| happydolphin said: (Insert tons of stuff here) |
Man, I dont know which order to quote all of your stuff. I'll probably start with the easiest 
. I'll do them all though I promise. (How do you do those quote boxes???)
"If you compare the camera dynamics between the 3 versions of Smash, you'll see a clear difference at least between SSB and Melee. This one's kind of important.There was a mode in Melee called Giant melee, and the camera dynamics between giant characters and normal characters were different. I was expecting that kind of difference here somewhat."
I..don't see a clear difference. Maybe the Melee one tracked all 4 characters better, or was a little 'looser' and generally did a better job, but it was nothing that I consciously saw as an improvement over the N64 version. And believe me, I'm well acquainted with both. My playtime over both of those is over 500 hours, more likely near to 1000.
I'm sure there is some in-depth article that mentions all these tiny changes, but frankly watching Brawl videos and comparing it to the N64 game I don't see anything more than a tweaking of the camera in over a decade. It needs to keep track of all 4 characters and at the same time make sure they are not too small or too large on the screen, and show enough of the environment; a simple job that all the SSB games did well for me, especially the decade old Melee, and one that I see no alternative to. I don't know what the difference was with bigger characters, other than that the camera zoomed out more to fit them on screen because they were bigger...?
"I wish you'd played smash, you would know exactly what I'm talking about when referring to speed. In Melee, there are a few extra modes, one of them if I remember is called lightning Melee, where the characters moved super-fast. It was lots of fun, but it affected the playstyle of the game."
I do know exactly what you're talking about :) I remember playing lightning melee and slow-mo melee. I didn't play them anywhere near as much as the standard modes, because, while they were a nice distraction after playing the standard mode for hours, they just weren't as perfectly paced. I mained Pikachu - I like fast characters - but I know and I'm sure you do that there is a sweet spot for these games; not too fast to make the action difficult to keep up with or characters unwieldy to use, and not too slow to make it..boring. The standard mode hits that nail on the head, I'm happy with pikachu/fox being fast characters and the slowness of ganondorf/bowser, but any more is just over-kill. Maybe a subtle difference but....I'd never want to play a game in which the speed of standard characters is as fast as Lightning melee, and I think most would agree with that.
As for that stage being 'much too reminiscent' of the Hades level...watched a video of that just now, and yes it's similar, but I wouldn't call it 'much too reminiscent'. The Hades fight is probably my favourite fight in GoW 3, and seeing a massive Hades looming over the level and smashing down with his weapon is special to me as a fan and I'm so happy they included it, irrespective of a game released 4 years ago having a pokemon I dont know about standing in the back of a stage and reaching out occasionaly or flipping the stage. Besides, Kraid in that Brinstar Depths level also flipped the stage and swiped out (although he didn't damage I think?) but I bet that didn't take away from your enjoyment of that brawl pokemon level?
I can tell you that you're right. In the style of smash, there are only so many ways a character can grab. That's why every smash char has a unique way to grab. If these Sony characters were to be added to Brawl, they would fit right in 
BUT (the big but), did you notice that there is a big difference between how characters grab in SF, MK, SC, Tekken and Smash? It's because they're all unique grabbing mechanics and choreography styles. You just can't say that about PABR versus Smash. They're too similar in style. Yes, between the characters everyone is unique, but between the two franchises (PABR vs Smash), they are all too similar.
We're talking about grab animations right? No, I don't see a 'big' difference, really. I've played SF II and IV, Soul Cal II IV and V, Tekken 3, Tag, 4, and 5, Smash 64 and Melee, Streets of Rage if that even counts, DoA games, Ninja Gaiden... etc etc, and while sure there might be differences in how the characters EXTEND THEIR ARMS to touch another character, or in certain cases use weapons (Scorpion, Astaroth etc) I mean.....they're just...reaching out to touch the other character. I think if you watch a fighter and get angry over how one character extends their arm or weapon for a split second to touch another character...priorities are misplaced. For the record, I wouldn't think any fighting game characters grab would seem out of place in a crossover game like SSB or PSASBR, at all. It's a mix up; simple arm extensions to Samus' scorpion-style chain thing are all present. Maybe give me an example, I cant think of one?
I'll lump these together.
Get a copy of Brawl for cheap, try it and you'll instantly see what I mean. As for not being Smash bros, obviously I would never advocate for an artist to work with that in mind. No, just develop your own thing without being too similar to your competition.I agree. But at the same time, don't you find that within that line of thinking, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are vastly different despite their genre similarities?I'm a SF fan, but I'm not really a MK fan. But I couldn't say the same here since they could essentially be the same game!Every character in brawl has uniqueness, unique movelists, different physical feel, unique stages, music and art. PABR components could easily fit into brawl as an expansion.What would really distinguish two fighter games are size ratios, speeds, art direction (brush strokes, pen strokes, dusty, muddy) and those kind of things that would really make you see, oh yeah, that's a different game.
First, the last one (heh). 'Size ratios'...we have that? Parappa is small, Sweet Tooth is big, etc? Speeds..I addressed that just now, and of course individual characters will have different speeds. Art direction..now this one is interesting. Frankly, developing a mash up game is quite unique in that you have to accomodate many different styles of character, and so your options are quite limited if you want the game to appeal to the most people. Sure, Superbot could've done something heavily stylized, but I don't think it would be heavily marketable. I like their compromise; it's slightly cartoony and slightly cel-shaded-looking, but it accomodates everyone's style from Parappa to Kratos, with small changes of course. DoA, SC and MK all have distinct looks (to me) but are about as similar as SSB looks to PSASBR, even though Superbot were, as I have said above, more limited due to having multiple chars. I'm impressed with what they've done.
As to SF being different to Mk, yes it certainly is because, as I listed before there are: unique characters, unique movelists, a different physical feel to the characters, unique stages, unique music, unique art .
All Like in PSASBR.
Now, of course you'd be able to put any fighting game char in another fighting game, but you'd have to switch up their movelists. You'd have to switch it up more in the 'traditional' fighters, as they have a stronger focus on complexity and extensive lists and tons of mix ups, but you'd still have to change a lot about the PSASBR characters, even though it's not a fair comparison.
In fact Gametrailers (eugh) have 40 mins of video of guys talking about their experience with the game, and some of they key things to take away: chars have moves that only serve to build up their AP meter (used for to perform supers) - Parappa has a move that spews out orbs to collect to increase your AP - would be useless in Brawl. Characters have tons of moves inlcuding supers that aren't designed to knock characters off stages or deal tons of damage, it's just a one hit kill if you touch your enemy; useless in the first case, and broken in the second case if these were in SSB. Playing defensively in SSB can work, hiding on other sides of stages and moving in to take out weak enemies etc, but in PSASBR it's useless to you - you'd never build up AP for supers. They guys mention that there's more of an emphasis on combos than SSB - something that's always been a bit lacking there (and signified by PSASBR letting you use the dpad as well as the analog stick for directional input.) Oh, and grabs are on the right analog stick. 0_0 There is also a risk reward mechanic for a character like Sly - you give up the ability to block making him harder to play but you can cloak for a while instead, and if you hit an enemy while cloaked you make them lose AP, meaning each hit counts for more, whereas in SSB all hits are standardised. The guy says you don't win by going into the game playing it like Smash Bros. So again, even though the comparison isn't fair as this genre has never been about deep move lists and complexity, there is a gameplay difference.
So I do have "unique characters, unique movelists, a different physical feel to the characters, unique stages, unique music, unique art ."
That's about as much as I could wish for from a new crossover arena fighting game for me.
Phew, I'm finished ...
