Too Much Melee Biasedness

[Randoman]

Does anyone else feel that the hardcore Melee fans can be a bit too hardcore at times? I mean, them constantly bashing on Brawl, them constantly saying Melee was better than Brawl (and not even using SSB64 comparisons to Brawl since they always solely use Melee), constantly saying Melee was better in Brawl even in rather ridiculous aspects (like saying Melee's adventure mode was better).

Plus, Melee was plenty flawed and they always overlook those aspects. Clone characters that share 90%+ or more of their animations, plenty of alternate version characters taking up separate slots (Dr. Mario, Young Link, Pichu), Adventure Mode just being Classic Mode v. 2, all the glitches and exploits (wavedashing, black hole glitch, infinite super scope, Ice Climbers freeze glitch which was beyong broken), characters being so bad that even in harder difficulties in Classic, Adventure, and All Star, they're practically unwinnable without continues (Pichu, Bowser, Kirby), stage designs being really redundant (with a lot of levels being a main platform and 3 smaller platforms in triangle formation),

I'm also not fond of how they just assume making the gameplay have faster physics and gravity will be an overall improvement, when they'll be compromising quite a few Smash players that aren't hardcore. Plenty of Smash Bros. players out there dislike Melee's ridiculous speed and gravity. 64 and Brawl were nowhere near as fast, so I dont' see why people treat Brawl's floatiness as the outlier when Melee was the outlier with it's fast speed and gravity, and 64 and Brawl had the general same speed and gravity. I also don't like how people complain about Brawl's imbalance yet they actually praise Fox's and Jigglypuff's brokenness in Melee, and they don't ever acknowledge how weak and underpowered some characters are in Melee's single player where Brawl didn't have single player imbalances like that. I also really dislike how people think removing wave dashing was such a big crime when it didn't even exist in the original. It was a glitch/game engline exploit, and it's really ridiculous expecting it to return. The gaming world doesn't go revolving around hardcore and elite players, and it never should since there'll always be those that aren't as skilled and they should be accomodated.

Finally, Smash Bros. was never meant to be heavily competitive and skill based. Otherwise, specials would be more complex like down forward punch and we'd have separate punch and kick buttons. Smash Bros. has always been rather light and simple on the button pressing (except for Melee's glitches/exploits, which were never intentional except for maybe L-Cancelling). Preferring Melee over Brawl is fine and all, but you don't have to go treating Brawl that badly just because it isn't Melee.

[Ema Skye]

I find melee's character select screen looks better.

And I love the physics.

And there's freaking Mewtwo.

Though I really like Brawl's characters.

[IceBrand]

I can kinda see where there going with the overall speed between Brawl and Melee. If you played either then went to the other, it would feel like your playing on fast forward or slow motion. Other than that I see no reason to dislike Brawl. I'm not saying you can't dislike a game but constantly bashing it and comparing it to it's predecessor is a bit much.

[Samias]

Personally I think Brawl brought in a lot of good improvements like making the difference between "clone" characters much greater, and having air dodges NOT eat up your triple jump, but it could have done more. Brawl definitely has a better adventure mode so the people who think Melee's is better are being contrarians who would have probably said "Melee is better!" no matter what Brawl did.

However, I think Brawl went overboard with the floatiness on some characters. Jigglypuff was extremely good in Melee, only to be way too light and slow to really be anything but bottom rung in Brawl. I also disliked the extreme game-hangup on a launch, which was an intentional choice on the developer's part. Honestly I think Brawl was fine mechanically (except tripping), I just preferred the faster speed of Melee because it feels more responsive.

[Shadow Mir]

I have to agree; while I think Brawl could've done more, it at least did stuff to differentiate clone characters and improved the adventure mode dramatically.

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I think Brawl is better than Melee too. I never touched Melee again after I got Brawl, in fact. I like Brawl's adventure mode more, its lesser number of clones, the online capability, stage builder, everything. Melee just does not match up, imo. Also, Brawl has Ike. <3

[Green Poet]

I'm also of the opinion that Smash Bros. fundamentally isn't a hardcore fighter, which makes me rather detached on the whole "Melee vs. Brawl" subject. I prefer Brawl simply because of the improved graphical quality and online features, and really don't care too much for the mechanics. When compared to actual fighters, Melee's pace pales in comparison, and the animosity surrounding Brawl seems insignificant.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Green Poet

[Steampunk]

Melee felt faster and crazier and I liked the stages in Melee better. Brawl really feels slowed down in comparison. I'm also kinda annoyed that CPU players always go for the human player above all else in Brawl. Now and again, when I can't get other people to play, I'll do a 4 man Royale match that really feels a lot more like a 1 vs 3 match. Just to see if I was being paranoid, I built a map where they could not attack me without using pokemon/trophies. If they couldn't attack me at all, they'd just walk around waiting for me to get within their reach even though it was a Royale match and they could fight each other. Maybe some people like that, but I think it's annoying. In Melee, the CPU didn't care who they beat up on unless you kept attacking/KOing them. Again, it made the fight feel more chaotic and the game was just as entertaining with CPUs as with actual people when friends weren't available to play with you.

[Shadow Mir]

Melee felt faster and crazier and I liked the stages in Melee better. Brawl really feels slowed down in comparison. I'm also kinda annoyed that CPU players always go for the human player above all else in Brawl. Now and again, when I can't get other people to play, I'll do a 4 man Royale match that really feels a lot more like a 1 vs 3 match. Just to see if I was being paranoid, I built a map where they could not attack me without using pokemon/trophies. If they couldn't attack me at all, they'd just walk around waiting for me to get within their reach even though it was a Royale match and they could fight each other. Maybe some people like that, but I think it's annoying. In Melee, the CPU didn't care who they beat up on unless you kept attacking/KOing them. Again, it made the fight feel more chaotic and the game was just as entertaining with CPUs as with actual people when friends weren't available to play with you.

As an aside, what you say the CPUs did in Brawl sounds a lot like what they did in the Trophy Tussle events in Melee.

[IceBrand]

So that wasn't my imagination? CPU actually go for the player before attacking each other?! Yeah I always hated that. It felt like 1VS 3 with friendly fire.

[Lenh]

Ahh, heated and old argument.

My main beef with Brawl was that there was a whole lot less gameplay depth to it than Melee had. 'Complex' features like L-canceling, wavedashing were taken out and analog/DI feels less important, while end-all/interruption mechanics like the smash ball and tripping were added. Replayability for Brawl lasted about as long as completing SSE and had the novelty of a Mario Party, as opposed to the 10 years/competitive following melee had. Then again I never joined the competitive Brawl scene so I'm not sure what sort of flavor the 'exploitative' high-level play ended up as, but it certainly exists.

Melee and 64 kind of stood on its own in terms of style too, compared to Brawl. I really hated the amount recycled/borrowed content that ended up in there (official art stickers, preexisting models, soundtracks), made it feel like a fan game / hack dream.

[Mighty Kamina]

I prefer Melee to Vanilla Brawl (Modded Brawl is hilariously fun though) simply because I vastly prefer the faster pace, and felt that Melee had more depth.

However I do prefer Brawl's roster and soundtrack. I'd imagine the people who say that Melee's adventure mode was better are saying it because Melee's adventure mode was short and kind of fun while's Brawl's at times felt overly long.

[PKL]

Does anyone else feel that the hardcore Melee fans can be a bit too hardcore at times? I mean, them constantly bashing on Brawl, them constantly saying Melee was better than Brawl (and not even using SSB64 comparisons to Brawl since they always solely use Melee), constantly saying Melee was better in Brawl even in rather ridiculous aspects (like saying Melee's adventure mode was better).

Plus, Melee was plenty flawed and they always overlook those aspects. Clone characters that share 90%+ or more of their animations, plenty of alternate version characters taking up separate slots (Dr. Mario, Young Link, Pichu), Adventure Mode just being Classic Mode v. 2, all the glitches and exploits (wavedashing, black hole glitch, infinite super scope, Ice Climbers freeze glitch which was beyong broken), characters being so bad that even in harder difficulties in Classic, Adventure, and All Star, they're practically unwinnable without continues (Pichu, Bowser, Kirby), stage designs being really redundant (with a lot of levels being a main platform and 3 smaller platforms in triangle formation),

I'm also not fond of how they just assume making the gameplay have faster physics and gravity will be an overall improvement, when they'll be compromising quite a few Smash players that aren't hardcore. Plenty of Smash Bros. players out there dislike Melee's ridiculous speed and gravity. 64 and Brawl were nowhere near as fast, so I dont' see why people treat Brawl's floatiness as the outlier when Melee was the outlier with it's fast speed and gravity, and 64 and Brawl had the general same speed and gravity. I also don't like how people complain about Brawl's imbalance yet they actually praise Fox's and Jigglypuff's brokenness in Melee, and they don't ever acknowledge how weak and underpowered some characters are in Melee's single player where Brawl didn't have single player imbalances like that. I also really dislike how people think removing wave dashing was such a big crime when it didn't even exist in the original. It was a glitch/game engline exploit, and it's really ridiculous expecting it to return. The gaming world doesn't go revolving around hardcore and elite players, and it never should since there'll always be those that aren't as skilled and they should be accomodated.

Finally, Smash Bros. was never meant to be heavily competitive and skill based. Otherwise, specials would be more complex like down forward punch and we'd have separate punch and kick buttons. Smash Bros. has always been rather light and simple on the button pressing (except for Melee's glitches/exploits, which were never intentional except for maybe L-Cancelling). Preferring Melee over Brawl is fine and all, but you don't have to go treating Brawl that badly just because it isn't Melee.

Bolded 1: That's subjective. It isn't an actual flaw. The "clones" play different enough due to the changes in their move properties annd other stuff. Again, having similar animations does not a clone make. A clone would have to be a character that plays exactly like the other, but theres no example of this when you look at it with more...experienced eyes.

Italic 1: What? I can't take you seriously after that. Trust me, Im trying.

Bold 2: Wavedashing was a "glitch" that added to gameplay by allowing the characters to have another move option. Brawl has a ton of glitches and other stupid stuff that take away from gameplay: Airdodging and attacking out of hitstun (yes, its been found the hitstun is the same as melee but they messed up and made airdodging out of it possible, leading to almost no true combos), While not a glitch, metaknight has been restricted from being on the ledge too long because he's 99% invincible there by upairing then hanging back. There's literally nothing you can do. He also has a tornado that some characters have no/or only one option against, making them extremely bad vs him. And if you wanna talk glitches, Metaknight's infinite cape glitch takes the cake as most broken ever. Since he literally disappears from the game and makes it unplayable.

Italic 2: The worst point of your post. I'm sorry but what? The best player of recent melee mains PEACH, a high tier and made her look like a Fox in terms of speed. He also used Young Link, a low tier in high level play. There's a Yoshi that does really well and hes low tier. Theres a Pikachu that has gotten up to Top 5 in a national and hes low tier too. There's a Link in my area that beat high level Sheiks in a national and its his worst matchup. Compare this to brawl, with its unwinnable Ganon vs Olimar matches. Ganon Jigglypuff and Zelda never get anywhere because theyre garbage. And you don't see as much character variety as in Melee.

Bold 3: Brawl has gimmicky stages instead. Most of the best stages from brawl are recycled from Melee. Smashville is the best brawl stage and it has a "bland" design.

Italic 3: This was never an issue when Melee was around. Casual players could play and have fun with it without knowing how to wavedash or w/e. And the competitive players could use those things to constantly improve and find enjoyment. It was the perfect mix.

Brawl's floatiness is a strike against it, because it promotes campiness. I hope you've been camped a by good Falco or Olimar or Toon Link ( I can volunteer for the last one), you would rage so much that you wouldnt want to play ever again. Melee's physics promoted aggresive, stay-on-your-toes action and didnt penalize a pllayer for approaching unlike Brawl. Brawl's shieding is beyond stupid too, because any player hitting a shield will have disadvantage except for rare occasions (like Falco's laser to jab). Not to mention, people hate the fact that there's almost no combos, so making a mistake isnt as punishing as it should be. There's also the fact that recoveries are generally way too OP (except Link and Ivysaur but even they can recover like wtf).

I play both and love both (heck I played competitive brawl before melee) but I had to dismantle your post one by one because your points are not true. I'm not a brawl hater by any means but I acknowledge its faults vs melee.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Peekayell

[Robert Stewart]

I do prefer Melee to Brawl. I do agree, however, that there's a lot of Melee players (not really the hardcore players though) who bash on Brawl too much. But the same is true for the reverse, there are a lot of Brawl players in my experience who have a pathological hatred of both Melee and high-level play in general.

[Steampunk]

As an aside, what you say the CPUs did in Brawl sounds a lot like what they did in the Trophy Tussle events in Melee.

Yeah, that's exactly how the TTs were in Melee. The difference being the Trophy Tussles were event matches, so you expected the fight to be balanced in the CPU's favor. There's really no good reason for CPUs to ignore each other and focus on the player in Vs. Mode imo. A Battle Royale match should be exactly that: everyone for themselves.

[Shadow Mir]

Yeah, that's exactly how the TTs were in Melee. The difference being the Trophy Tussles were event matches, so you expected the fight to be balanced in the CPU's favor. There's really no good reason for CPUs to ignore each other and focus on the player in Vs. Mode imo. A Battle Royale match should be exactly that: everyone for themselves.

Conceded. Also, while SSB's AI in general wasn't very good, admittedly, I thought Melee's AI was worse than the AI in the other two games (generally ignoring items that weren't hammers, recovery items, cloaking devices or Pokeballs, not bothering to charge some moves that could be charged, as well as generally being easy to trick into killing themselves).

Edited June 12, 2013 by Levant Fortner

[1% critted]

As someone that has been playing smash bros. since it first came out, I just have to say I prefer Brawl's 4 player mode to Melee's, but like Melee more in 1v1s.

Those that say the adventure mode is better in melee, probably just stick to the argument that the adventure mode in melee uses stages and enemies from older games instead of the new enemies that are found in brawl. Some may like more one or the other.

I have played both games about the same amount of time, and in Melee's 4 player mode is just too fast to be able to actually concentrate. 1v1 though, is incredible, the amount of tension in matches and the combos and the KNEE(Falcon main).

Meanwhile, Brawl's 4 player is incredibly fun, has more unique stages, and believe it or not I have played timed mode in 4 player, and my friends and I have not looked back. But Brawl's 1v1 is essentially a camp fest. Hence why people like Olimar are number 3 on tier lists. Good thing I main snake though.

Also a rant I found that represents Melee biasness but also makes several good points:

part 2:

Edited June 12, 2013 by 1% critted

[PKL]

Conceded. Also, while SSB's AI in general wasn't very good, admittedly, I thought Melee's AI was worse than the AI in the other two games (generally ignoring items that weren't hammers, recovery items, cloaking devices or Pokeballs, not bothering to charge some moves that could be charged, as well as generally being easy to trick into killing themselves).

SSBB's AI is defo the best. Even though it's still bad lol.

[Refa]

I liked Melee the most because damn Marth was fast.

[Randoman]

Bolded 1: That's subjective. It isn't an actual flaw. The "clones" play different enough due to the changes in their move properties annd other stuff. Again, having similar animations does not a clone make. A clone would have to be a character that plays exactly like the other, but theres no example of this when you look at it with more...experienced eyes.

Italic 1: What? I can't take you seriously after that. Trust me, Im trying.

Bold 2: Wavedashing was a "glitch" that added to gameplay by allowing the characters to have another move option. Brawl has a ton of glitches and other stupid stuff that take away from gameplay: Airdodging and attacking out of hitstun (yes, its been found the hitstun is the same as melee but they messed up and made airdodging out of it possible, leading to almost no true combos), While not a glitch, metaknight has been restricted from being on the ledge too long because he's 99% invincible there by upairing then hanging back. There's literally nothing you can do. He also has a tornado that some characters have no/or only one option against, making them extremely bad vs him. And if you wanna talk glitches, Metaknight's infinite cape glitch takes the cake as most broken ever. Since he literally disappears from the game and makes it unplayable.

Italic 2: The worst point of your post. I'm sorry but what? The best player of recent melee mains PEACH, a high tier and made her look like a Fox in terms of speed. He also used Young Link, a low tier in high level play. There's a Yoshi that does really well and hes low tier. Theres a Pikachu that has gotten up to Top 5 in a national and hes low tier too. There's a Link in my area that beat high level Sheiks in a national and its his worst matchup. Compare this to brawl, with its unwinnable Ganon vs Olimar matches. Ganon Jigglypuff and Zelda never get anywhere because theyre garbage. And you don't see as much character variety as in Melee.

Bold 3: Brawl has gimmicky stages instead. Most of the best stages from brawl are recycled from Melee. Smashville is the best brawl stage and it has a "bland" design.

Italic 3: This was never an issue when Melee was around. Casual players could play and have fun with it without knowing how to wavedash or w/e. And the competitive players could use those things to constantly improve and find enjoyment. It was the perfect mix.

Brawl's floatiness is a strike against it, because it promotes campiness. I hope you've been camped a by good Falco or Olimar or Toon Link ( I can volunteer for the last one), you would rage so much that you wouldnt want to play ever again. Melee's physics promoted aggresive, stay-on-your-toes action and didnt penalize a pllayer for approaching unlike Brawl. Brawl's shieding is beyond stupid too, because any player hitting a shield will have disadvantage except for rare occasions (like Falco's laser to jab). Not to mention, people hate the fact that there's almost no combos, so making a mistake isnt as punishing as it should be. There's also the fact that recoveries are generally way too OP (except Link and Ivysaur but even they can recover like wtf).

I play both and love both (heck I played competitive brawl before melee) but I had to dismantle your post one by one because your points are not true. I'm not a brawl hater by any means but I acknowledge its faults vs melee.

@ B1: Sharing that many animations for two characters still feels unprofessional and rushed. Besides, don't you prefer characters being as diversified as possible (whether it's attack properties or animations) over characters that aren't as diversified as others? I mean, you can't exactly tell me that you're hoping that they add more characters that share lots of the same animations and yet have different properties in their attacks. It's not really something most people would put in their dream movesets for characters.

@ I1: The Yoshi Battle of Stage 1 Part 1, Stage 1 Part 2, Both Parts of Stage 2, Stage 3 Part 2, Stage 4 Part 1, Both Parts of Stage 5 and 6 (plus one with the possible Giant Kirby Battle), Stage 7, Stage 9, Stage 10 Part 2, Both Parts of Stage 11, and Stage 12 (plus one with the possible Giga Bowser battle, since it's very similar to a Giant Battle but much harder) were all parts that play insanely similar to Classic Mode. Yes, there were Adventure Parts like Stage 1 Part 1, Stage 3 Part 2, Stage 4 Part 2, Stage 8 Part 1, and Stage 10 Part 1, but that's 6 out of 15-17. I still think it felt too much like an Alternate Classic Mode than an actual Adventure Mode. Yes, Brawl's Adventure Mode had "Classic Mode-like battles," but the ratio to actual character battles (like Kirby, Wario, Charizard, not Primid swarm type battles) to sidescrolling parts was much lower, even with the Great Maze evil clones.

@ B2: Yeah, Brawl had its fair share of glitches, I'll admit that. Still, IC's freeze glitch is probably as bad as the infinite cape, since you just freeze grab, beat on them to a high percentage, regrab, kill, freeze grab again, then repeat or stall until the time is over. I still think that Melee's metagame revolving around glitches quite a bit is quite bad. That and there's things like people thinking Fox's waveshine's should be a staple to the series even though it's a glitch.

@ I2: You only addressed the highest level competitive balance in your response, and that will always be unbalanced no matter what fighter you're playing (except for games like Street Fighter I). There's also quite a few Brawl players like the Melee ones you mentioned, like someone that won a tournament with a lot of Meta Knights with ZSS and Marth players that are proficient with a footstool Spike combo that only works on Meta Knight. Still, among casual Melee and Brawl players, many people will acknowledge Pichu, Bowser, and Kirby as being bad, while not as many Brawl players would say the same about Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, and Zelda. Sure, there's different kinds and levels of casual play, but I'm pretty sure that there's a lot more people that consider Melee Pichu bad than there are people that consider Brawl Ganondorf bad. And have you tried Classic Mode on the hardest level with both Melee Pichu and Brawl Ganondorf? The latter is much more doable. Sure, I know that most people care mostly/only about competitive balance, but casual/single player mode balance still plays quite a big role, since practically everyone with the game will play casually (at least at first) and play the single player modes, while not nearly as many will play at a competitive level.

@ B3: Quite a few of Melee's level designs still felt quite lazy and recycled. For quite a few of the levels, they basically just took the same level, changed proportions and gave it a new coat of paint, and called it a day, like Yoshi's Story, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams (yeah, the smaller platforms move but it's still not as different as, say, Peach's Castle and Battlefield). And best is subjective. I actually like some of the crazier levels in Brawl like Port Town Aero Dive and The Halberd. Sure, competitive people find Melee's levels to be "the best," but a lot of them come off as lazy and recycled to me (we're not counting past levels, since that's redundant).

@ I3: I can't really address this one properly since I didn't see a 3rd highlighted part. But I wouldn't really call it the perfect mix since I've seen firsthand (and experienced) how one sided a competitive vs. casual player match is in Melee. Getting comboed to death and not being able to do anything because of the high gravity, speed, and hitstun, (you practically might as well be fighting with an unplugged controller) recoveries being too easy to intercept because of the high gravity, it's just way too skewed to the more skilled player and doesn't give the less skilled player a chance. Sure, a competitive vs. casual player match in Brawl isn't good either, but at least the casual can get out of attacks easier and not get completely killed. I personally liked Brawl's stronger recoveries since skewing things towards the person who already has the advantage (the edgeguarder) is pretty bad and unfair. Besides, Melee's mechanics didn't really lend itself well to free for alls. Getting comboed by others (unintentionally) and getting killed and not being able to do much about it wasn't very fun or fair.

I really think fighting games shouldn't be heavily weighed on how good their competitive balance is, especially for a non-traditional fighter like Smash Bros.

I do prefer Melee to Brawl. I do agree, however, that there's a lot of Melee players (not really the hardcore players though) who bash on Brawl too much. But the same is true for the reverse, there are a lot of Brawl players in my experience who have a pathological hatred of both Melee and high-level play in general.

I have hardly seen any really bad Melee haters who are Brawl fans, even on GameFAQs. All I usually ever see is the former. The Brawl hatebase is just way too excessive.

SSBB's AI is defo the best. Even though it's still bad lol.

Yeah, I was never fond of Melee's AI (I even preferred 64's since the attacks used were more varied, even if they gave up on recovering after an edge guard) because of their perfect shielding, jab-abusing (on lower levels), either never using specials (Luigi's Up B) or always abusing specials (Ganondorf's Up B), and how easily they kill themselves.

A fun video to illustrate that point:

Edited June 13, 2013 by Randoman

[Steampunk]

Melee's level design still felt quite lazy and recycled. For quite a few of the levels, they basically just took the same level, changed proportions and gave it a new coat of paint, and called it a day, like Yoshi's Story, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams (yeah, the smaller platforms move but it's still not as different as, say, Peach's Castle and Battlefield).

Not sure I agree with this. Big Blue, Brinstar Depths, Hyrule Temple (forgot the exact name), Mute City, Green Greens, Icicle Mountain, Rainbow Cruise, Flatzone, Pokemon Stadium, and Poke Floats all had pretty unique gimmicks compared to the N64 stages. They're going to be similar in the sense that they're inspired by the respective games, but I really wouldn't call those "recycled" as the features of the stages changed a good deal and some were completely original. Brawl has a lot of stages that don't differ significantly from the Melee ones, but you might say that's offset a little by adding a stage editor feature.

[Randoman]

Not sure I agree with this. Big Blue, Brinstar Depths, Hyrule Temple (forgot the exact name), Mute City, Green Greens, Icicle Mountain, Rainbow Cruise, Flatzone, Pokemon Stadium, and Poke Floats all had pretty unique gimmicks compared to the N64 stages. They're going to be similar in the sense that they're inspired by the respective games, but I really wouldn't call those "recycled" as the features of the stages changed a good deal and some were completely original. Brawl has a lot of stages that don't differ significantly from the Melee ones, but you might say that's offset a little by adding a stage editor feature.

Well, I meant quite a few of Melee's level designs, not all of them. I guess I should've put that in.

Yoshi's Story, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams, Brinstar, Yoshi's Island 64, and Dream Land 64 all had the "big main platform and three smaller platforms in triangular formation" design (I suppose you can't blame the N64 stages, but they could've picked levels that weren't that shape like Peach's Castle and Hyrule Castle). Even with all the different hazards and elements in those levels, I really didn't like the redundancy of the general shape of those 6 levels, when they could've at least added or took away smaller platforms or change the formation. And that was 6 of the 29 levels, which is more than 1/5 of the levels (so a good chunk of them).

Edited June 13, 2013 by Randoman

[dondon151]

you have to realize that these "recycled" stage designs are also the only ones that have a chance at being tournament legal

people complain about brawl because melee is just better. simple cause-and-effect. it's not nostalgia or anything irrational like that, otherwise you'd have even more people complaining about melee because 64 was better (and melee is decidedly better than 64).

also realize that the life of an online community depends on the competitive scene. brawl's competitive potential is worse, so people complain about it.

Edited June 13, 2013 by dondon151

[Robert Stewart]

Well, I meant quite a few of Melee's level designs, not all of them. I guess I should've put that in.

Yoshi's Story, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams, Brinstar, Yoshi's Island 64, and Dream Land 64 all had the "big main platform and three smaller platforms in triangular formation" design (I suppose you can't blame the N64 stages, but they could've picked levels that weren't that shape like Peach's Castle and Hyrule Castle). Even with all the different hazards and elements in those levels, I really didn't like the redundancy of the general shape of those 6 levels, when they could've at least added or took away smaller platforms or change the formation. And that was 6 of the 29 levels, which is more than 1/5 of the levels (so a good chunk of them).

Wait, what? When did Brinstar and Yoshi's Island 64 becom Battlefield copies?

I'll give you That the 4 Battlefield copies are bs. However, I still prefer Melee's stage selection to Brawl's. Brawl had just too many big or gimmicky stages. For Smash 4 to have a great stage list, it needs to have a nice mix of stages with few and many hazards, and stages of different sizes. Or let us turn off stage hazards.

[Randoman]

you have to realize that these "recycled" stage designs are also the only ones that have a chance at being tournament legal

people complain about brawl because melee is just better. simple cause-and-effect. it's not nostalgia or anything irrational like that, otherwise you'd have even more people complaining about melee because 64 was better (and melee is decidedly better than 64).

also realize that the life of an online community depends on the competitive scene. brawl's competitive potential is worse, so people complain about it.

Yeah, but high level competitive play shouldn't be the "be all and end all" in a free-for-all fighter like Smash Bros. For traditional 1 on 1 fighters like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat? Yeah, it'll play a much bigger part. But for Smash Bros. where most people will be playing casual free-for-alls? Not so much.

And I'm pretty sure that nostalgia at least plays some part. I mean, if 64 and Melee had a 7 year gap in between and people were playing and enjoying SSB64 for that whole time, and they suddenly experience Melee's fast physics, there'd be quite a lot people who won't like it and will still prefer 64 as a result. 64 and Melee's 2 year gap didn't really allow for people to be able to nostalgia heavily to 64.

Wait, what? When did Brinstar and Yoshi's Island 64 becom Battlefield copies?

I'll give you That the 4 Battlefield copies are bs.

I guess Brinstar and Yoshi's Island 64 is a bit of a stretch, but if you look at the pictures:

You can see that there's still the main giant platform and the three smaller platforms in triangle formation. I will admit that it's a stretch (much more for Brinstar than Yoshi's Island), but the stage shape and resemblance is still there.