Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
With Kazuya's reveal for Smash at E3, I thought I'd try to get a new Smash thread up. The previous one died at the end of 2019, so it wasn't really worth reviving. But who cares about that, let's get this going again. I'm out for competitive discussion, but if this thread turns into DLC, casual, whatever, it's all cool. Smash can be played in many ways and that's really the beauty of it.
May as well talk about my own Smash experiences...
I've been into Smash since the Brawl era, where I played King Dedede, Pit, and a bit of Wolf and the obvious Meta Knight. I wasn't great, but I went to some locals. I absolutely loved Dedede, to the extent I actually produced a documentary on his Brawl debut on a Smash channel I passively run with some friends. I began to take the game more seriously during Smash 4 but I couldn't really vibe with any of the characters, except like Charizard but he kinda sucked.
In Ultimate, however, I ended up doing a ton of labbing for various character communities, as well as research game mechanics. I mainly contributed to King K. Rool, Joker, and Terry, all characters I really wanted in Smash for a long time (except Joker by technicality ig). Depending on where you go for Smash discussion, you may or may not have heard of me. For the full extent of that, you can go here, note that there are tons of resources in each linked Lab Repository. There are around 200 spreadsheets in total, but I haven't counted them in a hot minute. My magnum opus is probably the King K. Rool Lab Repository, which has been used even by top players like Raphy, KirbyKid, and leggasiini. I've since hung up my Arduino and training mod in favour of focusing on Smogon, though I still contribute to SmashWiki quite a bit, maintaining the K. Rool and Terry pages. I also used to do coaching for K. Rool players and actually made a bit of money off of that, so that's cool I guess.
Let's get some prompts going;
Who are your mains, etc?
Any cool tournament results?
What matchups do you struggle in?
What are your meta "hot takes"?
Favourite pocket to break out in bracket?
Any characters you want to see make it in?
Also, I'm always down for some games, DM me on Discord @ Plague von Karma#2000 for that...
I grew up playing Smash on the N64 but my family eventually became a Melee family. My older brothers and I frequently attended conventions throughout 2009-2016 and they would play in tournaments these conventions held. While I never have ventured into the tournament scene I am capable of playing at an above average level. The most fun moment I've experienced with smash bros was attending Evo 2013 and watching Mang0 come out on top.
When it comes to Ultimate my knowledge is pretty limited. With my family moved out and about our smash sessions don't happen too often so I don't have incentive to play the game. I am curious to see how Kazuya plays though. I can't think of a way to make him an interesting character if I'm being honest. I feel that because he's a character that plays on a 3D plane that is being restricted to a 2D plane, he'll feel like any other fighting character.
Have any of you played Custom Robo? Game's great. Yes, this is relevant to my story.
I got into Smash via Brawl, just kind of bought into the hype that it was a must-have for Wii owners. Me mad my sister had loads of fun with it, we mainly ended up doing teamfights vs the AI rather than going against each other. We picked up Melee at some point as well, though it was always a secondary show (content aside, I will maintain that the physics were less fun for my purposes). With the amount of time and enjoyment I had got out of Brawl, the hype train was fully fueled going into Smash 4. It ended up much the same as Brawl, loads of just basic time-passing against the AI, and I went through with getting most of the DLC (I did not get Ryu). Unlike Brawl, I was at this point on the internet enough to at least lurk on some of the speculation for new characters, mostly checking up on the support for some of my favourites. I really discovered Golden Sun here of all places, as a game well-received and in the same position I happened to be checking often: an Assist trophy from Brawl eagerly awaiting the other promotions that would follow Little Mac.
I was moving off to university by this point, and I didn't end up bringing my old Wii with me due to not bothering to by a TV. I was close enough to my family that I could reasonably go home for some weekends, and sometimes I'd just boot up Brawl again and run against the AI like I did in 4, just with a little more purpose. As great as 4 was, it was still missing a few characters and stages I liked in Brawl, so I'd play my old main on my favourite cut stage and try to pull the two characters I'd hope were going to be bigger soon. Wolf on Spear Pillar, looking for Isaac and Ray. None of them ever made it into Smash 4.
Coming into Ultimate's hype cycle, I had managed to pick up a third game in the oddly specific category of "Brawl Assist trophies cut from Smash 4 from a series that had its last game on the original DS": Advance Wars. I never got excited for any of the newcomers they way I did with those from Smash 4. Ones I felt fit in, like K. Rool or Simon, I just thought to myself "about time. moving on." I suppose I was too busy waiting for my top picks: my 3 old series, plus representation for the first fighting game I've truly enjoyed the PVP for (ARMS). The closest any of them had by release were some mii costumes, only one of which went on a moveset even close to fitting the original character (Ray/Mii Gunner). It was in some parts less than they had had in Brawl, but always more then they had in 4, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to fall again, as much as one individual could. So I played a pale shadow of Ray exclusively. Let me tell you, it's not great being a weirdly specific Mii main. Any sort of organized thing is going to have their own system set up, and you probably aren't going to find something with the correct outfit and the moveset you're used to on there. The slot later being shared with a pet peeve of mine did not help things. I have played Ultimate a whole lot less than I have the previous two games. I certainly got my money's worth, but I don't think I've got my Smash Bros worth.
Perhaps my method and enjoyment might change after this E3. Not for Kazuya, mind you, it's going to take a lot to get me to pay extra for him or Terry. But because one of my main 3 got their revival started without a boost from Smash like Kid Icarus and arguably Fire Emblem managed.
Mains/not completely unfamiliar with: Min Min, Mii Gunner, Megaman.
Have any of you played Custom Robo? Game's great. Yes, this is relevant to my story.
I got into Smash via Brawl, just kind of bought into the hype that it was a must-have for Wii owners. Me mad my sister had loads of fun with it, we mainly ended up doing teamfights vs the AI rather than going against each other. We picked up Melee at some point as well, though it was always a secondary show (content aside, I will maintain that the physics were less fun for my purposes). With the amount of time and enjoyment I had got out of Brawl, the hype train was fully fueled going into Smash 4. It ended up much the same as Brawl, loads of just basic time-passing against the AI, and I went through with getting most of the DLC (I did not get Ryu). Unlike Brawl, I was at this point on the internet enough to at least lurk on some of the speculation for new characters, mostly checking up on the support for some of my favourites. I really discovered Golden Sun here of all places, as a game well-received and in the same position I happened to be checking often: an Assist trophy from Brawl eagerly awaiting the other promotions that would follow Little Mac.
I was moving off to university by this point, and I didn't end up bringing my old Wii with me due to not bothering to by a TV. I was close enough to my family that I could reasonably go home for some weekends, and sometimes I'd just boot up Brawl again and run against the AI like I did in 4, just with a little more purpose. As great as 4 was, it was still missing a few characters and stages I liked in Brawl, so I'd play my old main on my favourite cut stage and try to pull the two characters I'd hope were going to be bigger soon. Wolf on Spear Pillar, looking for Isaac and Ray. None of them ever made it into Smash 4.
Coming into Ultimate's hype cycle, I had managed to pick up a third game in the oddly specific category of "Brawl Assist trophies cut from Smash 4 from a series that had its last game on the original DS": Advance Wars. I never got excited for any of the newcomers they way I did with those from Smash 4. Ones I felt fit in, like K. Rool or Simon, I just thought to myself "about time. moving on." I suppose I was too busy waiting for my top picks: my 3 old series, plus representation for the first fighting game I've truly enjoyed the PVP for (ARMS). The closest any of them had by release were some mii costumes, only one of which went on a moveset even close to fitting the original character (Ray/Mii Gunner). It was in some parts less than they had had in Brawl, but always more then they had in 4, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to fall again, as much as one individual could. So I played a pale shadow of Ray exclusively. Let me tell you, it's not great being a weirdly specific Mii main. Any sort of organized thing is going to have their own system set up, and you probably aren't going to find something with the correct outfit and the moveset you're used to on there. The slot later being shared with a pet peeve of mine did not help things. I have played Ultimate a whole lot less than I have the previous two games. I certainly got my money's worth, but I don't think I've got my Smash Bros worth.
Perhaps my method and enjoyment might change after this E3. Not for Kazuya, mind you, it's going to take a lot to get me to pay extra for him or Terry. But because one of my main 3 got their revival started without a boost from Smash like Kid Icarus and arguably Fire Emblem managed.
Mains/not completely unfamiliar with: Min Min, Mii Gunner, Megaman.
It's cool that Smash Bros has introduced you to many great games. I played TONS of Advance Wars on the GBA. Such a good game. Mii fighter outfits are bittersweet in my opinion. Like, it stinks that the character got so close to being added but still came up short, but at the same time it's nice to see some sort of representation.
Big fat personal post incoming. If you have a single takeaway from this, let it be that you should go to your locals. Chances are there is one at least somewhat close to you, and they're good enough to be worth finding. Your region / US state may have a Discord or Facebook page, depends on the area and it's worth making an account for if you don't have one of those.
Smash caught my attention as a kid for no other reason than "because it had Pokemon in it." You could play a fighting game as Pikachu, didn't care if it had Mario or anyone else whose games I played and liked on some level. I'd play it a lot at a handful of my friends' houses since most of my friends were not Nintendo fans as a kid, but would always love it. My Mom didn't want to get me it since it was Rated T, but my cousin got me Brawl for Christmas a few years after I was introduced to it. You could imagine how exciting that was for me....only for me to be crushed when the disc was too scratched to be read. I was very lucky that they had kept the receipt.
Playing through the game was great though, I remember a few things in Brawl very fondly. I ended up looking up how to unlock all of the characters, and it really blew me away that Lucario was playable since that was my favorite Pokemon for a while. Sonic was really cool too since I loved him a lot when I was younger. I enjoyed all of the other game modes that game had as well, like the trophy shooter or the stage builder. Most of my time on my Wii was sunk into either that game or Mario Kart Wii, the latter being kind of a given considering it's objectively the greatest video game ever created.
Then came Smash 4, and it as great being a fan winding up to the release of this game. I still didn't care about many game franchises other than Pokemon, Mario, and Kid Icarus Uprising specifically, but it was still fun seeing things like the Miis and PAC-MAN get added and seeing new characters from games I had barely heard of before. I was excited about Greninja for several days after his reveal since he was one of my favorites by that point, and it was immensely disappointing hearing that Dark Pit didn't use any of the other cool weapons Pit didn't have from Uprising and instead was just a clone. Mewtwo was cool too, but initially not as impactful, since I didn't really care for it as much as Greninja or Lucario.
The demo was really a great way to lead up to release, and I really think Ultimate should have done something like this as well. The early release demo of Smash 3DS is probably the only demo I've ever owned, and I played it a lot. I played Mega Man despite not knowing who he was or knowing any of the games he was from, but that was a lot of fun. This was probably the most excited I had ever been for a game up until that point, even more than ORAS which came the same year or XY which came not long before.
Around this point, though, my life around this was starting to change. I had to move out of state and would lose contact with most of my good friends, and because of some really specific conditions, I started to become very reserved. To put it simply, I was a year younger than everyone in my grade level, got bullied while thinking that was the reason, and was pushed into a high school where I would be a freshman and would be the youngest person in a school of 400 people. I used to be so talkative and extroverted, but that very quickly went away and I struggled to talk to new people at all here.
I would have made no friends, but I was pretty lucky. A few very extroverted people introduced themselves to me, and just the right ones. I struggled to talk with them, but they had introduced me to friends that I had common ground with, that being Nintendo games. Pokemon was one, but Smash was THE big one. If class hadn't started yet, I would 100% be playing Smash 3DS with one of my friends, no exceptions. This made it so much easier to talk to them, and had it not been for this common ground, I likely would know none of the people I met through high school.
By around my third year, I still wasn't happy with my position in life. I was still a pretty introverted person, and I still wanted to meet new people. It really killed me that I used to be so outgoing and that I just couldn't have that anymore. A year before that, my friend had taken me out to a tournament at a hotel that had a lot of talent at it. And half a year or so later, I had found a pretty easy tournament at a game store where I got 5th out of 10 despite not being good and lost to the people who placed first and second. Had a bit of fun overall, two of my more casual friends came there just to mess around too.
The first place guy told me of a weekly tournament series that had regularly happened at a nearby college. By nearby, I mean it was 40 minutes away, which was a huge bummer since I didn't know how to drive and I knew my mom wouldn't be happy about driving me all that way out. The game store tournaments stopped right after I had joined my first one, but I kept this college one in mind before telling my parents about it after a few months. My Mom was really hesitant to drive me since she had a lot of driving to do already and my Dad went out of town a lot, but the only reason was because I never asked her to do anything extra for me. No big toys, no after school activities, nothing.
Sure enough, I ended up going, and it was a great time. I met a lot of new people, and they were all really excited to have another new guy joining the scene. I mostly stayed to myself but talked to the other guys after our sets, all nice people. For those of you wondering how I did, I did terribly of course. I beat this one dude who this was also their first real tournament, but got destroyed by everyone else. That didn't matter for me or anyone else, and I really want to take a moment to emphasize that; if you aren't going to your local tournaments because you don't think you're good enough, then just go, since nobody's gonna care how good you are and those tournaments are how you become good. Anyways, it was a good day overall and something I was super eager to go back to. Coincidentally, also, this first tournament I went to was the very day after "Smash for the Switch" was announced and Inklings were confirmed. We had planned this day for weeks, pure chance that it happened right after this.
I kept going back to these, and little by little, it actually helped me out of my shell of introversion that I had been locked in for so long. All these people who I knew were happy to see me coming back to their tournaments made it easier for me to just branch out and talk about random stuff with people who I didn't even know. At this point, I could actually talk to and become friends with new people if I chose, even if I still didn't want to that often. I still got to know quite a few people during my last year of high school.
Smash Ultimate has now been out for almost three years now, and I'm a 2-2er at some of the stronger weeklies in the Carolinas. Not the strongest, not even notable enough to make my region's Top 15 which is probably sad, but definitely a step up from where I began. Twice now I've beaten or even gained a positive record against players who have given me a lot of trouble before. On my best nights I can get get around 5th or 7th at tournaments with 25 people. I can still keep up with most of the people I've met through these on Twitter even if I can't go to any tournaments until around fall despite post-COVID weeklies starting up again. Still sucks not being able to compete though.
This might be a really cringe post without me realizing since it's probably not normal to say this much about this kinda stuff on a public forum, but I don't care what others know about me, and I don't really have a good reason for keeping this secret if it makes for a good story. I've heard for so long that gamers end up being lonely and that I'd be no different, and they ended up being the reason I'm not. I can attribute all but two of my friends directly to Smash, many of which I expect to be lifelong despite me having lived a majority of my life not knowing they exist. This game series means a lot to me.....which probably makes it all the more sad that it's not even my favorite multiplayer game.
Also unrelated side note but Smash is the reason I have "M2" in my name - I'm a Mewtwo solo main, and I use "DuoM2" on most websites where just using Duo doesn't work.
I've been playing smash casually since smash 4, and would pour hours into it on my 3ds with friends.
However I've been pouring more hours into ultimate ever since it came out and I'd like to think I'm at least decent.
Wanted to start participating in tourneys in 2020, but big rona happened :(
Started out as a kid playing Smash 64, then graduated to play competitively in tournaments for Melee, Brawl (shout out to all the Smogon oldies from the Brawl era that might see this post), but stopped with Smash 4 when it was clear that the game was still overly rewarded defensive play and was no longer interesting. I also had a friend who became obsessed with beating me specifically and "being the best" in our friend group. Once he started training HARD in order to beat myself and others, who by that point mainly played casually, and began to dominate our sessions, it just wasn't fun anymore. (And from that, a cancer grew within our group of friends that eventually split most of us up) So I went from being a hardcore Smash player who loved the scene, to someone who just feels really apathetic about it except for watching pro melee players (shout outs to big Leff). The massive sex abuse scandals with the Smash community didn't help either, lmao fuck Scarflard (zero) I always knew there was something up with him. Guess I just didn't realise it would be as bad as him being a pedo.
I feel as with so many other things that Smash has become largely commercialized and isn't really exciting anymore. Kazuya's reveal just made me feel "meh" (as if my apathy towards Ultimate wasn't enough already) and with the chances of unique or interesting characters being wiped out for cash grabs like fucking Steve from Minecraft, I don't see my attitude really changing any time soon.
Don't let video games interfere with your personal life, kids. It's left me feeling bitter about a series that I could probably still enjoy if not for people out with something to prove making it their sole desire to beat you and take the fun out of everything. Focus that energy into more creative outlets. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
The real moral lesson of that incident is to not tryhard friendly, casual matches.
The point of competitive matches on the other hand is to win and be the best in a way that obeys the proper rules. I mean you're on a website for competitive Pokemon, you should get that.
I've never even played Minecraft (Wiki says it's the best selling game of all time, not counting the numerous Tetris variants) and before I saw speedruns this year I barely even knew what it was, yet I knew who Steve was ten years ago when he was on every YT thumbnail ever. Surely he's enough of a gaming icon.
The real moral lesson of that incident is to not tryhard friendly, casual matches.
The point of competitive matches on the other hand is to win and be the best in a way that obeys the proper rules. I mean you're on a website for competitive Pokemon, you should get that.
I've never even played Minecraft (Wiki says it's the best selling game of all time, not counting the numerous Tetris variants) and before I saw speedruns this year I barely even knew what it was, yet I knew who Steve was ten years ago when he was on every YT thumbnail ever. Surely he's enough of a gaming icon.
There's two different schools of thought here:
1. A character is in Smash because it is a gaming icon
2. A character is a gaming icon because it is in Smash
If you favour the second process, Steve is then a poor fit expressly because everybody is aware of them. Nearly everybody who would play Smash has already made a decision under what conditions they would get Minecraft. It just takes up space that could be used to highlight a game that needs the help.
(for reference, I'm not against Steve's inclusion, if nothing else a gimmick that out there for a figthing game deserves a slot regardless of which character is using it. This is a reason I've been dissatisfied with the apparent shift towards 3rd-party headliners over going deeper into Nintendo's archives).
The real moral lesson of that incident is to not tryhard friendly, casual matches.
The point of competitive matches on the other hand is to win and be the best in a way that obeys the proper rules. I mean you're on a website for competitive Pokemon, you should get that.
I don't see how what I posted conflicts with your point, and yet I feel like I'm being condescended to. My former friend went tryhard, the rest of my friend group were put off by it because we played casually by that point in our lives (mid/late-20s), and then everyone stopped playing because it was awkward. We were no longer playing competitively as we had all exited the tournament scene by that point, although there was a lighthearted spirit of competition. I am well aware of the website I'm posting on, and there's a reason I lurk more than post now.
I've never even played Minecraft (Wiki says it's the best selling game of all time, not counting the numerous Tetris variants) and before I saw speedruns this year I barely even knew what it was, yet I knew who Steve was ten years ago when he was on every YT thumbnail ever. Surely he's enough of a gaming icon.
My point was that creative control has been ripped away from Sakurai by Nintendo's executives, as he stated that Fighter Pack 2's roster had already been decided by Nintendo. I am likely showing my age because I can think of a handful of gaming icons I would put in over whatever Minecraft representation, so there isn't much to be said beyond this. Edit: I will also add that I agree with Ironmage here, I think Nintendo could easily go into their own history a little more by including characters like Mike Jones from Startropics. However, they have taken a hard turn to advertisement $$$$, which is what I'm dissatisfied with.
voted for simon belmont in the old ballot and got not only simon but richter as well :)
and it's funny cuz they're not my mains anymore, i thought character loyalty would win over my tier whoring tendencies but i guess it didn't, even though i don't participate in tournaments anymore lmao
was a sheik main in all games except 64, but in ult i kinda play chrom/joker/now pythra equally, and sometimes young link and richter!
good to have a new thread though, the old one is outdated af
Yeah, character wise, and speaking of Smash introducing games from the archives, I wonder if I would've known the Mother series exist if Ness wasn't in Smash and that series influenced my interest in games in general (and it has the greatest video game character of all time; Apple Kid).
And sorry, I wasn't trying to be condescending. Look, what you said seems to amount to "don't waste your time and energy playing this game competitively because my friend was a tryhard in casual play" when "don't be a tryhard in casual play" seems to obviously be the more appropriate lesson here.
You can separate friendly play (as you played with your friend group) with competitive play (as you yourself played before Smash 4).
Whoa, I wrote a bit too much here. Basically, I love the series, played the crap out of brawl, and ultimate's fantastic.
Oh boy do I love smash. Here's my nice big Smash amiibo and game display in my living room:
Really enjoyed Smash 64 and Melee as a kid! I played them in pretty much total ignorance to the competitive scene. Never really had the drive to revisit either for competitive purposes; I got bored pretty quick on my prior attempts to do them. It feels like being good at the latest smash game is a big drive for me personally playing these games.
Brawl was probably the most excited I've ever been for a video game launch. The smash dojo updates were so exciting, I remember the threads here with people going crazy over Sonic getting in brawl. I remember in January watching leaks and every little trickle, watching people post the AMAZING soundtrack and bopping to just about every new song. I was legitimately sort of worried that it would never come at some point? Like, I had half a mind I was going to get hit by a car or something before Brawl released and I'd never get to play it lol.
Lo and behold, it came and that's all we played in my house for the entire spring and summer, save a month of Mario Kart Wii. I read up on the competitive scene and learned the ridiculous tech Brawl had like DACUS and Meta Knight's infinite dimensional cape. Come fall, my siblings fell off of it, but I ended up playing online a whole lot more with the smogon brawl people (including the above Yoshi King !!). I was probably among the worse of the ensemble around there, but I still had a lot of fun with it for sure.
There was so little coming out for Christmas in 2008 all I really asked for was a Wii LAN adapter to hopefully make Brawl online better (It did not: It's brawl and my internet was in a super remote area.) I kinda shifted focus to other things as 2009 started, but I did periodically just pick up brawl on nights I was bored and fought Level 9 CPUs. My main for Brawl (who went on to be my smash 4 secondary and ultimate main) was ROB probably because of that reason. Brawl computers had trouble dealing with his laser and range, hah.
But holy fuck, in summer of 2009, I finally learned how to install the homebrew channel and it was madness. We went absolutely ham with custom skins and music using the pretty crude tools at the time. I distinctly remember our Ganondorf having the best skins, with King of Hyrule default, Magneto Red, Sigma Green, and Billy Mays the Oxyclean guy on Blue. Brawl mods slapped so hard. I was around for Brawl+, Balanced Brawl, and Brawl-, but duck out before PM started in earnest just because I was so focused on Pokemon.
Also, playing Brawl online gave me a superpower where I can seemingly tolerate most forms of smash online lag and barely care. It is a strange gift that might be squandered on me. I've had a wired connection most of the time, but it's handy for the occasional turbo garbage connection.
Ultimately, all that experience made for a neat party trick where I got to be "that friend" in my group who could beat everyone (though I was plenty merciful and never rubbed it in anyone's faces!)
Smash 4 was great too! I was in college at the time, but the hype building towards it was also lots of fun. I did more online stuff and seemed to be pretty solid (partially because of that prior experience, partially because ROB is crazy online). A new smash crowd formed on smogon in the dying bowels of IRC and I was playing games nearly daily around there. There was some point where I felt like my brain was broken and I had some primal neuron activation from doing instant dash attacks with meta knight. I did locals and had a bit of fun for a time (I even got smashed by Fatality round 1 at my very first one lol), but fell off because college was pretty intense and my Pokemon League was being hosted at the same time as those weekly meet ups.
Also campaigning for the smash ballot slapped. Love posting K Rool's DKC cartoon songs everywhere.
Gosh, I wish I was in some other position in life when Ultimate came out. Game looked amazing, and is amazing! Problem is, at it's launch, I wasn't really in a position in life to buy a switch or play video games all day. Kind of a huge bummer, especially when my long wanted Ridley, K.Rool, and Banjo showed up. Like damn, seeing someone I barely cared about like Wolf in the reveal trailer just sent me back so hard to those Brawl days in high school just because it reminded me of that opening week where everyone thought he was crazy good. Really stung not having the game at launch.
Finally got it in late 2019 and planned on playing locally but whoops! Pandemic now. It's cool my old main is top tier now, though I have a sneaking suspicion he'll fall down the tier lists later on as people learn how to brutalize him a la the last two games. Now that the worst of the pandemic is over and I have more free time as an adult, I'm actually looking to finally play more at locals. There's one right down the street from me even with top players going to it which is totally cracked. Hopefully things progress smoothly from here.
I'm actually kind of melancholic our last challenger is right around the corner. Smash reveals are such fun emotional highs and it's amazing watching the whole internet react. Let's hope the last character is something rad. Or Waddle Dee is fine too I guess.
I really wish I was the age I was when Brawl came out when Smash Ultimate released. I feel like I'd play the game absolutely to death, even moreso than Brawl. Feels like I have this big ass steak to dig into, but can't indulge as much as I'd like just from adult stuff and my other, more productive hobbies. Y'all browsing Smogon as teenagers have lots of fun with it to make up for me, alright?
Really enjoyed Smash 64 and Melee as a kid! I played them in pretty much total ignorance to the competitive scene. Never really had the drive to revisit either for competitive purposes; I got bored pretty quick on my prior attempts to do them. It feels like being good at the latest smash game is a big drive for me personally playing these games.
Brawl was probably the most excited I've ever been for a video game launch. The smash dojo updates were so exciting, I remember the threads here with people going crazy over Sonic getting in brawl. I remember in January watching leaks and every little trickle, watching people post the AMAZING soundtrack and bopping to just about every new song. I was legitimately sort of worried that it would never come at some point? Like, I had half a mind I was going to get hit by a car or something before Brawl released and I'd never get to play it lol.
Lo and behold, it came and that's all we played in my house for the entire spring and summer, save a month of Mario Kart Wii. I read up on the competitive scene and learned the ridiculous tech Brawl had like DACUS and Meta Knight's infinite dimensional cape. Come fall, my siblings fell off of it, but I ended up playing online a whole lot more with the smogon brawl people (including the above Yoshi King !!). I was probably among the worse of the ensemble around there, but I still had a lot of fun with it for sure.
There was so little coming out for Christmas in 2008 all I really asked for was a Wii LAN adapter to hopefully make Brawl online better (It did not: It's brawl and my internet was in a super remote area.) I kinda shifted focus to other things as 2009 started, but I did periodically just pick up brawl on nights I was bored and fought Level 9 CPUs. My main for Brawl (who went on to be my smash 4 secondary and ultimate main) was ROB probably because of that reason. Brawl computers had trouble dealing with his laser and range, hah.
But holy fuck, in summer of 2009, I finally learned how to install the homebrew channel and it was madness. We went absolutely ham with custom skins and music using the pretty crude tools at the time. I distinctly remember our Ganondorf having the best skins, with King of Hyrule default, Magneto Red, Sigma Green, and Billy Mays the Oxyclean guy on Blue. Brawl mods slapped so hard. I was around for Brawl+, Balanced Brawl, and Brawl-, but duck out before PM started in earnest just because I was so focused on Pokemon.
Also, playing Brawl online gave me a superpower where I can seemingly tolerate most forms of smash online lag and barely care. It is a strange gift that might be squandered on me. I've had a wired connection most of the time, but it's handy for the occasional turbo garbage connection.
Ultimately, all that experience made for a neat party trick where I got to be "that friend" in my group who could beat everyone (though I was plenty merciful and never rubbed it in anyone's faces!)
Smash 4 was great too! I was in college at the time, but the hype building towards it was also lots of fun. I did more online stuff and seemed to be pretty solid (partially because of that prior experience, partially because ROB is crazy online). A new smash crowd formed on smogon in the dying bowels of IRC and I was playing games nearly daily around there. There was some point where I felt like my brain was broken and I had some primal neuron activation from doing instant dash attacks with meta knight. I did locals and had a bit of fun for a time (I even got smashed by Fatality round 1 at my very first one lol), but fell off because college was pretty intense and my Pokemon League was being hosted at the same time as those weekly meet ups.
Also campaigning for the smash ballot slapped. Love posting K Rool's DKC cartoon songs everywhere.
Gosh, I wish I was in some other position in life when Ultimate came out. Game looked amazing, and is amazing! Problem is, at it's launch, I wasn't really in a position in life to buy a switch or play video games all day. Kind of a huge bummer, especially when my long wanted Ridley, K.Rool, and Banjo showed up. Like damn, seeing someone I barely cared about like Wolf in the reveal trailer just sent me back so hard to those Brawl days in high school just because it reminded me of that opening week where everyone thought he was crazy good. Really stung not having the game at launch.
Finally got it in late 2019 and planned on playing locally but whoops! Pandemic now. It's cool my old main is top tier now, though I have a sneaking suspicion he'll fall down the tier lists later on as people learn how to brutalize him a la the last two games. Now that the worst of the pandemic is over and I have more free time as an adult, I'm actually looking to finally play more at locals. There's one right down the street from me even with top players going to it which is totally cracked. Hopefully things progress smoothly from here.
I'm actually kind of melancholic our last challenger is right around the corner. Smash reveals are such fun emotional highs and it's amazing watching the whole internet react. Let's hope the last character is something rad. Or Waddle Dee is fine too I guess.
I really wish I was the age I was when Brawl came out when Smash Ultimate released. I feel like I'd play the game absolutely to death, even moreso than Brawl. Feels like I have this big ass steak to dig into, but can't indulge as much as I'd like just from adult stuff and my other, more productive hobbies. Y'all browsing Smogon as teenagers have lots of fun with it to make up for me, alright?
with the chances of unique or interesting characters being wiped out for cash grabs like fucking Steve from Minecraft, I don't see my attitude really changing any time soon.
I don't get this. Steve is one of the most unique fighting game characters of all time, let alone in Smash. I don't see how that can be disputed when looking at the sheer diversity in everything he does. Not only that, Minecraft is, like it or not, the best selling video game of all time, with over 200 million copies sold. It defied the odds and broke new ground in Indie titles, proving that you don't need a "AAA" game company to drive sales. I'm also unsure as to how Steve can be described as a cash grab when it took "at least 5" years of negotiation for him to be included in the game, it is clear that passion went into his inclusion. Steve is one of the biggest gaming icons there is, as much as people like to claim otherwise. Knock it all you want, but the reasoning is sound.
Steve getting into Smash was an inevitability, considering its new direction is a fighting game featuring gaming icons, not just Nintendo franchises. I believe this to be a good thing.
kazuya and tekken being in smash is hype as shit and pretty inevitable. namco was going to get a second fighter in the game at some point with other companies having three, and it took this long likely because sakurai stated he wasnt unsure how to implement a tekken character for the longest time, possibly even stretching back to wanting to add tekken in smash 4. ive only played tekken a handful of times but theres four buttons in that game for left/right punch and left/right kick, often referred simply as just 1,2,3,4, which is different from other fighting games having light/medium/heavy options which we see translated into hold duration with ryu/ken/terry. when minmin was revealed and the fact that she didnt have neutral or side special because that was used for her other arm, i think at that point the whole community shouldve seen a tekken character coming. cant wait to see the presentation in about a week from now, he looks really fun to play.
as for the reveal itself, this is probably best case scenario for me imo. only character i really want now is reimu who sure as hell wasnt going to be shown off at e3 and i completely tuned myself out of any smash speculation nintendo rumor type shit, apparently there was some war going on between people wanting platformer and jrpg characters like wtf lmao. as much as id want to see a third fighter pack, nintendo is well known for being unable to count to three with their dlc packs, and so we can really only see one more fighter, maybe an extra one if we lucky who knows. as much as i want reimu to be in, sakurai would probably feel obligated to add a shitton of content, namely music, and theres six fighters in this pack so idk its hard to imagine another 50 song drop like terrys since we knew sakurai had a personal attachment to snk, although hey, bullet hell and shootemups are what got sakurai into the industry so who knows.
Im pretty sure Kazuya used a Korean backdash cancel in his trailer lol. If I saw that correctly, he may just have the most versatile ground-based spacing kit in the game. The other possibility is that it was just a backwards crouch dash which honestly sounds incredibly obnoxious given that he gets all of his normal-hit launchers out of crouch dashes.
Either way, Smash is gonna become wavedash similator soon enough and I’m all for it.
I've always disliked "real" fg characters being in smash. I know it's out of passion due to Japan inventing most of these franchises in the first place, and they all are "gaming icons", but it has always felt to me like a cry for "legitimacy"--smash has ryu now, it's a real fighting game! With the idea of smash being to fight with all your favorite vg characters (formerly just Nintendo) that you would never see in another game, I'm glad that they didn't just copy mvc when putting mega man in the game, because what fun would that be? Smash is smash and fgs are fgs, if you want to play fatal fury with super canceling why not just play the real game? The logic doesn't work for something like bayonetta, "if you want to do vertical combos in witch time just play bayonetta" sure, but that's not a fighting game. The design team for smash does an amazing job at making every character feel like they play in their home series (at least in s4+). So why are we mashing other fighting games into this one? It's always just "polluted" the gameplay to me
Wasn't Sakurai like big into playing KoF and it partially inspired the design of smash 64? I def dont think they add the characters because they feel it lends them legitimacy as a fighting game though, I don't think they give a shit about that at all really.
I've always disliked "real" fg characters being in smash. I know it's out of passion due to Japan inventing most of these franchises in the first place, and they all are "gaming icons", but it has always felt to me like a cry for "legitimacy"--smash has ryu now, it's a real fighting game! With the idea of smash being to fight with all your favorite vg characters (formerly just Nintendo) that you would never see in another game, I'm glad that they didn't just copy mvc when putting mega man in the game, because what fun would that be? Smash is smash and fgs are fgs, if you want to play fatal fury with super canceling why not just play the real game? The logic doesn't work for something like bayonetta, "if you want to do vertical combos in witch time just play bayonetta" sure, but that's not a fighting game. The design team for smash does an amazing job at making every character feel like they play in their home series (at least in s4+). So why are we mashing other fighting games into this one? It's always just "polluted" the gameplay to me
I don't think Nintendo really cares about appearing as a "legitimate" fighting game because they put virtually no support into the competitive scene unfortunately. While I think many of us don't feel too excited about the tekken announcement, I think their decision to add him makes sense and don't see it as a way to sway some people's opinions on Smash as a game.
While I think many of us don't feel too excited about the tekken announcement, I think their decision to add him makes sense and don't see it as a way to sway some people's opinions on Smash as a game.
Tekken is the only fighting game franchise to outsell Smash as of (I think) Smash 4. Considering Smash's gravitation towards FGC representation with Ken and Terry, Kazuya was simply the next step. In my circles at least, most people I know are ridiculously hyped for him. He's far from a "literally who" and has been in numerous crossovers across various games. He's really not that far from Ryu in notability. I'm eager to see how Kazuya functions here.
People also should have seen this coming, since, well, the Heihachi costume wasn't a one-sided gig...
Tekken is the only fighting game franchise to outsell Smash as of (I think) Smash 4. Considering Smash's gravitation towards FGC representation with Ken and Terry, Kazuya was simply the next step. In my circles at least, most people I know are ridiculously hyped for him. He's far from a "literally who" and has been in numerous crossovers across various games. He's really not that far from Ryu in notability. I'm eager to see how Kazuya functions here.
People also should have seen this coming, since, well, the Heihachi costume wasn't a one-sided gig...
in a sort of "pure" sense i do feel kazuya is a little weird. like he's kiiind of the closest thing tekken has to a main character i guess? and tekken is the biggest 3d fighter today. but in a like... "historical significance" sense it's weird because heihachi is more recognizable and virtua fighter is more foundational/"important."
i mean obviously they were never gonna put a VF character in there but I could see someone nitpicking that aspect of things a bit lol
It's a damn shame the Smogon Smash Discord server is so dead. I really liked the place and I'd really love to see it revived. This thread is really nice but I greatly prefer discussing the game and finding matches in a live chat environment. (EDIT: Checked the old thread and RODAN was the one who originally made it so lol, maybe better to try and see if we can manage to create something new instead).
Anyway hi I'm Legit. I'm a mod on /r/smashbros and an admin on the Robin mains Smashcord so you could say I'm fairly involved with the community. I dual main Robin and Chrom because I love Fire Emblem Awakening, I actively attended tournaments during my college years but the combination of graduating, moving, and the pandemic took me out of that groove and kept me from really driving out to locals anymore. I still love the game and try to play it as actively as I can and at least study it during the periods where I can't dedicate as much time to things. I am constantly thirsty to fight people so please come and kick my ass sometime, there's very little I love more than meeting people through Smash gameplay since it can be such a fun and expressive experience.
My most amusing competitive story is that I got power ranked in the very last season of Smash 4 before Ultimate came out due to all the actually good players in my region going temporarily inactive from all of the Ultimate hype train. I'm hoping to actually one day actually earn something like that but really I'm just hoping everything transitions back to in-person smoothly and properly in the world since there are way bigger fish to fry these days.
The only character I really want in at this point is the TF2 Soldier which isn't happening and it doesn't need to since my dream pick already came through when Chrom's trailer first released. I hope all of your wishes come true instead.
