In Reply To #2
Yeah seriously. Melee was just goodness through and through.
As for Brawl, it's got a lot of good things going for it, but there are a lot of issues with it that bring down its value as a polished, finished product. Here's the stuff I've noticed (both good and bad) about the game:
The Good:
-The Adventure Mode is very fleshed out, and even has multiplayer features to it.
-The Events in it are improved, and they've got more of 'em.
-The return of the classic character entrances (originally done in the N64 Smash).
-Lots and lots of music, many of it unlockable, from different composers.
-The challenges make you keep playing the game.
-Boss Rush mode
-Many new stages
-More Trophies and the addition of Stickers.
-Air dodging is improved, and can be done multiple times.
-Some tweaks done to characters to balance the game
-It kept most of the characters from Melee.
The Bad:
-While we did get a new Adventure Mode, it feels like such a chore to play it sometimes... I guess putting stickers on your trophy makes some things easier but that's another chore.
-The addition of so much content and so much detail to stages has, unfortunately, increased the Load Time. There's nothing more annoying than wanting to go play a new match (this is OFFline) only to have to wait 10-15 seconds for the damn thing to load.
-While they brought back the classic Character Entrances, they did away with the Bonus Awards (Frequent Faller, Face Smasher, Offensive Master, etc.), so you don't get the awards at the end of battle anymore, not even in Adventure Mode.
-While challenges do make you continue the game, some challenges are never meant to be unlocked (or at elast not for quite some time) unless you use a Wrecking Hammer on them (Collect all stickers!? Are you serious?! I never got all the trophies in Melee!)
-Yes, we got lots of music... but some of the compositions are just exact ports of the originals (I'm looking at you, Majora's Mask Overworld Music), and some of the new arrangements... well, they're OK. I suppose I'm just being picky 'cuz I wanted a better version of The Dark World, heh.
-Yes, we got new stages, but many of them are ridiculous. We hated Infinite Glacier - Icicle Mountain in Melee... what made the developers think we'd enjoy Rumble Falls? And 75M? Are you serious? Only Pit can play in that stage. Some other stages look wonderful but are not very playable (Skyworld) while others are downright frustrating and wrong (I'll take Melee Flat Zone over the runaway train that is Flat Zone 2). The bigger stages suffered as well. Did they think NewPork City would be fun? Hyrule Temple is still king of GOOD big stages, NewPork is annoying. Too bad too, 'cuz I love the music.
-You couldn't use tracks from your own card like in ExciteTruck. I was hoping to play some CV music.
-Where's Simon Belmont? (PERSONAL PET PEEVE)
-Stage Builder only has generic parts, so all your stages, even if very well crafted and cleverly built, still resemble a "Break the Targets" stage.
-Where the hell is "Board the Platforms?" And "Race to the Finish"? It's not ALL about the Break the Targets, folks.
-What made them think that HomeRun Contest would be fun online? You only played it in Melee for unlockables.
-Why can't one use custom stages online? Well I know that one; it'd probably increase the loading since they gotta send the stage config over the 'net... ok, scratch out this last one.
-Ike broke online play. Also, while they balanced out some characters, they completely nerfed others. There's absolutely NO reason to play as Samus anymore (ZSSamus is superior in pretty much every way). There's no reason to play as Jigglypuff.
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On another note, have you guys noticed that Brawl seems to harken more to the first N64 Smash, instead of Melee? The menus, the layout, the Classic Mode's 'character path' all resemble N64 and less Melee.
Perhaps the next Smash game will resemble Melee more.
I still love the game, and play it whenever I have the chance, but yeah... feels like it was overhyped. Maybe they should've just kept the whole thing secret instead of revealing pretty much everything via smashbros.com