SMAASH! Puppy
Smash Legend
If he succeeds at what he's supposed to do, that makes me wonder if his primary issue is the lack of powerful hits combined with an extremely high skill floor. His Special Moveset and overall design might give players the impression that he's way easier than he is as well.Thing is, Meta Knight's combination of agility and multi-jumps means that he has quite a few positives going for him out of the gate. Alongside the multiple jumps and lots of recovery mixups he's also able to chain and pressure with those very quick attacks of his. Even to the point where an opponent has to watch out for ladder combos (which oftentimes start from Dash Attack) or his Shuttle Loop / Mach Tornado just killing off the top. The ladders are very hard to pull off, but he doesn't lack options to pressure or set up traps of sorts. Down Tilt is a good example, since it can trip / lock at low % - while B-Air can drag-down opponents into the ground if one fast falls with it and thus set up another trap.
As a likely trade off, he does not have many attacks that linger (only his Specials do - those do put him at a helpless state if used in the air - and there's no shockwave or other projectiles) and he's kinda vurnerable once hit. It's also likely why his attacks are generally not that strong individually (except for F-Smash, and that has a very tight window) - Sakurai went all in on the "trade range for agility" aspect with him to emphasise his swordmanship. I don't get the impression that Sakurai meant to sell power with him - rather the fantasy of being this Zorro esque fencing master where skill is rewarded. Only with a short sword.
I don't mind Sakurai's implementation of him because of that - and while I wouldn't mind hearing ideas re: how to rework him if needed I do feel that those ideas would need to keep that combination of multi-jumps + agility in mind.
EDIT: Not issue. What I meant to say is that this may be why he feels bad to most people.
I see wat u did dere.But obv ultimately it's subjective.
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