Any advice for a complete noob?

[fuuma]

I'm completely new to the series weighing in with 1 hour of experience in the series combined. I'm still waiting for my preorder with some incredible snailmail. But is there anything I can do to prepare for the game and what should I be focusing on when I get the game. I will probably spend some time on the different modes and unlocking stuff early on but I want to have the right mindset from the start to be able to become a better player. I never want to start out as a buttonmasher because I want to have control over what my character will do next. Are there any particular characters to avoid or mistakes that noobs usually make that I should try to avoid? The characters that I have a little earmark on that I want to play is Megaman, Ness, Little Mac, Dr.Mario, Duck Hunt Dog and Falco. I have looked at the tier list and Ness seems to be the only competetive character but that doesn't really concern me as I will more than likely never be at a top level. Hopefully someone have a few words of advice for my future journey.

 

[LF2K]

Mario is the ultimate learning tool starting out. He's incredibly easy to pick up and play. Just play as him for a while until you get a good feel of the game. Then when you feel comfortable, try branching out to learn other characters. I've played Smash since the beginning, and it's pretty much a tradition for me to play as Mario first.

Oh, and it's probably best to avoid playing online right out the gate. Playing offline is a good way to sharpen your skills. Getting practice online would be a death wish.

 

[TheGoldMan]

Glad to see someone on Smashboards that's new to Smash in general. Also tier lists are just barely forming for this game so don't rely on them too much atm.

 

[Raijinken]

Play other skill-needing games, ideally games that take something beyond reflexes. I recommend trying to pre-develop a mindset to analyze your own play. Always try to think "Why did I do what I did" and "Why did my opponent do what they did" and "Why did that happen?"

If you can analyze your own play, you're already light years ahead of other starting players.

Aside from that, I would suggest playing however makes it fun. Bear in mind that it takes a somewhat different set of skills to be good at single player modes than it does to be good against human opponents. Both of them depend on a degree of control and reaction, it's just the strategy that differs. You can't mindgame a CPU, and against a good human, you can't predict with 100% accuracy what they're going to do.

Just bear all of that in mind and start out slow. Master the basics before moving to the advanced. Pick a small handful of characters you want to learn the game with, or play a few rounds as everyone and figure out what's your favorite. Or, do what I do, and just pick your favorite character from other games and use them.

And most of all, have fun!

 

[fuuma]

Thank you very much for all the advice. I enjoy watching Smash and SF4 tournaments but I have never really been into playing them, so I know some fighting game basics atleast. How difficult is matering combos in smash compared to something like SF4? Cause mastering fadc combos takes quite some time in my experience(not that I mastered it but from what I tried). I will for sure be practicing offline and become comfortable with a character before I go online. If I go straight online I won't be able to get back on the stage without playing kirby or pikachu. ^^

 

[fuuma]

I finally got the game yesterday and played around 20-25 matches. The character I enjoy the most so far is Falco with Mario in second place, but I think Mario is a pretty boring choice so im sticking with Falco for a while. I'm starting to do decent against level 3 ai winning almost every match so I probably have to up the difficulty soon. I am however having problems getting back on the stage so but there is a huge lack of character guides on youtube so i'm having trouble with that. Also I rarely get some nice combos where I tripple smash them out but I love the feeling of just suddenly pulling of a sweet combo where my timing just clicks. Looking forward to getting home from work to practice some more. Oh and I also got obliterated by that freaking hand like 5 times before I cheesed it downed. ^^

 

[Patongi]

As a another (almost) complete newcomer to Smash I'm glad hear you're improving!
Keep testing all the characters out to see what you like, just keep playing what you're good with and enjoy playing with, even when eventually a decent tier list comes out.

Fight the CPU and keep increasing their level, but if you get a chance train with someone online or if you have friends who play go for it, CPU ai can be a bit clunky of course.

Check the character section of these forums (Falco for example) for some helpful threads and don't be afraid to ask questions!

 

[Mrkaoz]

Don't be too greedy! I see a lot of people online trying to beat you in the air while being off the stage. Most of the times I can dodge it and they lose. Never be that greedy!

 

[Brendan Stepladder]

Glad to see someone on Smashboards that's new to Smash in general. Also tier lists are just barely forming for this game so don't rely on them too much atm.

Jumping off of this, just ignore tiers in general. They are designed with high-level tourney play in mind, so that style of play probably won't apply for you (no offense). That being said, the people at the very bottom of tier lists are usually there for a reason. But if you have fun with someone, who cares?