Tomaster
Klemes
I can see how that would be true for now from the perspective that there is certainly a more leveled playing field due to the new and changed movesets of characters in the game. But I think that we see now as balance could potentially change in the future with this game. At one point, the characters that we see is amazing in melee weren't always seen that way. I'm interested to see how the viewpoints will change in the future once more time is spent into PM. While, yes, there are more viable characters, I'd say the principle is the same. There will always just be characters that will be better than others in any game, and some will be even better than those. That's just a thing in gaming. But just because you buff characters and leave a tier list with the ratings of only "A-B-viable" instead of multiple tiers, doesn't really mean its balanced.
I'll agree that PM allows a lot more potential for different character placings in top 8's purely for dedication than melee will. However, I can't say the same for Smash 4 just yet, because its in a similar boat as PM. It's a newer game with its final build finally becoming static for development. Plus, I'd still say that a lot of "viable" tier characters (the undefined bottom tier in reference to the tier list that was released from a pool of I think 50 top/strong players) haven't been fully fleshed out yet. I won't dismiss the claim of PM being balanced, but ill argue that it may be too soon to tell. Everyone playing PM has the experience from Melee or Brawl, so they play the game with those experiences in mind. (That's a little bit of a generalization, I know there are people who started and stuck with PM, and also started with smash 4 and picked it up. I was discussing the majority of active players in the smash community that played before each of those titles.)
Perfect examples are the characters that are considered exceptional now, like Sheik, Fox, Marth, etc. that can be considered to either make up that S or high A tier grade. Those were some characters that showed their full potential displaying it over time with a lot of work that is pretty much free for us to learn now. A lot of characters in PM don't have that time put in like those characters. But a character that also got recognized within the last year was Game & Watch. He wasn't always considered a contender for top tier in the game. People started recognizing his tools which were already really good, and were taken by surprise when L's went on a rampage at a few tourneys. Now people want to argue that he is top 5 in the game. When discoveries like this happen, these characters with great tools start solidifying their places in their tiers, and then the word "balance" can kinda be argued for how it gets used or what it really applies to. I'd say that PM is as balanced as the other games solely because it will go through the same processes the previous titles went through before it. No one will know who is really amazing until more time is put in, and then results are solidified. Fox wasn't always S tier in melee. Nor Meta Knight and IC's in Brawl.
Now also talking about how a lot of characters just got better in PM, then yeah, that's undeniable. But, that also means you have to consider how much has really changed for the character as a whole. Not just look it its new tools. Bowser will always lose to Sheik on paper because of what she can do off of grabs. But, if you want to give the possibility that he doesn't get grabbed, he has armor, better recovery on his moves, aerial command grab that spikes, highly damaging punishes, a moderate tech chase game, etc. So, yes he has a way to fight if he gets to use his new tools, but he still will struggle against the things he was weak against before all the same. That'd still mean that he would lose the match up assuming optimal play from both sides, but with the realistic possibility of mistakes from either side, anything can happen. But the MU still stays the same. If it improves, it is only due to punish game. The character won't become faster, or get better reach, or anything like that, so it will improve based on potential interaction, more so than what is given on what is guaranteed.
Last example i'll give, would be like Lucario. If you played brawl, you'd already see the huge differences in the two characters from the respective games. Lucario can cancel his standard moves into specials, and mix in different cancels with his Aura in PM. An amazing buff for any character period. However, what does this change if he fights a character that's already fleshed out like Fox? Nothing. He can be waveshined, and upthrown to almost anything just like a lot of other characters. He loses the neutral game severely due to his lack of approach and zoning tools. He has amazing tools for punish and combo game, and are aesthetically pleasing, and even highly damaging, but he still loses to fox who has been nerfed bit by bit up until now. I think (assuming optimization for play of course) he still loses like 6-4 or 7-3. Doesn't mean its free, or unwinnable, but the result would be fox, or a character of his tier or capability would still beat this character that has been adjusted to have better potential for doing well in this new game.
TLDR; I think its too soon to say a game is balanced because every character has a better means to fight against characters that were the best in a different game (Spacies, Marth, Sheik, even brawl's best characters Meta Knight and Ice Climbers). Tiers change all the time, and the perspective on what's balanced is kinda based on perspective of who you use in the game. And no, Melee is not balanced at all. Like, period. In terms of balance it'd go Smash 4, PM, 64, then a toss up between brawl and melee. Melee looking like the last place for most balanced.
