Never thought I'd enjoy this character so much

[Oz o:]

I'm usually the last person you'll see hop on the DLC or new character bandwagon. In our weeklies, you usually see about half the people trying out the newest characters (and probably your's as well), and it's of no surprise. I'm usually skeptical, and it takes more than the thrill of novelty to get me going. Banjo was no different, to me. However, a set of things did intrigue about this character:

- Good set of attributes, like fast run speed (about 11th, between Cloud and Ridley), heavyweight (106, tied with Snake and Wario), strong kill throw (comparable to Palutena's).

- The Grenade game. I feel this is the part where people might sometimes call him like a weaker version of Snake, but it really doesn't feel that way. Snake is a lot more projectile and zone-heavy, and will mostly absolutely rely on that. It's no question how strong and effective he is at it, but I feel Banjo brings something different. We have the tools to be able to shift into a more aggressive stance at times, like with our deceptive disjoints (Fair, Bair, FTilt, etc.) and fast run speed. I also get the feeling that our combo game is actually more deadly, since there are a handful of setups (not limited to Grenade) that lead straight into Wonderwing, and even more consistent things like Fair.

Our Grenade game looked so fun, and so different to Snake's. I've never even been into Snake, but the moment I saw Zackray play Banjo on Day 1, it looked far more interesting to me.
I said this since then, but I honestly feel how you use Grenades will determine how good your Banjo is. This, to me, is his at least half his metagame.

- Our normals, and mostly our Tilt game, is far better than we would've given them credit for. If you took a look at Banjo's Frame data before the character even came out, it might've looked pretty underwhelming, in paper. But then you actually play the game, and you realise stuff like FTilt and Dtilt are just tools you can't live without. Irreplacable. Their damage also seems so underwhelming at first, but it's everything else that really makes them stand out. F-Tilt is an amazing and consistent poke, that ocassionally leads to other things. Even if it doesn't straight up combo, it's still ridiculously good at simply poking. D-Tilt has massive range, and leads into tech chase. This will likely be used a ton, because I know I do. Not only that, it also low profiles and crosses up on it's own. It goes so low, it can duck under Wolf and Falco's projectiles. Lastly, there's U-Tilt. It really seems like a heavily nerfed version of Snake's U-Tilt. A friend told me this is "Snake's U-Tilt, but honest"... he wasn't completely wrong. It kills about 20% later, and it's horizontal hitbox is virtually inexistent. So why would I give it any praise? Again, with the deceptive: Add some context to it. It's, surprisingly, one of my most common killing moves. D-Throw bury > U-Tilt is what will catch a lot of the fast mashers, and might even end up killing under 100 (given they jump). There's also this little trick, which Snake really has nothing on. Even as a standalone, it's not a bad move at catching jumps, maybe some landings. It has pretty damn low cooldown.

 

[Vejeta]

Yeah I feel the same, never thought Banjo and Co would capture me so much, they are my new main now, having a ton of fun with them.

 

[Oz o:]

Yeah I feel the same, never thought Banjo and Co would capture me so much, they are my new main now, having a ton of fun with them.

Why.

 

[Vejeta]

Why.

Well let’s see,

I really like Fair, it’s damage and knock back is very satisfying and I like to punish projectiles with it.

When edge guarding, and the opponent is off the stage, I feel like there are a lot options, neutral special is suprsingly good at gimiping recoveries, wonderwing can also stuff a lot of stuff as the opponent tries to get back to the ledge. Not forgetting grenade shenanigans and up b gimmicks.

I like his throw game, I like to only use forward or up throw and save down throw for later as possible to catch good mashers off guard.

Spaced Bair does good shield damage and can lead to shield break, often forcing the opponent to drop shield.

Down tilt is as good as you say and I use it’s deceptive range as a good poke and punisher, it catches people out in neutral a lot.

Down throw into up b then forward air is a good surprise shenanigan that works surprisingly well if the opponent isn’t expecting it at a high percent.

Down throw into full hop grenade is another good one, if the grenade hits you can chain into two bairs which often leads to ledge control.

I could go on and on...

 

[EnigmaticNerd]

its fascinating.....a lot of his moves seem so innocuous on their own. nothing your opponent is gonna be in constant fear of (aside from wonder wing). But his movement and projectiles are so tricky being able to turn around at will in the air during any of his extra jumps, or to instantly turn any Down B around by holding a diagonal on the ground or air without even needing to jump again. He has so much freedom with his projectiles and can create some serious pressure. all his moves flow really well together to create a character that just feels good to play i think.
dunno where he will eventually end up in terms of viability, but he is def fun to play.