Critique Super Smash Bros.

[Linkmain-maybe]

The fact that despite every defensive option having a staleness bar, they are still unreasonably lagless. This is most evident in spot dodging, where it can be canceled into attack.

get rid of the 8 frames of input delay offline

In that sentence, you made thousands of wifi warriors cringe in agony.

 

[asia_catdog_blue]

Most of those complaining about my remark and prioritizing more Third Party content over 1st & 2nd doesn't deserve to be called Nintendo Fans IMO.

Honestly, cleaning the slate and redoing the roster would not only bring back the "Nintendo All-Star(and then some)" theme I kinda miss so much, but can also be used as an opportunity to "fix" and "tune-up" the veteran fighters like Samus Aran and Wario and give tribute to obscure Nintendo Leads like Takamaru, Lip, Starfy, & others.

And to sound more "di**ish," I make it only ONE Fighter per series. Both, to give every IP a fair chance and representation, and to cut out the unnecessary fat, thanks to Fire Emblem.

Game Companies - Nintendo - GameFAQs

Game Companies - Nintendo on GameFAQs

gamefaqs.gamespot.com

Here's a List of all games published/backed up by Nintendo throughout history, thanks to GameFAQS.

 

[Tankman from Newgrounds]

Ultimate should have bring Trophies back instead of putting Collectible Artwork Pieces of paper with Ghost Effect. Although, Spirits are unique, but Trophies are really memorable, even with cool Lore hidden in Entries.

Also, don't forget that Sakurai didn't made too much new stages like Gyromite or etc. That really dissapointed me. Instead, he focused on older Stages to bring them back for no reason.

Third Critizing is not adding Retro rep in Smash Ultimate, isn't that bad? Yes, it's really bad. Sakurai forgot about Mach Rider to exist in Base Roster, but he throwed him along with ExciteBiker into Spirit Trash Bin and he would never be in Smash ever again.
Gosh Sakurai, could you take it more seriously about adding Retros to Smash like Duck Hunt in SSB4?!

Another Criticism is about Characters that should join smash. Why did Sakurai left Waluigi as Assist! He should be Playable, but no! He dumped him in Assist Trophy Dumpster along with other Assists that were meant to join the Battle. Now, time to speak for Piranha Plant, which is Unexpected pick for the game, but I could better want Chorus Kids as Joke Pick rather than this Plant.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Sakurai needs to either make his mind up between turning Smash into Mario Party or making a proper competitive platform fighter, or go about making a multi-purpose game differently - Ultimate is a mess of different game design philosophies that don't mesh in an attempt to "close the gap between casual and competitive", which defeats the very purpose of competitive play. Slowing down gameplay to appeal to casuals is an extremely questionable choice - surely the Mario Kart audience would want a faster, more frantic game? As a competitive game Ultimate is leagues behind almost every other platform fighter on the market, and as a casual game it's way too fundamentally complex for little bro to pick up on a dime like you would the average Mario multiplayer or Mii game. Hell, even a lot of the aforementioned more competitive platform fighters have more easily accessible control schemes for casuals - it's standard practice in games like Rivals and Nickelodeon at this point to have light and strong attacks with dedicated buttons, which is way easier to understand than flinging a C-stick for a Smash attack or lightly pressing the left stick while doing an attack to do a tilt

Calling Smash Ultimate a "celebration of gaming history" is kind of insulting when its roster primarily consists of Nintendo characters - not just that, but I don't even think that's what Smash fans want - if even a small portion of your fandom is upset because Sephiroth was chosen as the Square Enix rep over Geno of all characters, or is cheering on Banjo & Kazooie in an imaginary war against the protagonist of the best selling game ever made, or say "literally who?" in the face of Terry Bogard (which even I am guilty of) you should seriously reconsider the idea of a big gaming mega-crossover. This also applies if you want to (or are being forced to) add characters from recent Nintendo games to promote unproven characters - because then it comes off like you're revising history before it happens, ensuring Pyra or Min Min are recognised as gaming legends though they'll likely be forgotten to the sands of time that took Muddy Mole and Jill Dozer outside of Smash's context.

A lack of consideration for gaming tastes is a huge issue too when it comes to Smash, I think the scrimblo bimblo discourse points out, unintentionally or otherwise, that there really isn't a major overlap between Persona fans and Banjo-Kazooie fans; or Xenoblade 2 fans and Tekken fans, and that should've been on Sakurai's mind when planning the content of DLC and how it's distributed. Tonally segregated passes would've been the best option IMO - buy the "toon pass" for Waluigi and Crash; buy the "gritty pass" for CJ and Doomguy; buy the "fantasy pass" for Crono and Lloyd - but just having a better balance of tones in the existing fighters passes would've been enough. (Though the very nature of mystery season passes would still be a problem, and of course not every Doom fan would be a GTA fan and so on)

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Sakurai needs to either make his mind up between turning Smash into Mario Party or making a proper competitive platform fighter, or go about making a multi-purpose game differently - Ultimate is a mess of different game design philosophies that don't mesh in an attempt to "close the gap between casual and competitive", which defeats the very purpose of competitive play. Slowing down gameplay to appeal to casuals is an extremely questionable choice - surely the Mario Kart audience would want a faster, more frantic game? As a competitive game Ultimate is leagues behind almost every other platform fighter on the market, and as a casual game it's way too fundamentally complex for little bro to pick up on a dime like you would the average Mario multiplayer or Mii game. Hell, even a lot of the aforementioned more competitive platform fighters have more easily accessible control schemes for casuals - it's standard practice in games like Rivals and Nickelodeon at this point to have light and strong attacks with dedicated buttons, which is way easier to understand than flinging a C-stick for a Smash attack or lightly pressing the left stick while doing an attack to do a tilt

Calling Smash Ultimate a "celebration of gaming history" is kind of insulting when its roster primarily consists of Nintendo characters - not just that, but I don't even think that's what Smash fans want - if even a small portion of your fandom is upset because Sephiroth was chosen as the Square Enix rep over Geno of all characters, or is cheering on Banjo & Kazooie in an imaginary war against the protagonist of the best selling game ever made, or say "literally who?" in the face of Terry Bogard (which even I am guilty of) you should seriously reconsider the idea of a big gaming mega-crossover. This also applies if you want to (or are being forced to) add characters from recent Nintendo games to promote unproven characters - because then it comes off like you're revising history before it happens, ensuring Pyra or Min Min are recognised as gaming legends though they'll likely be forgotten to the sands of time that took Muddy Mole and Jill Dozer outside of Smash's context.

A lack of consideration for gaming tastes is a huge issue too when it comes to Smash, I think the scrimblo bimblo discourse points out, unintentionally or otherwise, that there really isn't a major overlap between Persona fans and Banjo-Kazooie fans; or Xenoblade 2 fans and Tekken fans, and that should've been on Sakurai's mind when planning the content of DLC and how it's distributed. Tonally segregated passes would've been the best option IMO - buy the "toon pass" for Waluigi and Crash; buy the "gritty pass" for CJ and Doomguy; buy the "fantasy pass" for Crono and Lloyd - but just having a better balance of tones in the existing fighters passes would've been enough. (Though the very nature of mystery season passes would still be a problem, and of course not every Doom fan would be a GTA fan and so on)

It feels like the game is trying to balance 2 fanbases with half of the characters being casual then half of them requiring months of practice to get good at. But when you are playing the party game character against the hyper competitive character, balancing issues arise in both casual and competitive. Easy characters are headaches to fight and hard characters are headaches to play. Casuals won’t touch a third of the roster because they require tight execution and resource management, and competetive players look down on casual characters because they are easy/“lame”. Then there is extreme elitism in the games fanbases. The competitive players often go into quick-play/elite smash and make fun of people who want to play casual rulesets and often bully them for no reason other than “I don’t like how you play the game”.

Overall, its like Smash is telling you its a party game for all ages when in truth its a mix-match of competitive aspects and casual parts that don’t mesh together which creates unbalanced situations and unfun scenarios for both casual and competitive scenes.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Calling Smash Ultimate a "celebration of gaming history" is kind of insulting when its roster primarily consists of Nintendo characters - not just that, but I don't even think that's what Smash fans want - if even a small portion of your fandom is upset because Sephiroth was chosen as the Square Enix rep over Geno of all characters, or is cheering on Banjo & Kazooie in an imaginary war against the protagonist of the best selling game ever made, or say "literally who?" in the face of Terry Bogard (which even I am guilty of) you should seriously reconsider the idea of a big gaming mega-crossover. This also applies if you want to (or are being forced to) add characters from recent Nintendo games to promote unproven characters - because then it comes off like you're revising history before it happens, ensuring Pyra or Min Min are recognised as gaming legends though they'll likely be forgotten to the sands of time that took Muddy Mole and Jill Dozer outside of Smash's context.

See, on one hand, I think people wanting obscure characters like Banjo and Geno over just what's "hot" currently is super cool, but also Smash is objectively not a "celebration of gaming" and people need to stop saying it is.

 

[WaxPython]

I think the netcode is abhorrent and warrants a deluxe edition on the next piece of hardware at launch

 

[Guynamednelson]

but also Smash is objectively not a "celebration of gaming" and people need to stop saying it is.

Really, it's just overhyped marketing fluff. The only "proof" that it's a celebration of gaming is all the third-party additions made during Smash's DLC cycles, but even then it's still missing a whole lot when it comes to the history of gaming, those third-party additions include a character mainly relevant to Nintendo circles, and first-party content added during the base game makes sure it's too lopsided in Nintendo's favor to be a true celebration of gaming.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

Ryu, Ken, Terry, and Kazuya shouldn’t be in Smash and I feel that they hurt the game as additions. They invalidate so many options all the time. Shield doesn’t exist vs Ken ditto with Ryu, and Kazuya literally has a move that forces you out of shield. Terry just breaks your shield as well. Having such a critical part of the game rendered useless is just bad game design IMO.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Sakurai needs to either make his mind up between turning Smash into Mario Party or making a proper competitive platform fighter, or go about making a multi-purpose game differently - Ultimate is a mess of different game design philosophies that don't mesh in an attempt to "close the gap between casual and competitive", which defeats the very purpose of competitive play. Slowing down gameplay to appeal to casuals is an extremely questionable choice - surely the Mario Kart audience would want a faster, more frantic game? As a competitive game Ultimate is leagues behind almost every other platform fighter on the market, and as a casual game it's way too fundamentally complex for little bro to pick up on a dime like you would the average Mario multiplayer or Mii game. Hell, even a lot of the aforementioned more competitive platform fighters have more easily accessible control schemes for casuals - it's standard practice in games like Rivals and Nickelodeon at this point to have light and strong attacks with dedicated buttons, which is way easier to understand than flinging a C-stick for a Smash attack or lightly pressing the left stick while doing an attack to do a tilt

If you really think about it, Smash's identity crisis on how competitive it wants to be really started with Brawl. This is supposedly Sakurai's big middle finger to competitive Smashers, and yet:

• Brawl is the first game where Battlefield and Final Destination are unlocked from the start. Something that mainly benefits the competitive scene.
• They focused mostly on fixing bugs/exploits from Melee and not on fixing any new bugs/exploits that might pop up, resulting in Brawl having more unintended tech than Melee, and twice as many bugs. Ironically, it's his supposed apology letters to the competitive scene that really focus on removing exploits competitive players might be interested in.
• Sakurai knew what he was doing was detrimental to the platforming aspect of Smash, as Subspace changes fighters' attributes for the sake of, you guessed it, platforming.
• The sheer fact that Tournament Mode is still a thing in the game. No tourney worth its salt uses it, but if you put a tournament mode in your game, you're saying tournaments for it are acceptable.

I think it would've been best for Sakurai to completely ignore the fact that Smash has a competitive scene at all. With no time spent attempting to help or harm it, even casuals can benefit from that, as those resources could be spent on...anything else. A new stage? A new item? A new mode? A new way to make your Special Smashes special? Maybe not a new fighter...

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

I've been over this before, but like... why does Smash feel the need to take itself so seriously? The theme songs, the story modes, the logos, the original stages, the menus - they all just refuse to embrace the inherent silliness of Smash and it's bland at best; but at worst outright funnier than if Smash continued to have the Smash 64 slapstick aesthetic. Look at this logo:

Who gives their damn multiplayer party fighting game that's name is a derivative of "Super Mario Bros." a serif logo? Does this look like the logo of a game where Bowser Jr. can fight Solid Snake in Green Hill Zone? Getting back to the "Smash director can't make up their mind" point, if the Smash director wants their game to be a wacky party game, why do they continually and consistently choose the least fitting aesthetics for such a game? Real mixed messages there. Hell, it doesn't even fit a competitive fighter that well - even tradfighters have some semblence of fun, colour, and personality to them. In this EVO line up, SSBU sticks out like a sore thumb - not for its genre or reputation, but because of how bland its logo is, even Soul Calibur and Samurai Shodown, which have greatly simplified their logos, still have texture and theming.

Hell, Smash can't even do its own aesthetic right, SSBU's menus are devoid of any personality - including the serious melodramatic gladiator personality Smash wants to take!

 

[UserKev]

Come to think of it, I always wanted a Smash where the characters looked less serious.

I would love it if we had a Smash aesthetic where the characters look:

For example. I would love if Smash just started using more light hearted and simpler aesthetics that reflected their canon games. Would make things more interesting. I'm hoping this is the route a Smash reboot would take. Always wanted to play as legit Super Mario Bros. Bowser in Smash.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Come to think of it, I always wanted a Smash where the characters looked less serious.

I would love it if we had a Smash aesthetic where the characters look:

View attachment 343635

For example. I would love if Smash just started using more light hearted and simpler aesthetics that reflected their canon games. Would make things more interesting. I'm hoping this is the route a Smash reboot would take. Always wanted to play as legit Super Mario Bros. Bowser in Smash.

To me the problem with Smash character representation isn't that characters don't do the things from their games - I'm a "characters are functions" guy, if a barrel toss doesn't work for DK's playstyle, don't give him a barrel toss - rather the problem is that they don't act like they do in their games. You don't have to change DK or Bowser's moveset to make them feel like DK or Bowser, you just need to make them act and sound like DK and Bowser.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Yet again going more in depth into what I posted on the last page:

One of, if not, my biggest disappointments with SSBU is the lack of a truly obscure newcomer - even before my "holy crap this game is poorly designed" awakening thanks to poor DLC and a certain much better game, I was kinda pissed every newcomer was either a popular fan pick; from a recent game; or from a significant franchise. As a kid, the thing that drew me to Smash wasn't seeing Mario; Sonic; and Pikachu in the same place, it was learning about bizarre and obscure characters from past generations - that was 100% of Smash's appeal to me, the surprising and ludicrously obscure characters nobody has given a passing thought to since the early 90s at most. I was huge into Pokémon and WarioWare as a kid but my P1 token rarely grazed Wario and Pikachu's CSS icons in Brawl because Mr. Game & Watch was who I was there for - now it feels like Smash is shying away from those "literal who?" picks in favour of being an MCU-esque "wow! they actually did it!" pipe dream people pleaser with the only hope for retros being popularity like with K. Rool, which - as glad as I am K. Rool made the cut - takes away from the whole appeal of retros (and by proxy the whole appeal of Smash to me) in the first place. It's so weird, and sad, in hindsight to think that there was once a time I thought Mole Mania appearing as anything more than a .PNG or a footnote on a bundled Wikipedia list was a remote possibility, or that Excitebiker was an obvious, inevitable lock for a playable spot. My pipe dream Smash character who actually got in was Duck Hunt, and I probably got the pooch in the knick of time, as it seems that he most certainly got in at his last chance - and he isn't even obscure! In fact, the "wacky obscure character" of SSBU was a mainstay of the best selling game franchise of all time who the Smash director justified specifically because people know who he is! I mean, I guess that obscure characters don't sell game copies and especially not DLC, but Smash gets more popular with every passing entry and if anything being too big to fail should be the justification for including obscure characters, not for becoming more and more of a people pleaser.

Anyway, I'll be back to my game with a character who only appeared in 6 episodes out of a 52 episode series, most of which were in brief parody adverts.

 

[Guynamednelson]

MCU-esque "wow! they actually did it!" pipe dream

The irony of this is that MCU was still able to become a multibillion dollar franchise while mainly focusing on superheroes who were B-D-listers pre-MCU. Spidey may be a huge part of it NOW, but until then they had to dive deeper into Marvel's catalog, and it worked out anyway.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Yet again going more in depth into what I posted on the last page:

One of, if not, my biggest disappointments with SSBU is the lack of a truly obscure newcomer - even before my "holy crap this game is poorly designed" awakening thanks to poor DLC and a certain much better game, I was kinda pissed every newcomer was either a popular fan pick; from a recent game; or from a significant franchise. As a kid, the thing that drew me to Smash wasn't seeing Mario; Sonic; and Pikachu in the same place, it was learning about bizarre and obscure characters from past generations - that was 100% of Smash's appeal to me, the surprising and ludicrously obscure characters nobody has given a passing thought to since the early 90s at most. I was huge into Pokémon and WarioWare as a kid but my P1 token rarely grazed Wario and Pikachu's CSS icons in Brawl because Mr. Game & Watch was who I was there for - now it feels like Smash is shying away from those "literal who?" picks in favour of being an MCU-esque "wow! they actually did it!" pipe dream people pleaser with the only hope for retros being popularity like with K. Rool, which - as glad as I am K. Rool made the cut - takes away from the whole appeal of retros (and by proxy the whole appeal of Smash to me) in the first place. It's so weird, and sad, in hindsight to think that there was once a time I thought Mole Mania appearing as anything more than a .PNG or a footnote on a bundled Wikipedia list was a remote possibility, or that Excitebiker was an obvious, inevitable lock for a playable spot. My pipe dream Smash character who actually got in was Duck Hunt, and I probably got the pooch in the knick of time, as it seems that he most certainly got in at his last chance - and he isn't even obscure! In fact, the "wacky obscure character" of SSBU was a mainstay of the best selling game franchise of all time who the Smash director justified specifically because people know who he is! I mean, I guess that obscure characters don't sell game copies and especially not DLC, but Smash gets more popular with every passing entry and if anything being too big to fail should be the justification for including obscure characters, not for becoming more and more of a people pleaser.

Anyway, I'll be back to my game with a character who only appeared in 6 episodes out of a 52 episode series, most of which were in brief parody adverts.

I agree completely. I don't care about seeing Mario, Sephiroth, and Minecraft Steve on the same screen, if I wanted to see that, I'd just go on Deviantart. But remembering obscure characters? Seeing an old guy I haven't seen in a while? Discovering a new character who I've never seen before? THAT's what the appeal of Smash is to me, and it bums me out that it's seemingly completely lost that in favor of simply chasing headlines with characters we've all seen a million times already.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Minecraft Steve

I'm at least glad Sakurai thought Minecraft's success didn't mean "get steve in RIGHT ****ING NOW", and he instead waited until he had a good idea and the resources to make it.

My comment on what the MCU is reminds me: If one of the biggest movie franchises ever involves B-D-list superheroes turning into A-listers more than it involves ones that were already A-listers (it helps there were licensing issues involving Spider-Man and the X-Men), shouldn't that mean Sakurai/Nintendo should be more willing to consider making Nintendo characters that don't have the exact relevancy of Isabelle or the demand of K. Rool playable alongside them? Keep in mind it'd take far less work and money to make a Nintendo B-lister playable than it did to make Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Hoo boy, I'm back at this again.

Maybe I'm alone on this, but my experiences with Smash hype weren't really excitement as much as... anxiety. Like, I think I internalised it as "that tingly feeling of hype!" but in retrospect... no, it was anxiety. Fear. Anticipating the worst. Not a remotely positive emotion. The night before a Smash reveal would always feel like death row, and the test screen countdown on Nintendo streams were devistating. The long-winded CGI cutscenes (especially the ones with darker subject matter) didn't help either. The Smash Ultimate reveal I probably enjoyed the most - not was the most happy about, but just had the best state of mind around - was easily Sephiroth, and that's just because I went to sleep before it was announced Smash would be at TGA, woke up, saw the news and just giggled "hey, Sephiroth's in! Hehehe silly puppet man is gone". I was MUCH happier about K. Rool and Daisy, but I wasn't in a positive state of mind at their reveals because of the sheer sensory overload. It's really sad to look back at just how much and what kind of control Smash had over me during Ultimate's lifespan - my sleep schedule is wonky as is, midnight Nintendo Directs filled with anime games I don't care about don't help. I want to really think ugly booba ladies for giving me that much needed punch of disillusionment and snapping me out of Smash hype once and for all. If I wasn't distracted by Spunch Bop wavedashing in the objectively superior game, who knows what the lead up to Sora could've done to me.

This isn't just about the dissapointing reveals either, the happy reveals took a bit of a toll on me too, possibly even more - I was in a constant caffine-rush-like borderline-euphoria state for days after K. Rool's reveal. NOT GOOD. ****ING AWFUL. The second worst emotional reaction I've ever felt, (first being the times I was put in solitary confinement when I was 14) struggling to think about anything that wasn't evil cartoon crocodiles or feel any emotion other than blissful joy for almost a week. I was also very excited over my favourite retro characters returning as Spirits - there's settling for less, and then there's screeching like a banshee while ascending to a higher plane of reality over transparent PNGs that disable lava floors. Please, if any unsupervised kids are reading this - I beg you, do not end up like teen me and wake up your neighbours over ****ing tumblr_drill_dozer_jill_artwork_fullres (1).webp, no matter how unlikely it may have seemed beforehand that Nintendo would copy and paste old stock artwork from DK: King of Swing into a new game.

The ugly truth about Namco era Smash is that it's an experience, not a game; and, while many people eat that up, I'm not in the target audience anymore - Smash is drifting away from emphasising gameplay and more and more towards hype. I like gameplay and dislike hype, and hype is now the entire Smash brand.

 

[Tankman from Newgrounds]

The concept of "Celebration of Gaming" in Smash sucks, which is actually uncreative. How the Heck Nintendo could make the huge gaming crossover, since Capcom would do better Gaming crossover than Nintendo according to my thoughts, which I prefer Nintendo-only crossover.
The problems are Licensing issues, adding Irrelevant character and etc.
The only redeeming quality is that some Gaming Crossovers like Smash are executed well.

 

[Guynamednelson]

The ugly truth about Namco era Smash is that it's an experience, not a game; and, while many people eat that up, I'm not in the target audience anymore - Smash is drifting away from emphasising gameplay and more and more towards hype. I like gameplay and dislike hype, and hype is now the entire Smash brand.

What was the point of hiring the company behind Tekken and Soulcalibur anyway if their Smashes are gonna be less about actually playing them and more about going "I clapped when I saw Steve"? In fact, according to Mobygames, only one programmer at Namco worked on both SSBU and Tekken 7, Hidenori Shibukawa. The overlap between T7 and SSB4's programmers is...only barely higher. In fact there's even more overlap between the developers of Namco Smashes and Ace Combat than overlap between people who've programmed both SSBU and either of Namco's 3D fighters.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

With the amount of cool tech, movement options, and attack cancel stuff, the game shouldn’t be as degenerate as it is. Shield in this meta is basically useless with the amount of swords and projectiles, back rolls are strictly worse than forward rolls, spotdodge is probably the worst offender of pandering to degenerate playstyles. Whiffing a moves just doesn’t have any threat in this game. Spotdodge doesn’t have enough lag honestly, as they only have 3-4 frames of lag if they are attack canceled. This means that you have to be nearly frame perfect to punish, and Terry even has a spotdodge attack that just incentivizes spamming it constantly. Certain moves like Sora down smash are just spotdodges with hitboxes. Think Im exaggerating? Look up the frame data, he has i-frames and he hops over attacks.

Projectiles are simply too strong. They can kill and combo while covering a sizable portion of the stage yet are… SAFE!?!?!??! Charge shot and shadow ball are the biggest offenders since they both have the power of a smash attack, can reliably break shields, and combo. I would include Kafrizz, but its locked to an MP meter and has less safety. Then you have Yink arrows which are legit contenders for best projectiles in the game. It kill confirms, plays neutral, harasses offstage, safe, spammable, and has way too much range uncharged. The only thing keeping this move in check is the fact that its on Yink who basically needs them to actually play the game.

Half of the roster have broken smash attacks that are spammed constantly.

The community is a giant circle jerk. On twitter all you see is the same 3 combos on each character and people eat it up. I can’t tell you how many people will post the simplest Steve b&b and act as if they are going to ****ing EVO. Like, wow bro, you did the same exact combo everyone and their mother has done so cool bro. Legit I have seen people in discord who consistently post the same combos and say its hype. Wow, Steve did d-throw>jab>fair>jab>fair>F-Smash, so cool i totally don’t see this every 5 minutes. This isn’t even a Steve issue. This is an issue with the whole roster. Then if you say that you aren’t impressed the goddamned horde is summoned to tell you “wHy DoNt YoU dO iT tHeN” despite the fact that I actually do it. The bar is just set so low that even the most basic Roy combos are worshipped.


Im just tired of the gameplay being so degenerate and the community being insufferable.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Shield in this meta is basically useless

You can blame Sakurai trying too hard to make the game more "offensive" while still trying to avoid Melee gameplay for this. Honestly, if he wanted to do that, shouldn't he have just taken S4's core gameplay and added more options like performing any attack out of a run, instead of doing things like nerfing grabs? 4's meta may have been full of hoo-has, but grabs are still a huge counter to a player being, well, DEFENSIVE. Another fighter produced by Namco that features Pikachu, Charizard, Lucario, and Mewtwo as playable characters informs newbies about this in its tutorial.

This is another reason why Sakurai should completely ignore the competitive scene: He seems to be a bit too desperate to kill ANYTHING the previous game's competitive meta involved, even if it's something deliberately programmed like blocking and grabbing.

 

[UserKev]

Smash has become popular for its own health it seems. The series has basically turned into Nintendo's essential billboard, doesn't know what it wants to do with its self anymore. But looking back on Smash 64, Melee and Brawl, the series clearly wanted to be something different. Might just be going off a rampage here, but everything went wrong with Ultimate. Not essentially, but it didn't care about anything. And the ballet's influence was extremely lucky to be given to us at all.

I honestly won't miss the series if it discontinues.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

I feel that more projectiles should be made in a similar style to Byleth’s arrow. As a move, its main tool is to condition rather than to attack. This is for a variety of reasons. The arrow itself does a lot of damage and knockback, while also having considerable shield damage. However, it is easy to react to even online, meaning that it can’t be spammed and needs to be used intelligently. Its endlag makes it punishable from close to mid range, meaning that unlike most other projectiles, he has an acceptable risk/reward. You hit it? You dealt 15% and they are now offstage. You missed? You are likely eating a combo starter or a strong aerial.

The real thing that is well balanced about this move is the cancel. The cancel allows you to condition jumps and airdodges as well a punish them. Offstage the enemy must make a gamble. Airdodge to avoid a potential arrow or do nothing to call your bluff. If you shoot the arrow but they airdodge, you are able to attempt an edgeguard but you must do it quickly due to the arrows endlag. If they don’t airdodge and you shoot, well, they just die. If they airdodge but you cancel, you are now in position to set up an offstage edgeguard with Byleth’s many strong disjoints and nair. If they do nothing and you cancel, you still have the opportunity to edgeguard however it will be more difficult as they still have their airdodge to try to directional airdodge to stage or just dodge an attack.

Onstage the cancel is important as well. The first instinct for many people is to jump upon seeing it which you can read with your cancel and hit them for it. On the flip side, someone with extensive Byleth MU knowledge may understand this and rush Byleth down from the ground or simply shield/duck under it. This is also something Byleth can cover by simply shooting the arrow or canceling into a grab/attack. In general, there is counterplay to the arrow and how the opponent wants to deal with it, leading to many mixup situations where the one who reads the other benefits greatly. Byleth will always have more options, however he does not have too many that he can attempt to cover 3 options at once AND be able to cover another should his initial gambit not work (Samus, Yink, Tink, Snake, Mii Gunner, any charged shot character in general). This makes arrow a fair and balanced tool that is not only fun to use but also fun to outplay.

Of course fully charged arrow is a shield-break punish so there is no use even talking about it.

This isn’t really criticism as it is praise, however I felt it that this being one of the only examples of a truly balanced projectile in the game I felt I had to speak about it. My next critique will be about a specific character in general. Notably, it will discuss Min-Min.

 

[Nah]

Maybe I'm alone on this, but my experiences with Smash hype weren't really excitement as much as... anxiety. Like, I think I internalised it as "that tingly feeling of hype!" but in retrospect... no, it was anxiety. Fear. Anticipating the worst. Not a remotely positive emotion. The night before a Smash reveal would always feel like death row, and the test screen countdown on Nintendo streams were devistating. The long-winded CGI cutscenes (especially the ones with darker subject matter) didn't help either. The Smash Ultimate reveal I probably enjoyed the most - not was the most happy about, but just had the best state of mind around - was easily Sephiroth, and that's just because I went to sleep before it was announced Smash would be at TGA, woke up, saw the news and just giggled "hey, Sephiroth's in! Hehehe silly puppet man is gone". I was MUCH happier about K. Rool and Daisy, but I wasn't in a positive state of mind at their reveals because of the sheer sensory overload. It's really sad to look back at just how much and what kind of control Smash had over me during Ultimate's lifespan - my sleep schedule is wonky as is, midnight Nintendo Directs filled with anime games I don't care about don't help. I want to really think ugly booba ladies for giving me that much needed punch of disillusionment and snapping me out of Smash hype once and for all. If I wasn't distracted by Spunch Bop wavedashing in the objectively superior game, who knows what the lead up to Sora could've done to me.

This isn't just about the dissapointing reveals either, the happy reveals took a bit of a toll on me too, possibly even more - I was in a constant caffine-rush-like borderline-euphoria state for days after K. Rool's reveal. NOT GOOD. ****ING AWFUL. The second worst emotional reaction I've ever felt, (first being the times I was put in solitary confinement when I was 14) struggling to think about anything that wasn't evil cartoon crocodiles or feel any emotion other than blissful joy for almost a week. I was also very excited over my favourite retro characters returning as Spirits - there's settling for less, and then there's screeching like a banshee while ascending to a higher plane of reality over transparent PNGs that disable lava floors. Please, if any unsupervised kids are reading this - I beg you, do not end up like teen me and wake up your neighbours over ****ing tumblr_drill_dozer_jill_artwork_fullres (1).webp, no matter how unlikely it may have seemed beforehand that Nintendo would copy and paste old stock artwork from DK: King of Swing into a new game.

This is hardly the first time I've said something along these lines on this site, and I think not even the first time you specifically have heard me say this, but it's something I think is worth repeating (and it's good to see that you seem to be not letting the game affect you as much as it used to).

usage of the word "you/your" will be in the general sense for the rest of this post

I think a lot of the Smash community lets themselves have an extremely unhealthy attachment to the series, which often results in things like this, or the Geno meltdown, among many other things I'm sure you all can imagine.

It's completely normal for people to have emotional investment in things, but when you pour too much emotional energy into something, it can be rather damaging. When a video game (or most anything else really) starts becoming a source of frustration, or extreme emotions, or negative effects on mental health, that's the time to stop engaging with it completely or finding alternative, more enjoyable ways to engage with it. Just like....not letting it have this much of a grip on your mental state. It's completely not worth it to let your mental health degrade over it. There's more than enough reasons for people to have mental health problems in today's world, nobody needs games adding to it.

And I say this as someone who in the past let SSBU contribute to her mental health problem(s) (but in regards to a different aspect of the series).

The series has basically turned into Nintendo's essential billboard, doesn't know what it wants to do with its self anymore. But looking back on Smash 64, Melee and Brawl, the series clearly wanted to be something different.

tbh I think that the series has been a billboard/advertisement since Melee really. It's certainly more unsubtle about it in the most recent 2 entries though.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I feel that more projectiles should be made in a similar style to Byleth’s arrow. As a move, its main tool is to condition rather than to attack. This is for a variety of reasons. The arrow itself does a lot of damage and knockback, while also having considerable shield damage. However, it is easy to react to even online, meaning that it can’t be spammed and needs to be used intelligently. Its endlag makes it punishable from close to mid range, meaning that unlike most other projectiles, he has an acceptable risk/reward. You hit it? You dealt 15% and they are now offstage. You missed? You are likely eating a combo starter or a strong aerial.

The real thing that is well balanced about this move is the cancel. The cancel allows you to condition jumps and airdodges as well a punish them. Offstage the enemy must make a gamble. Airdodge to avoid a potential arrow or do nothing to call your bluff. If you shoot the arrow but they airdodge, you are able to attempt an edgeguard but you must do it quickly due to the arrows endlag. If they don’t airdodge and you shoot, well, they just die. If they airdodge but you cancel, you are now in position to set up an offstage edgeguard with Byleth’s many strong disjoints and nair. If they do nothing and you cancel, you still have the opportunity to edgeguard however it will be more difficult as they still have their airdodge to try to directional airdodge to stage or just dodge an attack.

Onstage the cancel is important as well. The first instinct for many people is to jump upon seeing it which you can read with your cancel and hit them for it. On the flip side, someone with extensive Byleth MU knowledge may understand this and rush Byleth down from the ground or simply shield/duck under it. This is also something Byleth can cover by simply shooting the arrow or canceling into a grab/attack. In general, there is counterplay to the arrow and how the opponent wants to deal with it, leading to many mixup situations where the one who reads the other benefits greatly. Byleth will always have more options, however he does not have too many that he can attempt to cover 3 options at once AND be able to cover another should his initial gambit not work (Samus, Yink, Tink, Snake, Mii Gunner, any charged shot character in general). This makes arrow a fair and balanced tool that is not only fun to use but also fun to outplay.

Of course fully charged arrow is a shield-break punish so there is no use even talking about it.

This isn’t really criticism as it is praise, however I felt it that this being one of the only examples of a truly balanced projectile in the game I felt I had to speak about it. My next critique will be about a specific character in general. Notably, it will discuss Min-Min.

I agree. Too many projectiles in Smash are "fire and forget" in nature and aren't used in very interesting ways because of it. Characters like Samus and Young Link are an absolute pain to get in on because their strong ranged tools are so low-commitment and they can easily cover their asses if they whiff. That right there is like, 90% of the reason I dropped Ultimate.

 

[SKX31]

tbh I think that the series has been a billboard/advertisement since Melee really. It's certainly more unsubtle about it in the most recent 2 entries though.

I'd argue it's been so since the very start. Not just with the character designs favoring what's current at the time (very visible with Mario and Link), but also since both the Japanese and American ad campaigns promised "star studded slamfest!" as the main draw.

As for what to critique, I've got something that does not get mentioned often:

The Tips menu feels moreso like a complete afterthought, and it's to the overall detriment of the whole thing. Especially since there are over 2000 of these blurbs (1537 of which are just on the characters) - which implies that the dev team went through at least some effort to write and translate these things in Ultimate's 11 languages. This is a multifaceted problem, so I'mma go through them:

1. How the Tips are structured. The tips are mainly seen through A) A loading screen, which shows one tip at a time - and it's not going to be visible for long - or B) in the Vault, where (TBF) Tips is clearly visible sandwiched between the Replays and Shop. Small icon, but whatever. Or C) The right dashboard's help section, where character-specific videos exist (TIL about that, which says a lot!)... on the basic stuff as well as two / three moves per character. Now the Vault placement makes sense (and the tips are sorted, which is an improvement over Smash 4) but there are some caveats...

Mainly, the Tips system is not really visible - it's scattered all over the place. Now I don't want to force a tutorial, but Sakurai / Nintendo could absolutely make more of an effort to highlight it. Especially when the tips are scattered over two entirely different menus and another method is via an Easter Egg one has to trigger / intentionally look for. And the Tips / Help sections are disconnected from Training Mode too.

Most of the Tips themselves are rather basic - which is perfectly fine. There are some that include little-known knowledge (which is really neat to see). But there are also some that haven't been updated alongside the patches, so overall their execution is a mixed bag. Still, can't complain too much when we're talking 2000+ blurbs. That's not a small project.

To Sakurai's credit, the fact that he and the dev team went through and filmed 100+ videos showing off moves and interactions alongside the 2000+ blurbs is good, lets not minimize that. But I definetely think more people would look for these videos and blurbs if they not only were more visible, but also had instant access to the Training Mode. One way to solve this issue is to include a specific Training and Tips menu from the main menu; another would be to say have a "Practice this tip" button in the Tips / Help menus that takes you to Training Mode directly (as well as a "Practice a tip" button in Training Mode itself.

And yes, Training Mode could use a major expansion to accomondate this. Currently, one can't set the Training Mode CPU to shield without first installing mods. So if one doesn't have a second person around (or one is not comfortable controlling two characters oneself)... whelp.

Oh and on Palu's Guidance: they're fun Easter Eggs, but I def. think that if one has activated a Guidance it should be replayable in the menu. They're fun conversations, and having them more readily accessed in say Sound Test would help since one wouldn't have to re-activate it to hear it again. Ah well, there's always Youtube.

2. The tips system does not include counter-strategies. This I argue is important since there'll always be people who decide to play in certain ways (such as spamming projectiles or whatnot). And if people go online only to met with say a Samus spamming projectiles... well those people aren't exactly going to be encouraged to play online further.

This is not exclusive to Smash, mind - players that decide to play "lame" strategies are inevitably going to exist in any multiplayer game. Letting people train counter-strategies is also difficult since problematic strategies are not always clear-cut. Still, it wouldn't be impossible to implement a CPU behavior that favors projectiles in Training Mode: so people can train vs. something that at least approximates this specific strategy. Or a CPU that favors Out of Shield counterattacks as another example.

FTR, while I'm not someone who's that bothered by how projectiles work in Ultimate, it's still a major issue: projectile counterplay is partly knowledge, partly mind-games with the projectile-using opponent. While that is inevitably YMMV territory, Smash's projectiles are typically not interesting nor is there a lot of interesting counterplay. The practical inability to practice against that does not help.

3. A more minor suggestion, but organizing the lore / character trivia and gameplay trivia into their own categories would go a long way to satisfy both people looking to learn about characters' origins and what not and people looking to improve on their gameplay without having to go through whole lists of the other.

PKBeats went through the Tips recently in 3 separate videos, and it's a good watch. His overall conclusion that he was "Whelmed" is pretty apt. He did not go over the dashboard's "Help" section, FTR.

All in all, they have already the building blocks in place - but for the next Smash game I'd like to see those blocks put to better use, and construct something out of it.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Hell, it doesn't even fit a competitive fighter that well - even tradfighters have some semblence of fun, colour, and personality to them. In this EVO line up, SSBU sticks out like a sore thumb - not for its genre or reputation, but because of how bland its logo is, even Soul Calibur and Samurai Shodown, which have greatly simplified their logos, still have texture and theming.

Well this talk about Smash's logo being too "flat" compared to traditional FG logos hasn't exactly aged well

but uh critiquing smash bros yeah yeah: Is the DLC's direction truly what expanded Smash's audience, or was it just having an installment on the Switch? If you look at

List of best-selling Nintendo Switch video games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You'll see that every Nintendo franchise whose games sell millions and millions got a sales boost from the Switch, no matter what they did. MK8DX outsold the Wii game even with it just being MK8+DLC+Battle Mode. Pokemon Sword & Shield outsold the 3DS (possibly DS too) Pokemon games even with Dexit, and discussions about whether or not the games made up for it. Super Mario Party was the series' best selling installment even with its small amount of boards.

Hell, even as someone who wanted and plays Terry, I'm not even sure if adding FG characters expanded Smash's playerbase that much: They're rarely mained, and from what I've seen from Discords, Discords meant to discuss playing Ryu/Ken/Terry/Kazuya in Smash for that matter, the FCG seems to be more interested in seeing Smash fans get mad over quarter-circles than playing Ryu/Ken/Terry/Kazuya in Smash.

 

[UserKev]

Smash needs a variation system like MKX if it wants to essentially improve. Ngl, the idea of Bowser having for example, Koopa King, Wrestler and Spike shell variants gets my hype.

Koopa King could revolve Bowser around boss like movements, but his projectile reuses his fire projectile from SMW2 where he spits fire into the air that comes back down in 3 flames.

One of Peach's variants could revolve around using her parasol more for attacks. And one of Mario's variants could revolve literally being Metal Mario.

 

[fogbadge]

Smash needs a variation system like MKX if it wants to essentially improve. Ngl, the idea of Bowser having for example, Koopa King, Wrestler and Spike shell variants gets my hype.

Koopa King could revolve Bowser around boss like movements, but his projectile reuses his fire projectile from SMW2 where he spits fire into the air that comes back down in 3 flames.

One of Peach's variants could revolve around using her parasol more for attacks. And one of Mario's variants could revolve literally being Metal Mario.

how exactly does this system work for people unfamiliar with MKX?

 

[UserKev]

how exactly does this system work for people unfamiliar with MKX?

Exactly how it worked in MKX before people were unfamiliar with the system.

 

[Guynamednelson]

Exactly how it worked in MKX before people were unfamiliar with the system.

That doesn't answer his question.

 

[UserKev]

That doesn't answer his question.

My explanation needs a bit of work admittedly, but you get the idea the concept I'm getting behind. It can be amazing if done masterfully, which is possible.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Smash needs a variation system like MKX if it wants to essentially improve. Ngl, the idea of Bowser having for example, Koopa King, Wrestler and Spike shell variants gets my hype.

Koopa King could revolve Bowser around boss like movements, but his projectile reuses his fire projectile from SMW2 where he spits fire into the air that comes back down in 3 flames.

One of Peach's variants could revolve around using her parasol more for attacks. And one of Mario's variants could revolve literally being Metal Mario.

If I'm reading this correctly, you might like Smash Crusade - it has multiple Link movesets to choose from, you can turn off tipper for Marth, you can choose between a new Little Mac or the canon moveset, and you can even choose between classic or Ultimate G&W animations. Some really cool fighter picks like Ristar, Tetromino, Goomba, Heracross, and Tingle.

 

[UserKev]

If I'm reading this correctly, you might like Smash Crusade - it has multiple Link movesets to choose from, you can turn off tipper for Marth, you can choose between a new Little Mac or the canon moveset, and you can even choose between classic or Ultimate G&W animations. Some really cool fighter picks like Ristar, Tetromino, Goomba, Heracross, and Tingle.

I guess. I want Smash to be interesting again. The series needs to be spiced up and take more risks. We need Smash to innovate itself. And take from unexpected fighters.

 

[fogbadge]

Exactly how it worked in MKX before people were unfamiliar with the system.

oh im not poking holes in that one

I guess. I want Smash to be interesting again. The series needs to be spiced up and take more risks. We need Smash to innovate itself. And take from unexpected fighters.

what was it that made smash interesting to you in the first place?

 

[UserKev]

what was it that made smash interesting to you in the first place?

When it was new and fresh and left room for mysteries. 64 and Melee is forever peak single player Mode. It needs to be new again and innovate.

Mostly everything that Smash 4 tried to do is beating a dead horse. Ultimate thrives off its returnee stages from Melee and 64.

 

[fogbadge]

When it was new and fresh and left room for mysteries. 64 and Melee is forever peak single player Mode.

well every mode has been co op since brawl so that is true

 

[SSGuy]

Smash Bros now focuses on Quanity of Quality when it comes to it's roster and modes leaving for what might be an extremely underwhelming game with an absurdly toxic fanbase.

 

[Linkmain-maybe]

The games fan base should stop coddling the people who only complain about stuff. Every time someone loses they make some stupid John and the community supports that behavior.