It's hard for me to imagine Brawl outdoing Melee. My scrubby brother put something funny into perspective for me. (Unitentionally.) He excuses himself from poor performance in Melee by saying that it's clearly an imbalanced game and that he would rather play balanced games like StarCraft.
I began to think, 'Well, that's true, but though every race is seemingly balanced in SC, there are only 3 playable races. Terran, Zerg, and Protoss" Which brought me to think, "SSBM has (depending on your perspective) between 4 and 11 playable characters. In this case "playable" means capable of winning matches at the topmost playing level. I mean the TOP.
Can someone be great with Bowser? Yes.
Can they hope to ride to the top of OC3 with Bowser?
...
Exactly.
Some will say that the only characters that can win in the highest level of play are Fox, Falco, Sheik, and Marth.
Others will say that Peach, Samus, Captain Falcon, Ice Climbers, Jigglypuff, Doctor Mario, and Ganondorf can also compete with the best. I'm too inexperienced to say.
It just made me think, that though every character isn't "playable" in SSBM, even so, it has more playable characters than a game like StarCraft.
Then there's stages. Counterpicked stages can turn the game around in Melee. Stages also fluctuate in favor on StarCraft. Stages, or rather, maps, on StarCraft will favor Terran if they have too much high ground scattered about. A ranged unit shooting up a cliff has (I believe) a 70% chance to hit to unit up the cliff. This affects Photon Cannons and Sunken Colonies.
Can't Zerg and Protoss take advantage of cliffs too? Sure.
But Dragoons, Lurkers, and Hydralisks just don't have the effect or range that Siege tanks utilize to pound whatever area they overlook. Cliffs behind your resources on a stage automatically favor Terran. Siege drops behind the mineral line are deadly, easy, and worth it. This makes the non-terran player on a map like this have to go out of their way to prepare for a tank drop by their resource line.
Another trick that came to mind is how sometimes the minerals are pressed against the border of the map. Protoss can utilize this in the enemies base, in the early game, planting a Pylon at a choke formed between the map edge and minerals, and then place a Photon Cannon behind it, where no Zerglings or Zealots can reach it. Obviously this doesn't work against Terran, but this is a trick you can do really quick, and is possible just because of stage circumstances.
So StarCraft isn't much different than SSBM in that perspective either.
Meh, I tried to point this all out to my brother, but he's still too stubborn to accept it.
Me: "Think about it- there are 11 characters you can choose from and try out that are perfectly successful in competitive tournaments."
Him: "NO! I WANNA BE LINK CUZ HE'S MY FAV AND I ONLY WANNA PLAY AS HIM CUZ HE'S JUST SO COOL AND I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE A CHARACTER THAT I DON'T LIKE JUST CUZ IT IS BETTER CUZ STUPID NINTENDO DIDN'T BALANCE THEIR STUPID GAME AND LINK SUCKS SO BAD ON IT! IT'S A WONDER I'VE BEAT YOU AS MANY TIMES AS I HAVE WITH THIS CRAP CHARACTER! I HOPE THEY FIX ALL THIS IN BRAWL! I'M GONNA KEEP PLAYING LINK FOREVER AGAINST YOU CUZ HE'S THE COOLEST CHARACTER ON MELEE
AND I HAVE AN EXCUSE TO LOSE WHEN I PLAY SOMEONE IN THE LOW TIER!"
That last part was not said but was there. Yeah, I told him about the tiers and regretted it. I miss the days before my calling that to me and him there were no tiers and for all we knew, Mewtwo was the best character. We both agreed that Roy was cheap, because of course, Roy is just Marth except with Fire added. Ah how naive we were.
Anyway, the way I see it, is that if someone complains about the tiers or imbalance in Melee, they just need to switch their main to one of the top or high tier characters. To complain about balance and justify loss through the tiers, but not be willing to change to the "obviously better characters", that's just stupid.
After all, I finally had to do it.
It took a couple of tournaments, but now I see that I can't hope to get where I want to playing just Zelda. She's fun and great for scrub owning, but she's strictly for friendlies now. Sorry hon, I'm maining your alter ego now.
I find comfort at least, in that I will be able to accidentally transform in a match without thinking, "OhgreatI'mdeadI'mgonnagetraped."
Whoa. Just scrolled up here. Pardon the rant, and thanks for anyone having read it.
