There's this myth that floats around the internet that Melee players don't want to play another platform fighter because they already have Melee.

In my opinion that's a lie and misconception of what's happening.

The truth is that in terms of competitive depth, game feel, and animation quality, there hasn't been another platform fighter that has reached the level of Melee. And this includes Rivals.

You can view Melee has a happy accident. But what really happened is that you had Sakurai, one of the best game designers in the world, leading an incredibly talented first party team that were experts at making games feel good to play.

The short development time of Melee is still insanely impressive to this day, but you can't deny the skill and creativity of HAL Laboratories and the people that built it.

And Melee did all of this while still having multiple goals and game features. All this as a game for the Nintendo GameCube. To even compete with it as a new developer, you either need to focus on the casual aspects only or on the competitive aspects only like we do.

So no... it's not because Melee players are stubborn and don't want something new. And it's not because the characters are all from Nintendo games. It's because the game is just that good. Even 20 years later, it's still the king of our genre.

Now all that being said, the game still has some aspects to it that are representative of when it came out.

I would still like to have at least a small input buffer.

And easier wavedashing...

And...