The Obscure Brawl Mechanic Only 3 Characters Can Use

.
.
Brawl is known for introducing a variety of odd yet interesting movement mechanics to the Smash series - most of which are expanded upon in modern releases. But there’s one movement mechanic in particular that was left behind with the legacy of Brawl - the Gliding mechanic. Hop in as I discuss the differences between the 3 characters’ glides and how they are applicable to competitive Brawl.
.
.
Music used:
-Outro / Wacky World of Sports - Tutorial (I ripped this one myself. Sorry!)
.
.
Video footage/credits:
.
.
.
.
.
.
If you have any questions about my content, please @ or DM me on Twitter @Brawlternative or send a message to my personal Instagram account, @sjsaksma.
.
.
I am sooooo sponsor friendly!! My work email is in my bio! SPONSOR MEEEE
.
.
Thanks for your support!
-SKUNCH

[versutus]

the most important use of gliding: moving fast in subspace emissary

[Despots_Blitz]

"It's not flying, it's recovering-with style"!

[AvengerSpencer]

They actually DID bring back gliding, in ultimate, and decided to give it to Steve…

[MrMariou]

Fun Fact: The string of code for Charizard's glide is still on Charizard even in his SmFoursh and Ultimate iterations. And that code is also present on Ridley, so we can tell Ridley used Zard as a basis

[TheIzzlzzy]

Charizard is barely visible in the thumbnail, a great metaphor for how much use he has in Brawl.

[Naloogi]

Fun fact: Meta Knight's Shuttle Loop was carried over into the Kirby series starting with Return to Dream Land and to this day he is still able to glide after using it even if the mechanic was removed from Smash.

[Trija]

2:17 they should’ve called that the ‘Glair’

[grunkleg.]

I think my favorite niche mechanic in the series originates from Ultimate, that being hydrophobia (I don't think it was given an official name, hydrophobia is just the term for this mechanic I've heard thrown around). Whenever Charizard, Sonic, Inkling, or Incineroar go for a swim, they start rapidly taking damage and all have paniced looks on their faces. No other reason for this mechanic other than those characters being weak to water in their own games. It's charming

[Rubberbandman]

Gliding is also activated by pressing left and right on the control stick quickly as well, which is probably how a lot of people that didn't know they had a glide accidentally glided.

[BushiiLIVE]

grats on quitting Target bro!! Another one escapes the target trenches

[marx]

good luck to you brawlternative, i hope your vids still succeed, you're literally the asumsaus of brawl for me

[maneruloquendero]

Brawl is much more broken than we remember

[TuesdayTastic]

I love how unique Brawl's movement is! It really feels like different players would play the same character in vastly different ways which I think is really cool.

[palpiblade]

Cant wait for a smash 4 channel to pop up out of nowhere like this

[zeckemyro]

Fun fact: Ridley in Ulimate has all of Charizard's gliding code since that was left in the 4 and Ult for some reason, and Ridley likely used Charizard as a base during development.

Also did not expect the hitbox visuals I was finally able to make to end up here. I genuinely thought they'd remain on the wiki, undiscovered, hah!

[ZombieChicken]

If winged pikmin existed by the time Olimar was implemented as a character in Brawl it would be safe to say he would have also had a type of glide

[the_bookworm]

To me, gliding was cut in later Smash games cause the mechanic is fundamentally busted. Its travels very long distances at a base level and it provides near limitless mixups, disproportionally making the recoveries of characters blessed with the mechanic too strong.
The only time the mechanic returned in any fashion is Steve's up special in Ultimate, and his version is a heavily watered down version of Brawl's gliding, where it is attached to an up special, has significantly more restrictions in travel distance, and cannot be acted out of with an attack (always puts him into freefall). Despite all of this, it is still considered to be one of the best recovery moves in the game because gliding provides too much mixups, which scares players from edgeguarding him. Additionally, because gliding is a physics-based mechanic, Steve players were able to eventually figure out how to extend its distance farther than it is likely intended (albeit still more limited than Brawl gliding). When the heavily toned down version of the mechanic is still considered a strong recovery tool, then that is the sign of a fundamentally broken mechanic.
One last thing to note is that the mechanic still exists in the game files. In SSB4, Meta Knight, Pit, and Dark Pit has animation files for the ability to glide, Dark Pit having it being a carry-over from copying code from Pit. In Ultimate, those three characters, plus Charizard and Ridley also has animation files. Not sure why they took the Charizard animation files away in SSB4, only to give it back in Ultimate. Ridley having gliding animation files was also the cause of speculation at one point for gliding being planned to return at one point, but the more likely theory is that they simply used Charizard as the base to make Ridley.

[natnew]

Pit, Dark Pit, and Meta Knight (not Charizard, oddly) actually have glide animations in Smash 4 that went unused, so it was definitely considered for S4.

[FirstLastname]

“Yes Brawlternative” we all say in unison

[Evoflare]

Did everyone forget that Steve can glide?