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The Real Gamer
: If you're not going to touch this with a 10 foot pole, I'll touch it with mine.
I understand that some people here have been rude to you D-idara, and I can understand the acerbic tone of your response...but some some of your other posts are needlessly inflammatory and riddled with holes. I agree that in the end, Smash is about the franchise (heck, even a lot of traditional fighters are like that), but that doesn't mean it has to be ridiculously simple the way you make it out to be. Rather, if Smash is a "marvelous celebration of everything Nintendo," isn't it even better if it is given more depth and complexity? It makes it a more memorable game, befitting of all the memories it will evoke for followers of the various franchises.
I have been a casual Melee player for that past 10+ years of my life. I only found out about the competitive side of smash about a year ago (I didn't even know what l cancelling was...or that shines even did damage lol). But even before that, when I still played with items with friends on stages like pokefloats in melee or New Pork City in brawl, I always thought that melee was much more intuitive and enjoyable than brawl. This is just personal taste (in this example at least), but it goes to show that you don't need to be one of the tech skill fanatics to enjoy one game over another. Melee also had plenty of fanservice; do you think Fire Emblem would ever have gained the popularity overseas if it weren't for melee? I for one was converted almost immediately (my elementary school mind was blown so hard when I found out Roy was Eliwood's son...and then I was confused because he wasn't using Durandal, but that's a story for elsewhere).
Now for the more technical arguments...
Intuition. You bring it up in a lot of your posts, so I feel compelled to mention that how intuitive something feels will depend primarily on how well you familiarize yourself with the game. So you say that you haven't invested time in smash to learn techniques or become better? That's perfectly fine. Of course things will feel unintuitive. But you know, I've never taken the time to learn CoD properly, so it feels unintuitive to me (most fps games feel unintuitive to me for that matter...I have terrible coordination with aiming lol). Just like you don't like taking the time to learn commands in fighting games, I don't take the time to learn FPS's. And for that reason, executing corner pressure with F Aoko or doing troll superarmor counters with F Warc in MBAACC will feel much more intuitive to me than a headshot in CoD ever will. But that doesn't mean I bash the game like you're doing. I would also argue that not all fighters have insane finger twitching requirements. If you look at SSF4 AE, things are much more based on outhinking the opponent and having proper reactions, as opposed to a game like UMvC3, such that consistency with what inputs you do press are what matters (insane combos seem to be based more on reading the opponent and /or baiting them to leave them vulnerable after an initial short string of hits). And that consistency is something that parallels with competition in all fields, not just games. If you mess up DP's, you're not going to be a top player (shoutouts to Daigo's psychic DPs lol). If you mess up which blood vessel to reroute or tie off during a surgery, you have a dead patient, and you won't be a good surgeon. If you mess up which button does what in an airplane, you won't be a good pilot, but rather a dead pilot (and airplanes have a looooot of buttons).
I would also add that if you think about things, the mechanics you mention for Melee actually feel more intuitive than Brawl. Have you ever tried jumping and grabbing the ledge of a playground while facing the opposite direction? It's kinda hard. Having to face the ledge to grab it never seemed that hard to grasp to me. As a casual player, brawl actually frustrated me more because...people...just...wouldn't...die...because they would come back from all sort of crazy angles. Wavedashing might seem unintuitive at first, but it's actually logical in a way because it can serve as a swift dash/backdash. Moving backwards on the ground without changing the direction you're facing is not a strange concept in either games nor real life (boxing might look kind of stupid then). Brawl techniques are also just as exploit happy as Melee ones. Having Snake slide across FD while holding a bazooka feels a helluva lot more unnatural than a cute little backwards slide in my opinion (ok, luigi's wavedash is dumb, but he's a janky character in general, nothing too out of the ordinary...). Airdodging to slow momentum? That's also intuitive. It's cute how MetaKnight is surviving my Ike's forward smash cuz of that. Exploits are natural. It's just a question of how dumb they are. You evidently don't consider Brawl exploits to be as dumb. Others might (like me).
Also, the problem of excessive "finger twitching" should never stop people from entering tournaments and placing well in them. I mean...look at HungryBox. Do you see him spazzing out with his controller like Dr. PeePee? No. Does he wreck ****? Heck yea. He just plays hella smart (yes some technical skill is involved, but...he plays more with his head). In fact, I would argue that commands in melee don't tend to be complicated at all for many characters (spacies being a notable example...but I like Marth, so screw that). On that note...if you're invested enough in a game to bother playing it competitively, I don't see why you wouldn't think finger twitching is acceptable. Quickness, accuracy, and consistency with inputs is something that comes with practice and hard work. The same can be said for mindgames and strategy. Dr. PeePee is emblematic of the competitive scene in this regard. He has amazing tech skill, and he also takes physical notes on other players. I never root for him in tournament because his Falco is hella smart and annoying, no one can begrudge him the respect he deserves for his hard work. And what happened? He won Apex 2014. He won through hard work and dedication. Is that not the point of competition? To see who worked harder to become a better player? In the end, complaints of input barriers are nothing more than the complaints of those who are too lazy to learn them. And it's fine to be like that, if you don't want to be a competitive player (or in this case, don't want to play fox or falco). Does that mean you should **** on those who do? I personally don't think so; rather, such actions seem to be rude to those who have dedicated more time to a game. Even some of the plaformers you likely enjoy will have some crazy finger twitching at competitive levels (by that I mean speedrunning). I mean, look at Trihex lol. As for inescapable combos...well, on neutral stages you only really have that problem on pokemon stadium, if you get shine or rapid jab locked against a tree or some ****. That and the ice climber chain grab and chain throws. But Brawl has chain throws too, as well as a buffed ice climber grab game, so it kind of evens out. Especially when you consider that Melee has lots of combos whereas it seems that Brawl focuses on random potshots and stray hits.
Of course, the standard reply in response to all of this is that Smash Bros was not intended to be a competitive game (I'm sure Sakurai thinks that 20XX fox is an abomination). So why even bother with all these arguments? It's a party game, so what does it even matter? Well, I admit there is no hard counter to this argument. However, I will say that Melee, with all of its little quirks and gimmicks, allow for a wider range of styles, a greater fanbase to suite greater styles. Just because it can be played competitively to such an extent doesn't mean you can't play it like a party game. I mean, all you really need to do is turn on items, then go to Rainbow Cruise or Hyrule. Then, advanced techniques are a lot less useful, and the technical skill gap is much reduced. Meanwhile, Brawl is either a party game or a boring party game. Isn't it better to have a wide range of options for playstyle like in melee, such that you can have so many varied style of play in the compatetive scene while still being able to feel like a party game as opposed to maintaining an slow, campy style for everything like in Brawl? I see no reason why an audience of people should be alienated simply by removing so many options from a game, if the goal is to have as many people enjoy the game as possible.
You are right in that Melee wasn't perfect; Brawl had many new features that showed how the series could be improved and expanded upon. The character selection was wider, the SSE was very good (albeit limited to a one time run for most people, I don't think many would have the patience to run it more than that), the variety of stages was excellent for casual goofy play, the music was leagues better, and the stage builder option offered a level of creativity and personalization that I still think is amazing. But at the same time, it showed us what features of Melee made it so much more exciting to play and watch at competitive levels. And while Brawl seems to be stuck in terms of the progression of competitive play, Melee continues to evolve with every passing day.
Let's hope that Smash 4 will be something that's a
proper amalgation of the past games, combining the best of all parties.
...Let's also hope that they pick a decent Fire Emblem character alongside Marth. My hopes are on Lucina or Avatar (now that would be interesting).
I just don't like learning commands for fighting games, but give me complex commands for any other kind of game and I'm good, little idiot...platformers, FPSes, etc. Although I might be exaggerating how hard it is in Melee to actually grab the edges, it did feel very unfair at times and the fact that you could just grab the ledge while not facing it in Brawl made it so much more intuitive, which is what every damn fighting game besides Mortal Kombat 9 lacks (Being intuitive and not making the player fight with the controls before actually fighting). I could be good at Smash if I even cared about being good at Smash, I'm good at Pokemon, Mario, Rayman, Sonic, CoD, etc. because it is within my interests to practice those games' deeper mechanics, but for me Smash is too much of a marvelous celebration of everything Nintendo to overcomplicate it.
