Dannyboy-the-Dane

I disagree with that logical statement. The reason Donkey Kong, Wario and Yoshi are considered Mario characters are because they originated as supporting characters in Mario games and later developed into primary characters with their own respective franchises. Metroid, F-Zero and Pikmin have never interacted with the Mario universe, except in Smash Bros., but that is already a cross-over franchise and thus has no relevance to the discussion (you can't use an example to prove itself).

Hadn't even thought of that possibility.

I find the box art cool, too. Can't see what's wrong with it. It's cooler than both the one for Melee and that of the original Smash Bros. I didn't expect Waluigi to be playable, either. Just like Daisy, so far he's only a supporting character with not much ... character. With Strikers Charged (and now Brawl), he's getting more personality, though. Stafy is cute! But how do you pronounce his/her/its name? Staefy (with an A like in "safe") or Starfy (with an A like in "start")? And speaking of pronounciation, what about Ike? Is it Eekay (Japanese-like pronounciation) or Aik (American-like pronounciation)? According to Wikipedia, his original Japanese name is pronounced something along the lines of Aiku, which suggests his English name is pronounced Aik, as the letter U cannot be heard at the end of a word in Japanese. (The Wikipedia article about Ike seems to have been merged with the list of characters from Path of Radiance and so the pronounciation of his name has been removed. I think I remember it right, though.)

*sigh* I just hope we Europeans get the game relatively soon after Japan and the US. Please, don't let it be later than April.

Is it just me or have the quality of the updates declined the last few days?

In reference to an earlier post, it has not yet been possible to give different players a different number of lives in stock matches. We're all stuck with the same number.

And so we can conclude that we need both types of matches to define the definitive Smash Bros. experience.

I used to play a lot of stock matches, but I found that time matches are much more challenging. When you can basically just evade in stock matches and let the others do the hard work of knocking each other out (perhaps only having to knock the last life out of the last player), you actually have to fight in time matches to win. There's nothing more aggravating than having just beat the bejeebus out of someone only to watch another player score your kill.

I don't think they did. I haven't heard it before and I'm absorbing everything Smash Bros. :p Buuut ... I could have missed it. Oh, and Serebii, be careful about gloating. If one day you turn out to be wrong about something, it might hurt. "Twice the pride, double the fall" and all that ...

Yeah, they're really trying to perfect everything about this game. All this "Europe is getting Brawl late"-thing is a bit worrying. I'm going with Serebii's logic, though, it doesn't seem right that Europe will get it so late compared to the US and Japan. But Serebii, you're very mean keeping us in this pool of oblivion. :p At least it's good news that the starting line-up will be revelaed next week. Can we count on that the revelation will be true?

I was particularly thinking about the custom status screen. There didn't seem to be that many statuses to choose from. But maybe I got my proportions wrong?

This could very well be possible, but if I had to criticise one thing about Brawl, it would be that some of the customisation options seem limited.

Happy birthday, Deathborn.

It does seem they're making all the original unlockables unlockables this time around.

Well, indirectly, because you said they hadn't revealed any starters yet. Ergo you assume that all announced characters so far are starters. Unless I misunderstood who you referred to in your original post?

You mean you hate Han NOT shooting first, right?

Yeah, maybe.

How do you know? It's never been stated that they are only announcing starters (though it's most likely), and didn't they say something about 3rd party characters being unlockables?

Agree, it is hard to hear, but it is the same. You can sense the melody, though they've changed the sounds a lot. I like this new version, though. Agree!

I think I see your point (though I'm not 100 percent sure about the technical stuff). I'm just gonna pick the option that gives me the best results. Thanks for your help. Nope, I switch both my DVD and TV settings. If I only switch my TV, the picture just stretches. If I switch both, I get a "proper" widescreen in the menus (= wider picture + correct dimensions), but a cropped picture in the movie itself (= not a wider picture, but still correct dimensions).

It's not that I can't tell them apart (I'm not completely stupid, mind you ). It's that my TV has a 16:9 option when is doesn't look like a widescreen TV. When playing some DVDs I can see more of the picture when using 16:9 (I get the black bars in top and bottom, but the picture gets smaller so more of the sides can be seen). Though when playing other DVDs the picture simply stretches. Both are even the case on one of my DVDs: In the menus I can see more of the screen, but when playing the actual movie the picture just stretches. This could be because the movie itself doesn't support widescreen, but why do the menus, then? Seems weird. When using the widescreen option on the Wii (together with my TV's option, of course), I get even more confusing results: In some places I can see more of the sides, but in other places I can actually see less. If anyone can clear all this up for me, please do. On today's update, it's cool that they haven't just made a powered up version of his nuclear fart. The bike thing is very funny, though I have the feeling some people will learn to use this to their advantage.

These last messages explain why I am so confused about my TV's widescreen support.

I love you, Sakurai. Right now I'm having trouble figuring out if my TV supports widescreen, and BAM - Sakurai to the rescue!

I find it easier to do directional jumps when using a button. When you do, it's also very annoying if you want to attacks upwards without jumping. It's completely impossible to do an upwards aerial attack without double jumping.

Yeah, it did. Thanks for your patience. Amen to that! Yeah, me too. I was always bothered by it. To be honest, I don't see why people don't like the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controls (I do about the Wii Remote alone, though). They seem pretty good to me, even better than the ones I had thought out for that controller scheme. My theory is that people have grown on the GameCube controls and can't imagine playing with other controls. I'm definitely gonna try the Wiimote/Nunchuk controls. I simply have to try out the Shake Smash.