I got my chance to play Smash 4 this Wednesday with some other competitive smashers and got see into a small window of what the game currently represents. For those of you who don't know me, I have a fairly
unique perspective. I thought I'd share it with you!
I've been playing since Smash 64 and have been part of the Melee community since near the start; I was an okay player (top 32 to top 8), but never dominant. I mostly did things like
creating video guides; they're so old
they were used by PPMD to learn Falco!
I moved onto Brawl and enjoyed it just as much as Melee. Much to my opponent's chagrin in both games, my preferred strategy was
run away and camp. When I started Melee I lacked the technical expertise to just "out tech" people, so I focused on learning unique stages and abusing character mobility. I had 8 minutes on the timer and I used it.
Here's an example from Melee in a goofy friendly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrZ4-C5Ad0I
An infamous match from the beginning of Brawl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxgOkRyG3ho
To save yourself some time, a 'combo' video of Brawl showcasing how I typically played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZlLImDgQMo
I used "scrooging" and 'planking" with Meta Knight before there were terms for the activities and I timed people out with Fox before Jigglypuff was even considered a top character. I did it all to win in the
easiest way possible and didn't care about being "flashy" or "cool". I'd time people out, camp, chain grab, laser spam, etc., and it'd be a ton of fun for me. Winning is fun.
So what about Smash 4?
Planking, edgehogging
Near impossible to do. Not only can you attack people on the ledge fairly quickly, but you can steal the ledge from them even while they are invincible. This works as long as you aren't in a free-fall animation. This is a large change! When you edgehog, they simply take the ledge from you and then YOU are off stage. You don't want this to happen to you.
Which means you WANT it to happen to your opponent. On more than one occasion I was able to jump above the ledge, then use my double jump before my opponent up+b'd and fast fall quickly to grab the ledge from them. This forces them to kind of hop backwards off the stage. I wasn't able to effectively edgeguard in this manner without more time to practice, but it seems like it will be an incredibly effective way of edgeguarding. You don't have to prevent them from getting to the ledge... you punish them for grabbing it!
What does that mean?
It means that what makes a recovery "good" is different. In Melee, it was "can you get back to the ledge effectively" and "can you stall off stage and/or mixup between going for the stage/ledge" to prevent a player from simply grabbing the edge and rolling. In Brawl it was "can you prevent an offstage edgeguard" and "can you get back after the offstage edgeguard"; most could get back to the stage, but the real trick was can you ultimately prevent an offstage edgeguard. Characters like Snake suffered tremendously because they got hit multiple times when recovering, but the recovery was ultimately fine because you had many attempts to make it back. Lucario or Ness and the like were easily edgeguarded while characters like Meta Knight could typically avoid being hit in the first place.
In Smash 4, due to the new ledge mechanics, there's now 3 specific aspects of recovery.
- Can you get to the ledge even if hit
- If you do grab the ledge, are you able to get back on stage without much invincibility
- Can you bypass the ledge altogether and get on the stage (without a ton of lag)
What's going to happen to many characters is they will take the typical recovery of go low and "sweetspot" the ledge. The ledge will immediately be taken by the opponent before you can get off the ledge. This bumps you off, and you'll almost certainly be hit. Can you make it back at this point?
If you get the ledge and they don't take it from you, but instead wait by the ledge for you to act, can you make it back before Marth d-tilts you? This is most commonly the kind of edgeguarding that occurred in Brawl. It could be frustrating at times, but certain characters (like Meta Knight, again) had abilities like tornado that allowed you to bypass unprepared opponents almost instantly.
But more importantly, are you a character like Villager who can over-b a great distance, thus removing the ledge from the equation altogether? Those will be the best recoveries.
Ask those three questions when picking your smash mains. Characters like Bowser and DK are going to have bad recoveries. Characters like Marth and Megaman will have some definite ability to grab the ledge, but have difficulty safely bypassing it. Characters like Villager will have superb recoveries with his over-b and up+b options. (assuming no changes)
Chaingrabs, jab-locks, infinites, and annoying chains
These were always really boring to watch.
I didn't have an opportunity to test grab releases, chaingrabs, or grab release infinites with a doubles partner. If someone else wants to confirm, go for it. I could follow up from a few grabs with hits, but never another grab. That said footstool out of throw exists as a doubles concept, so at the very least that'll be the new 2v1 infinite unless i'm missing something huge (I only saw one iteration of this occur).
Jab-locks seem to be in, to what regard I don't know. All I know is that if you hit the ground without a tech you can be hit more than once in succession, similar to jab-locks. Other reports seem to confirm this.
Infinites seem to be possible, but I know of none to be discovered yet other than grab -> footstool 2v1 infinites that I know that seem to exist.
Annoying chains, now THOSE I saw a lot of. Fox's U-tilt x5 combo was showcased by PPMD during the invitational; fast fall unfinished dair to u-tilt a bunch. Instant combo.
The biggest indicator that these might be a 'problem' for some people wasn't on the Wii U at all, but rather the 3DS only: Sheik!
Sheik could f-tilt most characters repeatedly at 0%. Due to an apparent lack of Smash DI, I could f-tilt to around 30%, short hop fair, dash attack as they hit the ground, and then hit them with another fair. It felt a lot like Melee sheik but with way more "repeat the same move" over again. What's crazy is that you can do this AGAIN after you've done it the first time! Fair and f-tilt have such low knockback that you can do the same combo immediately afterwards. It was a true "bread-and-butter" combo.
What does this mean?
It means that a lot of early % combos are going to occur out of low-knockback moves. If someone said "pick a character this is going to win", I'd pick someone with a low knockback tilt and just spam it on them when they were at low %.
This will be annoying to watch for most people and at the very beginning of Smash 4 the majority of "winning strategies" is going to be "roll + tilt" or dash-away pivot tilt, mark my words. This will be G&W spamming his turtle all over again. It won't be "good", but people will do it because the reward seems to consistently be about 50%, much higher than anything else I saw.
Port Priority
Unknown, but we did see a simultaneous death that appeared to "give it" to player 4. Watch for this!
Ultimately, the game will test mostly the same skills Brawl had. Zoning and Feinting (that's staying just out of your opponents range, using attacks the appear to leave you vulnerable and punishing their attempts to punish) are going to be huge. If you were good at Brawl, you'll prolly be good at Smash 4. If you couldn't get the hang of it, it might take some getting used to. Hitting shields is a bad thing, although you can break shields pretty easy in this game.
Speaking of, thoughts on characters:
Bowser
He'll be fun, but not particularly good I don't think. His shield break properties rivaled Smash 4. You can break a fully charged shield with one down+b! His down-air is an amazing spike, so expect the Bowsercide to be a thing. He can kill at surprisingly low % with an edgeguard, but isn't very comfortable off stage.
DK
DK could actually be really good. He killed Rosalina at 80% with a back-air from on-stage! He has some serious combos, surprisingly enough. Dair -> u-tilt -> u-air was legitimate at lower percentages, as was fast fall weak bair to u-tilt. His aerials had a surprisingly small amount of lag if they didn't auto-cancel and his KO power on stage will make him a threat early in the games life. His recovery is pretty bad.
Megaman
Megaman might be a good trap character in 1v1, but he has serious zoning issues. He can't play keep-away particularly well due to his awful dair and low-knockback fair being almost entirely unthreatening. Hitting someone with over-b and comboing off it was fun, but it pretty quickly became a game of "keep away from the sticky bomb" due to it being possible to put it back on megaman. His leaf shield is great except you can't do anything but throw it, meaning the counter has been known since Megaman 2. Jump over, punish during lag.
Without the ability to properly zone, I can't forsee Megaman being a serious threat in the long term unless people discover some radical ways to play him.
Marth
He's Marth. Unfortunately there was no "dancing blade mixup" that I saw, as you had more vulnerability by stopping the dancing blade than using the whole thing. Fair seemed bad, nair seemed good. I see Marth's back-air being his new love, especially off stage. Marth is a toss-up.
Sheik
She gonna be good. Real good. Her new "bomb" move? It drags the enemy TOWARDS sheik. This means that Sheik can throw a bomb and f-tilt chain you out of the ensuing explosion, starting her annoying combo.
Greninja
His counter actually works as a KO move. That's pretty big in of itself, but added to it is his ability to fast-fall with his dair, making it difficult to effectively chase Greninja aerially. I had trouble controlling Greninja, but he seemed solid enough. His smash attacks seemed about as easy to land as Lucario's in Brawl, which is to say "not particularly easy", but his bair was amazing.
Fox
u-tilt chain was good. Past that I had trouble landing things with him. His recovery was improved, but I dunno about him otherwise.
ZSS
ZSS was good enough to where I think she'll be nerfed prior to release. We've all seen what she can do at this point.
Didn't play others enough to comment.
Will this game be competitively viable?
Yes.
" and don't really like the main pillars of smash.
