I can see why it might be a bit disappointing for the competitive players, but I honestly don't understand why many of you consider it so horribly bad.

They removed some stuff like wave-dashing, true - but I don't understand why losing an ability to move around super fast will negatively impact the game's ability to be played competitively. And in terms of it's use as a skill differentiator, all the best players were capable of doing it anyways, so matches were decided mostly on other factors.

Brawl was not balanced, at all - but neither was Melee.

The Smash Balls are completely game-breaking, from a competitive standpoint, but from what I understand most competitive players in melee either turned off items or went through and heavily edited which ones would appear, so that's no difference than Melee.

Many of the stages offer too much in the way of random chance, which tends to equalize the playing field and counteract skill-based victory, but so did many in Melee. Again, from what I understand most competitive players in Melee turned off many of the stages, and that option still exists, PLUS the additional option of a level editor.

Tripping: I'll give that to you. That was unnecessary, a deliberate middle finger to the competitive players from Sakurai, and a poor game design decision.



Don't misunderstand; I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, and that you should like Brawl. That would be condescending and presumptive. But I AM trying to understand why you dislike it so much. I'm not a competitive player myself, so it's hard for me to get into the mindset.


This was mostly aimed at Matt, TMJ, simply because I'm more familiar with his reasoning for being disappointed with Brawl. If your reason had nothing to do with competitive play, then ignore all this