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I decided to make posts angry by asking the wrong question; Is Melee or Brawl better? C'mon, put 'em up! Seriously, I know everybody is divided over this one, I'm so far on the Melee bank it's disgusting. I won't play Brawl. I consider it a broken game for broken Melee players that were sick of getting beat. I play Falco like you wish you could. Pillaring, SHFFLing, wave dashing, nasty SHFF lasering, wall teching, multi-shine your face Falco. I can't understand if you are good how can you defend Brawl it's such a flawed game. I stuck my buddy in a corner and repeated one move over and over (which he couldn't do anything but get hit) until I knocked him up and out. Never played it again.

[EDIT] I guarantee all you brawl fans sucked at SSBM. (I'm kidding! Kidding!) Why so angry? Falco wasn't the only good character at all (I've known Sheiks, Marths, Captain Falcons, Jiggly Puffs, Foxes, Dr. Marios, Peaches, even Luigis that were awesome players. There was just so much more depth to each character. My biggest argument is still that SSBB doesn't have a fast-paced technical aspect that made Melee so different. It's like a Smash-Party game, instead of what it was. And YES, Brawl gameplay is more flawed because no matter how good you were in Melee, you couldn't stick somebody in a corner and hit them with one move until they died. (and hey, if you can tech and wavedash and such, it's not "broken," they didn't program per se wavedashing, but found it before releasing it, it was not an "mistake," they kept it in on purpose.) They screwed up the delicate balance in Brawl, and opted to appeal to a broader fan base by plateauing all characters speed, weight, etc. (and chain grabbing is still in Brawl). I knew this poll would get nasty quick. This is just how I feel, don't take it personally. Your opinions are equally valid, even if we don't agree

Oh, and Caesar; there are some Brawl combo vids out there some of the Pros from Melee have been posting them. Granted, not very many, because it's not the kind of game that you can dominate like SSBM.

I miss the competitiveness of Melee really. We have a great community, too-- we are nasty trash talking jerks.

This post has been edited by Calculate_Death on 1st June 2008 21:51

This is a debate I hate. They are so different that it's really hard to compare the two. I'll do my best. I like both games a lot, but each one definitely has its strengths and weaknesses.

Melee defines the word broken. Fox and Falco were absolutely broken in every aspect, and the only way to get around them is by applying chain grabs, an equally broken technique. They had the fastest attack in the game that can be used to combo, break shields, or spike. Plus they both had reliable vertical kill moves and horizontal kill moves. And oh yea, they're really fast and generally lagless so good luck punishing them. Looking back at it, Melee was kind of dull. I mean, the hit stun on most attacks was severe enough that any character could combo everyone else 0->death without much problem. Even with proper DI, anybody capable of independent thought could just adjust and continue with different moves. Luckily, that isn't usually the case, as most Melee players just mimicked what they saw in combo videos and didn't know anything else.

Melee was distinct tiers of characters that limited the amount of practical characters that could be used in tournies. I was a Bowser main so I know how bad most of the characters were gimped. Competitive play was limited to like 6 or 7 characters and everyone else was just useless unless you had something remarkable and unique to contribute. For example, my godly powershielding skills made my Bowser and Mario more usable, but I could still get gimped REALLY easily.

Brawl, on the other hand, is very balanced. Almost every character is usable at any level of competitive play. I main DK who has never even seen top tier from where he is, yet I can demolish mostly anybody I play. I have trouble with campers, but that is a flaw with me and not the game. I get bored of fighting people who don't fight back. I still stick to my claim that every character is generally equal. And yes, that means you, Falcon.

Everybody has a problem with Brawl, though, because it "lacks depth" because its physics aren't as exploitable as Melee's and there aren't any usable glitches yet (aside from the Snake dash and some other trivial ones). Since wavedashing is gone, everyone claims that approaching is gone, even people who never used wavedashing in Melee. Nobody tries to fight anymore because they don't know how; mostly, I theorize, because there aren't any published combo videos. Nobody has creativity to combo and there aren't videos out, so combos must not exist. The truth is, comboing is even easier and more fun in Brawl than it was in Melee. That's because combos are dynamic in Brawl. In Melee, once you hit someone in the air, you let muscle memory take over and finish the combo. It's the same every time. Even with DI, it's still the same. In Brawl, hit stun is less severe and the degeneration of the attacks' knockback reduces the repeatability of most combos. With quick thinking, though, it is still very easy to juggle an opponent to death. I can 0-> death combo with DK, Diddy, Falcon, and Mario without any problems usually. Yet "combos don't exist".

I do miss all the advanced techs from Melee, since I have a ton of technical skill, and powershielding made it easier for me to pull them all of reliably, but I think Brawl is more fair in general. I struggle more in Brawl because camping is more evident, but again, that's just my personal flaw. The biggest problems I have with Brawl is how easy they made powershielding and how ineffective it is. As I said many times before, that was my strength in Melee, and because it was so hard to do reliably nobody could copy me. Now everybody can powershield in Brawl without even thinking about it, but it's less effective. So here I am, powershielding away but gaining nothing from it. I still think, though, that all the positives of Brawl outweigh this minor setback that affects just me.

As for saying Brawl is a "broken game for broken Melee players that were sick of getting beat," I disagree completely. Melee had no balanced aspects at all, since an amateur Fox could whomp a pro Bowser without much problem. And I'm not sure what you mean when you say that Brawl is a flawed game. I take it from your post that you are just another inexperienced player who can't think on his feet because he's so used to abusing broken tactics in Melee. Falco takes no skill to use in Melee because of how broken the lasers and shine were and how easy it was to use them. Now that you have to think to combo effectively or win in Brawl, you are probably just upset. That's fine, but that's not a flaw in Brawl.

Anyways, I like both games equally, so I null voted. I like the challenge of winning with Bowser or Mario in Melee, but I like the balance of Brawl. They are both good games for sure.

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Is PJ

i like brawl more but not enough to save it from being the same old game.

I've only played the original and Melee, so I can't really say

I actually didn't think Melee was very good at all. It was glitchy, heavily tiered, full of cop-out cloned characters, unimpressive visually, and has an awful community. I like Brawl a great deal better because it levels the playing field with additional balance, has excellent production values, and way more extras than necessary. Brawl is a better game, and Melee players whining about Melee really ought to shut up about it - Bawl is not trying to be Super Melee 2 Turbo, it's trying to be Brawl.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Caes and Lasz, you guys put up the great point: They are different. The games are always evolving between incarnations, and brawl is the most recent final result. Even though they're from the same series, and they play similaraly. It's like trying to compare Ocarina of Time to Twilight Princess: you can do it, TP is "upgraded" so to speak, but the argument will never end.

So here's my $0.02

If you wanted a fair representation, you should have put SSB up with SSBM and SSBB. Because if anything is worlds different between Melee and Brawl, there's galaxies different between the original and Melee.

With Melee, they went for such highly exploitable concepts that is was less about playing with a character you like, and playing with or against Falco. It became stupid in that sense, because it means that there is an obvious programming issue when things are so unbalanced in a game.

Brawl, on the other hand, was the learning from the mistake, and as to not deviate it too much from what it had been, they made some massive changes. The biggest of these, I think is the inclusion of Snake. No other fighter has been so dependent on the use of delayed timing abilities (with the exception of Samus' Charge Beam and DK's Charge Punch. Snakes whole fighting concept is not about stepping up and throwing down (although it can be also), but it's more about doing something, and stepping away and awaiting the result. That would never work in the Melee world of Falcos!

But I digress, the important point here, is that they took the sploits away, and the people who couldn't learn to play a game on a level playing field cry about it still. That's one hell of a tactics change from Powershielding, flashing, and generally being everywhere at once, to punch... punch... punch... You can beat lots of fighting games with the most rudimentary tactics, the talent is to fully utilize a character.

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If internal struggles were as enjoyable and glamorous as the self conflicted wars within video game characters, we would all be statues, reveling in perpetual self war. -Me

Play me on Rock Band 2, GH-WT, or any other Xbox GH!
Xbox Gamertag-MeanJerry

I like them both and still play them when I have time.

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"You know that feeling you get when you're on a merry go 'round, and you want to jump off to make the spinning stop, but you know it'll suck when you land? I feel like that all the time"- Keno

"I stab my girl until I fall down"
-Yukari
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