Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[NotLiquid]

Sheik is good. In a cast where a large majority of characters are good, that's becoming less of a glowing endorsement, but at the end of the day everything is relative. You're either going to view her with the half-full mentality (her mobility is really good, almost all of her attacks have solid frame data and synergize well) or a half-empty mentality (you're going to have to win more neutral exchanges than any other character, and you're going to die too easy).

Personally, maining sheik sounds like maining Squirtle without Ivy or Charizard; probably extremely exhausting.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Nintendo France banned Hero:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

http://sylphe.co/static/reglement_ETC_france.pdf

Source material is in French, but I can say that they haven't mistranslated that.

 

[Nah]

It's a little surprising to hear that Nintendo would ban a character they put into the game from their own tournament series (even if it's just one branch of Nintendo and not the Smash Ultimate dev team or the main HQ), regardless of which side of the Hero ban debate you fall

Or at least, I find it unexpected

 

[Nekoo]

Nintendo France banned Hero:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

http://sylphe.co/static/reglement_ETC_france.pdf

Source material is in French, but I can say that they haven't mistranslated that.

It's a little surprising to hear that Nintendo would ban a character they put into the game from their own tournament series (even if it's just one branch of Nintendo and not the Smash Ultimate dev team or the main HQ), regardless of which side of the Hero ban debate you fall

Or at least, I find it unexpected

It's because the tournament is for the European Nintendo Tournament. It's just because the French qualification to become the France representant happens first. It's because of the Language issue since players will have to play in France, England, Spain, Germany and such...

 

[The_Bookworm]

Nintendo France banned Hero:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

http://sylphe.co/static/reglement_ETC_france.pdf

Source material is in French, but I can say that they haven't mistranslated that.

From what I have heard as well, they also locked Miis into their 1111 moveset as well.

The main reason behind the ban is most likely due to language reasons, as Europe is a multi-language continent. I have seen some people in the twitter thread say that this may also be for copyright issues, as they do ban certain 3rd party stages as well.

However, I can already see some players see this as "proof" that not even Nintendo considers them a competitive character. This is going to cause a major stir in the community, unless people are actually smart enough to know the circumstances behind it (but knowing certain areas of the Smash community, that may not be the case ).

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Well the community used 2 stocks for Smash 4 because of for glory despide being a dumb thing, I can see the community being dumb about this too.

 

[sleepy_Nex]

I wonder why they locked miis though. Most european countrys have free miis since smash4 anyways.

 

[Nekoo]

From what I have heard as well, they also locked Miis into their 1111 moveset as well.

I wonder why they locked miis though. Most european countrys have free miis since smash4 anyways.

Nintendo's tournament always had "1111" Mii's, it's nothing new.
People need to split this Nintendo European Invitational, which is hold to see which European team will be the Europe team for next Invitational at E3
And the Official Nintendo European Circuit, which is what Nintendo recently announced, and the comunity still decide of the rulesets on thoses events just being sponsored to be in the Nintendo European Circuits

Well the community used 2 stocks for Smash 4 because of for glory despide being a dumb thing, I can see the community being dumb about this too.

Ah yes. Remember how like 3/4 of the matches were ending last minutes with JUST 2 stocks with how overly defensive of a game was Smash4?

 

[shinhed-echi]

Nintendo France banned Hero:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

http://sylphe.co/static/reglement_ETC_france.pdf

Source material is in French, but I can say that they haven't mistranslated that.

I hate this timeline.
Hero is probably the most picked on and bullied videogame character ever created.

Since before being in smash. Since he was bit a tiny rumor. The amount of **** this character (and his supporters) have gone through is ridiculous.

I really hope this is a language issue that they are working to fix in-game later on. Because if this becomes the standard, I’ll simply stop caring about Smash. I’m done. I can’t take anymore of this crap.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

To be fair I don’t think people being cautious about good Sheik is is a bad thing with how reactionary people are I think that’s good, long term data is always more accurate. We haven’t seen any Sheik at this level it was nice to see. But how it was newer to us to see top 20 level Sheik I would not doubt it wasn’t something the players at the tournament were very familiar with either.

I don’t think most people thought Sheik was bad or flat out unviable just not worth the stress and effort it takes to use her. Which I don’t think was a wrong take to have or still have she very clearly is not as good as she was in 4 I don’t think anyone denies that. She was a character that was flat out oppression personified but even then took a lot of mental fortitude and composure to use her in long bracket runs and was very susceptible to human error and fatigue. Further exaggerated by the inconsistent nature of S4 when rage was at its worst and one Ryu up tilt/DK grab/insert other crazy rage powered kill confirm evened the game at 60.

She still has a lot of what makes a good character, how good we will see as Void continues using her. It helps that Void is not new to Sheik, she’s not S4 Sheik but she’s sill Sheik.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I hate this timeline.
Hero is probably the most picked on and bullied videogame character ever created.

Since before being in smash. Since he was bit a tiny rumor. The amount of **** this character (and his supporters) have gone through is ridiculous.

I really hope this is a language issue that they are working to fix in-game later on. Because if this becomes the standard, I’ll simply stop caring about Smash. I’m done. I can’t take anymore of this crap.

A potential solution to the language issue is to add some small icons/pictures next to the spell, so it can be more easily understood by everyone globally.
Not sure if that is what the dev team has in mind, because this ban may catch the attention of them to fix this immediately (since the ban is coming from Nintendo themselves), but it is a solution.

There still hope for Hero players in the Smash Community, and if they change Hero to be less jank but more viable/practical, that would be the cherry-on-top.

 

[TennisBall]

I don't want to derail the thread,but after Salem and Armada's set I have something on my mind.
If you win or lose a set, please, be a good sport, shake their hand or give them a fist bump. Please.
Alright, statement made, back to the regular conversation.

 

[shinhed-echi]

A potential solution to the language issue is to add some small icons/pictures next to the spell, so it can be more easily understood by everyone globally.
Not sure if that is what the dev team has in mind, because this ban may catch the attention of them to fix this immediately (since the ban is coming from Nintendo themselves), but it is a solution.

There still hope for Hero players in the Smash Community, and if they change Hero to be less jank but more viable/practical, that would be the cherry-on-top.

Yeah, hopefully implementing icons (preferably, on right behind where he’s facing, but always on screen) will be a thing. I know that might even help Hero players to not be forced to look at the bottom of the screen for the spells, as well as help break the language barrier.

I can only think of using the illustrations from the Japanese manuals to represent these icons. (If you can guess them all, then this is the definite solution).

—-
Sorry if this derailed the thread.
I was very impressed by Void’s Sheik.
I’m not sure why she was dropped, I know she’s lost combos from Smash 4, but she still seems pretty deadly.
Did she lose kill options due to the directional air dodge negating 50/50’s?

 

[meleebrawler]

I hate this timeline.
Hero is probably the most picked on and bullied videogame character ever created.

Since before being in smash. Since he was bit a tiny rumor. The amount of **** this character (and his supporters) have gone through is ridiculous.

I really hope this is a language issue that they are working to fix in-game later on. Because if this becomes the standard, I’ll simply stop caring about competitive Smash. I’m done. I can’t take anymore of this crap.

You know that the people who care and grouse about these kinds of things are ultimately a small minority that the main audience of Smash could care less about, right? I've seen a fair share of posts and whatnot about how Hero is a total riot to play as, and really, isn't that all that matters in a game like Smash with so many characters? You can't please everyone with every character, but if one character can make even one person smile, it shouldn't matter what others think, because they probably have what they want too.

A healthy distance from things you disagree with is great for your well-being (you can't stop me from having fun with Ultimate online), but burying the things you love out of spite is just as bad for you as getting overly passt it.ionate abou

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

Sheik is one of those characters where it’s very easy to miss the forest for the trees. People get so hyper focused on her weaknesses that they fail to see or understand the character in its entirety.

Sheik isn’t the only one. This happens to many characters, I think Lucario is another victim of this mentality.

It takes more than just high kill power to beat Sheik. And if that’s the only reason you can state for why x character beats her, then you probably don’t understand her as well as you think.

Mind explaining why you think this for Lucario?

 

[blackghost]

You know that the people who care and grouse about these kinds of things are ultimately a small minority that the main audience of Smash could care less about, right? I've seen a fair share of posts and whatnot about how Hero is a total riot to play as, and really, isn't that all that matters in a game like Smash with so many characters? You can't please everyone with every character, but if one character can make even one person smile, it shouldn't matter what others think, because they probably have what they want too.

A healthy distance from things you disagree with is great for your well-being (you can't stop me from having fun with Ultimate online), but burying the things you love out of spite is just as bad for you as getting overly passt it.ionate abou

I (and i think others feel this way) LOVE the game. I can't stand large segments of this community. Its the only fighting game community Im in that I feel like NEEDS desperately to mature or it may poison itself long term.

using th hero ban in the Nintendo tournament as a basis to ban hero in our events is faulty logic. now that Nintendo is making rules we agree with we will use it as evidence to prove a point? that's just cherry-picking rules. I've gotten to play games against a hero using another language honestly it wasn't too bad since to play against hero you dont give him room to read it doesnt really change much in the MU. furthermore in scenarios when he got the menu up i always treated it as a worst-case outcome and defended accordingly. Have people actually tried the fight or are they just assuming it would be extremely different?

as of for this shiek discussion, no sh's not a high tier. void is incredible, shiek is not. high tiers compete with other high tiers. Shiek doesnt meet that criteria. she bullies ROB but thats literally every combo character in the game.

And the other smash 4 top tiers like diddy and rosa have other issues going on. Rosa luma is too easy to get rid of and rosa is literally fighting ultimate's engine encouraging offensive play and diddy cannot play the same game hes been running before. i think he needs a new playstyle and he may improve.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

I (and i think others feel this way) LOVE the game. I can't stand large segments of this community. Its the only fighting game community Im in that I feel like NEEDS desperately to mature or it may poison itself long term.

using th hero ban in the Nintendo tournament as a basis to ban hero in our events is faulty logic. now that Nintendo is making rules we agree with we will use it as evidence to prove a point? that's just cherry-picking rules. I've gotten to play games against a hero using another language honestly it wasn't too bad since to play against hero you dont give him room to read it doesnt really change much in the MU. furthermore in scenarios when he got the menu up i always treated it as a worst-case outcome and defended accordingly. Have people actually tried the fight or are they just assuming it would be extremely different?

as of for this shiek discussion, no sh's not a high tier. void is incredible, shiek is not. high tiers compete with other high tiers. Shiek doesnt meet that criteria. she bullies ROB but thats literally every combo character in the game.

And the other smash 4 top tiers like diddy and rosa have other issues going on. Rosa luma is too easy to get rid of and rosa is literally fighting ultimate's engine encouraging offensive play and diddy cannot play the same game hes been running before. i think he needs a new playstyle and he may improve.

Speaking of Sheik and Rosa. I would lime to bring up that Dabuz has been Rosalina as a co-main and has been doing pretty well with her. Getting some top 8 placings and winning sets vs other top-level players wins using her. Yet we dont have people say Rosa was secretly amazing all this time and saying she is as good as she was in Smash 4.

 

[sleepy_Nex]

Rosa does have more notable weaknesses in ultimate and loses more matchups than in smash4. For example richter is considered as one of her worst if not the worst matchup for her

 

[Lacrimosa]

. I've gotten to play games against a hero using another language honestly it wasn't too bad since to play against hero you dont give him room to read it doesnt really change much in the MU.

Yeah, no.
If I play against a Hero then my eyes will always go to the bottom of the screen when he uses downB. It's not like the thing goes away immediately
Even if you speak the other language, you still translate the word in your head and you always have a disadvantage of at least a few frames. This matters a lot at the level Raito plays

Now, if you're European or American you don't usually see Kanji, so it's even harder in those cases. Even if you speak Japanese or learned the spells. You still try to translate them to the term you're most familiar with. And that's not Japanese.

 

[Yikarur]

How are you "translating" those spell names tho. Most of them aren't even real words. You don't "translate", you just link the word to the spell. That's the best approach tbh
I don't even know what "Thwack" is supposed to mean lmao I only know what it does.

 

[Anomika]

Well, some spells in Japanese just don't make any translation in English (and possibly doesn't even have a meaning in Japanese by itself, but it's possible that those are puns of some kind), there are some spells that can be easily recognized (mainly Slashes) because of 斬り (blade / slice), while some can be recognized with ー's (elongated vowel) position in the spell (like with ルーラ for Zoom or ラリホー for Snooze). Other spells however... require the player to symbolize them and maybe even use Anki to refresh their memories

In any case, putting the icons next to the spells is of course the best option because it can be easily linked to the words players have to remember. Heck, Dragon Quest XI has the icons for the spells (though there are duplicates), so they could make the menu feel "like at home" with them

 

[ZephyrZ]

I don't even know what "Thwack" is supposed to mean lmao I only know what it does.

It's an onomatopoeia, like you might see in a comic book or something.

But considering that the move doesn't actually make a thwack sound upon landing, something tells me it's not a direct translation of the original Japanese name.

 

[Lacrimosa]

How are you "translating" those spell names tho. Most of them aren't even real words. You don't "translate", you just link the word to the spell. That's the best approach tbh
I don't even know what "Thwack" is supposed to mean lmao I only know what it does.

It's like vocabulary learning.
Acceleratle - Multibeschleunigung (also that term is a real word in German, much like Accelerat(l)e is a real word in English)

Those weren't real words before, however you play in the language you're most familiar with. It's like coming across a new word you haven't heard before in your own language.
And in Smash you are getting used to the term that's native to your language.



If that weren't the case, then the whole language barrier argument would fall apart.

 

[NotLiquid]

Raito denied that the language barrier was that big of an issue for him because English is a universal language. Hero just generally does very well against zoners, and he got outplayed.

As egocentric as this might sound, or as judgmental as this might sound, I honestly kinda believe the language barrier concerns largely stem from an anglo-centric point of view; everyone knows English (to a point) but not a lot of people recognize other languages and the idiosyncrasies behind them. It's most likely less that non-English speakers have a problem with that particular language, but more that English speakers may project their own inability to conform to other languages - which also compounds to non-English speakers having to conform to other non-English languages, which won't be a problem in a lot of regional situations but would be a major problem in a continental tour that by design has to juggle several different languages.

The solution is obviously to add icons in a future patch but I don't find it a coincidence that Hero is banned in a European circuit despite this not being enforced in any Nintendo sponsored majors like The Big House, which see just as many competitors from all over the world, and where English is more than likely to be the default language on every setup.

 

[Arthur97]

Raito denied that the language barrier was that big of an issue for him because English is a universal language. As egocentric as this might sound, or as judgmental as this might sound, I honestly kinda believe the language barrier concerns largely stem from an anglo-centric point of view; everyone knows English (to a point) but not a lot of people recognize other languages and the idiosyncrasies behind them. It's most likely less that non-English speakers have a problem with that particular language, but more that English speakers may project their own inability to conform to other languages - which also compounds to non-English speakers having to conform to other non-English languages, which won't be a problem in a lot of regional situations but would be a major problem in a continental tour that by design has to juggle several different languages.

The solution is obviously to add icons in a future patch but I don't find it a coincidence that Hero is banned in a European circuit despite this not being enforced in any Nintendo sponsored majors like The Big House, which see just as many competitors from all over the world, and where English is more than likely to be the default language on every setup.

I mean, English is even used in the Japanese version of the game to an extent.

 

[Nate1080]

From what I have heard as well, they also locked Miis into their 1111 moveset as well.

The main reason behind the ban is most likely due to language reasons, as Europe is a multi-language country. I have seen some people in the twitter thread say that this may also be for copyright issues, as they do ban certain 3rd party stages as well.

However, I can already see some players see this as "proof" that not even Nintendo considers them a competitive character. This is going to cause a major stir in the community, unless people are actually smart enough to know the circumstances behind it (but knowing certain areas of the Smash community, that may not be the case ).

Europe isn’t a country. It’s a continent.

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

I (and i think others feel this way) LOVE the game. I can't stand large segments of this community. Its the only fighting game community Im in that I feel like NEEDS desperately to mature or it may poison itself long term.

using th hero ban in the Nintendo tournament as a basis to ban hero in our events is faulty logic. now that Nintendo is making rules we agree with we will use it as evidence to prove a point? that's just cherry-picking rules. I've gotten to play games against a hero using another language honestly it wasn't too bad since to play against hero you dont give him room to read it doesnt really change much in the MU. furthermore in scenarios when he got the menu up i always treated it as a worst-case outcome and defended accordingly. Have people actually tried the fight or are they just assuming it would be extremely different?

as of for this shiek discussion, no sh's not a high tier. void is incredible, shiek is not. high tiers compete with other high tiers. Shiek doesnt meet that criteria. she bullies ROB but thats literally every combo character in the game.

And the other smash 4 top tiers like diddy and rosa have other issues going on. Rosa luma is too easy to get rid of and rosa is literally fighting ultimate's engine encouraging offensive play and diddy cannot play the same game hes been running before. i think he needs a new playstyle and he may improve.

It can't just be Void for Sheik though. Void tried Joker and Post Patch Pichu in his character crisis and it didn't work for a while. It wasn't benefitting him at all and he was getting pretty mediocre results compared to before. He suddenly manages to get through Sheik's learning curve and gets Top 16 and then Top 8.

Sheik seems one of those characters that is very difficult to play (Hence why he wasn't doing so well at first), but when mastered is an actual threat.

 

[Lacrimosa]

It can't just be Void for Sheik though. Void tried Joker and Post Patch Pichu in his character crisis and it didn't work for a while. It wasn't benefitting him at all and he was getting pretty mediocre results compared to before. He suddenly manages to get through Sheik's learning curve and gets Top 16 and then Top 8.

Sheik seems one of those characters that is very difficult to play (Hence why he wasn't doing so well at first), but when mastered is an actual threat.

Pichu does work for him now, though.
I think he's over this psychological "character-crisis" problem.

 

[NairWizard]

As someone who speaks 7 languages, I find the claim that you can't take the time to learn a few menu options before traveling to a different country to play in a high-stakes competition incredulous at best and stupid at worst. The kinds of players who travel internationally typically dedicate their entire lives to the game. They can spend 2-4 hours memorizing a few words and practicing; It takes 10x more time to learn how to avoid Snake's grenade setups.

In Europe, it may make a bit more sense, since going from France to Germany is like, a Friday afternoon bus ride, but at the same time, because it's that easy to travel, you're already more likely to understand a little German if you're French, and certainly more likely to be able to memorize a few words. Case in point, my girlfriend is Parisian and understands German when it's spoken, despite no formal study.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Not sure if anyone had said this beforehand...
Can't you just memorize the moves based on the MP cost at the bottom right...

All the Down-B commands have different required amounts, minus a few pairs...

-Kaclang & Metal Slash: 6 MP (Though they'll rarely be used)
-Zoom & Sizz: 8 MP
-Bounce & Psyche Up: 14 MP
-Oomph & Snooze: 16 MP


It's not a 100% fool-proof, but it's a heck of a lot better lead then studying multiple names in different languages.

 

[Gérard Majax]

It's not about learning how to read an other language (which is still kinda stupid tbh, that's not a skill which should ever be needed in fighting games but wtv), it's about how fast you can be. You'll always read faster in your own language than in one where you just learned 16 words, and I wouldn't be surprised if even someone fluent in a foreign language was still slower than native speakers to read it. Might be just a few frame differences, but you are still at a disadvantage.

One solution would be to allow the hero's opponent to choose the language (and for dittos idk, they both pick a language they don't speak?), but it's still leaves a player at a disadvantage for stupid (read: wth nintendo how did you not think about this) reasons.

 

[Space thing]

Not sure if anyone had said this beforehand...
Can't you just memorize the moves based on the MP cost at the bottom right...

All the Down-B commands have different required amounts, minus a few pairs...

-Kaclang & Metal Slash: 6 MP (Though they'll rarely be used)
-Zoom & Sizz: 8 MP
-Bounce & Psyche Up: 14 MP
-Oomph & Snooze: 16 MP


It's not a 100% fool-proof, but it's a heck of a lot better lead then studying multiple names in different languages.

The problem with this is that you can only view 1 move's cost at a time, meaning you don't get to see the whole menu unless you scroll through it. There's also rare things like when you only have the exact amount of MP for a move, Magic Burst and that move could be indistinguishable.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

There is also a difference between speaking in a causal conversation and having a moment to translate and respond and trying to quickly match the letters or characters of this language you’ve only memorized the phrases for not actually learned the word, quickly translate while in the middle of a high stakes and fast paced match and hope you didn’t mistaken snooze for psych up and instead of doing the correct thing in rushing Hero down so he can’t get free buffs your asleep and losing a stock at 40 from crit Fsmash.

This also applies to the Hero player as well. If we can remove a legitimate barrier to entry I think we should I like the idea of adding those pictures of the moves next to them, images are universal. We shouldn’t make things harder when they don’t need to be.

 

[Lacrimosa]

As someone who speaks 7 languages, I find the claim that you can't take the time to learn a few menu options before traveling to a different country to play in a high-stakes competition incredulous at best and stupid at worst. The kinds of players who travel internationally typically dedicate their entire lives to the game. They can spend 2-4 hours memorizing a few words and practicing; It takes 10x more time to learn how to avoid Snake's grenade setups.

In Europe, it may make a bit more sense, since going from France to Germany is like, a Friday afternoon bus ride, but at the same time, because it's that easy to travel, you're already more likely to understand a little German if you're French, and certainly more likely to be able to memorize a few words. Case in point, my girlfriend is Parisian and understands German when it's spoken, despite no formal study.

As someone who speaks 4 languages (what kind of an argument is that even?), I can tell you that some people still need some time to "translate" the foreign term. Not everyone is a genius that can switch between languages with no issues. Even if you're familiar with the other term. It's still a foreign term, especially when it's an actual word. This will take away some frames to react. Even a five frame disadvantage is a disadvantage.

Also, you're in a match, maybe your tournament life depends on a battle against a Hero and the spelllist isn't in in your native language. You are pumped with adrenaline and that will have a negative effect.



If there were a symbol next to the spell then this problem wouldn't even exist. Symbols are learned very fast because they aren't affected by a language barrier.

 

[Y2Kay]

Mind explaining why you think this for Lucario?

A lot of people assume that since their main has a good kill confirm or something along those lines that they beat Lucario, but (for reasons that should be obvious) it is much more complicated than that.

For example, many heavy character mains such as Ganon or K Rool mains think that have highly advantageous matchups against Lucario just by the virtue of killing early, but in my experience, as long as you can manage to survive till 80 -100 pct, Lucario's zoning and ledgetrapping becomes way too good for that to be the case imo.

 

[Idon]

If you honestly think that the fraction of a second that Hero players bring up their menu is enough time for a non-native speaker to instantly recognize 4 gibberish terms and their meanings in a tense tournament setting and then reacting accordingly, then you're probably a language savant and would do better working as a live translator.

 

[NairWizard]

If there were a symbol next to the spell then this problem wouldn't even exist. Symbols are learned very fast because they aren't affected by a language barrier.

No one is saying that there shouldn't be icons. Icons would make it easier to recognize the spells even for native speakers, just because an icon is a compact, colorful, semantically meaningful image instead of a long plain-text string. It's just better in every way. But we aren't Nintendo and brainstorming solutions here in this thread or our community won't do anything.

The real question for us is not "should there be symbols or not," but "what do we do if they never introduce any symbols," and I strongly believe that "ban Hero because it's not fair to players to have to figure out the menu" is a silly, groundless solution.

As someone who speaks 4 languages (what kind of an argument is that even?)

It's context. It isn't anything special to speak multiple languages and certainly doesn't take a "genius"--it's just a matter of practice and exposure. I know these languages just because I happened to spend the time learning them, and being exposed to people speaking them. I don't have any (much?) natural affinity for language; it's all time investment, and people who are dedicated to playing the game internationally can make that investment.

Note also that we aren't talking about learning a different language, we're talking about learning a handful of static words, with players frequently knowing months in advance that they're going to be traveling. Unlike something like top-player physical reflexes, which are hard-limited by your genetics, the ability to associate words and symbols with animations is common to nearly everyone.

It's really no different at all to picking up on subtle animation startup cues, which is something that fighting game players do all the time.

There is also a difference between speaking in a causal conversation and having a moment to translate

If you honestly think that the fraction of a second that Hero players bring up their menu is enough time for a non-native speaker to instantly recognize 4 gibberish terms and their meanings

Casual conversation is even harder because you also have to manage context and words that you definitely don't know.

Half of the spells aren't even words in English. They may as well be symbols.

Like, for the longest time before I got to play Hero, I believed that Thwack actually matched with the Hatchet Man animation. There is no semantic relationship between word and meaning here. Why is Thwack the name of a fast floating black orb that can insta-death me? No idea.

 

[Slime Master]

Not really relevant to the language barrier discussion but since it's been brought up a few times: Thwack is the logical extension of the spell it's an upgrade of, whack, which is both an onomatopoeia (thereby matching the general spell naming convention) and mobster slang for "kill" (which is what it does). Obviously this requires a pretty solid understanding of English to pick up on, not to mention knowing the DQ spell naming convention. IDK if other languages use spell names quite as sharp as that (Japanese names seem to be mostly gibberish), but if they do just knowing the language probably won't help you; memorizing spell names is definitely the way to go.

 

[Thinkaman]

The idea that this community cares about or adheres to the rulesets put forth by Nintendo--much less Nintendo of France, a secondary branch of their third-largest region--is beyond absurd.

This topic is dumb and belongs in a thread dumber than this one.

Here's some fresh OrionStats instead.

 

[$.A.F.]

The idea that this community cares about or adheres to the rulesets put forth by Nintendo--much less Nintendo of France, a secondary branch of their third-largest region--is beyond absurd.

This topic is dumb and belongs in a thread dumber than this one.
Here's some fresh OrionStats instead.

Yeah what’s going on with Snake there? That’s an error right?
EDIT: also speaking of things coming out, M2K put out another tier list with some controversial but not unusual placements. https://youtu.be/lr2DdlvY5GM