Smash 3DS My overall opinion and experience playing Smash 4 3DS

[Roanz]

Important! Before you read here's some background info. I've played the game (the 3DS version for an hour overall, maybe a bit less so my opinion may not be as valid as some others). I've also played Smash since I was 5, playing Melee then Brawl when it came out.


Now you've probably already read a billion threads like these, but this one is a bit different. I will deter away from gameplay/mechanics as much as possible from the start and focus on how this affects my feelings as a Smash player and does is fulfil the/a smash player/s needs from a smash game?

I will then go on how gameplay/mechanics work in my own opinion. It will be really short since I didn't have the luxury of playing the game too long but enough to get the gist of it.


Experience:
Now I'm the sort of person who writes a lot of crap, but sometimes I do write legit stuff. My experience first time was amazing! I played Marth after waiting a good 20 minutes in line with three other competitive smash players on a Mario stage. Just spamming the sweetspot of Up B got me so many unsuspecting kills, it was truly a new experience. As I don't really want to talk about mechanics in this game lets say it went to sudden death and I won by countering a dash attack. But what struck me the most is how comfortable the game feels to play on the 3DS. Not talking about hand position but coming from a Smash perspective the game was very fluid. It was similar to Smash 64 in a way but mostly reminded me about Brawl.

Any ways, I loved the game first time. Though I had may been biased about it since I won, but it was a lot of fun. The confusion I felt trying to play the game for the first time reminded me of my childhood where I had no idea what I was doing. Playing Captain Falcon because of Flacon Punch or playing Zelda then button mashing; trying to figure out how to change to Sheik. Good times... This game gave me this satisfaction of reminiscence of my childhood whilst giving me a new experience. First impressions? Simply amazing.

Now time for the most salty part. I then played around 6-8 games afterwards which I only won once. I tried to use every character I was interested in but characters from previous games really caught my eye more. I ended up using them a lot more as well. But I felt a different feel playing the game a second and third time over. I did not enjoy my other games as I did for my first (obviously biased). I lost to players that I should have won against whilst still not even getting close to the players that were better than me (I could tell how they played). Even with items on I tried using basic fundamentals which backfired on me since it was very random and very confusing at the same time. But even at defeat I tried to keep my hopes up, I was hyped just being at the event but playing Smash was a bit depressing. I never got this from playing any other Smash games but just losing really hurt for some reason every game. It was really hard to not be salty after every defeat.

I then started to give up on winning/playing to win and decided to focus on trying to focus on techs and other stuff but the matches were too fast paced and confusing that it was sort of hard. Even during the waiting stage it was a little difficult. This made my overall rating of Smash 4 on the 3DS really low. Though I was only having a bad day I couldn't help but think how bad it was of an experience. But I still persevered further hoping that it will only get better. Unfortunately it didn't and I ended up leaving the event in a really bad mood. Something that was really stupid because I only came to try out the game. To be honest I thought I would have only been able to try the game once but after realising that I played it so many times made me feel really fortunate and actually improved my mood a little. It motivated me to wanting to play it more and made me feel really wanting to play Smash a lot more.

TL;DR/CONCLUSION OF EXPERIENCE:
I was slightly disappointed that Smash run wasn't available at the demo but overall I enjoyed my experience. I was a bit salty during the demo but I fixed my mood towards the end realising how good of a game/experience it was even though I only had a limited amount of time on it. I did really enjoy most of my time and ended up tiring my legs . Since I love Smash so much, I'll probably end up getting the game on the 3DS and Wii U but from experience I didn't enjoy it very much as a game. Though opinions can change over time and as the game grows and gets older maybe I will change my mind (I'm very fickle).

Thanks for the read about my experience! I will now go into basic detail on my opinion of game play and mechanics.

Opinion on game play:
So at first I thought the game was super fast but I soon learned that it was only because it was very confusing to play overall.

• As I got more use to it I felt really really REALLY floaty. Most characters that I used were light and floaty so I may be wrong but overall the game had a floaty feel.
• From someone who has only played one version of Smash 4 It looked like game play was intentionally slowed down to accommodate the slower inputs on a 3DS compared to the Wii U controller/GC controller. Aerials had very little landing lag and aerials that auto cancel are very fast from my experience.
• Playing characters who had their game play slightly changed was not very noticeable and characters that stayed the same were really nice to play. Just like every other Smash 4 thread, pivoting is super easy, like so damn easy it hurt my feelings every time I got pivot grabbed by a Mario and thrown off stage.
• I'm not too sure but the black lines were either removed from the 3DS version or simply made in a way that it was hard to notice. I actually never noticed it unless I was watching others play from a screen.
• Momentum carrying from a dash to a jump was annoying since it never did and trying to dash was simply a bit too difficult.
• Using smash attacks are in my opinion quite hard but that may be just because I'm not use to the controls. I ended up using Up on the analogue stick to jump because it was simply much easier to use when you're not use to having X on the top and Y on the left. A and B buttons were fine. Rolling is beautiful and I could see it being abused to an extent (not as much as brawl) but some characters look like they can punish it really hard, but not so much on the 3DS version as it lacks a C stick. I'm not too sure but there may have been a time 1 or 2 frame lag when shielding out of roll which players who read the roll gives them an opportunity to punish but don't take my word for it.
• Grabbing is fine, having it on L is weird but pressing R and A worked fine. OoS grab felt really nice as well to land then go into a smash attack.
• Tilts were easy to use, even easier than a analogue stick in my opinion, most likely because of the slower analogue pad.
• Never really tried to turndash in a match but it seemed quite difficult when first using it so I ended up stuck with dash attacks or walking -> Smash attack/tilt.
• Game play seemed slow when playing neutral but got really intense in the air, but camping could be a problem since approaching is quite difficult in the 3DS version. Not many basic options to get out of a bait in my opinion besides spot dodging and rolling/shielding.
• Shielding from a competitive point of view is very punishable. Grabbing is easy when standing so grabbing a shielding target is easy. But grabbing from a dash has a lot of lag on it from the characters I played so it's sort of balanced. Standing grab is really effective whilst dash grabs are easily punishable.
• Can't really DACUS in the 3DS version for the obvious lack of C stick but it may be do able if you have fast enough reactions/techskill.
• Up smashes seemed a little weak and death boundaries are really far from the stages I played. DI was also really simple.

 

[Knife Myths]

You played multiplayer in the 3ds version? At the Best Buy event I went to the 3DS demo was vs CPU only.

 

[☆Jazz☆]

It seems awesome. You were just kinda "Ugh" because you lost . Thanks for your opinion.

 

[ChikoLad]

You played multiplayer in the 3ds version? At the Best Buy event I went to the 3DS demo was vs CPU only.

Different Best Buys handled things differently for the 3DS version. Some only allowed you to play against CPUs, some allowed multiplayer, some only allowed Smash Run, etc.

 

[Knife Myths]

Huh. The one I went to said only to do Smash Run, although normal fights were accessible through the menu. They also said multiplayer was not available in the demo, but I should've guessed that wasn't true.