Anyone else tired of the b!tching and moaning going on in the Brawl Boards from people who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, but pretend they do? I sure as hell am. Yes, I realize there are already a hundred other threads pertaining to this exact topic, but I honestly believe that, with all due respect, none of them quite touch the subject comprehensively enough. People need a thread that they can refer to before posting arguments that have been made and refuted a million times before.
The point of this thread is to list out and dispel all the arguments used by Brawl Boards noobs and various pro-Brawl fanatics. A small disclaimer when entering this thread: bring your brain with you. Illogical arguments, blanket-statements, and cries of "LEAVE BRAWL ALONE" are not welcome here.
Basically, I'm going to systematically run down the list of major pro-Brawl arguments concerning the competitive nature of Brawl, the metagame, and Brawl in general, and then post some of the better and more well-known counters from the Realist side.
What is a Realist you ask? I prefer to use the term "Realist" concerning players, mostly comprised of Smash veterans who know what they're talking about when it comes to Smash Brothers, over the term "anti-Brawl" or "pro-Melee". Often in these "Melee vs. Brawl" threads, the pro-Brawl crowd (mostly comprised of newcomers to the Smash scene, both casual and competitive) likes to refer to anyone who opposes some aspect of SSBB as "anti-Brawl", or, more commonly and well-known, "elitist". This is unwarranted and utterly untrue. So for all intents and purposes, from here out I will be referring to the sides in question as they have been appropriately named.
***
The competitive nature of Brawl. This is by far the biggest argument going on out there presently--the future of Brawl's metagame. Brawl Boards newcomers will have you believe that, despite signs from the game itself and the information and examples collected from well-known Melee veterans, Brawl is a fine heir apparent to Melee in terms of the next competitive Smash title. Cries of "Melee is dead; everyone's playing Brawl now! Get over it," ring from the mouths of 90% of the Brawl Boards occupants.
Why is this so wrong? Why shouldn't Brawl be taken seriously as a competitive fighter? The very nature of Brawl is what our competitive community strives to break free from; Brawl is the antithesis of the spirit of competition.
If you visit any one of the threads Gimpyfish has recently made, he has a myriad of quotes from Sakurai concerning the nature of Brawl and his ridiculous ideas. One quote from an interview I found particularly disturbing was a discussion with Sakurai concerning the absence of L-canceling and Wavedashing in Brawl. Sakurai stated that he recognized these and other advanced techniques in SSB64 and SSBM, and neglected to include them in Brawl to, and I quote, "level the playing ground".
As you can see, Brawl was clearly not built to be anything but a party game. Brawl is merely a flashy, more interactive version of any of the Mario Party games. Elements like tripping auto-sweetspotting confirm this. Combos are nigh impossible to do thanks to a sick lack of hitstun on moves. Slower or laggier characters that relied heavily on advanced techniques to pull off any moves are left in the dust on the Brawl scene, and moreso those who don't have strong anti-camping options.
Brawl is also much slower than Melee. Character control has been lessened. The influence you had over your character in Melee has deteriorated to the point where the game can hardly distinguish a slightly off-center side-smash from a down-smash.
Pro-Brawl argument:
"Give the game more time! The Melee metagame took YEARS to develop; Brawl has been out a few weeks.”
Realist response:
This argument is false in the assumption that we know absolutely nothing of how Smash Brothers games work, and it's becoming less and less recognized as Brawl's early phase is coming to a close. It's true that Melee's metagame took circa 6 years to fully come to fruition, and even that is half-true, as we're still finding things in Melee we didn't know about. That's how deep it is. Short-hopping wasn't used competitively until a few years ago.
However, saying that Brawl must have a deep metagame (that we haven't discovered yet) just because Melee had a deep metagame that we hadn't discovered around the same time relative to their respective release dates is a fallacial argument. We had nowhere near around as many Smash veterans studying and analyzing the game as we did when Melee came out. The competitive Smash scene wasn't even established yet; Melee was the icebreaker. Once Melee became competitively popular, SSB64 followed shortly after as soon as people realized it was moderately technical.
Point and case, we've had our top Melee veterans on Brawl since the Japanese release. Ask any other well-known Melee veteran. Mew2King, known for his fetish for memorizing frame rates and finding enjoyment in analyzing every technical aspect of Smash games, has publicly made known his contempt for Brawl and his doubts toward a metagame of worth ever developing. AlphaZealot, despite attempting a neutral attitude on the subject, will concede that Brawl is no Melee in terms of competitive depth. Gimpyfish himself, the patron saint of the Brawl Boards, has made thread after thread concerning the "party game nature" of Brawl.
***
Note that this thread is under construction and is far from complete. I’ll be adding more arguments when I have time, as there are a lot more in various threads that I haven’t picked up yet. If you’d like to add or contribute something to the OP, just say so in your post and it will be considered.
The point of this thread is to list out and dispel all the arguments used by Brawl Boards noobs and various pro-Brawl fanatics. A small disclaimer when entering this thread: bring your brain with you. Illogical arguments, blanket-statements, and cries of "LEAVE BRAWL ALONE" are not welcome here.
Basically, I'm going to systematically run down the list of major pro-Brawl arguments concerning the competitive nature of Brawl, the metagame, and Brawl in general, and then post some of the better and more well-known counters from the Realist side.
What is a Realist you ask? I prefer to use the term "Realist" concerning players, mostly comprised of Smash veterans who know what they're talking about when it comes to Smash Brothers, over the term "anti-Brawl" or "pro-Melee". Often in these "Melee vs. Brawl" threads, the pro-Brawl crowd (mostly comprised of newcomers to the Smash scene, both casual and competitive) likes to refer to anyone who opposes some aspect of SSBB as "anti-Brawl", or, more commonly and well-known, "elitist". This is unwarranted and utterly untrue. So for all intents and purposes, from here out I will be referring to the sides in question as they have been appropriately named.
***
The competitive nature of Brawl. This is by far the biggest argument going on out there presently--the future of Brawl's metagame. Brawl Boards newcomers will have you believe that, despite signs from the game itself and the information and examples collected from well-known Melee veterans, Brawl is a fine heir apparent to Melee in terms of the next competitive Smash title. Cries of "Melee is dead; everyone's playing Brawl now! Get over it," ring from the mouths of 90% of the Brawl Boards occupants.
Why is this so wrong? Why shouldn't Brawl be taken seriously as a competitive fighter? The very nature of Brawl is what our competitive community strives to break free from; Brawl is the antithesis of the spirit of competition.
If you visit any one of the threads Gimpyfish has recently made, he has a myriad of quotes from Sakurai concerning the nature of Brawl and his ridiculous ideas. One quote from an interview I found particularly disturbing was a discussion with Sakurai concerning the absence of L-canceling and Wavedashing in Brawl. Sakurai stated that he recognized these and other advanced techniques in SSB64 and SSBM, and neglected to include them in Brawl to, and I quote, "level the playing ground".
As you can see, Brawl was clearly not built to be anything but a party game. Brawl is merely a flashy, more interactive version of any of the Mario Party games. Elements like tripping auto-sweetspotting confirm this. Combos are nigh impossible to do thanks to a sick lack of hitstun on moves. Slower or laggier characters that relied heavily on advanced techniques to pull off any moves are left in the dust on the Brawl scene, and moreso those who don't have strong anti-camping options.
Brawl is also much slower than Melee. Character control has been lessened. The influence you had over your character in Melee has deteriorated to the point where the game can hardly distinguish a slightly off-center side-smash from a down-smash.
Pro-Brawl argument:
"Give the game more time! The Melee metagame took YEARS to develop; Brawl has been out a few weeks.”
Realist response:
This argument is false in the assumption that we know absolutely nothing of how Smash Brothers games work, and it's becoming less and less recognized as Brawl's early phase is coming to a close. It's true that Melee's metagame took circa 6 years to fully come to fruition, and even that is half-true, as we're still finding things in Melee we didn't know about. That's how deep it is. Short-hopping wasn't used competitively until a few years ago.
However, saying that Brawl must have a deep metagame (that we haven't discovered yet) just because Melee had a deep metagame that we hadn't discovered around the same time relative to their respective release dates is a fallacial argument. We had nowhere near around as many Smash veterans studying and analyzing the game as we did when Melee came out. The competitive Smash scene wasn't even established yet; Melee was the icebreaker. Once Melee became competitively popular, SSB64 followed shortly after as soon as people realized it was moderately technical.
Point and case, we've had our top Melee veterans on Brawl since the Japanese release. Ask any other well-known Melee veteran. Mew2King, known for his fetish for memorizing frame rates and finding enjoyment in analyzing every technical aspect of Smash games, has publicly made known his contempt for Brawl and his doubts toward a metagame of worth ever developing. AlphaZealot, despite attempting a neutral attitude on the subject, will concede that Brawl is no Melee in terms of competitive depth. Gimpyfish himself, the patron saint of the Brawl Boards, has made thread after thread concerning the "party game nature" of Brawl.
***
Note that this thread is under construction and is far from complete. I’ll be adding more arguments when I have time, as there are a lot more in various threads that I haven’t picked up yet. If you’d like to add or contribute something to the OP, just say so in your post and it will be considered.
