Super Smash Bros: Brawl

anyone really had much of a chance to play sonic? i got to a little at a gamestop. i'd have been able to mop the floor with almost any one i've played in melee with him, but that's not necessarily saying that much. just wanted opinions on him.

take him over mario any day of the week though.

:snoopy

 

Never being used figuratively in this context, Brennan. Still, you really aren't EVER going to see a button masher defeat a competitive player. Yes, the button masher has a chance at beating him (an incredibly small chance), though it wouldn't happen unless the competitive player made an enormous amount of crucial mistakes (like SDing off all of his lives) which doesn't happen very often.

If he makes a mistake in spacing or timing, the button masher can't capitalize on it to the fullest extent. If he trips, if he accidentally jumps off the edge, if he chooses a wrong attack, hits a wrong button, the button masher won't be able to capitalize on the mistake. On the other hand, the competitive player will more times than not be able to almost fully capitalize on almost all of the button masher's mistakes, and he'll be making a lot of them seeing as he's mashing buttons. I mean, there's really only one scenario in which the button masher can win. Yes, this isn't a set-in-stone system, but the skill gap in this case is so large it might as well be.

Eh, I'm inclined to ignore you completely after that last sentence, though I guess I could give you a few quick thoughts.

Alright, to be frank, Sonic's horrible. His KO potential is nonexistant as well as his priority, his combo potential isn't great, he's laggy, his attacks don't do a whole lot of damage overall, he has very little range, and he's fairly easily comboed himself. His recovery's decent, though he really doesn't have much of an offensive game if at all. He's fast, and that's about it. He's essentially the new Pichu, but I guess it's symbolic of his recent games, huh?

 

I wouldn't go so far to call Sonic the new Pichu. At least his attacks don't do damage to himself.

 

I don't know, at least Pichu could rack up damage half-decently and KO fairly well. He had better range than Sonic too. Still, calling Sonic the new Pichu is a slight exaggeration I'll admit. He is pretty bad though.

 

what part of "played a little at gamestop" did you not get? i didn't like mario very much, but i've not had the opportunity to really learn much about the changes they made.

and i've seen some videos that have sonic wracking up damage pretty durned fast. and beating the snot out of mario, and both looked to know what they were doing pretty well.

EDIT

i've seen maybe one or two vids with mario winning that battle. also in most of them sonic seems to take a good 40% more damage to KO.

:snoopy

 

Wow, calm down, it was a joke (I'm assuming your hostility is in response to the first sentence, right). Anyway, essentially you've asked about Sonic's potential, which is very, very low relative to the other characters, and very little is going to change that. Just because you've seen him rack up damage fairly well on one or two occasions doesn't have anything to do with the character itself, but the player controlling him. In the right hands any character can defeat another, in the right hands any character can KO well, etc, though it is very difficult to rack up damage and KO with Sonic; overall his attacks don't do much damage, they're laggy, and weak. He also can't combo very well, probably due to his nonexistant priority and overall laginess. He's just a bad character; he has very little offensive game.

 

Yes you are correct to assume free for alls. The youtube link provided a splendid example. Tournament rules that call for the most fair matches are wonderful. However, there is the occasional oddity of a button

 

Oh, that was a joke, as was implied by the little emoticon/smiley that succeeded that little comment. Smash is my personal favorite game, so I'm definately biased when it comes to critiquing/rating/comparing it in relation to other games.

 

Too bad you can't save unlocking matches, because I would have saved my first attempt at getting Wolf (with Sonic, I must add). First of all, that was the first time playing with Sonic (and it wasn't even playing, meaning stamina mode with 1 hp for the CP and flowers) so I SDed in 4 seconds.

I can't stand Sonic either, though I can't really say why other than he's too wild for me. I should give him another chance, but why suffer more?

 

Eh, he's Sega. Don't bother.

 

I don't hear you say the same for Snake, though.

 

hello... thanks for the quick reply and explanation. i have to remember that the tongue emoticon = joke. so is brawl just your favorite fighter or your favorite game of all time?

well i'm not saying it's a bad game... i just believe it's overrated. my #1 gripe is the button mashing fiasco. my next reason... i don't think that brawl improved enough upon melee. guess i expected a huge improvement that would really separate the games. instead it feels like they just repackaged melee... way too similar. what are your thoughts? i'm sure you can list 100 improvements easily but i don't think it would make me feel very different. my warped mind thinks of brawl as just 'melee: special edition'... perhaps u shall enlighten me... my opinion just might be swayed. paramunn has made some good points.

anyway, is it true that sonic has no potential whatsoever?

 

Improvements?

Za Warudo
ZSS
Ridley
Lyn
SNAKE
Za Warudo
LANDMASTERZ
Online(lolag)
No more Wavedashing and other glitches(loladvancedtechniquez)
KING DUCK
Gardevoir
BEST SOUNDTRACK EVER

Bad things?

Sakurai trolling us with the DOJO
Lousy level creator (and bawwwing fans who couldn't make a straight line with it)
SSE next to last cutscene. Seriously, how random is THAT?
BUILT FOR SIXTY PLAYERS(new pork city)

Of course, these are just my opinions and are heavily steeped in sarcasm. So, take them for the most perfect facts that they are.

 

I bet the majority of "purists" out there, meaning Melee freaks, have problems with the game physics in comparison with that of Melee. That, and the absence of wave-crap and other retarded things.

Me personally? I'm disappointed with the limitations of the stage builder, and I'm not crazy about some of the levels (New Pork City, Hanenbow, etc.). Also, some of the characters were made worse in Brawl than in previous installments (Link, Samus, CF) and I didn't like some of the replacement characters (Ike for Roy, etc.)

But those are just small gripes I have about Brawl; overall, I'm very pleased with the game.

 

I despise New Pork City. It's just way way waaaaaay to big. I've been playing though Classic mode, to unlock all the character trophies, and every time I see Team Ness or Team Lucas I die a little inside knowing that I'll have to run around that level chasing them down.

 

Either Brawl or Melee (favorite game, that is). Right now I like Melee's gameplay a whole lot more than Brawl's; and gameplay makes up the core of every game. Melee's gameplay was a lot faster-paced and the advanced techniques added tremendous depth to the game. The skill gap amongst higher level players in Melee was a lot larger too; in Brawl there's not a whole lot separating a skilled competitive (bolded to avoid any misunderstandings) player from a decent one. This is probably only because the game's relatively new, though that fact still bothers me. Brawl has so much more content/replay value though, so I'm not sure which one I like more right now. Brawl will most likely eventually become my favorite of the two (as a skill gap becomes apparent and more advanced techs are discovered), though right now I can't really decide between the two.

Anyway, I like Smash in general because it's arguably the most unique fighter on the market, the games have some of the most replay value you'll find in a fighting game, the sheer number of options in-game, the dozens of game modes offered (most of them well-refined), and its generally phenomenal gameplay (even Brawl's gameplay is phenomenal; I just like Melee's more right now).

When I say that Smash is unique, I mean that it's one of the few fighters left that not health-centered, and it's a 2D fighter wih only two attack buttons, though a ton of depth (especially Melee). You are also given more mobility than most fighters, and it's less of a button-masher than games like SC or MK.

Then you have the option to play several different ways. You're given one of the largest character rosters in fighting games, one of the largest selection of stages, and one of the largest selection of fighting options. You can play stock, time, or coin matches, with or without items, with or without a time limit, one vs one, two vs two, FFAs, and even 1 vs 3 if you want.

The game modes as well are almost endless. You have of course, the standard multiplayer, though then you have a few options for single player (SSE/Adventure Mode/Classic/All-Star), event matches, a handful of fun stadium events, and in this installment, a stage editor, online mode, and coin launcher (all of which are enjoyable, though the lag on the online right now is hard to get past; it should clear up though).

Plus, I grew up on Mario for the NES/SNES (Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World, Mario Kart, and SMRPG), Kirby on both the GameBoy and the SNES, and Pokemon (R/B/Y) for GameBoy as well. Ocarina of Time was one of my favorite games for the N64 along with DK64, Kirby: Crystal Shards, StarFox 64, Paper Mario, Mario Kart, and Mario 64. I've just about enjoyed every Mario, Kirby, Pokemon, and LoZ since. I got into Metroid, Fire Emblem, and F-Zero on the GCN, and I loved Pikmin when I first played it too. I've followed each of these franchises up to the Wii, and like I said I've enjoyed almost every installment of every franchise that I've played thus far. So to see all of my favorite childhood/present video game characters in one, very well-made fighter is amazing in itself.

And I think it's a bit underrated, probably because very few people appreciate it to the extent that I do.

Well, whether or not Brawl improved on Melee is a matter of opinion, though the two games aren't at all similar. In a general sense they're similar, t

 

But, in all seriousness, at least wavedashing was a glitch. Why else would it've been taken out if it wasn't? Oh, and the thought to be advanced technique(s) found at E for All that were suddenly absent from the final game? Glitches. I won't discount that there are some advanced techniques, but I get tired of the hardcore tourney scene trying to say that exploiting glitches makes them elite.

But like I said, when I talk about tourney**** I only mean the most hardcore of players and, again, what I say is steeped in heavy sarcasm.

 

I'm going to have to apologize in advance if my tone comes off as hostile in any way. This subject is somewhat of a touchy one with me, because I've had this debate before with more ignorant, more arrogant casual players than you.

Nope, at the very, very most it was used in unintended ways/an exploit. The sliding animation that ensues after you air-dodge into a flat/slanted surface was almost certainly intended; it even had a programming name. It was called "wave land special" by the designers; it's all in the debug menu.

That logic fails and we both know it. In that case it seems Mewtwo's inclusion in Melee was unintended as well then? There were several aspects of gameplay that were removed in the Melee/Brawl transition, and Sakurai even stated himself why wavedashing and other advanced techs were removed in the Iwata Asks article, and it was because he wanted to "close the gap" between casual and competitive players, which in my opinion was a mistake. It's not going to happen by removing a few techniques and slowing down gameplay, and overall the move only hurt Brawl as a whole by making it more of a shallow fighter.

It doesn't matter. Even if they were glitches (which again, isn't proven by their absence), to label all glitches/exploits as unfavorable aspects of gameplay is ignorant. Advanced techniques did nothing but enhance gameplay in Melee.

For instance, take a look at wavedashing. That technique opened up new, more efficient ways to space and with it more potential mind-games that go hand-in-hand with the technical aspects of gameplay. From there, the technique evolved and branched out into several other new techniques (wave-smashing, wave-landing, wave-grabbing, etc.), which only added depth to the game. The technique itself was not naturally advantageous to anyone, as I said before. You needed to understand the technique and its use, then practice putting it to that use in a competitive environment for it to be any use at all. Essentially it was like any other technique in that sense, though harder to learn/use (thus the phrase, "advanced technique"). Because it was not naturally advantageous to anyone, it did no harm whatsoever to the game, and because it added depth and sped up gameplay, the only thing wavedashing did for Melee was enhance gameplay.

Straw-man. These people represent maybe one-hundredth of the competitive scene, and they're called competitive elitists. Most of the guys you'll find at tournaments are great guys.

Actually, I've found that casual players (when interacting with competitive players) are generally the more negative/arrogant than competitive players. There also seems to be more casual elitists than competitive ones.

 

No, I wasn't saying everything not included in both Melee and Brawl = glitch. I'm saying it was deemed an unfavorable aspect of gameplay found in Melee that Sakurai and his dev team took out for Brawl because it was exploiting a glitch in the animation. The inclusion/exclusion of an aspect of the fighting engine is a whole lot different than not including some characters from version to version.

And I know I wasn't speaking about the entire tourney scene. I have friends who claim to be at least casualy into the tournament scene/even fairly heavily into the scene. They go to my Anime & Manga Club at my school. But I was talking about the 1% you were talking about. Who are very annoying. Most tournament players need to realize that a lot of sarcasm aimed at the tourney scene isn't aimed at the "normal" players but at the 1% who react to the sarcasm in the most hilarious of ways.

It is to them that I say "Tires don't exist".

 

I keep on forgetting the removal of moving air dodges, which leads to SDing a lot...

Does anyone besides me have a slight problem with the wall jump sensors? Meaning, I often get stuck to walls when I'm trying to either fall or rise.

 

No, I know. I was just making a general analogy. There were physics and gameplay mechanics that were removed as well, and to speculate on why they were removed/changed in the transition just seems pointless to me is all.

And I'll hate the development team forever for that. Until I remember that they designed Brawl. Then I'll probably just end up confused.

Elitists in general are extremely annoying; I can't stand any of them. Though have you ever thought about getting into the tournament scene yourself? You're probably the best Pit I've played thus far, and you didn't camp or spam arrows like most of the other Pits I've played. The Brawl tournament scene is still in its budding stages, so you could check out a few guides on SWF and learn a few techniques and you'd be pretty much set to go. Like I said, you're Pit is good enough that, with a few subtle techniques here and there you could become a large competitor in small amount of time as soon as you become familiar with the level of play you'll be competing at.

Wha...BaSSiL knows a Smash inside joke? You've already half-integrated yourself into the competitive Smash community.

 

Wow... brawl or melee... your favorite of all time? u are truly a smash fanatic. u mean u have them ranked higher than pac-man?

i agree. melee's gameplay beats brawl's. The faster pace certainly generated a more tolerable skill gap. Button mashing never truly became an issue with melee.

Thanks for the tremendously detailed response. i bow to your smash knowledge. if i ever need a reason to like brawl a bit more, i shall refer to your informative reply without delay. no doubt! how can i not like it better already?

~e3

 

How long has it taken you to get that far?