I had a weekend where I finally got to play Brawl+, and if I could, I would never play regular brawl again. We had the standard Brawl+ codes in, and it was such an upgrade from regular brawl. Oh yeah, Zelda is an absolute Beast, and I will tell you why:
She has 0-50 and 0-60 combos on almost the entire cast. It was my first time playing, and these came naturally. An example of one would be:
F-Smash -> Dash Attack -> Hyphen U-Smash -> LK
I did these types of combos and slight variations consistently on most of the cast. Here is the best part of this --- NO DECAY ON MOVES! Her U-Smash is just as powerful the first time you use it as the last time. She kills so early, and with her comboing ability, some characters are in kill range after just 4 moves.
The whole game got quicker and hit stun was included. This means I could throw into combos. I was able to pull off U-Throw to U-Air in mid-percents, but I was still working on trying to combo other throws. Because she is quicker and the hit stun, she is able to follow up moves like Dins with U-airs or LK's and there is nothing the opponent can do about it.
There is no buffer system, but it did not really hamper my game plan. Her dtilt still trips like crazy, but it will cause opponents to pop up much sooner. The good thing is that leads to a "fresh" U-Smash or LK every time. I was even able to hit them when they popped up with another dtilt and spike them to the ground and pop them up again.
Dins got a lot better thanks to shield stun being a part of the game and the buffer system being taken out. It is harder to avoid, but when it is, it hits the shield and doesn't allow for much punishment from the opposition.
There is automatic L-Canceling which means no lag when you land while performing an aerial. This is very important for all those LK's you will be throwing.
More good news, Snake sucks. I wrecked my friend's Snake (not his main, but he has a decent one) where in normal Brawl it would be usually in his favor but down to last hit. He can't pull grenades to stop my combos, and he can't C4 to save himself off the ledge so he is gimped much easier.
DDD's chaingrab is non-existent on the cast, and he has to rely on his other arsenal. This was never a problem for Zeldas, but he can't shield camp either due to shield stun. DDD will be forced to B-Air camp and rely on U-tilt kills, but this can be handled by Zelda.
Overall, I will probably still attend normal Brawl tournaments, but I am hoping Brawl+ starts to take over our region. It just got introduced this weekend at a tournament, and I could see it start to gain popularity with the group of people that I know go to tournaments. It may not replace Brawl, but it could force itself as another part of the regular tournament scene.
Either way, I will be practicing almost exclusively on Brawl+. I have never had more fun playing this game than what I was playing this weekend.
Here's the moral of the story: Get Brawl+ onto your Wii's and share it with the masses!
