Thursday 18 January, 2007

Okay, so, I went and played more Smash bros. As far as the game goes over all, it's pretty well done. I mean, it has to be to be as much of a classic as it is. The game is simple enough that it is more than easy to pick up after spending years not playing it, and it does have a good level of complexity. There are enough stages to keep the game interesting for a while, and there are also a good number of items which help to keep it fresh.
How ever, I am rather disappointed at how few moves there were in the first version, and even in the second. It just strikes me as not being enough depth. We get the A moves, yes, and the throws, and then 3 (4 in Melee) moves with the B button. That leaves a lot of the buttons and easily done button combinations totally unused. Now, I have heard that this is being remedied in Brawl, and that we should expect to see a good deal more in the way of moves.
My other complain has to due with the items. Many of the items are either too weak to be useful, or they are inanely powerful and make the match more of a 'who can grab the best stuff' rather than a 'show off your skills.' I prefer games where a lot of the battle is based on skill, so I tend to turn off the items. However, this means I'm missing a lot of the fun the items can bring. I would really have liked to see some form of middle ground.
Other than that everything is good. The levels are enjoyable, often more enjoyable than the newer ones added in Melee. With Super Smash Bros Brawl just a few months away, the game is definitely looking up. Hopefully the rumors will turn out to be true and we can expect a plethora of new characters (Not just the four released new characters thus far.)

Nice gamelog, but I disagree with certain things you said, and as an avid SSB player, i felt i should enlighten you on some of the finer points to the game. First, you say that there isn't enough moves and/or move depth. Well each character has 16 unique moves, yes i counted, which are all useful for casual or competitive play. Although this fighting game doesn't stress the need of inputing multiple button combinations to perform special combos, the game does have certain control "secrets" that allows your character to reduce lag after aerial moves, which replaces the repetitive pressing of combinations of buttons. About the item unbalance and fun thing you were talking about, well you can turn off items you don't want and keep the ones that you deem "fair". Also Brawl is gonna be sick

I am aware of that. As I said in the log, I would prefer if I didn't need to turn off the items at all.

As for moves, Yes, I am aware that every character has at least 16 moves. To be honest, though, those moves are not generally particularly interesting or unique. I would simply like to see a good deal more done with the B moves, as is being done heavily in Brawl.

Like I said, SSB was the first in the series. It takes a while to get things right. Melee, in my mind, was a much better game in many ways, despite the fact that it had afew problems. Brawl appears to have fixed those problems, and continued the evolution in a very good direction.

Edit: Also, for the record, you can simply hold 'Z' as you fall in SSB to reduce the lag. Timing wasn't added untill Melee.

The choice to limit the number of moves turned SSB into a game of reflexes rather than memorization of long involved button combos. That mechanic worked very well for me, since combo-memorization was one of the most uninteresting parts of any other fighting game. The limited number of moves made the game much easier to get into for me.

That said, move limitations do become an issue at the higher levels of competitive play because so many moves are inherently bad. The best characters in SSB aren't the ones with a large toolbox of powerful moves, they're the ones with three or four moves that are so ridiculously good that you don't have to care about any of the others. Winning strategies almost always come down to abusing a couple of your character's best moves as often as possible, rather than utilizing their full potential.

This creates some fun gameplay elements in and of itself (as each player tries to get into the proper position to use their killer moves), but I don't think it's ideal for high level competitive play. Hopefully Brawl will be better without sacrificing the newbie-friendliness that made SSB such a popular game.

Peace,
-Squidget

I think it can be. I mean, there's just alot of unused space on the controler. I agree entirelly that having long combinations of buttons = Bad, but... Still. There's just alot of unused buttons/not fully utalized buttons.