Arcade-kabinetti

In Fighting Game Kabinetti you have two classic fighting games, Melee and Tekken 5 (and other games too, like FIFA 07), and they are played with different inputs. Tekken 5 is played with the integrated arcade-style buttons, whereas Melee is played with a GameCube controller (the ones you see on the table).

Basic idea of Melee

Each player has 4 stocks, or lives. Whoever takes the last one from the opponent wins. Damage is represented as percents, and the more percent you have the further away you fly from attacks (meaning more knockback). When you fly into the blast zones, which are at the bottom, top and sides of the stages, you get KO'd and lose a stock.

So hit the opponent, do damage, knock them off stage, don't let them come back (i.e. edgeguard them) and take their stock. Do this four times and win!

Quick guide to actually play some Melee

To get in game, after pressing the green PLAY button in Slippi, you are presented with the view 1-P Mode / Online Play. From there:

1. Go to the main menu by pressing the red B button twice
2. Navigate to VS. Mode and select it by pressing the big green A button
3. Select Melee (you can exit this character selection screen with a long B press)
4. Select your character by placing your token on a character square with the A button
5. Press Start, select a stage (or randomize it by just pressing Start) and voilà, you are in game!

This Melee version is optimized for competitive Melee, so it doesn't contain any "party game" elements. If you are into that, click 4-man Survival Test at the top, select Item Switch, and from the top select the desired item spawn rate. Also Additional Rules → Random Stage will let you pick more stages when doing random stage selection — in competitive Melee there are only the 6 most competitively suitable stages available.

Controls

About GameCube controller buttons

The GameCube controller has four face buttons on the right side:

• A: green
• B: red
• Y: grey, on top
• X: grey, on the right

There's also the tiny grey button in the middle:

• Start

The buttons on the back of the controller are:

• L: grey left trigger
• R: grey right trigger
• Z: violet button

It has two control sticks, the left grey one and the right yellow one, also called the C-stick, because there is a C letter on it (well, not visible on these old ones). There's also a d-pad, or directional input pad, on the left. You can taunt by pressing d-pad up!

Melee controls

Every character has the same set of moves, but the actual moves are different. For example both Mario and Link have a neutral B, but Mario shoots a burning hot fireball whereas Link shoots a fierce arrow. We'll now go over the buttons and their binds.

• Face buttons
  • A: normal moves
  • B: special moves
  • X: jump
  • Y: jump (yes, another jump bind)
• Back buttons
  • L: shield
  • R: shield (yes, another shield bind)
  • Z: grab
• Sticks
  • Left stick: move character, walk, crouch, dash, jump etc.
  • C-stick: Smash attacks = strong KO moves
• D-pad
  • Up: taunt

Press the left stick in a direction for four different special moves:

• Up B
• Down B
• Side B
• Neutral B (no direction!)

Note also that you can end a match by pausing with Start, then pressing L + R + A + Start.

About special moves

The most important special move is Up B, which is your recovery move. All characters' Up B (except Yoshi's) will give them some vertical and horizontal momentum to get them back on stage. Whenever you are off stage and try to recover back, remember to do your Up B move (and/or jump and/or directional air dodge). To recap on how to execute Up B: press the left stick up and the red B button at the same time.

Some special moves, or B moves, can be charged by holding down the B button, like Link's neutral B arrow, or produce different ones when pressed multiple times, e.g. Marth's side B. Try picking Marth and doing his side B "Dancing Blade" by holding the left stick to one side and pressing B → B → B → B rhythmically. You should get four different moves in a row if done right.

About Smash attacks

The strongest moves in the game are generally the Smash attacks, done by pressing the C-stick in a direction (also by pressing the left stick and A, which can then be charged by holding direction + A). The basic idea is to do like 100 % damage to your opponent, and then knock them off stage by performing a Smash attack.

About defense

Defense is a big and intricate part of Melee, but the basics are:

• Shield: hold L or R
• Roll: press left or right on either stick while shielding
• DI (directional influence): before you are hit, input a direction with the left stick to influence the direction you will fly to after the attack

A word about competitive Melee

Really the most hype thing about Melee, at least for me, is the fact that people play it competitively, and the meta has developed over 20 years to produce amazing, fast paced and infinitely complex gameplay with super tight execution and matchup strategies. I'll maybe expand this part in the future, but for now, if you are into competitive fighting games, I really recommend checking out competitive Melee related documentaries, videos and channels from YouTube, like:

• Things of Beauty: Super Smash Bros. as Spectator Sport
• The Greatest Story in Melee History (video by boolmaster)
• The Smash Brothers documentary (by East Point Pictures, all episodes reuploaded in the same video by Amazing Shadow)
• The Donkey Kong Renaissance (video by wusstunes) — as a DK main I'm biased towards the epicness of this
• AsumSaus (channel, amazing long videos about Melee mechanics and quirks)
• MeleeMoments (channel, amazing short videos of clips)
• turndownforwalt (channel, goes over happenings in tournaments)

Also metagamedoc.com is a story about the "Era of the Five Gods", a period of many years during the 2010s where five players, the Five Gods, won basically every major tournament there was. The players are Mew2King, Mang0, Hungrybox, Armada and PPMD, of which two, Mang0 and Hungrybox, are still active.

Original guide by MonkiMong.