*NOTE MY IMPRESSIONS OF THIS GAME ARE FOR AN UNFINISHED PRODUCT. ANYTHING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE, AND HOPEFULLY TWEAKS WILL BE MADE IN TIME FOR THE GAMES LAUNCH IN SEPTEMBER. PLEASE UNDERSTAND THERE WAS SOME MESSED UP STUFF GOING ON IN THAT ROOM AND THAT IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE FINAL GAME *
Part 1
Part 2
Before I start with these impressions, I will have you know that
I WAS ROBBED at that SDCC 3DS tournament. I know I would have gone on to win the tournament. My Kirby is legit. Greninja is a FRAUD. This truly is the San Diego Screwjob. Nintendo screwed me, damn it. But its okay, Nintendo. Just give me a job at Treehouse and all is forgiven. Ill make sure this never happens again to anyone else. I think thats a fair trade-off.
I KNOW YOURE READING THIS TRINEN. YOU TOO BIHLDORFF
Anyways, after I was eliminated in the tournament, it was pretty late in the day due to all of the delays, and I had to head over to the Hall H line that was quickly filling for Saturdays Comic Con panels. Unfortunately, I couldnt watch the rest of the tournament live. Instead, I ended up waiting 18 hours in line for Hall H and barely got in
but the Marvel panel was amazing and worth the wait. That world premiere of the Avengers 2 trailer was something else.
Since Comic Con, Ive gone back to watch the stream, specifically the 1 v 1, no items matches. The thing that stuck out the most to me was the use of Bowser at this tournament. DEHF, a top Brawl player, used Bowser. Westballz and Lucky, two of the best Melee players in the world, used Bowser. 2 out of the top 4 players in the tournament used Bowser, both of which met in the finals for a Bowser mirror match.
Is Bowser, a notoriously weak character in the previous Smash games, actually top tier in Smash 4? How was this character so dominant at the tournament?
I believe Bowser is an extremely strong character... for day -50. It is impossible to say that he is a legitimately strong character at this point, because THE GAME ISNT OUT YET. Players arent even accustomed to the controls yet. Wait until launch when players are short hop double lasering with Falco before declaring Bowser is unstoppable. I believe that, with the selection of characters in the E3 demo, hes one of the stronger characters, but once the actual game comes out, hell be good (unless they nerf his speed and killing power) but not top tier. The most common response to OMG TOP TIER is the game isnt even out yet, Sakurai is still making balancing changes! While that is true, I dont even think Bowser really needs to be significantly nerfed. I honestly believe his dominance is a result of unfamiliarity with the game and its controls. If Bowser stays the same, I cant see him dominating the meta game.
Why is Bowser so good? Well, hes been buffed across the board from his Brawl incarnation. I dont even understand some of the changes, personally. I liked his playstyle and moveset in Melee and Brawl, however awful it was. It felt true to the character. His forward smash was ridiculously satisfying. In Smash 4, Bowser is suddenly some agile mother fucker, doing drop kicks and shit. Its kinda strange. Im surprised they didnt go all the way with the moveset changes and just give him Foxs sex kick as his neutral air. He has the DK back air from Smash 64. Hes SO FAST. His walking speed and running speed are amazing for his size, and his dash attack is quick and sends opponents flying. His up air is probably as fast as Marths up air, at least thats the feel I got from it. His f tilt is the same as Brawl just faster. His fire breath is fast, has insane range and has next to no cool down. His jabs are SO GOOD. The list goes on and on. Its like this for his entire moveset.
Did I mention that Bowser is a good character in this game?
Watching the Sheik vs. Bowser matches on stream, its clear that even vs. the more mobile and projectile heavy Sheik, Bowser can control the game. He is so heavy and powerful that he only really requires three or four solid hits to be within kill percentage. Hes like Melee Ganon on steroids. The Sheik player doesnt grab or use A moves much, but effectively zones the Bowser out with needles and grenades. Considering the lack of combos in this game, its a decent strategy. You dont want to run in and f tilt because Bowser has much greater range on his tilts and smash moves. Hes quick enough to punish an ftilt, a short hop fair or a dash attack from Sheik. It was kind of unreal watching Bowser dispose of Sheik so easily. He not only matches Sheiks speed, but also has a ridiculous amount of power behind those moves. DEHFs dismantling of the Sheik is proof that, on paper, Bowser wins the matchup. Hard. Sheik has lots of quick moves, low aerial lag, and good keep away tools, but it doesnt mean much when she cant kill. Bowser is probably the heaviest character in the game, so Sheik was probably killing with up smashes at 150%, if not higher.
The Grand Finals of DEHFs Bowser vs. Damiens Bowser was fantastic. One player is arguably the best Brawl player on the planet, and the other is clearly a tournament player who knows what hes doing. We saw brilliant mindgames, spacing, and punishing on display with, at the moment, the best character in the game. It was great! It reminded me of a fast paced Brawl set. Both players were fairly aggressive, and I personally believe that was because landing moves with Bowser feels so damn satisfying. That drop kick is ridiculous! It's a move like Captain Falcon's knee: you just want to go for it.
NITPICK: I REALLY wish we could see the percentages on the top screen, as watching sets without being able to see percentages really throws me off, so Im kind of going by memory here. While I've never played a Bowser ditto, most of Bowser's kill moves on other characters (f smash, down b) killed in the 70s. Im guessing in a Bowser mirror thats 90s or low 100s, with the rest of his moves (fair, bair, f tilt) killing in the 110-120 range. I know when we are actually playing the game it wont be a problem, but for stuff like streams or video
not being able to see the percents without projecting the bottom screen on the video in some way is pretty lame. Even the option to place them on the top screen would be appreciated.
Not really much more to say here about the grand finals. Its a great, fundamental set of Smash 4. If you havent watched it, go check it out. This is how competitive play is going to look like day one. Thats the pace right there.
Oh yeah, that down B shield break was HYPE
One sad thing I noticed while watching these 1 v 1 matches is that the edge game is almost non-existent. The new ledge mechanics, while it will get rid of things like ledge camping and planking, pretty much destroys the edge game and nerfs gimping HARD. This will lead to opponents living longer, and if you combine that with the huge stages, we are going to see some really high percentage kills and some long matches. I mean, how many time outs have we seen since E3? However, I do think there were instances where players were too scared to go off the ledge and try to intercept a recovery with an aerial. Again, unfamiliarity with the new control scheme will lead to less risky play. While I saw some Bowsers go out there and chase with forward airs, most of the time the player on stage would just wait at the ledge while the off stage opponent slowly made his or her way back onto the ledge. Boring. Even the standard edge hog -> intercept your recovering opponent with a back air or down air will be missed. It just added so much depth, precision, and drama to the game and now its completely gone. While the game has greater hitstun than Brawl and the gameplay is faster in general, it is definitely hurt by these new edge mechanics combined with the massive stage boundaries and high percent kill moves.
Then again, its day -21 so I probably dont know what the hell Im talking about.
In conclusion, my excitement for the game is decently high. After the Dojo hype, I will never get
too excited for a game ever again, let alone a Smash Bros game. Its not worth the possible heartbreak. Compare this to the lead up to Brawls launch, where, on a scale from 1 to 100, my hype was at 1000 from Snakes reveal to the games launch. Theres been a lot of exciting announcements leading up to Smash 4s launch. Being able to use the Gamecube controller was a pipe dream of mine. You can probably find my posts in the very first Smash 4 thread, arguing with people who claimed the audience who cares about the GC controller is way too small, Nintendo would never waste money trying to sell an adapter! Speaking of pipe dreams, Nintendo held two pre-launch tournaments for the game, one of which I attended! How could I not be excited for this game? I still deprive myself of sleep every night to see a single new screenshot of the game!
After playing the game myself and watching a good deal of footage, I can confirm that the game is, in fact, fun. Most of my play came from free for alls with items on, and I can't say I had any problems with it. I dont know why, but going into Smash 4, I was expecting it to feel worse than Brawl. Maybe I was just being pessimistic. Luckily, I was wrong. It felt better than Brawl upon first impression, and having played it a lot more since then, I still feel that way. Im very excited to get my hands on the final game and just RIP IT APART. Metaphorically, of course.
My thoughts on this game have been pretty constant since around 2010. I was able to reflect back on Brawl, my disappointment, and what I could reasonably expect from a new Smash Bros game. If Smash 4 was literally Brawl, just without tripping and with a more balanced character roster, Id be fine with that. Anything more is a cherry on top. My dream game, Melee 2.0, is never going to happen and Ive accepted that. I enjoyed Brawl for what it was, played it for thousands of hours, and placed well in tournaments, despite the game being far more slow and boring than Melee. It was the overuse of Meta Knight that caused me to quit the game, not the fact that I hated the game and its mechanics. Meta Knight the character is back, but Im hoping the broken monster from Brawl is gone forever.
And with that, my series of write ups on Smash Bros for Wii U and Smash Bros for 3DS has come to an end. But dont be sad, kids. This is a good thing! The game is less than 3 weeks away! And while I intend to play the living hell out of the game for hours upon hours, sleep and food optional, you better believe Im going to be dropping a couple thousand word rants. Will they be positive rants or negative rants? Probably both. But there will be rants, that I can assure you of.
3 weeks. Get hype.
