New to Smash in general

[Jones]

Okay, so I'm new to SSBB. I never played Melee, but had seen it played before and knew I'd want to pick this up for the Wii. It's an awesomely fun game. I've been learning as I go, but the game booklet doesn't include everything I want to know and websites that talk about Brawl seem to assume I know how to do everything from previous Smash games. What I'm looking for here is a basic explanation of terminology, as well as how to execute each move. I use the wiimote + nunchuck if that will help you explain some of this too me.

For example I here people talk about smashes and abbreviate them as Usmash, Dsmash, Fsmash, Bsmash, which I assume is up, down, forward and back smashes, which I infer are performed with the "A" button in my config. I see the same things with _air, but I'm not sure how to execute those and that one also has Neutral added in. Same with _Special, and I understand those are done with the "B" button in my config. I also understand how to grab people, A+B; but I've not been able to repeat everything I've seen other players do (all I've done is basic punches after grabbing). How do you do some of the special throws? What are the tips/tricks to this?

Also, how do you "charge up" when swinging a bat for the Homerun contest, or with some people's smashes like Dedede (charged hammer) and Sonic (charged fist)? I've done it before by what seemed like just holding A down, but that doesn't work everytime. Finally, what is a "meteor smash", does everyone have one, and how do you do them?

I appreciate your consideration of my n00bness. I promise with your help, I'll be somebody worth fighting against after a few months of practice.

[Ryko]

You've picked up quite a bit just by assuming correctly, there's no such thing as a b(back) smash though, it's just a forward smash in the direction opposite the one you're facing, which automatically turns you around. For the airs there are aerial attacks, up down back forward and neutral, which all indicate the direction of the analog stick you're holding when you do it, neutral literally meaning that it's centered with no direction pressed. To do these, you jump (since you're using the wiimote and nunchuck you can do this by pressing C, which is the top shoulder button on the nunchuck or tapping up if you don't have it turned off in control configurations) then press the direction you want and A.

To grab you can press A and B but a safer method would be to hit your shield button (the bottom shoulder button on your nunchuck) and A. This is called a shield grab amd it's much safer to do than pressing A and B which makes your character lead into a grab defenseless. After you do this you can press A to attack them while you grab them (as you seem to know) and then you press any direction on your analog to throw them in said direction. You have 4 options, back front up and down. Since you cant throw someone downwards into an abyss (anymore, used to work in melee with the star fox characters on a ledge -_-) a down throw generally either slides them across the floor or stomps on them and launches them up at a wider angle than your up throw would. To charge a smash, you hit a direction fully and A then hold the A button, your character will look like theyre straining but holding back and will glow/flash/blink yellow while it's charging, to let the smash fly just let go of A but after a set amount of time all charged smashes automatically fly.

Lastly a meteor smash is a spike, like when you spike a volleyball (hence the name, a like a meteor crashing downwards into the earth). It sends a character downward at an incredible speed and generally is very hard to recover from at a decent enough % (if connected theyre usually instant kills). Not every character has one and generally theyre the slowest/most finicky of aerial attacks so that you can't just easy spike everyone (falco used to have a very overpowered fast spike but it got toned down considerably) but a large slew of characters have one or even 2 (for example Ike has his down air meteor which only sends downwards if you hit with the bottom end of your sword on the early part of the swing, but he has a secondary meteor if you use his down tilt [which is a direction and the A button but not a smash attack, you can do this by pressing the direction first then hitting a or pressing the direction half way and A at the same time] on someone who is approaching the ledge) meteors.

[Metah]

There is no Bsmash really. Its the same as Fsmash but in the other direction.

To throw, grab an opponent. You can hit A to deal extra damage (depending on your character, as low as 1% or as high as 4% with Olimar + White Pikmin). To throw, hit either up, down, left or right on your joystick to throw them in that direction.

You can charge all smashes by preforming a smash but holding the A button. It will release on its own after about two seconds though. Some special attacks can be charged, but not all of them. Some that can be are Sonic's F+B and D+B, King Dedede's D+B, Samus's B, R.O.B.'s D+B, and so forth.

Nair can be preformed but being in the air, but only hitting A. Don't hold any direction, just keep the joystick in Neutral position and hit A for Nair. As for Fair, Dair, Uair and Bair, hold the joystick either forward, down, up or back and hit A.

A Meteor Smash is an aerial attack the acts similar to a Smash, it sends the opponent flying far. A good number of Meteor Smashes send the opponent directly down (such as Mario's Fair, and Ganondorf's Dair. Falco's F+B also acts as a downward Meteor), but some Meteors can send the opponents in other directions (Captain Falcon's Fair sends opponents to the side). You can tell which attacks are meteors because they USUALLY have a shining animation (R.O.B.'s Dair doesn't, for example). The important things to note are: All Meteors are aerial attacks. They send the opponent flying far.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Tilt attacks are when you are already pressing a direction on the ground and press A.
Smash attacks are when you press a direction and A at the same time on the ground. You can also use the c-stick to execute smash attacks quickly and easily. If you use a smash attack using direction + A, you can hold A down for a short time to power up the smash attack.
Specials are a direction + B at the same time, usually whether its pressed at the same time or held before doesn't matter, but it changes a few of them like Samus's missile.
Aerials are a direction + A in the air, whether or not it's 'smashed' doesn't matter. Neutral air is an aerial w/o a direction.
For the homerun contest, charging the bat is simply using a smash attack with it.
Different specials are charged in slightly different ways. Dedede's hammer, for example, is just holding down B.
Holding a charge means charging up a special and using a shield or whatever so that when you release B you don't release the special and you can save the charged attack for a more opportune moment. You unleash the held charge by doing the same move again.
Meteor smashes are aerials that propel the opponent straight downwards, used when the enemy is over an area without a surface for an easy kill.

[Elcura]

Ryko pretty much covered everything. You can also hit Z to grab (or whatever button is assigned to grab specifically). Hitting one button is 100x better than hitting two. Also, look into getting a classic controller or a GC one and see if that's easier for you to use. Wiimote+Nunchuck fucks with my head.

[Jones]

For the airs there are aerial attacks, up down back forward and neutral, which all indicate the direction of the analog stick you're holding when you do it, neutral literally meaning that it's centered with no direction pressed. To do these, you jump (since you're using the wiimote and nunchuck you can do this by pressing C, which is the top shoulder button on the nunchuck or tapping up if you don't have it turned off in control configurations) then press the direction you want and A.

This must be done simultaneously, right? I can't see how one could do a Bair otherwise, because wouldn't hitting the backward direction would turn you around?

Also, I've basically been sticking to playing Classic and SSE modes so far and haven't had much problem beating those on the Normal difficultly. SSE mode was particularly fun because it forced me to use characters that I'm not good with. The biggest problem I have in all modes is recovery moves. Basically if the character doesn't have a nice Up+B move, I suck at recovery. I'm getting really solid with players like Olimar, Kirby Take a character like Kirby for example. I can't see how to keep him alive once knocked off unless just his basic jumps can bring him back. His Up+B sends him straight up and back down and his Side+B hammer obviously doesn't help recover either. Is this just game balance or am I missing something basic here?

I've been having my best performance with Sonic, Lucas, and Kirby (despite my aforementioned frustration with recovery). I have trouble finishing with Sonic, but now that I understand how to do some of these smashes, I'm sure that'll improve. Lucas is a beast vs. CPUs, but I get pwnt by PCs when I use him. I've seen other Lucas PCs use this PK Thunder for recovery (which I'm getting better with) but after the electric directional knock, they whip out some object to further extend their recovery range. I think it's a snake or something. I've seen Ness do it with what looked like a yo-yo too. My wife cracked me up in match vs. a PC Lucas saying "Did he just dick slap the edge of the stage?" How does once perform these additional recovery grabs?

Finally, dodging. I fought against a Diddy Kong and he dodged a ton of my attacks by doing what looked like the beginning of his cartwheel, but he didn't actually do the cartwheel. Is this a defensive move in addition to the guard bubble? How is it done? (I owe that banana chucking bastard a rematch.)

[Metah]

In mid air you won't turn around if you hit back, you'll just move backwards.

Some characters have "Tether Recoveries" that can be used to grab onto ledges from a distance. Characters such as: Lucas, Samus (Grapple Beam), Link (Hook Shot), etc. If you try to grab in the air using these characters, instead of Air Dodging you'll do a Tether Recovery. Some characters like Olimar and Ivysaur use Tether Recoveries as special moves.

You can Sidestep by Guarding then pressing down on the joystick. You can Dodge by Guarding then hitting left or right. You can Air Dodge by hitting Guard midair.

[Ryko]

Ryko pretty much covered everything. You can also hit Z to grab (or whatever button is assigned to grab specifically). Hitting one button is 100x better than hitting two. Also, look into getting a classic controller or a GC one and see if that's easier for you to use. Wiimote+Nunchuck fucks with my head.

Yeah there's no grab button on the wiimote/nunchuck I think, maybe it's on the Dpad, but the only one I know of are the button combination ones on that controller setup :/ hate it myself.

As for recovery, some characters have better recovery angles than others. Wolf gets sort of dicked if he needs to recover diagonally and the stage's ledge isnt walled or slanted properly (battleship halberd, delfino plaza, final destination especially, the first part of castle siege, it's easy to get caught under the ledge instead of onto it) whereas if ike is knocked out far horizontally but low in the process (like against zelda's down smash) he's pretty much proper fucked as his only 2 options to recover are almost practically fully horizontal and vertical (aether has some horizontal range to it luckily, just not too much, sometimes I surprise even myself when I use it though). For a character like kirby, if you can't make it back on his jumps alone, make it so his jumps and gravity set you up so you end up below the ledge as you fall from each jump then up B to latch onto it at the last second.

Metah covered all the basic dodges, some other terms for it are Spot dodge (down) and Roll (left or right).