Topic: Super Smash Bros. Melee at Evolution 2007

[WindyMan]

Is SSBM really a fighting game?  The biggest fighting game tournament in North America thinks so.

The Evolution tournament has been around since the year 2000, bringing the best fighting game players from all over the world together to see who's the best of the best.  Now heading into its seventh championship season, the stakes are higher than ever with more than $100,000 on the line over five tournaments across the United States.    

Recently, the organizers have revealed the list of games that will be featured at in the tournament.  Among the usual suspects—Street Fighter 3, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Guilty Gear XX, Tekken 5, etc.—a new game will be making its Evolution debut.  That game is Super Smash Bros. Melee.    

SSBM has really never been taken seriously by the fighting game community over the years, despite the complexity hidden beneath its simplicity.  It gained some notoriety as a true top-level tournament game by being featured during the 2006 Major League Gaming campaign.  However, now that the Evolution boys have picked it up and placed it along side legendary fighters like Street Fighter 3: Third Strike and Super Street Fighter II Turbo, it seems about time for Melee to truly be considered a real fighting game.    

The Evolution championship series will get underway next month in Austin, TX.  If you think you're good enough to take on the best Smashers in the world, hit up the Evolution website for details on how to enter.

[18 Days]

It better be 4 player with items on random stage. Otherwise you might as well catch cancer.

[Shift Key]

Quote
Originally posted by: 18 Days
It better be 4 player with items on random stage. Otherwise you might as well catch cancer.

I endorse this match setup. Anything else is just not crazy enough to tolerate.

[18 Days]

Wavedashing isn't a skill, it's a glitch. Exploiting it is lame.

[Nick DiMola]

Quote
Originally posted by: 18 Days
It better be 4 player with items on random stage. Otherwise you might as well catch cancer.

Any tournaments I have ever played in are usually 1v1 no items on a stage like Final Destination or Battlefield. I have seen a 4 player free-for-all with items/random stages but that one wasn't really very competitive and didn't really guarantee the winner was the best fighter.

[Galford]

SSBM at EVO?

Well I'll say this is a simpathy vote for the GC.
Every other AAA on the GC can be found on other consoles.

How are they going to do this?  SSBM is a fighting game for people
who can't play real fighting games.  Four player mode turns into a button mashing mess.

[Smash_Brother]

Non-Fox/Falco players need not apply.

[Ceric]

I just think its a pretty big coincidence that they are just getting around to doing this.  

[Vance]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ceric
I just th ink its a pretty big coincidence that they are just getting around to doing this.

Actually, it isn't. As someone who has actively participated with the discussions at shoryuken.com (one of the main forums by the people who organize, promote, and contribute to EVO), people have been pitching to add Super Smash Brothers Melee to the fighting game tournament for years. The only problem besides getting enough momentum and support to add the game to the list was coming up with a standard list of tournament rules (like what stages, characters, and game settings are/aren't allowed) that's fair to all players while being consistent as possible to how previous SSBM tournaments have been organized.

Quote
Originally posted by: 18 Days
Wavedashing isn't a skill, it's a glitch. Exploiting it is lame.

This is like saying exploiting combos in Street Fighter II is lame, or exploiting snaking in F-Zero GX and Mario Kart DS is lame. You could choose to ignore the fact that these moves exist but you're probably not going to win a lot of tournaments in the process.

 

[Ceric]

Hey Vance, you seem to be in the know.  Will they be using the Tournament feature int SSBM and is there some place where I could look at the rules and restrictions there going to use?  I'm sort of curious.

[KDR_11k]

I wonder if Melty Blood will be added when it gets a US release...

[darknight06]

Quote
How are they going to do this? SSBM is a fighting game for people who can't play real fighting games. Four player mode turns into a button mashing mess.

Nobody EVER plays 4 player mode with items on in a tournament, and you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT button mash in this game.  This is actually one of the most unfriendly games I've ever seen for button mashing, it arguably comes second only to Virtua Fighter in terms of mashing.  Now if the only way you ever played the game was 4 player Melee with items, then of course you're gonna say something like that, but anyone who plays this through the 1v1 tournament rules knows that 95% of the crutches a beginner could use in 4v4 items play are gone in 1v1.  You actually have to understand how the engine works and believe me when I say the engine is quite extensive for something that was believed to not be a serious game.  

[Galford]

Melty Blood, it would be nice but good luck.

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: darknight06
Nobody EVER plays 4 player mode with items on in a tournament, and you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT button mash in this game.

He meant "C-stick mashing".

I've been in four player games where a lone Marth player will stand in the middle of the stage and just C-stick back and forth, picking people off.

The sad truth is, you either mercilessly hunt the Marth player (which then results in them whining about being picked on) or they'll steal kills by waiting for you and a better player to be tearing into each other and then come in with that goddamn near-instant smash attack which actually gets stronger when you use it from further away and hit with the tip and snake kills that way. Marth is a lethal force, be it in tournaments or in 4 player matches.

But C-sticking in a game like SSBM is still guaranteed to net you some kills anyway, just because the game moves so quickly and is so hectic that a C-sticker is bound to catch people with their smashes, especially if they cherry-pick players who are locked in combat with someone else. Thus, button mashing is still a somewhat legitimate strategy, compared to SSB64 where button mashing would get you absolutely creamed every time.

Quote
The only problem besides getting enough momentum and support to add the game to the list was coming up with a standard list of tournament rules (like what stages, characters, and game settings are/aren't allowed) that's fair to all players while being consistent as possible to how previous SSBM tournaments have been organized.

See, that actually sounds encouraging.

Ban the top tier and you could have some very interesting matches.

[Nephilim]

Avcon had a 90 man melee tourament last convention, was really fun in 4 player
I ended up being beaten by the winner in sudden death lol
4 play can be pretty damn exciting

only peple who seem to hate melee is the damn sf alpha kiddies anyway, doesnt seem like the other fighting game fans would really care  

[Ian Sane]

"Any tournaments I have ever played in are usually 1v1 no items on a stage like Final Destination or Battlefield."

This sounds like the most boring horsesh!t in the world.  The only reason I like SSBM is because of the crazyness of four player battles with random items.  If I want to just play one on one in a fighting game I'd prefer to play something like Street Fighter.  I've never recognized SSB as a fighting game because I find if you actually play it like a fighting game it isn't any fun.  It works best as a wild crazy battle royale game.

Though when playing SSBM my friends and I do have two rules.  Random fighter selection and no C-stick smashing.  Hell I didn't even use C-stick smashing when unlocking the sound test.  I usually forget it even exists.  Random fighter selection is to make up for any unbalanced characters and is used in virtually every fighting game we play.

[Vance]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ceric
Hey Vance, you seem to be in the know.  Will they be using the Tournament feature int SSBM and is there some place where I could look at the rules and restrictions there going to use?  I'm sort of curious.

They haven't posted game-specific rules for SSBM yet, but if you go to the Player's Guide in the Evolution website, they list the rules that are going to be applied to all games, as well as the game-specific rules for games that have already been established (like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Guilty Gear XX Slash, etc.) Hope this helps.  

[KDR_11k]

Ian: Chaos is nice at a party but at a tournament you don't want random factors involved since you want to see how good these players are, not how much luck they have. Maybe SSBB could have a standardized item spawn order for tournaments that would avoid randomness but still involve item fighting skills...

[Nephilim]

well how can you be the best player, if u can only play well on 2 stages?
whole point of touraments is to crown the best player... kind of lazy for top players to say final destination only

[Ian Sane]

"Ian: Chaos is nice at a party but at a tournament you don't want random factors involved since you want to see how good these players are, not how much luck they have."

I understand that.  I'm just saying that I personally would find playing SSBM in a tournament setting to be incredibly dull.

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Ian: Chaos is nice at a party but at a tournament you don't want random factors involved since you want to see how good these players are, not how much luck they have. Maybe SSBB could have a standardized item spawn order for tournaments that would avoid randomness but still involve item fighting skills...

I was going to say exactly the same thing.

It's a pain in a torunament with items when you're jumping around and something appears from the top of the screen giving you next to no time to react and you get "Smashed" off because it happened to be explosive.  In a case like that, you were defeated by bad luck.

Items are cool, so if they only appeared in a particular spot and timed intervals or something, some sort of more controlled thing, then it could be more fair.

The SSB games ARE fighting games...just a different sort of fighting game, that's all.  Remove the randomness and you still require skill to win.  I'm bored of SSB:M, however, I still say, ABOUT TIME!

[darknight06]

It's only dull when you don't understand the intricate details of the engine.  Granted the game isn't perfect, there are balance issues whether it's FFA or Tournament play but I'd rather watch a tournament of this over either MK or DOA any day of my life.  The biggest hurdle from getting into Evolution other than it being on console (there was a huge thing against tournaments on console at one point) was the whole "tiku tiku" image deal and the fact that for the longest time they thought the game had to depth or skill to it despite the game IMO having a significant learning curve if you plan to play it seriously.  (go to SRK and I'll bet you'll find people disputing this as we speak, there's a lot of oldschool arcade fighting gamers there that DO NOT take to these changes well, it was bad enough when MKDS was announced the year before )  It really is a whole new set of skills you have to have to play it well enough to win decently at a tournament level, and even though I can't bring myself to play it at that level (I feel there's no realistic way I can catch up to that level of playing), I most definitely have a lot of respect for it.  I would arguably say it's one of the more innovative fighting games to come out in a long while.  

[Smash_Brother]

Sometimes, while playing SSBM, a player will just randomly explode and be hurled off the screen.

This phenomenon typically occurs while standing on an incline when a Bob-omb spawns right at your feet, hits the incline, rolls for .001 seconds, registers contact with the player and detonates.

So yeah, it's entirely possible for a player to be winning and then just be randomly wiped out of the game by a retarded item spawn. That's the kind of thing you DON'T want at tourneys.

[Galford]

Well it will be interesting to see what happens with this.  Certain characters excel at certain boards.  It sounds like EVO is trying to fit SSB:M into a SF2 style mold and I don't think it will really fit.  

I guess it's my own personal gripe against the game itself and some of it's players.  I've been beaten by many a player on pure speed and reflexes only to watch those same people not last 2 matches against the computer in DOA.  I just wish many of the people who played SSM went on to play other fighting games.  They don't they just stay with SSB because their sorta good at it and don't want to lose or try something harder.

Oh well the entire fighting game community is fractured as hell.  One look over at SRK proves that.

[Dasmos]

Quote
Originally posted by: Vance

Quote
Originally posted by: 18 Days
Wavedashing isn't a skill, it's a glitch. Exploiting it is lame.

This is like saying exploiting combos in Street Fighter II is lame, or exploiting snaking in F-Zero GX and Mario Kart DS is lame. You could choose to ignore the fact that these moves exist but you're probably not going to win a lot of tournaments in the process.

Those things are lame. You're lame.

I don't really see how wavedashing is that helpful, except for edgehogging.