Melee by FAR. Brawl's gameplay is extremely broken. There's too much emphasis on the defense of each character, and because of this there are more chances to recover for everyone prolonging fights and making them much slower ie: you can press L multiple times in the air and recover with ease . Then there's the final smash which completely ruins matches. Some characters have really weak final smashes while others could take out two of an opponent's lives like Fox's landmaster.

Online lags so much it's unplayable. I had such high hopes for the online. And even if it didn't lag, friend codes present another roadblock. And even THEN, random fights have a horrible structure with only 1 type of match. 2 minute long fights........*sigh*

All fighting games are broken to an extent, it's why tourney's develop rules on what is and isn't alowed. A few broken moves doesn't mean unbalanced, it means there are broken moves that high level tourney's will probably rule out as fair play. The imbalance in Melee came from a few of characters that were so ridiculously over powered that using anything else was just asking to lose. Brawl has a much more layered and balanced tier, where even the best characters aren't ridiculously over powered. Metaknight is good, but he isn't the new Marth/fox, he can actually be beaten.


Also, just as a PS, does anyone have videos of some awesome Dededes? I always hear about how he's high tier but I've not seen many videos of him kicking ass and taking names. I'd like to see how he's used that makes him so bad ass. And the fact that a heavy weight character is even considered awesome is a big step over Melee where speed=victory.

1) Not sure if you were referring to me or not, but if you were: The Final smashes isn't the true broken part, it's the recovery rate in Brawl.  The gameplay is slower than the original SSB, and the recovery rate is off the charts.  These two combined make the matches really, really poorly paced.  What I'm trying to say is that there aren't enough penalties for making a mistake in Brawl against an opponent, it's too easy to stay alive in ratio to Melee and the original.

I like it this way: it's less punishing, and the fights tend to be more dramatic. Much more fun to play with a crowd.

I'll put it this way: for the floor I RA, I break out either Brawl or the 64 version. They don't really touch Melee.

I agree. I was so used to the speed and weight in Melee, that the slow down version in Brawl kinda ruined it for me. It still surpasses Melee in everything else though. And the Subspace Emissary was pretty good too.

From my standpoint, I really do like Brawl the best.

It's amount of fanservice completely obliterates Melee, which is saying a lot.

The score that Brawl provides is absolutely fantastic, one of the best musical scores of all time.

A fleshed out single player mode that failed to meet the hype of the masses, but in the end it was an enjoyable experience that allowed you to get somewhat familiar with the different characters. The Great Maze was the only big disappointment there...

It's a game with more balance. Yeah, there's still gonna be MetaKnight, but I feel like I can actually do something with a mid level tier character this time around. It's not Melee 2.0, which I find very refreshing and gives everyone a fresh start at Brawling again.

Sonic (just give him a little more power next time )

I find the community to be more open minded and enjoyable to be around, instead of the Melee community which first introduced me to the elitist gamer crowd.

@swygii, sorry, that wasn't directed at you. I should have specified. It was directed to twilit. The smash balls I don't consider broken since they like any item get turned off in "serious competition".

@swygii The speed thing, like I said it's definitely slower that melee, and a far more defensive game. But that just comes down to a preference call. Melee was an all out balls to the wall offense game, this one actually rewards playing defensively and has longer matches. I'm not going to say one is better than the other, because some people prefer the new pacing and I don't really blame them. I like both.

^ I agree. I can't really say whether I liked Melee's fast pace or Brawls lighter, more defensive speed more, though it took a while to get use to (and the fact that Samus was my main in Melee basically ruined her in Brawl, could never get use to the way she fell and hit).

I find Brawl better overall for a number of reasons, that many people have already mentioned, but like I mentioned earlier, I like the wiimote and nunchuck a lot more than any normal controller, so I'm a lot better in Brawl than in Melee, because I can actually dodge and grab a bit more. lol. I hate shoulder buttons, especially the Z button on the GC.

But yeah. Maybe the next game they'll speed it up but not as fast as Melee, try to center it a bit.

all melee was, was the wavedashing crap with the same 3 characters used. brawl broken?? and haha final smashes... well thats EASILY fixed, go to options, turn off items. its how you would play in a tournament anyway. Brawl is way more user friendly, the music owns any game iv ever played, maby minus Final Fantasy, Brawl is waaaay better in every way

Ah, I found a pretty good Dedede video from a tourney. I turned down the volume, commentary is annoying. But it shows some of his ass kicking ability. I wish I could use triple D so well.