Super Smash Bros Melee

[NintendoLegend]

Main difference: Brawl has more stuff, Melee has more speed.

[Croooow!]

I see very little reason toplay Melee over Brawl. While it was a great evolution of the saga, it has dated pretty badly and certain design choices ended up clashing with the main design of the game.

Design-wise the unnaturally high speed of Melee, high gravity, long hitstun on attacks and combo-based gameplay directly clash with the focus of zoning and keeping your distance of Smash Bros. L-canceling and Wavedashing also add a execution barrier that adds nothing at all to the game but work.

Brawl is slower, more floaty (a bit too much perhaps), doesn't have as many combos and thus fits better with the overall design of the game, a very zoning-based fighter.


Brawl also has better balance between characters, with around 20 being viable, while Melee has always had only 7 good characters at best. Melee also had too many clones, making many characters boring to play. Brawl has some too but not as many.

The number of good stages is also higher in Brawl, Melee has 9 including counterpicks and Brawl has between 11 and 16, taking the first two groups of counterpicks and leaving the third, which isn't used too much.

Brawl also has a better presentation, with one of the best videogame soundtracks and decent graphics that may not be specially good but compared to Melee's even more outdated presentation is an improvement.

Brawl also has a lot of small stuff, like the trophies, the single-player mode, a kind of useless stage builder, more taunts and online mode that makes it feel more polished but don't add too much to the game itself on their own.

I think that's my assesment of the games.

Interesting. I've never played Brawl and hate Melee because its too fast and has too high of gravity compared to the original. My friends and I were N64 Smash fanatics and we always felt Melee matches just descended into button mashing. I might give Brawl a chance now. Thanks!

[o.pwuaioc]

I don't think Melee is that bad, but I was never a big Smash player.

[equalsign]

In my eyes Brawl feels more like a sequel to the original Smash. I like the way they make items feel much more natural. I found myself playing with them on, something I only did in the first two for a joke game. However I think Melee is the far superior game. I like the high speed and the great capacity to improve as a player.

Smash Bros playtime: probably about 1000 hours
Melee playtime: probably about 2000 hours
Brawl playtime: less than 80 hours

I stopped playing Brawl when I faced my RA in the dorms. He hadn't played Melee and hadn't played the original game in 4 years. He rarely played games. He picked MetaKnight, button-mashed, and almost beat me. That's the kind of game Brawl is. If you're looking for a pickup-and-play/casual, it's "possible" though not necessarily probable for anyone to win kind of game then Brawl is better.

If you're looking for that one game you and your friends can always play for hours straight and get really good at then Melee is better. Unless I faced someone that had input significant time in Melee I would win 99 times out of 100.

[arcadifvid]

this is waaay late, but i have finally gotten around getting my wii to run gamecube games and of course the second game i had to try was ssbm.
fun so far except .. just one thing...
isn't that the C stick is supposed to do something when i flick it? i thought my C stick on my GC controller has problems but i tried other games and it works...
but on SSBM.. nothing. and i thought isnt that one of the reasons why melee veterans prefer to use a GC controller since it does some smash attacks? i dont see it on the options or even on the how to play its not mentioned..

maybe because i'm running it on a wii console?

[Erik_Twice]

The C-Stick does smash attacks, but you can also perform them with Analog+A so perhaps you are doing smashes all the time.

Practically everyone, no matter what Smash Bros game they are using, stick to a Gamecube controller. They are used to it, it's a better fit than the Wii's controller and I think it's one of the best controllers ever made. So, there

[arcadifvid]

yeah thats what i thought. it should do smash attacks, but mine does ... completely nothing

no matter how hard .. or how light i flick it.. move analog with it... press buttons with it.. just really nothing

[Ogreatgames]

The combat is different slightly but each still clocks in as fighter. Roy is in melee & so is Mewtwo, while Meta Knight is in brawl. Also smash balls are in Brawl (which is like a super special). Overall if you can play both you could try in order of release from Melee to Brawl to see how they are different with more detail.

[3DSStrider]

The C-stick to do Smash attacks only works in the multiplayer mode for some stupid reason. In single player it moves the camera, which is a completely useless function in this type of game.
As for wether it's better than Brawl, I would say a thousand times yes. Brawl has bad physics, nerfed characters, slow and less complex gameplay, a terrible "realistic" graphical style, the Subpar Emissary, and tripping.

Melee is by far the better game.

[BogusMeatFactory]

The combat is different slightly but each still clocks in as fighter. Roy is in melee & so is Mewtwo, while Meta Knight is in brawl. Also smash balls are in Brawl (which is like a super special). Overall if you can play both you could try in order of release from Melee to Brawl to see how they are different with more detail.

Congratulations on answering a 4 year old question.