I said it once and I'll say it again, but it always falls on deaf ears. Meta Knight, ROB, and Snake are "NOT" broken characters, nor are they cheap. The problem lies in the fact that the so-called "pros" and wannabe pros keep playing Smash Bros. As if it where a Street Fighter game. SSBB is "NOT" like a Street Fighter or KOF game, characters are allowed to consistently evolve as more and more mysteries are discovered as time passes.
A problem I face at Game FAQs is everyone wanting to play 1vs1 with items off and neutral stages. They insist on this standard of play, over... and over, and over, ...and over, and over again. Not only do I find this boring and repetitive, I also find it cheap and unfair. If a person keeps main-ing MK, and I like using Ike or DDD, I'm automatically at a disadvantage. All MK has to do is apply spamable unskilled pressure on my slow to start-up character until I am dead.
A flat level means no place to retaliate, no place to turn the tables, no place to run, no place to set traps, no place for miracle recoveries, and no way to stall. With my weak recovery with Ike, a knock-away is pretty much the end of me; if we where on a more complex level, or we had extraneous variables involved, his victory would not be so easily guaranteed. Playing Brawl the Game FAQs way is like watching a Jackie Chan flick with him fighting in an empty room; uninspiring and imbalanced.
Out of all the tutorials I've seen on character usage and development, not once have I seen a tutorial on character priority and escapes concerning items, such as bats, laser-swords, pitfalls, bombs, springs, bouncers etc. It's like the entire community has forgotten that the strengths and weaknesses of certain characters increase or decrease when items and environment are involved.
I would love to see Meta Knights sword spamming serve him well on levels where bombs slide down pipes. When his lack of lag places him in a tough spot concerning smart bombs. How about the classic Mario bros. Level with the one hit kill turtle shells and crabs. It's like everyone has forgotten what SSBB is all about. I'm not saying I am against 1vs1 no items match. They have their place, but that setting should NEVER be a standard.
If everyone here was honest with themselves they would realize the on certain levels of play, about 20% of the moves certain characters have become unusable on neutral stages. Another 20% of characters moves become unusable when items are tuned off, leaving them with only 60% or less of their entire move-list. This is about average for some, but worse for others. Now consider this flaw, and then the tendency some players have to spam. Who can blame them when nearly half their move list is missing?
Playing the "so-called" pro standard is like using Naruto's amateur Rasengan on a member of Akatsuki. With no environmental distractions or traps to set up, most straightforward moves are easily punished and therefore become unusable. I really don't see how everyone thinks this is ok. Anyone who plays with items on is automatically a noob or gets rejected by the community, when that in fact is the start setting of the game in the first place.
What about stamina matches? What about grab the coin matches? What about the elements that keep the players guessing? No wonder MK has become a problem. You're not playing the game the way it's supposed to be played. Has anyone ever stopped to think that maybe a characters smash attack makes up for their lack of overall play, or maybe a characters small size makes it easier for them to maneuver in tight situations? What about players who have skills in paying attention to detail rather then lightning reflexes?
The answer is this, what's broken is your playing style, not MK.
