While I'm all for a competetive smash, I don't want the game to lose it's party essence.

[Dr. Krumm]

Brawl hit the party essence pretty perfectly if you ask me. Melee was a lot of fun playing with friends, however I quickly found myself enjoying party gaming Brawl more than melee, and I still do. For a number of reasons; crazier stages, more items and more powerful items, smashballs, etc. and the general randomness of brawl, such as tripping (which was bad feature, but created hilarity at times).

I'm all for competetive smash with balanced characters and such, but I don't want the game to lose the party essence. This means crazy stages and over the top items.

Hopefully Sakurai can find a way to make the game pleasing for both casual play and hardcore play and not having to sacrifice one to improve the other.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Melee was better

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Melee certainly wasn't better in a big 4 player free for all. Brawl is incredibly fun when playing 4 player matches, even tripping becomes a fun thing then. The more chaos the better, and Brawl was simply much more chaotic, thus fun.

However, neither 4 player FFAs or 1v1 matches should get in the way of each other, they should both be able to co-exist, and it's a hard balance to strike. Don't worry though, it seems that Sakurai puts tons of emphasis on 4 player FFAs, so that should be the least of your worries.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Hey Smash 4 seems to be finding a balance!

Thankfully.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Maybe it's just because I could find 4 people that wanted to play melee with me but I couldn't find a single person that wanted to play Brawl

 

[ZelDan]

Eh, I found Melee to better party game-wise as well. Outside of the mechanics and physics, I think I found Melee's stages to be overall much more enjoyable, and liked that there were not items that could potentially screw you over (aka clock o lightning bolt), and also was not crazy about how final smashes were handled.

That being said, Smash can be support both the "party essence" and "competitive essence;" it does not have to be a "one or the other" issue. Melee showed this the best. Melee is the most popular Smash as far as competitive play is concerned, but it was still enjoyed and still is highly enjoyed by non-competitive players.

 

[Morbi]

Smash should focus on the party essence in my honest opinion. That is the original purpose of the game, that is the direction of the last iteration of the game, and it seems to be the intent of the developer, Sakurai. Nintendo is a video-game company that happens to cater towards the casual audience, the casual player-base is interested in party games, something that Nintendo is very well-known for developing. It is only logical.

There will always be the competitive crowd, they aren't going anywhere. If Brawl didn't scare them off, nothing will.

 

[JediLink]

Melee was better

I agree with this. Much more fun with non-moon gravity, not having to worry about tripping, and the not-butchered Knee of Justice.

 

[Morbi]

I honestly felt that Melee was just as much of a party game. It just had more competitive potential, I still enjoyed FFAs with my friends. The whole atmosphere of the game was more fun. If they can repeat Melee, they can revitalize the hardcore community while catering to the casual player-base.

 

[Komenja]

In an interview not long ago Sakurai mentioned finding a balance between the two playstyles, so hopefully fans of either will enjoy their favorite aspect.

Knee of Justice.

I personally prefer to call it the "Knee of the North Star."

 

[Morbi]

In an interview not long ago Sakurai mentioned finding a balance between the two playstyles, so hopefully fans of either will enjoy their favorite aspect.


I personally prefer to call it the "Knee of the North Star."

Wise me will want to follow?

I honestly think that Sakurai tries to find the balance in every Smash. He was just more successful in Melee and a little less successful in Brawl. So we need to wait and see, it is largely dependent on how the community interprets the game upon release. There is STILL a competitive scene for Brawl, it just isn't as ideal. That alone makes me feel as though the balance will always be there, not necessarily effectively. It will still be there though. The concept of the game alone tends to draw from both communities, the nature of the game doesn't hurt either.

 

[guedes the brawler]

Smash Bros is unable to work without being a party game too. There are so many things that are core parts of the games that just make it unable to NOT work like that if people wish to play it like that (items, wacky stages, the simple controls and gameplay being the major things here)

 

[Morbi]

Smash Bros is unable to work without being a party game too. There are so many things that are core parts of the games that just make it unable to NOT work like that if people wish to play it like that (items, wacky stages, the simple controls and gameplay being the major things here)

If Smash was meant to be predominantly competitive, it would be a 2D plane with full-combo punishes. Just saying.

 

[Tree Cat]

I like the idea of a happy medium. Whenever I'm with friends who are casuals, they always want brawl over melee because of the cooler items and stages as well as the smaller potential to suicide.

 

[Bilbo Baggins]

Honestly, I found Smash Brother's controls on a Wii-mote to suck a lot, really killing the mood for my gameplay. And after recently packing up my gamecube a while before, I honestly didn't want to go up to the dust filled hell hole of an attic. But I eventually did, and the Gamecube controller much better than the Wii's. Or more than likely I just used a GC's controller a lot longer than the Wii's. The Stages in Melee were a bit better than Brawls. Mainly cause I have a grudge against them ruining my favorite game's stage. But srs bsns, the stages in Brawl were all over the ****ing place sometimes. Not to say that didn't happen in Melee and the such, but I feel that Melee executed the the stages better. I feel the items in Brawl were better ****ing spam the fan and destroy and had more of a variety. And I love the characters in Brawl over Melee. Just my two cents on the brawl vs melee.

As for SSB4 you gon hav 2 wayt god damnit yo

 

[DakotaBonez]

Any game with popular characters in it will be picked up by casuals.
Injustice, for example, is huge on the competitive scene. Personally I know nothing of the lore behind the characters of DC but everyone that I know who owns it only bought it because Nightwing and Cyborg are in it. Injustice doesn't scare off casual players because it has familiar mascots liks Batman in it, unfortunately games that are equally competitive like guilty gear and skullgirls are totally ignored by the casual crowd because they feature original characters who don't have much if any background to them. Theres no reason to not make a game hardcore if you already got the casuals sucked in by the mascots.

The only thing standing in the way of brawl's ascension to hardcore was tripping.
Now that that has been confirmed dead for Smash 4 its safe to say that the game will have nothing stand in its way on the road to EVO. (y'know unless another fighting game with platforming mechanics comes along to rival it)

 

[Big-Cat]

Brawl hit the party essence pretty perfectly if you ask me. Melee was a lot of fun playing with friends, however I quickly found myself enjoying party gaming Brawl more than melee, and I still do. For a number of reasons; crazier stages, more items and more powerful items, smashballs, etc. and the general randomness of brawl, such as tripping (which was bad feature, but created hilarity at times).

I'm all for competetive smash with balanced characters and such, but I don't want the game to lose the party essence. This means crazy stages and over the top items.

Hopefully Sakurai can find a way to make the game pleasing for both casual play and hardcore play and not having to sacrifice one to improve the other.

Except that's not everyone's idea of a party game. We've heard of the jokes of Mario Party being a fighting game for what happens between the players for that game.

Some people simply don't like the idea of having a bunch of uncontrollable, random bull**** interfering with the core of the game. That doesn't necessarily mean competitive play, just something more controlled like fixed item spawn points (that'd change the game greatly for FFA).

Smash should focus on the party essence in my honest opinion. That is the original purpose of the game, that is the direction of the last iteration of the game, and it seems to be the intent of the developer, Sakurai. Nintendo is a video-game company that happens to cater towards the casual audience, the casual player-base is interested in party games, something that Nintendo is very well-known for developing. It is only logical.

There will always be the competitive crowd, they aren't going anywhere. If Brawl didn't scare them off, nothing will.

The original intention doesn't always mean something later on. Zelda/Sheik was supposed to be a good concept, but most people will tell you it simply never worked and some are willing to say to just separate the two (but that's another topic).

As for catering towards the casual audience, what exactly IS the casual audience? Most people will play Smash Bros. simply for the roster. The game could be Guilty Gear tough and it'd still sell a **** ton of copies.

Anyway, we've got competitive Pokemon which Nintendo supports and Gamefreak updates the metagame every new game.

Any game with popular characters in it will be picked up by casuals.
Injustice, for example, is huge on the competitive scene. Personally I know nothing of the lore behind the characters of DC but everyone that I know who owns it only bought it because Nightwing and Cyborg are in it. Injustice doesn't scare off casual players because it has familiar mascots liks Batman in it, unfortunately games that are equally competitive like guilty gear and skullgirls are totally ignored by the casual crowd because they feature original characters who don't have much if any background to them. Theres no reason to not make a game hardcore if you already got the casuals sucked in by the mascots.

The only thing standing in the way of brawl's ascension to hardcore was tripping.
Now that that has been confirmed dead for Smash 4 its safe to say that the game will have nothing stand in its way on the road to EVO. (y'know unless another fighting game with platforming mechanics comes along to rival it)

This is also the main reason why Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom - ESPECIALLY Marvel vs. Capcom - remain the most dominant fighting games in the US competitive circles. Those characters are iconic and the SF characters are the face of the genre.

On OC's and backgrounds though, I assume you mean that the casual audience doesn't know who they are before playing the game, right?

 

[BridgesWithTurtles]

There's no need to worry about Smash Bros' party game appeal being jeopardized. I doubt there are many hardcore players who oppose the inclusion of crazy items and wacky stages; in tournaments, those can be turned off and and banned, respectively. The "randomness of brawl," however, is really something that should be avoided. Even most casual players would probably agree that tripping was an awful idea. There are plenty of ways in which the game displays randomness as it is (Poké Balls, Assist Trophies, Judgment, Peach's turnips, etc). Something like tripping, which literally takes control out of the player's hands, almost all can agree should be excluded. For most people, casual or hardcore, having their character perform an action they have absolutely no control over isn't fun.

 

[J1NG]

unfortunately games that are equally competitive like guilty gear and skullgirls are totally ignored by the casual crowd because they feature original characters who don't have much if any background to them.

Maybe this goes without saying, but every character in existence was new at some point, and every character is someone's original character. I think people subconsciously look to see if a character is "legit" somehow. Usually this involves subjectively determining whether or not a character is inspired or original or impacting, etc. But some people don't care about any of that. Some people don't care if a character is exactly the same as another(save a few subtle differences), as long as a character fits the idiom of said people better than all others.
I guess the bottom line is that everyone is different. I myself would like to see characters become as popular as Super Mario after having originated from a fighting game. The closest you can get to that is Ryu, I suppose.

 

[PikaJew]

ALL 3 SMASH GAMES HAVE BEEN GREAT FOR PARTIES

if anything 64 is still the best


but can we just shut the **** up and agree that the Smash series is one of the best party games out there?

 

[Fighting]

If Smash loses it's party essence, it loses what makes it unique among fighting games.

 

[Tweezer Salad]

Even if they made Smash 4 play exactly like Melee, it could still be a party game if you wanted it to.
Just turn on high items and go to a wacky stage, it's not that hard to grasp. That's what made Melee so great cause it was able to please everyone.


Just cause Brawl was overly chaotic that doesnt mean Melee suddenly became a strictly competitive game either.

 

[Renji64]

I doubt this is even worrying about smash will always retain that melee was a fun party game for me then when i learned how much depth it had a blast. Brawl pretty much made was made for one audience even if there is a competive scene people who choose to play that for some odd reason it didn't please both crowds. I'm hoping this game can appeal to me or people who didn't enjoy brawl. There is more than enough party games to choose from on nintendo consoles.

 

[Vann Accessible]

...was there a Smash Bros. game released that didn't have fun multiplayer that I'm not aware of?

Tut tut, little one. It's going to be fine.

 

[JediLink]

...was there a Smash Bros. game released that didn't have fun multiplayer that I'm not aware of?

Spoiler

*runs*

 

[D-idara]

Spoiler

*runs*

Shoot yourself Brawl hater.

 

[Snakeyes]

It's not like Melee wasn't a party game, dude. You can easily add all of the "party essence" things you mentioned without messing up the core gameplay. Besides, this is Sakurai we're talking about here. He would never compromise the party game aspect of Smash to please a small community that he's at best neutral towards.

 

[FalKoopa]

Smash Bros. is a party game at heart. THAT is one thing which will never change. So worry not.

 

[smashbro29]

Honestly the party aspect doesn't get hurt because all because the game can be played at a deeper level. Melee and 64 did the party thing brilliantly. Brawl kicked it up a notch but system changes aside kicking it up a notch for smash 4 won't hurt the competitive side and vice versa.