About a month and a half ago while at a casual smash tournament, I noticed the one girl smasher that showed up didn’t do half bad. Two weeks ago at OC3, I witnessed some of the best female smashers in the world keep up with the competition. Last weekend I went to a much smaller casual tournament, and took note of all the female smashers present. There’s something nearly all of these smashers had in common. They all played Peach. How did this happen so perfectly?
<p align="center"> <a href="http://smashbrawl.com/2007/07/31/smash-feminism/10533_3gif/" rel="attachment wp-att-233" title="10533_3.gif"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/10533_3.gif" alt="10533_3.gif" /><!--more--></a></p>
Perhaps, because Peach is a girl, these female players naturally gravitate to playing a girl character. This may be true, but I think there’s a better reason. I believe that these female smashers play Peach because she, like the other girl characters, is very powerful and is comparatively easier to play with. This makes it easier for the players to compete without having to be as skilled or invest as must time.
All the female characters in Smash Melee are middle to high tier. (I consider Zelda and Sheik to be the same character). From top to bottom they are Sheik, Peach, Nana (Ice climbers) Samus and Jigglypuff. By giving these characters disjointed hit boxes and high levels of priority, power, and knock back on many of their attacks, they typically win in any given situation when their attacks collide with an enemies’ attacks. This gives the player the ability to pay less attention to the enemie’s attacks and spacing while still being successful when being aggressive or random.
Most of the girl smash characters have some of the best down smashes in the game. Samus, Sheik, and Peach all have powerful, and quick down smashes that, when coupled with crouch canceling, become formidable strategies. Jigglypuff’s air priority is too good. Though her feet and fists are small, because of the priority, they beat out many of the opponents attacks. It’s impossible to ignore Sheik’s amazing tilt attacks and their combo abilities.
So what does this mean for Brawl? Well, Zelda has already been announced. Upon reading the announcement, I figured Sakurai needed to keep as many girl characters as possible in smash. It was very clever for them to design the female characters this way. Making some characters easier to play, in the end, allows more people to be a part of smash. Peach, Samus, and Jigglypuff play so uniquely, it’s no wonder that many competitive smashes play them exclusively. The fact that these characters are easier to play while also being so unique often creates a pitfall for the players. After some point, playing any other character becomes too difficult and too foreign for them.
If you’ve been keeping up with my blog posts, you should know all too well some of the issues I have with Peach and Zelda. I can only hope Sakurai balances out all the characters for Brawl as much as possible. If he does this, then Smash will continue to be the game that truly welcomes all.
Smash is the great equalizer.
<p align="center"> <a href="http://smashbrawl.com/2007/07/31/smash-feminism/10533_3gif/" rel="attachment wp-att-233" title="10533_3.gif"><img src="http://smashboards.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/10533_3.gif" alt="10533_3.gif" /><!--more--></a></p>
Perhaps, because Peach is a girl, these female players naturally gravitate to playing a girl character. This may be true, but I think there’s a better reason. I believe that these female smashers play Peach because she, like the other girl characters, is very powerful and is comparatively easier to play with. This makes it easier for the players to compete without having to be as skilled or invest as must time.
All the female characters in Smash Melee are middle to high tier. (I consider Zelda and Sheik to be the same character). From top to bottom they are Sheik, Peach, Nana (Ice climbers) Samus and Jigglypuff. By giving these characters disjointed hit boxes and high levels of priority, power, and knock back on many of their attacks, they typically win in any given situation when their attacks collide with an enemies’ attacks. This gives the player the ability to pay less attention to the enemie’s attacks and spacing while still being successful when being aggressive or random.
Most of the girl smash characters have some of the best down smashes in the game. Samus, Sheik, and Peach all have powerful, and quick down smashes that, when coupled with crouch canceling, become formidable strategies. Jigglypuff’s air priority is too good. Though her feet and fists are small, because of the priority, they beat out many of the opponents attacks. It’s impossible to ignore Sheik’s amazing tilt attacks and their combo abilities.
So what does this mean for Brawl? Well, Zelda has already been announced. Upon reading the announcement, I figured Sakurai needed to keep as many girl characters as possible in smash. It was very clever for them to design the female characters this way. Making some characters easier to play, in the end, allows more people to be a part of smash. Peach, Samus, and Jigglypuff play so uniquely, it’s no wonder that many competitive smashes play them exclusively. The fact that these characters are easier to play while also being so unique often creates a pitfall for the players. After some point, playing any other character becomes too difficult and too foreign for them.
If you’ve been keeping up with my blog posts, you should know all too well some of the issues I have with Peach and Zelda. I can only hope Sakurai balances out all the characters for Brawl as much as possible. If he does this, then Smash will continue to be the game that truly welcomes all.
Smash is the great equalizer.
If Zelda’s at least mid tier in Brawl, expcet a lot of Shiek’s fanbase to head towards Zelda, and if not ZSS [assuming Shiek is cut, and ZSS is accessible via character selection screen, or holding down A].