Quillion
Smash Hero
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Messages
- 6,006
I brought this up in another thread, but now I am making it its own dedicated discussion.
Feeling fatigued with a franchise you are attached to is nothing new, very common in fact. People felt this way towards Assassin's Creed before Origins and towards Zelda in the TP-SS era before BotW. People are currently feeling this way towards Call of Duty and Pokémon.
But not too long ago, I came to terms with the fact that I feel this way towards the Super Smash Bros. series. It's actually the first video game series that I've ever felt this way about.
When I got my first Smash game (Melee), I was eager to play every single corner of it. I got all the Classic mode trophies, the Adventure mode trophies, and even did all of the Events. I loved dabbling in the other 1P stadium modes like Multi-Man, Home-Run, and Target Test. And all of it was driven by my love of the core gameplay. In Vs. Mode, I used every single character against friends, family, and CPU alike, loving how every one of them played and easily switching between them when I got bored with one. And inferior core gameplay be damned, I did much of the same for Brawl. While Smash 4's 1P content wasn't exactly up to snuff with Melee and Brawl, I still enjoyed playing with whatever character I could in VS; ironically I actually didn't get the DLC until Ultimate was announced.
With Ultimate, after the first few honeymoon months with the game, I find myself not wanting to constantly go back like I did many times with Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4. The 1P content, while not as good in overall quality as Melee and Brawl, was virtually endless with World of Light and the Spirit Board, and I actually loved the progression of filling up the roster from the original base 8 to the full base roster. But the more I played the game, the more I felt "This feels like the same game I've been playing over and over again for about 15 or so years." I'm still playing with Mario with his fireballs, Link with his sword and bow, Donkey Kong with his punches and slaps, Captain Falcon with his fiery attacks, and Jigglypuff's floatiness.
At a certain point, this is where I started to understand how people feel about Assassin's Creed before Origins and modern Pokémon. The game just overall feels the same as it ever did when Melee came out. I know some people are going to tell me that Melee is so fast and heavy and later games are so floaty and combo-unfriendly, but I'm just not overly concerned with how much the gravity is heavier or how moves are a few frames slower than in previous games. I understand that those things make a world of difference to serious fighting game players, but not to me.
What I am concerned with are major changes to the core gameplay. Melee introduced many major mechanics over Smash 64, among them air dodges, Smash charging, and most radically, Side-Bs. Since then, any additions to the core gameplay have been treated like togglable items (Final Smashes), are very niche (Footstooling), or appeared in one game just to disappear in the next (Customs; never mind that the execution was half-baked).
While I am not asking for a giant overhaul like Zelda with BotW, I think there could be additions to gameplay that could take Smash away from being on the verge of Pokémon-like stagnation. The common response I get from suggesting this is "Adding onto the core gameplay would make it too complicated and would take away from its simplicity." To that I would say that Melee's additions such as airdodging and Side-Bs added onto Smash 64's formula in ways that didn't take from its simplicity. More can be added; it's just a matter of learning from other fighting games.
Here are my two ideas:
Overall, I just think that the spark has faded for me when it comes to the core gameplay of Smash. But I am still attached to the series, so I don't really want to walk away for an alternative either. Other series have been able to keep the spark alive like 3D Mario by overhauling the mechanics every two games, and other series like Zelda have rekindled the spark by acknowledging staleness and moving forward. I think Super Smash Bros. could stand to do the same.
Thank you for reading this if you did, I know that it was a long and hard read, even for me.
Feeling fatigued with a franchise you are attached to is nothing new, very common in fact. People felt this way towards Assassin's Creed before Origins and towards Zelda in the TP-SS era before BotW. People are currently feeling this way towards Call of Duty and Pokémon.
But not too long ago, I came to terms with the fact that I feel this way towards the Super Smash Bros. series. It's actually the first video game series that I've ever felt this way about.
When I got my first Smash game (Melee), I was eager to play every single corner of it. I got all the Classic mode trophies, the Adventure mode trophies, and even did all of the Events. I loved dabbling in the other 1P stadium modes like Multi-Man, Home-Run, and Target Test. And all of it was driven by my love of the core gameplay. In Vs. Mode, I used every single character against friends, family, and CPU alike, loving how every one of them played and easily switching between them when I got bored with one. And inferior core gameplay be damned, I did much of the same for Brawl. While Smash 4's 1P content wasn't exactly up to snuff with Melee and Brawl, I still enjoyed playing with whatever character I could in VS; ironically I actually didn't get the DLC until Ultimate was announced.
With Ultimate, after the first few honeymoon months with the game, I find myself not wanting to constantly go back like I did many times with Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4. The 1P content, while not as good in overall quality as Melee and Brawl, was virtually endless with World of Light and the Spirit Board, and I actually loved the progression of filling up the roster from the original base 8 to the full base roster. But the more I played the game, the more I felt "This feels like the same game I've been playing over and over again for about 15 or so years." I'm still playing with Mario with his fireballs, Link with his sword and bow, Donkey Kong with his punches and slaps, Captain Falcon with his fiery attacks, and Jigglypuff's floatiness.
At a certain point, this is where I started to understand how people feel about Assassin's Creed before Origins and modern Pokémon. The game just overall feels the same as it ever did when Melee came out. I know some people are going to tell me that Melee is so fast and heavy and later games are so floaty and combo-unfriendly, but I'm just not overly concerned with how much the gravity is heavier or how moves are a few frames slower than in previous games. I understand that those things make a world of difference to serious fighting game players, but not to me.
What I am concerned with are major changes to the core gameplay. Melee introduced many major mechanics over Smash 64, among them air dodges, Smash charging, and most radically, Side-Bs. Since then, any additions to the core gameplay have been treated like togglable items (Final Smashes), are very niche (Footstooling), or appeared in one game just to disappear in the next (Customs; never mind that the execution was half-baked).
While I am not asking for a giant overhaul like Zelda with BotW, I think there could be additions to gameplay that could take Smash away from being on the verge of Pokémon-like stagnation. The common response I get from suggesting this is "Adding onto the core gameplay would make it too complicated and would take away from its simplicity." To that I would say that Melee's additions such as airdodging and Side-Bs added onto Smash 64's formula in ways that didn't take from its simplicity. More can be added; it's just a matter of learning from other fighting games.
Here are my two ideas:
- Shield-Bs. And I'm not talking about specials you can only do out of Shield, meaning that they are permanently grounded, but Shield input+B at all times, meaning you can do them out of air dodge. To counterbalance this, Shield-Bs would be reserved entirely for "status change" moves; this could range from moving WFT's Deep Breathing to Shield-B or giving Mario a Fire Flower "V-Trigger" that powers up his moves and gives him a fire effect after filling a gauge. This would be a way to add more moves to everyone's kits without outright replacing moves.
- Super/EX moves. This would be yet another class of button+direction moves, so it would easily fit within Smash's simplicity. Adding to this, a Super move system could easily coexist with the established Final Smash system. There would be a gauge that could be filled up to three charges, and by pressing the Y button (by default) plus a direction, you would do a powered-up version of a corresponding special. For a lot of them, they could even recycle some of the custom animations from Smash 4, for example Mario's neutral-Y being the Fire Orb custom with actually usable frame data. Again, this would be a way to add moves to established characters without taking any established moves away.
Overall, I just think that the spark has faded for me when it comes to the core gameplay of Smash. But I am still attached to the series, so I don't really want to walk away for an alternative either. Other series have been able to keep the spark alive like 3D Mario by overhauling the mechanics every two games, and other series like Zelda have rekindled the spark by acknowledging staleness and moving forward. I think Super Smash Bros. could stand to do the same.
Thank you for reading this if you did, I know that it was a long and hard read, even for me.