Different Styles of Play

Alright so there isn’t too much happening in the smash world right now, StR or Smash the Record is the next big tournament that’s going to go down and there is also the voting for who the people want to see in the smash summit. I'll cover those events when we get to them. But for this post I’m going to just marvel about melee a little bit more and share some personal opinions as well.

               So like I stated in an earlier post melee is widely considered to be a beautiful accident, just to recap, this is stated because it is still played today, it is still the most popular smash game (in terms of the competitive community) because we are still learning things about this game. That’s the biggest thing in my opinion, even as the game moves to more optimized play styles, not only are we learning new things but there is still so much difference in a players style. Now if you are new to competitive smash and you watch a high level mirror match or ditto as some people prefer (meaning both payers playing the same character) you probably won’t be able to see the differences in how the two players play the character, which is understandable if you don’t watch a lot of smash, melee specifically though has so much little intricacies about it which make it even more prevalent that players have different styles, melee isn’t just a hard game to play at a high level it’s hard to understand as well. Mew2Kings Marth is very different from that of PPMD or Ken, Leffen’s Fox is very different from Armada’s. if you understand competitive smash you can see it in the way they play

               Now I’ve done all this talk about different styles of melee but now I’m going to try to do an easy breakdown of what exactly makes someone’s style different.

         Choice of options. Now options in melee are very complex but for the sake of this explanation options are simply going to mean the characters move set. For example, if you watch say, I don’t know, let’s just use Leffen for this example. If you watch Leffen play he usually always goes for the correct or “Textbook” option. Now Leffen plays Fox, shine spiking (which is using fox's reflector move off the stage to hit someone) aside Fox’s most reliable way to kill someone is upwards, having two of the most powerful upward killing moves in the game in his up-aerial move (up-air) and up-smash. Leffen kind of always follows this fox flow chart of throwing the opponent above you and then trying to hit them with as many up-airs as possible, which when you think about sounds like that’s exactly what you should be doing as Fox, and to some degree I agree. Melee is more complex than that though. so Leffen is textbook in his play. But now on the other side you have Armada’s Fox. One of my favorite things about melee is that just because you are doing the best option that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the correct option, melee’s game engine allows for a lot of creativity. Armada while very efficient is more creative in his play style. Armada doesn’t always go or the textbook option, I’ve seen armada mix up his options after up throw with a neutral air or a back air. I personally feel it’s important to mix up the options you use for a follow up because it catches the opponents off guard, people always expect the best option to be used, so they always prepare for it. Up-air, while fox’s most reliable kill move in the air isn’t a perfect move as it is a multi-hit move which means the opponent can SDI (smash directional influence) out of it and survive (SDI is when you smash the control stick on one side as you get hit with a move, it can it essentially makes you look like you teleport a small distance if done correctly).                                                                               

                                         Smash Directional Influence Example couldn't find this video on the blogger YouTube searcher so here is the link

this video is 5 seconds long at about 3 seconds in you notice that fox throws the Mewtwo upwards and then when he uses his up-air the Mewtwo instantly shifts to the left but doesn't get knocked upward at all 

            Movement. Melee is a very fast paced, this is a result of the various movement options each character has.

  

The video provided is what is called a tech skill or technical skill video, these videos essentially showcase the movement of a character. In an earlier post I provided a video of fox and how fast and technical he is, it showcased how smoothly he was able to move across the stage. This video however is of Yoshi and even though he is considered a low tier character, even he is able to perform such complex movement.

Movement is also what really differentiates a person’s style of play, there are so many movement options one can make in the game of melee and as a result each player can essentially control their character the way they want to, this is possible because of the advanced techniques such as wavedashing and L-cancelling. 

Now I want to make it clear to everyone that this is just a basic overview of what differentiates a players style for the sake of readers who don't know too much about melee, what makes a players style can be broken down into a much more complex explanation.