N-Air

[EnigmaticCam]

Hi! This is my first message :) I've been a fan of SSBM since the 64 days. Pikachu has and will always be my character. However, I've only just recently unveiled myself to the immense technicalities and complexity of his advanced play.

One question I have is about his N-Air (my SSBM jargon is a bit off, so bear with me). N-Air is where you press A while jumping without any direction, right? And he does a round flip or two, right? How do you do that quickly? I always find myself performing F-Air when I don't mean to, or some other direction. Anybody have any ideas? Does anybody come to this board anymore? lol :)

[N64]

It takes a bit of getting used to, but if you let the control stick go back to its neutral position right after you jump(by either moving it to the middle manually, or just letting go of it for a moment) you can hit a(or z) and you'll do a nair. You'll usually want to tap down on the control stick after this to fast-fall the nair, and l-cancel it(hit the L or R button right before you hit the ground, which will cut down on the lag of the move). This allows pika to jump in, do a quick aerial, and follow up with whatever's best for the situation.

If you want to get introduced to ssbm jargon & general tactics, there's a good FAQ thing here: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=42749 in the Melee discussion forum. Also, pictishfreak's Pika guide on this forum is a good reference for any developing pika player.

[EnigmaticCam]

Thanks for the tip! I'm still having difficulties with it, but I think with practice I'll get it down. I never used it before, and now that I am, I'm realizing the potential it has.