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.
