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[Mit-]

Nah, I'd say we caught over 78,000 breaks.

Even though we didn't win, we're still amazed and blown away by the support we got from our fans, our VAs and our merchandising partner.

Smash is arguably its own entire community outside of the fighting game community. The Skullgirls community mostly consists of people from the fighting game community that play other games too.

If you weren't up against an entire unique community of gamers that weren't being represented at EVO at all, you guys would have absolutely won.

 

[joe2187]

Nah, I'd say we caught over 78,000 breaks.

Even though we didn't win, we're still amazed and blown away by the support we got from our fans, our VAs and our merchandising partner.

Either way I had a blast, these dueling streams last night were pretty freaking increadible, the hypest shit I've seen all year easily.

I personally donated $45 to SG (i wanted that poster) and dont regret it all, any word on the winners for the artbook and fight stick raffle?

 

[Ravidrath]

Either way I had a blast, these dueling streams last night were pretty freaking increadible, the hypest shit I've seen all year easily.

I personally donated $45 to SG (i wanted that poster) and dont regret it all, any word on the winners for the artbook and fight stick raffle?

Yeah, we really had a blast doing it, and I think we'll do another next year, Evo contest or not.

And Mike is handling all the prize stuff, at least for now, and I'm sure he's still asleep. He woke me up with a text at 4:00 AM, so I'd imagine he'll be sleeping until at least 4:00 PM.

 

[Rentahamster]

Considering the interest in the art and the VAs, perhaps a big part of SkullGirls' future lies in comics and TV shows, heh.

 

[SolarPowered]

The only thing I know for sure is that Skullgirls scene will be the hungriest scene out there for a while. Not one person out there can say otherwise.

Spoiler

Except maybe the Smash scene

 

[enzo_gt]

"What Polygon's commentors learned from Youtube"

Damn, haha

 

[Professor Beef]

The only thing I know for sure is that Skullgirls scene will be the hungriest scene out there for a while. Not one person out there can say otherwise.

All that money spent on the donation drive and they forgot to buy groceries.

 

[Threi]

Skullgirls RPG/Action game

 

[Rentahamster]

Skullgirls RPG/Action game

Tales of Skullgirls. Hot damn.

 

[Loona]

Skullgirls RPG/Action game

Wasn't Alex Ahad's concept for the setting originally something independent of a game genre, but he went with a fighting game because he liked those?

I could see something like a (web)comic or short animated series working if the non-coding/gameplay team manages to rearrange its efforts and pick a central character to focus on more consistently.

 

[TheFightingFish]

Skullgirls RPG/Action game

I'd think that something like a Streets of Rage brawler could actually do a pretty good job of using all of those great existing animation and voice assets that they've already produced.

 

[Ravidrath]

 

[Codeblue]

Nah, I'd say we caught over 78,000 breaks.

Even though we didn't win, we're still amazed and blown away by the support we got from our fans, our VAs and our merchandising partner.

You guys also got mad respect from all over and got the name out there to people who might otherwise be unaware of Skullgirls.

SG might not have gotten my money during the drive, but they'll get it for the PC port for sure. The streams totally sold me on it.

 

[Revven]

This is a hilariously awesome reaction video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUcKZOvMTSY&feature=youtu.be

 

[Archon473]

Just heard the news. Melee will never die!

 

[Master Milk]

Nah, you can't just post this and not say nothing

 

[A Pretty Panda]

http://www.twitch.tv/Bum1six3/new

 

[Busaiku]

It's for the same reason why neogaf is full of "LOL Wii U is dead" topics. Everyone hates Nintendo and wants everything related to them to die.

You know, I think I'm the only Nintendo fan here that does not enjoy competitive Super Smash Bros.
I mean, I see people here from like Pokemon, Kid Icarus, Super Mario, etc here, that I wouldn't normally see in fighting game junk all supporting Super Smash Bros.

 

[Roubjon]

I really want one of those...

 

[Unspeakable Evil]

Lttp: Congrats to Smash Community!

 

[joe2187]

Needs an Avery Doll, I would buy the shit out of an Avery figure/plush

 

[blurrygil]

Noice!

 

[Codeblue]

You know, I think I'm the only Nintendo fan here that does not enjoy competitive Super Smash Bros.
I mean, I see people here from like Pokemon, Kid Icarus, Super Mario, etc here, that I wouldn't normally see in fighting game junk all supporting Super Smash Bros.

You're going to have to turn in your cursed palm until you reconsider.

A lot of people can argue the definition of fighting game, but no one can really argue that the Smash community is totally separate from the FGC.

 

[SolarPowered]

I'd question whether this was real life. Smash will never be as hardcore focused as melee was ever again :-(

Was Melee even hardcore focused? I assumed from the very first day that the game was just a happy accident.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Was Melee even hardcore focused? I assumed from the very first day that the game was just a happy accident.

Sakurai noted in an interview that it was indeed focused like that.

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

Was Melee even hardcore focused? I assumed from the very first day that the game was just a happy accident.

Looking back, nearly a decade on, Sakurai seems proud of Melee overall. "Melee is the sharpest game in the series," he wrote. "It's pretty speedy all around and asks a lot of your coordination skills. Fans of the first Smash Bros. got into it quickly, and it just felt really good to play."
However, he has one particularly deep regret: the game's accessibility level. "I had created Smash Bros. to be my response to how hardcore-exclusive the fighting game genre had become over the years," Sakurai said. "But why did I target it so squarely toward people well-versed in videogames, then? That's why I tried to aim for more of a happy medium with Brawl's play balance. There are three Smash Bros. games out now, but even if I ever had a chance at another one, I doubt we'll ever see one that's as geared toward hardcore gamers as Melee was. Melee fans who played deep into the game without any problems might have trouble understanding this, but Melee was just too difficult."

.

 

[Justin Timberlake]

Was Melee even hardcore focused? I assumed from the very first day that the game was just a happy accident.

Sakurai implies in his interviews that it very much was. And tinkering with the developer mode (through action replay), its pretty obvious a lot of thought was put into it.

The more you get into competitive Melee the more you realize how some things must have been by design. There are certain mechanics which would have been completely broken had they been a frame or two off...

A lot of it was coincidental to be sure, but much of it was by design too. Which is part of why Brawl hurts so much.

 

[Rentahamster]

What's confusing about Sakurai's statement is that even though Melee was more hardcore-focused, casual players could still play it just fine. All Brawl did was eliminate the higher level techniques. That has no relevance to low-skill players at all.

I don't think I've ever come across someone who has said that Melee was too hard. It's far easier to learn how to play Melee (hold a direction and press buttons) than something like Street Fighter (down, forward, punch for fireball).

 

[EmCeeGramr]

What's confusing about Sakurai's statement is that even though Melee was more hardcore-focused, casual players could still play it just fine. All Brawl did was eliminate the higher level techniques. That has no relevance to low-skill players at all.

I don't think I've ever come across someone who has said that Melee was too hard. It's far easier to learn how to play Melee (hold a direction and press buttons) than something like Street Fighter (down, forward, punch for fireball).

It's accessible to pick up and play, but it is pretty goddamned fast and bewildering at a high level or with certain characters. I actually remember some reviewers at launch wondering why the game was so goddamned fast and twitchy.

 

[Mit-]

Was Melee even hardcore focused? I assumed from the very first day that the game was just a happy accident.

A completely intentional mechanic in the game that's a great example for the hardcore features of the game: L-canceling. When landing while doing an aerial attack, you are in landing lag (extended animation of that attack hitting the ground, lots of recovery frames, etc). If you hit L within a small frame window of hitting the ground you negate a LARGE portion of the landing lag.

That's a hardcore mechanic, and it's absolutely intentionally programmed into the game (I believe it is also in Smash 64).

It was taken out of Brawl -.-

 

[Hitokage]

What's confusing about Sakurai's statement is that even though Melee was more hardcore-focused, casual players could still play it just fine. All Brawl did was eliminate the higher level techniques. That has no relevance to low-skill players at all.

Just an example of somebody who doesn't understand what a "learning curve" is. You can have something that scales to incredibly high levels of play, but is readily playable at all levels and allows for gradual progression.

 

[Stabby McSter]

Which one of you posted this on the Polygon article?

 

[Codeblue]

What's confusing about Sakurai's statement is that even though Melee was more hardcore-focused, casual players could still play it just fine. All Brawl did was eliminate the higher level techniques. That has no relevance to low-skill players at all.

I don't think I've ever come across someone who has said that Melee was too hard. It's far easier to learn how to play Melee (hold a direction and press buttons) than something like Street Fighter (down, forward, punch for fireball).

Brawl eliminated higher level techniques for the same reason it didn't have a leaderboard. You aren't just playing with your friends anymore so casual players couldn't play online and win.

The irony is that the online didn't even work.

 

[emb]

A completely intentional mechanic in the game that's a great example for the hardcore features of the game: L-canceling. When landing while doing an aerial attack, you are in landing lag (extended animation of that attack hitting the ground, lots of recovery frames, etc). If you hit L within a small frame window of hitting the ground you negate a LARGE portion of the landing lag.

That's a hardcore mechanic, and it's absolutely intentionally programmed into the game.

It was taken out of Brawl -.-

The result of the mechanic is good, but I feel the mechanic itself is not. Why not just have that lag always cancel? It's a completely worthless extra task to make the player constantly hit L/R every time they land with an aerial. This serves to make the game more fast and fluid overall. More importantly, it accomplishes exactly what Sakurai always says he wants; new players have less to learn and won't be as intimidated. It would bridge the gap a bit.

Of course when designing Brawl, the developers had a stroke of genius and implemented it the exact opposite of correctly. Let's have the lag never cancel so we can slow the game down! Because that's what's fun. Slow.

 

[Mit-]

The result of the mechanic is good, but I feel the mechanic itself is not. Why not just have that lag always cancel? It's a completely worthless extra task to make the player constantly hit L/R every time they land with an aerial. This serves to make the game more fast fluid overall. More importantly, it accomplishes exactly what Sakurai always says he wants; new players have less to learn and won't be as intimidated. It would bridge the gap a bit.

Of course when designing Brawl, the developers had a stroke of genius and implemented it the exact opposite of correctly. Let's have the lag never cancel so we can slow the game down! Because that's what's fun. Slow.

I'm in complete agreement with this, actually :V It's just a good example of a more hardcore feature that was intentionally put into the game.

I hope more than anything that Smash 4 marks the return of momentum and heavier/faster characters in general to allow for a speedier game overall, l-canceling or none.

 

[Firestorm]

The result of the mechanic is good, but I feel the mechanic itself is not. Why not just have that lag always cancel? It's a completely worthless extra task to make the player constantly hit L/R every time they land with an aerial. This serves to make the game more fast fluid overall. More importantly, it accomplishes exactly what Sakurai always says he wants; new players have less to learn and won't be as intimidated. It would bridge the gap a bit.

Of course when designing Brawl, the developers had a stroke of genius and implemented it the exact opposite of correctly. Let's have the lag never cancel so we can slow the game down! Because that's what's fun. Slow.

Agree with everyone you said here.

And yes both 64 and Melee had L cancelling. In Melee it removed 50% of lag while in 64 it removed 100%.

 

[Dion Blaster]

Yeah I still don't understand why L-Cancelling is a thing, seems like a terrible way to increase the learning curve. But yeah Brawl "fixed" it in the worst possible way.

 

[Hitokage]

The result of the mechanic is good, but I feel the mechanic itself is not. Why not just have that lag always cancel? It's a completely worthless extra task to make the player constantly hit L/R every time they land with an aerial. This serves to make the game more fast and fluid overall. More importantly, it accomplishes exactly what Sakurai always says he wants; new players have less to learn and won't be as intimidated. It would bridge the gap a bit.

It's the exact same thing as teching a fall in Street Fighter, and the reason it's manual in that game is because it's not always something you want given timing based setups.

 

[durrrrrrrrrr]

The result of the mechanic is good, but I feel the mechanic itself is not. Why not just have that lag always cancel? It's a completely worthless extra task to make the player constantly hit L/R every time they land with an aerial. This serves to make the game more fast fluid overall. More importantly, it accomplishes exactly what Sakurai always says he wants; new players have less to learn and won't be as intimidated. It would bridge the gap a bit.

Of course when designing Brawl, the developers had a stroke of genius and implemented it the exact opposite of correctly. Let's have the lag never cancel so we can slow the game down! Because that's what's fun. Slow.

i disagree, the advantage from L-canceling is worth putting up an execution barrier. i agree with Sakurai in taking L-cancel out instead of giving it to everyone for free, seeing as moves have landing lag when not L-canceled since the first game.

 

[Mit-]

It's the exact same thing as teching a fall in Street Fighter, and the reason it's manual in that game is because it's not always something you want given timing based setups.

No, teching is the same thing as teching a fall in Street Fighter

When do you not want to l-cancel?

On hit? If you're required to wait some time for your followup combo, you can just l-cancel and then wait. Whatever you wanted to do is still possible whether you l-cancel or not.

On block? You always want to l-cancel on block. It usually means punishment otherwise.

i disagree, the advantage from L-canceling is worth putting up an execution barrier. i agree with Sakurai in taking L-cancel out instead of giving it to everyone for free, seeing as moves have landing lag when not L-canceled since the first game.

But it's a mechanic that seems automatic when observed at high level play. Making it automatic doesn't change high level play (that much). It just means noobs will take advantage of stronger aerial attacks. Nothing wrong with that. Plus Melee still had some landing lag. It's not like you'd be completely eliminating landing lag as a mechanic, you'd just be decreasing it overall across the entire game.

It's like the Versus games only requiring one motion and two buttons to activate a hyper, whereas games like Street Fighter 4 require a double motion and 3-buttons to input an ultra. At high level play it's irrelevant, because a top level player is going to hit the Ultra whenever he wants, but it's going to take a low level player longer to get it down (okay, this example goes a bit more deep, in that you aren't meant to activate a lot of Ultras that quickly in SF4, but you get what I'm saying ).

 

[Rentahamster]

It's accessible to pick up and play, but it is pretty goddamned fast and bewildering at a high level or with certain characters. I actually remember some reviewers at launch wondering why the game was so goddamned fast and twitchy.

Casuals won't be playing at a high level anything, so their universe of "hold a direction, jump around, and press A or B sometimes" suites them just fine. I guess the speed and twitchyness open to subjective opinion, but I didn't think the default pace at beginner levels was that big of a problem. If it was too fast, there were slower but stronger characters at your disposal, too.

Just an example of somebody who doesn't understand what a "learning curve" is. You can have something that scales to incredibly high levels of play, but is readily playable at all levels and allows for gradual progression.

Indeed. You design a game to be really easy to get into, then give the players the tools necessary to evolve their game. Flat-out eliminating the high skill ceiling and forcing everyone down to scrub-tier totally eliminates depth and cuts out an incentive for long-term investment and interest.

Smash Bros. in general is both button-mashing friendly, but also passes the test that a skilled player WILL beat a button masher every single time. Unlike some other fighting games that came before it.

 

[Hitokage]

No, teching is the same thing as teching a fall in Street Fighter

When do you not want to l-cancel?

Ah, I don't actually play smash and from what I was reading it sounded like fall teching.

Indeed. You design a game to be really easy to get into, then give the players the tools necessary to evolve their game. Flat-out eliminating the high skill ceiling and forcing everyone down to scrub-tier totally eliminates depth and cuts out an incentive for long-term investment and interest.

Same thing happened to Tetris. SRS and the Guideline ruined the game at high levels.

 

[Revven]

Sakurai didn't like the hypothetical idea of a high level Smasher beating casuals, I think. He thought that was an issue, if I recall. Something like that anyway. He wanted everybody to equally be "a winner" in the end of matches, despite who comes out as "1st" as denoted by the game itself.

But the goal shouldn't have been to completely alienate anyone who played Melee competitively... and unfortunately, Sakurai and his team did just that.

 

[Rentahamster]

Brawl eliminated higher level techniques for the same reason it didn't have a leaderboard. You aren't just playing with your friends anymore so casual players couldn't play online and win.

The irony is that the online didn't even work.

lol yeah.

I'd say, though, that the solution for hurt feelings online isn't to dumb down the game so that everyone sucks. Street Fighter 4 and other recent fighting games have decent ranking systems in place so that you tend to get paired up with people of your own skill level. However, given that friend codes are ass...well...

:/

The result of the mechanic is good, but I feel the mechanic itself is not. Why not just have that lag always cancel? It's a completely worthless extra task to make the player constantly hit L/R every time they land with an aerial. This serves to make the game more fast and fluid overall. More importantly, it accomplishes exactly what Sakurai always says he wants; new players have less to learn and won't be as intimidated. It would bridge the gap a bit.

Of course when designing Brawl, the developers had a stroke of genius and implemented it the exact opposite of correctly. Let's have the lag never cancel so we can slow the game down! Because that's what's fun. Slow.

As Hito said, it's like throw teching. However, I agree with you in the sense that in general, in any given game, if there's some sort of technique that is so useful that you want to do it near 100% of the time, then you might as well make it automatic. In SF4, for example, something like quick get-up is useful, but it's not something that you ALWAYS want to do, therefore it adds a lot to the depth and mind-games.

If there were more reasons to NOT L-cancel, then I think it would add a little more strategy into the gameplay, like in the oki game, for example.

 

[Hitokage]

Yeah, if L-canceling was a tradeoff then that would make things more interesting, from what you're saying.

 

[Duderino]

[nevermind]

 

[Kikujiro]

Sakurai didn't like the hypothetical idea of a high level Smasher beating casuals, I think. He thought that was an issue, if I recall. Something like that anyway. He wanted everybody to equally be "a winner" in the end of matches, despite who comes out as "1st" as denoted by the game itself.

But the goal shouldn't have been to completely alienate anyone who played Melee competitively... and unfortunately, Sakurai and his team did just that.

Which is a really stupid way of thinking, because it's not Sakurai who decides how people will play his game. Casual players will play it more casually and hardcore players will put more effort into learning every nuances of the game, Melee worked fine (easy to learn, hard to master, basically the same as Street Fighter), why change?
I'm pretty sure in Brawl a good player can easily demolish a casual player (and making him feel completely powerless), so at the end of the day Sakurai didn't accomplish anything besides ruining the game for those who wanted a competitive play.

 

[wildfire]

Polygon covers results of the donation drive.

I have to say OMG at that first comment. Is he related to Chris G?

 

[Infinite]

I have to say OMG at that first comment. Is he related to Chris G?

Went over my head

 

[wildfire]

That first comment there is... wow. People still think the FGC is bad after a whole year has passed since that incident at Cross Assault?

It's not just Cross Assault. Noone should ever say the FGC is as accepting of women as men.
They should say we are working better at being more inclusive because that's the current state.

At the moment trying to say the FGC has a community that is inclusive of women is very naive, ignorant or dishonest depending on the person who said it.

A good mix of men and women are MMOs like Warcraft, Guild Wars and SWOTR or internet card games like Partypoker. The amount of women that participate in FPS, RTS as well as fighting games is abysmal in comparison.

Went over my head

His backhanded compliment was just as true but unnecessarily dickish as what Chris G said on Twitter recently about the people who donated didn't care at all about breast cancer research.