least have a lot of moves to rack up damage with.

The problem is that a majority of the charcters don't even have moves that are good KO:ing tools at pre-135%.

 

[MajinSweet]

Movesets are not hidden. Either they're good KO:ing tools or they aren't.

But, no one has gone threw all the attacks and tested them in many situations. The game is still fresh, there are still basic things we don't know.

Zelda's got the added problem that the fair/bair gets tons of reduced knockback if it connects a lot.

Yeah, if it connects a lot is the main thing. You should only be using this as a kill move, and since it kills at such low % you won't need to use it too often. Not to mention the reduced knockback gets reset whenever you lose a stock. This problem can be solved by simply racking up damage with any other move.

It won't even kill pi tat 129% (with DI). Meanwhile, other characters at least have a lot of moves to rack up damage with.

Use Shiek to rack up damage.

The problem is that a majority of the charcters don't even have moves that are good KO:ing tools at pre-135%.

Except like every spike.

 

[F@lc0-san]

Use Shiek to rack up damage.

What madness is this? Someone actually suggesting that one uses Zelda/Sheik as 1 character instead of seeing the Zelda icon on the roster as a Sheik placeholder?

MADNESS!

 

[Yuna]

But, no one has gone threw all the attacks and tested them in many situations. The game is still fresh, there are still basic things we don't know.

It ain't that fresh. And one of the first things people did was check out everyone's basic movesets. That's why every single character specific area's got threads discussing it now. Heck, for most of them, it's possible to watch each of the moves in action simply by watching gameplay vids.

Yeah, if it connects a lot is the main thing. You should only be using this as a kill move, and since it kills at such low % you won't need to use it too often. Not to mention the reduced knockback gets reset whenever you lose a stock. This problem can be solved by simply racking up damage with any other move.

Well you see, Zelda's better but she's not that much better from what I can see. Her moves are still pretty weak (except for the Fair/Bair) damage-wise and she's never been much of a comboer either.

Use Shiek to rack up damage.

Yeah, only it lags a lot to switch between them.

Except like every spike.

Which very few characters have. Most characters that have spiking moves only have meteor smashes, which are now easier to cancel than ever because of the added freeze frames.