Easy way out of not responding. Go you!
wow i got owned, you sure got me alright
In other news, spent a lot of time today playing the 3DS demo. Mega Man finally makes sense after something like 15-20 matches, you basically want to hang back and use projectiles to damage enemies while occasionally closing the gap to attack them with melee aerial moves. If you can slide in and then pop them into the air with his down-A smash or his uppercut, it's pretty easy to follow it up with a simple aerial KO move. The tricky thing is Mega Man's buster shots while approaching need to be timed properly or they'll drop out of hitstun before you get a chance to set that up.
It's really useful to be able to attack while on approach, even if it's a little weak. To make Mega Man work you have to embrace his differences instead of trying to work around them, which I think makes for a pretty well designed character overall.
Mario is still Mario, though he feels a bit better than he used to be (it's been a while since I've played Melee or Brawl, but I feel confident in saying that). Honestly I want to get my hands on Doc and see how much better he feels. I miss the Mario Tornado an awful lot, and he's got it, so that should be good.
Link is a character I never played very much, but he seems pretty solid so hopefully that carries over into Toon Link, whom I enjoy a lot in Brawl.
Pikachu is tiny and adorable, I love his new character model and the new mechanics for Thunder being able to pierce platforms if they're far enough away. It makes the attack much more viable in enclosed spaces, and the origin point being a meteor attack is really useful if you can line it up. I still miss Pichu, but Pikachu is pretty good so it's alright. He got the goggles, I can work with it.
Villager is harder for me to wrap my head around than Mega Man for some reason. Like I understand how his moves work, but I can't seem to get any KOs reliably and my Pocket timing is terrible. I was always bad at using Counter-type moves, and that unfortunately rears it's ugly head once again here. I just need to figure out how to predict stuff so I can do better as Villager, since the character's gimmicks are really cool and the moveset is hilarious in the same sort of way Servbot's chef-based moves were in MvC2.
Overall, Mega Man is still the character I'm the most excited about on the roster but I'm worried about his viability in 1v1 matches. He's really well suited to the chaos of a 4 player free for all, or even maybe 2v2 team matches, but solo and without distractions for his opponents he can have a hard time staying ahead of his opponent's damage if they're pursuing him aggressively and not letting him get out of melee range.
Gotta get together with a friend tomorrow and play some multiplayer, but for now I'm having more fun than I thought I would just fighting computer opponents. Something about this game just feels right, once you've gotten used to the 3DS controls. I miss the c-stick pretty badly