While the animations may be largely identical, Fox and Falco vastly different physics and hitbox settings that make the characters play different enough in competitive play, especially in mid and higher levels while having them both work competitively, effectively making them different characters.
But that is completely irrelevant to my point. I'm not talking about minute changes in character properties and how it can satisfy tournament players. I'm talking about casual players and the quest for giving characters their own personnality. "Jumps higher, blasts stronger, runs slower" is not a what I call originality.
Keep in mind that lots of companies/franchises have been successful by sticking with what worked with minor changes, like most franchises made by Capcom back in the late 80s and 90s, such as the NES Mega Man games.
That used to work 20 years ago. Not so much nowadays. But even then, as soon as Megaman X came in, people immediately jumped onto it. And for fighting games, yeah, SC [censored]ed up their transition. Take a game like UMvC3 and you've got a game which changed things, yet didn't mess up.
Because, as I already mentionned, changes and quality are unrelated. You can make changes and not do crap, and people will be happy. Alternatively, you can not do anything, but after 7 years of the same don't expect to receive more than a lukewarm reception.
Actually, even though characters like Fox and Falco are largely the same as Melee, playing them in PM IS a new experience while staying familiar. The mechanics and game around them have changed to the point where it's a different flavor. There are new techniques to use(Footstooling), new and improved characters to fight, and more environments and such that were not present in Melee Their Matchups and such are also very different in PM due to the larger variety of viable characters.
I know it's a tradition when talking metagame to blow out of proportion small things, but we're talking about regular players, who will use footstooling about as often as you can expect. The fact that Falco is a complete copy-paste of his Melee counterpart is way more of an eye-catcher than the fact that hey, some very specific mechanics are a bit different.
Basically, what you're telling me is that
there's definitely things for casuals and the like to appreciate in PM... but I won't find them in the top tiers, which only the tournament players might enjoy.
And I say this is kind of a stupid approach.
If you want a Falco in PM that has what you want, I recommend doing it yourselves.
In case it was not obvious, I was talking about the current build of the game. .-.
"Do it yourselves" is nice and all, but what I'm kinda talking about is what the game is currently offering me and how I find it quite lackluster.
If I'm reading correctly, Miacis, you're saying this guy's friends, who are happy that we brought back Melee Falco, don't deserve to keep that, because there are people who would like to play something different. Forgive me if I don't think that's as unassailably fair as you do.
Nostalgia makes a poor mistress. She makes you yearn for what you already possess, and stops you from acquiring what you could possess. I'm sure I can find a few people in my entourage who really missed the old Young Link, and would be most delighted to see it RESTORED TO HIS FORMER GLORY, yet would enjoy the new one even more.
Following your logic, you guys have been
very unfairly breaking the hopes and dreams of all [insert non-top tier Melee character here] by changing their movesets. It's a logic which assumes that people cannot aquire new tastes, and it's kinda silly.
Would you completely ignore his opinion that it's OK for Fox and Falco to be similar and that it's not inherently lazy or boring?
I'd answer:
"I understand your concerns about the new moveset. However, we deemed that this major Melee fighter deserved a more distinctive move pool, while still keeping some of his aspects that made him so unique to play. No worries, though, he's retained a lot of tricks he's learnt from the Starfox team! He just uses them in his very own way, like the rebel he is. We've put a lot of effort into making him as balanced and effective a character as possible, and I hope you'll try it before making a judgement on him. He might even grow on you."(This is a fun roleplay, btw.)
Oh, and please don't twist my words. I never said to make him completely different. I said to make him not a [censored]ing replica, aka, you should keep several similarities between the two to still have that "rivals" connection. You know, like for Wolf. (But without the silly Landmaster think I suppose. )
Even Mario and Luigi have more distinctive movesets, and they're [censored]ing
brothers.
There is no "this is good game design" and "this is bad game design" no matter how many people try to reduce it to those terms.
You're not giving any good reason for a large part of your audience to play many of your characters. You may say it's a purely subjective flaw, but that doesn't make it true.
That is entirely an opinion, no matter how much you try to spin it as a fact.
Okay, it's an opinion. It's a strong, argumented opinion. What now?