And now watch the Melee competinerds cry about SSB4 anyway

Yup it took literally three minutes for someone to resort to name calling against people who like Melee better.


Everyone in the world tells me I'm wrong for not thinking Double Dash is the best Mario Kart, but the moment I say I like Melee better than Brawl, suddenly it's okay to start calling me derogatory things.

I don't really care one way or another about tripping. It was just never a big deal when I ran into it in Brawl. I just hope this doesn't signal that they're trying to cater to the Fighting Game crowd this time, because that's a Fool's Errand. Just look at PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale to see how that turns out: the developers designed that game explicitly for the fighting game crowd, and it still wasn't warmly received (though still a fun game). That crowd won't be satisfied until they've drained away everything that makes the Smash Bros. experience enjoyable for the rest of us.

I'm actually a big fan of competitive/tournament Smash Bros., and I would love for the series to stay as far away from the Fighting Game Community as possible. Not only does the Fighting Game Community absolutely hate Super Smash Bros., but they're a really volatile group of people.

I disliked tripping because it added nothing to the game. It didn't ruin Brawl, but it was just kind of pointless. I'm glad it has been nixed.

This is probably the only time I can think of where Nintendo introduced something that seemingly nobody likes and then got rid of it in a sequel.  Sakurai should talk with the Zelda team, who seem to think we want Guardians in every game despite the fact that the only time I've heard anyone mention them is to complain about how horrible they are.

I didn't like tripping for the same reason I don't like the massive handicapping in Mario Kart - I don't enjoy winning or losing based on chance.  When I was a child I liked playing Snakes & Ladders.  When I got older I realized that it was a waste of time because I had no actual input into the outcome of the game itself.  To win or lose at Snakes & Ladders means nothing.  It appeals to little kids because they're not mature enough to handle an outcome based on their own merits.  It's a way for everyone to get a chance at winning.

I don't want a videogame that effectively plays itself and if my input has little or no effect on the results of the game, then that is effectively what it is doing.  I've lost interest in Mario Kart because I know that if I'm doing well I'll get screwed by a blue shell and I know if I'm doing poorly I'll get some killer items to let me catch up.  It's not about who plays better but rather who is lucky enough to be close to the leader when the last blue shell hits.  In Brawl if I lost on a trip I felt cheated and if I won because my opponent tripped it felt like a hollow accomplishment.  I'm not six years old so I'm impressed with winning or losing based on luck.

Now I don't think SSB should appeal to tournament players.  I see the gameplay of SSB as adapting to random chaos.  Lots of random items are appearing everywhere but you win or lose based on how YOU adapt to them (after all, ever player is similarly vulnerable).  Tripping was crossing the line because it's like your controls aren't working correctly.  To truly allow that kind of random chaos while still rewarding skill the controls have to be incredibly precise so that the player is in complete control of his character at all times as one slip up can cost you the match.  If you lose you want to say "ah, I should have jumped a second earlier" not "well I WOULD have made it if my character didn't arbitrarily not react to my controls just then".

I like how when some of us were concerned that "our" games would be casualized for the Wii we got flack for it... but here Sakurai is saying outright that Brawl has a more casual design than Melee.  We feared it would happen, it did happen, and they did it to get that big casual dollar and I can see why they would.

I believe running increased the likelihood of tripping so you reduce your chances by not running as much. That was how you were supposed to adapt. It was still silly. I run in every non-stealth game. Walking? Ain't nobody got time for that.

The randomness of items is why tournament players turned off items. And simultaneously, everyone else could leave them on. That's the best part of the game; you can play it however you want. Tripping couldn't be turned off, so no matter what that "everyone can win" element was always there, regardless of how you wanted to play.


Brawl gave us so many different options, but what I would argue is the most important option simply wasn't there. Tripping should have at least been something we could turn off.

Well, this is a good sign at least. Smash Brothers is random enough, so something like tripping is entirely unnecessary and stupid.

The only thing that should cause tripping is the Banana Peel item, if they leave that in. It was usually a funny item.

Yabadabadelicious!!!


I believe from IGN, Sakurai described this games approach as somewhere between Melee's faster competitive design and Brawls slower casual design. I can already tell from the videos it's certainly faster than Brawl, and Melee was honestly too much for me to hang with, so I think I am going to love the heck out of this!


Honestly everything is sounding great. No tripping, casual/competitive compromise, beautiful and unique graphics for each game, Namco's men on board,  Mega Man... If the netcode for this is fantastic and we get some real online going this game is going to be more of a runaway hit than any other Smash before it. I don't care what the Wii U's user base will be when it launches, everything is looking and sounding great so far.


Even if my selfish Ridley, Dixie, Mewthree and Little Mac wishes aren't met(they will) this is going to be my dream title!

Definitely. I will play the shit out of this game. I recently checked my Brawl totals on my Wii, and apparently I've put about 700 hours into the game.

Not bad... My first Wii that broke, over 1000 hours. My 2nd Wii, 500 hours. My 3rd Wii, over 400 hours! Then I got completely sick of my new router cause I couldn't get this strange lag to stop even with Huggles help. Hey what happened to that weirdo? Ningirlhuggles?

I didn't log as much time into Brawl as the original or Melee, but that's mainly due to having moved out of my parents' house, dating someone who wasn't fond of video games, and my brother slowly transitioning from console to PC gaming. Also, I liked Melee more.

So they're not designing something to be bad on purpose? Thank Allah

This is absolutely not a true thing. In fact, there are players like Chris G (probably the top UMVC3 player right now) that come from a Smash Bros background.

Seriously though, this is about the single best piece of news to come out of E3 this year.

Yes, tourney players want to take a way your fun by having a well-designed and balanced game. What is wrong with you?

After he got a temp ban for just being snarky and trolling and getting upset with people on this site being constantly negative especially after an E3 one or two years ago, he went over to that Pietriots and just contributes there now.

Which we have already had 3 times now, Meta Knight apparently notwithstanding for the particularly freakish. Smash Bros. was never intended to be like Street Fighter or whatnot. It's a party game with an emphasis on chaos and some amount of luck. Sakurai gives you people the ability to make the game boring without forcing it on the rest of us, but that is not the way the game is meant to be played.

I'd argue we've never had a balanced Smash Brothers game.

And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Tripping is a design problem, not a balance problem  vOv

So tournament players whine and whine until a feature that is not bad gets removed. Maybe make it less often, but it added a interesting piece of randomness to matches. I hope Sakurai trolls tournament players by making items MANDATORY (at least Smash Balls).

tournament players for melee just get so insecure sometimes. seriously... they got mad because of the pokemon trainer's change mechanic...

and final destination is far from a balanced stage.

I liked the idea of the Smash Ball/Final Smash. It just needs some tweaking. Some were awesome-o (Snake) while some were terrible (Peach). Wii Fit Trainer's Final Smash looks great.

Maybe that's why I never noticed tripping, I hardly run..

I really miss prodaisy/ningurl*huggles. And bill and maxi

I'm disappointed that someone who loves trolling as much as Sakurai didn't increase the odds of tripping happening.

"Real men use items."

If you love trips so much why don't you marry them? :smug:

Seriously, I know you can't bring yourself to say you like them. Nobody can. Why would you be opposed to something objectively good? And who cares how group A or B plays the game?

You know, i'm one who loves the random and zany aspects of Smash bros for the most part.  I love all the different items and how they impact the game, and I enjoy the level environments (for the most part). 

My problem with the tripping is that its directly tied to the input you make as a character.  The other things are items you actively have to pick up or hazards from a specific level.

Having random tripping is frustrating to me because despite half the people here dismissing it as impacting only "tourney players", I haven't seen anyone actively defending it as something they like.  To me, tripping in Smash Bros is as frustrating as if they implemented random tripping in Super Mario Bros.

Melee is actually the only SSB game I've ever been truly passionate about and if it's the most "pure" fighting game of the series that makes sense.  I was really into Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat as a kid.  I was turned off by SSB because it seemed like an anti-fighting game for people that don't like fighting games.  That's fine in theory, but since the N64 was starving for fighting games it seemed silly to "waste" one of its only fighting games on such a title.  Paper Mario bothered me for the same reason.  A common fanboy defense mechanism is "Nintendo used to have X, but doesn't anymore, so X sucks and has always sucked" and both titles seemed to be propaganda to fit that attitude.

I was originally not interested in Melee entirely because I didn't think highly of SSB.  I rented it pretty much out of sheer need because the Gamecube had a big post-launch drought and it was the most well reviewed title I didn't already have.  And I liked it a lot so I bought it and played the shit out of it.  As a result I was pretty hyped for Brawl and it never really clicked for me like Melee did.  Melee was a big step up from the N64 game so maybe Brawl just wasn't "new" enough in comparison.  But then it might just be that it appealed to the fighting game fan the best.

I originally wasn't going to bother with the original because it was a fighting game. While I like watching people who are good a fighting games play, I am and probably always will be terrible at them. I got into the original when I played it over my neighbor's house.

Melee added so much to the gameplay that I expect the same level of advancements in Brawl so my own expectations were to blame on that front. Still, the new stages weren't that great and it was full of half-finished ideas (e.g. Smash Ball, stage editor). I suppose I hyped myself into disappointment which I take responsibility for. I didn't judge Brawl for what it was; I judged it for what I wanted it to be. Looking back, I still agree with many of issues I had with Brawl, but I view it less harshly than I did when it first came out. That said, I'm trying to temper my excitement for the new games even though Mega Man is giving me the weirdest boner right now.

I didn't mind tripping, but at the same time I didn't play competitively or seriously, I played only for my amusement.

I never play games competitively and still think that tripping is a terrible idea.

Would tripping even be remotely tolerated in other games?  Like if you were about to finish off the last boss in a Metroid game with only a sliver of health left and then Samus trips or her blaster misfires or some other random malady befalls her and the boss kills you and that was the best chance you EVER had to beat the game as you were in this zone that you can't recreate, wouldn't you be absolutely PISSED at that game?

If lots of people hate it and nobody puts forth an argument about why they specifically LIKE it, get rid of it.  Nintendo will lose absolutely zero sales from removing tripping while they will gain zero sales, but will potentially lose some, from keeping it in.

its a decent idea that was just executed so terribly that it should best be kept to the banana peels

Tripping sucks in real life. I play video games as a break from the real world, not encounter all the inconveniences electronically except worse because it could lead to e-death.

Ian, I dont think anybody would be petty and stupid enough to NOT buy the next game just because of tripping.

Maybe people wouldn't be complaining if it was optional.

Honestly, tripping never bothered me. Believe it or not, it has actually saved me from certain death more times than caused certain death.