I read the first three pages of this thread, so excuse me if I repeat stuff, but I'll try and keep this post brief.
First, I'll state some obvious things based off of what I'm going to talk about.
It's easier to be defensive in Brawl than in Melee
Melee was faster in Brawl
Now personally, I think the Brawl developers did not come up with an effective way to punish shielding.
Brawl fighting is a lot more like REAL fighting than Melee. In real fighting (like in Brawl), making the first move is not advisable. In real life, when two opponents are preparing to fight, most times they do not run in swinging, most times the first hit will not connect. Defense is supposed to be greater than offense, or there would be no point in shielding altogether. In every form of fighting, war, and physical combat, being on the defensive is not good, as you can't land damage, but EASIER. This is represented in Brawl as well.
What seems to be the problem here is that Brawl does not have the same unreal mechanics of Melee which allow unrealistic things to occur (such as 02Death Combos). If you are attacking me consistently, and I'm consistently getting hit, I suck at fighting. Blocking an attack is generally easier than landing one if both fighters know what they are doing.
The problem is that in Brawl, players have TOO much stamina. The number of hits that a player can sustain is probably, since we aren't playing based off of a Hitpoint system; rather, we use a K.O. system. That's fine, and I must quote Sakurai when he said, "If you had to call it something, I'd say it's almost like a sport."
For those of you that are comparing Brawl to other fighting games so adamantly, I believe taking another thought at this might be advised.
To me, Brawl is more like a Boxing type of game, or perhaps even fencing, more than I see it as your standard fighting game.
Bad or good, that's up to you. I find it funner than Melee, which I was relatively good in, though horrible by pro/competitive standards (I got into the pro game later) and I am very good at Brawl (still room for improvement).
As for combos in Brawl being impossible, I am annoyed with this claim, and the general definition of combos. As Brawl registers, combos are consecutive hits in which your opponent has no chance to react to except DI. There is nothing like this in real life, which is why I call Brawl more like Boxing. However, being able to guess what your opponent does next and following up within a reasonable field on an environment to land consecutive hits is what I generally refer to as a combo. What it seems that many players often forget is that relying on physics to "combo" instead of just ******** character speed (IE: wavedashing, l cancelling, etc) is still a viable way to fight.
I note a few of these physics to give an example.
You cannot shield in midair
Holding the shield degenerates it over time
You cannot move while shielding
Air-dodging causes vulnerability afterwards
You will fall downwards if you are in midair, regardless of air-dodging
I main Marth. If done properly (and this does require technical execution for those of you that aren't Marth players) you may be able to chain Fair to Uair to Utilt giving your opponent no chance to react. But there are other ways to rack up damage. I call upon instance A.
I was fighting my best friend who was using Kirby. He is a very good player. I once again was using Marth. His Utilt does not combo into itself, but from low damages and mid, it knocks your opponent slightly above you enough so that due to the game gravity, you can land another hit if your opponent does not dodge afterwards. Naturally after I throw the Uair, my opponent dodges so they don't get hit by a second one. All I must do is simply wait a little while for this dodge to fade before throwing the next one. There is enough of a delay on my attack that I can be a little early, and still land damage, starting the sequence over.
The whole point of that was to explain that due to the predictability of most defensive tactics causes them to be almost as punishable as offensive tactics if you are PATIENT on the OFFENSE as well, which I find most people are not. I've broken the shields of players in tournaments who were winning against me with shield-breaker, simply while trying to camp toward the edge, they limited their option on roll-dodging away, and Marth's shield-breaker has ******** forward range. I wait until after their side-step dodge (something FAR too many players don't do often enough) for the release, and either nail their shield, or sometimes K.O. them.
My point, defensive tactics are MORE obvious than offensive tactics, (characters have far more ways to attack than defense) and can be punished if patience is applied (or just by using Diddy, rofl). When I play Fox or Falco, more times than not, when I see an opponent approaching offensively, rather than the typical shielding method (so frikken obvious), I dash away, and dash toward my opponent (in a mini dash dance) causing them to narrowly miss in the brief moment I was away and punishing with an easy Usmash. This owns people that like to grab a lot. I even use this move offensively, because it throws off tempo, which is critical for defense.
Perhaps it's because I train in Martial Arts that I feel the way I do, and make so many references to Real Life even though we are talking about a fantasy video game (yes, I do understand this), but baiting your opponent as offensive approach seems to be a nearly deserted strategy, when more times than not fakes are used in RL. I think that a major problem in the entire SSB series is that we are not able to cancel out of attacks we are charging. It would add a much needed dimension to Brawl.
It's all about the Mindgames, just like in Boxng. My last example will be when I was using Mario against my opponent's Dedede. My friend was on a platform in front of and above me that I could not rise through or go around. This leads to a very campy position as D3 has good range, and a superb shield grab, while standing in a spot that I could not grab him from. The best thing to do was probably to have waited (we were on Delfino Plaza, the board would have obviously shifted) but he was at high damage on his last stock and camping near the Deathline, so I wanted to finish him quickly. However, I decided that I wanted to maintain the offense I possessed. I did not rush in foolishly though. Out of Mario's midair attacks, his Bair has the most range, and this would be the obvious finisher, so jumping at my opponent backwards would be a clear thing to do. Instead, I jumped forward, which seemed pretty dumb. Mario's Dair has zilch priority against almost anything D3 does, and I was not close enough to use it to chip at his shield. His fair is epically slow, and of course wouldn't land. His Nair and Uair are both quick, though both relatively easy to shield grab, and the Nair lacked range. My off-guard opponent did not expect me to cape backward out of his range, and connect with the Dair, and told me so as the announcer proclaimed my victory.
It's the Mindgames son. Brawl isn't bad, it's just not conventional. Of course, if you like conventional, then it's bad, but I don't personally mind the change of pace.
Melee was harder, and funner to watch, but less fun to play for me.
As you can probably tell, I'm not trying to be pro-Melee or pro-Brawl in this post, simply commenting on multiple points that I've read about both arguments.
Before I end this post, I must commend AZ for his exceptional clarity and eloquence when presenting his points.
