The VG Resource

So like I usually let you guys know, I've played all four games religiously and enjoyed them, despite their many flaws.


I know you all don't want to hear this probably, but four weeks ago I found a Smash Bros. club on my campus (I live in Georgia, near Atlanta the Smash scene is HUGE), and they have several setups of SSBM and Project Melee (no Smash 64, Brawl, or 4 to be found in sight). I've never played SSBM with actual real competitive players before, my last encounter with my SSBM disc was 9 years ago on an actual GameCube before it got scratched up beyond compare. Since that time for several years I've been on Brawl or Sm4sh, my only point of reference for high-skill Melee play being tournament streaming, some small somewhat casual matches of P:M with friends, and I guess practicing (very poorly) tech skill on my own because I didn't know anyone in my area.

This was my first time fresh into what I can seriously say an actual real competitive Melee scene, and I have to say it isn't anything like it's stereotyped to usually be. The other campus students and people were extremely friendly, competitive Melee players are NOT fans of Final Destination (they actually got a bit irritated with me picking it out of habit over and over), they enjoy plenty of stages to the point where they'd rather hook up 20XX (a mod that expands the tourney viable stage roster considerably), and there was a distinct variation of characters people played who they found viable; Fox and Falco spam was almost nowhere to be found outside of a select few (I saw some G&W, Links, and Pikachus). The setting was really comfortable, no boasting, no "johns", everyone just has a great time; no one is serious, they're just playing the game itself hard. They gave me tips and taught me all sorts of neat tricks and commend even the tiniest but impressive things I do which is pretty motivating. This for me has ruled out that the stereotype that Melee players are extremely rude people who flaunt around out the window, they have extremely good sportsmanship and likely just get it from a few outliers in the community like anything else.

I decided to go with all 3 Mario brothers, mainly Mario himself, for my main (they actually recommended I stick with whoever I want and Mario is an interesting choice). When I actually got to play, a bit overwhelmed by the ridiculous skill of the people playing there, I got absolutely wrecked (basically four-stocks on my first few games). I usually play exceptionally in Brawl and Smash 4 and have actually taken games off of tournament folk from each, but wow this game is more ridiculous in it's skill ceiling than the videos of high skill players even made it out to be. I pretty much couldn't believe it, because at my point of joining the club I could already easily four-stock more casual player, so here are these guys who can four-stock me, and then some of them are saying even THEY'VE been four-stocked by the actual major players before. 

So one thing I noticed off the bat is that, WOW this game is fast when it's in your hands. It's almost jarring if you just got off of any of the later titles and takes some time to adjust to (It's like a hilarious episode of DBZ, it's certainly fast but if you've been playing for a while your brain speeds up a lot and you start to easily take in what's going on). In fact, if I could take a high level clip of Brawl or Smash 4 and then one of Melee, capping it off a 30 seconds, I could basically guarantee that five times as much has already happened in the latter. I tried to slip my Smash 4-esque playstyle into it when I first tried and I could hear some slight laughs because of my constant spot and roll-dodge usage. To my dismay, this playstyle is not rewarded at all here, dodging has a lot less invincibility frames to where you not only must time them all properly, but they're extremely punishable if you carelessly use them. This I feel is already considerably better game design, my main problem with Smash 4 is how people can roll to the other side of the map, and unless you time a frame perfect grab on them or use a move that covers both sides of you, they can be invincible as long as they please (this is especially noticeable under any lag situation or with a naive Link player). What I noticed about this title is that not only do you have to really get in there for a hit, you're rewarded for hitting people! In Smash 4, another problem I have is that after hitting someone with a strong attack it usually ends with them dodging or moving out of your range, they regain consciousness so fast that it usually becomes a bait and wait game. When I got my first shot in here, it was pretty magical; I actually got to hit my opponent again, and again! I was actually rewarded for landing a blow and not punished for it, it eggs you on to go for as many hits as you can while they're hurt and gives the match a real flow to it. This is actually really good design that was only toned down from what I remember in the 64 version! And before you say "I don't like being in a helpless state to my opponent for free combos", SSBM doesn't work like that. DI (directional influence, the act of arcing your trajectory after being launched by the other player) is programmed in to escape combos and infinites intentionally, this makes Melee a game of not only aggression and skill, but active reads from both players.

Did I mention that my first notices was that the physics engine is a lot better back here? You keep momentum with all your jumps, you actually keep momentum from your jumps! Like any other platformer you can run and jump and cover actual distance!! It also feels so much less sticky too.

It's like you have what you call "neutral game", a point where both players are spacing each other out seeing who can get the first strike. Then you have what you call the "combo game", when someone lands a good attack more than likely they'll be able to string another attack into it if they have good reflexes, and can continue landing attacks. This is nothing like down-throw up-tilt, you can actually seriously free-style with whatever you want rather than extremely fixed and limited attacks. In Smash 4, there's a tendency for the same "combos" to happen each time once you memorize them because Nintendo clearly intended for those specific moves to link up and only those specific moves, but here I felt like I could honestly do whatever I wanted if I was alert enough. With these two things it's almost as if there's a tide of the game that goes back and forth, whereas Smash 4 is all neutral game because hit-stun is almost nonexistent. It promotes very exciting and aggressive play that I have basically never felt in the later titles, which are very methodical and more of a patience play. Higher hit-stun in SSBM is completely intended and combos were meant to be made out of it, as the tutorial video even shows Mario perform a real attack chain on Bowser if I remember right.

I have to say, the skill ceiling after returning to Melee is so high it's almost unrealistic. Now that I've finally actually gotten my hands on it again for the first time in literally ages: the extremely free/lose controls, and canceling your aerials, and unintended mechanics make the game incredibly fun to play and master. The hit-stun and heavy gravity makes everything you perform feel so freestyle, going back to Smash 4 to play online with some other friends was extremely tough to get used to. It seems much slower and limited in terms of what I could do and I actually ended up having less fun than what I'd hoped. I'm starting to see why there is a divide, the two games are so... different when you play on a higher level that I feel they're only looped together under the brand of the name itself.

Now I did have some problems with SSBM out of all this. I pretty much had an immediate disdain for ledge hogging. This is something I will never get used to, the game is comparatively much more exciting than Smash 4 off the ledge as there's considerably less ledge snapping (when you suddenly teleport to grab the ledge at a certain distance). I noticed edge gaurding is a much more active duty since you can actually attack the person who's trying to return to the stage more often; but a lot of the time the safest option the people used was to simply grab the ledge and press R, executing their invincible and RIDICULOUSLY long lasting roll animation causing me to just plummet. My other only problem was recoveries. Recovering in Smash 4 and Brawl are much much too forgiving and take absolutely no effort, but most of the time Melee is the opposite for the lower side of the cast who are all practically Falco when it comes to getting back. Being the only guy there maining Mario, I of course had the toughest time dealing with this because of how horrible and predictable his adventure to return to the stage is.

Oh, and fuck Marth. Fuck everything about him and his bullshit Jedi grab range.

After much time, I'm finding it so fun after getting good at it, I'm having trouble unplugging the controller for someone else. The matches require so much more effort and engaged attentiveness from the player. I honestly don't understand when people state Melee players strip the fun out of these things, this was extremely enjoyable; if I owned the actual working CD I would probably continue playing it right now. Believe it or not, I haven't been touching my Wii U as much because of this specifically, who knew a 14 year old title with 5 or 6 good characters (a few out of the rest or so only being 'viable') would feel so much more interesting and deep in it's mechanics that it could get me off the OTHER title in the series I was already obsessed with that technically has so much more content and polish?

I find it really cool that the old game I used to play endlessly with my siblings casually has such a low skill floor yet high skill ceiling that it has remained relevant for so many years; in fact, it's community is surprisingly growing even larger somehow to my surprise personally. Like, how is this possible? Why is this game even alive still? There has to be some things HAL did right that just keep people so hooked, because I doubt wave-dashing is all there is to it. I'm convinced a lot of the core mechanics and ideas behind its much different style of aggression are what keep it fresh for a lot of the people still attending significantly higher numbers of tournaments for it (keep in mind Smash 4 is the newer game too). The game is so loose in it's controls to allow this that it literally grew up with me. I bought it in 2001 and play it still in 2015, just harder. That's all it is, that's all I think whole "competitive" label is here. The guys seem to have just taken a game they liked when they were younger and play it much better than they did before because you can almost get infinitely good at it. This is a feeling I don't get with Smash 4, where it's comparatively so much simpler in it's physics to the point where I already feel like I've maxed out as much as I can on it and I'm bored already.

I'm genuinely curious, why were things like greater hit-stun, heavier gravity, speed, and "easy landing" (L-cancelling's official name) removed? Now I see Melee can be played casually and at a higher skill level, and it's all around much funner than the new games base engine wise. If the newer games were like this, not only would they last for several years but they'd appeal to two audiences. It's a win-win scenario that rakes in a lot of cash, I'm genuinely confused Sakurai takes active effort to stop this kind of stuff??

I probably missed a whole lot more to talk about, but my window is starting to lag from this whole tl;dr thing. I'll just say that after returning to this title I can see why it's so fun to these people still playing it and can't see why Melee players get all the flack they do. They don't need to ever "update", they aren't nostalgia blinded, it's almost a completely different ballgame. Why do they need to "adapt to change" when what got them interested is nowhere to be found in the later titles?


I dunno why I typed this, I just felt like it and was bored.
I mean this shit is so long I didn't even proofread it, it's lagging too much for me.

Quote:it's community is surprisingly growing even larger somehow to my surprise personally.

Man I already see problems, this may as well be a scratch diary rant that I'm not willing to fix out of laziness