The Geek Critique just letting you know L canceling is in smash 64 as well :) it was called "soft landing" and Melee doesn't lack accessibility my proof is you and your buddy playing, and how it was the best selling game, the best thing about melee is that it can be played intensely or casually :) something only 64 can claim to do as well.
The Geek Critique I’m glad you made mention of the unfairness of edge-hogging. Even in the competitive scene, it is the one mechanic that is universally recognized as needing replacement, especially by pros. The only reason competitive players do it is because we’re competitive, and it’s busted. So of course we need to use it.
Papa Banks Yeah I recently watched a guy do almost nothing (in smash terms) and win by chilling near the edge. I think a fair fix would be found in the level select/editor. Instead of final destination, a stage without a hole would eliminate that stuff. I'd basically just put a spike pit underneath the fan favorite FinalDestination/Omega.
Not necessary. Nintendo already has a fix for it. Ledge trumping is something most melee pros have explicitly stated they want to see in Smash 5 (assuming Smash 5 has deep enough mechanics for people to switch games)
Here's something I always loved to do in Melee with my friends: We'd call it "Pokemon Battle", and the only items enabled would be a Pokeball and a couple of other things, and the item frequency would be set to Max :sigh: those were good days :)
Believe it or not I actually got someone to play along with me on Smash Ultimate online using preferred settings like that. Just had to set my preferences to only Pokeballs, maximum round time (7 mins I think?) and then wait a bit until it picked my settings and I actually found someone willing to go along with it. It was a fun and honorable Pokémon battle
Jameson Jeffery I hate when people say that. So play Kirby too. Oh what, you got owned? A character is not "cheap" if clone matches aren't skill-less 50/50 RNG wins. Kirby > all. Yes, he is easy to pick up. That doesn't mean he sucks.
I loved this. Finally someone who isnt necessarily a tourney player, but knows their shit and takes a pretty good stance. You don't bash competitive fans for simply enjoying the game differently, and at the same time understand why they like it so much while also enjoying every other Smash game yourself. There's a reason this CD is still going hot for $50.
Iceman404 Yeah, man, my original copy of Melee was stolen along with the Gamecube. SO glad I bought the Player's Choice version in '05, even if I did lose the creepy eye on the back of Daisy's head as a result.
+Iceman404 i personally don't think this guy "knows his shit" he seemed to know absolutly nothing about what makes depth in a game, and has no idea what the ssb64 competitive scene is like
This was also the last Smash Bros. without a fractious, bitter pre-release period that would leave fan communities in ruins. I remember how innocent and low-key it all was. There was some bafflement that Diddy wasn't in the game, and that these jabronies called the Ice Climbers were, but otherwise we all just rolled with it because it was just Smash Bros.. It wasn't until Melee blew up like it did and became THE defining Nintendo game of a generation that the stakes were suddenly raised for all of your favorite characters and franchises. Suddenly, news that a new Smash Bros. was coming felt like the launch of a political campaign season: Anxiety, strife and bitter arguments where you had to fend off attacks on what you held most dear. Melee was the last moment of innocence, but it's also the reason that innocence no longer exists. Great game though.
Falco is just Fox with some small tweaks. They really do play basically the same, it's just that competetive players tend to hyper-focus on small differences and act like they mean the entire world. Roy plays basically the same as Marth too. Roy works better to my style, which should be a flashing sign as to where I stand on the whole competitive scene.
Wow, this is a really well put together. You're putting emotion into your descriptions, which keeps them from being boring. You're editing is suburb, and this is a highly intelligent history lesson.
7:15 Fun Fact: "Suicidal" could also mean "Being a Masochist." And that's fine. Pichu can be anything he wants. Also, Pichu is VERY Adorable ESPECIALLY In Ultimate! :3
"Smash Bros. Melee" is one of the few games I played that I simultaneously was shit at and still loved it nonetheless. Plus, I have fond, embarrassingly boyish memories of my friend and I spending minutes upon minutes repeatedly pausing the game when Princess Peach jumped and trying to aim the camera up her dress...
@@jamiecal11 Who says its not, did it offend you haha. he shared a moment, that many others did. you just like people to say things you want the mto say or what you feel people should say.
"Nearly a fourth of all GameCube owners had Melee." Do I even need to point out the mistake here? 7 million of 21 million is a third, not a fourth. I'm sure he just misspoke there.
yeah I agree, there is a difference between a more competitive player and a long playing casual, with this guy being the latter. Just because you spent hundreds of hours in the game doesn't mean you're not casual. The fact that you play with items and are generally pretty bad at the game kind of shows.
This is THE game I played the most in my teenage years. The goosebumps I feel when I hear and see that opening FMV are just sublime. To make it better one of my favorite YT channels is covering the game in great detail.
Noellennon Reviews I know what you mean. It's definitely one of mine, too. It came out when I was in 8th grade, and I was still playing it when I graduated. I appreciate the compliment, glad you're enjoying TGC!
I like how you take a more nuanced approach. I get a lot of very vitriolic responses whenever I tell people that I like Project M and Melee over any other Smash games. Sometimes, the responses I get are borderline disturbing in how violent they are. The truth is that I didn't go into Brawl or Smash 4 wanting to dislike them. I love playing Smash, but it's kinda hard to go back to a less deep experience when you've experienced the fun of competitive play. It sucks you in and the fun you get from it is intense. It's a rush that I can't even begin to describe. However, whenever I play these later games, I don't get that rush and I am starved for it. Personally, I think that Melee's balance of competitive / party experience was pretty much near perfect, and Project M, I feel did great in improving that ratio even more. One could play Melee at both levels fairly reliably and have a lot of fun. Understanding the basic rules of Melee was very easy, while there was a lot one could learn to improve themselves if they wished to. It was both very deep while being very accessible. You could go and learn how to play at high levels, but you didn't have to either. I feel that Mr. Sakurai not understanding this is unfortunate as I don't think that there would have been this much of a community split if he had accepted Melee's competitive smashers instead of outright trying to reject them. I also feel that with proper online matchmaking, those advanced techniques can indeed co-exist with those that don't want to use them. To be sure, the Melee community gets a lot of undeserved hate. I have experienced it from the outside and from the inside. From the outside, it can seem scary, inaccessible, but that's hardly the reality. People often look at high level players and are afraid to outright come to a tournament venue and ask someone to play with them. Once I did, I met a nice man who praised me after he kicked my butt, and then we spent time chatting about the game. He taught me a lot to help me getting started and it was a very positive experience. From the inside, I learned that these people just like playing Smash and in general, they welcome just about anyone as long as you are not a sore loser. They help each other, play with just about anyone, are socially conscious, it's great. I think that a lot of the hate comes from misunderstandings. It is clear that a lot of the things being said about this community is very uninformed and inaccurate. To me, it sounds like many people are hearing people parrot things people have fabricated over the Internet and have taken them to be true. Now, I am not saying that there have never been people who have behaved poorly in the community, but the community doesn't like these people any more than you do. Sadly, when someone within the community acts out, it is the entirety of it that feels the after-effects. In my opinion, Melee is the most polished of every smash game, and I find that it is a shame that Mr. Sakurai doesn't see the value of a healthy esports scene.
+Vigilanteblade I was introduced to melee in the worst possible way. I watched this video not even knowing the basics of fighting games. And now I just apreacitate this game to bits! Even if I'm not very good at it myself, I see the appeal as I used to play a lot of IWBTG games. I just wanted to say that your comment as well was very well written. I wish people had more open minds regarding franchises/fanbases/and its inherant appeal, and not just jump to negative conclusions about things just because thier is a learning curve. Sure you can have your own opinion, but from my experience, taking the time to learn something, or at least understand why something is the way it is, is always beneficial to me as a person! It's always nice to bump into someone who knows this kind of stuff, as frankly, its hard to come by for some reason. Just wanted to say thanks, you "brightened up my day" so to speak! XD
Vigilanteblade i disagree i don't think its possible for the casual players and the competitive players to exist not because of each other but because of people who are not willing to take the steps to be competitive so they abuse the game against people who wont abuse the game back and that pisses off the casuals. i know because i was that person before i had a friend who loved smash bros and i discovered edge hogging that ruined the game for him for a while because i would abuse it whenever i could then smash 4 came out and took that away pretty much lowering the skill cap putting him closer to me in skill i didn't like that so i told him i wasn't playing that game anymore now we rarely see each other because i have gotten into competitive melee and Project M and he has quit smash altogether because he had no one to play with
i will say one thing: ganondorf being a captain falcon clone was probably the dumbest part of the roster. he's an evil wizard that knows how to use swords and tridents. but with each new entry since melee, he gets more different from captain falcon. in ultimate, he's got his spaceworld sword as his smash attacks. im hoping one day, we get a re-do for ganondorf. because of all the clones, his is the one that makes the least sense.
Great video. Gotta comment on the Melee being too technical portion, however. It does bother me that people often use this talking point when speaking about one version vs the other because the technicality of Melee did nothing to harm the casual players who knew little of the advanced mechanics, but it really did open up the game to new heights once crews discovered them. It really changed the way my friends and I played after being introduced the the competitive style years ago, and I whole heartedly believe it is the in the best interest of both casual players and advanced ones to commit to that depth for future iterations of smash. It's especially disappointing when I look at Smash 4, a game I enjoy greatly but am already growing concerned for. It does not take much in Brawl or 4 for a great player to abuse the systems far worse than any single person could in Melee, and it's going to hurt the competitive scene in the long run. Players are going to get tired of campy, floaty styles of play and it's going to become painfully clear why we don't appreciate the highly defensive styles of Brawl. It's too hard to approach and it's almost never in your best interest to play aggressively with shielding and arials behaving how they do. I already see it among my current group of friends- they hate playing against me and they're growing tired of the game. Playing Project M was different- they didn't feel cheated or gimped while fighting, and the cast felt more balanced. The movement speed alone, not even counting wave-dashing, felt snappier, like they had more control over their character and the flow of the match. As it stands in Smash 4, I can force them to approach me and punish them accordingly. It might not seem as 'unfair' as the old melee mechanics, but it certainly does feel 'Unfun.' It's not even like they can simply adapt and beat the strategy- that is the way these games are played and they have to conform or suffer. That turned into a bit of a rant, but my point stands as this: A highly technical game like Melee hurts nobody, but reducing competitive options hurts everyone.
I believe the point of Melee being too technical wasn't to imply that cutting competitive options is good, quite the contrary like you said. however, that high technicality DOES hurt people... he points it out right in the video as "Accessibility". A highly technical game is less accessible to the standard player at a competitive level as they look on and see the skill bar of the game and their own skill level... while some may look at the challenge and try to learn how to pull these advanced techs: A.K.A: "Git Gud.", others may look on and be deterred because they'll feel like they'll have no jumping off point to try to get into the competitive scene... where the main objectives are to A: be noticed for your skill, while having as much fun as you can have (not too difficult on the last part if you like the game a lot), and B: use that skill, and any additional skill that you gain within the game to WIN tournaments, which reinforces objective A. Melee sets the bar VERY high to even partake in tournaments at a LOCAL level... I should know; before I moved away from my hometown, I partook in the local scene, didn't go farther than that. However, I can tell you that it hurts worse to lose when you lack the skills to even play a good match, than to have the skills to play at that level and still lose. Note: this isn't to say that Melee is completely inaccessible, not by a LONG shot. However, stating that high technicality doesn't hurt people is a sweeping generalization that doesn't take into account the notion of how a person's mind can work to psyche them up for the challenge, or belittle them as they feel they won't ever get that good, despite just needing to put in time and effort.
Woo, a comment from 2 years ago gettin' some attention. Obviously accessibility is important, but lets not overstate the effects of competition on the core gamer: Most people will never encounter wavedashing in their game crews. The reality is that most people are not going to join a club and 'git good,' nor are they even going to entertain that idea. Those that are interested will go out and seek competition anyway. Personal feelings aside, it's obvious that Melee competition is founded on some strange advanced mechanisms that are not all at once obvious to a casual player. This could be, and should have been, remedied in sequels in which they created easier control methods for imputing those techniques. This would have 1) streamlined the game 2) added transparency to the advanced tech Instead, Smash decided to dismantle all of that and create a much more boring, stagnant game. Smash 4 is still a good game, but it is nothing in comparison to Melee, a game that is as fun to watch as it is to play (don't even get me started on why being fun to watch is more important than accessibility). I get what you're saying. At this point, becoming proficient in Melee is an insane endeavour. But the advanced tech didn't happen all at once. Melee is 15 years old and has a rich history of competition and research behind it. But at the time of release, nobody was bothering themselves with wavedashing or l-canceling or wobbling. That stuff came later. The point is that Melee's gameplay was always fast, brutal, and lethal and was made better by the advanced tech. Brawl and 4 both chose to ignore that speed in favor of perceived 'accessibility' when Melee, at its most basic level of play, is still perfectly accessible. All Brawl and 4 did was limit the competitive edge of Smash and hurt the spectator. Perhaps you like to watch 4 more than melee- I have no idea. But for the vast majority of fighting game players 4 has become a mixed back for spectators and is still a mess competitively (though, to be fair, the last patch was a significant improvement).
Pride St. Clair I have no preferences, I've held or played in tournaments for all of them, watching comes with the territory. I get what you are saying as well, just pointing out that generalizations lead to misconstrued opinions. Happy Smashing!
About accessibility in Melee. Melee is very accessible just not for competitive play, casual players did not find Melee hard. This is evident in Melee sales and what you said in the video. I don't understand why we can't have a game like Melee again, fun for casuals and fun for competitive.
Snaking in Mario Kart (pre-Wii) is probably a great comparison to make here. Either one is a valid style of play, but the separation between the two is ... vast, to say the least.
The problem isn't that melee isn't accessible on a base level for casual play, but that the advanced tech that competitive play requires is so inaccessible that anyone who hasn't learned it or isn't aware of it can't even compete with someone who has a good enough grasp on it to use it
Vinc? Is it a problem though? Since when is it a problem to have a definitive separation between casual players and pros? In my opinion, melee achieved a perfect level of difficulty. The fact that anyone can pickup a controller and have a blast with friends while the highest level is incredibly hard to reach is a rare accomplishment. If we imagine the player base on a spectrum of skills, melee keeps the lower boundary very low (so that anyone who picks up a GC controller can have a blast with their friends), while setting the higher limit so high we aren't sure we've found it 17 years later. This makes the skill spectrum of players much much larger than any other smash game. My point is, having a high skill cap doesn't hurt the casual in melee, but it gives so much room for improvement to all players and makes for a great esport. A bit like chess really, anyone can play and enjoy it but it takes years to be able to compete with grandmasters.
+Vinc Really? Because I can triple-shine, mid-shorten, waveshine, and SHFFL reliably, but I still to lose to f-smash spamming Marths, down-smash spamming Peachs and Shieks, and planking Jigglypuffs on netplay frequently. Just knowing the techniques is not enough to beat those who don't. The pro's dominate because they have mastered *dozens* of techniques and can apply them all seamlessly. When M2K 4-stocks in pools it's not because he has some secret move, it's because he is literally outplaying that person in every possible way, which is appropriate when he's played 10x as long as they have. The pros even 4-stock eachother quite often, it's not because the loser didn't know what to do, he just got outplayed multiple times in a row.
I really liked melee's high skill ceiling and complicated tech moves, even if I couldn't get there myself it added a sense of mystique to the game and made competitive a lot more fun to watch. Only thing I'd change is making them actual mechanics rather than random exploits I remember reading about wavedashing in nintendo power as a kid, and it came off as some magical anime shit that only masters of the art could do, like they had trained in the martial arts alone on a mountain for years and come down with the ability to throw fireballs, it blew my mind That side by side comparison in the video says it all, the difference is like those scenes in DBZ where everyone's flying and moving so fast that non-fighters can't even see what's happening, and the idea that both that and regular mundane fighting can exist in the same game, with the only thing separating them being player skill, is fucking awesome
my friends and I play the new switch one right now and we started with the n64 version as well. after 20 years we still call every smash game "melee". "Hey lets play some melee". It had such an influence on us that we changed the name but not on purpose.
Awesome! Just awesome! I know how long you have been working on this the past few weeks, and it definitely shows it! Can't wait to see how you do Brawl.
The way you use music in your videos is awesome, keeps me coming back again and again. Good narration timed with track scores is akin to conducting in itself.
I WOULD be perfectly ok with clones, if it didn't create situations like ganondorf, where even 2 games later he is still a clone without reason. IMO, clones should be limited to characters that MAKE SENSE to be a clone, and shouldn't be stuff like ganondorf being a clone of falcon.
The Geek Critique He still doesn't have a SINGLE move actually inspired by LoZ though. and the only reason for that is cause now they put themselves in the situation of : we either keep him a clone = people unhappy or we replace the moveset = people unhappy That is why clones should only happen for characters that make sense examples : OG Falco (he is in the same team as Fox, so it makes sense he would have the same (slightly altered/differently used) equipment Wolf and Lucas made sense to be semi clones Dr. Mario : Just a way to have Mario in without FLUDD, the same person, makes sense OG luigi : back then, Luigi and mario weren't diversified enough yet, even within their own series Pichu : bit of a strange addition, but logical clone YL/TL : while there is MORE THEN ENOUGH stuff to diversify them, it atleast is 'logical' that they are clones of Link Roy : made sense, seeing as his game wasn't even out yet, and FE didn't really have a lot of "uniqueness" in their lords Dark pit : same as YL/TL, somewhat logical that they are clones, although there would be a lot of options to not make them clones. Bad example : Ganondorf : Magician thief king fighting like a bruiser/fistfighter ? Lucina : fights different from marth within her own series, only LOOKING like him. Atleast with her we won't have to worry about her being stuck as a clone, since she probably won't come back for the next smash anyway. I just think Clones should be semi-clones at least, and IF they *HAVE* to make a full clone, then atleast take characters that make sense.
dragon heaven Hm? I haven't deleted any comments. These just got auto-marked as spam and I had to correct that, because UA-cam is just that intelligent.
Evidently unlike you, I don't really have words to describe how much Melee means to me and how much good came out of it. It's one of those games that you know will be unique to you, and even though I vastly enjoy its descendants and the original, there is nothing else quite like.
I will say: ledge hogging isn't that broken. Most characters, especially Fox and Falco, have a shitload of different options to get back on the stage, and constantly edge hogging at the wrong time can get you seriously punished, even losing the game.
it isn't broken at all. Ledge hogging was also in 64 and brawl. Guy's just finding something to complain about a great game. Literally trying to nitpick but just looks stupid as a result
11:30 - All or most items on. Normal frequency. Score. 5 minute matches. 4 players, use CPUs if you have to. My philosophy for how to setup a Smash game was informed a lot by playing online Quake and Team Fortress at the time. 1) More players is good. Learning to navigate and exploit the chaos of the different fighters is an essential skill. 2) Keep everyone in the game for the entire match. Score encourages players to be aggressive which leads to fun gameplay.* Also no one likes being eliminated and having to watch. 3) Play for a long enough match time so that the cream can rise to the top. If you set the game length right and your scoring system is good then the good players should consistently rise to the top of the board despite the chaotic nature of the game but less skilled players are able to be active participants enough that they learn through playing. I feel like lots of good sporting events follow some similar traits too. You want players or teams to always be pushing to score and maybe get a win. Smash is actually kind of genius in this regard because it doesn't show you the score by default, meaning if you're playing score you have to play 100% until the "GAME" because you just don't know where you are in the standings. *You'll note in old FPS games like Doom and Quake frags give you points, but deaths don't take away points unless they're self inflicted. That's because the developers want you out there earning points and not hiding in a corner camping. If forces players to attack rather than defend because in those style games defending is inherently easier.
I'm pretty sure he forgot to mention that melee brought "not showering" to the table too. I don't know how he could have forgot something that important in the video...
It's funny, what attracted me to this game in the first place were Dr. Mario and Ganondorf. I thumbed through a magazine guide as a kid and was captivated by their inclusion. And they were unlockable characters! I felt so accomplished to be able to play as them once I actually owned the game. Even as a young kid at the time, I had no issue with these dudes being clones. I was already blown away that they were in the game to begin with, and I think I had roughly, subconsciously considered the general circumstances for their inclusion. The clone characters in Melee are right up there with Symphony of the Night's inverted castle in my eyes. An extremely smart way to make the most of available resources during crunch time.
I completely understand why you (and a lot of people) think edgehogging seems cheap, and before I got heavily into competitive smash I felt the same. But allow me to try to explain why in the scenes eyes, it isn't viewed this way. If you are hit off the stage and you exhaust all your recovery options to the point where you will only make it to the ledge, I'm gunna edgehog you. But if I didn't I could just as easily back air you, cape you, shine-spike you, down tilt you, all of which are very simple to do. So in this situation edgehogging does the same as a lot of other options. Now if you are recovering and you can make it onto the stage, but instead decide to go for the ledge, I can call you out on it and quickly grab it before you do. You have the option to go onto stage, and if you do, and I try to edgehog, you're in a better position now. Edgehogging is only an option, out of many options and creates depth in the edgeguard/recovery metagame.
schmoo I'd have to disagree. If you have all these other options but choose the easiest and cheapest option I don't see how that makes you a pro level player at all.
David Alvarado Because if that option is available then there's a 99% chance you outplayed your opponent to the position of forcing them to recover like that in the first place. Also some players are great at the ledge and can get kills easily there and so turn a disadvantage into an advantage.
David Alvarado why would a pro ever make something harder than it should be? That’s the opposite of what a professional player who wants to win would do
Thank you UA-cam Recommended for actually showing me a channel I like! Your videos do something that a lot of game critique people fail at: having proper pacing. You never spend too long or too little a time on various subjects in whatever your video is about, nor does your sense of humor make me want to facepalm. You give information that shows you really care about the topic matter, and that's great! Keep it up.
Regarding the edge hogging mechanic, I do share the same feeling about it being dissatisfying on either side. However, it does create more options for the aggressor which is why Melee is so great, because it doesn't punish you for going on the offence at the highest levels of play like the latter games. For example: if you knock Shiek off the stage its going to be in her best interest to go for the edge because she is invincible during her UP+B recovery and will make it back safely almost every time. Now, if you jump and grab the edge with the right timing, you're forcing Sheik to either fall to her death, or to go onto the stage. If the Shiek decides to land on the stage after using her UP+B, she will have a bit of lag before she can act. That is when you attack her! Without edge hogging, Shiek just went from always being safe, to having an opening.
I see I am some years late catching this video, but I will definitely say that I enjoyed the content that you have posted. I find myself on that pseudo end of the competitive scene, but the game as a whole is something I genuinely have enjoyed since its first release on the 64. When was in high school, I will say that I did shy away from melee because at the time I couldn't get a good feel from coming from 64 to melee. I did go on a hiatus and did other things, but it wasn't until my friend introduced me to brawl that spark my interest all over again. Which over time I was super casual and was better than most casual players in my area, but once I had a taste of what the competitive scene was for brawl, I became instantly hooked. Eventually some friends turn me back to melee and showed me how much more in-depth than I first realized it was. I think what I find fun for myself is finding that overwhelming skill Gap that can be attained through practice. Like landing my first Ken combo mid match with one of my friends was an unforgettable experience. But anyway, loved your video. I will definitely be keeping up with your channel.
Excellent video. I think one of the few casual type players who gets competitive Melee. And while I disagree it doesn't look like Smash, I think this video is a really good perspective from someone who addresses the issue of competitive Melee who doesn't play competitive Melee. A lot of people misunderstand the community as people who only play like 4 characters and who are need to move on and are a bunch of assholes. Just take a look at Relax Alexes HORRENDOUS video.
Jake Spanedda Yeah, it bugs me when either side does that. There are those who insist that if you dare turn on items, play on stages like Poké Floats, or don’t want to bother spending hundreds of hours learning to wavedash, you’re playing the game wrong. On the flip side, there are those who think Super Smash Bros. was not meant to be taken so seriously, and so if you limit the viable characters and stages or exploit the engine, YOU’RE playing the game wrong. But the people who are THAT extreme with it, to the point that they try to dictate other people's enjoyment, are a vocal minority. Like I said, fun's subjective, and when extremists lash out like that, they're just making their side look ridiculous.
Yeah, it's really frustrating. It's a game, let people play it how they want, I just was happy to see someone who makes videos comprehend the tournament scene isn't a bunch of raving lunatics who hate casuals and items and fun.
Melee was so ahead of its time, it’s still played by millions and will always be played by millions, it’s one of my favorite video games of all time and also a top 10 video game ever, a masterpiece from the start.
Donion sakurai definitely said it’s the sharpest game in the series and he might not like it cause it’s to hard for casuals to just pick up and play but it’s still an important game
@@AyvalonEX Uhh...just to clarify things, he created Brawl to be the opposite of Melee (which did not go so well), so he did not say he did not like it, but he called Melee the sharpest at some point.
Smash 64 barely even has character tiers, and they're all very narrowly banded. Jigglypuff is an intentional joke character, weaker than the others and hidden behind being unlockable and still close enough to be competitively useful. Ness, Captain Falcon, and Luigi are more powerful overall than the eight base characters. They're just not _massively_ more powerful, and all the other characters are still quite competitive against them.
This isn't even a little true, and I have no idea why you would make a comment trying to inform others if you haven't really studied the competitive scene. Check out the tier list here to see the real character ranking: www.ssbwiki.com/Tier_list
CorvidDude While doing some research for this, I thought it was funny that the move became so significant that its name changed. Smash calls it "reflector," but in competitive terms, it's "shine."
You also know the term tilts also started from the competitive community ? Up till smash 4 in America it was referred to as strong attacks by Nintendo. At least the hardcore players make better nicknames.
Best game of all time. I'd play against my brother with my handicap at 4 and his at 7, and it felt like challenge for both of us. He played Falco. I played everybody. Items were usually low, pokeballs only.
I went the entire Donkey Kong series, the entire Sonic the Hedgehog series, and a few Metroid videos without ever realizing that you had a speech impediment. That's awesome how you have completely overcome it. Continue doing what you do
15:38 Look at it this way: If you're that low that already that your only option is to grab the ledge, you either need to either delay your fall (so their invincibility runs) or accept that you lost a stock already if it's come to that.
I love vids like this. Because I know someone will see it and look up the competitive smash scene. It's so fun once you are apart of it. There are two types of people after these vids. The ones who look up the scene and scoff at us. Then the ones who try out the advanced strats and tech and realize how amazing yet difficult melee is to play. If any of you have Time and wanna be inspired look up the documentary here on UA-cam called "the smash brothers" . Trust me you won't regret it
+Albert Cavazos I was one of those people! I was so inspired by this that did all that stuff you said in your comment! Unfortunately I couldn't follow through. Fighting games just aren't for me. I love getting a good thrill from time to time and it can be great fun with friends! Some of my most hype moments in gaming come from taking a fighting game too seriously. But I can only take so much of it at once before I get overwhelmed and go back to playing my 2D platformers. I tried, I gave it my all, but it didn't work out. It became apperant once I watched the SSB documentary, I noticed the very reason why those people played Melee competevly in the first place... It's cause it was fun, they had a passion for the game that I never had, and probably never will have. That was their motivation, not this "Elitism" or this "Competition is the future" mentality that so many people have labeled them as! To put this in perspective, as a kid I played 2 games at a cousins house at the age of 5. SSB64 and Mario Kart 64. Guess which one I liked better! Granted we played SSB64 a lot more, and it was much more competitive and in-depth and all that, but I remembered Mario Kart that much more, it was in 3D, it was innovational, it was simply more...inspiring! And while looking back I might think such a viewpoint would be silly, it proves a point. I just find more inspiration and passion to a fantasy expasive epic and awesome world that I could interact with rather than an in-depth fighting game...let alone a 2D one. Don't get me wrong, I love myself some good old I Wanna Be the Guy, and even stuff like Freedom Planet. But to put it as a fighting game?! Its just not the same for me!... :(
+Alienrun yes the passion they hold is what separates them. if its not fun then dont continue but for people like me i like smash enough that i still play it and want to get better at it.
i only just ran into this video cause youtube suggested it, and honestly, this is one of the best evaluations of melee and its competitive scene i've ever seen (as someone in the melee community). considering how many people just say "party game," "toxic community," etc etc, it's nice to see someone who mainly enjoys the game casually, but still recognizes the competitive appeal. also, videos like this are nice for introducing casual players to the comp scene. thanks :)
Super Smash Bros. Melee is my favourite in the series since it's the one that I've played the most. I never owned a Wii nor an N64. I don't like Brawl as much since it's too float-y and 64 is much too grab-dependent. I can't really complain about 3DS since it's still too new for me to really compare it since although it feels like it's also a little bit too much on the float-y side. I don't play Smash competitively but Melee still remains my favourite. On the subject of 64 though, at my church there's a group of youth who meet prior to the regular service and our youth pastor had his N64 there until the 64 broke. :( Each Sunday morning a group of people slowly became experts at 64 and by the end of the year, we pretty much knew everything about it. But it's just so grab-dependent, but it can still be competitive and just as fun.
Yeah, I actually cut a little paragraph from my script for Melee, addressing Smash 64's competitive side and linking it to why defensive options were so expanded in Melee. Consider this a VERY SPECIAL COMMENT READER BONUS : "In 64, you could shield to block attacks, but if your shield depleted and broke, you’d be left vulnerable. While shielding, you could also dodge in either direction. In the air? Unless you had room to counterattack, there was nothing you could do. Upper-level Smash 64 eventually became a game of exploiting errors, and the limited defensive options combined with the massive amount of hitstun meant that once you were on the ropes, there weren’t many options."
When I was in highschool my friend lent me his whole Gamecube just so I could play his copy of SSBM. And he let me delete his game so I could start over. I literally unlocked all characters completed all challenges in one weekend. Melee was probably the most fun I've ever had with a video game.
I... I had never considered that before. You make such a well-reasoned, logical argument that you've convinced me to reverse my opinion on the matter. I, and everyone else here, applaud your masterful debating skill. (Nah, but really, others have made some very fair points about it, and that's awesome!)
The Geek Critique The best part about Melee is the ledge mechanics. As the famous Scar says "Melee is played at the ledge". To even imply Smash4's mechanics are anything but a MASSIVE downgrade to Melee just shows you are ignorant and don't understand what makes a fair competitive game in the first place
Edge hogging isn't safe if the enemy can recover onto the stage or if they can delay their recovery (with a few exceptions, like falcon edge-guarding sheik). If you can recover onto the stage, or better yet onto a platform, then the enemy who tried to edgehog you is left at a disadvantageous position, recovering from the ledge. In the same situation that edgehogging would be a guaranteed kill, you could also get a guaranteed spike, which is honestly way more infuriating. Some characters like Luigi and Peach specialize in delaying their recovery, forcing the enemy to either regrab the ledge, get off the ledge early, or try to time their getup with zero I-frames, none of which are good options, and you might be better of staying on stage. And even top level players SD from failed edgehogs (shoutouts to haxdashing).
Very very good video quality. I don't know if it's just me, but right around the time you began praising it (10:17 ish) The title "Nintendo's greatest ACCIDENT" began coming back to mind. And I started thinking while you were talking about how good it was, which I feel might have been your exact goal there. Like I said, might just be me, but perfect video anyways!
I love this game so much. I probably put hundreds of hours into it, so much that I literally teared up a bit while you were talking about it (or maybe that was the onions I’m cutting). I honestly just want to go hook up my old Gamecube, stick Melee in there, and relive the glory days. Also want to say that you played exactly the same way I did when I was a kid! 1v1 stocks, low items, big stages = hours of fun.
Fantastic video! Smash Bros. is a game I obsessed over when I first got it. Melee shaped me and my friends gaming a whole lot because it destroyed our friendship...ok not really but I felt like It brought people together and brought out the best in Nintendo as well. Also, so happy I might you at ETSUCon! You're a super great guy. (This is the other Josh from the Ranger panel that you met)
To this day, it never ceases to astound me that Nintendo managed to create, by an act of pure serendipity, one of the most unique, original, and complex fighting games in the history of video games, took a look at the game's mechanics, saw the burgeoning competetive community and its ridiculous sales numbers, then decided "Yeah that's cool but WHAT IF YOU JUST TRIPPED RANDOMLY?" Utterly baffling to me that Sakurai could lead such a talented development but make such boneheaded decisions. Melee's potential to spawn a franchise utilizing its miraculous physics engine that continues to refine, balance, and improve on that formula will forever be the greatest "what if" in video game history for me. Oh well, at least we have Icons hahahaha
"It seems like a risk free way to completely cut someone off from staying alive, and a mechanic like that needed to be nerfed" about ledge hogging. Me- "Oh god here it comes." I'm glad you weren't flamed for that too much because I liked this video a lot. That said ledge hogging is probably the most hated mechanic by "casual" or even new players. At a higher level of play though, it's completely fair and really helps keep the pacing up. I think Sm4sh made a huge mistake by taking that out (from a competitive standpoint, I guess not so much from a casual standpoint which is where they want to be, so maybe not a mistake, but meh). Now there is almost 0 off stage punish game, so it's all about neutral game footsies, AKA the boring part of a competitive match lol.
I wouldn't say 0 off stage punish, more prolonged for sure. I think it just gives different gameplay, e.g. trumps, which is a good thing because it helps distinguish both games as their own separate entities.
+Jabberwockxeno Neutral is only engaging in games with good movement and offensive options. In defense-oriented games like Brawl and Smash 4 the neutral is basically just waiting for the other player to accidentally attack. If you're not going to get combo'd to death off losing the neutral, it has no risk or weight to it and is not engaging since you know its just going to reset to another neutral once a hit finally lands
Okay, so I ran a video game club after school circa 2004. This necessitated, of course, me bringing my Gamecube to school. I carried it, the cords, and my games in a gym bag. After the club one day, I was sitting on a bench waiting for my mom to pick me up. When she got there, I picked up my insanely heavy backpack, but I left my gym bag under the bench. I realized what I'd done and we were back in like four minutes, but the bag was gone. And so were the guys who'd been on the next bench down. I filed a police report and even figured out who those guys were, but they wouldn't admit to even seeing anything, and there was no way to prove it. I got my first job that summer and replaced everything, and Kalin (who you might know if you've been following this channel for a long time) even had a recent backup of my Melee save, since he'd copied mine.
The Geek Critique Ah. Sounds fun to have a club. Glad you got your save back too. But on a different note, OH MY GOD YOU ACTUALLY REPLIED! I don't expect that from people with more than around 200 subs. Thanks for your time to answer my question.
The Geek Critique Sorry, one more thing. I don't mean to be an annoyance, but could you possibly make more videos on the power rangers games that came out? I'm a big ranger fan and i'd love to see it.
Nah dude, don't apologize for commenting! I was really flattered that you were so hyped that I replied, actually. And YEAH, especially considering how well the Power Rangers videos have done, I'd definitely like to cover the rest of the games. I don't think I've played any of the post-Mighty Morphin' games aside from Zeo Battle Racers, Super Legends, and (weirdly enough) the 3DS Super Megaforce game, so it'd be a lot of uncharted territory, and that's always exciting. Glad you're liking my work, man!
Wow, I'm really suprised about the amount of depth you went into to talk about not only the game, but the history of it AND it's community. Have you evrr heard of MatthewMatosis? It kinda reminded me of one of his reviews, but much shorter and to the point. You've earned yourself a subscriber :)
Recovering in Melee: "Ah shit I have to mix this guy up somehow, I only have one jump and very limited recovery options, if I fail to mix him up correctly then I'm dead as fuq" Recovering in Smash 4: "Ah shit I'm off stage, let me air dodge once and use my up-b from the depths of hell, snap the ledge for free and walk back on stage without possibility of being punished"
"Competitive Melee players want to Smash Brothers to be something that it was never really trying to be." Then a quote to back that up: "As Sakurai said, ""I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hard-core gamers as Melee was. [It] was just too difficult."" I generally liked to your video and your thoughts about Melee, but that's a total misuse of that quote. He blatantly admits that Melee was geared, at least to some degree, toward hard-core gamers, which means it's trying to be exactly what competitive Melee players want it to be. I'll give you that the current highest level of play wasn't what he was striving for, but it seems clear he wanted to provide the player with a very robust and nuanced set of tools to fight with. A lot of room to expand technique. (Spot dodging, L-cancelling, and power shielding are pretty tough to master, and are all, indisputably, intentionally included. Players haven't really exploited the game much beyond wavedashing, which Sakurai has stated they knew about in development, but left in presumably because it fits naturally with the physics/inertia/momentum of the game.) Anyway, hope you learned something. With Melee, there is always more to know. Peace
I know you wrote this years ago, but you're actually spot on with Sakurai's thoughts on wavedashing. It was unintended, but wasn't considered something that needed to be fixed in any form during development. In fact, he considered it an option to put it into Brawl. However, since one of the goals of that game was to shrink the skill gap between competitive and casual he thought it was obvious to remove it.
This video is old But Melee- L-Cancelling 64- Z-Cancelling which us better Melee- Shield dropping 64- Has it and easier Melee- perfect Pivot 64- has it Melee- Dash Dancing 64- has it And the list goes on
thats why ssb64 is generally considered 2nd best after Melee, which added: dashdance, DI, light-shield, directional air-dodge & wavelands, forward-specials, up/down throws, wall-techs, perfect shields, shine-cancels, buffered jump/roll/spot-dodge all of which improve the variety and depth of the game significantly
yeah, but melee's base engine is faster, sharper, cleaner. but Im not hating on 64, 64 has insane combo's, like INSANE combo's, its actually ridiculous.
Funny thing is the first time I was fighting Marth (this was before he was even unlocked obviously), I just thought that he was some sort of Kirby character simply because you unlock him on the Fountain of Dreams stage even though the music didn't sound very you know.... Kirby-like. It wasn't until I finished Classic mode with Marth and found myself fighting Roy on a Zelda stage where I recognized the same music that I heard when fighting Marth that I realized that Marth is obviously not a Kirby character.
He's not the only one who says this kinda stuff either, There's people who say lucas is a clone of Ness. I don't care too much now though, that I play 64,melee.
Edge hogging is an essential mechanic in Melee, it is what makes the punishes so hard and rewarding. Saying that it should be nerfed makes not much sense, if you DI that badly to not be able to land on the stage, you don't deserve to come back. In addition, just edge hogging can easily be prevented with the right mixups and the top tier characters have plenty of them. One of the reasons why I think that your understanding of the game might be not as deep as you make it seem to be.
+Accelerator 1 If the only thing that stops a successful recovery is the exploitation of the engine by another player, than no it doesn't mean the player 'doesn't deserve' to come back. I'll begrudgingly or wholeheartedly accept various aspects of Melee's metagame, but edge hogging is something I will NEVER accept as necessary or 'skilled'. It's a cheap tactic meant to cut off chances at recovering from a near-miss and ruins part of the nail-biting fun that a last-frame surge can evoke.
A crouchcanceled attack can also prevent the player from recovering. That is also an exploit. Should we not allow that too? Your point is pretty much. "If you abuse the game, it's cheap". Which is a very narrow-minded attitude. There are many other points to as why it's good for the game. Let's take peach, she has a very good recovery, if not the best in the game. Let's assume the peach player does not DI correctly and gets sent pretty far. The player on the stage can now interrupt her with an back aerial and then edgehogg her, to prevent her from coming back. Let's assume that was not in the game, what else can you do? Use one of the few character that have an usable spike tha risk losing your stock 9/10 times, fishing pretty much? That would be very boring. It is a necessary mechanic to balance out the different recoveries. It has been proven time and time again and the game is now almost 14 years old and bigger than ever. And we see what the dumb ledge mechanic does to Smash 4, people are fishing for kills, because nothing is reliable. So much for debunking your argument, see ya.
+Rodin Claus um, DI is pretty much the most basic tech in melee. that, along with dash dancing and teching and a few other things as well were things that i learned from playing melee on my own. i knew that holding a direction will make me slide slightly more, i knew that dashing back and forth would dupe out the opponent, and i knew that for a short while after grabbing the ledge i would be invincible. yeah i didn't know anything about the extent of DI in that you actually survive longer from smash attacks, i just went higher to recover easier, i knew nothing about blast zones. yeah i knew nothing about how the ledge is still occupied while your in a roll, but anyways, these are things you learn from playing and the only real reason there considered as advanced techniques is because melee is recently starting to grow really fast and is attracting players who have never even played smash before but want to try out competitive melee who need to learn about those things quick and for players like me who don't know the efficient geometry of the stage or DIing perpendicular to the direction your going, i just knew that "hey if i hold right he wont catch me in time to hit me again" or "if i hold up when he hits me sideways i can go higher and holding down will make it impossible to reach the ledge". Tl;Dr your have to suck to not be able to know anything about DI and you don't see people just sitting on the ledge like some OP shrine in competitive melee, they use it very cleverly and you rarely see them just edge hog, if feels like such a dick move when your friend does that to you if your not competitive but really its no where near broken a broken or exploitable game mechanic.
Yanya yeah looking back at this point i wayyyyy over complicated it, basically most people get hit off stage and instinctively hold in to not go as far off stage, (which is actually suboptimal most of the time you should hold up and in diagonally), and when your getting hit the other way a lot of times you think hold away and tech roll away so you go more center stage. survival DI is really basic that people do instinctively, while combo DI and SDI are not as intuitive.
you mentioned they only had 13 months to make this game. thats a very good point to make with the future games. everyone is so worried about sakurais health with future installments even though the deadlines are not even close to strict comparatively
I would actually argue that more people who still play melee, as their main game in 2018, are either involved with or aspire to be involved with the competitive scene. I have a hard time believing that many people still play this game completely "casually" 17 years later. I disagree that there are more players who are likely to have not heard about the competitive scene for the game, than there are that have. The game is just too dated. Maybe somewhere, people still pull it out at parties and have a fun time, it's not out of the realm of possibility due to the game's massive recognition, but there are other games in the series that said people are more likely to play in such a scenario. If a person chooses to play melee over the new, modern games in the smash series, it's likely because they do know about the game's advanced mechanics, and the beautiful things going on with it. I agree that there is no right or wrong way to play a game. I just feel like the competitive scene for this game is much more prevalent than you give it credit for in this video. How many people do you think play Ocarina of Time daily without speedrunning it, or at least utilizing the many advanced mechanics that add depth and replayability to that game? Sure people pick it up and replay it, possibly fairly regularly, but you can only play the same game over and over, without using it as a medium for competition/optimization, for so long. Granted this was uploaded in 2014, and melee has since reached new heights, and my comment is written in 2018, where melee is the 10th most watched esport currently. Overall I thought this was a fantastic video. Your intro was phenomenal and I subscribed immediately after it was over. The sequence where you talked about the largely unknown and obscure characters, while showing footage of Marth and Roy, had me literally saying "what the fuck is he talking about", and then the cut to the ice climbers made me feel like I had significantly been gotten. Very well done video.
Yeah, I neither have the time nor the interest to play competitively, me and my brothers were a bit bored of smash 4 and dusted off the gamecube and played some matches of melee, let's just say we didn't play it for long.
Since when Melee is the 10th most watched esport? I'm a Melee player and I actually had no idea, I think it might not even be the most watched fighting game (DBFZ has some insane popularity although I don't think it translates to competitive tournaments viewership)
Hey man just want to say I ran across your channel and this video randomly. Amazing stuff and I watched some of your other videos earlier and it's so cool to see someone who had a totally different experience in gaming as me in so many ways and how you view things. I'm someone who is really into the competitive Melee scene and everything you said whether it was about the scene or just the game I totally appreciate. I played Melee for so many years and was so bad at it but thought I was good, then I ran across the competitive scene while actually playing Halo competitively (MLG) and was super impressed but never put the time in on Melee to get good. Then in 2013 I rediscovered my love for it and have been obsessed all over again. Your view though as being someone who doesn't play with advanced tech skill and is just the majority of people who play that way, is totally fair and really accurate as to how I used to feel. Anyone on here who would attack you for your point of view and it not meshing with theirs is just stupid. Your videos are awesome and I don't know how I didn't find your channel sooner but I'm going to check out every single video. I especially want to dive more into your Sega stuff because I always felt like the Dreamcast got a bad rap and your video about the rise and fall of it was so amazing. I was definitely one of those people who was intrigued by it but didn't want to get it myself because I was hungering for a PS2 as I had a PS and was huge into JRPG's. My brother had a dreamcast though and while he wasn't an avid gamer I would play it every now and then and it was amazing. I wish that they could have had another few years to get developers to make games for it, that system was so ahead of it's time, DVDplayer or not. Anyway nice videos man keep them up, great job!
Melee is siiiiiiiick. Haven't gone to tournaments since 2015, but man the game itself is so much fun. I really wish Project M was the sequal so we could get updates on the games mechanics and balance and not throw everything out the window. On a side note, Melee is up there with Yugioh when it comes to casual misconceptions about the competitive format. There is nothing wrong with being casual, but being a casual elitist is hard to put up with. I'm glad you didn't jump to conclusions about the competitive community like many do. I don't agree with you on edge hogging, especially with how free recovering is in smash 4, but I get where you're coming from. Good stuff, big guy.
You are wrong about the Smash4 ledge mechanics, it just ruins the strategy in traditional fighting game play. Most of Melee is played at the ledge because this is where all the clever play and strategy plays out. Which makes sense because fundamentally smash is about pushing your opponent out side a boundary and should favour position. When someone is on the ledge or pushed out to the boundaries then the other player has a benefit that he eared. He pushed, manipulated and spaced his opponent to the ledge and deserves some stage control because of it. This is actually how most fighting game play. Think of how worse of a position the player in Street fighter if he is pushed against the wall. In Smash4 none of these traditional fighting game strategies will work because you aren't rewarded in having stage position if every character has a freebee to be anywhere on the stage they want. You might as well not even care where your opponent is (which is how people play Smash4 competitively now). Now when you are recovering in Melee you still have many options. gfycat.com/ElementaryImaginativeFeline Look at how many times Hax as to read the recovery to secure the kill ua-cam.com/video/a3EvVrX7jls/v-deo.htmlm6s Look at this clever read by Mango, very smart.
+Ddiaboloer I know this post is old as hell, but I just thought I should mention that recovery is by no means free in Smash4. A player grabbing the ledge still only has a handful of options for getting up, and reading which option your opponent picks basically gives you a free stock (or at the very least heavy damage). You can also ledge trump an opponent who doesn't immediately get up from the ledge and bair them for a super early kill. And ledge invincibility is not refreshed upon re-grab, which makes grabbing the ledge less safe as a whole, especially in conjunction with trumping. It also makes going offstage for edgeguards much safer, since you don't have to worry about failing to get back yourself so much. Melee's ledge mechanics are great, for sure, but Smash4's mechanic by no means "ruins" the strategy.
This is a good comment with unfortunately low upvotes... I think people don't like the edge-hog because of sentimental ideas about 'honor', especially in instances where edge-hogging guarantees the kill easily (because the opponent is already at high percent and has been knocked back too far to have the option of recovering onto the stage). But like every other 'exploit' in Melee, it adds depth to the game.
I really loved the way you talk about melee, its not entirely competitive, its also about fun. Nowadays I like to play some bob-ombs smash or only pokeball items, and we have a blast :D
I actually agree with his sentiment there. Out of everything melee had, the only changes I would've made are ledge hogging and chain grabbing. It just feels bad for both players.
It feels bad for players that don't like it. For certain people it feels good regardless of if they're on the giving or recieving end, it's about the individual. That being said I do also like smash 4 and ultimates ledge mechanics, I just like melee's more
I've done episodes on every other Smash Bros. game, too! If you'd like to check them out: ua-cam.com/play/PLYoabN6QznuI295JnYS7UezUwTFMcqthB.html
The Geek Critique just letting you know L canceling is in smash 64 as well :) it was called "soft landing" and Melee doesn't lack accessibility my proof is you and your buddy playing, and how it was the best selling game, the best thing about melee is that it can be played intensely or casually :) something only 64 can claim to do as well.
The Geek Critique
You got me hyped to play Fire Emblem.
The Geek Critique I’m glad you made mention of the unfairness of edge-hogging. Even in the competitive scene, it is the one mechanic that is universally recognized as needing replacement, especially by pros.
The only reason competitive players do it is because we’re competitive, and it’s busted. So of course we need to use it.
Papa Banks
Yeah I recently watched a guy do almost nothing (in smash terms) and win by chilling near the edge.
I think a fair fix would be found in the level select/editor.
Instead of final destination, a stage without a hole would eliminate that stuff. I'd basically just put a spike pit underneath the fan favorite FinalDestination/Omega.
Not necessary. Nintendo already has a fix for it. Ledge trumping is something most melee pros have explicitly stated they want to see in Smash 5 (assuming Smash 5 has deep enough mechanics for people to switch games)
TILTING THE MENUS WITH THE C STICK
Best part of tha game
Literally the only reason I play Smash
@@surfinthenet best part of this video
legit laughed out loud this made my day you have a great mind
@@colebrown8293 _slow claps_ looks like you cant take a joke
Here's something I always loved to do in Melee with my friends:
We'd call it "Pokemon Battle", and the only items enabled would be a Pokeball and a couple of other things, and the item frequency would be set to Max
:sigh: those were good days :)
Believe it or not I actually got someone to play along with me on Smash Ultimate online using preferred settings like that. Just had to set my preferences to only Pokeballs, maximum round time (7 mins I think?) and then wait a bit until it picked my settings and I actually found someone willing to go along with it. It was a fun and honorable Pokémon battle
"Nintendo's All-Stars and Ice Climbers in" *ded*
2:43
so, if they expanded everything, did they expand do-
*gets shot*
+ComputerEaterOne You're fired. Clean out your desk.
iEnjoyApplesauceVeryMuch He's The Leader of The Bunch, You Know Him Well. 🐢
iEnjoyApplesauceVeryMuch I laughed so hard at that!
iEnjoyApplesauceVeryMuch ahhah nice one
Sadly the dong wasn't expanded enough then and still hasn't reached maximum expansion... We'll see what will happen in ultimate
"we found out how kirby and pikachu was WAY better than anyone else in 64"
lol they actually are
MisterSpeedStacking pikachu is an awesome character in SSBM
V B not nearly as good as 64 pika
@@EmilyRose-wt8nt he freakin Kirb stomps in 64..
Kirby is cheap as fuck
Jameson Jeffery I hate when people say that. So play Kirby too. Oh what, you got owned? A character is not "cheap" if clone matches aren't skill-less 50/50 RNG wins.
Kirby > all. Yes, he is easy to pick up. That doesn't mean he sucks.
I loved this. Finally someone who isnt necessarily a tourney player, but knows their shit and takes a pretty good stance. You don't bash competitive fans for simply enjoying the game differently, and at the same time understand why they like it so much while also enjoying every other Smash game yourself.
There's a reason this CD is still going hot for $50.
Iceman404 Yeah, man, my original copy of Melee was stolen along with the Gamecube. SO glad I bought the Player's Choice version in '05, even if I did lose the creepy eye on the back of Daisy's head as a result.
The Geek Critique I wanna share the shit out of this video now.
Live melee and love watching tournaments great video :)
+Iceman404 I know
+Iceman404 i personally don't think this guy "knows his shit" he seemed to know absolutly nothing about what makes depth in a game, and has no idea what the ssb64 competitive scene is like
This was also the last Smash Bros. without a fractious, bitter pre-release period that would leave fan communities in ruins. I remember how innocent and low-key it all was. There was some bafflement that Diddy wasn't in the game, and that these jabronies called the Ice Climbers were, but otherwise we all just rolled with it because it was just Smash Bros.. It wasn't until Melee blew up like it did and became THE defining Nintendo game of a generation that the stakes were suddenly raised for all of your favorite characters and franchises. Suddenly, news that a new Smash Bros. was coming felt like the launch of a political campaign season: Anxiety, strife and bitter arguments where you had to fend off attacks on what you held most dear. Melee was the last moment of innocence, but it's also the reason that innocence no longer exists.
Great game though.
^ Writing like that is why I've been reading DK Vine for almost 15 years.
DK Vine Mó textaum xato hein mané
DK Vine vc eh vafio?
Never fear: Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo Switch is coming this year!
You can thank the hardcore Melee fanboys for that.
"Falco plays like fox" triggered
he said "a lot like"..not definite
+Cescorage it was a joke
Actually, in competitive play he does play completely differently.
Jumping Plumber I came here to comment the exact same thing
Falco is just Fox with some small tweaks. They really do play basically the same, it's just that competetive players tend to hyper-focus on small differences and act like they mean the entire world.
Roy plays basically the same as Marth too. Roy works better to my style, which should be a flashing sign as to where I stand on the whole competitive scene.
Wow, this is a really well put together. You're putting emotion into your descriptions, which keeps them from being boring. You're editing is suburb, and this is a highly intelligent history lesson.
7:15 Fun Fact: "Suicidal" could also mean "Being a Masochist." And that's fine. Pichu can be anything he wants. Also, Pichu is VERY Adorable ESPECIALLY In Ultimate! :3
Your writing in this episode is incredible. Very well done, and well researched.
Thank you! :D
"Smash Bros. Melee" is one of the few games I played that I simultaneously was shit at and still loved it nonetheless.
Plus, I have fond, embarrassingly boyish memories of my friend and I spending minutes upon minutes repeatedly pausing the game when Princess Peach jumped and trying to aim the camera up her dress...
WELL, I was 13 years old when the game came out... soooo...
God I did the same thing with my friend in Melee and then Brawl.
Embarrassing, but fun memories...
comments like this are so corny. youtube is not your journal, dude.
@@jamiecal11 Who says its not, did it offend you haha. he shared a moment, that many others did. you just like people to say things you want the mto say or what you feel people should say.
*PERVERT*
"Nearly a fourth of all GameCube owners had Melee." Do I even need to point out the mistake here? 7 million of 21 million is a third, not a fourth. I'm sure he just misspoke there.
That is even bigger phew
gg TGC
+Year 20XX Thank you for the correction, I did indeed get it wrong. Look, my degree says I'm good at WORDS. Not numbers. xD
+The Geek Critique eh, a fourth is pretty close to a third anyways
Dell Conagar (psttt i was joking/being nice)
1 week til the absolute undeniable death of Smash 4...
*MELEE IS STILL GOING*
*NOT FOR LONG*
"wouldn't consider myself a casual"
plays with items on
Hey. You are a triggered melee fan like me? Final Destination, 4 stocks, Tech skill fox only and no items. The best way to play.
King Jong Un 1300 ummm no?
MrTouchednut You don't know what the fuck I'm saying are you?
yeah I agree, there is a difference between a more competitive player and a long playing casual, with this guy being the latter. Just because you spent hundreds of hours in the game doesn't mean you're not casual. The fact that you play with items and are generally pretty bad at the game kind of shows.
uummmm three minute timer
This is THE game I played the most in my teenage years. The goosebumps I feel when I hear and see that opening FMV are just sublime. To make it better one of my favorite YT channels is covering the game in great detail.
Noellennon Reviews I know what you mean. It's definitely one of mine, too. It came out when I was in 8th grade, and I was still playing it when I graduated. I appreciate the compliment, glad you're enjoying TGC!
I was going to do some uni work.......but goddamnit. Melee is just waving at me in the corner since watching the video. *Sigh*
I like how you take a more nuanced approach. I get a lot of very vitriolic responses whenever I tell people that I like Project M and Melee over any other Smash games. Sometimes, the responses I get are borderline disturbing in how violent they are.
The truth is that I didn't go into Brawl or Smash 4 wanting to dislike them. I love playing Smash, but it's kinda hard to go back to a less deep experience when you've experienced the fun of competitive play. It sucks you in and the fun you get from it is intense. It's a rush that I can't even begin to describe. However, whenever I play these later games, I don't get that rush and I am starved for it.
Personally, I think that Melee's balance of competitive / party experience was pretty much near perfect, and Project M, I feel did great in improving that ratio even more. One could play Melee at both levels fairly reliably and have a lot of fun. Understanding the basic rules of Melee was very easy, while there was a lot one could learn to improve themselves if they wished to. It was both very deep while being very accessible. You could go and learn how to play at high levels, but you didn't have to either.
I feel that Mr. Sakurai not understanding this is unfortunate as I don't think that there would have been this much of a community split if he had accepted Melee's competitive smashers instead of outright trying to reject them. I also feel that with proper online matchmaking, those advanced techniques can indeed co-exist with those that don't want to use them.
To be sure, the Melee community gets a lot of undeserved hate. I have experienced it from the outside and from the inside. From the outside, it can seem scary, inaccessible, but that's hardly the reality. People often look at high level players and are afraid to outright come to a tournament venue and ask someone to play with them. Once I did, I met a nice man who praised me after he kicked my butt, and then we spent time chatting about the game. He taught me a lot to help me getting started and it was a very positive experience. From the inside, I learned that these people just like playing Smash and in general, they welcome just about anyone as long as you are not a sore loser. They help each other, play with just about anyone, are socially conscious, it's great. I think that a lot of the hate comes from misunderstandings. It is clear that a lot of the things being said about this community is very uninformed and inaccurate. To me, it sounds like many people are hearing people parrot things people have fabricated over the Internet and have taken them to be true.
Now, I am not saying that there have never been people who have behaved poorly in the community, but the community doesn't like these people any more than you do. Sadly, when someone within the community acts out, it is the entirety of it that feels the after-effects.
In my opinion, Melee is the most polished of every smash game, and I find that it is a shame that Mr. Sakurai doesn't see the value of a healthy esports scene.
+Vigilanteblade I was introduced to melee in the worst possible way. I watched this video not even knowing the basics of fighting games. And now I just apreacitate this game to bits! Even if I'm not very good at it myself, I see the appeal as I used to play a lot of IWBTG games.
I just wanted to say that your comment as well was very well written. I wish people had more open minds regarding franchises/fanbases/and its inherant appeal, and not just jump to negative conclusions about things just because thier is a learning curve. Sure you can have your own opinion, but from my experience, taking the time to learn something, or at least understand why something is the way it is, is always beneficial to me as a person!
It's always nice to bump into someone who knows this kind of stuff, as frankly, its hard to come by for some reason. Just wanted to say thanks, you "brightened up my day" so to speak! XD
+Alienrun Thanks, I appreciate that :P.
Vigilanteblade i disagree i don't think its possible for the casual players and the competitive players to exist not because of each other but because of people who are not willing to take the steps to be competitive so they abuse the game against people who wont abuse the game back and that pisses off the casuals. i know because i was that person before i had a friend who loved smash bros and i discovered edge hogging that ruined the game for him for a while because i would abuse it whenever i could then smash 4 came out and took that away pretty much lowering the skill cap putting him closer to me in skill i didn't like that so i told him i wasn't playing that game anymore now we rarely see each other because i have gotten into competitive melee and Project M and he has quit smash altogether because he had no one to play with
i will say one thing:
ganondorf being a captain falcon clone was probably the dumbest part of the roster. he's an evil wizard that knows how to use swords and tridents. but with each new entry since melee, he gets more different from captain falcon.
in ultimate, he's got his spaceworld sword as his smash attacks. im hoping one day, we get a re-do for ganondorf. because of all the clones, his is the one that makes the least sense.
Great video but you forgot to mention the fantastic fully orchestrated soundtrack.
Darius Irdmusa Hey, you're right! The music was yet another example of how far off the charts Melee was.
The only thing this game did better than its successors
@@Santi-bt7if only??? bait mate?
@@MelloCello7 Yeah seriously, stop trying to defend it like it's perfect because EVERY Smash game is flawed a lot.
@@Santi-bt7if so.... bait?? okay m8
This game... is a legend
YassinsGames And now the opening theme is playing in my head again.
Great video. Gotta comment on the Melee being too technical portion, however.
It does bother me that people often use this talking point when speaking about one version vs the other because the technicality of Melee did nothing to harm the casual players who knew little of the advanced mechanics, but it really did open up the game to new heights once crews discovered them. It really changed the way my friends and I played after being introduced the the competitive style years ago, and I whole heartedly believe it is the in the best interest of both casual players and advanced ones to commit to that depth for future iterations of smash.
It's especially disappointing when I look at Smash 4, a game I enjoy greatly but am already growing concerned for. It does not take much in Brawl or 4 for a great player to abuse the systems far worse than any single person could in Melee, and it's going to hurt the competitive scene in the long run. Players are going to get tired of campy, floaty styles of play and it's going to become painfully clear why we don't appreciate the highly defensive styles of Brawl. It's too hard to approach and it's almost never in your best interest to play aggressively with shielding and arials behaving how they do.
I already see it among my current group of friends- they hate playing against me and they're growing tired of the game. Playing Project M was different- they didn't feel cheated or gimped while fighting, and the cast felt more balanced. The movement speed alone, not even counting wave-dashing, felt snappier, like they had more control over their character and the flow of the match. As it stands in Smash 4, I can force them to approach me and punish them accordingly. It might not seem as 'unfair' as the old melee mechanics, but it certainly does feel 'Unfun.' It's not even like they can simply adapt and beat the strategy- that is the way these games are played and they have to conform or suffer.
That turned into a bit of a rant, but my point stands as this: A highly technical game like Melee hurts nobody, but reducing competitive options hurts everyone.
Pride St. Clair nice novel
I believe the point of Melee being too technical wasn't to imply that cutting competitive options is good, quite the contrary like you said. however, that high technicality DOES hurt people... he points it out right in the video as "Accessibility".
A highly technical game is less accessible to the standard player at a competitive level as they look on and see the skill bar of the game and their own skill level... while some may look at the challenge and try to learn how to pull these advanced techs: A.K.A: "Git Gud.", others may look on and be deterred because they'll feel like they'll have no jumping off point to try to get into the competitive scene... where the main objectives are to A: be noticed for your skill, while having as much fun as you can have (not too difficult on the last part if you like the game a lot), and B: use that skill, and any additional skill that you gain within the game to WIN tournaments, which reinforces objective A.
Melee sets the bar VERY high to even partake in tournaments at a LOCAL level... I should know; before I moved away from my hometown, I partook in the local scene, didn't go farther than that. However, I can tell you that it hurts worse to lose when you lack the skills to even play a good match, than to have the skills to play at that level and still lose.
Note: this isn't to say that Melee is completely inaccessible, not by a LONG shot. However, stating that high technicality doesn't hurt people is a sweeping generalization that doesn't take into account the notion of how a person's mind can work to psyche them up for the challenge, or belittle them as they feel they won't ever get that good, despite just needing to put in time and effort.
Woo, a comment from 2 years ago gettin' some attention.
Obviously accessibility is important, but lets not overstate the effects of competition on the core gamer: Most people will never encounter wavedashing in their game crews. The reality is that most people are not going to join a club and 'git good,' nor are they even going to entertain that idea.
Those that are interested will go out and seek competition anyway. Personal feelings aside, it's obvious that Melee competition is founded on some strange advanced mechanisms that are not all at once obvious to a casual player. This could be, and should have been, remedied in sequels in which they created easier control methods for imputing those techniques. This would have
1) streamlined the game
2) added transparency to the advanced tech
Instead, Smash decided to dismantle all of that and create a much more boring, stagnant game. Smash 4 is still a good game, but it is nothing in comparison to Melee, a game that is as fun to watch as it is to play (don't even get me started on why being fun to watch is more important than accessibility).
I get what you're saying. At this point, becoming proficient in Melee is an insane endeavour. But the advanced tech didn't happen all at once. Melee is 15 years old and has a rich history of competition and research behind it. But at the time of release, nobody was bothering themselves with wavedashing or l-canceling or wobbling. That stuff came later.
The point is that Melee's gameplay was always fast, brutal, and lethal and was made better by the advanced tech. Brawl and 4 both chose to ignore that speed in favor of perceived 'accessibility' when Melee, at its most basic level of play, is still perfectly accessible. All Brawl and 4 did was limit the competitive edge of Smash and hurt the spectator.
Perhaps you like to watch 4 more than melee- I have no idea. But for the vast majority of fighting game players 4 has become a mixed back for spectators and is still a mess competitively (though, to be fair, the last patch was a significant improvement).
Pride St. Clair I have no preferences, I've held or played in tournaments for all of them, watching comes with the territory.
I get what you are saying as well, just pointing out that generalizations lead to misconstrued opinions.
Happy Smashing!
Cheers, Maverick Hunter.
This enthusiasm is so infectious
About accessibility in Melee. Melee is very accessible just not for competitive play, casual players did not find Melee hard. This is evident in Melee sales and what you said in the video. I don't understand why we can't have a game like Melee again, fun for casuals and fun for competitive.
Snaking in Mario Kart (pre-Wii) is probably a great comparison to make here. Either one is a valid style of play, but the separation between the two is ... vast, to say the least.
The problem isn't that melee isn't accessible on a base level for casual play, but that the advanced tech that competitive play requires is so inaccessible that anyone who hasn't learned it or isn't aware of it can't even compete with someone who has a good enough grasp on it to use it
Vinc? Is it a problem though? Since when is it a problem to have a definitive separation between casual players and pros? In my opinion, melee achieved a perfect level of difficulty. The fact that anyone can pickup a controller and have a blast with friends while the highest level is incredibly hard to reach is a rare accomplishment. If we imagine the player base on a spectrum of skills, melee keeps the lower boundary very low (so that anyone who picks up a GC controller can have a blast with their friends), while setting the higher limit so high we aren't sure we've found it 17 years later. This makes the skill spectrum of players much much larger than any other smash game. My point is, having a high skill cap doesn't hurt the casual in melee, but it gives so much room for improvement to all players and makes for a great esport. A bit like chess really, anyone can play and enjoy it but it takes years to be able to compete with grandmasters.
...so, basically EXACTLY like snaking in MKDS. I can't speak for competitive Melee, but I can definitely speak for Mario Kart.
+Vinc Really? Because I can triple-shine, mid-shorten, waveshine, and SHFFL reliably, but I still to lose to f-smash spamming Marths, down-smash spamming Peachs and Shieks, and planking Jigglypuffs on netplay frequently. Just knowing the techniques is not enough to beat those who don't. The pro's dominate because they have mastered *dozens* of techniques and can apply them all seamlessly. When M2K 4-stocks in pools it's not because he has some secret move, it's because he is literally outplaying that person in every possible way, which is appropriate when he's played 10x as long as they have. The pros even 4-stock eachother quite often, it's not because the loser didn't know what to do, he just got outplayed multiple times in a row.
Spuzzwick from DK Vine here. Amazing video, man. Great work! The Ice Climbers bait and switch joke was well done too haha! Keep it up!!
I really liked melee's high skill ceiling and complicated tech moves, even if I couldn't get there myself it added a sense of mystique to the game and made competitive a lot more fun to watch. Only thing I'd change is making them actual mechanics rather than random exploits
I remember reading about wavedashing in nintendo power as a kid, and it came off as some magical anime shit that only masters of the art could do, like they had trained in the martial arts alone on a mountain for years and come down with the ability to throw fireballs, it blew my mind
That side by side comparison in the video says it all, the difference is like those scenes in DBZ where everyone's flying and moving so fast that non-fighters can't even see what's happening, and the idea that both that and regular mundane fighting can exist in the same game, with the only thing separating them being player skill, is fucking awesome
my friends and I play the new switch one right now and we started with the n64 version as well. after 20 years we still call every smash game "melee". "Hey lets play some melee". It had such an influence on us that we changed the name but not on purpose.
Awesome! Just awesome! I know how long you have been working on this the past few weeks, and it definitely shows it! Can't wait to see how you do Brawl.
The way you use music in your videos is awesome, keeps me coming back again and again.
Good narration timed with track scores is akin to conducting in itself.
I WOULD be perfectly ok with clones, if it didn't create situations like ganondorf, where even 2 games later he is still a clone without reason.
IMO, clones should be limited to characters that MAKE SENSE to be a clone, and shouldn't be stuff like ganondorf being a clone of falcon.
H enryuuki Falcon to Ganondorf is pretty ridiculous, but I think they've done a good job of diversifying him more since then.
The Geek Critique
He still doesn't have a SINGLE move actually inspired by LoZ though.
and the only reason for that is cause now they put themselves in the situation of : we either keep him a clone = people unhappy
or we replace the moveset = people unhappy
That is why clones should only happen for characters that make sense
examples : OG Falco (he is in the same team as Fox, so it makes sense he would have the same (slightly altered/differently used) equipment
Wolf and Lucas made sense to be semi clones
Dr. Mario : Just a way to have Mario in without FLUDD, the same person, makes sense
OG luigi : back then, Luigi and mario weren't diversified enough yet, even within their own series
Pichu : bit of a strange addition, but logical clone
YL/TL : while there is MORE THEN ENOUGH stuff to diversify them, it atleast is 'logical' that they are clones of Link
Roy : made sense, seeing as his game wasn't even out yet, and FE didn't really have a lot of "uniqueness" in their lords
Dark pit : same as YL/TL, somewhat logical that they are clones, although there would be a lot of options to not make them clones.
Bad example : Ganondorf : Magician thief king fighting like a bruiser/fistfighter ?
Lucina : fights different from marth within her own series, only LOOKING like him.
Atleast with her we won't have to worry about her being stuck as a clone, since she probably won't come back for the next smash anyway.
I just think Clones should be semi-clones at least, and IF they *HAVE* to make a full clone, then atleast take characters that make sense.
dragon heaven Hm? I haven't deleted any comments. These just got auto-marked as spam and I had to correct that, because UA-cam is just that intelligent.
i agree !
+The Geek Critique i think it isnt even possible to delet comments only to flag them
Small complaint, L Cancelling is mechanic, not a technique. This video is way better than any other video I've seen on this game, mad props dude.
No matter what, this remains as my favorite geek critique video analysis. Every single time.
"Falco, who plays alot like Fox."
Oh boy.
@@bubbleslasher He does until you get deep into the game and then he doesnt play remotely the same
@@TheMansterTruck I made this comment long before I actually started playing falco actually... lol
@@bubbleslasher Nice. Good for you my man
*PPMD wants to know your location*
FOYAH!!!
Evidently unlike you, I don't really have words to describe how much Melee means to me and how much good came out of it. It's one of those games that you know will be unique to you, and even though I vastly enjoy its descendants and the original, there is nothing else quite like.
I will say: ledge hogging isn't that broken. Most characters, especially Fox and Falco, have a shitload of different options to get back on the stage, and constantly edge hogging at the wrong time can get you seriously punished, even losing the game.
it isn't broken at all. Ledge hogging was also in 64 and brawl. Guy's just finding something to complain about a great game. Literally trying to nitpick but just looks stupid as a result
yo, critique also ultimate i look forward to that.
@@lapplandkun9273 classic Melee fanboys...
11:30 - All or most items on. Normal frequency. Score. 5 minute matches. 4 players, use CPUs if you have to. My philosophy for how to setup a Smash game was informed a lot by playing online Quake and Team Fortress at the time. 1) More players is good. Learning to navigate and exploit the chaos of the different fighters is an essential skill. 2) Keep everyone in the game for the entire match. Score encourages players to be aggressive which leads to fun gameplay.* Also no one likes being eliminated and having to watch. 3) Play for a long enough match time so that the cream can rise to the top. If you set the game length right and your scoring system is good then the good players should consistently rise to the top of the board despite the chaotic nature of the game but less skilled players are able to be active participants enough that they learn through playing. I feel like lots of good sporting events follow some similar traits too. You want players or teams to always be pushing to score and maybe get a win. Smash is actually kind of genius in this regard because it doesn't show you the score by default, meaning if you're playing score you have to play 100% until the "GAME" because you just don't know where you are in the standings. *You'll note in old FPS games like Doom and Quake frags give you points, but deaths don't take away points unless they're self inflicted. That's because the developers want you out there earning points and not hiding in a corner camping. If forces players to attack rather than defend because in those style games defending is inherently easier.
I'm pretty sure he forgot to mention that melee brought "not showering" to the table too. I don't know how he could have forgot something that important in the video...
I love how the introduction flowed right into the ending of the opening scene
''i can't think of a sequel taht expended on such degree''
Street fighter 2 turbo exist but yeah Melee is more like turbo
just the difference between street fighter 1 and 2 is like night and day
we don't talk about street fighter 1.
It's funny, what attracted me to this game in the first place were Dr. Mario and Ganondorf. I thumbed through a magazine guide as a kid and was captivated by their inclusion. And they were unlockable characters! I felt so accomplished to be able to play as them once I actually owned the game.
Even as a young kid at the time, I had no issue with these dudes being clones. I was already blown away that they were in the game to begin with, and I think I had roughly, subconsciously considered the general circumstances for their inclusion.
The clone characters in Melee are right up there with Symphony of the Night's inverted castle in my eyes. An extremely smart way to make the most of available resources during crunch time.
I completely understand why you (and a lot of people) think edgehogging seems cheap, and before I got heavily into competitive smash I felt the same. But allow me to try to explain why in the scenes eyes, it isn't viewed this way.
If you are hit off the stage and you exhaust all your recovery options to the point where you will only make it to the ledge, I'm gunna edgehog you. But if I didn't I could just as easily back air you, cape you, shine-spike you, down tilt you, all of which are very simple to do. So in this situation edgehogging does the same as a lot of other options. Now if you are recovering and you can make it onto the stage, but instead decide to go for the ledge, I can call you out on it and quickly grab it before you do. You have the option to go onto stage, and if you do, and I try to edgehog, you're in a better position now. Edgehogging is only an option, out of many options and creates depth in the edgeguard/recovery metagame.
schmoo I'd have to disagree. If you have all these other options but choose the easiest and cheapest option I don't see how that makes you a pro level player at all.
David Alvarado Because if that option is available then there's a 99% chance you outplayed your opponent to the position of forcing them to recover like that in the first place. Also some players are great at the ledge and can get kills easily there and so turn a disadvantage into an advantage.
David Alvarado why would a pro ever make something harder than it should be? That’s the opposite of what a professional player who wants to win would do
+David It's not that people who ledge-hog are Pro, it's more like people that get ledge-hogged often are total noobs.
@@rumfordc what? everyone gets ledge hogged no matter how good you are
Thank you UA-cam Recommended for actually showing me a channel I like! Your videos do something that a lot of game critique people fail at: having proper pacing. You never spend too long or too little a time on various subjects in whatever your video is about, nor does your sense of humor make me want to facepalm. You give information that shows you really care about the topic matter, and that's great! Keep it up.
Regarding the edge hogging mechanic, I do share the same feeling about it being dissatisfying on either side. However, it does create more options for the aggressor which is why Melee is so great, because it doesn't punish you for going on the offence at the highest levels of play like the latter games.
For example: if you knock Shiek off the stage its going to be in her best interest to go for the edge because she is invincible during her UP+B recovery and will make it back safely almost every time. Now, if you jump and grab the edge with the right timing, you're forcing Sheik to either fall to her death, or to go onto the stage. If the Shiek decides to land on the stage after using her UP+B, she will have a bit of lag before she can act. That is when you attack her! Without edge hogging, Shiek just went from always being safe, to having an opening.
Could you not shove your onion down our throats?
I see I am some years late catching this video, but I will definitely say that I enjoyed the content that you have posted. I find myself on that pseudo end of the competitive scene, but the game as a whole is something I genuinely have enjoyed since its first release on the 64.
When was in high school, I will say that I did shy away from melee because at the time I couldn't get a good feel from coming from 64 to melee. I did go on a hiatus and did other things, but it wasn't until my friend introduced me to brawl that spark my interest all over again. Which over time I was super casual and was better than most casual players in my area, but once I had a taste of what the competitive scene was for brawl, I became instantly hooked. Eventually some friends turn me back to melee and showed me how much more in-depth than I first realized it was.
I think what I find fun for myself is finding that overwhelming skill Gap that can be attained through practice. Like landing my first Ken combo mid match with one of my friends was an unforgettable experience.
But anyway, loved your video. I will definitely be keeping up with your channel.
Excellent video. I think one of the few casual type players who gets competitive Melee. And while I disagree it doesn't look like Smash, I think this video is a really good perspective from someone who addresses the issue of competitive Melee who doesn't play competitive Melee. A lot of people misunderstand the community as people who only play like 4 characters and who are need to move on and are a bunch of assholes. Just take a look at Relax Alexes HORRENDOUS video.
Jake Spanedda Yeah, it bugs me when either side does that.
There are those who insist that if you dare turn on items, play on stages like Poké Floats, or don’t want to bother spending hundreds of hours learning to wavedash, you’re playing the game wrong.
On the flip side, there are those who think Super Smash Bros. was not meant to be taken so seriously, and so if you limit the viable characters and stages or exploit the engine, YOU’RE playing the game wrong.
But the people who are THAT extreme with it, to the point that they try to dictate other people's enjoyment, are a vocal minority. Like I said, fun's subjective, and when extremists lash out like that, they're just making their side look ridiculous.
Yeah, it's really frustrating. It's a game, let people play it how they want, I just was happy to see someone who makes videos comprehend the tournament scene isn't a bunch of raving lunatics who hate casuals and items and fun.
Melee was so ahead of its time, it’s still played by millions and will always be played by millions, it’s one of my favorite video games of all time and also a top 10 video game ever, a masterpiece from the start.
Donion sakurai definitely said it’s the sharpest game in the series and he might not like it cause it’s to hard for casuals to just pick up and play but it’s still an important game
@@AyvalonEX
Uhh...just to clarify things, he created Brawl to be the opposite of Melee (which did not go so well), so he did not say he did not like it, but he called Melee the sharpest at some point.
Smash 64 is arguably the MOST balanced of any smash game. You can win a national tournament with any character, look at Isai
Yeah, but that's more down to Isai being so much better than everyone else. I still agree though.
i agree
Smash 64 barely even has character tiers, and they're all very narrowly banded.
Jigglypuff is an intentional joke character, weaker than the others and hidden behind being unlockable and still close enough to be competitively useful.
Ness, Captain Falcon, and Luigi are more powerful overall than the eight base characters. They're just not _massively_ more powerful, and all the other characters are still quite competitive against them.
This isn't even a little true, and I have no idea why you would make a comment trying to inform others if you haven't really studied the competitive scene. Check out the tier list here to see the real character ranking: www.ssbwiki.com/Tier_list
...Yoshi higher than Ness in Smash 64 and Meta Knight higher than middling in Brawl? Is this thing serious?
Melee wasn’t a mistake, just a happy little accident.
I could dedicate an entire video of this length to Fox's reflector in Melee.
CorvidDude While doing some research for this, I thought it was funny that the move became so significant that its name changed. Smash calls it "reflector," but in competitive terms, it's "shine."
The Geek Critique
one frame. invincible startup. jump cancelable. shine is love. shine is life.
You also know the term tilts also started from the competitive community ? Up till smash 4 in America it was referred to as strong attacks by Nintendo. At least the hardcore players make better nicknames.
CorvidDude you could make hours of tutorial on how to do everything that involves a shine lmao
*BLIP*
Best game of all time. I'd play against my brother with my handicap at 4 and his at 7, and it felt like challenge for both of us. He played Falco. I played everybody. Items were usually low, pokeballs only.
Melee is so fast paced and fun, its def my favorite smash game
1:Melee
2:Ultimate
3:WiiU/3DS
4:64
5:Brawl
Oof
Masilator lol no love for Brawl
"more nuanced" is a fantastic way to describe it. definitely why i find the game so beautiful
Of all the things you said I gotta say when you said "tilting the menus with the c-stick!" Made me think you'd be an awesome announcer for smash!
Gene Womack Well, if anyone wants to put a word in with Project M, I'd definitely be up for it, haha.
Whoa a youtuber actually replied to my comment....that's a first
+The Geek Critique the one doing the voice at the moment... i dont know. puts me off so so bad. it would be cool if you did it in a later version lol
There is one thing I like about Smash 64 that I think all games since got wrong: Yoshi.
3:37 sharp and crunthy
I went the entire Donkey Kong series, the entire Sonic the Hedgehog series, and a few Metroid videos without ever realizing that you had a speech impediment. That's awesome how you have completely overcome it. Continue doing what you do
Smash 64 feels like an alpha build, compared to melee. Especially when Smash 64 didn't even come to the UK.
Miss Mumargi so sorry UK. ssb 1 and 2 are the definitive titles
wut? smash 64 did come to the UK? Me and my buddies used to play it on our PAL machines all the time
15:38 Look at it this way: If you're that low that already that your only option is to grab the ledge, you either need to either delay your fall (so their invincibility runs) or accept that you lost a stock already if it's come to that.
I love vids like this. Because I know someone will see it and look up the competitive smash scene. It's so fun once you are apart of it. There are two types of people after these vids. The ones who look up the scene and scoff at us. Then the ones who try out the advanced strats and tech and realize how amazing yet difficult melee is to play. If any of you have Time and wanna be inspired look up the documentary here on UA-cam called "the smash brothers" . Trust me you won't regret it
+Albert Cavazos I was one of those people! I was so inspired by this that did all that stuff you said in your comment! Unfortunately I couldn't follow through. Fighting games just aren't for me. I love getting a good thrill from time to time and it can be great fun with friends! Some of my most hype moments in gaming come from taking a fighting game too seriously. But I can only take so much of it at once before I get overwhelmed and go back to playing my 2D platformers. I tried, I gave it my all, but it didn't work out. It became apperant once I watched the SSB documentary, I noticed the very reason why those people played Melee competevly in the first place...
It's cause it was fun, they had a passion for the game that I never had, and probably never will have. That was their motivation, not this "Elitism" or this "Competition is the future" mentality that so many people have labeled them as!
To put this in perspective, as a kid I played 2 games at a cousins house at the age of 5. SSB64 and Mario Kart 64. Guess which one I liked better! Granted we played SSB64 a lot more, and it was much more competitive and in-depth and all that, but I remembered Mario Kart that much more, it was in 3D, it was innovational, it was simply more...inspiring! And while looking back I might think such a viewpoint would be silly, it proves a point. I just find more inspiration and passion to a fantasy expasive epic and awesome world that I could interact with rather than an in-depth fighting game...let alone a 2D one.
Don't get me wrong, I love myself some good old I Wanna Be the Guy, and even stuff like Freedom Planet. But to put it as a fighting game?! Its just not the same for me!... :(
+Alienrun yes the passion they hold is what separates them. if its not fun then dont continue but for people like me i like smash enough that i still play it and want to get better at it.
thanks for the recommendation very interesting documentary and has got me enjoying an old game in a way I never thought I would.
Great stuff! I've put many hundreds of hours into all of the Smashes and your videos are certainly doing justice to the series.
0:07.
You'll thank me for the still frame later. Trust me. ;)
Romeo MacTavish Hah, I was hoping someone would notice that. xD
+Romeo MacTavish ah thought I saw something else, but ignored it at first lol
Oh. The ice climbers
i only just ran into this video cause youtube suggested it, and honestly, this is one of the best evaluations of melee and its competitive scene i've ever seen (as someone in the melee community). considering how many people just say "party game," "toxic community," etc etc, it's nice to see someone who mainly enjoys the game casually, but still recognizes the competitive appeal. also, videos like this are nice for introducing casual players to the comp scene. thanks :)
The comment section sucks. Lay of the guy, geez.
Methinks someone better call the great Duke Amiel du Hardcore.
ROYSTON! Fire up the Melee! It's time to edge hog some bellends!
I love your style of review, and I'm so glad that someone loved this game as much as me. I had no idea there was competitive smash bros tournaments.
Super Smash Bros. Melee is my favourite in the series since it's the one that I've played the most. I never owned a Wii nor an N64. I don't like Brawl as much since it's too float-y and 64 is much too grab-dependent. I can't really complain about 3DS since it's still too new for me to really compare it since although it feels like it's also a little bit too much on the float-y side. I don't play Smash competitively but Melee still remains my favourite.
On the subject of 64 though, at my church there's a group of youth who meet prior to the regular service and our youth pastor had his N64 there until the 64 broke. :( Each Sunday morning a group of people slowly became experts at 64 and by the end of the year, we pretty much knew everything about it. But it's just so grab-dependent, but it can still be competitive and just as fun.
Yeah, I actually cut a little paragraph from my script for Melee, addressing Smash 64's competitive side and linking it to why defensive options were so expanded in Melee. Consider this a VERY SPECIAL COMMENT READER BONUS :
"In 64, you could shield to block attacks, but if your shield depleted and broke, you’d be left vulnerable. While shielding, you could also dodge in either direction. In the air? Unless you had room to counterattack, there was nothing you could do.
Upper-level Smash 64 eventually became a game of exploiting errors, and the limited defensive options combined with the massive amount of hitstun meant that once you were on the ropes, there weren’t many options."
The Geek Critique Neat! I got to be a special comment bonus! It's awesome when creators actually reply.
When I was in highschool my friend lent me his whole Gamecube just so I could play his copy of SSBM. And he let me delete his game so I could start over. I literally unlocked all characters completed all challenges in one weekend. Melee was probably the most fun I've ever had with a video game.
"edge hogging needed to be nerfed"
lolno.
I... I had never considered that before. You make such a well-reasoned, logical argument that you've convinced me to reverse my opinion on the matter. I, and everyone else here, applaud your masterful debating skill.
(Nah, but really, others have made some very fair points about it, and that's awesome!)
The Geek Critique
The best part about Melee is the ledge mechanics. As the famous Scar says "Melee is played at the ledge". To even imply Smash4's mechanics are anything but a MASSIVE downgrade to Melee just shows you are ignorant and don't understand what makes a fair competitive game in the first place
Edge hogging isn't safe if the enemy can recover onto the stage or if they can delay their recovery (with a few exceptions, like falcon edge-guarding sheik). If you can recover onto the stage, or better yet onto a platform, then the enemy who tried to edgehog you is left at a disadvantageous position, recovering from the ledge. In the same situation that edgehogging would be a guaranteed kill, you could also get a guaranteed spike, which is honestly way more infuriating. Some characters like Luigi and Peach specialize in delaying their recovery, forcing the enemy to either regrab the ledge, get off the ledge early, or try to time their getup with zero I-frames, none of which are good options, and you might be better of staying on stage. And even top level players SD from failed edgehogs (shoutouts to haxdashing).
Very very good video quality. I don't know if it's just me, but right around the time you began praising it (10:17 ish) The title "Nintendo's greatest ACCIDENT" began coming back to mind. And I started thinking while you were talking about how good it was, which I feel might have been your exact goal there. Like I said, might just be me, but perfect video anyways!
This is a really good video for someone from the outside looking in. I approve :D
I love this game so much. I probably put hundreds of hours into it, so much that I literally teared up a bit while you were talking about it (or maybe that was the onions I’m cutting). I honestly just want to go hook up my old Gamecube, stick Melee in there, and relive the glory days. Also want to say that you played exactly the same way I did when I was a kid! 1v1 stocks, low items, big stages = hours of fun.
Your Marth ditto made me laugh. I remember when I was that awful.
Awesome video
So true
Ikr lol
Xirbtt what's wrong with the melee community
huh?
people just get mad that's skill gaps exist
Fantastic video! Smash Bros. is a game I obsessed over when I first got it. Melee shaped me and my friends gaming a whole lot because it destroyed our friendship...ok not really but I felt like It brought people together and brought out the best in Nintendo as well. Also, so happy I might you at ETSUCon! You're a super great guy. (This is the other Josh from the Ranger panel that you met)
Amazing video saw this cause your friend sent it to linkera! Glad I clicked on the link
RaphaPower Ah, good ol' Linkara. I wonder where he procured that magic gun?
To this day, it never ceases to astound me that Nintendo managed to create, by an act of pure serendipity, one of the most unique, original, and complex fighting games in the history of video games, took a look at the game's mechanics, saw the burgeoning competetive community and its ridiculous sales numbers, then decided "Yeah that's cool but WHAT IF YOU JUST TRIPPED RANDOMLY?" Utterly baffling to me that Sakurai could lead such a talented development but make such boneheaded decisions. Melee's potential to spawn a franchise utilizing its miraculous physics engine that continues to refine, balance, and improve on that formula will forever be the greatest "what if" in video game history for me. Oh well, at least we have Icons hahahaha
"It seems like a risk free way to completely cut someone off from staying alive, and a mechanic like that needed to be nerfed" about ledge hogging. Me- "Oh god here it comes." I'm glad you weren't flamed for that too much because I liked this video a lot. That said ledge hogging is probably the most hated mechanic by "casual" or even new players. At a higher level of play though, it's completely fair and really helps keep the pacing up. I think Sm4sh made a huge mistake by taking that out (from a competitive standpoint, I guess not so much from a casual standpoint which is where they want to be, so maybe not a mistake, but meh). Now there is almost 0 off stage punish game, so it's all about neutral game footsies, AKA the boring part of a competitive match lol.
I wouldn't say 0 off stage punish, more prolonged for sure. I think it just gives different gameplay, e.g. trumps, which is a good thing because it helps distinguish both games as their own separate entities.
Hello subjective argument agaisnt a balancing mechanic that works wonders. You're just too used to it imo
9uvwxyz I might be late, but I love the neutral. It's nail-biting to see who takes advantage, and how they're going to use it.
I don't play Smash competitively, but what? Neutral is the most engaging part of fighting games.
+Jabberwockxeno Neutral is only engaging in games with good movement and offensive options. In defense-oriented games like Brawl and Smash 4 the neutral is basically just waiting for the other player to accidentally attack. If you're not going to get combo'd to death off losing the neutral, it has no risk or weight to it and is not engaging since you know its just going to reset to another neutral once a hit finally lands
I actually really enjoyed playing Ice Climbers (the game) as a kid, and I was happy to see them in Smash.
10:18 I can, it's called Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Meme Stealer bruh no
Bruh yes
absolutely obsessed with how you announced OF THE ICE CLIMBERS at 7:50
How the hell do you get a full console with cords and everything stolen?
Okay, so I ran a video game club after school circa 2004. This necessitated, of course, me bringing my Gamecube to school. I carried it, the cords, and my games in a gym bag. After the club one day, I was sitting on a bench waiting for my mom to pick me up. When she got there, I picked up my insanely heavy backpack, but I left my gym bag under the bench. I realized what I'd done and we were back in like four minutes, but the bag was gone. And so were the guys who'd been on the next bench down.
I filed a police report and even figured out who those guys were, but they wouldn't admit to even seeing anything, and there was no way to prove it. I got my first job that summer and replaced everything, and Kalin (who you might know if you've been following this channel for a long time) even had a recent backup of my Melee save, since he'd copied mine.
The Geek Critique Ah.
Sounds fun to have a club. Glad you got your save back too.
But on a different note,
OH MY GOD YOU ACTUALLY REPLIED!
I don't expect that from people with more than around 200 subs. Thanks for your time to answer my question.
The Geek Critique Sorry, one more thing. I don't mean to be an annoyance, but could you possibly make more
videos on the power rangers games that came out? I'm a big ranger fan and i'd love to see it.
Nah dude, don't apologize for commenting! I was really flattered that you were so hyped that I replied, actually. And YEAH, especially considering how well the Power Rangers videos have done, I'd definitely like to cover the rest of the games. I don't think I've played any of the post-Mighty Morphin' games aside from Zeo Battle Racers, Super Legends, and (weirdly enough) the 3DS Super Megaforce game, so it'd be a lot of uncharted territory, and that's always exciting.
Glad you're liking my work, man!
The Geek Critique Ah come on, i'm sure 10,000+ agree with me as well!
(Seriously congrats on 10k subs)
Can't wait for the power rangers reviews.
Wow, I'm really suprised about the amount of depth you went into to talk about not only the game, but the history of it AND it's community. Have you evrr heard of MatthewMatosis? It kinda reminded me of one of his reviews, but much shorter and to the point. You've earned yourself a subscriber :)
It's kinda scary and kind of awesome that someone would describe a video this long as, "to the point," but I really appreciate it! Thank you!
The Geek Critique that's because MatthewMatosis' reviews average about 30-40 minutes lol
Finalblue1234 Yeah, I'm coming up on the end of his Mario 64 video right now. This guy is awesome, so thanks for recommending him!
Gamecube was stolen?! Dang! That must have been heartbreaking! D:
I Know! D:
Recovering in Melee: "Ah shit I have to mix this guy up somehow, I only have one jump and very limited recovery options, if I fail to mix him up correctly then I'm dead as fuq"
Recovering in Smash 4: "Ah shit I'm off stage, let me air dodge once and use my up-b from the depths of hell, snap the ledge for free and walk back on stage without possibility of being punished"
At least in smash 4 you cant take a stock and then go refresh your invincibility at the ledge forever.
"Competitive Melee players want to Smash Brothers to be something that it was never really trying to be." Then a quote to back that up: "As Sakurai said, ""I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hard-core gamers as Melee was. [It] was just too difficult."" I generally liked to your video and your thoughts about Melee, but that's a total misuse of that quote. He blatantly admits that Melee was geared, at least to some degree, toward hard-core gamers, which means it's trying to be exactly what competitive Melee players want it to be. I'll give you that the current highest level of play wasn't what he was striving for, but it seems clear he wanted to provide the player with a very robust and nuanced set of tools to fight with. A lot of room to expand technique. (Spot dodging, L-cancelling, and power shielding are pretty tough to master, and are all, indisputably, intentionally included. Players haven't really exploited the game much beyond wavedashing, which Sakurai has stated they knew about in development, but left in presumably because it fits naturally with the physics/inertia/momentum of the game.) Anyway, hope you learned something. With Melee, there is always more to know. Peace
I know you wrote this years ago, but you're actually spot on with Sakurai's thoughts on wavedashing. It was unintended, but wasn't considered something that needed to be fixed in any form during development. In fact, he considered it an option to put it into Brawl. However, since one of the goals of that game was to shrink the skill gap between competitive and casual he thought it was obvious to remove it.
Melee was one of the first games I ever played. So nostalgic, so hard.
This video is old But
Melee- L-Cancelling
64- Z-Cancelling which us better
Melee- Shield dropping
64- Has it and easier
Melee- perfect Pivot
64- has it
Melee- Dash Dancing
64- has it
And the list goes on
thats why ssb64 is generally considered 2nd best after Melee, which added:
dashdance,
DI,
light-shield,
directional air-dodge & wavelands,
forward-specials,
up/down throws,
wall-techs,
perfect shields,
shine-cancels,
buffered jump/roll/spot-dodge
all of which improve the variety and depth of the game significantly
yeah, but melee's base engine is faster, sharper, cleaner. but Im not hating on 64, 64 has insane combo's, like INSANE combo's, its actually ridiculous.
Funny thing is the first time I was fighting Marth (this was before he was even unlocked obviously), I just thought that he was some sort of Kirby character simply because you unlock him on the Fountain of Dreams stage even though the music didn't sound very you know.... Kirby-like. It wasn't until I finished Classic mode with Marth and found myself fighting Roy on a Zelda stage where I recognized the same music that I heard when fighting Marth that I realized that Marth is obviously not a Kirby character.
Not to be 'that guy' but Falcon plays almost the opposite of Fox.
*falco
He said Falco not Falcon
He's not the only one who says this kinda stuff either, There's people who say lucas is a clone of Ness. I don't care too much now though, that I play 64,melee.
Falco is almost identical to Fox. Roy is also almost identical to Marth.
Nathan Karr Falco and Fox are completely different
I appreciate the very well choreographed opening to this video. Well done!
Edge hogging is an essential mechanic in Melee, it is what makes the punishes so hard and rewarding. Saying that it should be nerfed makes not much sense, if you DI that badly to not be able to land on the stage, you don't deserve to come back. In addition, just edge hogging can easily be prevented with the right mixups and the top tier characters have plenty of them. One of the reasons why I think that your understanding of the game might be not as deep as you make it seem to be.
+Accelerator 1 If the only thing that stops a successful recovery is the exploitation of the engine by another player, than no it doesn't mean the player 'doesn't deserve' to come back. I'll begrudgingly or wholeheartedly accept various aspects of Melee's metagame, but edge hogging is something I will NEVER accept as necessary or 'skilled'. It's a cheap tactic meant to cut off chances at recovering from a near-miss and ruins part of the nail-biting fun that a last-frame surge can evoke.
A crouchcanceled attack can also prevent the player from recovering. That is also an exploit. Should we not allow that too? Your point is pretty much. "If you abuse the game, it's cheap". Which is a very narrow-minded attitude. There are many other points to as why it's good for the game. Let's take peach, she has a very good recovery, if not the best in the game. Let's assume the peach player does not DI correctly and gets sent pretty far. The player on the stage can now interrupt her with an back aerial and then edgehogg her, to prevent her from coming back. Let's assume that was not in the game, what else can you do? Use one of the few character that have an usable spike tha risk losing your stock 9/10 times, fishing pretty much? That would be very boring. It is a necessary mechanic to balance out the different recoveries. It has been proven time and time again and the game is now almost 14 years old and bigger than ever. And we see what the dumb ledge mechanic does to Smash 4, people are fishing for kills, because nothing is reliable. So much for debunking your argument, see ya.
+Rodin Claus um, DI is pretty much the most basic tech in melee. that, along with dash dancing and teching and a few other things as well were things that i learned from playing melee on my own. i knew that holding a direction will make me slide slightly more, i knew that dashing back and forth would dupe out the opponent, and i knew that for a short while after grabbing the ledge i would be invincible. yeah i didn't know anything about the extent of DI in that you actually survive longer from smash attacks, i just went higher to recover easier, i knew nothing about blast zones. yeah i knew nothing about how the ledge is still occupied while your in a roll, but anyways, these are things you learn from playing and the only real reason there considered as advanced techniques is because melee is recently starting to grow really fast and is attracting players who have never even played smash before but want to try out competitive melee who need to learn about those things quick and for players like me who don't know the efficient geometry of the stage or DIing perpendicular to the direction your going, i just knew that "hey if i hold right he wont catch me in time to hit me again" or "if i hold up when he hits me sideways i can go higher and holding down will make it impossible to reach the ledge".
Tl;Dr your have to suck to not be able to know anything about DI and you don't see people just sitting on the ledge like some OP shrine in competitive melee, they use it very cleverly and you rarely see them just edge hog, if feels like such a dick move when your friend does that to you if your not competitive but really its no where near broken a broken or exploitable game mechanic.
+Minimu5e Yea, DI is something even casuals do without even realising it.
Yanya yeah looking back at this point i wayyyyy over complicated it, basically most people get hit off stage and instinctively hold in to not go as far off stage, (which is actually suboptimal most of the time you should hold up and in diagonally), and when your getting hit the other way a lot of times you think hold away and tech roll away so you go more center stage. survival DI is really basic that people do instinctively, while combo DI and SDI are not as intuitive.
you mentioned they only had 13 months to make this game.
thats a very good point to make with the future games. everyone is so worried about sakurais health with future installments even though the deadlines are not even close to strict comparatively
I would actually argue that more people who still play melee, as their main game in 2018, are either involved with or aspire to be involved with the competitive scene. I have a hard time believing that many people still play this game completely "casually" 17 years later. I disagree that there are more players who are likely to have not heard about the competitive scene for the game, than there are that have.
The game is just too dated. Maybe somewhere, people still pull it out at parties and have a fun time, it's not out of the realm of possibility due to the game's massive recognition, but there are other games in the series that said people are more likely to play in such a scenario. If a person chooses to play melee over the new, modern games in the smash series, it's likely because they do know about the game's advanced mechanics, and the beautiful things going on with it.
I agree that there is no right or wrong way to play a game. I just feel like the competitive scene for this game is much more prevalent than you give it credit for in this video. How many people do you think play Ocarina of Time daily without speedrunning it, or at least utilizing the many advanced mechanics that add depth and replayability to that game? Sure people pick it up and replay it, possibly fairly regularly, but you can only play the same game over and over, without using it as a medium for competition/optimization, for so long.
Granted this was uploaded in 2014, and melee has since reached new heights, and my comment is written in 2018, where melee is the 10th most watched esport currently. Overall I thought this was a fantastic video. Your intro was phenomenal and I subscribed immediately after it was over. The sequence where you talked about the largely unknown and obscure characters, while showing footage of Marth and Roy, had me literally saying "what the fuck is he talking about", and then the cut to the ice climbers made me feel like I had significantly been gotten. Very well done video.
from my experiance, brawl definately has the most recognition amoubg casuals. melee mostly has current fame from the competitive scene
Yeah, I neither have the time nor the interest to play competitively, me and my brothers were a bit bored of smash 4 and dusted off the gamecube and played some matches of melee, let's just say we didn't play it for long.
Since when Melee is the 10th most watched esport? I'm a Melee player and I actually had no idea, I think it might not even be the most watched fighting game (DBFZ has some insane popularity although I don't think it translates to competitive tournaments viewership)
Hey man just want to say I ran across your channel and this video randomly. Amazing stuff and I watched some of your other videos earlier and it's so cool to see someone who had a totally different experience in gaming as me in so many ways and how you view things. I'm someone who is really into the competitive Melee scene and everything you said whether it was about the scene or just the game I totally appreciate. I played Melee for so many years and was so bad at it but thought I was good, then I ran across the competitive scene while actually playing Halo competitively (MLG) and was super impressed but never put the time in on Melee to get good. Then in 2013 I rediscovered my love for it and have been obsessed all over again.
Your view though as being someone who doesn't play with advanced tech skill and is just the majority of people who play that way, is totally fair and really accurate as to how I used to feel. Anyone on here who would attack you for your point of view and it not meshing with theirs is just stupid. Your videos are awesome and I don't know how I didn't find your channel sooner but I'm going to check out every single video. I especially want to dive more into your Sega stuff because I always felt like the Dreamcast got a bad rap and your video about the rise and fall of it was so amazing. I was definitely one of those people who was intrigued by it but didn't want to get it myself because I was hungering for a PS2 as I had a PS and was huge into JRPG's. My brother had a dreamcast though and while he wasn't an avid gamer I would play it every now and then and it was amazing. I wish that they could have had another few years to get developers to make games for it, that system was so ahead of it's time, DVDplayer or not. Anyway nice videos man keep them up, great job!
Meanwhile brawl is sitting in the corner eating glue.
Melee is siiiiiiiick. Haven't gone to tournaments since 2015, but man the game itself is so much fun. I really wish Project M was the sequal so we could get updates on the games mechanics and balance and not throw everything out the window.
On a side note, Melee is up there with Yugioh when it comes to casual misconceptions about the competitive format. There is nothing wrong with being casual, but being a casual elitist is hard to put up with. I'm glad you didn't jump to conclusions about the competitive community like many do.
I don't agree with you on edge hogging, especially with how free recovering is in smash 4, but I get where you're coming from. Good stuff, big guy.
You are wrong about the Smash4 ledge mechanics, it just ruins the strategy in traditional fighting game play.
Most of Melee is played at the ledge because this is where all the clever play and strategy plays out. Which makes sense because fundamentally smash is about pushing your opponent out side a boundary and should favour position. When someone is on the ledge or pushed out to the boundaries then the other player has a benefit that he eared. He pushed, manipulated and spaced his opponent to the ledge and deserves some stage control because of it. This is actually how most fighting game play. Think of how worse of a position the player in Street fighter if he is pushed against the wall.
In Smash4 none of these traditional fighting game strategies will work because you aren't rewarded in having stage position if every character has a freebee to be anywhere on the stage they want. You might as well not even care where your opponent is (which is how people play Smash4 competitively now).
Now when you are recovering in Melee you still have many options.
gfycat.com/ElementaryImaginativeFeline
Look at how many times Hax as to read the recovery to secure the kill
ua-cam.com/video/a3EvVrX7jls/v-deo.htmlm6s
Look at this clever read by Mango, very smart.
+Ddiaboloer I know this post is old as hell, but I just thought I should mention that recovery is by no means free in Smash4. A player grabbing the ledge still only has a handful of options for getting up, and reading which option your opponent picks basically gives you a free stock (or at the very least heavy damage). You can also ledge trump an opponent who doesn't immediately get up from the ledge and bair them for a super early kill. And ledge invincibility is not refreshed upon re-grab, which makes grabbing the ledge less safe as a whole, especially in conjunction with trumping. It also makes going offstage for edgeguards much safer, since you don't have to worry about failing to get back yourself so much.
Melee's ledge mechanics are great, for sure, but Smash4's mechanic by no means "ruins" the strategy.
This is a good comment with unfortunately low upvotes... I think people don't like the edge-hog because of sentimental ideas about 'honor', especially in instances where edge-hogging guarantees the kill easily (because the opponent is already at high percent and has been knocked back too far to have the option of recovering onto the stage).
But like every other 'exploit' in Melee, it adds depth to the game.
Somebody finally said it. I didnt even realize the parallels to traditional fighting games but it makes perfect sense, sick analogy
I really loved the way you talk about melee, its not entirely competitive, its also about fun. Nowadays I like to play some bob-ombs smash or only pokeball items, and we have a blast :D
"Holding the edge had to be nerfed!"
Liked your content, left a like but nahh dude, just nahh.
I actually agree with his sentiment there. Out of everything melee had, the only changes I would've made are ledge hogging and chain grabbing. It just feels bad for both players.
It feels bad for players that don't like it. For certain people it feels good regardless of if they're on the giving or recieving end, it's about the individual. That being said I do also like smash 4 and ultimates ledge mechanics, I just like melee's more
@@morgin2609 I think fans of S&M share this sentiment.
@@wolffang489 It's like you can see right through me lol
Your intro gave me chills. Have a sub.
PEATSCH PITSCHUU BOWSCHER
There's absolutely no reason to try to be hurtful. Like I said, please treat people better than this.
@@GeekCritique gj on the video.
Guy screams "SUPER SMASH BROTHERS ... MELEE"
goosebumps.