For those of you who aren't aware, in Melee blastzones were the area where your character was off the screen and appeared in a little bubble. While in a blastzone every character would fall faster than they normally would. This usually presented a problem for Ness players as it made it more difficult to hit with PK Thunder for recovery especially on stages with close edges such as Rainbow Cruise.
In Brawl, blastzones have a similar effect but behave differently in several ways. While under the influence of a blastzone your character will fall slightly faster than normal. This can be seen with Ness and Lucas's PK Thunder recoveries as you have to adjust slightly to hit yourself at the angle that you want. The effect of these appears less detrimental than it was in Melee possibly due to the overall increased floatiness of Brawl. Blastzones may be found at the top, bottom and sides of any stage (barring the bottom one on stages with no holes such as the Mario Kart stage.)
Blast"zone", however, is possibly no longer the best term to describe these areas. The enhanced gravitational effect is no longer always present when your character is off the screen and in the bubble. Instead there appear to be blastzone gravitational lines, strategically placed on stages. These lines have a relatively small area of effect from which they can pull you down and are placed in slightly different places for different stages. Most blastzone lines seem to be placed just slightly inside of the camera view. It is possible to be caught in multiple blastzone lines at the corners of the stages making you fall even faster but it's a very precise area and you'll pretty much never find yourself in it.
All testing for my research on blastzones was done with Lucas and Ness as they are apparantly the only characters whose recovery is obviously affected by them. Shooting PKT2 through these gravitational lines will result in physically bending the trajectory downward in the middle of the move. It's a very odd sensation but is the most reliable way of telling where a blastzone is.
The easiest way to see the effect of blastzone lines is by using PKT2 on Jungle Japes. The side and bottom lines seem to be closest to the land on this stage. As an example you can easily notice the effect if you simply drop Lucas or Ness below the platforms and use PKT2. This shows that the blastzone line is actually placed just above the water rather than off the screen. The side blastzone lines are placed relatively near to where the camera cuts off. Every stage seems to have its blastzone lines placed in very slightly different places.
How this applies to you:
It pretty much doesn't. In Brawl you are rarely under the influence of blastzones and when you are it's usually the side or top ones. Since Brawl is so floaty it will almost never have a noticable effect on you. The only characters it has any possibly noticable effect on are Lucas and Ness because of PKT2's bent trajectory from them. No other characters' recovery is affected by blastzones as far as I can tell. I'm not sure of the reason for this. In anycase you will rarely find yourself influenced in any noticable way by these.
All of this information therefore is solely for theoretical purposes on the physics of the game. If through your own testing you find an innaccuracy in any of this please leave a post and I will check it myself. Obviously without AR or anything it's hard to be 100% certain of the accuracy of this stuff.
In Brawl, blastzones have a similar effect but behave differently in several ways. While under the influence of a blastzone your character will fall slightly faster than normal. This can be seen with Ness and Lucas's PK Thunder recoveries as you have to adjust slightly to hit yourself at the angle that you want. The effect of these appears less detrimental than it was in Melee possibly due to the overall increased floatiness of Brawl. Blastzones may be found at the top, bottom and sides of any stage (barring the bottom one on stages with no holes such as the Mario Kart stage.)
Blast"zone", however, is possibly no longer the best term to describe these areas. The enhanced gravitational effect is no longer always present when your character is off the screen and in the bubble. Instead there appear to be blastzone gravitational lines, strategically placed on stages. These lines have a relatively small area of effect from which they can pull you down and are placed in slightly different places for different stages. Most blastzone lines seem to be placed just slightly inside of the camera view. It is possible to be caught in multiple blastzone lines at the corners of the stages making you fall even faster but it's a very precise area and you'll pretty much never find yourself in it.
All testing for my research on blastzones was done with Lucas and Ness as they are apparantly the only characters whose recovery is obviously affected by them. Shooting PKT2 through these gravitational lines will result in physically bending the trajectory downward in the middle of the move. It's a very odd sensation but is the most reliable way of telling where a blastzone is.
The easiest way to see the effect of blastzone lines is by using PKT2 on Jungle Japes. The side and bottom lines seem to be closest to the land on this stage. As an example you can easily notice the effect if you simply drop Lucas or Ness below the platforms and use PKT2. This shows that the blastzone line is actually placed just above the water rather than off the screen. The side blastzone lines are placed relatively near to where the camera cuts off. Every stage seems to have its blastzone lines placed in very slightly different places.
How this applies to you:
It pretty much doesn't. In Brawl you are rarely under the influence of blastzones and when you are it's usually the side or top ones. Since Brawl is so floaty it will almost never have a noticable effect on you. The only characters it has any possibly noticable effect on are Lucas and Ness because of PKT2's bent trajectory from them. No other characters' recovery is affected by blastzones as far as I can tell. I'm not sure of the reason for this. In anycase you will rarely find yourself influenced in any noticable way by these.
All of this information therefore is solely for theoretical purposes on the physics of the game. If through your own testing you find an innaccuracy in any of this please leave a post and I will check it myself. Obviously without AR or anything it's hard to be 100% certain of the accuracy of this stuff.
