Will Smash 4 be the "Street Fighter 4" of Smash Bros?

[<π]

Of course not.

Brawl was bigger than Melee roughly until a bit before EVO 2013, and Brawl attendance at tournaments is mostly the same, although with the release of Smash 4 impending it will obviously decline from there.

The thing with Melee is since EVO 2013 and the documentary, competitive Melee has skyrocketed to an ungodly amount of support.

It also helps that while the Brawl competitive community has a lot of bickering picking at the scene and hurting it, Melee doesn't, and the competitive community continues to grow because everyone wants it to grow.

By the end of this year we'll have more Melee tournaments with 50+ entrants than 2001 to 2013 COMBINED!!!

Overall I'm beginning to think that was a terrible post.

I know I was being sarcastic.

Brawl's decline had everything to do with how the community handled the game, and very little to do with the game itself. Just like there was a rift between melee and brawl there were several rifts WITHIN the brawl community. Pro MK vs Anti MK, Pro broad stage list vs Small Stage list, tier battles, Politics of the BBR vs the common people. The game itself was competitively sound, it's community dragged it to the ground.

I don't mean to belittle @ Mensrea but you can look at his join date and understand that he isn't speaking from experience. At best he is telling people what he heard, at worst he is just guessing. Either way he wasn't a part of the brawl community.

 

[JV5Chris]

also, @ JV5Chris , did you read the OP?

Of course, I'm just not a fan of drawing these type of comparisons between two polar opposite franchises.

 

[Mensrea]

I know I was being sarcastic.

Brawl's decline had everything to do with how the community handled the game, and very little to do with the game itself. Just like there was a rift between melee and brawl there were several rifts WITHIN the brawl community. Pro MK vs Anti MK, Pro broad stage list vs Small Stage list, tier battles, Politics of the BBR vs the common people. The game itself was competitively sound, it's community dragged it to the ground.

I don't mean to belittle @ Mensrea but you can look at his join date and understand that he isn't speaking from experience. At best he is telling people what he heard, at worst he is just guessing. Either way he wasn't a part of the brawl community.

I've played every smash bros game, and have lurked for a couple years. I don't think I'm completely off base.

 

[RanserSSF4]

Before I vote, was Street Fighters 4 good or bad?

it depends on how you look at it. it's good, at least to me, but not everyone likes it.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I actually don't think it will have much of a community after the first year.

The competitive scene gave Brawl a big chance. Everyone played Brawl, its community was big for many years. It was the sequel to Melee, so of course people were going to give it a shot. Slowly, people realized that they just didn't like Brawl. The scene dwindled, and now with the documentary and Evo, Melee is bigger than ever, and Brawl is dead.

Smash 4 is the sequel to Brawl. People are going to be way more hesitant going into it than they were with Brawl. Already, pre release, people are disappointed with the impressions, are reactions to the game we've seen so far have been poor.. It looks VERY similar to Brawl, so I don't think competitives are going to give it as much of a chance as they gave Brawl.

I'd say, a year from release, Melee will be back on top as the dominant game. Smash 4 will dwindle from there on out.

It's the sequel to a game that wasn't well liked by the competitive community, and it looks just like that game. With Melee bigger than ever and Project M on the rise, there is no way that the Smash 4 community will survive for long.

There is no way that happens, simply because Bamco is in charge of the online. The mere existence of a playable competitive online opens up competitive Smash to people who couldn't get involved in real life tourneys in the past. If Nintendo goes all in with patch support the game will be able to avoid some of Brawl's issues with balance. Besides, Brawl lasted way longer than a year in spite of all its problems(problems much bigger than anything we've seen in Smash 4). Even if all the established Melee players shun it it's still going to attract plenty of Brawl players and newcomers. Honestly, Sakurai can really do just about anything he wants with Smash 4 within the bounds established by the series and if the online's good there will be an online scene that lasts as long as the servers do.

 

[<π]

I've played every smash bros game, and have lurked for a couple years. I don't think I'm completely off base.

Have you played every smash brothers game competitively against top level people during the prime times of each game? I know I'm kind of singling you out here, but it really bothers me when people on the outside look in at any community (brawl's specifically. I'm very attached) and try and make sense of it from so far away. While you were lurking how many years were you pooring into the melee and brawl community?

There are just so many holes in your previous post.

Just like the brawl community thrived without the melee community. Smash 4 can do huge things as well on its own as well if it comes to that. There will be tons of people coming into this game that have never heard of smash boards before or "competitive play".
The fall of brawl isn't too different from when melee feel apart because of brawl coming out! Any game can fall to pieces. I feel like that fact proves that it isn't even the quality of the game that matters its about the community and how much they are willing to sacrifice to grow. Melee is huge now because of its community not because its a great game (although it is mind you this game is at the core of some of my best experiences)
And brawl is failing because it is a bad game, (Because it isn't by any means) but because of the community refused to sacrifice and fell in on itself.

My step son was a baby when I started attending melee tournaments. He going to be ten in a few days. People like him are going to be the future of the series, not the 20 somethings playing the game now. He isn't aware of anything about the competitive scene, this game will probably be his start. If the community is welcoming he will love this game, he will dive down into it and down there he may just find the will to better himself, or maybe the drive to be the best. But if the community isn't he will do something else.

Brawl 64 Melee, all great games. The communities surrounding them, much like the games themselves, are all definitely different.

 

[Mensrea]

Have you played every smash brothers game competitively against top level people during the prime times of each game? I know I'm kind of singling you out here, but it really bothers me when people on the outside look in at any community (brawl's specifically. I'm very attached) and try and make sense of it from so far away. While you were lurking how many years were you pooring into the melee and brawl community?

There are just so many holes in your previous post.

Just like the brawl community thrived without the melee community. Smash 4 can do huge things as well on its own as well if it comes to that. There will be tons of people coming into this game that have never heard of smash boards before or "competitive play".
The fall of brawl isn't too different from when melee feel apart because of brawl coming out! Any game can fall to pieces. I feel like that fact proves that it isn't even the quality of the game that matters its about the community and how much they are willing to sacrifice to grow. Melee is huge now because of its community not because its a great game (although it is mind you this game is at the core of some of my best experiences)
And brawl is failing because it is a bad game, (Because it isn't by any means) but because of the community refused to sacrifice and fell in on itself.

My step son was a baby when I started attending melee tournaments. He going to be ten in a few days. People like him are going to be the future of the series, not the 20 somethings playing the game now. He isn't aware of anything about the competitive scene, this game will probably be his start. If the community is welcoming he will love this game, he will dive down into it and down there he may just find the will to better himself, or maybe the drive to be the best. But if the community isn't he will do something else.

Brawl 64 Melee, all great games. The communities surrounding them, much like the games themselves, are all definitely different.

I feel like your not giving enough credit to the games themselves. A strong community is important for sure. If Melee didn't have the community it did, well then it wouldn't be the forefront of smash right now. The thing that you fail to realize, is the the games attract that community.

Melee IS more attractive to most competitive smashers! PERIOD. Why else do you think the older game, with worse graphics, less characters, and a CRT prerequisite has grown, while Brawl has shrunk? It's not some fluke! It isn't some matter of the community falling in on itself! SOMETHING about this outdated version is more desired ,so much so, that it has superseded it successors in community size, viewership, etc. I don't think you understand the magnitude of this. A game that is over a decade old, is severely outdated graphically, and is difficult to play due to CRT's diminishing, has GROWN exponentially.

To say that community is the only precedent for a game rather than quality is one of the most asinine statements I've ever heard.

 

[Nielicus]

I wouldn't say that without having played a game.

The same people I know who said that for Brawl sold their copies of it not long after buying them.

No, I'm sure of it. Lol, I personally think I make good judgement.

 

[<π]

What?
A few years ago the melee community feel completely apart in the wake of brawl. Brawl literally took over at tournament series and force melee to sit out. Many great melee players quit then and still have yet to return. They let the community die... almost. People weren't happy with brawl and fought to make thier game, melee relevant. Series like REVIVAL OF MELEE popped up. People continued to play. And Then the community produced a documentary about the life of melee. The community got together thousands of dollars to get a spot in evo. the community fought Nintendo to stream the game (which made may gaming news sites). The community STILL pushes for this game because they love it, yeah its a great game, but the community makes itself.

Brawl showed up and did amazingly well. The community was exciting and new for a large base of players. It caught the Eye of MLG which hosted a bunch of regional tournaments. But as it grew older the community feel apart. There was a literal split about MK and tons of people left with that split. (may for MK and many against) You can trace the fall of brawl right to that vote. Just like with the melee/brawl split. People are STILL very passionate about it. The community didn't fail because of poor game design, it failed because the community couldn't get it together and as a whole sacrifice one way or the other. And that was just the main front. Without a ground or foundation no game's comunity will stand up.

Checkers tournaments have higher turn outs and larger prize pools than ours and its because of the quality of their community not the unmatched balance of the game.

EDIT:
Melee may be the most relevant smash game NOW, but it hasn't always been; Brawl beat it. Who's to say it always has to be from here on out?

 

[Mensrea]

What?
A few years ago the melee community feel completely apart in the wake of brawl. Brawl literally took over at tournament series and force melee to sit out. Many great melee players quit then and still have yet to return. They let the community die... almost. People weren't happy with brawl and fought to make thier game, melee relevant. Series like REVIVAL OF MELEE popped up. People continued to play. And Then the community produced a documentary about the life of melee. The community got together thousands of dollars to get a spot in evo. the community fought Nintendo to stream the game (which made may gaming news sites). The community STILL pushes for this game because they love it, yeah its a great game, but the community makes itself.

Brawl showed up and did amazingly well. The community was exciting and new for a large base of players. It caught the Eye of MLG which hosted a bunch of regional tournaments. But as it grew older the community feel apart. There was a literal split about MK and tons of people left with that split. (may for MK and many against) You can trace the fall of brawl right to that vote. Just like with the melee/brawl split. People are STILL very passionate about it. The community didn't fail because of poor game design, it failed because the community couldn't get it together and as a whole sacrifice one way or the other. And that was just the main front. Without a ground or foundation no game's comunity will stand up.

Checkers tournaments have higher turn outs and larger prize pools than ours and its because of the quality of their community not the unmatched balance of the game.

EDIT:
Melee may be the most relevant smash game NOW, but it hasn't always been; Brawl beat it. Who's to say it always has to be from here on out?

Sure Brawl beat it temporarily, but Melee won in the end. Everything I said in my previous post stands. If Brawl appealed to people the same way Melee did, then it would be the forefront of smash. You keep saying : community community. A community is made out of players, and the bigger community signifies that MORE players like one thing as opposed to another. Which shows that there is something that they like better in the old game than the new. Even with worse graphics, less characters, CRT, etc. It's not rocket science.

 

[TeaTwoTime]

I'd have thought it was pretty obvious that both the game itself and the efforts of the community are contributing factors towards its competitive success. It's not one or the other.

 

[<π]

@ Mensrea I don't think you are understanding what I'm saying, and I don't want to argue with you, believe me. If you feel like brawl is an inferior game that's fine.

I'll just say this and let it be the end of my argument. I'm saying is that a community either sustains itself or it doesn't, it can be but is not always linked to the quality of the game. As a contributing member of the both melee and brawl communities (and good friends with many other contributing member of the melee and brawl communities who have sat down and had long chats on this very subject) I can tell you brawl's decline had less to do with its games' quality and more to do with a fracture in the community. (You can look at the dates and numbers if I am not credible enough for you) And melee's revival in popularity directly correlates with the booms of its community, (again look at the dates and how they correlate with the documentary, and EVO's charity drive) and less with the quality of its game.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Sure Brawl beat it temporarily, but Melee won in the end. Everything I said in my previous post stands. If Brawl appealed to people the same way Melee did, then it would be the forefront of smash. You keep saying : community community. A community is made out of players, and the bigger community signifies that MORE players like one thing as opposed to another. Which shows that there is something that they like better in the old game than the new. Even with worse graphics, less characters, CRT, etc. It's not rocket science.

So if I said Brawl won in past years, if I made this post and crossed off Melee with Brawl would that make me correct that is was the better game?

Not saying which is better, like what you want, but your logic with this is very flawed.

Otherwise you're telling me Twilight selling well making it a literary and movie masterpiece.

 

[Mensrea]

So if I said Brawl won in past years, if I made this post and crossed off Melee with Brawl would that make me correct that is was the better game?

Not saying which is better, like what you want, but your logic with this is very flawed.

Otherwise you're telling me Twilight selling well making it a literary and movie masterpiece.

I never said that quality was the only deciding factor in the success of a game, or anything else for that matter. If qualtiy=success, then Arrested Development would have never been cancelled, Mother 4 would be out by now, etc.

Relating to your Metaphor about Twilight, I think it's a bit flawed in relation to Smash Bros. We are not talking about sales, Brawl sold at least 4 million more than Melee. We are talking about the lifetime of the community. If Brawl continues to dwindle and eventually die, then Melee will have had a much much longer lifespan. That's not necessarily indicative of quality, but it does show that people liked something about Melee enough to stay with it for a long time, where as in Brawl people did not.

Regarding your first sentence: nothing I've said is objective. No one can say that Melee is objectively better. I may think it's better, and many people may think it's better, but no one can say anything is objectively better. All I'm saying was that Melee has a much bigger, presumably much longer lasting community, and that shows that there is something that these people like more about Melee opposed to Brawl. It's not simply that the community behind Melee rallied hard enough. Sure the community has been a huge part in the growth of the game, but you have to give credit where credit is due. Melee obviously has qualities that make people passionate enough to support it for a long time, whereas Brawl does not. Brawl is probably not going to rally the way Melee did. My opinion is because it's a worse game.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

TVs that accept AV cables are not rare at all, You can barely use that as a bump for the aggressiveness of the community to play Melee over Brawl.

 

[pizzapie7]

CRTs are certainly decreasing in number though. Can you even get one new anymore?

 

[LoboRundas]

TVs that accept AV cables are not rare at all, You can barely use that as a bump for the aggressiveness of the community to play Melee over Brawl.

But it doesn't have to accept AV, it has to be a CRT. If the TV is laggy, it will be with any cable.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

But it doesn't have to accept AV, it has to be a CRT. If the TV is laggy, it will be with any cable.

It doesn't have to be a CRT to not be laggy.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

The game could be great, but if the community doesn't back behind it. It will fail.

On the flip side, if the game is garbage, but the community backs it. It will succeed.

It really is that simple.

It's why Brawl is hurting and why Melee is succeeding.

The games themselves be damned.

Now if only we could help 64 and Brawl (and hopefully both versions of Smash 4) be successful like Melee.

I'm not saying that we should go and play those games if we don't want to. But we should be supportive of those communities and those who like the games. Support your Smash Bros and Sisters even if you don't play the same game.

 

[ferioku]

I agree with everything until the last 2 paragraphs, along with the fact you discount new players, which this game will have more of than Brawl just based on the marketing and the fact "this game" is two games.

Also "the competitive community" is divided. Brawl still has a very big scene. It will always maintain a scene.

I don't see Smash 4 having anything but a large scene for 3 years, regardless of how everyone who plays it reacts to it.

If it's a game people like, in the end, people will come to play it.

After all, that is the Smash (competitive scene) way.

The thing is you can't just say it's crap when you haven't played the full game or experienced it's full potential. No one has even figured out Smash 4 completely and they are making judgments as if only what they say is correct. They think they have complete knowledge over the game and stop at nothing to put not only the game down, but also the people supporting it. No one can tell the future, and that's why I'm saying it's to damn early to judge it! You can't just say even if the game is good competitively, it will still be thrown aside, that's being freaking prejudice!

 

[Shariq]

I honestly cannot wait for the game to release so that all our questions can be answered and all these countless threads which lead to the same discussions over and over again can come to a close. Then we can actually focus on what the game is and just play it nonstop

 

[DraginHikari]

But it doesn't have to accept AV, it has to be a CRT. If the TV is laggy, it will be with any cable.

My question to that, as CRT monitors continue to die and fewer and fewer are being made and a lot of places that repair TVs won't even repair CRTs anymore. What then? I don't think it's just a difficult question for the Smash community but any game community that is still depending on outdated technology to minimize lag concerns. I don't know if Modern games have less issue with this, but it seems like a real possible problem.

 

[<π]

We used CRTs for brawl too. One of my biggest complaints with my MLG experience was that they didn't. Melee need not worry CRTs aren't going anywhere soon.

 

[LoboRundas]

My question to that, as CRT monitors continue to die and fewer and fewer are being made and a lot of places that repair TVs won't even repair CRTs anymore. What then? I don't think it's just a difficult question for the Smash community but any game community that is still depending on outdated technology to minimize lag concerns. I don't know if Modern games have less issue with this, but it seems like a real possible problem.

I guess people will have to start transiting to low-lag monitors and TV's. I myself bought one for the new Smash, as I'm moving and my family got rid of all CRT's.

 

[L9L]

I like this analogy! Positive, thoughtful speculation: pass it along.

Melee sure does feel a lot like Street Fighter 2 (or 3, whichever analogy works for you) in terms of its footprint within its own series, and Smash 4 is looking like it will parallel Street Fighter 4's impact on the Street Fighter series. Also important to note is Smash 4's emphasis on online play (yes Brawl had it, but it felt like an afterthought to me). SF 4 opened up the SF series to a broader online community for the first time the same way that Smash 4 is opening up the Smash series to a broader online community. With so many people having the ability to play each other regardless of distance, I think it will do positive things for the competitive scene.

 

[Terotrous]

In the Street Fighter analogy, Melee is clearly SF2, while Brawl is SF3. Competitive SF2 play revolves almost entirely around a couple overpowered characters (Claw, Ryu, Balrog, THawk, O.Sagat), and a bunch of bugs / exploits (inescapable tick throws, unblockable tatsus, totally safe command grabs, etc)

The thing that defines SF3 is a no-risk defensive option that theoretically allows you to punish virtually any attack, as such the entire game is all about varying your offense so your opponent can't read your timing, just like Brawl with Air Dodge. Also note that a lot of SF2 players hated SF3 and it's looked upon quite badly by most these days save for a small handful of diehards who still swear by it

I do agree that Smash 4 looks like it's going back to Melee for the most part in terms of its design, albeit minus most of the most ridiculously broken stuff, so it may resemble SF4 in that way. I also don't really believe the OP is right about people being slow to adopt SF4, it was accepted pretty readily for bringing back the stuff people liked about SF2.

 

[NoiseHERO]

All this bias and conflicting experiences used to treat other's opinions as wrong facts surrounding the topic of a game we haven't played a full version of yet? What is this an online forum??

Anyhow if brawl's competitive, then this one will probably be more so. As for how long that'll last, it'll depend on the way Nintendo and fans handle it post release. a few thousand close-minded loud people parroting that it's the worse thing ever just because they heard a few things about it were too similar to brawl can either eat their hats.

Or be terribly correct, But why wait around in the hype phase if you already thing the game is gonna be bad. They obviously don't wanna admit that they want to play as badly as the optimists. >D Otherwise nothing fun about being right about bad news we waited half a decade for. This game'll be fine street figher 4 or melee longevity or whatever or not. It doesn't have to be any of those things to be good.

 

[SpeedBoost]

Ok well this thread is kinda irrelevant because the game is not even out yet so we can't tell.

If anything though Brawl was the Street Fighter 4 of Smash games, Brawl was ULTRA (no pun intended) defensive, the entire game was about defense, just like SF4.
Smash 4 as far we know still is a lot like brawl but, also less like brawl.

 

[Johnknight1]

I can guarantee that if a Smash Bros game came out in 2004 and not 2008, Melee wouldn't be receiving the praise it gets. There was nothing for those 7 years to compare Melee to. No competition and no other game like it. So, when you're stuck with playing the 2nd iteration of a game for so long, you're going to feel inclined to stick with it and believe it is as great as you think it is.

I'm sorry, but being a great game is why people keep coming back to it. Some people quit the game for the new one because they "wanted something new", and quite frankly look how that turned out.

It had nothing to do with nostalgia. The mechanics are great, which is why the community is great.

EVO is irrelevant in my point. And so are the top characters or what not. I'm speaking from a totally different perspective. By today's standards, Melee is unpolished and clunky.

You keep saying "unpolished and clunky" inferring the controls, yet anyone who actually practices the movement can play it without struggling against the controller unless you're trying to be crazy technical like Hax or Westballz or SFAT or Mango.

I cannot stand games where I have to fight the controls.

How do you fight the controls=??? There's fast fallers and floaties. If you can't keep up with the fast fallers, play floaty characters.

The controls take a while to learn yes, but like driving, once you learn how to get the technical gist of how to move down, it's muscle memory forever.

The only time you have to "fight the controls" is at a competitive level once you get "the full feel" of a character. And even then it's just mostly fast fallers.

Animations are stiff and mechanical.

So are Street Fighter II's animations. It's still easy as heck to recognize which attack is which.

If you don't know which attack is which, that's your fault, because it is clear which attack is which.

If we're talking "muh graphics", sorry, this is Nintendo, the company that produces the worst graphics on consoles.

Is it a bad game? No. Far from it. But it isn't a game that deserves the praise it gets. Maybe the dedicated community, sure.

How the hell is a game that produces so many epic moments, is so properly balanced, is so fun to play, has incredible depth technically, strategically, and produces epic offense and defensive a game you say "isn't a game that deserves the praise it gets"=???

"Clunky" is subjective as crap. "Muh animations" isn't an argument, it's a fallacy. Street Fighter II doesn't have the best animations, but it still gets the job done. It's easy to tell which attack is which if you actually play the game.

The controls are very similar to the ones as Super Mario Bros. 3, the best Mario game ever made. It's fast paced, sure, but the problem isn't that. It's that you're too busy making Johns to get over it.

So if you don't want "clunky" or whatever you call it, why do you still prefer Brawl=???

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is less "clunky", because it's controls are "smoother".

I just don't see how just because you don't like the "flow of movement" suddenly Melee doesn't deserve praise. Dude, get over yourself.

If you put Melee and Brawl/Smash 4 in front of someone and let them play the game and if you were to ask them which "feels" better, the latter would likely be chosen.

I actually have tried comparisons with children multiple times, and all the times they prefer Melee because it's speed compliments the game more, there is more movement options, and the game is built for "more action" (their words, not mine, and it's damn true words because Brawl lacks ACTION).

And it really has nothing to do with one or the other being competitive (since Melee and Brawl both are). Today, there are several games with crap controls and sometimes, the sequels improve upon those flaws to make it "feel better".

Just because you can't get back into it without practice doesn't make it "feel worse". You say that because you are used to the controls of another entirely different game that plays and moves and feels entirely differently.

Melee and Brawl physics-wise is like the jump from Super Mario Bros. 3 to NEW Super Mario Bros.

Just because you have troubles with the jump doesn't mean the other one automatically sucks.

After 2 months of playing Brawl and going back to Melee, I was lost in translation in how I played Melee for so long when something that feels better and is responsive took 7 years to be released.

Then PRACTICE to get used to Melee. Stop playing Melee like it's Brawl. That's why you are having troubles jumping back.

certain characters imo and the weird ledge mechanics carried over from Melee.

Unless you're talking about turnaround edge grabbing (which is essentially "easy mode", which I actually support), there is nothing superior about Brawl's ledge mechanics.

The tether grab system and the ledge "leaping" physics in Brawl is trash, simply put. Top Brawl players admit this. Also, don't even get me started on how utterly insanely broken Brawl's ability to edge stall and do things like "planking" is.

But alas, I don't want to talk with someone who uses "clunky" to say "hey, I don't like the flow of movement because I can't re-learn it."

 

[GunGunW]

Melee is the SFII, and Brawl is the SFIII I guess that works perfectly.

 

[Roko Jono]

Please do not say that SF3 -> SF4 is similar to Melee -> Brawl because that is furthest from the truth. Granted I do enjoy SF3 more than 4 myself, but 4 is still a good competitive game and retains basic mechanics of a street fighter game. The Melee -> Brawl transition removed basic mechanics and it felt like a completely different game competitively. I would go into more detail, but it could spark flames.

But regarding this thread, I think that Smash 4 could become a "Street Fighter 4" for the series. That is, it can be a great competitive game with its own meta that is rewarding itself, but there will be many people that enjoy a faster series. But hey, we'll never know until the game is actually out correct?

One thing I supremely dislike about Smash's presentation is that they do not tell us whether the physics of the game are final and then show us some actual high level gameplay. As long as we're comparing fighting games here, when SF or Tekken or even BB show gameplay they usually have someone who can play at high level and it shows us the physics of the game. For example, they show us how their combo system works! If there is a combo system in Smash 4 why not show it? Because maybe it won't be there... or it's a marketing strategy... don't show them the physics, just release it day 1 and have people buy it to be either disappointed or extremely satisfied :[

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Melee on Virtual Console would fix the input problem pretty fast.

Oh right the whole Melee has different version in Europe and the US issue...whoops.

 

[Johnknight1]

What?
A few years ago the melee community feel completely apart in the wake of brawl. Brawl literally took over at tournament series and force melee to sit out.

I don't recall that in my region, NorCal, given that Melee never stopped having entrants. I dual-entered both in 2008, as did quite a few people.

Granted that's the same region that hosted Genesis 1 and 2, but nonetheless it exists.

The CGC's in San Francisco I attended routinely had 50+ Melee entrants and 75+ Brawl entrants. SoCal better numbers for both game, and Florida's Melee and Brawl also did very well in that regard.

I dunno, maybe that's why those are the 3 strongest regions period. Melee never died there.

While Brawl essentially died in NorCal 2 years ago (when Sky left for SoCal), last I checked Brawl is still very strong in SoCal, while Melee is CRAZY HUGE there. Seriously, MacD hosted a event that was supposed to be small and for Melee they had nearly 200 entrants, while Project M had almost 100 entrants!

Many great melee players quit then and still have yet to return.

That is bound to happen with any community of any game.

I'm a fan of Street Fighter II and III, and many of those former top players have yet to return to those games after Street Fighter IV.

Besides that, most of the players that made this jump weren't tip top players. Ken and KDJ jumped while PC Chris just stopped playing. I'm sure Mango and M2K far surpassing all of them was at least a factor with one of them not coming back. Even then, KDJ still showed up for some major tournaments. Other folks who left like Neo were never going to win anything, anyways.

M2K was king of both games for a while, whereas Mango entered GOAT mode for a good while. Also, top players like Silent Spectre and Shiz became top players, while players like HBox, PPMD, and Armada were on the rise, so inevitably the old guard was largely on its' way out. That is bound to happen, just like how Silent and Shiz aren't top players anymore while HBox, PPMD, and Armada are.

They let the community die... almost.

The community didn't "almost die". It took a hit with attendance a bit, but that didn't last generally speaking.

A few regions lost a big share of interest, but most of them were regions that by and large were not competing very well in competitive play and/or lacked any remotely top player. The American Midwest immediately comes to mind, and to a lesser extent, so does Canada and Japan. While there are a few great players from those regions in Melee, they are a handful together at best.

At the same time, the key region for Melee (SoCal) remained strong and produced a follow up GOAT to the Ken GOAT in ManGOAT. The tournament numbers there remained the same after 2008, and around 2010 actually grew.

However, that isn't the biggest thing Brawl's release took away from the Melee competitive community. The biggest thing Brawl did was take away Melee's momentum. It didn't make a HUGE drop in attendance, but it made Melee stop growing in numbers for a few years because there were people only willing to play Brawl.

As time went on, that became less and less of a factor. As I'm writing this, I don't think that Smash 4 will take a hit out of Melee. I think both will live alongside one another, with people willing to jump from one to the other.

Brawl showed up and did amazingly well. The community was exciting and new for a large base of players. It caught the Eye of MLG which hosted a bunch of regional tournaments. But as it grew older the community feel apart. There was a literal split about MK and tons of people left with that split. (may for MK and many against) You can trace the fall of brawl right to that vote. Just like with the melee/brawl split. People are STILL very passionate about it. The community didn't fail because of poor game design, it failed because the community couldn't get it together and as a whole sacrifice one way or the other. And that was just the main front. Without a ground or foundation no game's comunity will stand up.

The problem with the Brawl community isn't even the pro/anti Meta Knight ban, the small vs. big stage list, 1 stock vs. 2 stock vs. 3 stock, or any other sort of rule stuff.

The problem is the community has gigantic maturity issues. When players don't get things their way, they mope and cry. M2K cried whenever Meta Knight was banned. There's a reason the Melee community by and large ignores his pleas, because he's routinely had a negative impact on the competitive community. None of the TO's listen to him anymore because of all the crap he has caused.

Instead of just dealing with a Meta Knight ban in one tournament and explaining why there shouldn't be a ban without drama, M2K and his followers went on a huge crusade.

Instead of just dealing with Meta Knight a little longer, the pro-ban folks had a huge crusade. That crusade failed because they used the "Meta Knight always wins" argument that holds no ground instead of the "Meta Knight makes half the roster irrelevant" argument that holds plenty of ground.

Both sides pulled out the "if I don't have my way, I'll quit" card.

Instead of willing to comprise to try to find a way in which everyone is happy, these 2 groups had a keyboard war over it that ultimately destroyed any and all momentum the Brawl scene had at growing, and made several former top regions like NorCal just straight up lose interest.

It became to where it wasn't about the rules, it's about the egos and the pot hogging. That's why Brawl's competitive community has largely failed. They fought instead of compromised to try to find an optimal everything for everyone. They let their argumentative side and drama side (hence why "Brawl drama" is a thing, or as I call it, "All is Brawl") shine through instead of their sheer love and passion for the game.

Instead of not listening to great Brawl competitive community leaders like Toronto Joe they listened to cancers, and Brawl's competitive scene is getting buried by themselves for this.

This could have easily happened with Melee with Unknown running the Back Room. This is why each competitive community should choose its' leaders carefully, and always, always, ALWAYS let the love of the game come first, not the hate.

If instead of bickering the Brawl competitive community focused on growing, they'd have their version of VGBootCamp (not that VGBootCamp doesn't stream Brawl, Project M, and 64, because it does), they'd have more competitive community cohesiveness, and they'd listen to and be like Toronto Joe more, aka their Prog/D1.

(I feel like I just described freaking Congress and the problems with America's 2 major political parties right now, lol!)

Melee may be the most relevant smash game NOW, but it hasn't always been; Brawl beat it. Who's to say it always has to be from here on out?

I don't think we should worry about "which game is bigger competitively?"

We should worry about how healthy each game is as a form of competition, how good the competitive scene is, how well organized the competitive scenes are, how good are the leaders of each competitive scene, and how good the environment the competitive community is.

The Melee competitive community went through a lot of stuff due to immaturity, such as how long it took for the scene to stop using words that are supposed to insult gay individuals basically like the word "lame", the use of the word "****" as a way of saying "I owned you", getting over items in competitive play, getting cleaner commentators, finding better community leaders (D1 > Unknown, GimR > M2K), getting over using stages like Corneria and Princess Peach's Castle in majors, and making an environment at tournaments that is more accepting of females.

The Melee competitive community still struggles with these things and more, sure. But it's willing to grow, where a lot of the times the Brawl competitive community isn't. I hope for the Brawl competitive community that they learn to grow. I don't want to see people passionate about that game competitively see it by and large disappear from many majors like it has. That would absolutely suck.

Similarly, I hope the Smash 4 competitive scene has learned from all this. They should learn from other community's failures.

 

[SpeedBoost]

I don't recall that in my region, NorCal, given that Melee never stopped having entrants. I dual-entered both in 2008, as did quite a few people.

Granted that's the same region that hosted Genesis 1 and 2, but nonetheless it exists.

The CGC's in San Francisco I attended routinely had 50+ Melee entrants and 75+ Brawl entrants. SoCal better numbers for both game, and Florida's Melee and Brawl also did very well in that regard.

I dunno, maybe that's why those are the 3 strongest regions period. Melee never died there.

While Brawl essentially died in NorCal 2 years ago (when Sky left for SoCal), last I checked Brawl is still very strong in SoCal, while Melee is CRAZY HUGE there. Seriously, MacD hosted a event that was supposed to be small and for Melee they had nearly 200 entrants, while Project M had almost 100 entrants!

That is bound to happen with any community of any game.

I'm a fan of Street Fighter II and III, and many of those former top players have yet to return to those games after Street Fighter IV.

Besides that, most of the players that made this jump weren't tip top players. Ken and KDJ jumped while PC Chris just stopped playing. I'm sure Mango and M2K far surpassing all of them was at least a factor with one of them not coming back. Even then, KDJ still showed up for some major tournaments. Other folks who left like Neo were never going to win anything, anyways.

M2K was king of both games for a while, whereas Mango entered GOAT mode for a good while. Also, top players like Silent Spectre and Shiz became top players, while players like HBox, PPMD, and Armada were on the rise, so inevitably the old guard was largely on its' way out. That is bound to happen, just like how Silent and Shiz aren't top players anymore while HBox, PPMD, and Armada are.

The community didn't "almost die". It took a hit with attendance a bit, but that didn't last generally speaking.

A few regions lost a big share of interest, but most of them were regions that by and large were not competing very well in competitive play and/or lacked any remotely top player. The American Midwest immediately comes to mind, and to a lesser extent, so does Canada and Japan. While there are a few great players from those regions in Melee, they are a handful together at best.

At the same time, the key region for Melee (SoCal) remained strong and produced a follow up GOAT to the Ken GOAT in ManGOAT. The tournament numbers there remained the same after 2008, and around 2010 actually grew.

However, that isn't the biggest thing Brawl's release took away from the Melee competitive community. The biggest thing Brawl did was take away Melee's momentum. It didn't make a HUGE drop in attendance, but it made Melee stop growing in numbers for a few years because there were people only willing to play Brawl.

As time went on, that became less and less of a factor. As I'm writing this, I don't think that Smash 4 will take a hit out of Melee. I think both will live alongside one another, with people willing to jump from one to the other.
The problem with the Brawl community isn't even the pro/anti Meta Knight ban, the small vs. big stage list, 1 stock vs. 2 stock vs. 3 stock, or any other sort of rule stuff.

The problem is the community has gigantic maturity issues. When players don't get things their way, they mope and cry. M2K cried whenever Meta Knight was banned. There's a reason the Melee community by and large ignores his pleas, because he's routinely had a negative impact on the competitive community. None of the TO's listen to him anymore because of all the crap he has caused.

Instead of just dealing with a Meta Knight ban in one tournament and explaining why there shouldn't be a ban without drama, M2K and his followers went on a huge crusade.

Instead of just dealing with Meta Knight a little longer, the pro-ban folks had a huge crusade. That crusade failed because they used the "Meta Knight always wins" argument that holds no ground instead of the "Meta Knight makes half the roster irrelevant" argument that holds plenty of ground.

Both sides pulled out the "if I don't have my way, I'll quit" card.

Instead of willing to comprise to try to find a way in which everyone is happy, these 2 groups had a keyboard war over it that ultimately destroyed any and all momentum the Brawl scene had at growing, and made several former top regions like NorCal just straight up lose interest.

It became to where it wasn't about the rules, it's about the egos and the pot hogging. That's why Brawl's competitive community has largely failed. They fought instead of compromised to try to find an optimal everything for everyone. They let their argumentative side and drama side (hence why "Brawl drama" is a thing, or as I call it, "All is Brawl") shine through instead of their sheer love and passion for the game.

Instead of not listening to great Brawl competitive community leaders like Toronto Joe they listened to cancers, and Brawl's competitive scene is getting buried by themselves for this.

This could have easily happened with Melee with Unknown running the Back Room. This is why each competitive community should choose its' leaders carefully, and always, always, ALWAYS let the love of the game come first, not the hate.

If instead of bickering the Brawl competitive community focused on growing, they'd have their version of VGBootCamp (not that VGBootCamp doesn't stream Brawl, Project M, and 64, because it does), they'd have more competitive community cohesiveness, and they'd listen to and be like Toronto Joe more, aka their Prog/D1.

(I feel like I just described freaking Congress and the problems with America's 2 major political parties right now, lol!)

I don't think we should worry about "which game is bigger competitively?"

We should worry about how healthy each game is as a form of competition, how good the competitive scene is, how well organized the competitive scenes are, how good are the leaders of each competitive scene, and how good the environment the competitive community is.

The Melee competitive community went through a lot of stuff due to immaturity, such as how long it took for the scene to stop using words that are supposed to insult gay individuals basically like the word "lame", the use of the word "****" as a way of saying "I owned you", getting over items in competitive play, getting cleaner commentators, finding better community leaders (D1 > Unknown, GimR > M2K), getting over using stages like Corneria and Princess Peach's Castle in majors, and making an environment at tournaments that is more accepting of females.

The Melee competitive community still struggles with these things and more, sure. But it's willing to grow, where a lot of the times the Brawl competitive community isn't. I hope for the Brawl competitive community that they learn to grow. I don't want to see people passionate about that game competitively see it by and large disappear from many majors like it has. That would absolutely suck.

Similarly, I hope the Smash 4 competitive scene has learned from all this. They should learn from other community's failures.

If D1 saw this post he would disagree with it a lot. Smash is Smash, no matter Melee, Brawl or 64 we are ONE community it is not Brawl community, it's not Melee community. It's one community and the faster people understand that the better.

 

[Johnknight1]

If D1 saw this post he would disagree with it a lot. Smash is Smash, no matter Melee, Brawl or 64 we are ONE community it is not Brawl community, it's not Melee community. It's one community and the faster people understand that the better.

No he wouldn't.

"Smash is Smash", sure. But nothing I said stated otherwise. It's called "micro vs. macro" management.

I'm talking on a micro, game-by-game basis, not a macro overall picture basis.

Just because I say for instance Sheik has a bad down air doesn't mean every character in Brawl has a bad down air.

If you actually read my post instead of merely trying to get people to click "like" on your post you would understand that is what I'm communicating.

===

I don't play Brawl or 64 competitively (wish I played 64 more so that I could; someday I might return to Brawl competitively), but I want both those scenes to grow. I've been open about that since 2010.

There's countless people in Brawl scene I respect. Out of the 200 or so people I met while I was a competitive Brawl player I met 1 person I didn't like (and to be fair, no one liked them). I want nothing more than to see them succeed because I appreciate them.

Each smash game's competitive scene is made healthier by the other smash game's competitive scenes being healthy.

By breaking down what's "good" and what's "bad", we can analyze what we can improve, where we can improve, how we can improve, why we can improve, and where we can improve.

The point of specific criticism is to point where obvious growth can be made.

After all if you aren't constructively critical of something, how can you make it better=???

If I wasn't critical of myself for getting problems wrong on my homework to where I learned from it, how would I get it right on exams=???

If someone wasn't critical of how inefficient light bulbs were with their high usage of energy, we wouldn't have have energy efficient light bulbs.

If that makes you "cringe", then you got issues.

 

[<π]

@ Johnknight1 I definitely agree it isn't important in the grand picture. Melee took a significant hit, but it didn't stop the community from bouncing back and the brawl community prospered with tons of negativity from the melee scene. I brought those points up to give meaningful examples of how a community really shapes itself.I was just trying to use facts we could relate to as smashers to illustrate my point.
(I was working on an article for my blog/the boards last night and was looking at a lot of northeast tournements, I spent about a year playing up there so I think I was a little scewed. I pstarted compedetive melee in FL and returned to play brawl there as well Long live Florida)

@ Speedboost (awesome name btw) We are communities within a community. There are very clear rifts but I would love for those to eventually be tied together.

 

[pizzapie7]

Melee on Virtual Console would fix the input problem pretty fast.

Oh right the whole Melee has different version in Europe and the US issue...whoops.

Combine the changes in PAL and later NTSC versions along with some new tweaks and give it online play and release it as a new remastered edition. That'd work, I think.

@ SpeedBoost I don't think we're ever going to achieve being one community. Too much hate over stupid **** and too much thinking you're a better person because of the Smash game you play. There are very clear lines that are drawn.

 

[Johnknight1]

@ Johnknight1 I definitely agree it isn't important in the grand picture. Melee took a significant hit, but it didn't stop the community from bouncing back and the brawl community prospered with tons of negativity from the melee scene. I brought those points up to give meaningful examples of how a community really shapes itself.I was just trying to use facts we could relate to as smashers to illustrate my point.
(I was working on an article for my blog/the boards last night and was looking at a lot of northeast tournements, I spent about a year playing up there so I think I was a little scewed. I pstarted compedetive melee in FL and returned to play brawl there as well Long live Florida)

BTW, Florida's Brawl scene is doing strong, right=???

I thought it was weird Brawl wasn't at CEO while Melee and Project M were.

Also, off-topic, but one macro thing that annoys me is the lack of tournaments that host Melee and Project M but don't have room for Brawl. Like WTF=??? I get that some regions don't have scene, but I wish that there'd be more inclusion there from the Melee/Project M competitive community, and I wish the Brawl competitive community would push for that more.

Then again, this is worst in the Midwest where at least one Brawl TO refused to ever host Melee because he felt it was "a vastly inferior game". He'd have freaking PlayStation All-Stars over Melee, lol.

That sucks for the Midwest smashers who were opposed to that, because some people would associate with them with that guy, sadly. I forget his name sadly though. :/

 

[κomıc]

I'm sorry, but being a great game is why people keep coming back to it. Some people quit the game for the new one because they "wanted something new", and quite frankly look how that turned out.

It had nothing to do with nostalgia. The mechanics are great, which is why the community is great.

You keep saying "unpolished and clunky" inferring the controls, yet anyone who actually practices the movement can play it without struggling against the controller unless you're trying to be crazy technical like Hax or Westballz or SFAT or Mango.

How do you fight the controls=??? There's fast fallers and floaties. If you can't keep up with the fast fallers, play floaty characters.

The controls take a while to learn yes, but like driving, once you learn how to get the technical gist of how to move down, it's muscle memory forever.

The only time you have to "fight the controls" is at a competitive level once you get "the full feel" of a character. And even then it's just mostly fast fallers.

So are Street Fighter II's animations. It's still easy as heck to recognize which attack is which.

If you don't know which attack is which, that's your fault, because it is clear which attack is which.

If we're talking "muh graphics", sorry, this is Nintendo, the company that produces the worst graphics on consoles.

How the hell is a game that produces so many epic moments, is so properly balanced, is so fun to play, has incredible depth technically, strategically, and produces epic offense and defensive a game you say "isn't a game that deserves the praise it gets"=???

"Clunky" is subjective as crap. "Muh animations" isn't an argument, it's a fallacy. Street Fighter II doesn't have the best animations, but it still gets the job done. It's easy to tell which attack is which if you actually play the game.

The controls are very similar to the ones as Super Mario Bros. 3, the best Mario game ever made. It's fast paced, sure, but the problem isn't that. It's that you're too busy making Johns to get over it.

So if you don't want "clunky" or whatever you call it, why do you still prefer Brawl=???

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is less "clunky", because it's controls are "smoother".

I just don't see how just because you don't like the "flow of movement" suddenly Melee doesn't deserve praise. Dude, get over yourself.

I actually have tried comparisons with children multiple times, and all the times they prefer Melee because it's speed compliments the game more, there is more movement options, and the game is built for "more action" (their words, not mine, and it's damn true words because Brawl lacks ACTION).

Just because you can't get back into it without practice doesn't make it "feel worse". You say that because you are used to the controls of another entirely different game that plays and moves and feels entirely differently.

Melee and Brawl physics-wise is like the jump from Super Mario Bros. 3 to NEW Super Mario Bros.

Just because you have troubles with the jump doesn't mean the other one automatically sucks.

Then PRACTICE to get used to Melee. Stop playing Melee like it's Brawl. That's why you are having troubles jumping back.

Unless you're talking about turnaround edge grabbing (which is essentially "easy mode", which I actually support), there is nothing superior about Brawl's ledge mechanics.

The tether grab system and the ledge "leaping" physics in Brawl is trash, simply put. Top Brawl players admit this. Also, don't even get me started on how utterly insanely broken Brawl's ability to edge stall and do things like "planking" is.

But alas, I don't want to talk with someone who uses "clunky" to say "hey, I don't like the flow of movement because I can't re-learn it."

I apologize. I'm not looking at Melee from the competitive bubble. That's not how you're supposed to look at things. We're clearly on two different pages.

Again, I'm not going to practice Melee because I think the controls are horrible compared to its successor. And when I saw "fighting with controls", I mean that I don't feel like I have the same control that I do in Brawl or even Project M.

And you saying the roster is the most balanced is laughable.

 

[Johnknight1]

And you saying the roster is the most balanced is laughable.

How is me saying Melee is more balanced than Brawl or 64 more laughable=???

It is more balanced than those games.

Maybe if you actually played it or watched it you'd know that instead of rely on absolutely no logic as "proof" you are right.