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josh the funk DOC's side... Smash Bros. Melee... OK, I bored Eric to death on AIM ranting about this game. I figured I should just do that here from now on. :D Note that this is all word of mouth from experienced SSB players, so I don't have complete info.Now, I love the original Smash Bros to death. It actually has a lot of strategy to it and it's just fun as hell, one of the few N64 games I'd pay money for. So naturally I'm psyched for the sequel. And there's a lot to get excited about. For starters, from what I hear, most of the balance issues in the original have been fixed. Ness is no longer God, and Pikachu and Kirby are no longer top-tier. None of them have been outright raped, though, they're all still good. Samus (in SSB she was really good in team play but by far the worst character in any other mode) has been really improved in every way. Not everything is good, though. Donkey Kong was weakened, but possibly too much. Jigglypuff (2nd-worst character in any mode in SSB) is now *worse* if anything. Overall, though, the changes sound like they are on the positive side. Throws no longer dominate like they did in the original. For the most part they now suck and are meant just to punish blockers. Many new items added to the game, most notably the Super Scope (hells yeah!). Old items have been changed some; for instance, the healing items have been weakened, and there are a TON more Pokemon in the Pokeball (and for the record, Mew actually does damage in this game). Every character now has 4 special moves, the 4th one being to hold right or left and press B. The normal character lineup has been expanded to 14. All 8 normal characters from the original are back, Ness and Captain Falcon are now normal characters, and there are 4 new characters who I will get into a bit below. NEW NORMAL CHARACTERS: Princess Toadstool: She goes by "Princess Peach", but I'm old-school and refuse to call her that. :P Anyway, she sounds like pure EVIL in one-on-one and good in the other modes. She's very fast and has 2 different jumps, after both of which she can hover ala Super Mario Bros. 2 (the hover last 4-5 seconds in this game). Her special moves roxor: u+B is an umbrella uppercut, after which she floats downwards and can run away, d+B makes her pull a vegetable out of the ground (this move works just like it did in SMB2), and B is the REVERSAL OF DOOM. What that move does is, she pulls Toad out in front of her as a shield. This move reflects all projectiles AND reverses all physical attacks to do double damage to the enemy. This move is why I said she's evil in 1v1. Bowser: An obvious choice to include, he's the biggest/slowest/strongest guy in the game. He has permanent super armor (like Juggernaut in Capcom's Marvel games), very nice. His specials sound good too: One is the fire breath, which has long range and is controllable. Another is a butt stomp that hits both on the way up and on the way down (think E.Honda here), and the last one I know about is a spinning shell move (this is just like DK's spin move, except invincible until the end). Princess Zelda/Sheik: Sounds REALLY cool, she's almost 2 characters in one. For those like me who haven't played the N64 Zeldas, I figured out the whole split-personality deal: Sheik is Zelda's alter-ego, who does all her fighting and is like a ninja. In this game, both fight and you can switch between the two with d+B. Zelda has a controllable and almost full-screen fireball, a teleport, and a reflector, but few smash attacks. OTOH, all of Sheik's special moves are physical attacks and she has many smash moves. Definitely has potential... The ICE CLIMBERS~!: w00t w00t w00t!!! :) These guys have to be, like, the coolest addition to the game. They're named Bobo and Nana, and like Zelda play very uniquely. See, both of them are one character; the CPU controls one and you control the other. The trick to playing them is to STICK TOGETHER. That's because all of their special moves are powered up when they're together. When separated they're not very good, apparently. These guys are gonna be the first ones I pick. Now for the secret characters. There are 11 total, but that's not as impressive as it sounds. The one major complaint everyone (including me) has with the game is that the majority of the secret characters are clones of existing ones. So for starters, lemme run through the clones. SECRET CHARACTERS - CLONES: Falco Lombardi: Of Star Fox fame, the bird is obviously a clone of Fox. The only difference is he's slower and more powerful. Pichu: Total Pikachu clone, the only difference is that he's even smaller/faster/weaker. Young Link: Guess who this is a clone of and you win a cookie. His differences are the same as Pichu's, plus his arrows (Link's new special move, FYI) are flaming. Roy: Of the SNES RPG Fire Emblem, he's a clone of Prince Marth (see below), who is also from Fire Emblem. The difference is that Roy's the slower and stronger one. Dr. Mario: I don't care if he IS a clone, it's Dr. Freaking Mario! WHOOOOOO!!! Man...I should get my mom to play this game seeing as how she *still* plays Dr. Mario. Anyways, he's not as much of a clone as the others; he plays mostly like SSB Luigi (Luigi in this game got changed around quite a bit to make him more different from Mario, though I don't exactly know how). Plus his fireballs are pills, phear them. And finally...the character decision that most angers me... Ganondorf: *sigh*. Nintendo's #2 villain is now reduced to a clone. A clone of CAPTAIN @#%$ FALCON. WTF's with that?!? But anyways, this is the N64 version of Ganon; that's why he's named "Ganondorf" and is in human form instead of his old-school pig self. Actually, come to think of it, he sounds really good. He's big, and more powerful than DK, but not as slow as DK or Bowser. That's his only difference from Falcon, though. Oh yeah, and his voice is pretty cool. :) Now, to the actual original secret characters. OTHER SECRET CHARACTERS: Luigi: As said above, I don't know exactly how different he is. I just know he's supposed to be really different from the last game (hence, the creation of Dr. Mario). Jigglypuff: As said before, she's possibly even weaker now. And my friend will probably still keep saying how good she is... Prince Marth: Not too clear on him. He's the fast one of the two FE characters, but is the weak one as well. Both have very long range on their attacks. Mewtwo: The actually cool Pokemon is here, and from reports so far is the best character in the game. He's kinda like a super-clone, as his special moves come from Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Ness, and Samus. All of his normal moves are unique and very good. I'll probably play him at some point. And finally...along with the Ice Climbers and Dr. Mario, the character that gets Nintendo back on my good side... Mr. Game & Watch: This might be, like, the only guy who's even cooler than the Ice Climbers. For the uninitiated, he's the character from those game watches of the early 80's (before the NES), and like everyone from those games is a stick figure. Hella funny to see him compared to everyone else in this game. His moves all involve objects like sausage, chairs, hammers, and some others. No reports on his actual effectiveness, but I'll still play the @#%$ out of him anyway. And there you have it. But one final note: IGN has a series of Quicktime movies showing off the secret characters and stages in this game. You have to pay to get into this site, but I have all 5 movies downloaded from a free site. Hit me up on AIM or ICQ if you want them. Here's what each of them has: Movie #1 - Luigi vs. Dr. Mario on the SMB2 stage. This stage owns, it has the SMB2 music directly ripped from the NES. Movie #2 - Young Link vs. Ganondorf on the secret Earthbound stage. Movie #3 - Prince Marth vs. Roy on the famous F-Zero course Big Blue. This stage is awesome, too. Movie #4 - Pichu vs. Jigglypuff vs. Mewtwo on the Pokemon Floats. This is a neat stage, you jump across a whole bunch of Pokemon balloon floats. Movie #5 - Falco vs. Mr. Game & Watch on the secret Metroid stage. I love this stage, it has that Kraid's Lair music from the original Metroid. Plus Kraid himself is in the background and looks even cooler than on the SNES. He has a pretty big effect on the gameplay, too... --Josh the FunkDOC Dammit, I want a Gamecube... |
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eric roman side 3-27-2002. |
Return to the DCTP Miscmash Melee...of Fray!
Created: 3-27-2002
Last Edited 3-5-2006