Last week’s wasn’t there because I had a couple reports that I needed to finish up.
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DELFINO PLAZA
Looks comfortable. I wonder what type of vacation resort this place is?
To be quite honest with you, your battle is going to take place all over Delfino. See that huge tower with the Mario Sunshine thing in it? There’s even a time for you to fight there. That’s the real beauty of this. Every character has some type of advantage (and disadvantage) on this place.
HISTORY
Delfino goes way back to Super Mario Sunshine. This is the place where most of that storyline happens. Lovely. Back then, Sunshine was like the Super Mario Galaxy of the Gamecube – with a little less hype. Yeah, it couldn’t have been overlooked by Nintendo. Of course it had to be a Brawl stage. Delfino also appeared in a DS game, but that was before Super Mario Sunshine came out.
PROPERTIES
What can I say? Delfino is just so different from the rest of the stages.
Well, first off, there’s this transportation platform thing that brings you from one place of Delfino to another:
You usually end up on the sandy beaches first:
You can even go into the interior of Delfino, where all the tourists take pictures of the beach and eat their wonderful meals:
The properties of this place change every now and then. There are some parts with water (you usually get there in the beginning), some parts with no edge-game (see above image), and even places where you can go through main platforms (transition thing-a-mibober). Sometimes the change can be game breaking.
OPINIONS, COMMENTS, STRATEGIES
Some stages just aren’t fit for some characters.
Those characters with good knockback moves, Delfino is your chance. Some stages don’t have edge-game, but you can hit them to the side and kill them really easily. Just lure them to the side, dodge from their smash, and shove them into the hoop region. Dedede’s Bthrow, MK’s Nair, and other moves that can be executed fast have good knockback and can kill literally at 10% over there. Those with good chain grabs also benefit from that area since you can chain grab them off-stage and kill them like that.
Some areas have water. Water immobilizes your character for a split second – enough for the opponent to spike or set-up. Get out of that water fast, and avoid it. For those with spikes, try spiking your opponent, because if you fall, you’ll end up in water and not dead.
A lot of people die just because of the transition thing. Make sure to keep your composition and stand your ground on the center of most stages. Turns out, the transition platform comes out randomly to take you away. If you’re in the center, you’ll always be standing on it. However, if you’re somewhere like in the water, and the transition thing pops up, you might not make it to the platform and end up dying.
On the transition platform, if you get knocked off, keep in mind that you can go through the bottom platform. That means, if you’re Falco and you Phantasm a little above the platform, you’ll still fall through it. Stuff like that. Make sure to hit perfectly on the ledge or just avoid it completely. Don’t risk with edgeguarding or edgehogging with characters like Wolf; you might get edgehogged yourself, or even miss the ledge.
If you’re playing against any of the above characters, just keep dodging and dishing out small amounts of damage until the transition platform takes you somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere where you can shine. Like Super Mario Sunshine.
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Overall, Delfino is one of those quirky stages with something new and fresh in it. Even if you lose, you’ll probably end up enjoying it just as much as you would enjoy actually being in the vacation resort. 
Happy Brawling!
-Atmc
