Keeshu

Planning on improving my main man Sephiroth again now that I'm back from my "vacation" of trying other fighting games. However, I have some new perspectives and I'm looking for another secondary since I struggle to keep myself loyal to a character for over a month. I tend to improve faster when I duo-main so my mind is more fresh when going back to a previous character. When solo maining, I tend to want to quit smash because I glance at other characters and want to play them, and then it feels like a chore.

I'm sure there are better options for what I pick, but those pesky emotions do influence how I feel about a character so I'm limiting it to these options.
Lucario - The "normal" character so my fundies stay strong. Though his aura does compliment my mentality a lot where all characters I will focus on analyzing the opponent first, then start playing much better when higher % when things are stake.Wolf is someone I might pick up to fill this role, since he is cool, and feels pretty fundies, but pesky emotions are probably always going to tell me to play Lucario instead. Also because of his movie, Lucario reminds me that I'm not some sort of unfeeling robot, and that I need to take emotions into account, also to always focus on improving as long as it's not taking a toll on other parts of life.
Ryu - Heavy emphasis on inputs/combos, but not having to also think about the overwhelming speed of faster characters. Also makes me extremely aware of my stick placement. Shortish range compared to Sephiroth, so perhaps he could cover his matchups? Also always focusing on improving, instead of the goal of winning is like the entire thing about Ryu.
Snake, Isabelle, Rosalina- Throw something out and then control it is a really fun playstyle and is a step up from playing zoners that are so fun (I did learn the game off Link in Melee after all). Just so my mind thinks in a completely different way, making it so I have an easier time wanting to swap between Sephiroth and one of these.
Yoshi - Something easy. Perhaps what I need for a secondary is a break from trying to improve Sephiroth so hard. So go play something adorable that doesn't require a ton of effort. I love fast aerial characters with a projectile, and he's got stupidly easy combos, and you can just kinda toss something out and it just works. Also a bit of bias from Asriel from Deltarune being a Yoshi main.

Something fast with combos - I love fast characters, but struggle with combos. If I play a combo centric character, I'll probably have an easier time getting in the mindset for doing combos with Sephiroth. Their speed will keep my fingers warmed up so I can press buttons fast enough, making Sephiroth's significantly easier when I go back to him(in theory at least... mainly just those pesky nair combos). Also I need to improvement my movement a lot, and they move a lot so more practice.
I love all their gameplay a ton, and there's a little something that makes me want to specifically play each one of them. Meta Knight is mascot of improvement while I was growing up, has that mentor vibe, and is cool as heck. Sheik also has mentor + cool vibes but also is like the mascot of someone who has good inputs in smash. Joker has cool vibes, and I like the idea of stealing away people's emotional problems so they feel better. Fox is all about the legacy of wanting to main him, since he did introduce me to smash(and thus nintendo) back in 64/Melee, and his gameplay is really fun while being a crowd pleaser, but his character is kinda boring from what I can tell (I haven't played the games in a long time). Inkling has that competitive spirit to them, and I seem to make better decisions when I play Inkling, also a sucker for things that look adorable that contrasts with lore of an apocalypse or similar things. I love Sonic's "It doesn't matter" attitude, and if I were to be a geek and have a theme song from smash it'd be "Open your heart", and while I love speedy characters, no one is faster than Sonic, and he has so many cool flashy moves and combos, and part of me wants to go "I will be a cool sonic, not like the ones that time out". Pichu is the current secondary because of how he is the polar opposite to Sephiroth in range, but I overall like the adorableness of the character, and may have inspired my username subconsciously.



Honorable mention to swordies since they are easy to pick up, but most of them I don't care for but have such fun gameplay. Though Sephiroth is already a swordie, so I feel like I'd be retreading a lot of the same ground if I did another one. Also Ridley who is the most fun long range disjoint character, but while he's very different from Sephiroth, I feel like he overlaps a bit too much with Sephiroth. (also, Pikachu main friend makes me feel helpless with Ridley. He can just react to literally every option!)
Though I'm not sure if I'm just mistaken in this line of thinking though.

I'm getting Guilty Gear Strive sometime soon. However, the character I plan to main in that game is Jack-O because Halloween theme and a mask I really like (reminds my of a protogen's visor face thing, dunno why my brain loves that look so much). I also love the split personality thing with the calm thoughtful side + playful childish side.

Also the Jack-O pose is a nice reminder to do flexibility exercises IRL because it's such a meme, and I like listening to Ordinary Days V2 from Lethal League to relax because of that "Absolute Queen" video. I've been making good progress on getting abs like Sephiroth, but still a ways to go (I still standby that if you main Sephiroth, you gotta have abs like him!). Maybe flexibility like Jack-O will be easier and faster to obtain? Currently I can do the pose, but just barely because it's quite hard. Planning on trying to do Jack-O pose (and maybe other poses) comfortably by the end of the year.

Also, I struggle with inputs and I either get too frustrated/bored when practicing in smash lately, so I figured I needed a break. Figured now is a good time to try a more traditional fighter and Guilty Gear just is nice to look at and has music that I love. Jack-O is supposedly the 2nd hardest character (Zato being hardest supposedly), so Jack-O might help speed up my fingers since she'll have to press a lot of buttons to do minion stuff. I'm sure there's better characters for this, but one thing at a time, this is mainly just a bonus for playing a more traditional fighter.


While I have played quite a few different archetypes, I never got the chance to do a minion based character before since I'm usually looking for someone cooler, or using a character that helps build fundamentals faster. So Jack-O is definitely going to be a bit of a shock to the system, on top of going from a platform fighter, to a traditional fighter. So I've been picking up Rosalina & Luma recently to get used to that style, and they've been surprisingly super fun. Never would've known before because it's supposedly one of the least mained characters in smash. Luma isn't quite as stationary as I originally thought it was. I forgot how hard Rosa & Luma can hit too and was expecting less damage, and more ping pong action.

While messing around with Rosalina, decided to goof around and try to do some squad strike with a few teams imitating Guilty Gear characters for funsies while I was distracted by someone knowing I wouldn't be able to concentrate 100%. Was weird playing Hero (Faust), Incineroar (Potemkin), Min Min (Axl), Byleth (Ky Kiske) for a little bit. Also since it was against CPUs, made me realize that when there isn't a human on the other side to read, I have no idea how to fight my main Sephiroth (who I was pretending to be Ramlethal). Doing this really made me appreciate the roster for both games a bunch.

Can't wait to play more, been needing a break. I just hope I don't get too carried away by learning new characters instead of perfecting Sephiroth =p

Street Fighter - The OG fighting game. Played Vega for a short time a long time ago, but never got good at the game. Maybe now is the time. Also Ryu is fun as heck to play in Smash. There might be another character I might want to play as well in Street Fighter now.

Tekken - Kazuya was also fun as heck to play in Smash and did a couple EWGFs in Tekken 7 when it went on sale when he was announced for smash. Also Tekken has lots of options for all it's characters, and I'm addicted to having lots of options. Jin and Yoshi are other characters that are tempting to play.

Guilty Gear - Visuals great, music great, the character selection looks so good and the gameplay looks so vastly different between characters. Characters of interest: Sol, Ky, Axl, Potemkin, Faust, Zato, and Happy Chaos. However, I'm definitely going to try to main Jack-O first. The meme with the Jack-O pose, along with ordinary days being one of the music tracks I like to chill to, makes me think of Jack-O. So she's usually one of the first characters that come to mind when I think about Guilty Gear. She also seems nice, and I love the mask thing she's got. Also her gameplay looks really fun.

Rivals of Aether - I keep forgetting this game exists. However, smash-like game that keeps the good bits of Melee, and adds in some other things. I'd probably try would be Clairen, Sylvanos, and Elliana.

Pichu - Not just because they are friends with Sephiroth on the banner. I struggle with nair combos with Sephiroth, which I've heard is very important with higher level play for Sephiroth, and I've always gotten stressed when I can't outrange people with my characters (I blame learning smash off of Melee Marth). I assume this could lead to a predictable style, so playing Pichu who gets outranged by literally everyone in the roster could force me to get used to being in dangerous territory more often so I don't freeze up. Also playing Pichu makes me extremely happy consistently unlike anyone else in the roster, so should be easy to stick with them and make me want to play smash more.
Lucario - Similar to Pichu, except more balanced because his aura is so weak in this game because of the nerfs and everyone killing him early. Still doesn't feel like he has much range for the speed he has. High Aura Lucario has always made my heart pump quite fast. Pichu maybe constant stress, but Lucario weaves in and out of stress based on his %, making me more used to sudden changes in situations.
Meta Knight - I was known as THE meta knight player back in smash 4 and early ultimate. The character still is fun, so it's tempting to go back. Especially when thinking about Pikachu vs Meta Knight matches against a Pikachu main friend that used to be worse than me quite a bit, then I taught him how to play better and now it's hard for me to touch him. Problem with going back to meta knight is that he revolves around gimping opponents or doing the up air combos a bit too much that I feel in the far future I could get bored of him competitively. However Meta Knight could force me to get used to the process of mastering harder combos/inputs since he revolves around up air combos so much though.
Sonic - Similar to Pichu, just no where near as emotionally intense which has it's pros and cons. Also I've always liked it when some smash players have a song that they like to play when things get serious in tournaments to pump themselves up or something. Open your heart would be the one I'd pick (only other off the top of my head that rivals that spot is Sephiroth's theme for obvious reasons). Problem with Sonic is that he seems to be more campy once you get to higher levels of play, not letting the opponent play. I'm not exactly going to tournaments, so I'd rather no blueball my friends.
Inkling - Also similar to Pichu, except Inkling feels sorta like an opposite to Sephiroth since the have an emphasis on close range combat, but are able to do long range stuff. Also the ink mechanic could be a good lesson in being safely aggressive.
Wolf - One of the most "normal" moveset in smash. Might be good to get better at the fundamentals with him if I don't want to use Lucario.
Sora - Overall just fun character because he's aerial, has a blade, and has projectiles. However he is slow so I have to make use of his advantages. He is the only floaty that I would consider playing frequently as well. He seems to be a lot more reliant on frame perfect combos and strings than other characters.
Ridley - There is a lot of overlap in gameplay with Ridley and Sephiroth. Large disjoints. Huge but lightweight. Option to counter shields. Projectiles that take a while to charge. Multi-jumps. So if I want to go the route of having a similar playstyle, Ridley would be the go-to pick (Byleth would be the next one after that). I understand having similar characters, but I like the idea of playing characters that counter certain weaknesses.

Shoutouts to characters I'll probably never have the chance to play enough to get good with: Ryu/ken/Kazuya for making me aware of my stick placement. Ike for heavy focus on the opponent due to his simplicity. Snake being tempting because people consider him to be like playing chess. Belmonts for being reverse Sephiroth and trading a good recovery for projectiles that help them get in on the opponent. Joker being a tempting snowball character that looks stylish. R.O.B. being very easy to pick up.

Smash 64 - Only played 4 matches at a friend's house. Didn't know Nintendo well at the time (despite owning a NES). So I only recognized Pikachu, Kirby, Luigi, Mario, and Jigglypuff at the time. However when I saw Link, Samus and Fox, I was like "who are these people and how can I know more!?"making me interested in buying the game. Fox stood out above the rest because he seemed like the most badass character around.
Melee
Initially tried fox but at the time I didn't have the reaction time to handle smash. Then later on when level 9 CPUs were the hardest challenge I could fight, it was just too annoying to deal with their perfectly timed attacks, especially with perfect blocking. So I dropped fox.

Learned Melee with Link, and he was waging war with Marth to become my main in Melee for years until I eventually ended up sticking with Marth since his sword moves were better. Trying to use projectiles on CPUs in Melee was annoying because they reflected with perfect blocks basically every single time. Sometimes I used to pretend to be Sephiroth when I played Marth in Melee. Then I totally forgot about that until Sephiroth's reveal because there weren't even any 3rd parties in Melee so I thought it was impossible. At some point I did try out Mewtwo, but since he was (and still is) my worst character in Melee, I quickly learned out you shouldn't love a character for how strong they are. Later on I'd learn to love Mewtwo for other reasons and his story is cool, but it was never the same as how I viewed him when I was a kid. Pichu gave me an epiphany because I thought guys were never supposed to like anything "cute" at the time, yet there was Pichu who made me extremely happy whenever I played them. Though I shrugged it off because "eh, I only like them as a joke character, no other reason!", though pichu's cuteness would leave an impact on me throughout life. Nowadays I'm fine with cute things, I partially blame pichu in smash for opening my brain up to that. In an alternate timeline I would've tried to main Pichu in Melee. Just about every other character in Melee felt too weird for me to want to play.

Brawl didn't let me have much time to play with characters since I got it really late and Smash 4 got announced soon after I bought it. I wanted 1 character in Smash, and it just so happened to be Meta Knight. I knew I would main Meta Knight, so I just focused on 100%ing the game, and figuring out who my secondary would be before Smash 4 got released so I never got to play Brawl Meta Knight much. However Brawl meta knight feels so good, so it makes me sad to see what happened to him in later games (glide + tornado movement options, and him having a bit more range was so nice). Figured pretty quickly Lucario was going to be the one. However, since Smash 4 was coming out, I wanted to learn the differences between the spacies (with an emphasis on Wolf because cool and didn't think he'd come back) and play Snake because I figured he wouldn't come back as well. This is where I learned how to be good with Fox and fight humans because the AI was actually pretty good in Brawl compared to Melee. Gave me a big boost up against people in Smash 4.

Smash 4
This is when I started trying to be competitive, bought the Wii U specifically for smash. Throughout Smash 4 online was just me absolutely shredding through any player I came across unless they lived and breathed the game, which only happened once every few days.
Early Smash 4 - Learned the game using Link, and would duo main Link and Samus for a good chunk of early Sm4sh. I learned how to use items properly with Link here, and I grew to be addicted to watching the sudden shift in opponent's behavior once I have a fully charged charge shot. To this day, my Samus in Smash 4 and Ultimate has not lost to any of the spacies. I know you want to reflect that charge shot so bad, so I'm just gonna punch you in the face instead!
Testing phase strong main candidates:
Charizard and Cloud felt so perfect, but their simplistic nature and ease of use led me to feeling like I mastered them outside of frame perfect stuff so I got bored and went to look at other characters. Then never got the chance to go back to them.
- Dude, the small miis were so friggin fun to play in Smash 4. Ultimate they are very sluggish by comparison, but at least a bit fun.
Robin - Sword + magic = fun character. Extremely simple character that is easy to pick up.
Mewtwo - I had to try him again, this time I loved him. Got decent enough to hold my own, but didn't spend the time to feel like I "mastered" them.
Duck Hunt - Satisfies that itch of throwing tons of projectiles for various reasons that Link provides me. However he's so insanely hard to play because you have to focus on the can as well as what you normally would with most players. Thought he'd just be another dumb character, but you actually have to make so many decisions constantly with him that he's very tempting to main.
Greninja - Like playing Sheik, just you can't toss things out constantly, so he feels more calculated. Though for a large portion of Smash 4 he just felt too weird for me.
Shulk- I like outranging opponents with huge swords, and I love stance changing things to confuse my opponents. He felt so good.... outside of the fact that he was so insanely slow in sm4sh.
R.O.B.- I had a blast playing him, though due to not being confident in myself at the time, people complaining about fighting rob on top of feeling like you're in disadvantage for years got to me so I dropped him.
Fox - Had to try the character that got me the most interested in smash again... Only to play him for a couple weeks before moving onto the next person.

testing phase weak main candidates that didn't make the cut for one reason or another: (btw Palutena was so bad in Sm4sh, so it feels weird see her be top 5 in Ultimate). I did try the other DLC but they didn't really strike me at the time. Also I didn't try to main them I would play a lot of Ganondorf, Ike, and Captain Falcon. Funnily enough Ganondorf was my secret weapon because I could only short hop with Link and Ganondorf at the time because my fingers weren't fast enough. Making Ganondorf one of the speedier options, then on top of that I just read everyone like a book, and then he just thrives because of that.

Then for a long time I went into a period that I like to call "asylum training". Basically growing up if I wasn't good at a game, I'd just skip sleep to get better at it and it always worked. However Smash and other fighting games require more of you so you can't get away with that. So I spent an ungodly amount of time playing Meta Knight and Lucario, all while barely having any improvement if any at all because I was too tired to improve.
Not realizing that was the problem yet, I decided to do something different to not be so demoralized by lack of improvement. Started doing 100 matches with every character in the game. However, I would soon get dragged away from sm4sh for other non-smash games, but at least I got a few:
I was teaching a Pikachu main how to play better, figured I'd pick up their character to give them a better understanding of how to play them. We had some pretty even dittos but I was slightly better. He has perfect control over his character, mine was sloppy because inputs were never my strong suit. So I just beat him in neutral a million times and did the simpler but reliable combos. Now in Ultimate he's the best player I've ever faced, he goes to tournaments and moves like ESAM does. This time with Pikachu would in turn make my time trying to learn Pichu in Ultimate terrible because they are actually much more different than I originally thought. Pikachu having so much more range to cause whiffing as pichu is the biggest reason.
Zelda - Picked her up because my niece wanted to main her. Thought she'd be simple, but she ended up being much more complex than I thought because she had a stronger emphasis on doing combos in Sm4sh. Now she just has an easy time with everything in Ultimate. Still gotta space perfectly, and do teleport cancels to be truly terrifying though.
Sheik - I could lose all day with Sheik and still have a blast. Good thing too because she's so friggin hard to play since you need those combos, and my fingers are not good enough with inputs for her yet.
Corrin - I love playing swordies and Corrin is really interesting. In Ultimate you can make him do some really wacky movement. In Sm4sh he was absolutely hated by anyone who fights him because of the DLC hate which was weird to me because I'm used to seeing people praise my character selections, and no one ever hated fighting my meta knight and would often say Meta Knight was amazingly fun. Corrin's counter definitely needed a nerf though.
Mario - Picked to help my Pikachu friend with the matchup since it was one of Pikachu's few bad matchups. Mario be super easy, versatile and OP. I can see why Pikachu struggles now.
Lucina - Wanted to play something simple 'cuz sad. Was originally going to go Marth afterward. Had some fun matches, and it made me realize how popular she was because of all the dittos I got.
Kirby - I didn't actually get to finish the 100 matches with him as he was the last one I did the challenge with. Let's just say Kirby has some difficult things to him and it leaves me scratching my head when people recommend him to newbies. Promoting cheesy strats to start, then having the rug pulled out from underneath you when you gotta start doing combos and his crouch and stuff in order to improve, all while him being too slow to deal with a lot of things opponents can do.


Ultimate:
Learning Ultimate - Link and Meta Knight. Used Link to get used to stuff, then brought in Meta Knight and just decimated everyone who would fight him. I would then not use Link for most of the game because I can't decide between the 3 Links to play. Smash 4 Link basically doesn't exist in Ultimate, and he feels like he got split into BOTW Link and Young Link. Former taking more from his long range hard hitting sword play, the later taking his combo game to the extreme. I would off and on play Meta Knight throughout Ultimate.
Testing out Main candidates strong choices:
Ridley - He feels like a weird perfect combination of Marth, Ganondorf, and Meta Knight, with a little bit of his own unique flair. Ended up accidentally using him the most because I would pick him if I didn't specifically schedule to train with a specific character. Still tempted to main him, I miss the Ridley + Pichu duo.
Dark Samus - There are differences with Dark Samus and Samus, but for the skill level I'm at, the difference is negligible. Dark Samus fits the moveset better imo (but with the melee moves Samus has been getting in her games lately, her moveset might actually fit her now). Anyways, the moveset feels simpler and more OP in this game.
Pichu - At the time of writing this, still one of the hardest characters for me to play properly. However they give me such an unrivaled amount of joy that I can't say no to them. Something about being something so tiny, and being afraid of being hit by any stray hit is so fun. Makes every fight feel like you're up against a huge boss as well.
Mewtwo - I finally put in the time to make my Mewtwo be able to kick people's butts with ease, and my gosh I love the schmovement you can pull on people. Still a very strange character though. Not sure why his moveset has such a strong emphasis on using his body though.
- Mostly characters I played in the past at some point that I now put time into so I feel so good now. Yoshi I always wanted to try ever since Melee, but finally gave him a shot because he feels good in Ultimate. However he feels too braindead with how easy everything works for him for me to want to use him normally. Wolf and R.O.B. feel stupidly OP in this game while everyone else feels really good.
Testing out main lesser candidates:

I would then try to go back to the grind by playing Lucario for a long long time because he was the character near the top of my main choices that was the most "fundamental". This was when I finally decided to spend time trying to speed my fingers up so I could consistently short hop because I was tired of constantly full hopping slowing me down so much. However, some friends started missing my Meta Knight during this time because I would forget to bring Meta Knight out sometimes because I was focusing on improving Lucario so much.

At some point I would then play Dark Pit just for something different and accidentally got him into Elite Smash because I got plenty of sleep and just did not care that day at all. So I was able to focus, and not panic about getting into Elite Smash. It was food for thought as I continued to play Lucario. Then Sephiroth got announced, so I decided to play Mii Swordfighter imitating Sephiroth until Sephiroth was released using 1221 (not meta 'cuz no chakram), and accidentally got him into Elite Smash. Then Sephiroth got released and easily got him into Elite Smash after a few matches. With 3 characters in and getting Sephiroth in so easily, I started getting addicted to getting characters into smash. So after Sephiroth hype died down I started off with King K. Rool because I figured he'd be the easiest, and despite not playing him much, I got him in after 2 matches. Then got Inkling into Elite Smash winning every battle, but took more matches because when I wasn't used to Ultimate I played them too early before I was ready to play them. Then would continue to get Bowser into Elite Smash after 3 matches, and DK soon after that all in one day. Not panicing because I kept going "I already got this many in, I feel fine, so if I lose it's okay". I would then try to get many characters into Elite Smash, but only Sora got in because I started panicing about getting characters into Elite Smash. I struggle to play when something is on the line, hence why I think Sephiroth is so good for me, because I never panic with him.
As for the ones who couldn't make it into Elite Smash:
It actually shocks me how often I've been floating around 1 game away from elite smash with Samus and Dark Samus.
Everyone plays the Belmonts wrong, like holy crud. With how everyone talks about them I thought they were supposed to spam projectiles and stay away, but that's far inferior to using a projectile to cover your approach. I find a lot of roys when playing belmonts and I can't resist the belmont and roy matchup. There's also quite a few good roys I run into as well.
Not too hard, just Elite Smash panic too much. Also if I lose one match, I cannot refuse rematching the person, which makes me lose tons of gsp, making it so more matches to get into Elite Smash are required because of the win ratio. Just about all of these are within 1-3 wins away from being in Elite Smash.

Now the few good players that I used to play with play other games. All the players that want to play smash now, all are waaaay under my skill level so I crush them everytime unless I want to do some sort of handicap. Leaving only Elite Smash. So I've been trying new characters out, playing 1 hour a day for most days of the week. At this moment going to try to get Pichu and Lucario into Elite Smash since they force me to panic a bunch, but if I need a break from that I just go try to get characters my friends main so I can get a better informed suggestions for them.

When everyone is in Elite Smash, I go back to Sephiroth again. Which may never happen, but if it did, I wouldn't really have a strong goal other than learn how to do cooler looking stuff.

Little Mac would be the first on the list though because the most regular player "mains" him.
Mr Game & Watch would be next (and I already play an absurd amount of his other main Lucario... What a weird duo main combo)
After that going for Snake because a Pikachu main friend wanted help with the matchup, and I'd never play Pikachu over Pichu (even if Pika is so much easier. Pichu just makes me happier). Also, I've heard many a time that playing Snake is like playing Chess, and Chess is the other game I dedicate time to improve at. Would be nice to see how accurate of a statement it is!

I adapt to whatever gameplay style a character requires, so I have no idea what the "best" playstyle would be for me. So I just go with the characters I love the most. Smash makes me love all the characters, so in the past I would try to main characters that represented a part of me/my life because I love it when people have more personal reasons to main a character.

Then came along Sephiroth, and he's like the embodiment of the emotional feeling I'm trying to chase by trying to get better at smash. When you get so good that most people you run into, you can just stay calm and polite while you kick their butts effortlessly because you know exactly what they are going to do while you move around swiftly with precise strong attacks. I used to spend my time mastering random games all the time, so it was common for this to happen, but I don't have the time I used to anymore, so I had to pick one game and it was Smash. Turns out fighting games are a lot more complex than I originally thought, but I'm still chasing that feeling. Unfortunately I feel like at this rate I will never be satisfied unless I can consistently 3 stock my Pikachu main friend who does go to tournaments.

Here's the thing about Ralsei though, he's the character I've related to the most out of any video game (probably any type of media) because the way he acts around everyone. I like it when people play characters that represent who they are as a person (not everyone does this, as much as the smash community likes to portray literally everyone as a copy of their character/gameplay). So if Ralsei got in, I'd main him no matter what... though uh.. I'll be honest, if he got banned from competitive play, or generates an absurd amount of hate from friends would definitely discourage me quite a bit.


Speculating about what Ralsei would be like in Smash

Pros
Projectile that is easy to hit opponents with
He has special grabs
Has a reflector on Left Splits Kick (why does he have this? At least Min Min reflects in her game, Off the top of my head I don't remember there being any projectiles in Tekken)

Cons
Lacks a reliable projectile to help approach unlike hadouken and power wave, and is very unsafe if missed.
Devil Fist is underwhelming when done at a distance compared to Tatsu or Burning Knuckle, but at least it leads into combos. Up close it's effective, but kinda has the "oops, forgot to take out the trash" kind of vibes.

Things he has in common with other fighting game characters:
Emphasis on inputs and many moves
Many moves have intangibility on them
Multiple shield breaks that are easy to use
Tons of KO moves
Crazy combos
Crazy damage
Heavy
Slow and short range overall. Ken and Terry aren't nearly as bad about this though.
Recovery that is probably going to be rather exploitable if the opponent knows when you're going to use it.

Stuff that will make me biased towards Kazuya because of my time with other characters:
Special grabs - Ganondorf and Ridley made me fall in love with special grabs and suicide grabs. Even if Ridley doesn't have to, and the grab that moves people with him is more like Bowser (which is one of his more fun moves anyways but I don't play him)
Crumple + forced trip attacks - Ridley make me love crumple attacks because of his skewer. Forced tripping is kind of similar.
Laser - I played R.O.B. for a while, his lasers are kind of fun. However I never got to use him enough to be super precise with his lasers and it's not the most exciting thing to get better at, and I don't like annoying my opponents with nearly unavoidable quick attacks (I want to give my tournament going friends a tough time, not make them hate me). So I actually really like this laser because of it's consistency and not being as spammy
Oni Front kick - Just like Ganondorf's f-tilt. The move is just stupidly good on both characters.
Doriyah (Ganondorf, but apparently he was saying it because of Kazuya. I like Kazuya's version more)
Dame da ne (White suit is basically Kiryu, who does sing Dame da ne in Yakuza. This song is basically a meme in chess videos so I hear it all the time..... Song also represents how I feel about Smash a lot too lol)
Tekken is probably the fighting game I'd want to get into if I got into a "normal" fighting game because I like it's mechanics more.
He gets a lot of close ups in 1v1 for some reason. Though usually it's on my favorite moves anyways. His double face kick is one of my favorite moves of his

First the guides then I'll say my thoughts.
Frenzy Light's Super quick video of Bread and Butters for Ryu for quick reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDnUQGvbPVo

The video I watched the most when wanting a quick reminder of what things to go for by watching top level Ryu play
Vendetta vs Sytonix first to 10

Various guides I looked at:
Maketheknife's "Art of fighting" guide
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv6_l9SQlYFgIS9XCXiRJDXBF4WhXn0Fv

RoninX1819's "Art of Ken" guide. Not specifically for Ryu, but I did learn a few things for Ryu that helped me a bunch that the others didn't teach. However since it's more for Ken, there's quite a few things that Ryu can't do that are shown. I'll definitely use these guides if I decide to "upgrade" to Ken.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh5ZByultcOyiX8aa-Cjl_Rhk9YKaGo8P


Vendetta's Ultimate Ryu guide - Who better to learn from than the best Ryu player?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPiP51BOp9E


I gotta say I really loved playing the character. No where near as intimidating as I was expecting them to be. At first I realized how terrible I was at actually knowing where my analog stick was so there was a lot of mis-inputs in the beginning. Still not the greatest after 1 week, but it's decent at least now. However, this should help tremendously with combos on other characters.
Also I wasn't expecting Ryu to be so ground focused, since he actually has some nice aerials unlike Little Mac. So he's probably going to become my go-to character when I start slacking on my ground game a bit. Unless when I go train with Kazuya and Terry later on and they become a better fit for me for that.


Playing Ryu makes me really realize just how wacky a lot of characters in the roster are. Gets a little annoying and makes me just say "Arg, why can't you play the game normally so I can play neutral properly!?" which I thought was funny because I never had that feeling when playing other characters nearly as much as when I play Ryu.

I had no idea that Ryu's hadouken is so incredibly versatile, and I've fallen in love with it. It losing to almost everything is a little annoying though.

I didn't realize just how many anti-air options Ryu has, it's pretty nuts. Up tilts, up airs, Heavy jab and even up smash all do decent jobs at keeping people from jumping in on you. Amuses me to beat out even the safest of down airs using Ryu because the hitboxes are so huge alongside his intangibility.

Focus Strike is really addicting to use. Since I often get my wins through reading the opponent, Focus strike is like a free KO (If I stop flippin down tilting and actually do the Shoryuken input I want). However, I feel like at higher levels, it leaves you open so long that you're likely to die if you miss. I still have to get used to canceling it more though. Since I'm not used to the input of double tapping to get out of it, it's such a mental commitment that it's not worth doing, similar to walking. However I could see it being amazing if I got over that mental block.

Tatsu is such a strange anti-projectile move because I was not expecting there to be intangibility. Led to me KOing Samus and Link players a lot since I can just Tatsu right through their projectiles and hit them while they are in end lag or from them panicing.

I'm still struggling with combos, but at least it made me feel nice to land down air into down air reliably often, especially since it looks so cool. Also down tilts into hadouken also feels nice. I'm sure with time I could do other combos that are nice. Sometimes he feels like he flows so well because sometimes I feel like I'm just escorting my opponent across the stage doing like 60% damage. I'm new to Ryu so it didn't happen every match, but knowing what it feels like is addicting. To be honest, playing Inkling before playing Ryu helped me thirsty for getting combos because I landed a 70% combo (I doubt it was true) on a friend and I was like "what is this power?". Of course I consistently did a lot of other higher damage combos with Inkling as well, that character is nuts. Anyways, Ryu is known for consistently doing this kind of power, I was rather motivated to play Ryu and I was not disappointed. Though I definitely need to get better to really enjoy the benefits of Ryu.

I feel playing Ryu will make me a much better player faster than any other character I've played in Ultimate for any decent amount of time so far. He targets my weakness of being bad at inputs and control over my characters in general, but doesn't overwhelming me with insanely fast speed like Pichu or Sheik. That is also the reason why I picked him over Ken to start off with (also I like projectiles, and Ryu has more hadouken options).

Playing around 2 million GSP is weird. Feels like everyone down here is just trying to learn how to play their characters so they aren't using their full kits, or don't know how to use it well. It's very strange because you can tell when they get upset or didn't like that you won too fast, they'll resort to the easy tricks to win that don't require much time into a character to pull off. Other people it just feels like they are depressed where they slowly start pressing fewer and fewer buttons, until they just stop moving altogether and let you nudge them off a cliff.

I will say, you're definitely not confident in your inputs if you feel overwhelmed by Doctor Mario's speed. That pill is so annoying and it's like someone going up to you and flicking your head. It doesn't hurt, but dang. Anytime I focus on doing tilts and shielding while walking to do bait and punish type stuff, I'm too slow to react to projectiles.
Jigglypuff coming in as my favorite opponent today, and is basically tied with Greninja for my favorite matchup with Ryu at the moment. I just love the strong emphasis on neutral since Ryu can't really combo Jigglypuff due to being so tiny and floaty that she falls out of everything, and the Jigglypuff wasn't wall of paining me off the stage at this point. Jigglypuff was just the right speed for me to get use out of all my tilts so I understand my tilts better. Though I keep getting caught off-guard by the proximity tilts which usually leads to the opponent punishing me for using them since they react faster than I do.

Walking has been very scary for me because I'm used to jumping/running all the time with every character, and I feel like whenever I walk my brain goes into a bit of tunnel vision trying to use walking, so I react a bit slower. Little mac was the original character I used to force me to stay on the ground when I notice I'm not using my grounded options enough on other characters, Ryu might become the new character for that role. Especially since playing him makes me very aware of the position of my left stick.

I thought there was more time to play Ryu before Kazuya comes out, so I'll probably play Ryu for one last day and just prepare everything else outside of smash so I can spend some quality time with Kazuya. I'll probably play Ryu one last time on Thursday so I can say I at least played 1 week of Ryu, and say my thoughts on playing him for a week. Though at this moment, I'm just going to say, he's not as hard as I thought he was going to be. I'm just mostly unconfident as heck, but that can be removed with just a bit more practice. I look forward to comparing Terry, Kazuya, and Ryu/Ken when I get done training with Kazuya and Terry next. I'll probably use one of these characters to improve my ground game. My first impression of Terry is that he's pretty easy, but that was mostly day 1 Terry stuff and more casual focused matches, so I'll have to see what he's like to use him properly.

The limited jump arc that Ryu has is starting to get to me since it really feels like every jump is such a large commitment that everyone can see what you are doing looong before you ever do it. I did kinda just realized I've been jumping too much out of panic because I kept losing so hard though (I blame that on my Meta Knight when I was picking him up. His multi jumps make him nearly untouchable by a lot of characters so I sometimes revert back to that when I get overwhelmed). I just feel like on the ground I try so hard to do the footsies thing that I just kind get punched for standing around.

Maybe it's just because my last few matches were against a ZSS, but his slow speed is starting to bother me a bit too. Whether it people using speed at an unreactable distance, or walling me out with projectiles. I feel like I wouldn't be bothered by this if I knew the combos though. It still feels like everyone is terrified of being close to you at all times and I like that, just I don't have the combos for them to justify the fear yet.
Now down in the 2 million GSP area. He is now my new lowest character in quickplay. The other one was Pichu around 3million gsp because they are also a very combo heavy character I struggle to play. It's very demoralizing playing these characters because it makes me question how much I was being carried by my other characters. Especially when some people at this low of GSP feel like they are just as good as people I meet in Elite Smash.

I feel like I'm constantly struggling with myself mentally trying to play Ryu. One side of me just wants to repeatedly punish the opponent with the quicker strong option since I always start winning right away when I start playing Ryu like that. However that's me using Ryu like a sword character. I just have a lot more experience with sword characters, but that's not what makes Ryu strong. The lack of experience is why I'm trying Ryu out after all. So I know how a Ryu player thinks more and see if there's anything I can slap onto my other characters in terms of mentality.
The other side of me is trying to improve with his combo games so I can get better at playing him. After all his combo game is insane. It's just I do them in the training mode for a while, then I just can't pull it off in combat because the situation never presents itself because of whatever character/playstyle the opponent has. Then when I practice other combos, I kinda forget the previous combos I did, and a new set of character/playstyles make it so the new combos don't show up. So it kinda feels like I'm playing rock paper scissors with the combos I'm learning. I'm sure that overtime the combos will just stick with you so it's not a problem, but until then it's just a bit frustrating because it'd be nice to have at least one reliable combo.

Lastly, trying not to hadouken spam too much because I hate making people mad (I know it's inevitable though cause that's how fighting games are). It's just really really easy to hit on people. I also keep accidentally holding the button too long so I can't get into range to follow up on it.

Gotta say I like saying these little status updates on how the Ryu progress is going. It's a nice vent session, and it helps me take a step back and realize what's happening with my Ryu gameplay. Even if I decide to stop posting it in my status on Smashboards, I will probably start making text documents talking about this stuff in the future for other characters so I don't run in circles when trying to get better at some characters.

I cannot tell you the pain, to almost never mis-input the Shoryuken on the first day, then today my second chance to play Ryu, and I never landed a single Shoryuken on the opponent and struggled to input it at all. Is this the pain that all shoto players must go through while improving with them?

So many focus attacks..... Just leading into down tilt instead of Shoryuken KO. So disheartening. Lost so many games from this because I can't react fast enough to follow up on a down tilt.


Down air is much easier to hit on people than expected though! Feels a bit telegraphed though. I find it funny, the most recurring player I fought today was a Bayonetta who also struggled to do their character's combos. The one time I decided to not go for the down air, they tried to witch time instead of like the 50 other times I hit them with it.

I finally got Ridley in Smash. Gotta say it made me realize just how many people are playing Sephiroth. I'm used to outranging people with Ridley. I can't do that against Sephiroth, so there was a lot of intense mind games going on.

So now I have 8 characters currently in Elite Smash in order from first to last.

Trying to use Elite Smash as a gauge on who I want to main so I can get better since I have to use a character decently to get in Elite Smash. I have a bunch of characters that are just a match or two away from Elite Smash trying to learn them. Belmonts were the most shocking because I'm used to seeing people spam projectiles with them, and playing them made me realize just how frequently they use the whip. At that point it felt like playing Sephiroth, just Belmonts can angle their fair/bair, but not their ftilt, which is reverse from Sephy.

I'll be honest I only played K Rool, Bowser, and DK because they were simple characters (I'm bad at combos) and I was addicted to getting characters into Elite Smash. Fun characters, though Ridley is the only big boy I could play competitively. Though Sephiroth and Ridley overlap a lot, and I'm inclined to pick Sephiroth over Ridley since his tilts and fair feel safer... Also I keep command grabbing and attempting skewer when I probably shouldn't and people should've punished me a lot more instead of running away.

It's hard to decide between Sephiroth and Inkling for my favorite of the 8. Love Sephiroth's emphasis on hard reads while still being able to poke and stuff quite safely. I love Inkling because they have a nice balance between using projectiles, and just getting up in the opponent's face for sweet combos and making them panic since they have Ink on them.

Mii Swordsman I got into Elite Smash kinda as a joke pretending to be Sephiroth (with 1321) after his announcement until Sephiroth got in. So I didn't get to play with the Chakrams, and that's a big deal. Mii Swordsman actually feels pretty good to play.

Dark Pit still feels like the most "honest" character in the roster for me. At this point he kinda feels like a mini Winged Sephiroth. So I'll probably stick with Sephiroth at this point. Sephiroth just outclasses so many characters for me. Never thought a character I obsessed over in my Melee days that I thought was impossible for many reasons would get in.


I plan to get more characters into Elite Smash. Though most of the 3 ones I'm considering to main the most about are significantly harder to play.

Then there's a few more that I care about a lot that I may main but probably aren't so hard. They'll probably up next for trying to get into Elite Smash.

I've been having a massive character crisis lately as per usual and the whole character archetypes thing has been making it much easier to narrow down who I play. I was already thinking of this a little bit because of Sephiroth basically outclassing all normal swordies for me. Though the archetype videos that have been going on lately have been making me try to take it a bit further and select a single character from each archetype, and currently I'm basing it off of this little playstyle chart as a really quick estimation:


So I don't talk about literally every character in the roster, I'll go with a few rules I've made for myself that removes most characters:
With that out of the way I've basically narrowed it down to these characters in each archetype:
(half) Grappler: Ridley. He's the only one near this category that I can play competitively. He also is my favorite of the big-bodies. He can surprisingly play a lot like Marth who I mained in Melee, I realized this once I fought perhaps the best Marth main I've encountered and our neutral was rather similar at times. (funnily enough I ended up winning a lot because I would do intentionally dumb stuff because I knew it would work since he always played optimally, never thinking outside the box). I was shocked to look up how similar their air movement is, and how a lot of their moves fulfill the same purposes, generally Ridley being slightly slower, but more forgiving with tippers due to how huge he is, but Marth is better at microspacing due to best walk speed. Space Pirate Rush > Shield Breaker, especially since I play Sephy too. Anything else is apples to oranges, and I prefer Ridley's apples. Even if I like Marth's orange dair spike, and dolphin slash being more reliable to recover with and can up+B OoS.

Footsies: I've been taking a break from him to improve at the game, but I will go back to Meta Knight. I always feel like a badass playing him, and people often praise and request to fight my Meta Knight more than any other character. He benefits from general tech, but he does not play in a way to naturally make you use general tech like most characters. So playing other characters to improve with naturally until I can get to a level where I can use Meta Knight properly.

Turtle: Chart isn't updated for Pythra + Sephiroth but I assume Sephy is a Turtle due walling people out with his massive range and projectiles. I may not have played FF7, but I've seen enough cutscenes of him. Also in my Melee days I was obsessed with Sephiroth for a while because he looked so "badass". Got him into Elite Smash on day 1, and he's just one of the easier characters for me to just kick butt with. Optimizing him is going to be hard though. Nair combos and Shadow flare give me a lot of trouble.

Hit & Run - I play a particularly aggressive Sonic, but even doing that I was just 1 match away from Elite Smash on my first day playing him, despite not training with him. I like Sonic's "it doesn't matter" attitude, and if I was forced to have a theme from Smash to play to hype me up "Open your heart" would probably be the song. So I can easily stick with him for a main... With that said, I could see myself dropping him if Shadow got in a future Smash game.

Mix-Up - Wolf is just stupidly easy, and I do love his character. Blaster is just a bit too reliable (but I haven't played him since that nerf). However the blaster does help prevent me from getting tilted, especially if someone is trying to tilt me. My biggest concern is that he may teach bad habbits since everything he can do everything and do it better than most characters.

All-around - Lucario needs general tech to be good to even function since he's so underwhelming in this game compared to most characters so he forces me to improve. Love the character because the movie hit me hard so there will always be character loyalty for him. He also doesn't have BS or auto-pilot combos like Mario. I feel like Pits are the only characters more "honest" than Lucario since his Aura isn't insane like previous games. Playing Lucario often improves my game with all other characters due to how difficult he is to play. Takes a specific kind of person to play Lucario.
I love Yoshi, but stuff always keeps happening to prevent me from giving him a good shot. I gotta train with him a little to know whether or not to totally remove him from my potential mains/secondaries. However I can't imagine Yoshi replacing Lucario, especially since I hear complaints about how he nairs constantly, eggs being annoying, and I personally dislike mechanics that require mashing like being in an egg.

Trapper and Rushdown I have significantly more troubles narrowing it down though.
Trapper: Links, R.O.B. - I like playing all the trappers as their gameplay is unique, interesting and I love seeing projectiles everywhere, but the problem is I don't care too much about any of them outside of smash which is a bit of a problem for sticking with them. However when I look at these characters, it makes me want to remove that rule.
BOTW Link I love a lot, however his bomb recovery and zair drop combos are very intimidating and I know I have to learn it eventually, and he's probably the slowest character that I would consider maining (R.O.B. doesn't feel slow because of his projectiles, tilts, fair and uair).
Young Link is like a smaller, faster Smash 4 Link, so he is pretty fun but he almost feels spammy at times because everything he does is so fast that it feels like there's no commitment.
So I feel like Toon Link might be a nice in-between but with a stronger emphasis on projectiles. Only problem is that Toon's dair and nair aren't as good, and they are incredibly useful for the other Links. Also I've probably put more time into Wind Waker than BOTW, Ocarina, and Majora's Mask put together so I might be a bit more biased to play him.
R.O.B. is just an easy character to play, and it feels like you can get creative with him at times, also I feel like probably one of the only players that actually likes R.O.B. outside of smash since I grew up with him just watching me play video games. I feel he'd be fun to optimize stuff with.
Then just about every other trapper has a story, but I don't care about them much. Snake is the most likely though since he seems to take the trapper archetype to the extreme since he has essentially 3 traps on the screen almost all the time. Due to 2 grenades + c4. Izaw's Link vs Calzorz's Snake matches in Brawl is what got me into playing Smash more competitively. Just so much happening, so many mind games, I love it.

Rushdown - Now I've always been intimidated by rushdown characters because they are so combo intensive that I may not see why they are so good because I'm too bad. So it's hard to narrow them down.
Currently I'm playing Pichu because he's like the opposite of Sephiroth, and also seems to cover his bad matchups quite well. Pikachu is easier gameplay-wise at a glance because of his range, and no self-harm. However I get bored with Pikachu, unlike Pichu, so Pichu forces me to pay attention all the time since he's so light, small, and fast. Also Pichu just makes me happy whenever I play him. Pichu is one of my worst characters right now since I'm used to abusive long range and/or projectiles to attack opponents, and I'm not used to crazy combos. So I'm struggling around 3 million gsp, however I feel like he's forcing me to make better decisions and I feel like my other characters have been improving because of my time with Pichu. Also I can easily see Pichu becoming one of my best characters because of how insanely powerful he can get if you know what to do.
Joker feels as if someone reached into my brain, and took out what I'd make for a character, then make a few changes, then add on the arsene mechanic. I looked into Persona 5 afterwards and I love the character even more. So Joker is a strong possibility for a main despite never playing their game (I will if it comes to switch). Only problem I have with him is that he looks like a regular anime guy, but at least his outfit makes up for that a bit, and I'm not sure if stuff happens later to make me dislike him, whether from his game or smash gameplay. I've definitely fought Joker a bazillion times and I don't see anything bad about him as long as people don't gun camp when I'm a slow character.
Inkling is fast, and has projectiles, and I love Splatoon a lot. However I do hear talks about how they are bair spam the character, but I have to test them out more.
Lastly there's Fox. While I don't care about him as a character that much, he is the reason why I got into Smash and Nintendo as a whole because at the time I was like "how in the world is there a character so cool!?". Though Brawl onwards, and actually looking into his games he lost all that "cool" factor. However his gameplay still stands up, and he feels amazing.

I'm surprised I've finally managed to narrow it down this much, but it's still going to be hard.