Unpopular opinions about the Super Smash Bros series.

Here's the thing though. Having competitive elements hurts no one, but removing them does.

Casual players will play either way and some will hardly notice a difference. Casual players didn't hate Melee because it was hard to play or anything.

If you have the option to appeal to just casual players, or to both casual and competitive, why would you not appeal to both? Either way casuals are satisfied, so may as well expand the audience so the competitive players won't feel alienated.
 
I think that's where they're going with Ultimate. I do like the changes they made to the dodging mechanics, I didn't like the spammable, safe roll and air dodges that were implemented since Brawl (besides directional air-dodging is fun and helps give characters with bad recoveries eg Ness another recovery option).

I can't say I'm too huge of a fan of the new air balloon knockback system but we'll see about that.
 
Yeah the new knockback potentially makes it really hard to combo. We'll see how it plays out in the full game. All the other changes feel super welcome. The changes to rolls and dodges are a god send. But the universal change to a three frame jump squat is a blessing to characters like Ganondorf, so here's hoping he and other characters won't be complete garbage this time.
 
Deku said:
Here's the thing though. Having competitive elements hurts no one, but removing them does.

Casual players will play either way and some will hardly notice a difference. Casual players didn't hate Melee because it was hard to play or anything.

If you have the option to appeal to just casual players, or to both casual and competitive, why would you not appeal to both? Either way casuals are satisfied, so may as well expand the audience so the competitive players won't feel alienated.
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Oh, don't get me wrong, you're absolutely right. That's why lacking competitive elements is still Brawl's biggest flaw. I just don't think it hurts it nearly as much as the popular opinion would suggest. Brawl was kind of a victim of circumstance as Sakurai felt he had to make it have easier and slower gameplay to accommodate the flood of new/casual gamers that were buying the Wii, as implied in this article.
 
I'm conflicted about Brawl. I used to like when I was younger, but nowadays I'm rusty enough that the last time I played, I couldn't get into it. Honestly, I kinda blame Smash 4.
And Brawl Minus.
As for my general thoughts, I like the roster. The aesthetics (the menus and music direction, not for the characters or the settings to an extent) I find myself prefering Melee. Musicwise especially since the orchestra of Melee is great and Brawl's diverse selection, while still good on its own, doesn't get me as much (especially some of the new victory themes; what did they do to Ness and Lucas' theme?!). Subspace gets points for trying a narrative, but also has issues: The world is bland with the few landmarks suffering from the realistic art direction to the extent that the Halberd is the only standout location in the mode; compare this with Melee where the locales were at worst still familiar. There's also the issues with the story, but that could fill its own comment.
Brawl is still a very monumental game, especially for being the first one to feature third-parties but overall, if I want to play a Smash game, I'd probably go to Melee or either version of Smash 4 first. :posh:
 
Deku said:
Here's the thing though. Having competitive elements hurts no one, but removing them does.

Casual players will play either way and some will hardly notice a difference. Casual players didn't hate Melee because it was hard to play or anything.

If you have the option to appeal to just casual players, or to both casual and competitive, why would you not appeal to both? Either way casuals are satisfied, so may as well expand the audience so the competitive players won't feel alienated.
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On the other hand, competitive elements add a skill curve and if you have too many of those, you'll end up scaring away or overwhelming new players, kinda like the clusterfuck that is competitive Pokemon. And some competitive elements, some casual players may take notice and use them to improve their playing ability, so I do guess having some competitive elements are nice. I'm not that much of a fan of ladder comboes or chain-grabbing though. Not fun to watch.

My initial impressions about Smash 4 was that is WAS a souped up Brawl. Nevertheless, it made improvements to those elements. Pity Final Smashes can no longer be given to CPUs, and they're much rarer. The Adventure mode was ambitious, but it had major flaws and gave all three Kirby characters way too much important roles and screentime. Stage Builder is nice, but it's pretty short-lived and with, what, modding, it's kinda just... there. Brawl has a superior Classic mode than Wii U's and no dreaded Smash Run, but I think Smash 4 has better event matches.

Brawl, however, dismantled Target Test. The first two games has personalized Target Tests, so it's fair for each character. Brawl, there's no point to using slower characters, like Kirby, when things like Sheik and Zero Suit Samus exists because everyone has the same one. Target Test is still better than Target Blast, though Smash 3DS does have Target Test as a part of Smash Run, so that's nice. The double-layered disc is primarily for Subspace Emissary, not really for actual content. Smash 4 has different sound effects though. The punching and kicking are different. The slashing is also different. Brawl's slashing sound effect sounds terrible too BTW. Melee had the best slash noises.

That last paragraph can be applied to literally any Smash game, including Melee. Player skill matters the most, but after a certain threshold of skill, character matchup starts mattering. You just can't win with Ganon against a skilled Meta Knight, not without a stroke of luck or a really bad mistake from Meta Knight, if the match is even close to begin with.

Hmm I like Smash 64 more than Brawl, but nostalgia plays a big role there, but the sound-effects and crowd noises are top-noth as well as the cartoonish atmosphere, I keep coming back to it once in a while.

I'm not even competitive. I'm damn casual and play very unconventionally. But I do pick up on competitive elements.
 
Princess Mario said:
Brawl has a superior Classic mode than Wii U's and no dreaded Smash Run, but I think Smash 4 has better event matches.
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You mean Smash Tour? Because I know you like Smash Run.
 
Princess Mario said:
Deku said:
Here's the thing though. Having competitive elements hurts no one, but removing them does.

Casual players will play either way and some will hardly notice a difference. Casual players didn't hate Melee because it was hard to play or anything.

If you have the option to appeal to just casual players, or to both casual and competitive, why would you not appeal to both? Either way casuals are satisfied, so may as well expand the audience so the competitive players won't feel alienated.
Click to expand...
On the other hand, competitive elements add a skill curve and if you have too many of those, you'll end up scaring away or overwhelming new players, kinda like the clusterfuck that is competitive Pokemon. And some competitive elements, some casual players may take notice and use them to improve their playing ability, so I do guess having some competitive elements are nice. I'm not that much of a fan of ladder comboes or chain-grabbing though. Not fun to watch.

Smash 4 has different sound effects though. The punching and kicking are different. The slashing is also different. Brawl's slashing sound effect sounds terrible too BTW. Melee had the best slash noises.
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Melee was able to have a balance, and I have never met a casual player turned off from playing the game because of the technical elements. A casual player is not going to wavedash or l cancel anyway.

As far as sound effects go, most character voices are reused, and little things like menu selection and challenger approaching sound effects are the same as Brawl. It's not huge but little things like that hinder it from having an identity all its own.
 
Regarding Target Test, I'm beginning to wonder if we've reached a point where personalized stages are impossible with the size of the current roster, especially with the amount of thought that went into the Melee ones (where else are you seriously gonna use Young Link's walljump).
I can't wait until Ultimate proves me wrong though.