Project M: the ultimate Brawl Hack

[Infinity's End]

In case you guys don't already know, there is a dedicated group of high-quality hackers that are turning Brawl into something it should have been: A new and improved version of Melee. A lot of things have been changed and removed but they are trying to turn Brawl into a tourney-quality game. Check it out here.

They've brought back a few old stages and even added a new Castlevania stage, which is weird because there's nothing even remotely related to Castlevania (beyond Snake being a Konami IP) in the game... could this mean Simon Belmont will be a new playable character? Here's hoping...

If anyone needs some assistance on getting it to work properly, I may be able to help. I can't guarantee anything though.

[Naner]

I played a bit of it earlier this week. The hack is really impressive and it's really great to play on an overall. I love the way Lucario plays, but am not too fond of how Pit was handled. There are some little things that they Meleetized that I would've preferred remained unchanged (like how grabbing items or dodging mid-air work), but it's still really good. I've yet to play it with some friends, though.

[Emperor Ing]

While I haven't played it myself, I will agree with IE in saying that (based on what I read) this is what Brawl SHOULD have been like.

Melee is a beautifully fun fighting game, and it looks like the hackers took that aesthetic and cut out all the bullshit from Brawl. No more tripping? Thank God.

[Zynux]

Awww man, looks like I can't play it because I don't have brawl (I stayed away from that game after playing it multiple times at friends house etc.) But from looking at the website and watching videos, it looks good. Maybe I'll convince my friend to load it up (since he has Brawl).

Melee is a beautifully fun fighting game, and it looks like the hackers took that aesthetic and cut out all the bullshit from Brawl. No more tripping? Thank God.

I still can't fathom why they would add such a nauseating mechanic. Like seriously?

[Dragonheart91]

I'm not sure if I'm on board with everything this hack is doing. It's like they are disregarding all of the advancements Brawl made too. This literally feels like Melee with newer graphics, and not at all like Brawl. I understand that Brawl is a deeply flawed game and that it lacks much of the competitiveness of Melee, but Brawl is also incredibly fun and introduced a lot of cool new things. To completely abandon all of that irks me.

The other thing that bothers me is how they just neutered some characters. When you fundamentally change the defining moves of characters, they are basically new characters. I have no idea how their new Charizard will feel, but I do know that without Rock Smash he won't be even close to the same character. That move defined his playstyle. Same thing with Zelda. I'm really not a fan of these mines, especially when you can't detonate them early. She lost her best positioning and ranged aggression move. Apparently the pros are raving that she can control the field with her mines and get in for close range combat better now, but that was not how she played before in any way. The character is basically gone and replaced with a new completely different character.

They also reverted pretty much everything they could to it's Melee incarnations. Falco had an actual distinct playstyle in Brawl and it's sad to see him just go back to being a Fox clone with a slightly different speed. Wolf was also an interesting and diverse character, but they have made him far more similar to the other two on his team. I understand there are subtle differences between the three of them that gives various pros and cons for pro players, but for the rest of us these changes just changed interesting characters into boring clones.

Lucario was my main, so I'm especially critical of changes there. I didn't feel any need for the adjustment to his aura powers, but the new set-up seems acceptable. The biggest change for Lucario here is the ability to better cancel combos into different moves. He is a an exceptional combo character with the engine tweaks, and I'm sure that will work well. None of the other changes seem like they significantly affect how Lucario will play.

I love what they did with Pit and Ike. The little tweak to Ike's side->B gives him a huge amount of increased mobility on the battlefield. Pit lost some of his most awkward moves and gained a much more synergetic set of specials. As for the actual mechanic comparison:

Melee advantages:
-No tripping
-Better ability to combo
-Increased mobility with things like Wavedashing
-More aggressive gameplay

Brawl advantages:
-Stale moves prevented linear strategies
-Gameplay is far smoother and characters have less jilted or stuttering actions. Everything flows together better.
-Lower bar to entry. It's far easier to pick up Brawl and start playing than Melee.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't stand the jerky and inconsistent feeling movements of Melee after playing Brawl. Characters all seem to have huge endlag on all of their movements unless you tech perfectly to cancel it. The overall feeling is that you do something, then wait for it to end, then do something else. In comparison to Brawl where you can just continuously keep a stream of things going and you don't get caught holding still for multiple frames if you press a button slightly early. I haven't played Project M yet, so it's plausible that they didn't bring this jerky nasty feeling with it. However, everything sounds like they have completely restored the feel of Melee, likely the stilted movements and all.


P.S. Do we know if they are going to finish making the rest of the characters? There's a lot of them still not available, including some of my favorites. I would hate to see them stop here.

[DrevanZero]

I really hope they revert Samus's moves to their Melee standards, such as being able to bomb jump. Samus in Brawl looked nice, but she didnt play near as well as she did in melee.

[Dragonheart91]

I would like bomb-jumping back, but they didn't change Samus much overall. I'm sure she will get the full melee revert though, especially considering how they have handled other characters. I'm more curious what they will do with Zero Suit Samus. That character was really unique and could be exceptionally strong with the melee game engine. She just needs a few more ways to tie combos together and maybe a better recovery.