Smash 64:
- Ever since I've been introduced to Link from the LOZOTT, I've been fascinated by him as a character. For a while, Mario and Diddy Kong were my favorite characters. Even though Link was clearly a bad character, it really didn't matter to me since I would be playing FFA with my friends and I was not aware of the competitive scene back then. If Link didn't appear in Smash, I probably would have mained Mario instead.
Melee:
- A few years after Smash 64 went by and Link was still by far my favorite Nintendo character. His playstyle felt similar to the smash 64, but with a upgraded recovery on going able to grapple on the stage made me want to stick this character around. I've dabbled with Young Link, but I ultimately chose to go with Link, due to having superior range and strength.
- When I saw Marth for the first time, he was a brutal character to fight against to unlock the character. His attacks came out quick and dealt so much knockback. After unlocking Marth and trying him out, he quickly became my main and I enjoyed the fact that he speaks in Japanese and its a character that I was unfamiliar with at the time. Shiek gave Link major problems, so I figured I can use Marth to combat against fast characters like Fox and Sheik. Plus, he had that anime appearance, so I wanted to keep that tradition going. From there, I just became a Marth main and would randomly bust out Link for fun. Again, I wasn't aware they had tournaments, so I played the game casually.
Brawl:
- My first reaction when I saw Pit was "wow, this is a Link with projectiles, anime appearance, but with an amazing recovery". I quickly fell in love with the character and his playstyle fit well for me for a while. Then I realize that he had trouble killing, which lead to some issues against characters that are heavy and play a really strong ground based game, where most of Pits attacks are all aerials.
The whole "Pit and Zero Suit Samus" meme really got me more invested in maining the character when a situation like that happened in real life. I had the appearance on having a really young face for my age (in comparison to other college kids that have a much older face) inspired me to main Pit and my maturity back then was much younger.
When I tried Link, everything that made Link "decent" had all been lost in translation, such as the semi-spike on his up B, tether grab replacing the ability to grapple on the walls for possible recovery mixup options, his attacks felt slower, and his movement overall felt sluggish. Therefore, I decided to completely abandon him for Pit.
- Diddy was a character I wanted to explore, but was hesitant to try because I heavily invested on Pit. During the GameBattles Ladder (Wi-Fi battles), I would get decent results with Pit, but it wasn't enough for me to place top 32 in the playoffs with a high win record. So i wasn't really sure on where to turn. One day my brother and I played Donkey Kong Country during the early Brawl days. Because he was older, he would play DK, and me being the younger brother played Diddy and I actually liked Diddy as a character and I enjoyed watching the Donkey Kong Country show. Also, Diddy was my main in Diddy Kong Racing. In doing some research, I stumbled upon a really good Diddy player at the time, Nanerz, who was an amazing Diddy Kong player with the ability to use the bananas to its fullest potential got me invested to try out Diddy and to apply the techniques I watched. When I played Diddy on the GameBattles Ladder, I had gotten much better results and it became clear that Diddy should be my main and leave Pit in the dust and only bust him out on matchups Diddy would struggle in (or janky stages). I felt like the results I had at offline tournaments really paid off with Diddy from GameBattles and he actually was the character that helped me develop some friendships through winning several tournaments.
Smash 4:
- Greninja intrigued me when I saw the trailer and what a badass MOFO he is. I chose him as my starter from X and Y and the character himself naturally clicked with me. After they heavily nerfed Greninjas tools that made him good caused me to find a new character to work on. I thought of using Diddy, but with the nerf on pulling out one banana instead of two and the fact they disappear after hitting the opponent limited my creativeness on his banana game, plus his recovery felt weird just made me not to invest my time on Diddy. The whole time I mained Greninja, I had Pit as a secondary, so I decided to devote all of my attention on him.
- Pit was a character I always enjoyed on a personal level and the reasons are exactly the same from Brawl Pit. Playing the Kid Icarus Uprising Series has gotten me to maintain my interest in him throughout all the years. Despite his playstyle being different from Brawl, his simplicity on using him really clicked with me. Through the first few years, Pit was able to keep up with stride. However, when DLC's came out, it made the job that much more difficult for Pit to keep up with the meta, not to mention that players started to get better with their neutral games along with improving their combo game. If I would have used anyone else, I probably would have given up that main a long time ago and just used the DLC. Because Pit is my favorite Nintendo character, I wanted to stick him out through the end. At that point, I pretty much retired from going to Smash tournaments, so I decided to stick with Pit until the end, despite the recent challenges the fallen angel had to face.