Key

Definitely one of my favorite Smash games. Though I feel they've progressively gotten better or worse depending on how you look at it.

grindy

Brawl is the ultimate Smash Bros. for me.

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Oriphiel

Top ten party game, and still fun even after the party ends.

First Smash Bros was one of the wake up calls for fighting game developers, who took note of Nintendo's success. People were tired of insanely steep learning curves and obscene AI difficulty. The age of the arcade was ending, being more and more eclipsed by home consoles, and arcade gameplay had less appeal to people on couches than in front of cabinets (I still love old school arcade fighters, though ). They just wanted a casual, uber-combo free fighting game that wasn't movie licensed garbage and didn't suck. And, yeah, filled with gallons of Mario Kart esque cheap ass items to cheese your friends off with. Now, Steam is full of party fighting games that have all taken the cues from the Bros. And there's even professional Smash tourneys for those blessed with otherworldly reflexes.

Melee carried on the torch, and was an improvement on every level. Still loved and lauded for its tight and fast gameplay. 10/10

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elphenor

troll so hard

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elphenor

funny thing is Melee at the top level is actually the most technical fighting game there is, requiring the highest APM and maneuvers that are ridiculously frame tight

this is why melee is great, easier to pick up than traditional fighters, while still having their infinite skill ceilings

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Oriphiel

Nah. Tekken is by far the most technical. Every character has enough moves and quirks to fill a small country. It can take years to master just one. Try Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and you'll see what I mean. Competitive play is impossible for anyone not willing to make it their occupation.

And for raw speed, reaction time, and frame counting goodness, Street Fighter will always a bit of an edge over Smash due to the comparatively tiny stages that force immediate and constant pressure. Each character has just a few moves, and combos are extremely limited compared to the juggling of Tekken and MK. But the top tier players straight up have to be the fastest thinkers of any e-sport.

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elphenor

it requires more knowledge but I'm telling you in terms of raw technicality Melee being a broken game where you're almost inputting speed running type glitches "tech" makes the APM requirement objectively more than Street Fighter

in terms of knowledge sure other fighters dwarf Melee in terms of matchups by sheer amount of viable characters, and the wider array of moves

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Oriphiel

Nah, Smash is much more about mobility, positioning, and space control. The key way to win, even in stock matches, is much less about memorizing the frames of each character's attacks, and more about the relative long game of positioning yourself well on the stage and making the enemy come to you.

SF is immediate, forced conflict, with large stage positioning taken out of the equation. It has the same speed as Smash, only the onus is on the attacks themselves, and landing each perfectly. If you think Smash tech and exploits of quirks is demanding, you really should give SF a try. There's so much more to learn, for such a simple game.

Btw, just curious, have you ever watched professional Tekken matches? It's madness. Fucking damage altering hitboxes for every limb, and players spend years honing all the variations of every possible way to combo and juggle every other char in the way that does the most damage to each. Various chars have stances that can change their fighting style on a dime. Couple all that with reflex intensive counters, and it just gets ridiculous. Every move in Tekken must be perfect, or you instantly get stuck in an inescapable combo.

Smash is a game where an amateur with great reflexes could beat a pro maybe once out of twenty matches. SF is more like once out of thirty. But with Tekken, an amateur straight up can not win.

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Oriphiel

Tbh though elph, now that I think about it, even though I think SF really does have more tech and tricks to learn for a reflex-centric game with such limited moves per character, I could see the argument that the space play and edge play of Smash makes it more complex. Learning the physics of hits to knock people over, learning meteor smashes to keep them off, etc.

But when it comes to pure reflexes, the forced proximity of SF puts quick thinking to the foray and makes the margin of error much smaller imo. You can't run and buy for time when you're ahead in the match. You have so much less space and time to set things up. And since jumps are so much shorter, anti-airs/cross-ups have to be split second perfect.

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elphenor

no no what I'm refering to, if you aren't aware, are the advance techniques required at high level play that require a lot of button presses in a short window

things like L-Cancel, Wavedash, edge-cancel, stage tech, shffling etc.

the translation of amount of buttons you have to push is like english to spanish, it's just wordier

for example, to optimally do something as simple as an ariel attack, you have to short hop, hit the directional attack immediately after to perform a rising ariel, hit down on the control stick at the exact pinnacle of your jump to fast fall, then hit L as soon as you hit the ground to cancel landing lag

it is literally 4 to 5 inputs done in less than a second to do a very simple move

and pretty much every aspect of the game can be sped up this way, which is why a better Melee player won't just outsmart his opponent or know the combos, his character will literally move up to twice as fast

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