MB's Video Game Classics: Super Smash Bros Melee
 

Definitely one of my favorite Smash games. Though I feel they've progressively gotten better or worse depending on how you look at it.

Brawl is the ultimate Smash Bros. for me.

Top ten party game, and still fun even after the party ends.

First Smash Bros was one of the wake up calls for fighting game developers, who took note of Nintendo's success. People were tired of insanely steep learning curves and obscene AI difficulty. The age of the arcade was ending, being more and more eclipsed by home consoles, and arcade gameplay had less appeal to people on couches than in front of cabinets (I still love old school arcade fighters, though :laughing:). They just wanted a casual, uber-combo free fighting game that wasn't movie licensed garbage and didn't suck. And, yeah, filled with gallons of Mario Kart esque cheap ass items to cheese your friends off with. Now, Steam is full of party fighting games that have all taken the cues from the Bros. And there's even professional Smash tourneys for those blessed with otherworldly reflexes.

Melee carried on the torch, and was an improvement on every level. Still loved and lauded for its tight and fast gameplay. 10/10

Nah. Tekken is by far the most technical. Every character has enough moves and quirks to fill a small country. It can take years to master just one. Try Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and you'll see what I mean. Competitive play is impossible for anyone not willing to make it their occupation.

And for raw speed, reaction time, and frame counting goodness, Street Fighter will always a bit of an edge over Smash due to the comparatively tiny stages that force immediate and constant pressure. Each character has just a few moves, and combos are extremely limited compared to the juggling of Tekken and MK. But the top tier players straight up have to be the fastest thinkers of any e-sport.

Nah, Smash is much more about mobility, positioning, and space control. The key way to win, even in stock matches, is much less about memorizing the frames of each character's attacks, and more about the relative long game of positioning yourself well on the stage and making the enemy come to you.

SF is immediate, forced conflict, with large stage positioning taken out of the equation. It has the same speed as Smash, only the onus is on the attacks themselves, and landing each perfectly. If you think Smash tech and exploits of quirks is demanding, you really should give SF a try. There's so much more to learn, for such a simple game.

Btw, just curious, have you ever watched professional Tekken matches? It's madness. Fucking damage altering hitboxes for every limb, and players spend years honing all the variations of every possible way to combo and juggle every other char in the way that does the most damage to each. Various chars have stances that can change their fighting style on a dime. Couple all that with reflex intensive counters, and it just gets ridiculous. Every move in Tekken must be perfect, or you instantly get stuck in an inescapable combo.

Smash is a game where an amateur with great reflexes could beat a pro maybe once out of twenty matches. SF is more like once out of thirty. But with Tekken, an amateur straight up can not win.

Tbh though elph, now that I think about it, even though I think SF really does have more tech and tricks to learn for a reflex-centric game with such limited moves per character, I could see the argument that the space play and edge play of Smash makes it more complex. Learning the physics of hits to knock people over, learning meteor smashes to keep them off, etc.

But when it comes to pure reflexes, the forced proximity of SF puts quick thinking to the foray and makes the margin of error much smaller imo. You can't run and buy for time when you're ahead in the match. You have so much less space and time to set things up. And since jumps are so much shorter, anti-airs/cross-ups have to be split second perfect.

I'm guessing you're new to competitive fighting games? If not, no offense, but you should be blushing after saying something like this to any player of any major fighting game franchise.

I'm actually kind of shocked that you think rigorous cancelling and quick succession inputs are unique to high level Smash play, or that the speed of Smash inputs are faster and more difficult to master than high level SF play.

Have you ever played Street Fighter, or watched any competitive matches? Attacks and blocks are very comparable in speed to Smash, and learning exactly what to input to minimize frames and avoid any possible lags after lands/certain techniques is just as important. In fact, Street Fighter 2 pretty much invented cancelling (people actually thought it was a bug when the game first came out: https://www.eventhubs.com/news/2013/...ing-wasnt-bug/).

Judging by attacks per minute isn't a perfect gauge, as standard SF is about killing your opponent only two times, while standard Smash is about killing your opponent as many times as possible. The limited lives and stage space in a standard match make the allowance of errors and chance for recovery in SF is so much smaller, and the punishment for a mistake so much higher, even though the reflexive requirements are similar. Even if the high level APM in SF is less than Smash, the fact that it's even comparable despite the fundamental differences in styles is actually kind of a testament to how much complexity SF has in spite of its seeming simplicity and lack of Smash's spacial complexity.

You never answered whether you've played SF, or watched any SF competitions. I think you'd really like it if you gave it a chance.

SF is the same way. Each character has just a few moves, so few that you can basically learn to execute them all in like an hour or less. Just like with Smash, the complexity doesn't come from huge pre-set or memorized combos. It's not like Tekken, with uber-combos that people practice for years. The emphasis is much more on taking the few tools you're given, and learning to use and combine them free-form at the right moment with perfect timing.

If complexity gets you hard, you should see all of the weird ways people have learned to maneuver in Tekken. Play TTT2 and you'll see what I mean. Just one character has more complexity, more tech (both intentionally made by the devs and unintentional), more tricks to discover, than the entirety of Melee. I'm not even exaggerating. You wouldn't believe the insane streams of inputs people string together with utter perfection in just one or two seconds.

To be a top level player, you have to experiment with every strike, stance, counter, cancel, every single movement you can possibly make, and find every variation of how they all bleed together. Just the standard command list, the absolute basics that the game gives you before you learn advanced techniques and make your own combos, is like Stephen King novel long. And those are basically just the suggestions the devs put in for newbies.

Doubt you'd like it, though. High level play is much less about on-the-fly snap strikes, and much more about setting up the inescapable juggling sequences you've memorized. The APM is probably hilariously low, since experts can kill with just three or four hits to the head, and matches tend to end very quickly.

One thing I miss about Smash is block rolling. Felt so good and responsive. I used to cheese mother fuckers with it all the time.

IDK why but I had much better memories from this game than later games in the series.

Maybe because I was younger.

Ori needs to read up about Smash some more...

Also, MvC > all.

Why? Unlike you, I've actually played the games being discussed in these threads.

Is that an argument from authority? Why yes, I think it is..

I'm actually pretty into fighting games even though I no longer play them. Smash is widely regarded as one of the most technical fighting games because of the mechanics elph is trying to explain to you.. Get off SFs dick and do some research. I don't even like Smash, but I'm not gonna deny it's technical gameplay.

Cool vid.

This is my jam:

Yes, I have an opinion of Smash because I have played it before. That's not an argument from authority, it's just comparing notes and experiences with Elph.

But yeah, I thought the part where I knew every mechanic he mentioned and gave him the SF equivalent made it pretty clear that I know Melee pretty well.

My point was that Smash's higher APM is due to fundamental differences in design that don't necessarily give it a higher technical difficulty over other fighting game series. In the standard competetive match, you earn points from multiple ringouts, rather than focusing on taking your opponents' solitary life per round, and have much more space to work with. There are also far more quick-execution low-power projectiles and slap storms that bloat the APM tremendously.

Except for that part where you insinuated you playing games makes you more qualified to talk about them than me.

My bad. How dare I have experience with games before passing judgement on them.

Now fuck off back to Jersey so Elph and I can keep shooting the shit about games we love.

I don't know. I still say Tekken has the most tech to work with.

Btw, I booted Brawl up today. Way more slippery than I remember, and the camera loves to zoom way out and make everyone tiny. Plus, playing with a wiimote sucks. I miss my old copy of Melee. :(

I have experience with them. I wouldnt join in an argument i was ignorant about.

You sound like some idiot i ran into online the other day arguing about how he has more game knowledge because hes better than me. You dont need to play a game at a high level to understand the mechanics and skill. Take Montecristo for example who is a top tier analyst and not very good relative to many other players.

@DwnWthVwls Good for you?

Smash mechanics party, and everyone's invited.

Can the back and forth stop? This is a game thread ffs. Don't ruin it.

I'm so used to playing traditional fighting games (I'm a big fan of several of the major ones: BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, SF, KOF, Tekken, SC, Virtua Fighter), that the Smash games confused the hell out of me the couple times I had a chance to play one of them. It's like a completely different kind of game. At least at first.

I'd rebuy a copy of Smash, but it costs more than DwnWthVwls' obligatory Jersey heroin addiction.

Maybe I'll go digital.

We are arguing about gaming!

Throwing insults is different. You can argue all you want. Or debate. Or whatever. Just no reason for insults.

Right now I've just got a data plan. But when I get steady internet, it's on like Donkey Kong.

Dude I want in on this.

>

Always had more fun watching fighting games than other genres.

Huh. I never realized how much of a selling point She-Hulk being a playable character would be for me but here I am finding out the game is on 360 so it's now on my list.

I haven't played much MvC but the art design is visual crack. It's gaudy and eye watering but it looks like the most exciting time.

Tbh, SF characters look like **** compared to other series, especially MvC. I can't even front. Some of them are aight, but most are just grotesque. Good thing I picked Poison as my main:

http://pm1.narvii.com/6764/5a9179389...70c3fv2_00.jpg

'Cause otherwise, it's:

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20160428023812

That's the way to go!

:beer:

I'm really bad at playing her, but it's fun. I always pick that grapple ultra move, even if it's hard to connect.

Someone likes to walk on the wild side.

:beer:

Nothing like bullwhipping some discipline into your enemy. Of all the characters I've tried to play, she's the one that I kick the most ass with.

Btw, my fav Tekken character is Julia, especially when she goes full luchadore as Jaycee:

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...path-prefix=en

Well, yeah.

She's a dude, btw.

I assumed it would be obvious I knew that.

Just wanted to make sure you were hard.

This isn't my first rule 34.

How many video game characters do you know just because of porn?

I have Tag Tournament 2 but haven't used Jaycee much. I try to play all of the characters, but there's waaaay too many moves. My faves in that game are Nina, Kazuya and Zafina. The latter especially has perfect style :D

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-z...__Zafina_2.png

Even if I kinda suck at playing her, I insist in holding on to her as a main because it's just so much fun to watch her in action.