JayWon
Smash Journeyman
Back story: I knew I was going to eventually buy a Wii U for Smash but the release of Mario Kart 8 was a good enough incentive for me to become a Wii U owner. I bought Super Mario 3D World, hoping to play with my sister but it turned out to be too hard for her to play enjoyably. Teaching her how to drift in Mario Kart 8 wasn't going well either. In short, she is not a gamer, the only game she really liked so far in her life was Tiny Thief in the App store. I also bought Brawl while I waited for the Smash 3DS release and I tried teaching my sister how to play Brawl as well. She liked Kirby, because he can jump a lot, and she ended up playing like any other child, just jumping high in the air and Down-B.
Smash on the 3DS came out and I ended up buying Animal Crossing: New Leaf as well for my sister because of some buy one get one 50% deal. New Leaf was perfect for her, very casual, nothing intense, she loved it very much and naturally she was fascinated how Villager was in Smash 4. She wanted to try him out and unknowingly, teaching her Smash with Villager turned out to be extremely effective/ideal, and I'm here to share with you why.
All of Villagers standard attacks are visually distinguishable.
Villager's Fsmash=Bowling ball, Dsmash=Shovel, USmash=Fireworks, Ftilt=Umbrella, DTilt=Weed pull, UTilt=Stick.. Even the Grab looks like the most grabbiest grab in the game.
Compared to, let's say, Marth where all his moves is slashing his sword.
This makes it extremely easy to communicate and makes it easy to distinguish the properties of Tilts and Smashes. Telling kids that "Up tilt can kill as well and is faster than Up smash" and expecting them to catch on is not going to click. But with villager I can just communicate through Villagers distinguishable moves, "Bowling ball is slow but very powerful. Umbrella is quick!" "Do the stick twirl!" "Weed! Weed!" When she tried other characters, it was extremely easy for me to communicate through Villager's moves rather than X-Smashes/X-Tilts but of course now she understands what the difference between all the tilts/smashes and I don't tell her to "bowling ball."
Villager has relatively easy kill moves my sister can pull off (versus Pikachu where you have to work your ass off). She knows Backthrow and Up tilt can finish the job. She also loves Shovel to Fireworks-- Satisfying and easy to pull off combo at high percentage.
But most importantly, my sister learned to use Aerials because of Villager. You absolutely cannot expect kids to space properly with Kirby's F-air. or tell kids they should RAR Mario's B-air because it's better for approach. You just won't convince kids the importance of Aerials. But my sister LOVES to hit people with sling shot, and because of Villager's extremely kid friendly recovery, she is not afraid whatsoever to jump off the stage and turnip (which the move itself is pretty easy to hit cuz it lingers for so long)--she doesn't use Nair with as determined purpose though. (Side note: I remember I made her only use Sling shot 4s FFA in 3D land. It's surprisingly fun to jump around and do nothing but sling shot on that side scrolling stage. Try it sometimes! No seriously try it.)
TL;DR It's easy to visualize (hence communicate) and feel the purpose of each of Villager's move.
She wins against Level 8 bots 80% of the time now. She was 50% against Level 9 bots on the 3DS. The Wii U Level 9 AI is pretty tough and seems much more sophisticatedly programmed. Keep in mind I've been training her for about over a month now. She knows how to Shield-grab, she knows her options after sending out her lloyd, she knows how to fast fall into sling shot on the ledge, she doesn't spot dodge much at all (we'll be working on that next). It's been a step by step process, mixing it up with a lot of fun FFA's and occasional 1v1's. Now she 1v1's more often, and rarely plants trees and hides behind it anymore (I have to remind her now to get the tree so she can use the axe).
My sister is now trying to find her second main (so far it's Peach or Sheik ZSS confirmed), I couldn't help but smile when my sister said, "wow I hate Villagers grab, it's so slow. And Villager's Fsmash is so short it's annoying." when she's trying out other characters.
Reddit Link
Video of her playing
_______
Link: Other things to consider when playing with kids
___
Edit: For those who are eager to start helping your kids/loved ones out, please remember nothing happens over night! Make sure you yourself know how to play Villager as well. Eventually teaching the follow options after sending out lloyd is great because you move on and focus on cool, basic strategies that is relatively easy to comprehend. (i.e. After lloyd: "do they jump over it? then you jump and sling shot. Are they shielding? Run and grab them! You can even jump and lloyd and run underneath with it and do the pot trip attack!").
Smash on the 3DS came out and I ended up buying Animal Crossing: New Leaf as well for my sister because of some buy one get one 50% deal. New Leaf was perfect for her, very casual, nothing intense, she loved it very much and naturally she was fascinated how Villager was in Smash 4. She wanted to try him out and unknowingly, teaching her Smash with Villager turned out to be extremely effective/ideal, and I'm here to share with you why.
All of Villagers standard attacks are visually distinguishable.
Villager's Fsmash=Bowling ball, Dsmash=Shovel, USmash=Fireworks, Ftilt=Umbrella, DTilt=Weed pull, UTilt=Stick.. Even the Grab looks like the most grabbiest grab in the game.
Compared to, let's say, Marth where all his moves is slashing his sword.
This makes it extremely easy to communicate and makes it easy to distinguish the properties of Tilts and Smashes. Telling kids that "Up tilt can kill as well and is faster than Up smash" and expecting them to catch on is not going to click. But with villager I can just communicate through Villagers distinguishable moves, "Bowling ball is slow but very powerful. Umbrella is quick!" "Do the stick twirl!" "Weed! Weed!" When she tried other characters, it was extremely easy for me to communicate through Villager's moves rather than X-Smashes/X-Tilts but of course now she understands what the difference between all the tilts/smashes and I don't tell her to "bowling ball."
Villager has relatively easy kill moves my sister can pull off (versus Pikachu where you have to work your ass off). She knows Backthrow and Up tilt can finish the job. She also loves Shovel to Fireworks-- Satisfying and easy to pull off combo at high percentage.
But most importantly, my sister learned to use Aerials because of Villager. You absolutely cannot expect kids to space properly with Kirby's F-air. or tell kids they should RAR Mario's B-air because it's better for approach. You just won't convince kids the importance of Aerials. But my sister LOVES to hit people with sling shot, and because of Villager's extremely kid friendly recovery, she is not afraid whatsoever to jump off the stage and turnip (which the move itself is pretty easy to hit cuz it lingers for so long)--she doesn't use Nair with as determined purpose though. (Side note: I remember I made her only use Sling shot 4s FFA in 3D land. It's surprisingly fun to jump around and do nothing but sling shot on that side scrolling stage. Try it sometimes! No seriously try it.)
TL;DR It's easy to visualize (hence communicate) and feel the purpose of each of Villager's move.
She wins against Level 8 bots 80% of the time now. She was 50% against Level 9 bots on the 3DS. The Wii U Level 9 AI is pretty tough and seems much more sophisticatedly programmed. Keep in mind I've been training her for about over a month now. She knows how to Shield-grab, she knows her options after sending out her lloyd, she knows how to fast fall into sling shot on the ledge, she doesn't spot dodge much at all (we'll be working on that next). It's been a step by step process, mixing it up with a lot of fun FFA's and occasional 1v1's. Now she 1v1's more often, and rarely plants trees and hides behind it anymore (I have to remind her now to get the tree so she can use the axe).
My sister is now trying to find her second main (
Reddit Link
Video of her playing
_______
Link: Other things to consider when playing with kids
___
Edit: For those who are eager to start helping your kids/loved ones out, please remember nothing happens over night! Make sure you yourself know how to play Villager as well. Eventually teaching the follow options after sending out lloyd is great because you move on and focus on cool, basic strategies that is relatively easy to comprehend. (i.e. After lloyd: "do they jump over it? then you jump and sling shot. Are they shielding? Run and grab them! You can even jump and lloyd and run underneath with it and do the pot trip attack!").
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. The OP had a good idea using villager to teach all of the different moves in the game because of how distinguishable they all are. I never would've thought of that! This is a great idea for teaching newbies how to smash 
