What the hell, Brawl guys
In an effort to come up with something interesting for you guys to read, I’ve decided to write about Brawl Fans. Yes, I know, it is now 2006, The Yankees have won the cup, and the Backstreet Boys are wowing the world with their new brand of hip hop trance. But an enterprising bunch of guys has found a way to mod Brawl, turning it into something that I like to call Brawl+. That’s also what they like to call it.
Here’s a bit of words from This FAQ.
Fighting games are about risk/reward. Regular Brawl’s overly defensive metagame has reduced it to a campfest. Brawl+ is here to remove that and bring back the fast paced, adrenaline pumping action that the smash bros series has been known for. To promote a faster paced game and the risky maneuvers that make playing and even watching Smash Bros matches so exhilarating you can expect to be able to combo (and be comboed), actually make use of your tech roll and greatly rely on your ability to DI to avoid being decimated by your opponent. With simply the hitstun code in place, Brawl+ has put every character on an equal ground as every character now has the opportunity to do a sequence of attacks that allow them defeat their opponent. Gone are the games of tag that vanilla Brawl once was. In short, you should expect Brawl+ to be an extremely fun, new experience.
Sounds good to me! But you wouldn’t know it from going to, say, the GameFAQs Brawl board. There resides the tyrannous majority that de Tocqueville warned us about. If you’re not playing a wacky map with all items turned on, you’re not having fun. Ignoring the raging stupidity of trying to define fun, these guys commit the indecency of trying to push that definition of others. These are the sorts of people who say tourney players only play on Final Destination, the flat featureless map of the game. Well, I know some serious Smashers, and I can tell you that that’s only mostly correct.
Melee’s tourney/hardcore scene was upset at the release of Brawl, what with its tripping. Why they be tripping? Well, you try falling down in the middle of a fight. It messes you up, and it happens randomly in the game, and it cannot be turned off. This is bad news if you want to play Brawl as a serious fighting game (which it can be, it’s sufficiently deep that I can’t scratch a real Smash player if I tried), which detractors of that playstyle say shouldn’t be done anyway. Well, screw them. They don’t get the right to tell you how to have fun.
So these asses are saying that Brawl+ shouldn’t be, because it’s changing Brawl. Well,duh. These people are trying to make a serious game out of a game that does everything it can to be otherwise. For standard Brawl, I’m imagining that guy who does wacky thing after wacky thing at a party but can’t hold down a real conversation. Yes, it’s funny and wacky and random, but you want substance after a point.