Current Events > why was Brawl so much worse than Melee?

(+) Yeah! (+)

why try to fix what wasn't broken?
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Tripping was a mistake.
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Isn't that when they added tripping or something?

They forgot Smash is supposed to be a fighting game and not a party game.
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they made everyone slow and floaty for some reason.
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Sakurai seemed to take offense at the idea that some people played Melee competitively.

gmanthebest posted...

Tripping was a mistake.

That.

Otherwise, no issues.
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gmanthebest posted...

Tripping was a mistake.

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gmanthebest posted...

Tripping was a mistake.

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horrible game balance

tripping is less worse than the roster balance
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smash 4 is gr8, not trashy at all
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ElatedVenusaur posted...

Sakurai seemed to take offense at the idea that some people played Melee competitively.

This. IIRC he actually went on record basically saying just that.
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because sakurai is a hack
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He doesn't hate the competitive scene per say, he just felt Melee was too hard for casuals and wanted a medium.

It's been nine years -- jeez, already? -- since Super Smash Bros. Melee was released for the Nintendo GameCube. The multiplayer fighter wound up becoming the GC's #1 release, with over seven million copies sold worldwide, but as designer Masahiro Sakurai explained in his most recent column for Famitsu magazine, development wasn't exactly fun and games.

"On a personal level, Melee had an extremely grueling development cycle," Sakurai wrote. "Some of my other games did, too, but Melee sticks out far ahead of the pack in my mind. I worked on that game for 13 months straight, after all, without a single Sunday or holiday off that whole time. During parts of it, I was living a really destructive lifestyle -- I'd work for over 40 hours in a row, then go back home to sleep for four."

What drove Sakurai through all that work? "I seriously felt like a man on a mission," he said. "With the original [Nintendo 64] Smash Bros., there was no guarantee the game would be well-received at all -- I had my hands full just trying to make it into the completely new sort of fighting game I had in mind. With Melee, though, the previous game did well enough that Nintendo and the character designers knew what I wanted in advance. And I wanted a lot. It was the biggest project I had ever led up to that point -- the first game of mine on disc-based media, the first that used an orchestra for music, the first with 'real' polygon graphics. My staff was raring to go, and we plunged in full-tilt from the start. I pushed myself beyond any limit I could think of because I doubted I'd ever have this sheer amount of work in my hands ever again."

Looking back, nearly a decade on, Sakurai seems proud of Melee overall. "Melee is the sharpest game in the series," he wrote. "It's pretty speedy all around and asks a lot of your coordination skills. Fans of the first Smash Bros. got into it quickly, and it just felt really good to play."

However, he has one particularly deep regret: the game's accessibility level. "I had created Smash Bros. to be my response to how hardcore-exclusive the fighting game genre had become over the years," Sakurai said. "But why did I target it so squarely toward people well-versed in videogames, then? That's why I tried to aim for more of a happy medium with Brawl's play balance. There are three Smash Bros. games out now, but even if I ever had a chance at another one, I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was. Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult."

Accessibility has always been a watchword in Sakurai's design style, and there's little doubt he learned a lot from the Melee development experience. "If we want new people from this generation of gamers to come in," he concluded, "then we need it accessible, simple, and playable by anyone. You can't let yourself get preoccupied with nothing but gameplay and balance details. That's where the core of the Smash Bros. concept lies, not on doggedly keeping the game the way it was before."

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I lived tripping because I loved watching the communities cry and whine about it.
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voldothegr8 posted...

He doesn't hate the competitive scene per say, he just felt Melee was too hard for casuals and wanted a medium.

This.

Of course, for Smash fans, anything that isn't Melee is automatically trash in their eyes.
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lilORANG posted...

they made everyone slow and floaty for some reason.

This, plus the fact that it's nearly impossible to punish people or do follow-ups, and the existence of tripping.

I can understand him wanting things more accessible for casuals but he went a little too far. The only way the game is fun is FFAs with all items on High. Anything less is just meh. Smash 4 did a much better job reaching a balance (plus has a much better roster, abundance of FE characters notwithstanding).
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Solar_Crimson posted...

voldothegr8 posted...

He doesn't hate the competitive scene per say, he just felt Melee was too hard for casuals and wanted a medium.

This.

Of course, for Smash fans, anything that isn't Melee is automatically trash in their eyes.

smash fans comprise multiple communities
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Solar_Crimson posted...

Of course, for Smash fans, anything that isn't Melee is automatically trash in their eyes.

Don't lump all Smash fans in with Meladies.
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Excuse you, Melee never could have produced this work of art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N15fVFAAcYA
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Garioshi posted...

Excuse you, Melee never could have produced this work of art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N15fVFAAcYA

A'ight, I admit that was probably one of the funniest things I've watched. (Also, they did an excellent editing job at the end.)
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Even in a casual game that random tripping is fucking bullshit. Like, imagine in Mario Kart if you would just randomly spin out for no reason. It's trash mechanic that ruins the game.
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They made it a casual party game and took out the elements that made it a competitive skill-based game
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MC_BatCommander posted...

Even in a casual game that random tripping is fucking bullshit. Like, imagine in Mario Kart if you would just randomly spin out for no reason. It's trash mechanic that ruins the game.

It's probably why they got rid of that from Mario Kart 64 on the higher speeds. (You'd spin out if you change directions too quickly.)
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I agree with Sakurai to an extent. Smash Bros is far, far more fun to play casually, with some items on, exciting stages, and 3 or 4 players. It takes the fun out when people try too hard.
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Banjo2553 posted...

Garioshi posted...

Excuse you, Melee never could have produced this work of art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N15fVFAAcYA

A'ight, I admit that was probably one of the funniest things I've watched. (Also, they did an excellent editing job at the end.)

Damn straight it was.
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MC_BatCommander posted...

Even in a casual game that random tripping is fucking bullshit. Like, imagine in Mario Kart if you would just randomly spin out for no reason. It's trash mechanic that ruins the game.

Banana peels
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Garioshi posted...

Excuse you, Melee never could have produced this work of art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N15fVFAAcYA

I love that video, and it has nothing to do with Smash. It's the Touhou music. So, so good.
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KillerSlaw posted...

They forgot Smash is supposed to be a fighting game and not a party game.

Hahahahahahahaha
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KStateKing17 posted...

MC_BatCommander posted...

Even in a casual game that random tripping is fucking bullshit. Like, imagine in Mario Kart if you would just randomly spin out for no reason. It's trash mechanic that ruins the game.

Banana peels

That's not "randomly spinning out for no reason".
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KStateKing17 posted...

MC_BatCommander posted...

Even in a casual game that random tripping is fucking bullshit. Like, imagine in Mario Kart if you would just randomly spin out for no reason. It's trash mechanic that ruins the game.

Banana peels

MC_BatCommander posted...

Even in a casual game that random tripping is fucking bullshit. Like, imagine in Mario Kart if you would just randomly spin out for no reason. It's trash mechanic that ruins the game.

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I'm not very experienced in brawl. Are they tripped by other characters or do they trip on their own?
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KStateKing17 posted...

I'm not very experienced in brawl. Are they tripped by other characters or do they trip on their own?

They trip on their own, and certain low-sweeping attacks also cause tripping.
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KillerSlaw posted...

They forgot Smash is supposed to be a fighting game and not a party game.

It is a party game

Banjo2553 posted...

KStateKing17 posted...

I'm not very experienced in brawl. Are they tripped by other characters or do they trip on their own?

They trip on their own, and certain low-sweeping attacks also cause tripping.

Also the tripping is random but IIRC only happened when running. It was basically a soft nerf to all fast characters because Melee was dominated by sprinters like Fox, so the mechanic was meant to give slow characters a better shot. It was awful.
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EffectAndCause posted...

KillerSlaw posted...

They forgot Smash is supposed to be a fighting game and not a party game.

Hahahahahahahaha

CruelBuffalo posted...

KillerSlaw posted...

They forgot Smash is supposed to be a fighting game and not a party game.

It is a party game

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s0nicfan posted...

Banjo2553 posted...

KStateKing17 posted...

I'm not very experienced in brawl. Are they tripped by other characters or do they trip on their own?

They trip on their own, and certain low-sweeping attacks also cause tripping.

Also the tripping is random but IIRC only happened when running. It was basically a soft nerf to all fast characters because Melee was dominated by sprinters like Fox, so the mechanic was meant to give slow characters a better shot. It was awful.

Oh ok, then y'all can ignore my original comment.
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As someone who, after a point, couldn't talk any of my friends and relatives into playing Melee with me anymore (that's not bragging, though - I'm sure your average competitive player could wipe the floor with me), I can see where Sakurai was coming from in saying it lacked accessibility. But that still didn't keep me from being ultimately disappointed with Brawl. The transition from Double Dash to MK Will was pretty much identical, and for me the Wii releases of both franchises are their respective low points. Thankfully Smash 4 and MK 8 - while still not quite as good as the GC versions - undid a ton of the damage, and MK 8 is only a hair under DD in my book.
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KillerSlaw posted...

They forgot Smash is supposed to be a fighting game and not a party game.

It was a fighting game?
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While Melee -> Brawl was a bad transition.

SSB4 came out pretty good, not as great as melee, but FAR better then brawl IMO.
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I loved Brawl.

Tripping was funny but it should have been some deterministic but super-specific control thing like if you move the control stick at exactly the wrong speed or whatever.
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DevsBro posted...

I loved Brawl.

Tripping was funny but it should have been some deterministic but super-specific control thing like if you move the control stick at exactly the wrong speed or whatever.

I was fine with induced tripping like the banana peels or low-sweeping attacks, but the random factor was dumb.
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Tripping was stupid but I overall had even more fun in Brawl.
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Yeah I had lots of fun in Brawl too. Smash is boring to me without items and Brawl had the best items. They would cause so many great chain reactions. In 4 the items are just bland, they didn't care since they tried to appeal to the tournament players or something.

I only ever managed it once but I always tried to knock someone off the stage, then pick up a pitfall and throw it at them so they get spiked.
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Brawl was much better than Melee for almost all purposes except the competitive scene. As a competitive game, Brawl was garbage. As a game to fuck around in with just your friends it was fantastic.
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I loved me some simplistic Bridge of Eldin.
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