Brawl+
Brawl+ is a working project designed to make various aspects of Brawl more competitive. It no longer requires specific software to be installed to the Wii. More information can be found at The Official Brawl+ Site at BrawlPlus.net. Some members of the Brawl+ community have hosted tournaments using versions of the engine, though Brawl+ hacks are not considered legal for standard Brawl tourneys.
Features
- No random Prat Falling. Moves that trip the opponent such as bananas will still trip.
- A new character select screen with independent icons for Zelda, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, and all Pokémon Trainer Pokémon.
- Decrease of hitlag in long hitlag moves, such as Captain Falcon's sweetspotted forward aerial and Marth tipped forward smash.
- Fully independent versions of Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard, though Pokemon Trainer can still be selected. For the stand-alone characters, Stamina has been removed, and the Pokemon will not cycle upon revival or via Pokemon Change. The Pokemon Trainer will not appear in the background or the victory screen if players choose to play an independent Pokemon.
- Automatic L-canceling, also known as ALR or Aerial Lag Reduction (most characters' landing lag from aerials has been reduced to 50%; Captain Falcon and Lucas to 40%; Link to 35%)
- Dash cancel. -Crouch to cancel a dash.
- No replay time limit. Replay icon still does not appear if the game is longer than three minutes, but if Z is pressed the replay may be saved normally.
- Window of time for dash-dancing lengthened, enabling more Melee-like DDing.
- Ability to shield during dash-dancing.
- No Stale-Move Negation.
- Stage freezing. -Stops all stage movement, potentially allowing for more neutral stages. Only applies for:
- Luigi's Mansion - Formerly, the stage would always be in the "destroyed" mode, known as the Deadlands, however, it has recently been modified to transform at 1/3 speed, so all destruction animations and how long the mansion is destroyed last three times as long.
- WarioWare, Inc. - stage is always in original form
- Spear Pillar - Dialga, Palkia, and Cresselia stop appearing all together, removing stage hazards
- Pokemon Stadium 2 - Stage does not change forms
- No Auto sweetspot ledges.
- Lag-less edges - characters can now drop from or climb onto ledges immediately after grabbing them
- Incorporates the File Replacement, allowing Brawl+ users to easily download textures, music, and Project Smash Attack Characters. In the most recent version of Brawl+, this is how individual character edits are made, although physics and other gameplay changes are still in a codeset form.
- Since build 5.0, the Online Practice Stage is loaded whenever Rumble Falls is selected in Versus Mode. In older versions of brawl+, the Online Practice Stage was loaded whenever New Pork City was selected, and in even older versions (Genesis build) the Online Practice Stage was fully selectable as a stand-alone stage.
Gameplay Tweaks
- Character balancing. For example, Captain Falcon's priority has been significantly improved.
- Faster overall gameplay speed, largely due to reduced lag and sped-up attack frames
- Increased Falling Speed for most characters
- Increased fast-falling speed for most characters
- Increased hitstun, allowing for truly inescapable combos, and more comboing potential in general
- Tech window enlarged, making for easier teching
- Faster techrolls
- Fixes grab release problems. No more grab release problems to characters like Wario, Ness or Lucas.
- Perfect shield window decreased.
- Increased Shield Stun, meaning a character hit while using their shield is forced to stay shielded for a longer amount of time.
- Many moves received slight alterations (e.g.: Bowser's forward smash now produces a fire effect on contact with the opponent, Wizard's Foot gives another jump for recovery, and Rest now produces a darkness effect and launches the enemy at an angle instead of upward)
- Buffer time for moves can be changed to 0-10 frames in Versus mode (Brawl's default is 10). This is done by replacing the handicap with buffer settings, with every 10% being one frame of buffer.
- Using the C-Stick for a downward aerial attack no longer produces an auto-fastfall
- Triple jump glitch removed
- Unrestricted camera during replays, and while paused in Versus match.
- Default Versus settings now four stock, eight minutes, Team Attack on
- Nametags are saved in replays
- Grabs give the victim back their second jump (removes ability to grab a character at the ledge and drop them to force a death)
- Extended out-of-bounds limits on certain stages
- Differently colored shields
"Melee 2.0" Claims
Despite constant disclaimers by the supporters of the Brawl+ project, many critics of the game refer to Brawl+ as "Melee 2.0", stating that the hackers behind the making of the project are making nothing more than an attempt to "play Melee with Brawl characters and stages". However, it is rather easy to jump to such a conclusion, as Brawl+ actually started out as a "Melee 2.0" project, which included basic codes for wavedashing and shield button-triggered L-Canceling (two features that were both in Melee, are critical to high-level play, and were removed from Brawl). These codes have since been removed from Brawl+, but the misconception remains, as Brawl's changes to certain moves (such as Rest) have been "undone" to match their Melee counterparts.
Critism
There has been some critisism of Brawl +. The most common one is that it ruins Brawl's gameplay and makes it a totally different game. For this reason, Balanced Brawl was created to make a balanced version of Brawl without altering game play significantly.