Was character imbalance actually healthy for competitive SSBM?

[Strong Badam]

I completely disagree, JKJ. Your argument would hold more water if there was a prequel to SSBM that had years of deep competition, but the tier list you cite is a result of ignorance not only of the game and its competitive function, but of how to dissect a game. After 10 years of competing in a similar game, the community is much better equipped to dissect and advance the metagame of Project M, and we see that more and more as the metagame continues to advance rapidly. The ability of the lower tiered characters in Project M to compete viably is not a result of how young the metagame is, but rather a result of how good those lower tiered characters are, and more importantly the skill of the players behind those characters.

 

[phish-it]

Tiers might become more apparent in Project M overtime; it happens with any fighting game, but it won't be as extreme as Melee. The developers of Project M intended to balance the cast for competitive play, while Melee was more so balanced with casual play in mind. Even still characters like Pichu were obviously created as a joke character. Not to mention Project M isn't even complete yet and the developers have the ability to adjust things with subsequent patches.

 

[JKJ]

While I agree with you to a lesser extent, Strong Bad, I am inclined to believe that upon completion of the game (P:M), there will unavoidably be a group of characters that are rendered useless in high-level play. Maybe not as many as are in Melee, and maybe not as extreme, but there will be characters that are used purely as either a challenge to the player or as a troll-pick. They will probably experience more low-level success than, say, Kirby or Pichu, as they were, like you said, designed specifically for competitive play. Be that as it may, someday there will be a grouping of high-tier characters that win all the tournaments, and a grouping of mid-tiers that can place high through hard work, and a grouping of insignificant, useless characters. Like Phish-it said, it won't be as extreme, but the five or six worst characters in the game won't be winning any tournaments.

 

[Bones0]

I completely disagree. By saying the worst characters in P:M won't be capable of winning tournaments, you are basically saying the P:M crew is incapable of making the entire cast better than Melee characters below the top 8 or so. The vast majority of the Melee cast could be buffed through very simple Melee mods to the point that any character could win a tournament. I think you highly underestimate how radical of a change a simple speed or strength buff is to mid tiers. There are so many easy ways to bring low tiers on par with top tiers that it's kind of surprising Melee wasn't more balanced that it is.

Hell, just look at the difference in versions from NTSC to PAL. Sheik's CG is gone, Fox's upwards kill moves are nerfed, Falco's dair is nerfed, Marth's spike and aerial control are nerfed, Ganon's fair is nerfed, Yoshi's fsmash is buffed, Kirby's dash speed is buffed, etc. Idk how much time there was in between the version releases, but it certainly wasn't that long and even in that short amount of time devs who were not entirely focused on multiplayer balance still did a heck of a job identifying key weaknesses and strengths and balancing them accordingly. The devs seemed to know quite well which characters would be holding their own and which would get exposed over time, but they just didn't have enough time to tinker with balance for another several months.

Imagine if a character like G&W could L-cancel all of his aerials, had a decent shield, and was made into a super-heavy instead of a super-light (which I've always though would be sick to have a crazy thin 2D character be really heavy lol). The point is, characters don't have to be equal in order to have an equal chance of winning tournaments. Mid tiers don't lose because their combos and edgeguarding and recovery just aren't as broken as the top tiers'. Low tiers don't usually lose because everything about them is completely ineffective. They lose because they get cheesed out by simple tactics that other characters can defend against, or they lose every spacing battle because they're too slow to exercise any level of stage control. This is why you still often see low tier heroes getting **** done. They have massive amounts of practice avoiding these few critical weaknesses so people who don't know what buttons to push (not a pun targeted at Umbreon lol) against the character end up playing "straight up" and the match is much closer than it should be.

 

[rawrimamonster]

There is no definitive answer. Low tiers players and the people that sympathize with them will say imbalance is gay. People that are competent with a wider range of characters, or high tiers will say stop johning. It's all just personal opinion, and in the end it comes down to, are you up to making YOUR character good? By example and the most OBVIOUS one, look at axe, he does amazing **** with a character most thought got hardcore bodied 24/7, but thats HIS pikachu, HE took it that far and evolved it to what it is. Nothing aside the character itself being horrible like maybe pichu and kirby and maybe ness (**** the haters ness has potential) and your own inhibitions about gettin better are stoppin you.

The bad thing about lower tiers and I will openly admit this is that because they're not played as often they aren't as developed. Well it all comes back around to what I said above, make the character your own, create something that works and stop johning lol. Melee grows with players, not the characters.The game is what it is, P:m and the door is that way. ---->

 

[ycz12]

I completely disagree. By saying the worst characters in P:M won't be capable of winning tournaments, you are basically saying the P:M crew is incapable of making the entire cast better than Melee characters below the top 8 or so. The vast majority of the Melee cast could be buffed through very simple Melee mods to the point that any character could win a tournament.

I don't think it'd be easy at all to balance every character to be between Melee Fox and Melee ICs.

 

[EthereaL]

Bone0 is an idiot. The idea that balancing the cast would in any way ruin the game is just wrong.

That's all I have to say.

 

[Warhawk]

I think you just wanted to flame Bones again since I don't really see him say that anywhere, but I also think there are ways to ruin a game by balancing it. If the methods used to balance the game ends up affecting the quality of gameplay (for instance if it causes certain abilities or strategies to be over-centralizing) then I think it can hurt the game. Not that you can't have both, but I do think that gameplay depth is more important than roster depth.

 

[MountainGoat]

I don't think the question is if its possible to create a balanced cast but is it a good idea to have one. Is there a benefit in having tiers? I think so.

 

[Warhawk]

With either a balanced or unbalanced cast there will still be tiers...

 

[Bones0]

Bone0 is an idiot. The idea that balancing the cast would in any way ruin the game is just wrong.

That's all I have to say.

LOL

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

Having a large balanced cast results in more variety, better metagame & matchup development, increased challenge, increased depth, longer lifespan and in general a much better game. How the hell is having 8 balanced/viable characters better than say 30? I feel that people who think Melee's balance is the way to go are heavily biased and just can't admit that P:M is is excelling where Melee fails (in comparison). That is why P:M is a better game than Melee in my opinion.

 

[JKJ]

I'm sorry, but I don't see P:M Lucario as a balanced character. Easysauce combos that are auto after an initial hit is silly in a game where such combos do not exist. Those combos might be ok if the inputs were at least mildly difficult. But, alas, that is not the case. My friend who is a piece of trash at Melee and P:M switched to playing Lucario and now tells me he thinks he has "sick combos" because he can touch me and button mash me to 50% once or twice a game. Balance? It feels more like the cast of P:M is made entirely to say "F**K you, spacies, we have easy combos now that require no technical skill."

 

[Deleted member]

melee's character balance or lack-thereof is one of its best selling points far and away.

balance or imbalance, both can be healthy and both can be unhealthy. and i believe that character choice is a skill that should be tested and punished appropriately.

edit: wow there's a lot of stuff i disagree with in this thread. i'm staying out of this one.

 

[ElloEddy]

3rd Strike is actually pretty well balanced. You must be thinking of MVC2

amen ..i use jin ,rouge and colossus ...that game is so unfair when your not using doom .storm or sentinel

 

[Bones0]

I don't think hardly anyone would argue P:M doesn't exceed Melee when it comes to balance. I think a lot of people just feel like that balance came at the cost of a lot of broken mechanics (and not broken in the cool, borderline overpowered Melee way). There's so many combos and finishers and movement techniques that just make the game feel gimmicky and "cheap". Maybe these issues will resolve themselves over time, or maybe the P:M devs will step in to fix them. Then again, maybe it's just me not liking P:M's style, but I have heard several people comment on there being a lot of dumb stuff. There's also a lot of stuff in P:M that I do like. A lot of the mechanics they have designed are great; I think some just take it too far in an effort to make each character playable.

 

[JPOBS]

I'm not going to take Project M seriously until they completely stop modding it. Until the players are allowed to go in and break the game to pieces without fear of everything being changed again for the sake of "balance", then it's not worth taking it too seriously.
Patches jut make it easy for players to get lazy. No need to advance the metagame or come up with novel solutions to a problem if you can just patch it.

 

[Strong Badam]

You say that as if you'd be a player innovating anything.

I'm sorry, but I don't see P:M Lucario as a balanced character. Easysauce combos that are auto after an initial hit is silly in a game where such combos do not exist. Those combos might be ok if the inputs were at least mildly difficult. But, alas, that is not the case. My friend who is a piece of trash at Melee and P:M switched to playing Lucario and now tells me he thinks he has "sick combos" because he can touch me and button mash me to 50% once or twice a game. Balance? It feels more like the cast of P:M is made entirely to say "F**K you, spacies, we have easy combos now that require no technical skill."

You demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of high level play of either game. The fact that you judge a character's options based on how many buttons it takes to use rather than its actual effect on balance and match-ups speaks loud and clear. Lucario is one of the weaker characters in Project M and takes quite a bit of technical skill and reads to use to any relevant effect, especially against an opponent that, you know, actually knows how to DI against Lucario as opposed to someone hoping to press his SSBM buttons in a new game and still perform well. The newer characters were given tools to deal with spacies, much like how all of the good characters in SSBM do. However, none of them are easy to perform; the fact that the spacies fall so quickly causes the timing window to continue a combo to be extremely small for the majority of characters just like in SSBM, and a player performing combos and gimps against a Fox or Falco that's actually good at the game (as opposed to the vast majority of them) demonstrates a great deal of skill that isn't specific to PM.

 

[Kink-Link5]

I'm not going to take Project M seriously until they completely stop modding it. Until the players are allowed to go in and break the game to pieces without fear of everything being changed again for the sake of "balance", then it's not worth taking it too seriously.
Patches jut make it easy for players to get lazy. No need to advance the metagame or come up with novel solutions to a problem if you can just patch it.

This is why the developers waited for a year before going up half a release version, but I agree. That one year really didn't feel like enough time to conclude characters like Ike or Lucario needed the changes they got.

 

[EPsilon933]

Bone0 is an idiot. The idea that balancing the cast would in any way ruin the game is just wrong.

That's all I have to say.

PAL Marth just isn't the same as NTSC Marth. Spiking with dair feels soo goood

Having a large balanced cast results in more variety, better metagame & matchup development, increased challenge, increased depth, longer lifespan and in general a much better game. How the hell is having 8 balanced/viable characters better than say 30? I feel that people who think Melee's balance is the way to go are heavily biased and just can't admit that P:M is is excelling where Melee fails (in comparison). That is why P:M is a better game than Melee in my opinion.

I don't know if that'd qualify fighting games to be much better in general

Gameplay > Balance, by like A LOT. Isn't that why a lot of players think 3S > AE and MVC2 > UMVC3? The prequels in these games have only like 8 tournament viable characters and the sequels do pretty well to get their whole casts viable

I don't think hardly anyone would argue P:M doesn't exceed Melee when it comes to balance. I think a lot of people just feel like that balance came at the cost of a lot of broken mechanics (and not broken in the cool, borderline overpowered Melee way). There's so many combos and finishers and movement techniques that just make the game feel gimmicky and "cheap". Maybe these issues will resolve themselves over time, or maybe the P:M devs will step in to fix them. Then again, maybe it's just me not liking P:M's style, but I have heard several people comment on there being a lot of dumb stuff. There's also a lot of stuff in P:M that I do like. A lot of the mechanics they have designed are great; I think some just take it too far in an effort to make each character playable.

There's too much of a contrived design in PM's characters. Like characters are meant to be played to much in certain ways. If this, do this

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

I don't know if that'd qualify fighting games to be much better in general

Gameplay > Balance, by like A LOT. Isn't that why a lot of players think 3S > AE and MVC2 > UMVC3? The prequels in these games have only like 8 tournament viable characters and the sequels do pretty well to get their whole casts viable

I agree. You can have a game with great balance that ends up being awful because of gameplay. By "in general" I meant that good character balance is a definitive sign of a well made game.

 

[JPOBS]

You say that as if you'd be a player innovating anything.

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

I feel character imbalance did help melee, but not as the op assumes. I feel what helped melee is that the meta game was and mostly still is dominated by faster characters such as fox and falco, or characters that dont live forever like marth. I am not sure how well melee would of survived if the best was someone like samus since it would cause matches to take much much longer. So to restate I feel the speed of the best characters helped melee survive as a competitive game.

This is not a knock on samus or people who use her, I am just saying its good she is not the most used dominant character in the meta, not that I dont like the character or think people shouldn't play her.

 

[The Irish Mafia]

Melee's balanced in that every character has strengths and weaknesses, and even when using their strengths expose their vulnerabilities. A good attack is still an attack. You can block it, outspace it, or anticipate it. A moveset is a collection of tools, and non-top-tiers have tools too. While it may not have the newest tools, they can get the job done. If your character doesn't have a tool, then take the same atitude to it and find a way around it. Use an old tool in a new way, etc.

I dunno, man. I feel like most of the cast of melee is pretty good vs most of the rest of the cast. We only really rate characters on their viability vs top tiers (as we should, top tiers are so because of the tournament stagelist/ruleset, and it's the fairest way we have of deciding who's the more consistent player). Like, marth is pretty crumby vs a lot of the cast (imo) but he's top tier because he's good vs the spacies. So young link being good vs mewtwo won't bring him up the tier list, but being good vs puff should.

Personally, I think melee's ruleset and mechanics and are balanced if the cast isn't. That's enough for me to play this game competitively.

 

[TheGoat]

Hell no. Character imbalance is widely claimed to be where Melee failed the hardest. Players being "overwhelmed" by so many viable characters is just further evidence that Melee's skillset is shallow in comparison to a game of similar design with much better character balance.

The problem with Melee's imbalance has so many sides and issues, the most detrimental of which is that it allows players to be bad and still not lose. A tested skill at any level of play is character familiarity and match-up knowledge, however much of the cast is so bad at winning that it's often a negligible factor and you can "top-tier your way through" a match unless you're worse than your opponent by a significant margin. This isn't a problem in SSF4AE or Project M. You get blown up if you don't have match-up knowledge assuming your opponent is in a similar league of player skill with you, and that is a beautiful thing.

Character choice is unfortunately a heavily tested skill in SSBM, and while that's always gonna be a factor no matter how balanced the game is, that's mitigated by character loyalty and diversity if the balance is good enough. As it is now, character loyalty doesn't extend very far down the tier list among truly competitive players. In AE you have tons of people playing characters that are thought to be bottom 8 in a game with a roster of nearly 40, and performing very well (Zangief has won a major, for example). Even with how comparatively bad those characters are, the margin of player skill needed to outplay your opponent with those characters is still fairly small and can be overcome. Furthermore, it's a well-known fact that players tend to have higher potential and motivation when they're playing a character they connect with and enjoy playing. With more viable characters, this effectively "broadens the target audience," of high level play to more competitive players. And it makes high level play so much more fun and rewarding for those players. With a more saturated player base as a result of character diversity, you have a much more powerful and dynamic tournament scene at relevant levels of play.

Well anyway I don't really feel like finding a nice way to conclude this and I've been workin' on this edit for too long as it is, so I'll just end it there. Lol

I disagree. First of all melee has hardly "failed". If by success in this context you mean acceptance into the fgc then it wouldn't matter if every character was perfectly viable, seeing as how melee seems to be disliked because of its non traditional style and "kiddy" vibe.
I would agree that character imbalance is no way helpful to the game competitively.

Regardless if you look at the top 5 or so characters this game is actually very well balanced (especially when you consider that shiggy had no idea the game would be anything like it is today). No character is broken because no character has been ****** tournaments. The only problem is a theoretical fox, which doesn't seem to be humanly possible-at least yet. And yes I hate this games imbalance on low tier characters, it pisses me off each time I think of how poorly designed bowser. It makes it feel all the better when I beat someone with him, though.

Look at JKJ's post for hope, yes we can't physically change the game but there is an incredibly large amount of room for learning and development for each character in this game. We have heroes like axe and dj nintendo using *****y characters in amazing ways that constantly flux our view on their viability.

 

[JKJ]

I don't think hardly anyone would argue P:M doesn't exceed Melee when it comes to balance. I think a lot of people just feel like that balance came at the cost of a lot of broken mechanics (and not broken in the cool, borderline overpowered Melee way). There's so many combos and finishers and movement techniques that just make the game feel gimmicky and "cheap". Maybe these issues will resolve themselves over time, or maybe the P:M devs will step in to fix them. Then again, maybe it's just me not liking P:M's style, but I have heard several people comment on there being a lot of dumb stuff. There's also a lot of stuff in P:M that I do like. A lot of the mechanics they have designed are great; I think some just take it too far in an effort to make each character playable.

This is pretty much exactly how I feel about P:M. Thank you for summing it up for me, Bones0.

There's too much of a contrived design in PM's characters. Like characters are meant to be played to much in certain ways. If this, do this[/quote]
Yes, I completely agree. Instead of giving you many options, they saw a problem, and coded a solution. The moves feel tailored to every situation and I find that it eliminates a large bit of the creativity that Melee allows for. It feels like they made the combo trees for you instead of letting you come to realize them on your own.

 

[phish-it]

So... when's Smash 4 coming out?

 

[lordvaati]

We have heroes like axe and dj nintendo using *****y characters in amazing ways that constantly flux our view on their viability.

and flux they do. remember when Yink was considered a bad matchup for Peach? or when Pikachu vs. Puff was an 80-20matchup in Chu's favor?it makes me wonder how much more stuff there is left in the lower 13 we don't know about.

 

[CloneHat]

Character balance only matters as long as there is enough variety for top level play to keep people entertained. You could add 50 useless characters to Melee, and on a competitive level, balance would be unchanged.

Balance is also secondary to engaging gameplay. Fox is a popular character with many gameplay options. If he was the best because of one move that KO'ed any other character, the game would be imbalanced and unenjoyable. Likewise, buffing lower tier characters without giving them interesting gameplay options would give a balanced, unenjoyable game. Take Guilty Gear: there are certainly better and worse characters, but each one is so different and interesting they all receive tournament showings.

 

[CyberZixx]

I like Melee the way it is. The top 8 are all unique and have enjoyable and dynamic match ups with each other. Each has depth to their play. That is why I feel they are the most fun. They feel the most complete as characters.

I would have no problem if other character were at that level. Like what they are attempting with Project M. My issues with character balance in general is when tools are removed or nerfed. Pal melee sounds worse as a game to me due to the nerfing of tools like Marth's spike.

 

[Isprayaxe]

I don't think hardly anyone would argue P:M doesn't exceed Melee when it comes to balance. I think a lot of people just feel like that balance came at the cost of a lot of broken mechanics (and not broken in the cool, borderline overpowered Melee way). There's so many combos and finishers and movement techniques that just make the game feel gimmicky and "cheap". Maybe these issues will resolve themselves over time, or maybe the P:M devs will step in to fix them. Then again, maybe it's just me not liking P:M's style, but I have heard several people comment on there being a lot of dumb stuff. There's also a lot of stuff in P:M that I do like. A lot of the mechanics they have designed are great; I think some just take it too far in an effort to make each character playable.

I think what they were doing was just making every character more playable against fox/falco/high tiers of melee. Think about it, isn't shining a cheap gimmick? PM just gave more of these to other chars and people are complaining about it. I'm not saying the cheap gimmicks are good, but they did exist in melee. Perhaps PM should have nerfed high tiers more than boosting low tiers.

I do think it has a better balance, solely for the fact that every character has a fair chance to beat everyone else in high level game play (as of now), and melee is certainly not that way. The game play could be 10 times better in melee, I do think it is better, but there is clearly enough evidence to show melee is not balanced

 

[Somaiah]

On one hand, differences between two characters can bring limitations to the weaker character's options when facing its opponent, but on the other hand, that doesn't stop the same top level players from placing well in tournaments, even with such varying character choices. I don't think Melee is balanced, but I think that if the match-up permits, even a character with the ****tiest moveset can perform if played right.

It really comes down to the dedication of the player in learning the limitations of your character and making the best of the tools at your disposal. I honestly think that with enough work, if the match up isn't too skewed in one side's favor, a low tier could definitely contend with a high tier, but yeah it's stupid how much work it would take for a low tier compared to, say, a space animal, with so much more depth and a satisfying playstyle.

At the moment, there could be so much more to explore for chars like Yoshi and as ICG defends, Pichu. Honestly, who knows just how viable these characters really are? They've been in classifications ranging from complete **** (Kirby) to incredibly technically demanding for viability (Yoshi) to a mediocre Fox (Pikachu), that an aspiring player will likely be turned off from such absurdities. Why pick up a ****ty Fox when you can be Fox? Why learn tech skill for Yoshi, when starting with Fox would be less demanding and could be applied to the other viable characters too? But there are so many videos, guides, and discussions for the current viable characters, why would anyone go out of their way to learn something new, something that hasn't been found in the last decade?

I'm sure, in some way, Project M can remedy the insane technical demand for the eggsecution of the Yoshi ledge-egg stall thing seen in Melee, but if shining is a "cheap gimmick," then how many cheap gimmicks should Yoshi get to be viable? If P:M is more balanced than Melee, with balance resting on giving characters new tools, doesn't that take away the depth of the gameplay that was found in Melee? I feel like trying to work with the stupid Melee glitches and mechanics, as hard as it can be, to make a character viable, is probably a more rewarding experience. If you add cheap and gimmicky elements to the low tiers and expect them to perform better and be viable, it only can discredit the work, say, a Fox put in to perform at an X level, when it can be achieved by a less-experienced/less-talented player with these shiny, new tricks.

 

[Bones0]

I think what they were doing was just making every character more playable against fox/falco/high tiers of melee. Think about it, isn't shining a cheap gimmick? PM just gave more of these to other chars and people are complaining about it. I'm not saying the cheap gimmicks are good, but they did exist in melee. Perhaps PM should have nerfed high tiers more than boosting low tiers.

I do think it has a better balance, solely for the fact that every character has a fair chance to beat everyone else in high level game play (as of now), and melee is certainly not that way. The game play could be 10 times better in melee, I do think it is better, but there is clearly enough evidence to show melee is not balanced

How are shines gimmicky? A gimmick is something that stops working once your opponent is aware of how to beat it. They are a very core part of spacies' anti-shield grab game. If they were gimmicks people would have learned how to beat them every time by now. Instead what we see is a pretty healthy balance between spacies using shines for pressure and leading into combos vs. other characters performing their OoS options around shines and getting reversals. The only problem with shines in Melee is a lot of the cast don't have decent OoS options vs. ANYONE. So the issue is with characters like Link that have no good OoS options, and that makes shining look broken when in reality every other character's pressure is almost as hard to deal with as well.

 

[Somaiah]

The only gimmicky thing I can think of is shine spiking, but even then most experienced players constantly account for it when fighting a Fox anyways.

 

[lordvaati]

How are shines gimmicky? A gimmick is something that stops working once your opponent is aware of how to beat it. They are a very core part of spacies' anti-shield grab game. If they were gimmicks people would have learned how to beat them every time by now. Instead what we see is a pretty healthy balance between spacies using shines for pressure and leading into combos vs. other characters performing their OoS options around shines and getting reversals. The only problem with shines in Melee is a lot of the cast don't have decent OoS options vs. ANYONE. So the issue is with characters like Link that have no good OoS options, and that makes shining look broken when in reality every other character's pressure is almost as hard to deal with as well.

closest I can think of a gimmick is the waveshine exploit on walls, which got about half the stages in the game banned alone(poor Fourside.) outside that yeah, shining is a valid tech for spacies.

 

[Isprayaxe]

How are shines gimmicky? A gimmick is something that stops working once your opponent is aware of how to beat it. They are a very core part of spacies' anti-shield grab game. If they were gimmicks people would have learned how to beat them every time by now. Instead what we see is a pretty healthy balance between spacies using shines for pressure and leading into combos vs. other characters performing their OoS options around shines and getting reversals. The only problem with shines in Melee is a lot of the cast don't have decent OoS options vs. ANYONE. So the issue is with characters like Link that have no good OoS options, and that makes shining look broken when in reality every other character's pressure is almost as hard to deal with as well.

Maybe not as much of a gimmick as I said, but it is certainly cheap and unbalanced in melee. Fox and Falco would be much worse with the shine, but i think a nerf would have been appropriate.

 

[EPsilon933]

The Shines are so good because they're so versatile

 

[lordvaati]

and they did nerf the shields....in Brawl.

and people no likey that. Which is why they gave em back in P:M.

funnily enough they were restored for their versatility, yet removed other characters versatile moves like Wario's Bike and ZSS' armor. wut.

 

[Isprayaxe]

I meant that they nerf the shines, anyway sometimes you have to give up what you like for a good balance. Of course if you play fox, or any other high tier, and they nerf him you will be disappointed, but its in the best interest for everyone when you balance it

 

[Vulcan55]

funnily enough they were restored for their versatility, yet removed other characters versatile moves like Wario's Bike and ZSS' armor. wut.

Is there any reasonable explanation they give for changing Wario's moveset so much?
I don't think any of his aerials do what they used to, if I am remembering vanilla Brawl correctly.
Like, what is the point, other than to make it more 'Wario Land' and less 'Warioware'?
The only other option I can think of would reinforce what Bones said, since re-inventing a character would be the easiest way to give them your preconceived 'easy combo to finisher' that a lot of the Brawl-only characters seem to have.
And what about ROB's jetpack? Was that ever in PM, or was it always retooled into a 'standard' third jump?