Overswarm
is laughing at you
- Joined
- May 4, 2005
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I got Project M on January 19th, and have attended one tournament last Saturday (got 7th) and have only that time in which to formulate an opinion. From a developer standpoint this is where first thoughts are most important as it shows how people respond to the flavor of the game. So keep that in mind while reading this.
First off, some tournament analytics:
Through a simple score-based approach (5 for 1st, 4 for 2nd, etc.) for 1st - 5th place in all the tournaments recorded in the results thread up to January 28th, the above shows a character's tournament success.
Doing the above resulted in consistent and predictable results in both Melee and Brawl so we can assume that the same can be said for Project M. The only modifying factors here is that
1) this game is new so things happening out of the blue is a large possibility
2) Melee characters are easy to pick up, potentially inflating their placement
That said, people figure out what is good really fast. If a character is simple and good, he'll rise to the top immediately. Complex and good, he'll rise to the top after a short while.
Looking at the data, it lines up pretty well with my thoughts for the most part. Do with it what you will.
My first thoughts:
The game is intuitive and a lot of fun and definitely has its own "flavor". It feels like a new smash game rather than just a copied version or sloppily made hack.
The "download" section of the website didn't have any troubleshooting or relevant information needed in my case, which was irritating. It took a while to get it to work because Project M would start and then I'd get a bees error after the stage loaded or it'd freeze on the loading screen. Luckily I'm used to troubleshooting so I just formatted the SD card, tried again, then found a new SD card, fresh install, tried again, and it has worked since then.
After getting it to work though, we've played about 5,000 KOs in that week! It's a lot of smash and doesn't feel stale.
I discovered pretty early on the you could crouch cancel in the air which is ridiculous and makes characters like Bowser much better than normal. If you are able to smash DI and touch the ground during hitstun (before tumble animation) you are able to make that a CC'd attack. This means Bowser can fast fall a fair into many multi-hit moves and crouch cancel it, or more commonly get hit on the ground with a multi-hit move and crouch cancel it AFTER getting hit. That's pretty crazy, but it does help quite a bit in terms of "being fat".
I liked a lot of the changes they kept from Brawl, like RARing and the like. Don't really like the fact that you can't wavedash out of shield anymore unless you let go of the shield button. Try holding down the L button, jump, then press R. No air dodge until you let go of L. This means to wavedash out of shield you have to Shield, let go of shield, wavedash backwards. Adds a few frames and makes it less viable.
The stock count control is AWESOME and is allowing for crew battles and iron man tournaments to be valid forms of competition without a bunch of headache.
If you guys REALLY want to be awesome you should figure out some way to replace "rotation" with "Iron Man" type events.
Stages:
I like the stages! There are a lot of new ideas. I wish there were more "new" ones and I wish there were more stages created specifically for the idea of "starters". The bottom row, typically what I've heard discussed as the "starter" stages are nice stages but they all fit one simple design that benefits certain characters over others. EVERY stage will benefit one character over another in some way, so the only thing you can do is have as large a variety as possible for type of stages. It is currently set at "big" stages of FD, Dreamland, and PS2, "small" stages of Yoshi's, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams, and a "medium" stage with smashville. They all have relatively the same platform setup, which is a shame given the amount of variety elsewhere in the stagelist and the ability to create new, interesting stages. Size is important, but platform placement is just as important!
I also like that they split the stages into "page 1" being the more traditional and "page 2" being more counter-picky, although it is incredibly irritating to think that many people will simply say "page 1 legal, page 2 banned lol" in the future.
I'd actually enjoy making a stage to submit but have no idea how to do it. I'll have to look into it.
Characters
Top
Average
Bad
The darker the color, the lower my opinion.
Melee:
Fox
One of the top characters in the game, again. It feels like his bair is a little less potent than it used to be.
Not much to really say about Fox. He's not "too good" but he will be overly represented in Project M. Not necessarily a problem, but his design is just so flawless that we can't help but see him forever at the top.
The addition of so many new characters that "fall down" when shined might cause him a headache though.
Falco
Arguably the best character in the game at the moment. While Fox may be better and more widely used, they are pretty close (one first place away from being tied, I believe) and from what I've seen Fox has a harder time. U-throw to u-air is a bit more difficult now that Smash DI is easier just based on Brawl's engine (I can get out of a poorly spaced u-air near 100% of the time, meaning that u-throw to u-air ends after the first u-air unless he has a platform to reach) and many new characters issue new challenges to Fox, while Falco is pretty much... Falco.
Not much has changed about the bird. The reduced time that rolling on the ledge allows actually helps Falco a bit since people have to time things properly, but not by much.
I forsee Falco being a strong pick for forever.
I really wish they had changed his dair to be more like the PAL version and not spike at the very end of the dair. I do feel that was a good change. While I love spiking with Falco, it completely destroys any high flying recovery and allows for a very strong "wall" of sorts that doesn't take much finesse to use. No idea if it really effects the balance of the character or not, but it feels too easy.
Jigglypuff
Pretty much the same as in Melee, feels a little bit slower but I could just be crazy. Jiggs will not be that good in Project M. New characters can really mess her up and cause her style to change quite a bit. ZSS's over-b, Pit's arrows and over-B chase, wolf's blaster, Sonic's speed, Lucas' crazy u-smash, Ivysaur's superior camping, Snakes primed grenades.... so many options to just take Jiggs out of the running.
I see Jiggs just being a novelty at this point rather than anything particularly powerful. She can still cause a lot of characters some grief, but her day in the sun ended the moment the Brawl characters entered the scene. She'll still not be a sleepover, but once the matchup is figured out it'll be a non-issue.
Sheik
Second only to Falco in terms of tournament viability imo. She's close with Fox, but Fox is good because he can handle whatever comes after him. Sheik is good because she destroys virtually every new character. She'll still have trouble with spacies, but past that she either goes even or dominates over every remaining character. Her added crawl is insanely effective against a ton of characters as well.
If you aren't a technical player and want a good character, Sheik is the way to go. She has absolutely no change needed in playstyle when it comes to the new characters. She's like a reverse jigglypuff.
Marth
He's.... good. Not fantastic, but good. A lot of the new characters give him problems. He still does well against those that hate disjointed hitboxes and he'll have many matchups that he does phenomenally well at, but he has enough even and below-even matchups that Marth won't have an innate advantage over the entire cast like Sheik, Fox, and Falco can boast.
Peach
Better than Marth this time around, if she wasn't already. Peach can do some serious damage this game if the right people play her. She IS horribly mangled by certain characters (from what I've seen, Ike gives her trouble), but she's a solid enough character to be able to win those uphill battles with superior play. More importantly, she can deal with any gimmick other characters can throw at her. I see Peach as being a solid main. If you have an appropriate secondary, you could have nothing really in your way.
Captain Falcon
Mr. Average this time around. His Falcon Kick buff is much needed, his over-b buff is fantastic in that it doesn't kill him every time (although we didn't double dragon in our falcon dittos.... nerfed that I guess? :B).
That said, Falcon is a flashy character that wins based off of hard reads and fast fingers, both things that can fail even the best of players. What Falcon can do, other characters can do better. Falcon is still manly and a ton of fun and good players can absolutely body their opponents with him, but Falcon's poor recovery options and the fact that many characters can not only block his approaches easily but also combo him to hell and back means that Falcon is just a really, really, really fun character that puts you at a disadvantage.
Ganon
Solid counter-picking character I guess. He's strong and his over-b and down-b have awesome potential for the character, but he's still Ganon.
The only thing he really needs is to be a bit faster. With a fast run speed or faster air speed he could be a solid heavy-hitter, but if you're interested in power Ganon is bottom-tier compared to the other heavy hitters.
Mario
A huge buff for Mario! I can see Mario being a very solid choice for players. He always had neat tricks against the spacies and now they're even better. His recovery is huge (and the wall jump helps on these stages!) and his KO potential and combo potential are there.
Mario is definitely above average. He will be held back by bad matchups (he seems to have trouble with disjointed hitboxes) and he doesn't really "destroy" anyone, but he's a solid enough character to where we can expect to see this guy played frequently.
I don't see him countering space animals, but it's fun to think about.
Pikachu
I do not have enough information to give a valid criticism or value to this character. I and all I have played with had a strong distaste for Pikachu as a character and didn't really "feel" it, and no one has played him more than once unless they've gotten him on random. Just a boring character to us. Didn't seem to carry over any of the magic that Brawl gave him and seems to just be a bad character. We cna't really say because none of us learned him well enough to really DO well, but... we don't want to.
This is the only Melee character that I feel is a failure in Project M. Maybe if I had mained Pika in Melee I'd feel different, but every other Melee character has been tweaked to feel relatively the same, but viable and interesting. Pikachu just feels bad, slow, and sloppy.
Donkey Kong
I <3 this character and his combos. He's more solid than in Melee and his new dash attack is cool. I love his combos and edgeguarding.
I originally was a little perturbed that his windup punch wasn't a bit stronger given that others regular, non-windup attacks were stronger, but then I remembered you can combo into it and felt better again.
DK has his problem matchups and can be edgeguarded too easily to be a top contender, but expect to see him as a strong character regardless due to his combo ability and power.
Luigi
Meh. He's Luigi. In the right hands, powerhouse. In the wrong hands, awful. I can forsee Luigi being a surprise factor, but he has enough issues to where he will never top the best of the best. Expect to see people play him and wow people with his combos on space animals and heavies that end with up+b or a killing f-smash, and then watch that same player lose to random shiek and marth players.
Link
Link might actually deserve to be in green, I don't know yet. He's very powerful in his own right in that he can create positive situations and edgeguard in very unique ways (not to mention punish sloppy play with a simple up+b). I feel like Link was buffed appropriately and with more practice with him I could see him being a viable tournament character. He'll always be outshined by the best of the best, but I could at least see Link reach the levels of DK.
Zelda
Zelda's best move is still down+b. Her new over-b is great, her up+b buffs are much needed, and her overall moveset enhancement is great. That said, the character's design itself results in a mediocre character. She can be good against some characters but when given an entire tournament to fight against she will inevitably have trouble with some of them.
Also, good luck catching anyone who is running away.
I would really like to see her aerial neutral b have reduced lag and have potential as a combo move. It currently really has no practical use in-game and is simply there because it's the same on the ground. Giving it a combo-esque ability would give zelda some extra oomph and style I think.
G&W
Yay Gdub! He can L-cancel now!
That said he's still dwarfed by other characters. I hope people really explore this character, but G&W is dwarfed by another character in every category. Setups, speed, power, mobility, comboing, someone beats him in everything and many characters beat him in virtually all of them for all intents and purposes.
I would love to see G&W's over-b tweaked. It currently is just a novelty, as it was in melee and Brawl, where you hope for a 9 and everything else is just "okay". Making the numbers actually HELP G&W so that you could combo into the over-b and then react off of many of them to continue a combo or start an edgeguard could make G&W fear-inducing. The possibility of a 9 or something else that is still helpful makes it more than a "goof off and do this at smashfests" kind of thing.
Bowser
One of my favorite updates, I feel like this is Bowser done right. Except there's no flame canceling. I miss it.
I really feel this was done well. The red flashes for super armor are good, the increase power and size is good. He can't combo worth a damn past the first few hits but his killing potential off a single read is tremendous.
He still gets bodied by a few characters (notably anyone with a grab game) but Bowser's ease of use and awesomeness potential means you'll see a lot of him.
Ness
Held back by his recovery and awkward approach, Ness will be a unique main again. I love the character and how he plays, although I wish that PK Cross had been changed to have been a "press and release" projectile rather than a charged. THe ability to throw out a PK cross and then follow it up with Ness himself would have made the character more unique and fast-paced.
Currently Ness has difficult combos and edgeguarding that aren't as effective as other characters. He'll fall by the wayside, but the character itself isn't too awful, just not good enough.
Brawl
Snake
I really, really, enjoy playing Snake and his recovery gives him some unique options. His ability to setup in a real game is great and his ability to stick with C4 for a potential KO makes him very scary.
That said, he gets beaten hard by all the top tiers mentioned so far. Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, and Bowser all destroy Snake. A lot of the average characters do decent against him. This is mostly because Snake doesn't have any "escape from pressure" options (his up+b does not do the trick) and anyone attempting to just run him down can do so once they get inside.
Because Snake has so many uphill battles, he'll never really be a gigantic threat. The character can do some stupid cool stuff though. Really enjoy playing him, just not worth maining.
Diddy
I don't know enough about Diddy to really comment so I'm leaving him as "average". He's very fast and has unique KO options but I don't feel like his banana game is as strong and just didn't enjoy playing him without it. Wave dashing to pick up bananas didn't feel natural and I didn't feel like learning it anew.
I could see some people wrecking with Diddy though, it would be a long time though.
Wario
Wario's good! Same problems as in Brawl, but good!
I really enjoyed the redesign and wouldn't change anything about him. He's solid and can do well, although he'll probably have some matchup issues I'm not aware of that'll drop him.
Dedede
Another character I'd consider a "failed" remake. Dedede is very stale and no one wants to play him, ever, under any circumstances. It's one thing to make a bad or good character, but Dedede is just boring to play.
He seems to be pretty bad too, from what we've seen. He hasn't changed much from Brawl and you gotta remember that a Dedede counter was generally considered to be "anyone who falls down" which is everyone in this game.
Lucario
A character where you say "Wow, this guy's awesome!"
Then "Oh, so I guess that's how you play him"
To "Oh, so when they crouch cancel I can't do moves. Got it."
Crouch canceling destroys this characters attempts at doing anything. You can crouch cancel all of his approaches save for grab, and then combo him to kill %. CC again, then kill him. I've won games with Bowser by just fortressing everywhere and holding down the moment I get hit, then hitting him back and just winning via trade.
Very unique design, just not good enough to deal with some of the issues that he faces in the game.
ZSS
ZSS could be better or worse than I realize, easily. She has great combo and KO potential, just a little light. Her down+b when used properly is great for extra recovery (although her over-B has trouble grabbing the edge for some reason).
I have a lot of fun playing her, but she seems to be a well-balanced and well-designed character which inevitably means she'd not as good as others. Fox and Falco are well-designed, but overpowered in comparison to other characters. They're fun, but they outshine other well-designed characters. It could be that ZSS will have some crazy ability that I don't see yet, but from what I've played of her she's so middle-of-the-road in terms of ability that she gets outshined too much to be a viable choice.
Toon Link
An excellent redesign, but a limited character. You camp with him and wait for an opening or until you can create an opening, then you move in to combo or KO. Rinse and repeat. Your ability to win is directly correlated to how difficult this is.
If Toon Link's recovery wasn't so ridiculously poor that edgeguarding him was a snoozefest he might be a powerful force, but you can be at 100% and him at 0% and the game is still in your favor if you have him anywhere near off stage. I'd really love to see the HORIZONTAL movement of his up+b changed so that way he could potentially do the bomb trick for vertical height and then regular up+b for a greater horizontal recovery. This would help separate him from regular Link and not make him a joke character.
ROB
Quite possibly the worst character in the game, which is incredibly saddening. It was pretty funny playing him for the first time; it was like the people making this game watched me playing ROB in 2008 and said "That, don't let him do that".
His camping ability has been removed completely, but he also has no approach that is safe. It felt awesome at first doing over-b fairs to jabs/grabs/tilts, but the moment my opponent realized "oh, shield" I started having Brawl flashbacks.
ROB's tilts are great, but ROB does very poorly defensively in any situation he should be using them. When it comes down to it, if you're using ROB's tilts then you're in danger if you miss or he shields any of them.
ROB's blind spots are still in full force. If you are behind or below ROB, there is nothing he can do that you can't easily shield on reaction and punish, or just straight up beat with speed.
ROB's gyro is unique and it's fun edgeguarding with its impotent push, but it is really pretty bad. It's primary use it to shoot in front of ROB and then give him a projectile to deal with, which can be countered by anyone with eyes and a Z button.
His new u-air is kind of neat, but ultimately useless. His previous u-air had the ability to deal massive damage, something ROB had trouble with. It now functions as the same, but weaker, function of his nair of just hitting someone above him. There's very few times to u-air over nair.
His spot dodge has been worsened, it feels like there's lag at the end that allows you to be punished afterwards no matter what. Spot dodge d-smash is now useful only for things you could just shield d-smash anyway.
His recovery is pretty bad. In a game like P:M you don't want to recover high, but recovering low is so easily edgeguarded that it's almost not worth it. If you've used even one over-b or up-b in the air on stage and got hit out of it, you're dead. If you're hit at a down adn out angle, you have to go up and fair for a bit of extra momentum until you reach near the ledge, where they just hit you away once and you die.
There is no reason why ROB should survive an edgeguard attempt from a large majority of the cast.
His extra power is nice, but again having extra power is worthless if you can't actively use it and no one will ever say 'wow, ROB is strong' when he's playing in a game with Bowser and Ike.
This is the only character in the game that I can actually say is just poorly designed. Dedede and Pikachu are boring, but they fit with their initial designs and just turned out that way. ROB was crafted and turned out bad.
What I would change:
I would make ROB a cross between a spacing character and a trap character, similar to a Marth/Snake hybrid. ROB was a camping / edgeguarding character in Brawl, but his ability to lay traps and space outside of people's ranges was there too. It just didn't work well in Brawl.
Gyro - Give him TWO GYROS. You can leave it the same, but allow for two on the field at once. The ability to have two spinning gyros on the ground or one on the ground and one in the hand would allow for some unique setups and give ROB some safe edgeguarding.
Make sure the gyro comes out fast enough so you can cancel it to turn around in the air for edgeguarding. It'd be flashy and dangerous and awesome.
Laser - Give him a 2nd level charge if possible. Make his current 2nd level charge a bit weaker and his final level charge a bit stronger than his current level 2.
Up+b - Allow him to grab the edge when facing the wrong way, and let his up+b go to the left and right some. This "fair at the top of your up+b for horizontal movement" is worthless and no one would ever do that in a tournament and not get destroyed for it. You literally hover for a second trying to float towards the edge.
Over+b - Let him jump out of it and shorten the distance/momentum. His current over-b looks like an afterthought. There's no real reason to use it. Instead of making it a "warp around" move, make it a momentum boost on the ground that doesn't use an over-b in the air. Keep it short enough so that he can't just over-b around to fly away, and shorten it's momentum a bit so ROB doesn't become an air sonic.
Over+b aerial- Leave the same.
D-tilt - leave the same
F-tilt - Make it send out and down, similar to Jigglypuff's d-smash and make the sweetspot more apparent. F-tilt should be a "oh, I outspaced you and you hit the ground" or "I hit you off the edge in a bad manner and now you have to recover from that position". It already isn't a safe move to use on shield or to miss with, but it has no real advantage in-game other than it comes out relatively fast. That's it. Lower it's knockback growth so that it has a difficult time KOing, but allow it to set up for great over-b tech chases and some good edgeguards. You shouldn't want to be f-tilted on the edge by ROB.
U-tilt - Seems mostly okay. I'd want u-tilt to be used primarily on falling opponents to set up for a nair, bair, etc. rather than an OoS option. As long as u-tilt doesn't hit horizontally and doesn't kill or combo into itself a bunch of times at medium % and DOES combo into a power aerial, it's working.
Jab - works. Is crappy, but is supposed to be.
Fair - Hard to put into words. Fair needs to be able to be safely used on shield when spaced properly and not be an instant death sentence when used off stage. It should naturally lead into itself off stage if DI'd improperly. Someone smash DI'ing away from a spaced fair generally shouldn't be hit by another spaced fair. Fair is a simple move, unlike Marth's fair with multiple knockbacks, and should be simple to deal with. Dangerous, but simple.
Bair - works.
Dair - Either take away the delay or give ROB control of it. The ability to "charge" the down-air in the air would be useful, but really I just want to get rid of that damn hop at the end of it. It makes it pointless to use unless you know it's going to hit, meaning it is an aerial falcon punch. Flashy and awesome and entirely useless. There's no situation you'd use dair that you couldn't have used bair, fair, or nair for equal results with less of a danger to you.
If you go off stage with dair and use it and MISS, they can kill you. If you use it on stage and miss or hit their shield they combo you. Because of the delay in the move it is very easy to be reacted to.
Personally I'd love to see dair to be used in a falling fashion as it would mean ROB wouldn't have a complete and total blindspot below him. There's no character in the game with as big a blindspot.
Uair - It's currently a jack-of-all-trades attack that doesn't kill, damage, combo, space, or approach very well and is generally best not used. If I was going to change it, I'd probably change a lot.... but if I was going to change it as-is without new animations and the like?
I'd change it to have its power correlate with the laser's charge level. At level 1 the u-air could come out quickly and short like it is now and be better for combos. At level 2 the u-air would have less combo ability and higher knockback growth. At level 3 the u-air would have a bit of a delay coming out and even more knockback growth. If that's even possible.
If it isn't, I'd probably resign myself to saying "make his u-air a permanent juggler" like Marth's u-air. No one approaches or even really combos with Marth's u-air. They just pop people back in the air to try again. ROB's u-air wouldn't work very well with his character design like that, but it'd be better than the current jack-of-all-trades that hits them too far away to juggle but not far enough away to kill.
Nair - works
U-smash - works
F-smash - works
D-smash - works, the lag at the end helps it from being a spammable attack.
Throws - all seem to work decently well, I haven't tested all the potential chaingrabs on everyone yet to really tell.
Spot dodge - make it not have that blasted delay at the end. If Fox and Sheik can do it, ROB can too. >
That was a lot and it probably won't change anything, but ROB is truly just a poorly designed character. He has no approach and no defensive options, no traps. His edgeguarding is okay, but on par with other characters that DON'T die if they mess up and DON'T have to go off stage to edgeguard.
I get that ROB is a Brawl character, but he could be such an awesome one. Makes me sad that he is still bad. Any group of players playing with a ROB that decided "we need to learn to beat him" will learn to not approach, punish him on shield, and then edgeguard him. God forbid that ROB's opponent has a stunning projectile, lest they hit him out of his up+b and destroy him.
Pit
Pit is one of those characters that will take some getting used to, but I love his design. I hate that his neutral A hurts him more than it helps him and would have loved for that to just be a sex kick or at least not be so easily punished via CC due to the excessive lag the move has, but other than that it's pretty golden all around. His recovery is good but not broken, his moveset and playstyle is unique but not foreign, he's fast when he wants to be but not fast simply "because" he's fast, and his combos require a lot of of forethought, planning, and reaction but his followup game is so good that a strong player could really do well with him.
Also, screw his arrows hitting ROB's up+b off stage.
Wolf
One of my favorite redesigns, wolf is a ton of fun to play and potentially the best juggler out there. I love playing him, but ultimately have to resign to the fact that he's a jack-of-all-trades character with a bad recovery. While he can juggle well, Falco simply doesn't HAVE to and can deal the same damage easier, edgeguard better, and kill better. His blaster is better. His recovery is just as good, his shine is better, his tilts are better. Wolf is pretty much a novelty character.
If I was going to change something about wolf, I'd make his f-smash have slightly less KO growth (use it more as a "knock off the stage then edgeguard" type move) and his d-smash to have a bit more KO growth. For Wolf to be a viable choice amongst the rest of the cast he needs the ability to kill early. If his d-smash killed early enough, he wouldn't be broken but would be a larger threat.
Sonic
I originally thought Sonic would be broken and then realized he still had similar hitboxes to Brawl and now I just see him get hit out of his spin attacks and punished when someone shields his attacks.
A fun character, but gets wrecked by disjointed hitboxes when they are used well. The fact that Sonic's edgeguarding game, once thought to be ridiculous, eventually boils down to "can I neutral B them?" makes it all pretty tame in comparison to first reactions.
His taunt cancel is god tier though.
Sonic will have a ton of stuff going for him in some matchups and absolutely nothing in others. Sonic gets BODIED by a competent sheik. Absolutely destroyed, no questions asked. I know, because I was that Sonic! It's impossible to approach a defensive sheik without them messing up and while Sonic has some tricks that might work on others, Sheik's tilts and defensive options don't have the lag Sonic needs to punish.
If I was going to change anything about Sonic, I'd give his fair more shield stun and let him attack out of his up+b earlier. Sonic can't approach a shielding opponent and remain anywhere close. Not normally a problem, but it means that you are generally best not approaching. It comes down to Sonic winning if he's ahead and losing if he's behind.
Adding more shield stun to the fair would allow sonic the ability to fair someone's shield and land behind them and potentially do something out of that (such as jab, grab, or just leave). That possibility alone means that simply standing in shield isn't a strong counter to sonic's approach options. As of now in our group, the moment Sonic is approaching you in the air you either shield or just hold out a hitbox.
Play as someone like Wario with lasting hitboxes and just throw them out. Sonic will run into them no matter what. Homing attack? u-tilt. No use whatsoever as wario can u-tilt on reaction. The same happens with the majority of his other attacks and ALL spin related attacks, only difference is the reaction time your opponent has.
Sonic's 0-death on Fox and Falco give me hope of Sonic as a counter-pick character though. U-throw, regrab, u-throw, over-b kick off edge, slow short hop to neutral B. Dead Falco. Doesn't work on Fox because Fox can just drop enough and still up+b to the stage/ledge. Dropping low enough to homing attack him generally means you'll miss and die.
Ike
I like Ike.
He's strong, fast in a good way appropriate for his character, his "oh ****" options are decent but weak and don't combo (like jab, OoS bair or nair, counter, etc.) and his edgeguarding is incredibly straightforward.
I love his over-b play and it really adds a depth to the character we haven't seen before.
I do think his u-smash and f-smash are a BIT too strong as they kill earlier than Bowser's but who knows. I'd probably weaken them just a little bit and, if needed, boost things in other directions. When it comes down to it, most of Ike's f-smashes will be about getting lucky and not actually punishing mistakes or getting hard reads. They're strong enough to where I can throw them out against GOOD players and still get them enough to where they're worth it.
Charizard
Possibly the worst of the pokemon but not by much. Charizard is a ton of fun to play as and against, but he gets bodied by enough characters that he isn't viable as a tournament main. I really do love the character though, he just can't resist getting hit by all sorts of stuff though.
Personally I'd love to see Charizard's neutral B changed from bowser's flamethrow to an actual fireball though. Shoot down and at an angle when airborne, shoot straight on stage. Would be pretty cool.
Also on at least lylat cruise Zard has a auto ledgehog by just rolling to the edge and starting flamethrower. I like it.
Squirtle
Good, but has trouble with disjointed hitboxes that can challenge him. Kind of like Luigi in terms of matchups.
I LOVE BUBBLE and what it implies. I wish I was proficient enough with squirtle to really go to town with him, but I didn't play PT enough in Brawl. I love Squirtle's mobility and run-down game and feel this is a well designed character that simply has troublesome matchups.
Ivysaur
Same problems as the others. Some matchups, great. Others, not so much. If only there was a way to have all three at once....
Ivysaur is incredibly unique and a ton of fun to play. I do feel his combos are a bit stale. D-tilt to u-air, d-tilt to sweet spot up+b, throw combos, etc., etc., are all pretty much the name of the game. He doesn't have much combo potential. Not his character, but he doesn't have much combo potential and that limits him a bit which can make him feel stale.
I love edgeguarding ivysaur; even though he can tether while I'm on the ledge, punishing the auto-hop and sending him back off stage is very rewarding.
Ivysaur is probably the best designed of all the pokemon and his camping game brings him to the top as long as he isn't dealing with a laser spamming Fox.
Lucas
Holy upsmash. Lucas might end up being good but I feel like Lucas is only a threat because his smashes are so strong. You know who else has strong smashes? Bowser and Ike, and they don't have to charge!
I like the character but without more knowledge of his combos I can't really determine his placement. When it comes down to it, this is really all about whether or not Lucas can combo into a charged u-smash for a KO against most characters. If he can, it's a good matchup and Lucas can do it. If he can't, he'll lose. Wait to see those new combos and see what they do and if he's got 'em, Lucas is a good character.
Lucas still has an awful recovery that is super easy to edgeguard.
So that's a lot but that's my first impression of Project M. I understand that this should all be taken with a grain of salt as I have limited experience with it, but at the same time I'm no stranger to smash games nor game design. I've been right so far about characters. :B
I never wanted to play any brawl hacks because I was still playing regular Brawl, but I kind of wish I had joined in on this earlier because I would LOVE to redesign Meta Knight or just work at fixing ROB, but I guess I'm late to the party on that one.
I'm going to be running monthly tournaments in Taylor Mill, Kentucky, for Project M and will be able to see updates on a month to month basis on how these characters span out. For the most part though, I think it's already written.
Please fix ROB.
First off, some tournament analytics:
Through a simple score-based approach (5 for 1st, 4 for 2nd, etc.) for 1st - 5th place in all the tournaments recorded in the results thread up to January 28th, the above shows a character's tournament success.
Doing the above resulted in consistent and predictable results in both Melee and Brawl so we can assume that the same can be said for Project M. The only modifying factors here is that
1) this game is new so things happening out of the blue is a large possibility
2) Melee characters are easy to pick up, potentially inflating their placement
That said, people figure out what is good really fast. If a character is simple and good, he'll rise to the top immediately. Complex and good, he'll rise to the top after a short while.
Looking at the data, it lines up pretty well with my thoughts for the most part. Do with it what you will.
My first thoughts:
The game is intuitive and a lot of fun and definitely has its own "flavor". It feels like a new smash game rather than just a copied version or sloppily made hack.
The "download" section of the website didn't have any troubleshooting or relevant information needed in my case, which was irritating. It took a while to get it to work because Project M would start and then I'd get a bees error after the stage loaded or it'd freeze on the loading screen. Luckily I'm used to troubleshooting so I just formatted the SD card, tried again, then found a new SD card, fresh install, tried again, and it has worked since then.
After getting it to work though, we've played about 5,000 KOs in that week! It's a lot of smash and doesn't feel stale.
I discovered pretty early on the you could crouch cancel in the air which is ridiculous and makes characters like Bowser much better than normal. If you are able to smash DI and touch the ground during hitstun (before tumble animation) you are able to make that a CC'd attack. This means Bowser can fast fall a fair into many multi-hit moves and crouch cancel it, or more commonly get hit on the ground with a multi-hit move and crouch cancel it AFTER getting hit. That's pretty crazy, but it does help quite a bit in terms of "being fat".
I liked a lot of the changes they kept from Brawl, like RARing and the like. Don't really like the fact that you can't wavedash out of shield anymore unless you let go of the shield button. Try holding down the L button, jump, then press R. No air dodge until you let go of L. This means to wavedash out of shield you have to Shield, let go of shield, wavedash backwards. Adds a few frames and makes it less viable.
The stock count control is AWESOME and is allowing for crew battles and iron man tournaments to be valid forms of competition without a bunch of headache.
If you guys REALLY want to be awesome you should figure out some way to replace "rotation" with "Iron Man" type events.
Stages:
I like the stages! There are a lot of new ideas. I wish there were more "new" ones and I wish there were more stages created specifically for the idea of "starters". The bottom row, typically what I've heard discussed as the "starter" stages are nice stages but they all fit one simple design that benefits certain characters over others. EVERY stage will benefit one character over another in some way, so the only thing you can do is have as large a variety as possible for type of stages. It is currently set at "big" stages of FD, Dreamland, and PS2, "small" stages of Yoshi's, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams, and a "medium" stage with smashville. They all have relatively the same platform setup, which is a shame given the amount of variety elsewhere in the stagelist and the ability to create new, interesting stages. Size is important, but platform placement is just as important!
I also like that they split the stages into "page 1" being the more traditional and "page 2" being more counter-picky, although it is incredibly irritating to think that many people will simply say "page 1 legal, page 2 banned lol" in the future.
I'd actually enjoy making a stage to submit but have no idea how to do it. I'll have to look into it.
Characters
Top
Average
Bad
The darker the color, the lower my opinion.
Melee:
Fox
One of the top characters in the game, again. It feels like his bair is a little less potent than it used to be.
Not much to really say about Fox. He's not "too good" but he will be overly represented in Project M. Not necessarily a problem, but his design is just so flawless that we can't help but see him forever at the top.
The addition of so many new characters that "fall down" when shined might cause him a headache though.
Falco
Arguably the best character in the game at the moment. While Fox may be better and more widely used, they are pretty close (one first place away from being tied, I believe) and from what I've seen Fox has a harder time. U-throw to u-air is a bit more difficult now that Smash DI is easier just based on Brawl's engine (I can get out of a poorly spaced u-air near 100% of the time, meaning that u-throw to u-air ends after the first u-air unless he has a platform to reach) and many new characters issue new challenges to Fox, while Falco is pretty much... Falco.
Not much has changed about the bird. The reduced time that rolling on the ledge allows actually helps Falco a bit since people have to time things properly, but not by much.
I forsee Falco being a strong pick for forever.
I really wish they had changed his dair to be more like the PAL version and not spike at the very end of the dair. I do feel that was a good change. While I love spiking with Falco, it completely destroys any high flying recovery and allows for a very strong "wall" of sorts that doesn't take much finesse to use. No idea if it really effects the balance of the character or not, but it feels too easy.
Jigglypuff
Pretty much the same as in Melee, feels a little bit slower but I could just be crazy. Jiggs will not be that good in Project M. New characters can really mess her up and cause her style to change quite a bit. ZSS's over-b, Pit's arrows and over-B chase, wolf's blaster, Sonic's speed, Lucas' crazy u-smash, Ivysaur's superior camping, Snakes primed grenades.... so many options to just take Jiggs out of the running.
I see Jiggs just being a novelty at this point rather than anything particularly powerful. She can still cause a lot of characters some grief, but her day in the sun ended the moment the Brawl characters entered the scene. She'll still not be a sleepover, but once the matchup is figured out it'll be a non-issue.
Sheik
Second only to Falco in terms of tournament viability imo. She's close with Fox, but Fox is good because he can handle whatever comes after him. Sheik is good because she destroys virtually every new character. She'll still have trouble with spacies, but past that she either goes even or dominates over every remaining character. Her added crawl is insanely effective against a ton of characters as well.
If you aren't a technical player and want a good character, Sheik is the way to go. She has absolutely no change needed in playstyle when it comes to the new characters. She's like a reverse jigglypuff.
Marth
He's.... good. Not fantastic, but good. A lot of the new characters give him problems. He still does well against those that hate disjointed hitboxes and he'll have many matchups that he does phenomenally well at, but he has enough even and below-even matchups that Marth won't have an innate advantage over the entire cast like Sheik, Fox, and Falco can boast.
Peach
Better than Marth this time around, if she wasn't already. Peach can do some serious damage this game if the right people play her. She IS horribly mangled by certain characters (from what I've seen, Ike gives her trouble), but she's a solid enough character to be able to win those uphill battles with superior play. More importantly, she can deal with any gimmick other characters can throw at her. I see Peach as being a solid main. If you have an appropriate secondary, you could have nothing really in your way.
Captain Falcon
Mr. Average this time around. His Falcon Kick buff is much needed, his over-b buff is fantastic in that it doesn't kill him every time (although we didn't double dragon in our falcon dittos.... nerfed that I guess? :B).
That said, Falcon is a flashy character that wins based off of hard reads and fast fingers, both things that can fail even the best of players. What Falcon can do, other characters can do better. Falcon is still manly and a ton of fun and good players can absolutely body their opponents with him, but Falcon's poor recovery options and the fact that many characters can not only block his approaches easily but also combo him to hell and back means that Falcon is just a really, really, really fun character that puts you at a disadvantage.
Ganon
Solid counter-picking character I guess. He's strong and his over-b and down-b have awesome potential for the character, but he's still Ganon.
The only thing he really needs is to be a bit faster. With a fast run speed or faster air speed he could be a solid heavy-hitter, but if you're interested in power Ganon is bottom-tier compared to the other heavy hitters.
Mario
A huge buff for Mario! I can see Mario being a very solid choice for players. He always had neat tricks against the spacies and now they're even better. His recovery is huge (and the wall jump helps on these stages!) and his KO potential and combo potential are there.
Mario is definitely above average. He will be held back by bad matchups (he seems to have trouble with disjointed hitboxes) and he doesn't really "destroy" anyone, but he's a solid enough character to where we can expect to see this guy played frequently.
I don't see him countering space animals, but it's fun to think about.
Pikachu
I do not have enough information to give a valid criticism or value to this character. I and all I have played with had a strong distaste for Pikachu as a character and didn't really "feel" it, and no one has played him more than once unless they've gotten him on random. Just a boring character to us. Didn't seem to carry over any of the magic that Brawl gave him and seems to just be a bad character. We cna't really say because none of us learned him well enough to really DO well, but... we don't want to.
This is the only Melee character that I feel is a failure in Project M. Maybe if I had mained Pika in Melee I'd feel different, but every other Melee character has been tweaked to feel relatively the same, but viable and interesting. Pikachu just feels bad, slow, and sloppy.
Donkey Kong
I <3 this character and his combos. He's more solid than in Melee and his new dash attack is cool. I love his combos and edgeguarding.
I originally was a little perturbed that his windup punch wasn't a bit stronger given that others regular, non-windup attacks were stronger, but then I remembered you can combo into it and felt better again.
DK has his problem matchups and can be edgeguarded too easily to be a top contender, but expect to see him as a strong character regardless due to his combo ability and power.
Luigi
Meh. He's Luigi. In the right hands, powerhouse. In the wrong hands, awful. I can forsee Luigi being a surprise factor, but he has enough issues to where he will never top the best of the best. Expect to see people play him and wow people with his combos on space animals and heavies that end with up+b or a killing f-smash, and then watch that same player lose to random shiek and marth players.
Link
Link might actually deserve to be in green, I don't know yet. He's very powerful in his own right in that he can create positive situations and edgeguard in very unique ways (not to mention punish sloppy play with a simple up+b). I feel like Link was buffed appropriately and with more practice with him I could see him being a viable tournament character. He'll always be outshined by the best of the best, but I could at least see Link reach the levels of DK.
Zelda
Zelda's best move is still down+b. Her new over-b is great, her up+b buffs are much needed, and her overall moveset enhancement is great. That said, the character's design itself results in a mediocre character. She can be good against some characters but when given an entire tournament to fight against she will inevitably have trouble with some of them.
Also, good luck catching anyone who is running away.
I would really like to see her aerial neutral b have reduced lag and have potential as a combo move. It currently really has no practical use in-game and is simply there because it's the same on the ground. Giving it a combo-esque ability would give zelda some extra oomph and style I think.
G&W
Yay Gdub! He can L-cancel now!
That said he's still dwarfed by other characters. I hope people really explore this character, but G&W is dwarfed by another character in every category. Setups, speed, power, mobility, comboing, someone beats him in everything and many characters beat him in virtually all of them for all intents and purposes.
I would love to see G&W's over-b tweaked. It currently is just a novelty, as it was in melee and Brawl, where you hope for a 9 and everything else is just "okay". Making the numbers actually HELP G&W so that you could combo into the over-b and then react off of many of them to continue a combo or start an edgeguard could make G&W fear-inducing. The possibility of a 9 or something else that is still helpful makes it more than a "goof off and do this at smashfests" kind of thing.
Bowser
One of my favorite updates, I feel like this is Bowser done right. Except there's no flame canceling. I miss it.
I really feel this was done well. The red flashes for super armor are good, the increase power and size is good. He can't combo worth a damn past the first few hits but his killing potential off a single read is tremendous.
He still gets bodied by a few characters (notably anyone with a grab game) but Bowser's ease of use and awesomeness potential means you'll see a lot of him.
Ness
Held back by his recovery and awkward approach, Ness will be a unique main again. I love the character and how he plays, although I wish that PK Cross had been changed to have been a "press and release" projectile rather than a charged. THe ability to throw out a PK cross and then follow it up with Ness himself would have made the character more unique and fast-paced.
Currently Ness has difficult combos and edgeguarding that aren't as effective as other characters. He'll fall by the wayside, but the character itself isn't too awful, just not good enough.
Brawl
Snake
I really, really, enjoy playing Snake and his recovery gives him some unique options. His ability to setup in a real game is great and his ability to stick with C4 for a potential KO makes him very scary.
That said, he gets beaten hard by all the top tiers mentioned so far. Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, and Bowser all destroy Snake. A lot of the average characters do decent against him. This is mostly because Snake doesn't have any "escape from pressure" options (his up+b does not do the trick) and anyone attempting to just run him down can do so once they get inside.
Because Snake has so many uphill battles, he'll never really be a gigantic threat. The character can do some stupid cool stuff though. Really enjoy playing him, just not worth maining.
Diddy
I don't know enough about Diddy to really comment so I'm leaving him as "average". He's very fast and has unique KO options but I don't feel like his banana game is as strong and just didn't enjoy playing him without it. Wave dashing to pick up bananas didn't feel natural and I didn't feel like learning it anew.
I could see some people wrecking with Diddy though, it would be a long time though.
Wario
Wario's good! Same problems as in Brawl, but good!
I really enjoyed the redesign and wouldn't change anything about him. He's solid and can do well, although he'll probably have some matchup issues I'm not aware of that'll drop him.
Dedede
Another character I'd consider a "failed" remake. Dedede is very stale and no one wants to play him, ever, under any circumstances. It's one thing to make a bad or good character, but Dedede is just boring to play.
He seems to be pretty bad too, from what we've seen. He hasn't changed much from Brawl and you gotta remember that a Dedede counter was generally considered to be "anyone who falls down" which is everyone in this game.
Lucario
A character where you say "Wow, this guy's awesome!"
Then "Oh, so I guess that's how you play him"
To "Oh, so when they crouch cancel I can't do moves. Got it."
Crouch canceling destroys this characters attempts at doing anything. You can crouch cancel all of his approaches save for grab, and then combo him to kill %. CC again, then kill him. I've won games with Bowser by just fortressing everywhere and holding down the moment I get hit, then hitting him back and just winning via trade.
Very unique design, just not good enough to deal with some of the issues that he faces in the game.
ZSS
ZSS could be better or worse than I realize, easily. She has great combo and KO potential, just a little light. Her down+b when used properly is great for extra recovery (although her over-B has trouble grabbing the edge for some reason).
I have a lot of fun playing her, but she seems to be a well-balanced and well-designed character which inevitably means she'd not as good as others. Fox and Falco are well-designed, but overpowered in comparison to other characters. They're fun, but they outshine other well-designed characters. It could be that ZSS will have some crazy ability that I don't see yet, but from what I've played of her she's so middle-of-the-road in terms of ability that she gets outshined too much to be a viable choice.
Toon Link
An excellent redesign, but a limited character. You camp with him and wait for an opening or until you can create an opening, then you move in to combo or KO. Rinse and repeat. Your ability to win is directly correlated to how difficult this is.
If Toon Link's recovery wasn't so ridiculously poor that edgeguarding him was a snoozefest he might be a powerful force, but you can be at 100% and him at 0% and the game is still in your favor if you have him anywhere near off stage. I'd really love to see the HORIZONTAL movement of his up+b changed so that way he could potentially do the bomb trick for vertical height and then regular up+b for a greater horizontal recovery. This would help separate him from regular Link and not make him a joke character.
ROB
Quite possibly the worst character in the game, which is incredibly saddening. It was pretty funny playing him for the first time; it was like the people making this game watched me playing ROB in 2008 and said "That, don't let him do that".
His camping ability has been removed completely, but he also has no approach that is safe. It felt awesome at first doing over-b fairs to jabs/grabs/tilts, but the moment my opponent realized "oh, shield" I started having Brawl flashbacks.
ROB's tilts are great, but ROB does very poorly defensively in any situation he should be using them. When it comes down to it, if you're using ROB's tilts then you're in danger if you miss or he shields any of them.
ROB's blind spots are still in full force. If you are behind or below ROB, there is nothing he can do that you can't easily shield on reaction and punish, or just straight up beat with speed.
ROB's gyro is unique and it's fun edgeguarding with its impotent push, but it is really pretty bad. It's primary use it to shoot in front of ROB and then give him a projectile to deal with, which can be countered by anyone with eyes and a Z button.
His new u-air is kind of neat, but ultimately useless. His previous u-air had the ability to deal massive damage, something ROB had trouble with. It now functions as the same, but weaker, function of his nair of just hitting someone above him. There's very few times to u-air over nair.
His spot dodge has been worsened, it feels like there's lag at the end that allows you to be punished afterwards no matter what. Spot dodge d-smash is now useful only for things you could just shield d-smash anyway.
His recovery is pretty bad. In a game like P:M you don't want to recover high, but recovering low is so easily edgeguarded that it's almost not worth it. If you've used even one over-b or up-b in the air on stage and got hit out of it, you're dead. If you're hit at a down adn out angle, you have to go up and fair for a bit of extra momentum until you reach near the ledge, where they just hit you away once and you die.
There is no reason why ROB should survive an edgeguard attempt from a large majority of the cast.
His extra power is nice, but again having extra power is worthless if you can't actively use it and no one will ever say 'wow, ROB is strong' when he's playing in a game with Bowser and Ike.
This is the only character in the game that I can actually say is just poorly designed. Dedede and Pikachu are boring, but they fit with their initial designs and just turned out that way. ROB was crafted and turned out bad.
What I would change:
I would make ROB a cross between a spacing character and a trap character, similar to a Marth/Snake hybrid. ROB was a camping / edgeguarding character in Brawl, but his ability to lay traps and space outside of people's ranges was there too. It just didn't work well in Brawl.
Gyro - Give him TWO GYROS. You can leave it the same, but allow for two on the field at once. The ability to have two spinning gyros on the ground or one on the ground and one in the hand would allow for some unique setups and give ROB some safe edgeguarding.
Make sure the gyro comes out fast enough so you can cancel it to turn around in the air for edgeguarding. It'd be flashy and dangerous and awesome.
Laser - Give him a 2nd level charge if possible. Make his current 2nd level charge a bit weaker and his final level charge a bit stronger than his current level 2.
Up+b - Allow him to grab the edge when facing the wrong way, and let his up+b go to the left and right some. This "fair at the top of your up+b for horizontal movement" is worthless and no one would ever do that in a tournament and not get destroyed for it. You literally hover for a second trying to float towards the edge.
Over+b - Let him jump out of it and shorten the distance/momentum. His current over-b looks like an afterthought. There's no real reason to use it. Instead of making it a "warp around" move, make it a momentum boost on the ground that doesn't use an over-b in the air. Keep it short enough so that he can't just over-b around to fly away, and shorten it's momentum a bit so ROB doesn't become an air sonic.
Over+b aerial- Leave the same.
D-tilt - leave the same
F-tilt - Make it send out and down, similar to Jigglypuff's d-smash and make the sweetspot more apparent. F-tilt should be a "oh, I outspaced you and you hit the ground" or "I hit you off the edge in a bad manner and now you have to recover from that position". It already isn't a safe move to use on shield or to miss with, but it has no real advantage in-game other than it comes out relatively fast. That's it. Lower it's knockback growth so that it has a difficult time KOing, but allow it to set up for great over-b tech chases and some good edgeguards. You shouldn't want to be f-tilted on the edge by ROB.
U-tilt - Seems mostly okay. I'd want u-tilt to be used primarily on falling opponents to set up for a nair, bair, etc. rather than an OoS option. As long as u-tilt doesn't hit horizontally and doesn't kill or combo into itself a bunch of times at medium % and DOES combo into a power aerial, it's working.
Jab - works. Is crappy, but is supposed to be.
Fair - Hard to put into words. Fair needs to be able to be safely used on shield when spaced properly and not be an instant death sentence when used off stage. It should naturally lead into itself off stage if DI'd improperly. Someone smash DI'ing away from a spaced fair generally shouldn't be hit by another spaced fair. Fair is a simple move, unlike Marth's fair with multiple knockbacks, and should be simple to deal with. Dangerous, but simple.
Bair - works.
Dair - Either take away the delay or give ROB control of it. The ability to "charge" the down-air in the air would be useful, but really I just want to get rid of that damn hop at the end of it. It makes it pointless to use unless you know it's going to hit, meaning it is an aerial falcon punch. Flashy and awesome and entirely useless. There's no situation you'd use dair that you couldn't have used bair, fair, or nair for equal results with less of a danger to you.
If you go off stage with dair and use it and MISS, they can kill you. If you use it on stage and miss or hit their shield they combo you. Because of the delay in the move it is very easy to be reacted to.
Personally I'd love to see dair to be used in a falling fashion as it would mean ROB wouldn't have a complete and total blindspot below him. There's no character in the game with as big a blindspot.
Uair - It's currently a jack-of-all-trades attack that doesn't kill, damage, combo, space, or approach very well and is generally best not used. If I was going to change it, I'd probably change a lot.... but if I was going to change it as-is without new animations and the like?
I'd change it to have its power correlate with the laser's charge level. At level 1 the u-air could come out quickly and short like it is now and be better for combos. At level 2 the u-air would have less combo ability and higher knockback growth. At level 3 the u-air would have a bit of a delay coming out and even more knockback growth. If that's even possible.
If it isn't, I'd probably resign myself to saying "make his u-air a permanent juggler" like Marth's u-air. No one approaches or even really combos with Marth's u-air. They just pop people back in the air to try again. ROB's u-air wouldn't work very well with his character design like that, but it'd be better than the current jack-of-all-trades that hits them too far away to juggle but not far enough away to kill.
Nair - works
U-smash - works
F-smash - works
D-smash - works, the lag at the end helps it from being a spammable attack.
Throws - all seem to work decently well, I haven't tested all the potential chaingrabs on everyone yet to really tell.
Spot dodge - make it not have that blasted delay at the end. If Fox and Sheik can do it, ROB can too. >
That was a lot and it probably won't change anything, but ROB is truly just a poorly designed character. He has no approach and no defensive options, no traps. His edgeguarding is okay, but on par with other characters that DON'T die if they mess up and DON'T have to go off stage to edgeguard.
I get that ROB is a Brawl character, but he could be such an awesome one. Makes me sad that he is still bad. Any group of players playing with a ROB that decided "we need to learn to beat him" will learn to not approach, punish him on shield, and then edgeguard him. God forbid that ROB's opponent has a stunning projectile, lest they hit him out of his up+b and destroy him.
Pit
Pit is one of those characters that will take some getting used to, but I love his design. I hate that his neutral A hurts him more than it helps him and would have loved for that to just be a sex kick or at least not be so easily punished via CC due to the excessive lag the move has, but other than that it's pretty golden all around. His recovery is good but not broken, his moveset and playstyle is unique but not foreign, he's fast when he wants to be but not fast simply "because" he's fast, and his combos require a lot of of forethought, planning, and reaction but his followup game is so good that a strong player could really do well with him.
Also, screw his arrows hitting ROB's up+b off stage.
Wolf
One of my favorite redesigns, wolf is a ton of fun to play and potentially the best juggler out there. I love playing him, but ultimately have to resign to the fact that he's a jack-of-all-trades character with a bad recovery. While he can juggle well, Falco simply doesn't HAVE to and can deal the same damage easier, edgeguard better, and kill better. His blaster is better. His recovery is just as good, his shine is better, his tilts are better. Wolf is pretty much a novelty character.
If I was going to change something about wolf, I'd make his f-smash have slightly less KO growth (use it more as a "knock off the stage then edgeguard" type move) and his d-smash to have a bit more KO growth. For Wolf to be a viable choice amongst the rest of the cast he needs the ability to kill early. If his d-smash killed early enough, he wouldn't be broken but would be a larger threat.
Sonic
I originally thought Sonic would be broken and then realized he still had similar hitboxes to Brawl and now I just see him get hit out of his spin attacks and punished when someone shields his attacks.
A fun character, but gets wrecked by disjointed hitboxes when they are used well. The fact that Sonic's edgeguarding game, once thought to be ridiculous, eventually boils down to "can I neutral B them?" makes it all pretty tame in comparison to first reactions.
His taunt cancel is god tier though.
Sonic will have a ton of stuff going for him in some matchups and absolutely nothing in others. Sonic gets BODIED by a competent sheik. Absolutely destroyed, no questions asked. I know, because I was that Sonic! It's impossible to approach a defensive sheik without them messing up and while Sonic has some tricks that might work on others, Sheik's tilts and defensive options don't have the lag Sonic needs to punish.
If I was going to change anything about Sonic, I'd give his fair more shield stun and let him attack out of his up+b earlier. Sonic can't approach a shielding opponent and remain anywhere close. Not normally a problem, but it means that you are generally best not approaching. It comes down to Sonic winning if he's ahead and losing if he's behind.
Adding more shield stun to the fair would allow sonic the ability to fair someone's shield and land behind them and potentially do something out of that (such as jab, grab, or just leave). That possibility alone means that simply standing in shield isn't a strong counter to sonic's approach options. As of now in our group, the moment Sonic is approaching you in the air you either shield or just hold out a hitbox.
Play as someone like Wario with lasting hitboxes and just throw them out. Sonic will run into them no matter what. Homing attack? u-tilt. No use whatsoever as wario can u-tilt on reaction. The same happens with the majority of his other attacks and ALL spin related attacks, only difference is the reaction time your opponent has.
Sonic's 0-death on Fox and Falco give me hope of Sonic as a counter-pick character though. U-throw, regrab, u-throw, over-b kick off edge, slow short hop to neutral B. Dead Falco. Doesn't work on Fox because Fox can just drop enough and still up+b to the stage/ledge. Dropping low enough to homing attack him generally means you'll miss and die.
Ike
I like Ike.
He's strong, fast in a good way appropriate for his character, his "oh ****" options are decent but weak and don't combo (like jab, OoS bair or nair, counter, etc.) and his edgeguarding is incredibly straightforward.
I love his over-b play and it really adds a depth to the character we haven't seen before.
I do think his u-smash and f-smash are a BIT too strong as they kill earlier than Bowser's but who knows. I'd probably weaken them just a little bit and, if needed, boost things in other directions. When it comes down to it, most of Ike's f-smashes will be about getting lucky and not actually punishing mistakes or getting hard reads. They're strong enough to where I can throw them out against GOOD players and still get them enough to where they're worth it.
Charizard
Possibly the worst of the pokemon but not by much. Charizard is a ton of fun to play as and against, but he gets bodied by enough characters that he isn't viable as a tournament main. I really do love the character though, he just can't resist getting hit by all sorts of stuff though.
Personally I'd love to see Charizard's neutral B changed from bowser's flamethrow to an actual fireball though. Shoot down and at an angle when airborne, shoot straight on stage. Would be pretty cool.
Also on at least lylat cruise Zard has a auto ledgehog by just rolling to the edge and starting flamethrower. I like it.
Squirtle
Good, but has trouble with disjointed hitboxes that can challenge him. Kind of like Luigi in terms of matchups.
I LOVE BUBBLE and what it implies. I wish I was proficient enough with squirtle to really go to town with him, but I didn't play PT enough in Brawl. I love Squirtle's mobility and run-down game and feel this is a well designed character that simply has troublesome matchups.
Ivysaur
Same problems as the others. Some matchups, great. Others, not so much. If only there was a way to have all three at once....
Ivysaur is incredibly unique and a ton of fun to play. I do feel his combos are a bit stale. D-tilt to u-air, d-tilt to sweet spot up+b, throw combos, etc., etc., are all pretty much the name of the game. He doesn't have much combo potential. Not his character, but he doesn't have much combo potential and that limits him a bit which can make him feel stale.
I love edgeguarding ivysaur; even though he can tether while I'm on the ledge, punishing the auto-hop and sending him back off stage is very rewarding.
Ivysaur is probably the best designed of all the pokemon and his camping game brings him to the top as long as he isn't dealing with a laser spamming Fox.
Lucas
Holy upsmash. Lucas might end up being good but I feel like Lucas is only a threat because his smashes are so strong. You know who else has strong smashes? Bowser and Ike, and they don't have to charge!
I like the character but without more knowledge of his combos I can't really determine his placement. When it comes down to it, this is really all about whether or not Lucas can combo into a charged u-smash for a KO against most characters. If he can, it's a good matchup and Lucas can do it. If he can't, he'll lose. Wait to see those new combos and see what they do and if he's got 'em, Lucas is a good character.
Lucas still has an awful recovery that is super easy to edgeguard.
So that's a lot but that's my first impression of Project M. I understand that this should all be taken with a grain of salt as I have limited experience with it, but at the same time I'm no stranger to smash games nor game design. I've been right so far about characters. :B
I never wanted to play any brawl hacks because I was still playing regular Brawl, but I kind of wish I had joined in on this earlier because I would LOVE to redesign Meta Knight or just work at fixing ROB, but I guess I'm late to the party on that one.
I'm going to be running monthly tournaments in Taylor Mill, Kentucky, for Project M and will be able to see updates on a month to month basis on how these characters span out. For the most part though, I think it's already written.
Please fix ROB.
