The original Super Smash Bros. for N64 had a relatively short lifespan. It was only around for about two years before being overshadowed by Super Smash Bros. Melee in 2001. Admittedly, I was not around during that transition (well, I was alive, but I did not play smash back then). Regardless, the original smash still has a strong following even today, especially with the advent of emulation software allowing these older games to be played over the Internet. While Melee has no real online presence, it is clearly the game most smashers are attached to. Smashfests and tournaments take place all around the world constantly adding to the culture.
With Brawl just around the corner, members of the smash community are frantically analyzing every tidbit of new information that comes out of the DOJO and various E4All updates. The previous smash games did not feature this much information prior to release, so something tells me the previous games did not suffer the same level of anxiety from such a large population of smashers (not to mention Smashboards was in its infancy back then, and I was a moderator for the obscure Smash Bros. Online forums).
Of particular interest is the area of advanced tactics. Even the competitive community is split on this issue. The casual community is cheering since wavedashing is gone. Half the competitive community is upset that Brawl will not become the perfected Melee 2.0 (fully balanced with online features). The other half welcomes whatever Brawl has to offer, fully expecting a completely new experience. Everyone has mixed feelings about the various single-player modes (though, many of them are no longer "single"). They will most likely be required in unlocking certain characters or stages. Some will enjoy it, others will endure it, and the rest will just copy a friend's Brawl data to skip the process altogether.
For those who have not yet seen Gimpyfish's Brawl impressions thread, I highly recommend it. Having played the Brawl demo at E4All, Gimpyfish makes it abundantly clear that despite borrowing elements from both Melee and the original smash, Brawl is a new game. Thinking of it as one its two predecessors will only handicap everyone in trying to adapt. This sounds like bad news for the Melee 2.0 fans, but considering how the development team is putting far more effort and polish into Brawl than either of the previous games, the whole smash community is bound to be completely satisfied with all aspects (both casual and competitive).
The bottom line is that change is upon us. Melee did not get to where to where it is today by recreating the original Super Smash Bros. with better graphics and more characters. Melee introduced new physics, and they turned out to be superb improvements despite many initial critical reviews. Brawl may seem foreign at first, but after a while, everyone will wonder how they ever lived without the changes.
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2 comments:
Very interesting, Buzz!
It's true the Brawl is certainly its own game, and shame on those who wanted a Melee 2.0! To me, Brawl feels a lot like the original Smash while combining elements with Melee while adding even more cool stuff that makes it vastly superior to the previous games. To heck with a Melee 2.0, I want a whole new Smash...and that's just what we're getting! ^_^
I wish people would stop dumping all said casual players in the same basket. It gets irritating.
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